Andrean Research Journal Vol.

VI 2016 - 2017 ISSN 2278-9294

The River as Metaphor

Dr. Marie Fernandes
Rivers constitute the lifeline for any moment, legends assert, that she stopped
country and some of the world’s great to rest from her tiring run.3
civilizations (Indus Valley, Mesopotamian,
Saraswat i symbolizes purity and
and Egyptian) have all flourished on the
knowledge. She represents the mind and
banks of rivers. Hindus consider rivers
intellect which must be used with love and
as sacred and have personified them as
kindness to promote prosperity. The
deities and sung their praises in their
rosary she carries signifies concentration
religious literature, the Vedas,
and meditation and her union with God.
Manusmriti, Puranas and t he
The musical instrument she plays signifies
Mahabharata. These cite names of
that the seeker of knowledge must use
several rivers that existed during the Vedic
his mind and intellect in order to live in
period and which had their origin in the
perfect harmony with the world.4
Himalayas.1
Carl Jung in his long essay,”Archetypes
One such river, the Saraswati, has been
of the Unconscious”, writes about a
glorified in these texts and referred by
theologian who had a recurrent dream:
various names like Markanda, Hakra,
He stood on a mountain slope with a deep
Suprabha, Kanchanakshi, Visala and
valley below, and in it a dark river. He
Manorama. The Mahabharata has
knew in the dream that something had
exalted the Saraswati River as covering the
always checked him from approaching the
universe and having seven separate names.
river. This time he resolved to go to the
The Saraswati flowed as a great river
water. As he approached the shore,
before it was obliterated in a short span of
everything grew dark and alarming, and
geological time through a combination of
a gust of wind suddenly rushed over the
destructive natural events.2
face of the water. He was seized by panic
Legend has it that the beautiful goddess and awoke.5
Saraswati sprung from the forehead of her
This dream shows us the natural
father Brahma, the god of creation. It is
symbolism. The dreamer descends into
said that as soon as Brahma looked at
his own depths, and the way leads him to
her beauty, he was filled with desire for
the mysterious water. And now there
her. Unhappy with the amorous attentions
occurs the miracle like the pool of
he bestowed upon her, she tried to dodge
Bethesda: an angel comes down and
and hide. This is why the river Saraswati
touches the water, endowing it with
flows underground. And the brief
healing power. In the dream it is the wind
appearance she made aboveground is the

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that blows over the surface of the waters. the embodiment of the “immortal” or
Man’s descent to the water is needed in “living water.” 8
order to evoke the miracle of its coming
This is the spiritual water that Christ
to life. But the breath of the spirit rushing
referred to when he spoke to the
over the dark water is unnatural, like
Samaritan woman at the well:
everything else whose cause we do not
know — since it is inexplicable. It hints “Everyone who drinks of this water will
at an unseen presence and there is no thirst again, but whoever drinks of the
rational answer.6 water that I shall give him will never thirst;
the water that I shall give him will become
Water is the commonest symbol of the
in him a spring of water welling up to
unconscious. As with bodies of water,
eternal life.” (John 4: 13-14)
we often see the surface, but cannot easily
see into the depths. Also, the vastness of The Chalice, the wellspring of the “living
the ocean symbolizes the immensity of the water” that Christ offered the Samaritan
unconscious mind. Jung observed long woman (John 4:10), is a form of the
ago that the unconscious mind was much archetypal Grail. Throughout diverse
greater than the conscious portion. The traditions the Grail represents the feminine
river in the valley is the unconscious, side of God; the cauldron of the Goddess
which lies, as it were, underneath in pagan ritual, the cup borne by the
consciousness. Psychologically, therefore, Maidens of the Well in medieval folklore,
water means spirit that has become and the chalice that upholds the Mother of
unconscious. So the dream of the God in Christian iconography, all attest to
theologian is quite right in telling him that the archetypal association of the Grail with
down by the water he could experience the Divine Feminine. The “water of life”
the working of the living spirit, like a contained in the Grail is also a deeply
miracle of healing in the pool of Bethesda. feminine symbol. For the Feminine is the
The descent into the depths is necessary Source of Life: just as all of life began in
to experience healing and wellbeing.7 the waters of the maternal sea, so all human
life begins within the waters of the mother’s
According to Brian Collinson, ‘We are
womb. In Christian symbolism, the Virgin
water’. A famous scene from the movie
Mary - Mother of God – is often
“Ben Hur” provides a gripping illustration
associated with water; her very name in
of the symbolism of the “water of life” in
Latin, “Maria,” means “the sea.”9
both its physical and psychological
sense. William Wyler’s depiction of this When we drink from the “living water”
thirst in the movie is powerful. The water of the Life-giving Source, our inner being
of life for which we yearn relates directly opens to the awareness of our true nature
to the waters of the unconscious. Christ as the ‘Eternal Self’. As the pagan
is portrayed as the ‘Water of Life’. He is Greeks taught, when we incarnate on
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Earth we drink from the ‘Well of the spring rain which brings forth
Forgetting’ and lose the memory of our vegetation.” 12
True Self as we identify ourselves with Through immersion in this bath we
the limited body/ego. Spiritual illumination experience “regeneration,” the greening
occurs when we drink from the ‘Well of of our souls that results from union with
Recollection’ and remember who we truly the Divine at the center of all creation.
are – the divine Self – and where we came Baptism in the “living water” signifies the
from – the heavenly realms of the Spirit.10 attainment of unitive consciousness, an
Christ is the river of life fromwhere we draw experience of oneness with the divine
nourishment for our deepest Self – the Spirit that pervades all of life.13
Divine within us – that gives us “abundance Jung maintained that much goes on in the
of life.” This leads us to the willing surrender depths of those oceanic waters. One of
that allows us to flow within the Oneness of the most frequently encountered of water
Being. The “water of life” that comes from symbols in dreams is the river. One of
this Source is a bitter-sweet draught that the most impressive characteristics of a
contains all of life’s joy and pain, for this is river is the power of water flowing in a
the richness of Life. We are only fully alive definite direction. The river as symbol
when we reject nothing of what life offers; embodies the flow of life: the “teleology”,
then we are able to live in the present as Jung says, or goal-directedness of the
moment and appreciate life in its entirety. psyche. It also embodies the fatefully
Thus when we drink deeply of the “living powerful direction of that flow- the flow
water”, we fully experience the happiness of our lives.
and sorrow in our own life and feel our
connection to all other beings in their pain In some cultures there are myths of a
as well as their joy.11 diver who plunges to the bottom of the
sea and brings up treasure. The water as
Whereas drinking the water of the Life- we have seen is a symbol for the
giving Source bestows upon us the gift of unconscious, and the treasure is the new
illumined consciousness, immersion in the self, one finds, when previously unused
Fountain itself unites us with the psychic resources are given appropriate
Wellspring of Life. This is the spiritual expression in one’s conscious life.14
baptism that represents mystical union
with the Source of Life, the Ground of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse deals
Being, or God. Carl Jung refers to the with his quest for enlightenment through
alchemical symbolism of this image when the religious doctrines he discovers.
he says: Siddhartha is quest ing after a
transcendent, spiritual understanding of
“The perpetual, permanent…divine himself and the world. He devotes himself
water…was also the bath of regeneration, wholeheartedly to the pursuit of this
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understanding, even when the path is According to Greek myth those who
difficult. Outside forces do not easily sway wished to enter the underworld had to
Siddhartha, and he follows his heart. be ferried across the Styx by the
ferryman, Charon. Five rivers of the
After several failed attempts with the
Underworld served as a physical barrier
Samanas, with Gotama -the Buddha, he
between the Underworld and the mortal
abandons the path of enlightenment and
realm. Their presence made sure no one
succumbs to the wiles of Kamala, the
could enter or escape unharmed. There
beautiful courtesan who introduces him
were a number rivers in the Underworld,
to love. From Kamaswami he begins to
and each served a purpose. Acheron was
learn a trade and becomes a successful
the river of lamentation. Cocytus was the
businessman. When he is has had his fill
river of woe. Lethe was the river of
of material indulgence, he dreams that
forgetfulness. Phlegethon was the river
Kamala’s rare songbird is dead in its
of fire and Styx was the river of
cage. He understands that the material
unbreakable oath, by which the gods
world is slowly killing him without
swore. It was also the river of hate.
providing him with the enlightenment for
which he has been searching. One night, The Styx is probably the river most often
he resolves to leave it all behind and mentioned in mythology. Like most river
departs without notifying either Kamala deities, the Styx was an offspring of
or Kamaswami. Oceanus and Tethys that flowed nine
times around the borders of Hades or
He goes to the river to and meets the
the Underworld. Its waters were not only
ferryman, Vasudeva, who teaches
fatal to the living, but it also broke vessels
Siddhartha how to learn the many secrets
that tried to contain it and corroded all
of the river. In contemplating the river,
materials except the hooves of horses. It
Siddhartha has a revelation: Just as the
was also the river in which Thetis dipped
water of the river flows into the ocean
her son Achilles in order to make him
and is returned by rain, all forms of life
invulnerable to any wound.
are interconnected in a cycle without
beginning or end. Birth and death are all The river Lethe was also considered
part of a timeless unity. Life and death, important because, since many cultures
joy and sorrow, good and evil are all parts believed in the transmigration of souls and
of the whole and are necessary to reincarnation, the souls going back had
understand the meaning of life. By the time to drink from Lethe to forget all their
Siddhartha has learned all the river’s former lives and the Underworld.16
lessons, Vasudeva announces that he is
In English culture and literature the river
through with his life at the river. He retires
Thameshas a special place. It runs
into the forest, leaving Siddhartha to be
through the language, and we speak of
the ferryman.15

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Andrean Research Journal Vol. VI 2016 - 2017 ISSN 2278-9294

its influence in every conceivable context. narrative structure of the novel itself also
It is employed to characterize life and suggests fluidity. One character’s thoughts
death, time and destiny; it is used as a appear, intensify, then fades into
metaphor for continuity and dissolution, another’s, much like waves that collect
for intimacy and ephemerality, for art and then fall.
history, for poetry itself. Water reflects it
Traditional English society itself is a kind
has no form of its own. It has no meaning.
of tide, pulling under those people not
So we may say that the river is in essence
strong enough to stand on their own.
a reflection of circumstance – a reflection
Lady Bradshaw, for example, eventually
of geology, history, sociology and
succumbs to Sir William’s bullying,
economics. In The Principles of
overbearing presence. The narrator says
Psychology (1890) William James first
“she had gone under,” that her will
coined the phrase ‘stream of
became “water-logged” and eventually
consciousness’ in which “every definite
sank into his. Septimus is also sucked
image of the mind is steeped ... in the free
under society’s pressures. Earlier in the
water that flows around it’. Thus ‘it flows’
day, before he kills himself, he looks out
like the river itself. 17
the window and sees everything as though
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is written it is underwater. Trees drag their branches
in the ‘stream of consciousness’ through the air as though dragging them
technique. The novel does not follow a through water, the light outside is “watery
linear progression but meanders like a gold,” and his hand on the sofa reminds
stream backwards and forwards. Waves him of floating in seawater. While
and water regularly wash over events and Septimus ultimately cannot accept or
thoughts in Mrs. Dalloway and nearly function in society, Clarissa manages to
always suggest the possibility of extinction navigate it successfully. Peter sees
or death. While Clarissa mends her party Clarissa in a “silver-green mermaid’s
dress, she thinks about the peaceful cycle dress” at her party, “lolloping on the
of waves collecting and falling on a waves.” Between her mermaid’s dress
summer day, when the world itself seems and her ease in bobbing through her party
to say “that is all.” Time sometimes takes guests, Clarissa succeeds in staying
on waterlike qualities for Clarissa, such afloat. However, she identifies with
as when the chime from Big Ben Septimus’s wish to fight the cycle and go
“flood[s]” her room, marking another under, even if she will not succumb to
passing hour. Rezia, in a rare moment of the temptation herself.18
happiness with Septimus, lets her words
In the following example of stream of
trail off, “like a contented tap left running.”
consciousness from James Joyce’s
Even then, she knows that the stream of
Ulysees, Molly seeks sleep:
contentedness will dry up eventually. The

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Andrean Research Journal Vol. VI 2016 - 2017 ISSN 2278-9294

a quarter after what an unearthly hour I origins to the broad reaches of the
suppose they’re just getting up in China commercial world. The river in its infancy
now combing out their pigtails for the day is undefiled, innocent and clear. By the
well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus time it is closely pent in by the city, it has
theyve nobody coming in to spoil their become dank and foul, defiled by greed
sleep except an odd priest or two for his and speculation. In this regress it is the
night office the alarm clock next door at paradigm of human life and of human
cockshout clattering the brains out of itself history. Yet the river has one great
let me see if I can doze off 1 2 3 4 5 what advantage over its metaphoric
kind of flowers are those they invented companions. It returns to its source, and
like the stars the wallpaper in Lombard its corruption can be reversed. That is
street was much nicer the apron he gave why baptism was once instinctively
me was like that something only I only associated with the river. The Thames
wore it twice better lower this lamp and has been an emblem of redemption and
try again so that I can get up early.19 of renewal, of the hope of escaping from
time itself.20
The river as a token of the unconscious
also suggests depth and invisible life. It is When Wordsworth observed the river
a symbol of eternity, in its unending cycle at low tide, with the vista of the ‘mighty
of movement and change. It is one of the heart’ of London ‘lying still’, he used the
few such symbols that can readily be imagery of human circulation. It is the
understood, or appreciated, and in the image of the river as blood, pulsing
continuing stream, the mind or soul can through the veins and arteries of its
begin to contemplate its own possible terrain, without which the life of London
immortality. would seize up.
In t he poet ry of John Denham’s Sir Walter Raleigh, contemplating the
‘Cooper’s Hill’ (1642), the Thames is a Thames from the walk by his cell in the
metaphor for human life. How slight its Tower, remarked that the ‘blood which
beginning, how confident its continuing disperseth itself by the branches or veins
course, how ineluctable its destination through all the body, may be resembled
within the great ocean: to these waters which are carried by
brooks and rivers overall the earth’. He
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
wrote his History of the World (1610)
Like mortal life to meet eternity.
from his prison cell, and was deeply
The poetry of the Thames has always imbued with the current of the Thames
emphasized its affiliations with human as a model of human destiny. It has been
purpose and with human realities. So the used as the symbol for the unfolding of
personality of the river changes in the events in time, and carries the burden of
course of its journey from the purity of its past events upon its back. For Raleigh the
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freight of time grew ever more complex and extremes. It weaves its own course
wearisome as it proceeded from its source; without artificial diversions or
human life had become darker and deeper, interventions. It is useful for all manner of
less pure and more susceptible to the tides purposes. It is a practical river.
of affairs. There was one difference Raleigh
The Thames has been a highway, a
noticed in his history, when he declared that
frontier and an attack route; it has been a
‘for this tide of man’s life, after it once turneth
playground and a sewer, a source of
and declineth, ever runneth with a perpetual
water and a source of power. It has been
ebb and falling stream, but never floweth
what the Romans called a ‘public’ river,
again’.
but it has also been a scene of deep
The Thames has also been understood private contentment. It has a personal,
as a mirror of morality. The bending and an historical, force. John Keill, in An
rushes and the yielding willows afford Examination of the Reflections on the
lessons in humility and forbearance; the Theory of the Earth (1699), remarked
humble weeds along its banks have been of rivers that ‘without them there could
praised for their lowliness and absence be no great Towns, nor any converse with
of ostentation. And who has ventured far inland Countries, since without them
upon the river without learning the value it is almost impossible to supply a vast
of patience, of endurance, and of multitude of People with things necessary
vigilance? John Denham makes the for life’. The Thames has created
Thames the subject of native discourse civilization here. It fashioned London.21
in a further sense:
The Aboriginals believed that their
Though deep, yet clear; though ancestors taught them and showed them
gentle, yet not dull; how all life is interconnected and
Strong without rage; without interdependent.
o’erflowing, full.
The mountains are my bones
This suggests that the river represents an The rivers my veins
English measure, an aesthetic harmony The forests are my thoughts
to be sought or wished for, but in the And the stars are my dreams
same breath Denham seems to be The ocean is my heart
adverting to some emblem of Englishness It’s pounding is my pulse
itself. The Thames is a metaphor for the The songs of the earth write
country through which it runs. It is modest The music of my soul.
and moderate, calm and resourceful; it is Unknown
powerful without being fierce. It is not
That is how they think about the natural
flamboyantly impressive. It is large
world, because in the long run, they
without being too vast. It eschews
believe, when everything is in balance,
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what is good for the earth will be good 5 Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious, Eds. Herbert Read
for us as human beings too. Aboriginals
and Michael Fordham. Trans. R.F.C. Hull,
believe that they are living, breathing, 1959. (New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1969)
thinking physical manifestation of their land
6 Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the
– a thread in the pattern of creation. Dr.
Collective Unconscious,
Winch is convinced that if the land is in
bad repair, then so are the people. If the 7 Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious,
rivers dry up and become polluted, then
this can be equated with the body’s 8 Brian Collinson, Jungian Therapy and the
lifeblood; and it means that life cannot be Meaning of Dreams, 5 : Water, 12 Nov. 12.
sustained. 9 Christo Sophia in Poros
www.christosophia.org/
Rivers then play an important role in our ChristoSophiainporos.html
lives. They once sustained ancient ChristoSophia in Poros In May, 2004,
civilizations that thrived on its banks. It
10 Christo Sophia in Poros
soon became a symbol of the unconscious
and the underworld and the path way to 11 Christo Sophia in Poros
lead to divine truths and inner healing. 12 Carl Gustav Jung, Myste rium
Poets and writers drew inspiration from Coniunctionis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
it. Its very flow is a metaphor for life itself. University Press, 1970), p.484
One’s life may flow like water, be 13 Carl Gustav Jung, Myste rium
turbulent, violent and choppy, or like Coniunctionis
swirling rushing water, be swelling over, 14 Carl Gustav Jung, Myste rium
sometimes with self-pride, or be hardly Coniunctionis
moving like dead stagnant water, or happy
15 Herman Hess, Siddhartha. Project
and content, gurgling cheerily over fields Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/
and meadows, rocks and mountains. ebooks/2500
REFERENCES: 16 Edith Hamilton, Mythology (New York,
Warner Books Inc., 1942)
1 A.V. Sankaran, “Saraswati: An Ancient
River Lost in the Desert”, Current 17 Peter Ackroyd, Thames: Sacred River (
Science. Vol.77. No. 8,25 October 1999, p. London: Chatto &Windus, 2007) p 7-10
1054.
18 Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
2 Chauhan D. S., Geological Society of (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions,
India, Mem., 1999,42, p. 35–45. 1996)
3 Richard Mahapatra, “Saraswati 19 James Joyce, Ulysses ( Harmondsworth:
Underground”, Down to Earth: Subscribe Penguin, 1968)
to Common Sense, Friday 15 Nov. 2002
20 Peter Ackroyd, Thames: Sacred River
4 Bansi Pandit, Hindu Deities: Saraswati,
www.koausa.org/Gods/God10.html 21 Peter Ackroyd, Thames: Sacred River

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