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The Aryan Doctrine Of Combat And Victory
Heroism, Holy War and Transcendence

9/22/2007 2:42:18 PM
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Julius Evola

Book Excerpt --
[Bill: From Metaphysics of War, published by Integral Tradition of Denmark.

Creativity may have heard of "Racial Holy War", but Tradition understand it. Read on:]

For the ancient Aryan war has the general meaning of a fight between metaphysical powers. On the one hand there was the Olympian principle of light, the uranic and solar reality; on the other hand, brute vilolence, the titanic-telluric, barnaric element in the classical sense, the feminine- demonic substance. The motif of the metaphysical fight resurfaces constantly through countless forms of myth in all traditions of Aryan origin. Any fight, in the material sense, was experienced with greater or lesser awareness as an episode in that antithesis. But the Aryan race considered itself to be the army of the Olympian principle; accordingly, it is necessary to restore this conception among Aryans, as being the justification, or the highest consecration, of any hegemonic aspiration, but also of the very idea of empire, whose anti-secular characer is basically very obvious.

To the traditionally based world view, all apparent realities are symbolic. This is therefore true of war as well, as is seen from the subjective and interior point of view. War and the Path of God are thus merged into a single entity.

... As is well known, Valhalla is the centre of celestial immortality; reserved mainly for heroes fallen on the battlefield. The lord of this place, Odin-Wotan, is presented to us in the Ynglingsaga as having shown to the heroes the path which leads to the place of the gods, where immortal life flourishes. According to this tradition, no sacrifice or cult is more appreciated by the supreme god, and none produces richer fruits, than that sacrifice which one offers as one falls fighting on the battlefield. In addition to this, behind the confused popular representation of the WIldes Heer this meaning is hidden: through the warriors who, falling, offer a sacrifice to Odin, the power is increased which this god needs for the ultimate battle against the Ragna-rokkr, that is, the "darkening of the divine", which has threatened the world since ancient times. This illustrates clearly the Aryan motif of the metaphysical struggle. In the Edda, it is said that "no matter how great the number of the heroes gathered in Valhalla they will never be too many for when the Wolf comes." The 'Wolf' here is the symbol of the dark and wild powers which the world of the Aesir had managed to chain and subdue.

The Aryo-Iranian conception of Mithra, the "sleepless warrior", who at the head of the fravashi of his faithful wages battle against the enemeis of the Aryan god of Light is completely analogous. We will soon deal with the fravashi and their correspondance with the Valkyries of the Nordic tradition. For now, we would like to explain the general meaning of "holy war" by means of other, concordant testimonies.

It should not cause surprise if we refer in the first place to the Muslim traditoin. Here, the Muslim tradition serves as transmitter of the Aryo- Iranian tradition. The idea of "holy war" -- at least as far as the elements that we are considering are concerned -- reached the Arabian tribes via the world of Persian speculation. It was, therefore, a late rebirth of a primordial Aryan heritage, and seen from this perspecitve we can certainly adopt it.

Having said that, in the tradition in question two "holy wars" are distinguished: the "greater holy war" and the "lesser holy war". The distinction is based on a saying of the Prophet, who, when he got back from a military expedition, said: "I return now from the lesser to the greater war."

In this respect the greater holy war belongs to the spiritual order. The lesser holy war, by contrast, is the physical struggle, the material war, fought in the outer world. The greater holy war is the struggle of man against the enemies he bears in himself. More precisely, it is the fight of the supernatural eleent, innate in man, against everything which is instinctual, passionate, chaotic and subject to the forces of nature. This is also the idea that reveals itself in a text of the ancient Aryan warrior wisdom, the Bhagavad-Gita: "Knowing what is beyond reason, steadying the mind by your will, kill the lust shaped foe, difficult to overcome" (III, 43)

The necessary condition for the inner work of liberation is that this enemy is destroyed once and for all. In the context of a heroic tradition the lesser holy war -- that is, external combat -- serves only as something by means of which the greater holy war is achieved. For this reason "holy war" and "Path of God" are often treated as synonymous in the texts. Thus we read in the Qur'an: "So let those who sell the life of this world for the life of the next world fight in the Way of Allah: If someone fights in the Way of Allah, whether he is killed or victorious, We will pay him an immense reward" (IV, 73). And further: "... As for those who fight in the Way of Allah, He will not let their actions go astray. He will guide them and better their condition and He will admit them into the Garden which he has made known to them" (XLVII, 5b-7).

This is an allusion to physical death in war, which corresponds perfectly to the so-called mors triumphalis -- "triumphant death" -- of the classical traditions. However, the same doctrine can also be interpreted in a symbolic sense. The one who, in the "lesser holy war", has been able to live a "greater holy war" has created within himself a force which puts him in a position to overcome the crisis of death. Even without getting killed physically, through the asceticism of action and combat, one can experience death, one can win inwardly and realize "more than life". In the esoteric respect, as a matter of fact, "paradise", "the celestial realm" and analogous expressios are nothing but symbolic representations -- concocted for the people -- of transcendent states of consciousness on a higher plane than life and death.

These considerations should allow us to discern the same contents and meanings, under the outer garment of Christianity, which the Nordic-Western heroic tradition was forced to war during the Crusades in order to be able to manifest itself in the external world. In the ideology of the Crusade the liberation of the Temple and the conquest of the "holyland" had points of contact -- much more numerous than one is generally inclined to believe -- with the Nordic-Aryan tradition, which refers to the mystical Asgard, the remote land of the Aesir and heroes, where death does not reign and the inhabitants enjoy immrotal life and supernatural peace. Holy war appeared as an integrally spiritual war, so much so that it could be compared literally by preacher to "a bathing which is almost like the fire of purgatory, but before death."

Saint Bernard decalred to the Templars, "It is a glory for you never to leave the battle [unless] covered with laurels. But it is an even greater glory to earn on the battlefield an immortal crown."

The "absolute glory" -- attributed to the Lord who is above, in the skies -- in exclesis Deo -- is ordained also for the crusader. Against this background Jerusalem, the coveted goal of the "lesser holy war", could be seen in the twofold aspect as terrestial city and celestial city and the Crusade proved to be the preluse to a true fulfillment of immortality.

The oscillating military vicissitudes of the Crusades provoked bafflement, initial confusion, and even a wavering of faith. But later their sole effect was to purify the idea of holy war from every residue of materiality. The ill- fated outcome of the Crusade came to be compared to virtue persecuted by misfortune, a virtue whose value can be judged and rewarded only in the light of a supra-terrestial life. Beyond victory or defeat the judgement of value focused on the spiritual dimension of the action. Thus, the holy war was worthwhile for its own sake, irrespective of its visible result, as a means to reach a supra-personal realization through the active sacrifice of the human element.

The same teaching appears, elevated to a metaphysical plane of expression, in a famous Hindu-Aryan text -- the Bhagavad-Gita. The humanitarian compassion and the emotions which hold the warrior Arjuna back from fighting gainst the enemy are characterized by the god as "impurity, unworthy of a noble man, not leading to heaven" (II, 2).

Instead the god promises the following: "Killed you will attain heaven; victorious you will enjoy the earth; arise, therefore, resolved to fight" (II, 37).

The inner disposition to transmute the lesser holy war into the greater holy war is clearly described in the following terms: "Knowing what is beyond reason, steadying the mind by your will, kill the lust-shaped foe, difficult to overcome" (III, 43).

Equally clear expression asser the purity of this action: it must be wanted for itself, beyond every material aim, beyond every passion and every human impulse: "Making equal pleasure and pain, profit and loss, victory and defeat, fight for the sake of fighting; in this way you will incur no sin" (II,38).

As a further metaphysical foundation the god enlightens his hearer on the difference between absolute spirit, which is indestructible, and the corporeal and human elements, which possess only illusory experience. On the one hand Arjuna becomes aware of the metaphysical unreality of what one can lose or cause others to lose, i.e., the ephemeral life and the mortal body. On the other hand, Arjuna is led to experience the manifestation of the divine as a power which sweeps the one who experiences it away into irresistible absoluteness. Compared to his force any conditioned form of existence appears as a mere negation. When this negation is itself continuously and actively negated, that is, when every limited form of existence is overwhelmed or destroyed in combat, this force becomes terrifying evident. It is in these terms that the energy suitable to provoke the heroic transformation of the individual can be properly defined. To the extent that he is able to act in the purity and absoluteness which we have indicated the warrior breaks the chains of the human, evokes the divine as a metaphysical force of destruction of the finite, and attracts this force effectively into himself, finding in it his illumination and liberation. The evocative watchword of another text, belonging to the same tradition, is appropriate here: "Life -- like a bow; the mind -- like the arrow; the target to pierce -- the supreme spirit; to join mind to spirit as the shot arrow hits the target."

It is highly signficant that the Bhagavad-Gita presents these teachings, which explain how the higher form of the metaphysical realization of combat and heroism should be understood as referring to a primoridal Aryan heritage of a solar nature. These teachings were in fact given by "the Sun" to the primordial legislator of the Aryans, Manu, and subsequently maintained by a sacred dynasty of kings. In the course of centuries they came to be lost and were therefore newly revealed by the divinity, not to a priest, but to a representative of the warrior nobility, Arjuna.