The Snake and the Peacock
ONE day a youth named Adi, The Calculatorbecause he had studied
mathematicsdecided to leave Bokhara and seek greater knowledge. His teacher
advised him to travel southwards, and said: 'Seek the meaning of the Peacock
and the Snake:' something which gave young Adi a great deal to think about.
He travelled through Khorasan and finally to Iraq. In the latter place he
actually came across a place where there was a peacock and a snake, and Adi
spoke to them. 'We are having a discussion', they said, 'about our relative
merits.'
'This is just what I want to study,' said Adi, 'so pray speak on.'
'I feel that I am the more important,' said the Peacock. 'I represent
aspiration, flight into the heavens, the celestial beauty, and hence knowledge
of the higher things. It is my mission to remind man, by mime, of aspects of
his self which are hidden to him.'
'I, on the other hand,' said the Snake, hissing slightly, 'represent just the
same things. Like man, I am bound to the earth. This makes me remind him of
himself. Like him, I am flexible, as I wind my way along the ground. He often
forgets this, too. In tradition, I am he who stands guard over treasures,
hidden in the earth.'
'But you are loathsome!' shouted the Peacock. 'You are sly, secretive,
dangerous.'
'You list my human characteristics,' said the Snake, 'while I prefer to list my
other functions, as I have already done. Now look at you:
'You are vain, over-plump, and have a harsh cry. Your feet are too big, your
feathers too well-developed.'
Adi interrupted at this point. 'It is only your disagreement which has enabled
me to see that neither of you is altogether right. And yet we can clearly see,
if we take away your personal preoccupations, that together you make up a
message for mankind.'
And Adi, while the two opponents listened, was able to explain to them what
their functions were.
'Man crawls on the ground like the Snake. He could rise to the heights like a
bird. But, just as the Snake is covetous, he retains this selfishness when he
tries to rise, and becomes like the peacock, over-proud. In the peacock we can
see possibility of man, but not properly achieved. In the sheen on the Snake we
can see the possibilityof beauty. In the Peacock we see it taking a flamboyant
turn.'
And then a Voice from within spoke to Adi and told him: 'That is not all. These
two creatures are both endowed with life: that is their determining factor.
They fight because each has settled for his own kind of life, thinking it to be
the realization of a true status. One, however, guards treasure and cannot use
it. The other reflects beauty, a treasure, but cannot transform himself with
it. In spite of their not having taken advantage of what was open to them, they
yet symbolize it, for those who can see and hear.'
---oOo---
Considered a mystery by Orientalists, the Cult of the Snake and Peacock in Iraq
was founded on the teaching of a Sufi Sheikh, Adi, son of Musafir, in the
twelfth century.
This story, preserved in legend, shows how the dervish masters shaped their
'schools' around various symbols, chosen to illustrate their doctrine.
In Arabic, 'Peacock' also stands for 'adornment'; while 'Snake' has the same
letter-form as 'organism' and 'life'. Hence the symbolism of the cryptic
Peacock Angel Cultthe Yezidisis a way of indicating 'The Interior and the
External', traditional Sufi formulae.
The Cult still exists in the Middle East, and has adherents (none of them known
to be Iraqis) in Britain and the United States.
~ From Tales of the Dervishes by Idries Shah
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