The Hero with a Thousand Faces

by Joseph Campbell

  Figure 33. Kwan Yin, the Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva (painted wood, China, eleventh–thirteenth century a.d.). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

  Figure 34. Androgynous Ancestor (carved wood, Mali, twentieth century a.d.). Wood carving from the region of Bandiagara, French Sudan [now known as Mali — Ed.]. Collection of Laura Harden, New York City. Photo by Walker Evans, courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

  Figure 35. Bodhidharma (paint on silk, Japan, sixteenth century a.d.). Bodhidharma (died around a.d. 532), known as Daruma in Japanese, was the Indian founder of Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, which he brought to China. He is said to have spent nine years seated in meditation in a cave, losing the use of his arms and legs. Zen became influential in Japan in the thirteenth century. From this period onward Japanese Zen monks began painting portraits of Daruma in brush and ink as an aid to reaching enlightenment (satori). © The British Museum.

  Figure 36. Tea Ceremony: Abode of Vacancy (photograph by Joseph Campbell, Japan, a.d. 1958). [Geisha and attendants serving tea, Tokyo, Japan. Campbell attended this ceremony while participating in the International Congress for the History of Religions. — Ed.] © Joseph Campbell Foundation.

  Figure 37. Liṅgam-yonī (carved stone, Vietnam, c. ninth century a.d.). Found at Cat Tien sanctuary, Lam Dong province, Vietnam.

  Figure 38. Kālī Astride Śiva (gouache on paper, India, date uncertain). From a private collection.

  Figure 39. Isis Giving Bread and Water to the Soul (Egypt, date uncertain). E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, London: Philip Lee Warner; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911, vol. II, p. 134.

  Figure 40.Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva with Their Consorts (painted miniature, India, early nineteenth century a.d.). The Hindu triad of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva with their consorts Sarasvatī, Lakṣmī, and Parvatī. Company School, southern India (Madras presidency, early nineteenth century a.d., but pre–1828). Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Great Britain. © Art Resource, NY.

  Figure 41. The Conquest of the Monster: David and Goliath • The Harrowing of Hell • Samson and the Lion (engraving, Germany, a.d. 1471). A page from the fifteenth-century Biblia Pauperum, German edition, 1471, showing Old Testament prefigurements of the history of Jesus. Compare Figure 50. Edition of the Weimar Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen, 1906.

  Figure 42. The Branch of Immortal Life (alabaster wall panel, Assyria, c. 885–860 b.c.). Wall panel from the Palace of Ashur-nasirapal II, King of Assyria, at Kalhu (modern Nimrud). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

  Figure 43. Bodhisattva(carved stone, Cambodia, twelfth century a.d.). Fragment from the ruins of Angkor. The Buddha figure crowning the head is a characteristic sign of the Bodhi-sattva (compare Figures 32 and 33; in the former the Buddha figure sits atop the pyramid of heads). Musée Guimet, Paris. Photo from Angkor, éditions “Tel,” Paris, 1935.

  Figure 44. The Return of the Prodigal (oil on canvas, Holland, a.d. 1662). Rembrandt van Rijn (a.d. 1606–1669). The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. The Yorck Project:10.000Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002.

  Figure 45a. Gorgon-Sister Pursuing Perseus, Who Is Fleeing with the Head of Medusa (red-figure amphora, Greece, fifth century b.c.). Perseus, armed with a scimitar bestowed on him by Hermes, approached the three Gorgons while they slept, cut off the head of Medusa, put it in his wallet, and fled on the wings of his magic sandals. In the literary versions, the hero departs undiscovered, thanks to a cap of invisibility; here, however, we see one of the two surviving Gorgon-Sisters in pursuit. From the collection of the Munich Antiquarium. Adolf Furtwängler, Friedrich Hauser, and Karl Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, Munich, F. Bruckmann, 1904–1932, Plate 134.

  Figure 45b. Perseus Fleeing with the Head of Medusa in His Wallet (red-figure amphora, Greece, fifth century b.c.). This figure and the one preceding it appear on opposite sides of the same amphora. The effect of the arrangement is amusing and lively. (See Furtwängler, Hauser, and Reichhold, op. cit., Serie III, Text, p. 77, Fig. 39.)

  Figure 46. Caridwen in the Shape of a Greyhound Pursuing Gwion Bach in the Shape of a Hare (lithograph, Britain, a.d. 1877). Lady Charlotte Guest, “Taliesin,” The Mabinogion, 2nd ed., 1877, vol. III, p. 493.

  Figure 47. The Resurrection of Osiris (carved stone, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. 282–145 b.c.). The god rises from the egg; Isis (the Hawk of Fig. 12) protects it with her wing. Horus (the son conceived in the Sacred Marriage of Fig. 12) holds the Ankh, or sign of life, before his father’s face. From a bas-relief at Philae. E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, London: Philip Lee Warner; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911, vol. II, p. 58.

  Figure 48. Amaterasu Emerges from the Cave (woodblock print, Japan, a.d. 1860). Utagawa Kunisada (a.d. 1785–1864). Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Art Resource, NY.

  Figure 49. Goddess Rising (carved marble, Italy/Greece, c. 460 b.c.). [This marble relief makes up the back panel of a seat found in 1887 on a piece of ground formerly belonging to the Villa Ludovisi; it is known for this reason as the Ludovisi Throne. Perhaps of early Greek workmanship. — Ed.] Museo delle Terme, Rome. Photo: Antike Denkmäler, herausgegeben vom Kaiserlich Deutschen Archaeologischen Institut, Berlin: Georg Reimer, vol. II, 1908.

  Figure 50. The Reappearance of the Hero: Samson with the Temple-Doors • Christ Arisen • Jonah (engraving, German, a.d. 1471). A page from the fifteenth-century Biblia Pauperum, German edition, 1471, showing Old Testament prefigurements of the history of Jesus. Compare Figure 41. Edition of the Weimar Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen, 1906.

  Figure 51. Kṛṣṇa Leads Arjuna onto the Battlefield (gouache on carton, India, eighteenth century a.d.). Photo by Iris Papadopoulos. Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Stätliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY.

  Figure 52. The Cosmic Lion Goddess, Holding the Sun (single-leaf manuscript, India, eighteenth century a.d.). Courtesy of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City.

  Figure 53. The Cosmic Woman of the Jains (gouache on cloth, India, eighteenth century a.d.). Rajasthan. Jaina world image in the form of a great goddess.

  Figure 54. The Fountain of Life (paint on wood, Flanders, c. a.d. 1520). Central panel of a triptych by Jean Bellegambe (of Douai). The assisting female figure at the right, with the little galleon on her head, is Hope; the corresponding figure at the left, Love. Courtesy of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille.

  Figure 55. The Aztec Sun Stone (carved stone, Aztec, Mexico, a.d. 1479). Tenochtitlán, Mexico. Museo Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico City, D.F., Mexico. The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Figure 56. The Cosmic Woman of the Jains — Detail of Cosmic Wheel (gouache on cloth, India, eighteenth century a.d.). This is a detail of the center of Figure 53. About this image, Campbell has this to say: “At the level of the waist of the great cosmic being...the passage of time is marked by the ever-returning cycle of twelve stages already reviewed, the incarnations through which we all have passed many times and are still passing.” Joseph Campbell, Oriental Mythology, The Masks of God, vol. II. New York: Arcana, 1991, p. 225. [For Campbell’s extended exploration of Jain cosmology, see Oriental Mythology, pp. 218–234. — Ed.]

  Figure 57. The Makroprosopos (engraving, Germany, a.d. 1684). Christian Knorr Von Rosenroth, Kabbala Denudata, Frankfürt-am-Main, 1684.

  Figure 58. Tangaroaā, Producing Gods and Men (carved wood, Rurutu Island, early eighteenth century a.d.). Polynesian. From the Tubuai (Austral) Group of Islands in the South Pacific. Courtesy of the British Museum.

  Figure 59. Tuamotuan Creation Chart — Below: The Cosmic Egg. Above: The People Appear, and Shape the Universe (Tuamotua, nineteenth century a.d.). Kenneth P. Emory, “The Tuamotuan Creation Charts by Paiore,” Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 48, no. 1 (March 1939), p. 3.

  Figure 60. The Separation of Sky and Earth (Egypt, date uncertain). A common figure on Egyptian coffins and papyri. The air-god Shu
-Heka separates Nut and Geb at the order of Ra, who wished to keep the incestuous twins apart. This is the moment of the creation of the world. F. Max Müller, Egyptian Mythology, The Mythology of All Races, vol. XII, Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1918, p. 44.

  Figure 61. The Murder of Ymir (lithograph, Denmark, a.d. 1845). Lorenz Frölich (1820–1908).

  Figure 62. Chaos Monster and Sun God (carved alabaster, Assyria, 885–860 b.c.). Wall panel from the Palace of Ashur-nasirapal II (885–860 b.c.), King of Assyria, at Kalhu (modern Nimrud). The god is perhaps the national deity, Assur, in the role played formerly by Marduk of Babylon and still earlier by Enlil, a Sumerian storm god. Photo from an engraving in Austen Henry Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series, London: J. Murray, 1853. The original slab, now in the British Museum, is so damaged that the forms can hardly be distinguished in a photograph. The style is the same as that of Figure 42.

  Figure 63. Khnemu Shapes Pharaoh’s Son on a Potter’s Wheel While Thoth Marks Life Span (papyrus, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. third–first century b.c.). E.A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, London: Methuen and Co., 1904, vol. II, p. 50.

  Figure 64. Edshu the Trickster (carved wood, cowries, and leather; Yoruba; Nigeria; nineteenth–early twentieth century a.d.). Private Collection, Paul Freeman. The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Figure 65. Tlazolteotl Giving Birth (carved aplite with garnet inclusions, Aztec, Mexico, late fifteenth–early sixteenth century a.d.). Photo, after Hamy, courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

  Figure 66. Nut (the Sky) Gives Birth to the Sun; Its Rays Fall on Hathor in the Horizon (Love and Life) (carved stone, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. first century b.c.). The sphere at the mouth of the goddess represents the sun at evening, about to be swallowed and born anew. [From the so-called Chapel of the New Year in the Temple of Hathor, Dendera, Egypt. Built c. first century b.c. — Ed.] E.A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, London: Methuen and Co., 1904, vol. I, p. 101.

  Figure 67.The Moon King and His People (rock painting, prehistoric, Zimbabwe, c. 1500 b.c.). Prehistoric rock painting, at Diana Vow Farm, Rusapi District, South Rhodesia [modern Zimbabwe — Ed.], perhaps associated with the legend of Mwuetsi, the Moon Man. The lifted right hand of the great reclining figure holds a horn. Tentatively dated by its discoverer, Leo Frobenius, c. 1500 b.c. Courtesy of the Frobenius-Institut, Frankfurt-am-Main.

  Figure 68. Coatlicue of the Serpent-woven Skirt, Earth Mother (carved stone, Aztec, Mexico, late fifteenth century a.d.). Her head is formed from the facing heads of two rattlesnakes. Around her neck is a necklace of hearts, hands, and a skull. One of a pair of colossal statues which stood in the courtyard of the Great Temple at Tenochtitlán. Excavated in 1824 in main plaza, Mexico City. Museo Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico City, D.F., Mexico. Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY.

  Figure 69. The Chariot of the Moon (carved stone, Cambodia, c. a.d. 1113–1150). Bas relief at Angkor Wat. Photo from Angkor, éditions “Tel,” Paris, 1935.

  Figure 70. Pharaoh’s Daughter Finding Moses (detail; oil on canvas, England, a.d. 1886). Edwin Long, 1886. City of Bristol Gallery. The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002.

  Figure 71.Kṛṣṇa Holding Mount Govardhan (color on paper, India, c. a.d. 1790). Attributed to Mola Ram (1760–1833). [Note that Indra is visible on his elephant in the upper-left. — Ed.] Smithsonian Institute Asia Collection.

  Figure 72. Paleolithic Petroglyph (carved rock, Paleolithic, Algiers, date uncertain). From a prehistoric site in the neighborhood of Tiout. The catlike animal between the hunter and the ostrich is perhaps some variety of trained hunting panther, and the horned beast left behind with the hunter’s mother, a domesticated animal at pasture. Leo Frobenius and Hugo Obermaier, Hádschra Máktuba, Munich: K. Wolff, 1925, vol. II, Plate 78.

  Figure 73. The Pharaoh Narmer Slays a Defeated Foe (carved schist, Old Kingdom, Egypt, c. 3100b.c.). The “Narmer palette” (reverse), a late pre-dynastic schist ceremonial palette. Pharaoh Narmer is shown wearing the White Crown of Upper (southern) Egypt, subduing Lower Egypt. Narmer’s rectangular cartouche sits on top of the palette. From Hierakonpolis, Kom el-Ahmar. Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

  Figure 74. Young Maize God (carved stone, Mayan, Honduras, c. a.d. 680–750). Fragment in limestone, from the ancient Mayan city of Copán. Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

  Figure 75. Oedipus Plucking Out His Eyes (detail; carved stone, Roman, Italy, c. second–third century a.d.). Detail of a relief on a Roman mausoleum from Neumagen Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier, Germany. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

  Figure 76. Death of the Buddha (carved stone, India, late fifth century a.d.). Ajanta Caves, Cave #26 (Chaitya Hall), Maharashtra, India. Vanni/Art Resource, NY.

  Figure 77. Autumn(Death Mask) (painted wood, Inuit, North America, date uncertain). From the Kuskokwim River district in southwest Alaska. Courtesy of the American Indian Heye Foundation, New York City.

  Figure 78. Osiris, Judge of the Dead (papyrus, Egypt, c. 1275 b.c.). Behind the god stand the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. Before him is a lotus, or lily, supporting his grandchildren, the four sons of Horus. Beneath (or beside) him is a lake of sacred water, the divine source of the Nile upon earth (the ultimate origin of which is in heaven). The god holds in his left hand the flail or whip, and in his right the crook. The cornice above is ornamented with a row of twenty-eight sacred uraei, each of which supports a disk. [From The Papyrus of Hunefer, Thebes, Egypt nineteenth Dynasty, around 1275 b.c. — Ed.] E.A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, London: Philip Lee Warner; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911, vol. I, p. 20.

  Figure 79.The Serpent Kheti in the Underworld, Consuming with Fire an Enemy of Osiris (carved alabaster, New Kingdom, Egypt, 1278 b.c.). The arms of the victim are tied behind him. Seven gods preside. This is a detail from a scene representing an area of the Underworld traversed by the Solar Boat in the eighth hour of the night. From the so-called Book of Pylons. [Also known as The Book of Doors. This image is taken from the sarcophagus of Seti I. — Ed.] E.A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, London: Methuen and Co., 1904, vol. I, p. 193.

  Figure 80. The Doubles of Ani and His Wife Drinking Water in the Other World (papyrus, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. 240 b.c.). From The Papyrus of Ani. E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, London: Philip Lee Warner; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911, vol. II, p. 130.

  Figure 81. World-end: Rain Serpent and Tiger-claw Goddess(ink on tree-bark paper, Mayan, Central America, c. a.d. 1200–1250). From a facsimile copy (1898), American Museum of Natural History, New York.

  Figure 82. Ragnarök: Fenrir the Wolf Devouring Odin (carved stone, Viking, Britain, c. a.d. 1000). The Andreas Stone with a relief depicting a scene from the legendary Norse poem Ragnarök, “Doomsday of the Gods,” in which the god Othin is eaten by the wolf Fenrir. The raven perches on Othin’s shoulder. Viking, from England (Isle of Man), Manx Museum, Isle of Man, Great Britain. Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY.

  Figure 83. Wrestling with Proteus (carved marble, France, a.d. 1723). Aristaeus wrestling with the transformative sea god Proteus. Sébastien Slodtz (a.d. 1655–1726). Palais de Versailles, France.

  Figure 84. Earthrise (photograph, lunar orbit, a.d. 1968). Taken by Apollo 8 crewmember Bill Anders on December 24, 1968, showing the Earth seemingly rising above the lunar surface. Note that this phenomenon is only visible from orbit around the Moon. Because of the Moon’s synchronous rotation about the Earth (i.e., the same side of the Moon is always facing the Earth), no Earthrise can be visible from the surface of the Moon. [This image had a profound impact on many who saw it, Joseph Campbell among them. For Campbell’s thoughts on the mythic import of this image, see Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, Novato, CA: New World Library, 2002, pp. 105 ff. — Ed.]

  nd Faces