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branchandroot) wrote2005-11-03 03:20 pm
branchandroot) wrote2005-11-03 03:20 pm
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Bleach: Soul Society
One of the primary sources Kubo drew upon when describing the various worlds in his world, and Soul Society in particular, seems to be Samsara--the six Lower Realms of Buddhist cosmology.
We're told in 46, and by Rukia who is one of the more (relatively) reliable narrators, that the human world and Soul Society have a flow of souls moving between them, and that it goes in both directions. It's an evenly balanced cycle, that being the point of the lecture--when the Quincys destroyed Hollow-ed souls, rather than cleansing them and sending them on, that attrition unbalanced the exchange.
One thing I took from this was that very few Hollows escape shinigami attentions for good. Rather Hollow-dom and the Hollow World seem to form a sort of annex or waiting room, off the path from the human world to Soul Society. Souls constantly enter as new Hollows and leave as killed/cleansed Hollows, and while there is this permanent eddy in the flow of souls the net effect is null. Hollow-ed souls take a detour, but most of them get there eventually.
I also wondered about Hell, though. We see that sufficiently sullied and/or unrepentant souls do not enter the flow between the human world and Soul Society, but rather get Door 3. Whether this is temporary or permanent is not clear. Since this whole migration-and-rebirth thing has a very Buddhist flavor, I'm guessing it's temporary. So that makes another eddy or annex, from which souls will eventually enter circulation again.
So what we have is not two worlds, as Rukia's metaphors imply, but four, between which souls migrate.
Assuming all this, it is possible to map the Bleach worlds very, very loosely onto the six realms, or conditions of being, of Samsara as follows: hell=hell, animals presumably=animals, humans=humans, shinigami=asuras, hollows=hungry ghosts.
Asuras being particularly identified with fighting, they make a reasonable parallel to the shinigami. Hungry ghosts being characterized by neverending hunger that cannot be fed or filled, they correspond pretty well to the Hollows. This, of course, begs the question of where the devas, the sixth world's occupants, are, but I think that may be what Aizen is looking to become. (note on Samsara and denizens)
Some things seem very straightforward. Souls appear in Soul Society with the same age and appearance they had at death, and proceed to age from there. This made me immediately wonder why Soul Society is not chock full of doddering oldsters, since that should be the majority, though perhaps not by much. In fact, the truly old seem very rare, in what we are shown. Going back to the Buddhist flavor, one thought that occurs to me is that, in the Bleach universe, souls that are killed early need to finish out their time, somehow--need to live a whole life in order to get whatever opportunities for enlightenment are to be had and burn off all of their karma. Rukongai, then, could be yet another eddy or annex, the home of "interrupted" souls; thus souls that have lived their full lives in the human world and died would not come there; instead, perhaps they are immediately reborn. When a Rukongai soul dies or is killed, perhaps it is reborn into the human world. Or as a Hollow. Or even as a member of the Court of Pure Souls. All depending on circumstances.
That gets us to the whole idea of being born in Soul Society. If shinigami more or less equal asuras, it makes some sense that souls are born/reborn among them--the Court of Pure Souls functions in some ways as a separate world from Rukongai; it's even got gate guards associated with the four holy beasts that keep it separate from Rukongai. We are told that shinigami and noble houses live there. Perhaps what makes the noble houses noble is precisely that their children are born into the Court of Pure Souls, and live out lives in the service of that world.
This is not, of course, a perfect parallel. Shinigami do also come from Rukongai; the 'worlds' are not completely separate and can be bridged without dying in Rukongai and being reborn. That fluidity is actually characteristic of Bleach in general. It is equally obvious that it's possible to bridge the human world and Soul Society without death and rebirth, witness both Ichigo and his father. The Hollow-Shinigami connection, that they are two sides of one coin, also seems pretty separate from this sometime parallel, and both the Visored and the Arrancar merge Hueca Mundo and Soul Society in their very persons. Ichigo, being still alive, adds the human world to that merge. None of this has any particular parallel in Buddhism.
This is entirely in line with Kubo's subtlety and sense of complexity; he didn't just map characters onto a pre-existing cosmology, he borrowed some shapes from Buddhist cosmology and worked them into something new.
Speaking of complexity and fluidity.
This is, to date, pure speculation, but I think that, based on the rarity of shinigami with the strength to become Captains in the Thirteen, specialization among the Divisions is not rigid. I suspect that the tone of a given Division follows the Captain, by and large, rather than specific Divisions having permanent specialties.
The Eleventh, in particular, seems to be defined by a shared philosophy first, combat-heavy assignments being a secondary effect. As Yumichika tells Hisagi, everyone in the Eleventh shares Zaraki's attitude that, since everyone dies sooner or later, the important thing is to fight well until then (147). This is partially natural selection, and partially people getting pointed at the appropriate captain, by my guess.
This is somewhat complicated by the example of Kurotschi, who seems to have inherited both the Research Institute and the Division that had been built up around the last Institute head, Urahara, who was also a Captain. There is no evidence that the Institute is particularly associated with the Twelfth, or any other, Division, but a captain who is also the Institute head probably makes for a certain amount of related assignments. The same may or may not be true of the Second, under Soi Fong.
The rarity of truly powerful shinigami may also explain why there are two Captains wearing multiple hats.
The one Division that seems more likely to have a set specialty is the Fourth, since their headquarters are set up to serve as a hospital.
If specialization by Division or philosophical stamp by the captain are circumstantial developments, if, that is, there is no one answer to this, that would be very like Kubo. Much the way that some shinigami from Rukongai take their sector name as their surname (Hitsugaya, Zaraki, Kusajishi) while others choose by some other criteria (Hinamori, Abarai). It all depends.
Flow of Souls
We're told in 46, and by Rukia who is one of the more (relatively) reliable narrators, that the human world and Soul Society have a flow of souls moving between them, and that it goes in both directions. It's an evenly balanced cycle, that being the point of the lecture--when the Quincys destroyed Hollow-ed souls, rather than cleansing them and sending them on, that attrition unbalanced the exchange.
One thing I took from this was that very few Hollows escape shinigami attentions for good. Rather Hollow-dom and the Hollow World seem to form a sort of annex or waiting room, off the path from the human world to Soul Society. Souls constantly enter as new Hollows and leave as killed/cleansed Hollows, and while there is this permanent eddy in the flow of souls the net effect is null. Hollow-ed souls take a detour, but most of them get there eventually.
I also wondered about Hell, though. We see that sufficiently sullied and/or unrepentant souls do not enter the flow between the human world and Soul Society, but rather get Door 3. Whether this is temporary or permanent is not clear. Since this whole migration-and-rebirth thing has a very Buddhist flavor, I'm guessing it's temporary. So that makes another eddy or annex, from which souls will eventually enter circulation again.
So what we have is not two worlds, as Rukia's metaphors imply, but four, between which souls migrate.
Assuming all this, it is possible to map the Bleach worlds very, very loosely onto the six realms, or conditions of being, of Samsara as follows: hell=hell, animals presumably=animals, humans=humans, shinigami=asuras, hollows=hungry ghosts.
Asuras being particularly identified with fighting, they make a reasonable parallel to the shinigami. Hungry ghosts being characterized by neverending hunger that cannot be fed or filled, they correspond pretty well to the Hollows. This, of course, begs the question of where the devas, the sixth world's occupants, are, but I think that may be what Aizen is looking to become. (note on Samsara and denizens)
.
Living in Soul Society
Some things seem very straightforward. Souls appear in Soul Society with the same age and appearance they had at death, and proceed to age from there. This made me immediately wonder why Soul Society is not chock full of doddering oldsters, since that should be the majority, though perhaps not by much. In fact, the truly old seem very rare, in what we are shown. Going back to the Buddhist flavor, one thought that occurs to me is that, in the Bleach universe, souls that are killed early need to finish out their time, somehow--need to live a whole life in order to get whatever opportunities for enlightenment are to be had and burn off all of their karma. Rukongai, then, could be yet another eddy or annex, the home of "interrupted" souls; thus souls that have lived their full lives in the human world and died would not come there; instead, perhaps they are immediately reborn. When a Rukongai soul dies or is killed, perhaps it is reborn into the human world. Or as a Hollow. Or even as a member of the Court of Pure Souls. All depending on circumstances.
That gets us to the whole idea of being born in Soul Society. If shinigami more or less equal asuras, it makes some sense that souls are born/reborn among them--the Court of Pure Souls functions in some ways as a separate world from Rukongai; it's even got gate guards associated with the four holy beasts that keep it separate from Rukongai. We are told that shinigami and noble houses live there. Perhaps what makes the noble houses noble is precisely that their children are born into the Court of Pure Souls, and live out lives in the service of that world.
This is not, of course, a perfect parallel. Shinigami do also come from Rukongai; the 'worlds' are not completely separate and can be bridged without dying in Rukongai and being reborn. That fluidity is actually characteristic of Bleach in general. It is equally obvious that it's possible to bridge the human world and Soul Society without death and rebirth, witness both Ichigo and his father. The Hollow-Shinigami connection, that they are two sides of one coin, also seems pretty separate from this sometime parallel, and both the Visored and the Arrancar merge Hueca Mundo and Soul Society in their very persons. Ichigo, being still alive, adds the human world to that merge. None of this has any particular parallel in Buddhism.
This is entirely in line with Kubo's subtlety and sense of complexity; he didn't just map characters onto a pre-existing cosmology, he borrowed some shapes from Buddhist cosmology and worked them into something new.
.
Structurally speaking
Speaking of complexity and fluidity.
This is, to date, pure speculation, but I think that, based on the rarity of shinigami with the strength to become Captains in the Thirteen, specialization among the Divisions is not rigid. I suspect that the tone of a given Division follows the Captain, by and large, rather than specific Divisions having permanent specialties.
The Eleventh, in particular, seems to be defined by a shared philosophy first, combat-heavy assignments being a secondary effect. As Yumichika tells Hisagi, everyone in the Eleventh shares Zaraki's attitude that, since everyone dies sooner or later, the important thing is to fight well until then (147). This is partially natural selection, and partially people getting pointed at the appropriate captain, by my guess.
This is somewhat complicated by the example of Kurotschi, who seems to have inherited both the Research Institute and the Division that had been built up around the last Institute head, Urahara, who was also a Captain. There is no evidence that the Institute is particularly associated with the Twelfth, or any other, Division, but a captain who is also the Institute head probably makes for a certain amount of related assignments. The same may or may not be true of the Second, under Soi Fong.
The rarity of truly powerful shinigami may also explain why there are two Captains wearing multiple hats.
The one Division that seems more likely to have a set specialty is the Fourth, since their headquarters are set up to serve as a hospital.
If specialization by Division or philosophical stamp by the captain are circumstantial developments, if, that is, there is no one answer to this, that would be very like Kubo. Much the way that some shinigami from Rukongai take their sector name as their surname (Hitsugaya, Zaraki, Kusajishi) while others choose by some other criteria (Hinamori, Abarai). It all depends.