Soidla T. R. (2008) Quiet life of wisdom in language and fairy tales: Svarog and Koschei. Sutra 1(1), 104-106.

World Congress on Psychology and Spirituality-2008, Delhi, India

Quiet life of wisdom in language and fairy tales: Svarog and Koschei

Tonu R. Soidla,

St. Petersburg, Russia

In Russian mythology, Koschei, (also Kashchei) is an evil person of ugly senile appearance, menacing principally young women. Koschei is also known as Koschei the Immortal or Koschei the Deathless. This name may be derived from "kost’" (bone), thus suggesting a skeleton-like appearance (Kaschei-Wikipedia, 2007). The fairy tales involving Kaschei are still very popular among Russian children.

Tilak (1903) considered Koschei as a Vedic hero, representative of evil forces of cold, darkness and death. This ascription was penetrating but rather intuitive.

Demin (2007) has provided some evidence in support of the original version of the name as “Kosh the Immortal.” The root “kosh” exists in contemporary Russian language, for example, in “koshelek” (a purse).

Koschei is called Immortal because he cannot be killed by conventional means targeting his body. “His soul is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest, which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on the island of Buyan, in the ocean”(Kaschei-Wikipedia, 2007).

Quite unexpectedly this description reminds us of the structure of five sheaths (koshas) veiling Atman according to the Taittriya Upanishad.

Five sheaths: of food, of the vital breath, of the mind, of the intellect and of bliss veil Brahman/Atman (“A tma,”” a tamas”). In Sanskrit the sheaths are named koshas: Annamaya kosha, Pranamaya kosha, Manomaya kosha, Vijnanamaya kosha, Anandamaya kosha (Swami Nikhilananda, translator, 2006).

Possibly this meaning of the word “kosha” allows for considering Kosh the Immortal as a dramatic visualization of the archetypical small “I,” ego, as opposed to the real “I,” Self.

Then one can see Kaschei’s death as an Ego death due to realizing the true Self (Atman).

Alternatively, Kaschei can be considered as Tamas coated in five sheaths like an Atman, perhaps an ancient dualistic counterpart of Atman.

The term illusion, in the form of tempting and evil Mara, seems also to apply to the events related to Kaschei’s death, especially, when taking into account, that the main consort of Kaschei is a sorceress called Marena (Morena) (Marena-Wikipedia, 2007). Here one can call to mind the “matryoshka dolls,” nested dolls that are very popular in Russia that call to one’s memory both the sheaths of Atman and sheaths of the Kaschei’s death-needle. The derivation of Matrena (giving rise to Matryoshka) from Marena remains conjectural, of course. Matryoshkas look healthy, rustic, naïve, beyond anything evil or mystical. But who knows?

Also the egg, the last sheath of the deadly needle, seems to hint at the world egg (cosmic egg), found in the creation myths of many cultures and civilizations. (Usually, the universe or some primordial being comes into existence hatching from such an egg.) The result of breaking such an egg can obviously lead to global consequences (Demin, 2007).

Indeed, in the version of Kaschei tales (Naumov, 1994) that involve his consort Marena, the very act of killing Koschei leads to a kind of pralaya, to the end of the world caused by global fire, followed by flood.

Illusion or not, the cosmogonic role of Koschei shows that a wholly black view of this hero is not the whole truth about him. Demin (2007) found evidence allowing us to consider Koschei being related to Kashyapa. In the Puranas, Kashyapa was an ancient sage (one of the rishis), father of the Devas, Asuras, Nagas and all ofhumanity