Wagner & Buddhism

There is an amalgamation of Buddhism and Christianity in "Parsifal". This, as we know, is also one of the hallmarks of Manichaeism.

Richard Wagner was very well read in Buddhism, and incorporated it in his operas:

The name "Tristan" means sorrow and sadness (the world of Samsara). It is the sadness of separation from God:

"It might also be argued that there are no specifically Buddhist ideas in Tristan.....The subject of his Tristan und Isolde is not salvation but the suffering caused by the desire for extinction.
"Whether that deliverance or extinction takes the form of absorption into Brahman or transition into Nirvana is unimportant, in the context of the drama. From a remark that Wagner made to Cosima many years later, that Kundry had undergone Isolde's transfiguration a thousand times, it would appear that he had reached the view that Isolde had not yet escaped from samsara, which in notes in the Brown Book he equated to the realm of day; in contrast, Nirvana was the realm of night. So there is sufficient evidence from which to conclude that, if not during the composition of Tristan und Isolde then at least in reflecting on it later, Wagner thought of Tristan yearning for Nirvana, the realm of night."

-Derrick Everett
In the Wagnerian Parsifal, he shoots a swan: 

"Off with you, be on your way!

Take some advice from Gurnemanz:

In future leave our swans in peace,

go seek -- you gander -- for geese!"

"Much later, in Parzival's wanderings, he comes across a goose that has been wounded by King Arthur's falcon. Three drops of blood fall on the snow; the red on white reminds Parzival of his distant wife, Condwiramurs. In contemplation of the blood on the snow, he falls into a trance."

The three drops of blood on the snow is also scene from the beginning of Snow White. The young Queen pricks her finger while sewing and three drops of blood fall onto the snow.

⇋⇋⇋⇋⇋

In the writings of Basil Valentinus the Swan represents the third level of initiation- Raven and Peacock being 1st and 2nd. In this level Inspiration as the Divine Word, the Harmony of the Spheres, sounds forth.

"In the third degree he meets death and must sing the Swan's song. He then dies to everything earthly."

-Notes from Walter Stein's The Ninth Century.

From Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia"-

It happened one vernal day that a wild swan was shot by an idle courtier as the flock flew near the palace, and the wounded bird fell into the hands of Siddârtha. As he soothed the frightened, fluttering bird with tender touch, and drew the arrow from its side, he pressed the barb into his own wrist to make trial of the pain: --

Then some one came who said, "My Prince hath shot
A swan, which fell among the roses here.
He bids me pray you send it. Will you send?
"Nay," quoth Siddârtha, "if the bird were dead
To send it to the slayer might be well,
But the swan lives; my cousin hath but killed
The god-like speed which throbbed in this white wing."

And Devadatta answered, "The wild thing,
Living or dead, is his who fetched it down;
'Twas no man's in the clouds, but fall'n't is mine,
Give me my prize, fair Cousin." Then our Lord
Laid the swan's neck beside his own smooth cheek
And gravely spake, "Say no! the bird is mine,
The first of myriad things which shall be mine
By right of mercy and love's lordliness.
For now I know, by what within me stirs,
That I shall teach compassion unto men
And be a speechless world's interpreter,
Abating this accursed flood of woe"
(end of quote)

"In Wieland Wagner's interpretation of Parsifal, the spiritual hero progressed from the realm of mother and matter, symbolised by the swan, to the realm of father and spirit, symbolised by the dove. In this interpretation the incident with the swan can be seen as the starting point of Parsifal's journey and the descending dove as the end of that journey. In Wieland's famous Bayreuth production (1951-1973), however, the dove was omitted. Perhaps because this symbol suggests a parallel between Parsifal and Christ, one that Richard Wagner repeatedly denied had been his intention."

Kundry is the Kundalini:

Then someone chances upon her in a cave, or in dense undergrowth, in a deathlike sleep, lifeless, numb, bloodless, with all limbs rigid.

-Wagner's Prose Draft of 1865

After Parsfal's destiny is played out another union takes place - that of Parsifal with his wife Kondawiramur. They meet where Parsifal once saw three drops of blood in the snow. It was on this spot that he fell into a state of continuing dream while overpowerd by desire for her. Now all this is overcome. His love is now free from egoism. It has become a healing love which, stripped of all egotistic desire, is a free and radiant blessing- like the light of the sun it streams over the world.

-T. Ravenscroft The Cup of Destiny