This paper compares a Tibetan pilgrimage account with a contemporary fantasy novel, showing the shared interests and techniques of two seemingly dissimilar works of literature written centuries apart in starkly different cultural milieus. I will argue that both texts weave the simple act of documenting facts into a grand and startling narrative about the awe and agony implicit in the discovery of truth.
The Tibetan travelogue is Taktsang Repa’s (Stag tshang ras pa, 1574-1651) Travel Account to Orgyen, the Land of Ḍākinīs: the Steps to Travel on the Path to Liberation (o rgyan mkha’ ’gro’i gling gi lam yig thar lam bgrod pa’i them skas), in which he documents his arduous pilgrimage on foot from Central Tibet to the land of Guru Padmasambhava—i.e. Oḍḍiyāṇa, likely present-day Swat Valley, Pakistan. In this travel account (lam yig), he mostly speaks of his journey in a tone that is disarmingly straightforward, documenting precisely the details of where he went, what he saw, and what he did. At times he gives more in-depth anecdotes, often humorous and sometimes tragic, that provide a sense of his personality beyond his identity as a pious pilgrim. He mostly travels alone, but sometimes partners up with others; he mostly finds other people helpful, but sometimes they hinder or even harm him on the path. Peppered throughout the narrative are poetic outbursts which provide another window into his emotional landscape as he journeys through peculiar terrains and encounters unfamiliar peoples. He is a traveller through strange places, across vast geographical territory, in search of enlightened experiences, and every strange encounter is yet another possible meeting with the extraordinary. Taktsang Repa travels to a distant land of Buddhist myth, the land where the “second buddha” Padmasambhava was born, and he finds that not all the places that once were still are, or not all places that are said to be sacred appear so to him.
The novel Piranesi, published by the British novelist Susanna Clarke in 2020, was Clarke’s highly anticipated and long-awaited sophomore effort after a hiatus of more than 15 years. Critics and readers who expected a sequel to her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell about two 19th-century magicians were taken aback by the publication of Piranesi, which is a staggeringly different work of speculative fiction. In Piranesi, the first-person narrator, who seems not to know his real name but goes by Piranesi, documents with meticulousness his daily life in the House, a vast, desolate place where he resides and of which he is continually making small but new discoveries. He believes this House to be the entirety of the world. The House is described as a classical monument in fantastic ruin, with connecting halls and vestibules that are not impervious to the coming of tidal waves and wind—a place one might find in the grandiose and bizarre etchings of the Italian artist Giovanni Piranesi (1720-1778). Piranesi’s journal entries, which make up the entirety of the novel, matter-of-factly document everything he discovers and everyone he encounters, which is almost no one except another person called the Other, who seems to know more about Piranesi than he lets on. As the novel progresses, Piranesi begins to piece together the truth of who he is and where he is, even as he continues to believe that his life’s purpose is to document every inch of the vast House in which he resides. He is a traveler of the world of the House, in search of what he calls “the Knowledge.” Piranesi travels as if the House is infinite and capable of leading him to insight—nothing in it is not sacred to him: “The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.”
Reading the two texts side by side, it is astonishing to find that they share an uncanny similarity of tone, a matter-of-factness that eventually paves the way to wonder and awe. This paper is thus an exploration of how reading a Tibetan pilgrimage text in light of a powerful work of fantasy about the search for truth enhances our understanding of Taktsang Repa’s journey, and throws into relief the similarities between outward and inward journeys.
Taktsang Repa’s travels are at times frightening for the expansiveness of physical ground he must cover, whereas Piranesi’s travels are frightening for the claustrophobia of which the protagonist himself is unaware. Yet there is no end to the discoveries that either makes, though their approaches to the internalization of experiences is different. After Piranesi leaves the House, he carries it within him: “In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows. In my mind are all the halls, the endless procession of them, the intricate pathways.” After Taktsang Repa’s journey ends, a journey in which he has many spiritual experiences, he lets them go, saying “If I were to talk about what appeared in fleeting meditative experiences and dream states, it would appear like tall tales to those unable to comprehend it, so I let it be.” The former carries his experiences with him like a dream, while the latter releases his experiences because they are like a dream.
Through juxtaposition with Clarke’s radical work of fiction, the narrative moves made by Taktsang Repa centuries earlier are brought into focus. This paper not only makes a comparison between two significant but culturally distant pieces of literature, but also demonstrates that Susanna Clarke’s engagement with the mind of the character Piranesi reveals something about how stories such as Taktsang Repa’s 17th-century spiritual journey to far-flung places remain relevant to contemporary readers.
Primary Sources
Clarke, Susanna. Piranesi. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. Kobo.
Stag tshang ra pa. O rgyan mkha’ ’gro’i gling gi lam yig thar lam bgrod pa’i them skas in O rgyan pa Stag tshang ras pa Ngag dbang rgya mtsho’i rnam thar/ mgur ’bum/ lam yig bcas bzhugs so. Leh, Ladakh: Central Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2008.
———. Stag tshang ras pa'i rnam thar dang rdo rje'i mgur. Leh, Ladakh: He mi dgon gyi par khang.
What does a 17th-century Tibetan travelogue have to do with the novel Piranesi? Taktsang Repa (Stag tshang ras pa, 1574-1651) documented his arduous pilgrimage from Central Tibet to the land of Padmasambhava in Travel Account to Orgyen, the Land of Ḍākinīs: the Steps to Travel on the Path to Liberation, which brims with disarming straightforwardness, candor, and unexpected turns of poetry. In 2020, the British novelist Susanna Clarke, who was by then highly celebrated despite having only published one other novel, released a puzzling new work of speculative fiction entitled Piranesi that took critics and readers alike by surprise. This paper argues that both texts weave the simple act of documenting facts into a grand and startling narrative about the awe and agony implicit in the discovery of truth. Through juxtaposition with Clarke’s radical work of fiction, the narrative moves made by Taktsang Repa centuries earlier are brought into focus.