I would like to officially say "called it". 🙂
I've only started going through the track titles of the (finally!!) released OST for 6.6 and I'm already vibrating like an overwhelmed Chihuahua.
To start with the Datattore boss themes...
Part 1 is called Beyond The Sphere of Dukha
Dukha is a Hindu/Buddhist term for suffering. It can mean suffering, pain, dissatisfaction, incompleteness
It is part of the pain of the samsaras, the endless cycle of death and rebirth. Or as my man himself put it:
So the song title can be translated as "Beyond The World Of Suffering".
When you remember that the domain of the boss fight is named "Binding Field Of Universal Nirvana" you begin to really see the vision. A bodhisattva is an enlightened being making personal sacrifices to lead the suffering world out of samsaras to liberation = Nirvana.
Part 2 is where we really get into the Mahayana philosophy. It's titled Advaita Of The Perpetual World
Advaita, one of the most influential schools of Vedanta, which is one of the six orthodox philosophical systems (darshans) of Indian philosophy. While its followers find its main tenets already fully expressed in the Upanishads and systematized by the Brahma-sutras (also known as the Vedanta-sutras), it has its historical beginning with the 7th-century-ce thinker Gaudapada, author of the Mandukya-karika, a commentary in verse form on the Mandukya Upanishad.
Gaudapada builds further on the Mahayana Buddhist concept of shunyata (“emptiness”). He argues that there is no duality; the mind, awake or dreaming, moves through maya (“illusion”); and nonduality (advaita) is the only final truth. That truth is concealed by the ignorance of illusion. There is no becoming, either of a thing by itself or of a thing out of some other thing. There is ultimately no individual self or soul (jiva), only the atman (universal soul), in which individuals may be temporarily delineated, just as the space in a jar delineates a part of the larger space around it: when the jar is broken, the individual space becomes once more part of the larger space.
So this part addresses that death of self (or dissolution of soul) I jokingly predicted.
And I love how you can read this both as 35 suffering as a shadow aspect of a long dead man, frozen and unable to change, or generic Dottore raging against the physical and metaphysical constraints of the world.
I am increasingly certain that 35 planned this chain of events from the start, and that burning in Irminsul with all the other soul fragments was exactly to obtain that dissolution of soul this philosophy alludes to. The Crucible, where the dukha of incompleteness will be overcome by rejoining the torn fragments of "self" into the greater overarching soul. My man. 😭
The there is no becoming, either of a thing by itself or of a thing out of some other thing aspect is also repeated in the lyrics of his Nod-Krai boss theme Prajnaparamitopadesa To Quell Seven Calamities.
Finally, honestly, the new song title that blew my mind the most: Discernment Of Mumukshutva
Because oh, there is a concept for Dottore's hellbent desperation for freedom.
Mumukshutva means the intense longing for liberation. More than curiosity, it is the fire that makes freedom the top priority.
Mumukshutva transforms worldly dissatisfaction into spiritual urgency.
It is compared to the need for air when drowning: an absolute, non-negotiable necessity.
Most human striving is born of desire: for wealth, recognition, power, family, or pleasure. Yet each attainment brings with it disappointment and further longing. At some point, a seeker may look at the endless cycle and say: “Enough. I want freedom — not from this sorrow or that one, but from sorrow altogether. I want to end limitation itself.” That burning, all-consuming desire for liberation (moksha) is called mumukshutva (mumukṣutva).
Source: Broken Tusk, among others
Note how often this need is described as burning.
What is the agony of burning for seven days and seven nights, when you're already burning? What is the suffering of dissolution of Self, when you've already spent centuries locked in bitter battle against the dukha, the countless tribulations, of pointless samsaras?
Incidentally, the theme for him succumbing to the flames of the burning Irminsul is titled Fire Realm Contemplation. Which is an interesting word to use for burning to death. 🙂
(Mandatory note: I know very little of Buddhist philosophy beyond what google's told me, so grain of salt!)
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