no bc i’m obsessed with this little interaction. this is probably the first time in his entire life that someone said “i expect great things from you” to him, or at least it’s the first time he’s heard it in awhile and i love how quickly he shut up after that
that soft gaze for a second before going back to his tsundere self and tsking at her, we all know he was having an emotional episode on the inside
This post goes into deep analysis of Buddhist philosophy and the events of A Parade of Providence, spoiling both the event and the events of the Inversion of Genesis. Please read at your own risk!
In concluding Sumeru, I had to give some thought on the big event of the region and wanted to understand why it was that it featured Kaveh so heavily, why Wanderer was chosen for Vahumana, and what exactly it was trying to say about Sumeru overall.
... This also may have been research for an upcoming fic but that is neither here nor there.
Now, all that's left is the evidence.
Lofty ideals may provide no defense at all against nihilism, but perhaps little decisions can. By their own choice, the idealist seeks to bring happiness to all, while denying themselves the same. Thus they shall never reach even the borders of truth until they wipe away the ignorance that blinds them.
— Alhaitham, in his investigation on Sachin’s disappearance
No one, not even I included, can understand [truth] in its entirety. All of us are somewhere on the path toward truth.
— Nahida, The Arc of Intellect
On the last quest of the event, it's revealed that Nahida ordered Wanderer to join the Championship to make sure that whoever inherited Sachin’s research wasn’t going to use it to harm people.
Allegedly.
(This investigation seemed to largely skip over Matra jurisdiction as well, with Nahida planning to let Wanderer mete out extrajudicial justice, when deemed necessary.
… Unless Wanderer is part of the Matra now. Now, that certainly is a thought.)
Sachin’s essays involved experiments confirming his allegedly bleak nihilistic views re: the future of mankind. These essays are, in fact, philosophies in Madhyamaka (which seems to just be referencing Tantric Buddhism… which just so happens to be what Wanderer is designed after).
Madhyamaka, for brief context, is a path of Buddhism founded by Nagarjuna, who further expanded upon nihilism in Buddhist texts. Nagarjuna, of course, also exists in Teyvat under the same name, founding the Order of Skeptics.
In the investigations around Sachin and Kaveh's father, it seems that Sachin's point of interest in desert research had been the Nagarjunites– the lost Darshan, so to speak. After eight years, Sachin came to the conclusion, after seemingly having met with the Order of Skeptics, that humanity is doomed to forever keep the suffering suffering, keeping them from ever reaching the thrones of Celestia due to their own selfishness.
The inclusion of his inheritance and the diadem in the Championship is one of Sachin’s last experiments, a challenge to see if showcasing greed and the promise of power and wealth urging humans into beating each other down would draw out a like-minded idealist who wishes to seek similar truths among the rabble.
Which, it did. Twice.
Kaveh’s Philosophy
Nahida’s point in making Wanderer watch out for the developments of this particular experiment means that she might have known what happened to Kaveh’s father 20 years ago. She must have wanted Wanderer to watch what Kaveh would have done, had he accepted Sachin’s inheritance and research. As an extension, she must have wanted him to either learn from or understand Kaveh’s own philosophies as an idealist. She wanted Wanderer to either help Kaveh or learn from the guilt erupting from turning a blind eye, had he let Kaveh die or get hurt in that experiment.
Backing this, Nahida believes that Kaveh’s philosophy on the truth is an unpopular but very wise interpretation that Sumeru should adopt as a whole. From his own Character Story:
The selfish cannot understand wisdom's final destination. Though all of us might claim to have a place in this great hall of learning, we must understand that it is people, and not knowledge, that make our world what it is. Without a vessel, knowledge shall have no home. Universal values must naturally have some merit to be named such, and denying their general meaning does not mean that minority viewpoints will arise accordingly. This is the case with aesthetics. Beauty is something objective that exists in human hearts. It will not lose its value simply because some people cannot understand it.
To view oneself as some mighty vessel is to fall to the narrowness of the researcher. Know that truth has never existed for the sake of individuals. The logic of the world coexists with nature, and this will not easily change whether it is interpreted as such or not. Excessive belief in the object is self-disclosure just the same, a manifestation of a lack of confidence in the subject. Moreover, one who is sufficiently self-confident will not need to constantly use plural forms of address, such as 'we.' I alone am sufficient to sustain this position — this I can assert.
In this sense, Wanderer and Sachin’s beliefs that a history of conflict is a self-perpetuating cycle is one Nahida does not contest. It lays in Alhaitham’s note at the beginning of this post.
Lofty ideals may provide no defense at all against nihilism, but perhaps little decisions can.
As change is the only constant in Buddhism, a butterfly effect occurs.
Because Wanderer does improve himself in the Championship.
In every challenge, he assists contestants while not even participating in the event itself. While it is true that he doesn’t want the prizes, or the diadem, while it is true that he’s under direct orders to participate, challenging Layla’s lack of self-confidence, handing Tighnari water in the desert, and making sure Kaveh doesn’t fly off-course and wins the final round are all acts that equally amount to nothing.
And yet he did so anyway.
Like little decisions as a defense against nihilism.
