Recently, I have been reading Buddhist scriptures. Tannisho, Shobogenzo, and Vajrayana.
I am not a Buddhist, but I have always been interested in Buddhist thought (I dare not say religion).
The sutras are, simply put, the written teachings of Buddha, but over the years, as they have spread through sutra copying to many people, new interpretations, sometimes different versions, and even other ideas, such as Taoism and Hinduism, have been incorporated into them.
In the process, contradictions and inappropriate words and phrases are weeded out, and only the most widely appreciated versions (sutras) remain, regardless of whether they are faithful to the Buddha’s teachings and whether they are correct or incorrect.
Especially when one reads Buddhist scriptures without a religious mind, one thinks of them as one big mythological story about “salvation,” not to mention their contents. In other words, a version of the bible with many hands in it and a group of spin-off works.
At the risk of being laughed at, I would say that in this day and age, Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Gundam series is probably the closest thing to it.
You see, Gundam began nearly half a century ago with the First Gundam Space Century, followed by various spin-offs, the remastered Gundam SEED, and the latest, The Witch of Mercury.
Some people only accept the Space Century series, which is considered the legitimate one, but it has already been nearly fifty years, and there is no right Gundam there, nor is there a top and bottom of the works.
There are only Gundams that the viewer chooses and likes. Among them, the first Gundam may be a special existence, like the “Heart Sutra” in the Buddhist scriptures. As a certain Merkmal.
I will discuss the affinity between Gundam and Buddhist thought at another time. I wrote an article titled “Who owns the unfinished works?” A great story that truly remains may be handed down through the hands of many others, like a Buddhist scripture group, Greek mythology, the Koran, and so on.
And a truly original writer would be someone like Yoshiyuki Tomino, who wrote the first Gundam, or Ryuju in the Buddhist tradition.
From there, many legitimate, sublime, and derivative works will emerge, and that may be the only way for one work to escape the fading of time, with the exception of works that are considered classics.
And someday, I would like to write such a novel. It is a writer’s dream. Like the Tannisho, the Lotus Sutra, and the Heart Sutra, which will remain forever.
See you soon.
