The Buddhist concept of “Consciousness-Only” in Victor Pelevin’s novel “Omon Ra”
- DOI
- 10.5922/vestnikpsy-2025-2-8
- Pages
- 88—99
Abstract
Buddhist ideas, motifs, and imagery are present throughout the works of Viktor Pelevin, from his earliest writings to his most recent novellas and novels. His 1991 novel “Omon Ra”, alongside its diverse philosophical, cultural, and literary allusions, draws upon the Buddhist philosophical concept of “consciousness-only,” which posits that only consciousness truly exists, while the external world is ultimately unreal. The image of the “Soviet Cosmos” in Pelevin’s novel combines at least two meanings — the near-Earth or near-lunar fragment of the universe and the Soviet world order — and also serves as a metaphor for the psychic world within which every person exists and which each individual generates. The protagonist of Omon Ra is portrayed less as a cosmonaut than as a psychonaut, discovering a psychic cosmos with a simulacral nature. The world depicted in Pelevin’s narrative is richly illusory: it resembles a child’s drawing or a theatrical stage and may be characterized as oneiric, māyā-like (from the Sanskrit māyā), or samsaric. Through intertextual references, allusions to mythology, cinema, and literature, Pelevin emphasizes the illusory nature of his characters. In “Omon Ra”, the chronotope is also depicted as conditional, existing outside of conventional systems of temporal and spatial coordinates. The reality portrayed in the novel is, in the Buddhist sense, empty — that is, subjectively motivated. The mirror-like and simultaneously circular composition captures the protagonist’s endless journey within the cyclical movement of the illusory world of saṃsāra, while the open ending suggests the possibility of the hero’s liberation.