River of Oblivion
忘川 (망천) means the river of forgetting -- the river that, once crossed, erases one's former life. lethal means deadly; causing death. East Asian idiom and Western myth mirror the same human truth.
The Meeting
Five rivers flow through Hades, the Greek underworld. Among them, Lethe is the "river of forgetting" -- the dead who drank of it left for new lives, having forgotten every memory of the world above. Thousands of kilometers away in China, there was a river that all must cross before passing into the afterlife: the Mangcheon (忘川). On its bank stood Meng Po, who held out a broth of oblivion. On one side, the river itself was forgetting; on the other, an old woman by the river was forgetting's keeper.
Western Myth — Lethe, the River of Forgetting
Lethe was one of the five rivers flowing through the underworld (Hades) of Greek myth. Its name comes from the Greek λήθη (lēthē) -- "forgetting." In Book VI of Virgil's Aeneid, when Aeneas visits the underworld, souls awaiting rebirth are shown drinking the waters of Lethe and forgetting their former lives. In the Myth of Er, in Book X of Plato's Republic, souls likewise pass through the "Plain of Lethe" and drink the waters before taking on new bodies. The opposite of Lethe is aletheia (ἀλήθεια) -- "a- (negation) + lēthē (forgetting)" = "unconcealment, truth." Heidegger called truth "that which escapes forgetting (aletheia)." Lethe, meanwhile, became around 1600 the root of the English lethal (deadly) -- for the river of forgetting was also the river of death. Lethargy (listlessness) and lethiferous (deadly) share the same root.
The truth the etymology of lethal reveals: in the West, "death" and "forgetting" sprang from a single root. To drink the river Lethe was to forget one's former life -- and that was but another name for death. When a person dies, they are forgotten rather than remembered -- and that was the greatest death of all.
-
Oxford English Dictionary"lethal, adj." c.1600, from Latin lethalis "deadly," from lethum/letum "death," associated with Greek lēthē "forgetfulness."
-
Online Etymology Dictionaryetymonline.com/word/lethal — link between Lethe (river of forgetfulness) and death in ancient Greek thought.
Eastern Lore — The River of Forgetting, Mangcheon and Meng Po's Broth
The Mangcheon (忘川) is, in Chinese folklore and Daoist hell mythology, the river dividing this world from the next. After the dead have passed in turn before the Ten Kings of the netherworld (冥府), they must cross the Mangcheon before they can be reborn. Along its bank lie the Yellow Springs Road (黃泉路) and the red spider lilies (彼岸花), and from the Terrace of Homeward Gazing (望鄕臺) one may look back upon the world of the living one last time. At the next stage waits an old woman named Meng Po (孟婆), who hands every soul a broth of oblivion called Meng Po's broth (孟婆湯). Whoever drinks it loses every memory of the former life, then crosses the Bridge of Helplessness (奈河橋), mounts the wheel of reincarnation, and begins a new life. The Tang poet Su Shi (蘇軾) wrote that "the memories of a lifetime vanish in a single bowl of Meng Po's broth." Korea's Samdocheon (三途川) and Japan's Sanzu no Kawa (三途の川) share the same origin.
The essence of the Mangcheon is the Eastern thought that "forgetting makes a new beginning possible." If memory remained, a new life could never be new. Oblivion is not a curse but a mercy -- and Meng Po is an old woman precisely because the warm broth, passed by a grandmother's hand, is the final rite of death.
Where the Mirrors Meet — Where the Two Myths Converge
Both share the identical structure of "crossing a river after death and forgetting one's memories." Lethe and the Mangcheon are, in effect, the same river.
Both share the formula "forgetting = a new beginning." Memory must vanish before rebirth, before a new life, can begin.
Yet their attitudes differ. The West linked forgetting to tragedy (lethal = deadly); the East linked it to mercy (Meng Po's warm broth).
Both live on in daily speech. Lethal still means "deadly" in English; the Mangcheon and Samdocheon still mean "the river of the dead" across East Asia.
Mnemonic — One Line to Take Home
- ✓ lethal = from Lethe, the river of forgetting. Deadly; causing death.
- ✓ 忘川 (mangcheon) = the river of forgetting. The river that, once crossed, erases one's former life.
- ✓ Remember it in one stroke: "Lethal and mangcheon -- two different civilizations telling the same story."
"Myth does not die. It still breathes today, in lethal and in mangcheon."
