In mythologics from all parts of the world, the motif of the descent to the Underworld (see Underworld) is common. Sometimes the hero—for example, the Greeks Herakles, Orpheus, and Theseus—makes the descent in search of destiny or of a lost lover or relative. In some cases a god or goddess—for example, the Summerian-Babylonian Inanna—descends. As part of the traditional hero journey, the myth of the descent seems to signify several things: for instance, a return to Mother Earth in preparation for rebirth into a higher divine hero state or the facing of death before full selfhood can be achieved. Psychologically, the descent is the “night journey” or “dark night of the soul,” which points to the fact that to be whole the self must rule his or her inner world. The motif of the descent to the Underworld may not be as prevalent in the Eastern traditions as in the Western. It is nevertheless clearly present. In India there is the popular story of the beautiful Sāvitrī (see Sāvitrī), who follows Yāma (see Yāma), the Vedic (see Vedism) god of death, to the gates of the Underworld and convinces him to release her husband Satyavān from death. In the Upaniṣads (see Upaniṣads), the story is told of the young Brahmān Naciketas, who in the Underworld manages to obtain from Yāma the knowledge that beyond death itself is the Absolute, the Brahman (see Brahman). In China, the goddess Guanyin (see Guanyin) is also a heroine who dies and returns from the Underworld where she demonstrates her powers. Having been killed by her wrathful father's servant, Guanyin rides on the back of a tiger to the Land of the Dead (see Underworld). There she relieves the shades of their eternal sorrow with her beautiful singing. Enraged, the king of the Land of the Dead sends her back to earth, where she lives on an island from which she sends mercy and solace to those who pray to her (see Chinese Deities). In Japan it is the creator god Izanagi who makes a disastrous descent to the Underworld in search of his wife Izanami (see Izanagi and Izanami).
