“Samsara,” inspired by the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West,” draws from themes and imagery from this mythologized account of the historical pilgrimage of a seventh century Chinese monk. The story relates the monk’s 16-year journey to the west (from a Chinese perspective) through Central Asia to India to obtain sacred Buddhist texts. In the novel, the monk is joined on this arduous trek by three animal companions, and together, they succeed in their mission by virtue of their undeterred cooperation.
The word samsara refers to the endless cycle of repeated birth, mundane existence and dying that is a core belief in Indic thought. This suffering state, perpetuated by our unsatisfiable desire and delusion (that we are separate from one another), is what the spiritual systems spawned in the Indus Valley seek to awaken from. In speaking with Odedra about the title, he shared:
I was drawn to this monk’s journey because historically, there were 54 monks who had attempted this same journey and had not succeeded in making it back alive. I had this image in my mind of this monk walking through the Gobi Desert, seeing the footprints of those who had gone before him and feeling that he had been there before. Then I thought, ‘What if it was the same monk life after life after life… trying to reach this destination?’ That is how “Samsara” was born—from this idea of the wheel, this cycle of life and death and breaking free to attain this spiritual realization.
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