Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken.
- Book of Chan
Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers.
One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
"Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his commanding voice, "Why don't you do something worthwhile. What is your Purpose in Life, anyway?"
Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU."[1]
Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened. Primarily because nobody could understand Chinese.
Zarathud is the 4th apostle of Discordia, and the patron saint of Bureaucracy.
Zarathud has never been known to compete in the Olympics.
Chinese ideograms
==Notes==
- ↑ "MU" is the Chinese Ideogram for NO-THING.
For your interest and possible enlightenment, here is some seriously esoteric exegesis of the Principia Discordia from Pseudo-Sadhu Don Coyote of the Orthodox Discordian Cabal on this passage. You see, the word MU is not Chinese for "No-Thing," it is actually Japanese for "No-Thing." The Chinese word for "No-Thing" is WU - though the character or ideogram for both languages is the same. Obviously, a Sacred Chao would speak Chinese rather than Japanese, as Chaoism was begun in China long ago in antiquity (see N. J. Girardot's Myth and Meaning in Ancient Taoism: the Theme of Chaos). So, what was the Sacred Chao saying to Zarathud? It turns out that the word MU in Chinese (different ideogram) means (among other things) "tree" (see picture of poorly drawn Chinese characters). While the ideogram now is slightly different, the original form, shown in the picture, represented a tree trunk with two limbs branching out and upward, and two roots bifurcating down and outward. This clearly looks just like the Five Fingered Hand of Eris. Speaking of which, have you ever wondered why the FFHoE is called that, seeing as it looks more like it has six fingers? Well fret no more. The Sacred Chao is wise and had much to teach with it's Mu. It turns out that another very common meaning of MU in Chinese is (really) the number "5" (again, with a different character, not pictured). If one digs deep enough, the Principia Discordia is filled with such gems. Then again, if the Sacred Chao was speaking to Zarathud in Sanskrit, it could have been saying "muh" (pronounced "mu"), which means "to be confused." Praise Eris for cursing the aneristic builders of the Tower of Babel (and throw in a Hail Tiamat for good measure) and confusing the tongues of mankind!