The Doom that Came to Sarnath

"The Doom that Came to Sarnath" (1920) is an early short story by H. P. Lovecraft. It is written in a mythic/fairy tale style and is associated with his Dream Cycle.

"The Doom That Came to Sarnath and Other Stories" is also the title for a collection of short stories by Lovecraft, first published in February 1971.

Inspiration

The influence of Lord Dunsany on the story can be seen in the reference to a throne "wrought of one piece of ivory, though no man lives who knows whence so vast a piece could have come", which evokes the gate "carved out of one solid piece" of ivory in Dunsany's "Idle Days on the Yann". [Joshi and Schultz, p. 70.]

Though Sarnath was a historical city in India--the place where the Buddha (Gautama Buddha) first taught--Lovecraft said that he thought he invented the name independently. [Joshi and Schultz, p. 69.]

ynopsis

According to the tale, more than 10,000 years ago, a race of shepherd people colonized the banks of the river Ai in a land called Mnar, forming the cities of Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron (not to be confused with Kadath), which rose to great intellectual and prowess. Craving more land, a group of these hardy people migrated to the shores of a lonely and vast lake at the heart of Mnar, founding the metropolis of Sarnath.

But the settlers were not alone. At the other side of the lake was the ancient, grey-stone city of Ib, inhabited by a queer race who had descended from the moon. Lovecraft described them as "in hue as green as the lake and the mists that rise above it.... [T] hey had bulging eyes, pouting, flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice. [H. P. Lovecraft, "The Doom that Came to Sarnath".]

These beings worshipped a strange god known as Bokrug, the "Great Water Lizard", although it was more their physical form that caused the people of Sarnath to despise them.

The people of Sarnath killed the creatures inhabiting Ib and took their idol as a trophy. The next night, the idol vanished under peculiar circumstances, and Taran-Ish, the high-priest of Sarnath, was found dead. Before dying, he had scrawled a single sign on the altar: "DOOM".

Ten centuries later, Sarnath was at the height of its power and decadence. Nobles from distant cities were invited to the feast in honour of Ib's destruction. That night, however, the revelry was disrupted by strange lights over the lake and heavy mists, and that the tidal marker, the granite pillar Akurion, was mostly submerged. Not too much later, many of the city's inhabitants fled, maddened by fear. Some reported seeing the long-dead inhabitants of Ib peering from the windows of the towers, while others refused to say exactly what they had seen.

Those that returned saw nothing of those unlucky enough to be left behind, only rubble, many water lizards, and, most disturbingly, the missing idol of Bokrug. Ever since, Bokrug has been the chief god of Ilarnek.

Connections

In the story "The Quest of Iranon", the title character says, "I...have gazed on the marsh where Sarnath once stood." When the narrator of "The Nameless City" sees the titular ruins, he says he "thought of Sarnath the Doomed, that stood in the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and of Ib, that was carven of grey stone before mankind existed." In "At the Mountains of Madness", the city of the Elder Things is described as "a megalopolis ranking with such whispered prehuman blasphemies as Valusia, R’lyeh, Ib in the land of Mnar, and the Nameless City of Arabia Deserta."

"The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" features evil creatures known as moon-beasts who correspond in many ways to the physical description of the inhabitants of Ib and who dwell, as the name implies, on the moon, wherefrom the inhabitants of Ib first descended according to legend.

The inhabitants of Ib are known in the works of author Lin Carter as the Thuum'ha.

References

*Cite book|first=Howard P.|last=Lovecraft|chapter=The Doom That Came to Sarnath|origyear=1920|year=1986|title=Dagon and Other Macabre Tales|editor=S. T. Joshi (ed.)|edition=9th corrected printing|publisher=Arkham House|location=Sauk City, WI|id=ISBN 0-87054-039-4 Definitive version.

Notes