Sam

Sam is the main character of the novel and is one of the original colonizers of the planet who came from Earth several generations previously. Sam is his most ordinary name, but over the course of his many reincarnations, he has been called many others, including Lord Kalkin, Mahasamatman, Tathagatha, Buddha, and the Lord of Light. He also assumes the identity of a man named Lord Murugan for a time.

Disgusted with the actions of the other original settlers, who have withheld technology from the new worlds and set themselves up in a pantheon of HIndu-like gods, Sam leaves the domed city in which they live and quietly introduces a counter movement based on Buddhism. He is not truly a Buddhist, but simply promotes the teachings as a means to oppose the gods. As his movement becomes stronger, the gods begin to push back, resulting in two large...