Why?
In 2016, among the top selling books on Amazon's environment section was The Myth Gap, authored by Alex Evans. Interestingly, the tagline of the book reads: What happens when evidence and arguments aren't enough.
(http://mythgap.org/)
And that's precisely why mankind needs myths - to explain the world around us when evidence and arguments are not enough. Myths are the stories we tell ourselves that help us navigate the infinitely complex world we live in.
What?
Myths could be elusive religious beliefs such as Karma or Moksha (that the followers of Indic religions - Hindus, Buddhists, Jains- believe in) or secular beliefs such as democracy, socialism and free trade, or even political/economic concepts such as that of a state, government, nationhood and currency.
Israeli social scientist Yuval Noah Harari refers to these myths as 'fictional realities' and attributes the success of our species on this planet to our mutual agreement to believe in these 'fictional realities'. (Ted talk by Yuval Harari) Contemporary Indian mythologist, Devdutt Pattanaik labels these myths the 'subjective truths' of a society.
So, mythology is not merely about stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharatha or Iliad and Odyssey; it is all those stories on which our civilizational edifice is built. As Alex Evans says, "without shared myths to bind societies together, the risks of fragmentation, polarization and conflict increase dramatically - just as we see all around us today."
How?
So it is important we tell stories to each other. After all, one key reason how India as a 'union of states' has survived despite its tremendous cultural and geographical diversity is because of its shared interest in our epics, especially Ramayana (Refer Three hundred Ramayanas - An essay by AK Ramanujan for the different existing versions of the epic), apart, of course, from cricket and Bollywood. The fact that we are able to identify specific sacred geography associated with each and every episode from the epic across the length of India is proof of our belief in the shared myth.
In the following posts, I hope to engage you with interesting myths about ourselves, our gods, our rituals & practices, and our cultural expressions through symbols and art.
But learning is enriched only when there are debates and discussions. So, hope to hear your view points too, that'll make the myth-sharing an exciting experience for all of us!!
Note: The idea of this blog is to admire and appreciate the beauty of the stories we share, and to explore the various possibilities that could have led to their formation and dispersion.
In 2016, among the top selling books on Amazon's environment section was The Myth Gap, authored by Alex Evans. Interestingly, the tagline of the book reads: What happens when evidence and arguments aren't enough.
(http://mythgap.org/)
And that's precisely why mankind needs myths - to explain the world around us when evidence and arguments are not enough. Myths are the stories we tell ourselves that help us navigate the infinitely complex world we live in.
What?
Myths could be elusive religious beliefs such as Karma or Moksha (that the followers of Indic religions - Hindus, Buddhists, Jains- believe in) or secular beliefs such as democracy, socialism and free trade, or even political/economic concepts such as that of a state, government, nationhood and currency.
Israeli social scientist Yuval Noah Harari refers to these myths as 'fictional realities' and attributes the success of our species on this planet to our mutual agreement to believe in these 'fictional realities'. (Ted talk by Yuval Harari) Contemporary Indian mythologist, Devdutt Pattanaik labels these myths the 'subjective truths' of a society.
So, mythology is not merely about stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharatha or Iliad and Odyssey; it is all those stories on which our civilizational edifice is built. As Alex Evans says, "without shared myths to bind societies together, the risks of fragmentation, polarization and conflict increase dramatically - just as we see all around us today."
How?
So it is important we tell stories to each other. After all, one key reason how India as a 'union of states' has survived despite its tremendous cultural and geographical diversity is because of its shared interest in our epics, especially Ramayana (Refer Three hundred Ramayanas - An essay by AK Ramanujan for the different existing versions of the epic), apart, of course, from cricket and Bollywood. The fact that we are able to identify specific sacred geography associated with each and every episode from the epic across the length of India is proof of our belief in the shared myth.
In the following posts, I hope to engage you with interesting myths about ourselves, our gods, our rituals & practices, and our cultural expressions through symbols and art.
But learning is enriched only when there are debates and discussions. So, hope to hear your view points too, that'll make the myth-sharing an exciting experience for all of us!!
Note: The idea of this blog is to admire and appreciate the beauty of the stories we share, and to explore the various possibilities that could have led to their formation and dispersion.
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