Tuesday, January 07, 2025

I Love Epics and Myths

 

I Love  Epics and Myths

As a professed rationalist, I really should not, but I do.  Why? Because I can cock a snook at those who believe these myths are elements of true events in the past.

When I was a pre-teen my parents took me to a movie probably Tamil dubbing of a Kannada movie, in which Lord Krishna obscures the sun by releasing the sharp-edged discus from his finger. Brahmins ran off scurrying to the nearby water body to offer obeisance to their forefathers, as is mandated of them on New Moon days.

Seeing this, the Moon god, accompanied by the Sun god, came down to earth to ask Lord Krishna why are the Brahmins doing the New Moon prayer ceremonies when it was a few more days in the future. Lord Krishna, never at a loss for an answer, pointed out that they, the sun and the moon, are together right there in His presence. Hence, by definition, it is a New Moon day/night.

Before Columbus deceived the natives in the Caribbean, Lord Krishna had done the cheating; gives the normal event a thing to be remembered, a myth, embedded in an epic. Reason enough for me to love the epics and myths.

Christianity is chock full of myths that people want to believe as truth. The boulder covering the mouth of the sepulchre moved / was moved; either way, not very reassuring. Jesus fed multitudes (5,000 as in one of the Gospels) from five loaves of bread and two fish. You can so fish for myths in what Jesus did and leave flabbergasted.

Recently I watched on YouTube some Biblical scholar saying that there was zero evidence of Moses ever having been a historic personality–a nice way of saying he was only a mythical personality–and even the name Moses is derived from Hebrew, and was not a word in the language of the then Egyptians. Then, in The Ten Commandments, Bithia, the then Pharaoh’s daughter says ever so dramatically, “Because I drew you from the water, you shall be called Moses.” This is a simple myth, in an epic.

In Buddhism, the Buddha at the time of his dying is said to have asked Ananda to lay his head on the northern side. An empiricist picking a direction in which his head should rest at the moment of his death? There is more to come … the Buddha giving directions as to how the ashes after his body was burnt should be disposed off and a number of such details. Tut, tut …

Mohammed too brought about some so-called miracles, like splitting the moon, healing the sick and the blind (normal item).

Even the very human, the previous century (the current century is perhaps too young to have had matured) Gurus carry this miraclitis disease. Their devotees have readily taken to miaclizing their Gurus’ existence (more than one Guru per person). There are just so many of them, a compilation about them would challenge the length of the Mahabharata!

I do not venture to name them but just watch any of the so-called spiritual networks on TV and you would find more than sufficient proof (that is a post in the making, without names, of course).

The more these Gurus (both of the past and the present), I am so much happier, as it adds to my blog-post count!

Hence, my love for epics and myths.

Raghuram Ekambaram

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