Shattered Myths!!
"A myth, in its simplest definition, is a story with a meaning attached to it other than it seems to have at first; and the fact that it has such a meaning is generally marked by some of its circumstances being extraordinary, or, in the common use of the word, unnatural."
-John Ruskin.
I was a strong believer in Mythology, and would still have been, if not for that fateful meeting with a Greek. I'd recently watched the movie 'Troy' and was quite upset about the distortion of 'facts' in the movie. I complained to my greek friend about this and the explanation that he gave has 'deeply' disturbed my beliefs in almost everthing that I'd ever beleived.
The greek dismissed Homer's 'Illiad' as a book written for entertainment, and argued that except for the fact that the greeks attacked troy, nothing was actually beleived to be true. No 'Almost Immortal' Achilles, No 'divine' Helen, No nothing. Although, I'm forced to agree that some of the facts have been distorted, I just cannot accept that nothing ever took place.
Ok fine, Greek mythology can remain as 'Mythology', but our own Mahabharata and Ramayana which reflect Indian ethos in totality did happen right?. So I ask my friend about it, just to make sure that it happened. And he says
'Now, don't tell me that you actually beleived in blue-colored Mr.Krishna'....and my world comes crashing down on me!!. And since then all I've heard is
A->'There are many theories'..
B->'Nah!!They're just stories that have a moral'.
C->' They found Tutankhmen's body..not krishna's'!!.
If all this is false, and just some stories that people made up just for the heck of it?. Was there a Jesus?.Or a Mohammed?. or were they all stories too?.
Uh!Oh!What have I gotten myself in to?
posted by ledsuki at 1:33 AM
2 Comments:
Clarification to my statement:
Krishna is not just a legend resembling History. The stories of Gokulam and Dwaraka address philosophical and religious dimensions that cannot be apprehended in factual ways.
The narration always talks about social and political life with an overdose of rituals and superstitions. But don’t you think these myths impart values of Indian culture in us. Don’t they convey subtle facts, rules and maxims to guide our daily lives. I really think they portray emotional and ethical valuations. They speak of moral and ontological issues.
When these myths talk about the physical side, there is a metaphysical side attached to it. It is not an easy task to remove divine presence from the tales of mythology. The heroic action develops in front of a divine background. The action of Lord Shiva questioning Nakeerar and praising him in Potramarai kulam of Madurai is one such heroism.
Say for example, Diwali is celebrated to come together and strengthen ties with each other. Your friend Mr. Jagannath doesn’t care if “blue-colored Mr. Krishna” really killed Naragashura on that day. But he does celebrate Diwali. All you need is the goal and not the path you attain there. This is what I meant when I said “'Nah!!They're just stories that have a moral”
So believe in God. Don’t worry about the Myths.
"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about, and that's what these clues help us to find within ourselves." Joseph Campbell on the Power of Myth
My interpretation is that we create some stories that resound with our inner self and fool ourselves into believing the stories as they make us feel a lot better.
Krishna however is not a myth. He is a very real 95 kg male homo sapien.
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