When we
talk about mythology, there are 2 things that come to mind Greek Mythology and
Hindu Mythology. Oxford definition for the word mythology is ‘a set of
stories or beliefs about a particular person, institution, or situation,
especially when exaggerated or fictitious’. It says exaggerated stories. Are they really
stories in exaggeration?
When we
narrate any real life incidents with little exaggeration (which we all do), is
it called mythology or incident? We believe the narrator, only if the story is
logically convincing to us and we call it as incident.
Dinosaurs
lived on the earth – we do believe it as it is scientifically proven by the
fossils obtained in various parts of the planet. Does that mean that, we
believe if it’s logically convincing OR can be scientifically proven?
Let’s take
the greatest epics ever produced in human history, the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
All the places mentioned in these epics do exist even today in various part of Asia.
It is logically convincing that there could have been a king Ram in Ayodhya,
just Like Asoka who ruled Magadha. But we call Asoka a history and Ram is mythology.
Yes we have got evidences of Asoka’s era; and evidences of Ram’s era we do not
want to believe. After Tsunami has hit Indian shore on Boxing Day in 2004, satellite
images are now showing the Rama Sethu between India and Lanka. We believe ‘Pillars of Asoka’, but hesitated to believe ‘Rama Sethu’. We can at least do a carbon
dating of ‘Rama Sethu’ to see if it’s
matching Ram’s period (5000BC).
Charles Darwin (with all
due respect) is smart man. This gentleman is very much well-known for his evolution
theory which we all believe and agree without knowing his source of
information; Indian epic ‘Vishnu Purana’
and Darwin’s theory has an exact match – see
Dashavatara.
- Darwin says life has begun on the water – Purana talks about the first Avatar of Vishnu as Matsya (fish).
- Darwin says, over a period of time water life has gained ability to breath outside water and has started coming to the land and amphibious creatures evolved – Kurma Avatar (Tortoise)
- The Life has evolved and it started self-migrating to small animals on the land as per Darwin’s next phase of the theory – Varaham (Wild boar)
- The English man says - then we had apes; not human not animal; a mix --- Narasimha Avatar(half animal and half man)
- Four legged Apes started walking 2 legs to became humans later; the human now conquered all the 3 worlds and he is now talking about how he has evolved – As per the epic next avatar is ‘Vamana Avatar’ there is a main thread about the human child measuring the world with his 2 legs. Vamana Avatar was the first incarnation of Vishnu in full human form.
Does that
ring any bell folks? It is our history and culture that is told in a different
way; we Indians as a left brained race, we need something logical till we
believe it. I will try to put something
more concrete and logical evidences in my future posts so that you will start
looking into our great ancient texts.
Yours
sincerely,
Aary.
