India is an ethnically colorful country located next to Pakistan, China

and the Indian Sea in Asia. It is a vast expanse of ‘astonishing diversity of

geographical regions’, featuring the ‘widest canvas of creative activity’, and

a‘legacy of stupendous architectural marvels’ (Culturopedia). It is a unique

land with 418 languages spoken, 11 of those dead. It is an amazing land with

many superb and unique qualities, but most of it revolves around its religious

beliefs. Behind every religion is the strong backbone of mythology.

Christianity has the bible, and Greeks the pagan gods. To these and their

patrons, India has Hinduism. Indian mythology is one of the most layered

and fascinating types of ancient worship and storytelling.

Hinduism can be traced back more than 3000 years, even before the

Mughal empire. That's even 700 years before Alexander the Great’s invasion.

Today, many things have changed, but Hinduism is still the main religion of

India! One thing that sets it apart from most religions though, is that since

there is no ceremony for converting to Hinduism, you can pretty much

denounce it one day and pick it up again the next. “Hinduism is composed

of innumerable sects and has no well-defined ecclesiastical organization.”

(encyclopedia.com) “There was pretty much one god, but humans created the

others because it is hard to imagine a god you can’t see. You would just

worship what you wanted to associate yourself with.” (Patel)

In Hinduism, there are seven festivals in the year. The Hindu calendar

has twelve months just like ours, but the names and other parts are different.

Just so you might not get confused when I explain, Hindus follow a lunar

year, so that each month starts with the new moon. Because of this, festivals

and holidays are of a different date every year. The order is this: Magha,

Phalunga, Chaitra, Vaiskha, Jyestha, Ashadha, Sravana, Bhadrapada, Asvina,

Karttika, Margarsirsha and Pausa. Each festival commemorates either part of

a season or something important that happened in Indian mythology.

Hinduism has many distinct beliefs of the gods in its pantheon. Some

are even contradictory. For instance, as in Christianity and Judaism, Hindus

believe that there is one supreme being (Brahman) that created all and that

everything is made of. They believe that all things appear as they are

however, because of an ‘illusionary force called maya’. Like Buddhism, they

also believe in reincarnation and karma. Reincarnation is a process of belief

that states that when your body dies, your soul lives to inhabit another body

in your next life. If you were a good person in one life, you have it easy in

the next. It seems that this belief of theirs also extends to things besides

human life, as they also believe that the world goes through cycles as well.

Supposedly, all gods are parts of this supreme being, and they all have

their own jobs. However, there are mainly three focus gods. There is Brahma,

who created the universe, Vishnu, who preserves the universe, and Shiva (also

spelled Siva), who destroys it to prolong the cycle. Each of these gods in turn

has their own assistant (or wife). Brahma has Saraswati, the goddess of

learning. Vishnu has Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity. Shiva has Parvati,

the giver of shakti, which is life force.

I would love to go into more of the Hindu deities, but it is nearly

impossible considering that there are more than 300,000 gods in the Hindu

pantheon! Many people just pick a select few or one god to worship, it is not

like paganism in the sense of having to worship all of the gods. It is

considered an act of high purity to even hear someone recite all of the gods.

Dhyanubuddhas were considered somewhat ‘uber buddhas’ (there were only

five!). As you might have already guessed, they were the origin of the popular

religion Buddhism. Pretty soon this exotic culture of India started to attract

the outside eye, even before the 21st century.

The spread of Indian culture began as far back as the Romans, who

used the Indian symbol for good luck, a backwards swastika, on their shields.

Later, Hitler adapted the same symbol and it has come to mean a very

different thing to Americans now. The swastika traditionally stood for

the four “Ls”; love, luck, life and light. It has been found in ancient Rome,

excavations of Grecian cities, on Buddhist idols, on Chinese coins dated 315

B.C., and our own Southwest Indians use it as an amulet. Another symbol of

ancient India is the right hand out, slightly curved and relaxed, palm out.

This signifies fearlessness and is commonly found on depictions of the gods.

Buddhas were considered as compassionate beings who were seeking

enlightenment and helping others along the way. Bodhasattvas were

Buddhas in training, and apparently they ‘”often put off the moment when

they will enter nirvana and escape the cycle of death and rebirth, in order

that they may help others along to long path to enlightenment”(Storm)

In the sixties, Indian worship also became somewhat popular with the

hippies, being something spiritual and previously unheard of; fresh and new.

Traces of Indian influence can still be found in today’s media. One

example is the popular play station rpg (role-playing game) series ‘Final

Fantasy’. In FF3-11 your character has the ability to summon an ice creature

with a female appearance by the name of ‘Shiva’. In some games ‘she’ looks

more ethnic than others, but like the androgynous god, she always as blue

skin. I was pleasantly suprised to find such wide influence in a game I enjoy

so much (in FF8, another summon is the three headed dog Cerberus).

Recently the movie ‘Bend it like Beckham’ came out. The story is about an

Indian girl who wants to play soccer. The movie features the standard

comedy, love and drama of any good movie, but with some unusual

add ins. At one point in the movie, Jess’ (the protagonist) sister is getting

married. She and many others dress up in traditional Indian dress and dance

to ethnic music. Music like that is also running throughout the movie. I

found it interesting to see the same influence in a current English movie, and

how authentic it seemed. By the way, the movie was great!

Indian mythology has pretty strange morals running through its stories,

especially it its folk tales. At times they seem to say flat out in your face that

if you do something wicked you die, no matter how minor the offensive

deed. At other times it seems as if good things happen to people doing

things we would consider foolish. I have no idea how this affects the

children hearing the tales, but I find them refreshingly original and

amusingly unusual. It is interesting to see how people created the gods like

the Greeks- behaving sometimes heavenly and just, other times just like

humans. Take for example, the Asuras. They were lesser gods who has

supposedly taken the path of un-truth, though not necessarily evil. Their

counterparts were the Devas, and occasionally they had to work together.

Gods and Goddesses are generally friendly towards one another, sometimes

banding together for a common goal, sometimes chatting while being

entertained.


There were many lesser gods who few even know of. Apart from the

three main gods and the supreme god, there are few who were

individually distinguished, but take places in the stories. One example is

Indra, the god of the underworld with an elephant-;like appearance. They

are often used in such stories as additional characters who rarely appear again.

Another form commonly found in Indian Mythology are the Avatars.

Avatars are reincarnations of gods who came down to earth to help or fix

the ways of humans, kind of like an Indian Jesus. They could also have their

own spouse. However, when they came down, though with powers, they

were still vulnerable. One example is a story in which there was a man who

was destined all of his life never eat a full meal, because he is always

somehow interrupted. One day on business, he has to eat dinner at the

sultan’s (king) house. In order tofulfill the prophecy, Brahma makes a small

clay pot above his head shatter so he cannot finish his meal. The man stands

up to bid his goodbyes. The sultan, who had not noticed the pot shattering,

decided to ask him if he had eaten well. The man admits no, and explains

his curse. The sultan feels upset for him, and invites him over the following

night for dinner. This night, he makes sure that the man could finish dinner.

When Brahma sees that he is going to, he decides to turn into a little frog

and go into the man’s salad. The man didn’t notice, and ate the frog, too!

Many gods approached him to ask him to let Brahma free, but he cursed

away them all for not helping him when he could never eat a full meal.

Eventually Shiva, the main god of his temple came, and he agreed, and Shiva

let him go to Nirvana. Stories like that demonstrate how gods could also be

vulnerable at times.
Here I will take the opportunity to share some Hindu tales with you so

that you may get a feel for the storytelling. The creation myth will be be the

basis for my visual project, but for now I shall speak of another myth. “There

are numerous texts in Hindu mythology and the story of creation differs in

detail from text to text.” (Harsh Nevtia)
This is the story of Afastya, who was said to be the son of one of the

Apsaras (dancing goddesses) and Mitra and Varuna. Afastya was clever, and

would get rid of any obstacle that stood in the way of the well being of the

people. For example, when a mountain range threatened to grow high

enough to block the sun, he begged it to shrink to let him pass and grow

again when he returned. The sage then tricked the mountain range by

returning home another way. Another time, Afastya helped Rama (an avatar

of Vishnu) by shooting off the ten heads of the demon king Ravana (of

Lanka) that Rama had to battle. Like the hydra, however, every

time one head was cut off, another sprang up in its place. Rama eventually

produced a magical arrow which had a point of sunlight and fire, and was

given to him by Agastya. The arrow struck Ravana, finally killing him.
Here is a tale used to show you the difference between Indian

mythology and folk lore,. It is a short tale entitled ‘A Qazi with

a long beard’. ‘One evening, a qazi was reading an old book by the light of an

oil lamp when he came across the sentence, “Men with long beards are

usually quite stupid.” He had always wanted to be respected for his wisdom,

and here he was with the longest beard in town! Everybody must think him

utterly stupid. He couldn’t bear the thought of it. His eyes fell on the oil

lamp. Without any further hesitation, he gathered his beard in his fist and

lighted the end of it, so that he could have a shorter beard. The beard was

long, fine and silky. It caught fire and burned in a blaze. When his fingers

began to get burned, the qazi let go of his beard, and the blame leaped up

and burned off his mustache and his eyebrows and spread to the hair on his

head and burned it all off. Now he knew that men with long beards were

really stupid.’ (Ramanujan) The difference to me being that folk tales are

certainty sillier!

Indian Mythology has grown, been preserved, and spread worldwide

through the decades. It still proves today to be worthy of speculation and

worship. In conclusion, Indian mythology is one of the most layered and

fascinating types of ancient worship and storytelling. I believe that because

of its unique approach to religion and fascinationg, original tales that it is so

big today.