Our Beautiful Parables, Myths, And Legends
Written by Jahnvi Singh
Our universe is alluring but irregular, and most of the time, it does not make any sense, so people have used stories from time to time to make sense in a senseless world. Our existence is shaped by legends, which are narrative patterns. While science can tell us how we were born, myths and legends will tell us why.
Myth has existed in every society. It is, in fact, a fundamental element of human culture. For instance, Naruto, as the human host of the Nine-Tailed Fox (a mischievous spirit in Japanese mythology) represents, reveals, and explores people’s self-image. What better interpretation could there be from folklore if not this? Anime fans make some noise! Maybe there’s a ring somewhere that’s ruling over us all or maybe there’s a dinosaur hatching from an egg while someone prepares for a battle. Tempts us to think, doesn’t it? That’s the beauty of myths, legends, and folklore — everything is left to your imagination and belief.
The Legend of Annapoorna
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well.”
Historically, the world’s well-being depended on the equilibrium between thought and action, which was maintained by the glorious union of Shiva and Parvati. Without Parvati, as the symbol of energy, growth, and transformation on Earth, Shiva would become a detached observer, and the world would remain static. She oversaw humanity’s material comforts; and ensured that the mortals were in bond, spiritually and physically.
Shiva had begun to belittle his wife’s essential work, believing Brahma, the creator of the universe, had conceived the material plane purely for his fancy. Therefore all material things were merely distractions called Maya, nothing but a cosmic illusion. To prove her vital role in the universe, she took a flight from the world, withdrawing half of the cosmic energy that kept the Earth turning. At her disappearance, a sudden, terrifying, and all-encompassing scarcity enveloped the world in eerie silence.
Without Parvati, the land became dry and barren. Rivers shrank, crops withered in the field, hunger descended on humanity. Shiva also felt the profound emptiness left by his wife’s absence. Despite his supreme power, he, too, realised that he wasn’t immune to the need for sustenance. As Shiva despaired over the desolate Earth, he came to realise that the material world could not be so easily dismissed.
The compassionate Parvati could not stand by and watch her devotees wasting away. So she took a new avatar, carrying a golden bowl of porridge and armed with a jewel-encrusted ladle, walked among them and restored their strength.
The word of this hopeful figure spread and is worshipped as Annapoorna, the goddess and forever giver of food. Upon her arrival, the world blossomed anew.
(Now we know why Annapoorna Mess serves good food.)
Which Witch? The Myth of Arachne
Pablo Picasso said, “The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky; from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”
Both Hindu and Greek mythology brim with shape-shifters, the powerful gods usually change their forms at will, but the mutations were often unwanted for mortals. One such undesired transformation befell the spinner Arachne.
Arachne was the daughter of a tradesman and had a flair for spinning the most delicate threads, weaving them into flowing fabric, and creating magnificent tapestries. But as praise for her work grew, so did her pride. She refused to see weaving as a gift from the gods. Instead, she flaunted it as her genius.
Unfortunately, the goddess of craft and wisdom heard her glorifying conceit and challenged her into a weaving contest. The two of them set up their looms in the same room, and they wove from early in the morning until late at night.
Athena wove tremendous scenes that showed the power of the gods; Poseidon riding the waves, Zeus firing thunderbolts, and Apollo hurtling across the sky.
The glory of the gods dwarfed mortal life in Athena’s tapestry. While Arachne had no interest in boosting godly egos, her tapestry showed gods abusing their powers, squabbling amongst themselves, drinking and bragging, and meddling in the life of mortals.
Yet, even though she cast the gods in the most unflattering light, Arachne’s work shone with her dazzling skill. Her tapestry was almost alive, filled with movements and lustrous colours.
When Athena saw it, she was even angrier than she had been before. She pointed her finger at Arachne, and suddenly Arachne’s nose and ears shrank up, her hair fell out, her arms and legs got long and skinny, and her whole body shrank until she was just a little tiny spider — the first spider. “You want to spin,” cried Athena. “Go ahead and spin!”
To this day, Arachne and her children turn out her penance — or is it undaunted persistence in the shadows of giants?
Cupid, Psyche, and Pleasure
Every year on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day is marked by shades of pink, flowers, chocolates, romantic movies, and wine — and images of a magical baby boy who flies around shooting arrows at people.
Even so, despite his infant form, that baby, widely known these days as Cupid, began his mythological life as a man who had more power than any god. Let’s start with his lover.
Psyche was the youngest and most beautiful daughter of a king and queen. She was so beautiful that her admirers neglected their worship of Venus, the goddess of beauty, and instead worshipped her. The goddess sent her son, Cupid, the god of love to shoot Psyche with an arrow to make her fall in love with an ugly person, but Cupid was so taken aback by her looks that he accidentally shot himself and fell in love with her. He visited her every night but forbade her from looking at his face. Psyche’s sisters goaded Psyche into finding out who her lover was and on their insistence, she lit a lamp that night. Upon learning her lover to be the god of love, Psyche dropped her lamp, burning Cupid with hot oil.
She didn’t believe that gods and humans could love as equals. Now that she knew his true form, their hopes for happiness were dashed, so he flew away. Psyche wandered the earth looking for the unseen voice and eventually came into Venus’s service.
The goddess makes Psyche perform impossible tasks, such as a journey to the underworld to bring a drop of Proserpina’s beauty — the goddess of death. Just outside Venus’s palace, though, she opened the box of Prosperina’s beauty, hoping to keep some for herself. Alas, the box was filled with sleep, not beauty.
Cupid, now recovered from his wounds, flew back to his bride and gave her Ambrosia (Roman mythology equivalent of Amrit), the nectar of gods, making her immortal and the goddess of the soul. Her fearlessness in the face of the unknown proved she was more than his equal. Shortly after, Psyche bore their daughter and named her pleasure. And ever since, this family of three have been complicating people’s love lives.
The Myths that Mystify
To understand the similitude and difference between mythology and science, we have to understand the meaning of fact and myth — fact is everybody’s truth, fiction is nobody’s truth, and in between, there is myth. Myth is somebody’s truth. The world is objective, universal, logical, factual, scientific. My world is subjective, dreamy, thoughtful, and full of feelings. It’s mine. Science can tell you how the world functions, only myth can explain why it functions the way it does. However, it’s not always that these two are always on different sides of the road. Sometimes, they do overlap, and we can find answers to science in the books of mythology.
Imagine we have plenty of aerial vehicles, multiple heads, and arms, all kinds of yantras that can be claimed as sci-fi or hi-fi apparatus, all invented by fecund imagination rooted in mythological history. Can we, on the basis of this, say that modern inventions existed in the past?
This takes us with another sweeping flight of imagination that all imagined objects were actually part of the material inventions of the past or they were nothing but the work of a bored writer.
Sources:
Myth=Mithya - book by Devdutt Patnaik
7 Secrets of Shiva - book by Devdutt Patnaik
Heroes of Olympus - book by Rick Riordan
The Secrets of Humanity - book By NatGeo
