Indian Mythology

I

Introduction

Indian Mythology, the myths connected with the principal religions of the Indian subcontinent, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Gods and supernatural beings are central to Hinduism, and stories about them remain popular today. Buddhism and Jainism are reform religions that had human founders, and their core teachings set out paths to salvation that have no need of mythology; nevertheless, they developed their own mythologies under the influence of Hinduism. Mythological themes form the sole subject matter of the very rich art of all three religions (see Indian Art and Architecture).

From the philosophical point of view, myth in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism is seen as unimportant, the essential endeavour being escape from rebirth. In Hinduism various theological systems portray the gods as facets of one universal deity at the highest level of truth; for example Advaita Vedanta sees the formless Brahman underlying the gods who have form. Nevertheless, key aspects of Hinduism are expressed in mythology. Every aspect of a deity, every religious phenomenon, has an explanatory story that brings it to life. In this sense, the living reality of the mythology is an appropriate story for every occasion. More broadly, the great themes of Hinduism—sacrifice, yoga, devotion, and kingship—are comprehensively addressed in the mythology. In Buddhism and Jainism, mythology brings human and cosmic depth in time and space to the teachers and the founders.

II

The Universe and Mythic Time

All three religions share a basic cosmology in which an eternal universe is successively destroyed and renewed. The earliest cosmology is that of the Cosmic Man (Purusha) myth of the late Rig-Veda, wherein Purusha is sacrificed by the gods to produce the material world, the fourfold caste system, and the gods themselves. A human model is preserved in the most elaborately developed system, that of the Jains, in which a highly complex universe takes the form of a man.

The Hindu and Jain cosmographies are logical expansions and multiplications of the perceived geography of India. At the centre of the world is Mount Meru, the Golden Mountain, higher than the Sun and the Moon; concentric continents and oceans radiate from this centre. Mountains and rivers are arranged in systems of continents and oceans. In respect of time, all three religions see an eternal cycle of perfection successively degraded in a series of world ages with a final destruction always leading to renewal.

Each world cycle is made up of four ages (yuga), named after throws in the game of dice: Krita, the perfect age, is followed by worsening times and ends with the age named Kali, “Ill Luck”. The cow of Dharma (righteousness) has four legs in the first age (Krita), three in the second (Treta), two in the third (Dvapara), and only one in the fourth (Kali). The action of the epic poem Ramayana takes place in the Treta Yuga, while the other great epic poem Mahabharata spans the end of the Dvapara Yuga and the beginning of the Kali Yuga. Kali—personified as Duryodhana, the arch-villain of the Mahabharata—is male and has no connection with the black goddess Kali, though she is associated with the night of time, the final destruction of the universe at the end of each world cycle. The timescales are immense: for example, the Krita Yuga is said to last 1,728,800 years, and each subsequent yuga is reduced by a quarter, making the Kali Yuga 432,000 years long.

III

Historical Overview

Certain aspects of the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished from 2500 to 1700 bc, suggest a rich mythology. There are many images on seals, usually accompanied by brief sequences of pictographic characters, which may express mythological themes. By far the commonest image, found on several hundred seals, is that of a bull, shown with only one horn visible, with an ornate and complex trough beneath its mouth. One seal portrays a kneeling priest or priestess figure offering a composite animal in sacrifice to a possibly female figure in a tree, in front of a row of priests or priestesses. Other seals show more simple renderings of the same scene. Ornate female figurines, presumably of goddesses, have also been found. A finely modelled image of a seated figure with a beard and abstracted gaze has been taken to be a priest. A seated ithyphallic figure in a posture resembling the standard yoga posture has been interpreted as a proto-Shiva. In respect of the bull images and the female figurines, parallels have been drawn with contemporary Sumerian culture; there is evidence of trade between Sumer and India. The deities in trees and the proto-Shiva figure suggest parallels in later Indian religion, as do the goddess figures. There is, however, a sharp break between the era of Indus Valley Civilization and the following Vedic period, when Sanskrit-speaking people may have conquered the original dark-skinned inhabitants. It is possible that the latter were the ancestors of the Dravidian-speaking peoples of southern India.

The Vedic hymns (c. 1200 bc) are the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, and refer allusively to a complex mythology of warrior gods and deified natural phenomena. While some of this mythology is subsequently ignored, certain names persist but myths are altered in the classical tradition. Buddhism and Jainism, founded in the 5th century bc, proceed to develop myths about their historical founders in the general context of Hindu mythology.

Hinduism has two great epic poems: Mahabharata, composed during the period c. 400 bc to c. ad 400, and the Ramayana, composed around 200 bc, though the origins of both go further back, and subsequent versions were written in regional languages.

The classical mythology of the epics was further developed and codified in the 18 encyclopedic religious epics called Great Puranas, whose composition spanned some 800 years (c. ad 400 to ad 1200). While this classical core continued in art and literature to the present, and continues in popular film and video, it is bordered by regional and local folk mythologies, oral traditions of indeterminate age that are in a symbiotic relationship with the core mythology. Many castes have their own myth of origin.

IV

Mythology of Hinduism

A

Vedic Period

The Vedic hymns (see Veda) contain a rich and complex mythology. The poets sang the praises of their gods as sacrifices were made to them, and concentrated on referring to well-known mythical events in new and stimulating ways. With his yellow beard, the chief of the gods, Indra, resembles a human chieftain who quaffs the power-giving soma juice before riding to battle in his war chariot and defeating the enemy. He is accompanied by troops of bold young men, his storm troopers (the Maruts). The only goddess mentioned in any detail is Dawn, Ushas, who brings prosperity. Rudra, the howler, a prototype, or version, of Shiva, brings diseases, and his absence is often requested. Vishnu appears as a Sun god who assists Indra. The god most frequently referred to is Soma, who, as the deification of the inspiring and perhaps hallucinogenic plant, is the principal object and substance of ritual. Other than the details of sacrifice, the principal events referred to are exploits of Indra: his regaining the cows that Pani had stolen, and his releasing the waters that Vritra had restrained. Varuna is an old Vedic god, a universal king who spies on men, but his power has waned, and he later becomes the god of waters.

The one myth that maintains its importance in Hinduism is the late Vedic myth of the creation of the world from the sacrifice by the gods of the cosmic giant, Purusha (“Man”). From his parts the castes are formed: priests (Brahmins)from his mouth, warriors from his arms, farmers and artisans from his thighs, peasants from his feet. Here the sacrificial ritual of the Vedas forms the cosmogonic myth that underpins the caste system. Sacrifice remains of fundamental importance in Hindu myth.