Mythology & Man

Biswajit Das - Mumbai, India +91 9167685112

Come to think of it, what is mythology?

A collection of traditional stories, belonging to a particular religion or

culture? With each story typically involving supernatural (or superior!)
beings - all being widely held, but false beliefs? Be that the Vikings or the
Greeks, Romans or Egyptians, Chinese or Japanese, Mayans, Incas or
Hindus ...

To understand mythology, we need to start with ‘myth’ - the key word.

So, what’s a myth? Or to put it differently, what’s the opposite of myth?

The first, almost reflexive response is ‘truth’! A myth is the opposite of truth.

If we define ‘truth’ without using the word ‘myth‘, we can say that truth
refers to some being or event that is ‘real’, that exists or existed at a place
& time.

Let’s examine a truth like ‘Laxman Patil built the tallest structure called
Ram Palace in Mumbai city.’ The place here is in Mumbai city and the time
is 5-1-2000 (12:10 pm). This is what we will call a frame of reference.

Now, let’s travel into the future. After a millennium or two, Mumbai is quite
likely to be submerged in the Arabian Sea along with all its records! But
generations of humans who were originally Mumbaikars would have
survived because they had migrated to other cities.

So also the descendants of our Laxman, who would have heard stories told
by their grandparents that their forefather had built the tallest structure in a
city called Mumbai two thousand years ago.

And that future point of time, if someone referred to this event, would they
most likely refer to it as a myth?
 Mythology & Man
Biswajit Das - Mumbai, India +91 9167685112

Or would they refer to it as their history?

History, if the story of Laxman was somehow included as part of scripts by

multiple travelogue writers (also known as historians!) And it would help if
these writings were widely accepted (although most people would never
see any original* manuscript.)

Let’s travel another hundred millennia into the future.

In that distant future, if someone referred to this event, would they refer to it
as their ‘history’? Or would they prefer ‘myth’?

Myth, most likely. After tens of thousands of years, records would be non-
existent. But traditional stories handed down from generation to generation
by word of mouth would persist.

Thus, any history which is very, very old tends to be automatically classified
as mythology!

Our physical existence is inextricably linked to space & time. And if space
(in which we exist) itself ceases to exist after some time, then proof of our
own existence can become questionable in the future!

And that may partly explain why Hindus’ call their own existence as a myth
or ‘maya’!

* In the digital age, defining a document as authentic is becoming

increasingly difficult.