Culture: 50 Insights from Mythology

1

Everybody tells a story

Storytelling is something that is very natural to human beings; we are constantly telling stories. Imagine a child coming home from school and telling his mother what happened there. What is he actually doing? He is telling a story of what happened in school, of how the teacher behaved, of how the students behaved, and as he narrates the story, villains appear, heroes appear, there is a plot and sometimes even a grand finale, where the good win and the bad are punished. The same happens when we pick up the phone for a chat. We want to tell a story or hear a story. We are all storytellers. We just don’t realize it.

What is gossip if not storytelling? Some fact, some fiction, a lot of imagination. Newspapers are full of stories—events as seen by the reporter. Books are full of stories of plants and animals and planets. Shops are full of stories of products and brands and customers and advertising.

Usually, the word ‘story’ is used for fiction. We assume that when we narrate events from our life it is fact, not fiction. When we read about events in newspapers we assume they are fact, and hence not stories. ‘Story’ in common parlance then is the opposite of reality.

At a philosophical level, however, all that is narrated is story. What we call reality is actually the memory of an event seen filtered through our senses and our biases. At best, it is just a perception of what happened, one version of the truth; at worst, it is entirely the product of imagination. Once we understand this and accept this, we realize the power of storytelling. We realize that everything around us is a story—everything that we hear, see or remember stems from either perception or imagination.

Those who actually write a story are perhaps better storytellers than the rest of us because their stories appeal to a larger number of people, not to one or two as in a private conversation. They can enchant an audience, maybe an entire society, or a culture, or an entire generation, or maybe even several cultures over several generations.

It is very difficult to understand what makes any story special. Stories are like sweets that have an outer layer of toffee and a soft inner core of chocolate. As we eat this sweet, we first encounter the outer toffee. We chew on it, impatient to get to the chocolate within. The outer chewy part is the ‘form’ of the narrative and the inner chocolate core is the ‘idea’ of the narrative; the outer visible part is the flesh of the story (the plot, the characters, the tone, the pace) while the inner hidden part is the soul (the meaning).

The soul of a story is the reason why the story is being told. The soul can be just entertainment. All the storyteller wants to do is cause an adrenaline rush within you. In Sanskrit, adrenaline is known as rasa or mood juice. The storyteller is actually evoking the release of various kind of juices in his audience—there is shringar-rasa, to elicit the flow of romantic juices in the audience; and there is veer-rasa, where again through a series of stories, an event or actors, the storyteller is able to construct a heroic flavour in the mind of the audience. This is pure entertainment and there is no deeper level beyond that.

Sometimes, a story is just a report, with no desire to entertain. The storyteller here tries to be very dispassionate so as not to influence the judgement of the audience. Reportage is not easy because as humans we are quick to judge. The moment a storyteller talks about a fat woman, the audience instantly creates an image of a fat person in their head and if the audience does not like a fat person, even without a storyteller’s intention, the fat woman becomes a negative character. If a storyteller describes a child as cute and cuddly then by the simple choice of words the image created in the audience’s mind is something that delights. So it is very difficult to report without being judgemental. Journalists struggle to be unbiased but invariably succumb to judgement; even if they don’t, the audience does, seeing meaning even where none exists.

Then there are stories with a clear strategic intent. It tells people what is good and what is bad. If the storyteller has a yardstick for deciding what is good and what is bad, heroes and villains are accordingly structured. When this is repeatedly done, it starts to influence the value system of those around. For example, if a storyteller believes that women are inferior to men, then their stories will be full of female characters who are cunning and manipulative and the male characters have to constantly survive their cunningness. Likewise, if a storyteller believes that women are victims, their stories will be full of female characters who are subjected to all forms of injustice. Storytellers then become creators of values and judgements, a feat that is rarely acknowledged.

Stories thus construct our truths—they tell us how to see the world. They construct villains and heroes. They tell us what romance is and how it feels when one is in love. They tell us how to behave when one is happy or unhappy. They tell us what good behaviour is and what bad behaviour is. Stories thus are and have always been a potent tool for political and cultural propaganda.

Parables are stories which very explicitly have a point of view. They sermonize. Parables all over the world are based on what a culture believes to be appropriate social conduct. On that count, a parable must be distinguished from a mythological narrative. Mythological narratives do not sermonize but they create the platform or framework that allows for sermonizing. While a parable can stand on its own, every mythological story is part of a larger whole. And so to understand a mythological story, we have to know all the other stories that make up the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Unlike parables, mythological stories are not focused on social issues—they seek to construct a bigger picture about the world. They attempt to explain why the world is the way it is, why the world came into being, what happens after we die. Typically, mythological narratives offer no solution but create a framework for other stories, parables included, which is why they play a rather profound role in any literature.

Traditional Western stories generally have a clear start and a clear finish. So the story typically begins with ‘Once upon a time…’ and ends with ‘…happily ever after’. But traditional Indian stories are rather different in structure. Take ‘Vetal-Pachisi’ for example. Vetal-Pachisi is a story of a king who repeatedly goes to a tree and pulls down a ghost with the intent to give him to a sorcerer. On the way, the ghost tells the king a story which ends with a question and he forces the king to answer the question. As soon as the answer is blurted out the ghost runs away from the king and returns to the tree. The king has to pull the ghost down again. This happens twenty-five times. Thus, the story always starts at the same point with pulling down the ghost and ends at the same point with the return of the ghost. The plot lies in between. The difference in structure of stories reflects the differences in cultural beliefs. The Western story celebrates a linear construct of life—with one beginning, one ending and one life in between. The Indian story celebrates a cyclical construct of life—with many beginnings, many endings and many lives in between. Thus, stories reflect the culture they emerge from, while reinforcing the culture at the same time.

Finally, stories have to be distinguished from narration. A story is basically a plot but narration is the process by which a story is told. The same story sounds different when the storyteller is different. And every storyteller changes his narration depending on the audience. All this makes storytelling rather complex, which is why our view of the world and our truths are also complex.

2

Gender bias in temples

Why were temples built in India? They did not always exist. Before temples, people worshipped rocks and rivers and stars: Kumbh Mela is a classic example of a Hindu ritual that does not involve any artificial structure. If one goes to the temple of Kamakhya in Assam or Vaishnodevi in Jammu, we realize that what is assumed to be a ‘temple’ is essentially a structure built around very simple natural rock formations. The structure then is the boundary that defines and delimits the sacred space around something very organic and natural. This creation of boundaries is the essence of patriarchy, for with boundaries come divisions and hierarchies that prop up the privileged. The physical boundaries express psychological boundaries that emerged long ago, before the structures, before gods and goddesses, in the earliest phases of civilization, when humanity emerged from the animal kingdom and sought meaning.

Every village of India is associated with grama-devis and grama-devas, often classified as fertility goddesses and guardian gods. The female divine provides and the male divine protects. For the female divine, the male minion is just a seed provider. Nothing more. The male divine protects the female divine. Sometimes he is also the seed provider. At other times, he is celibate like Hanuman, Bhairo baba and Aiyanar. Through celibacy these guardian gods express their respect for the Goddess, their mother. Celibacy, hence semen retention, also makes them powerful.

This notion of celibacy giving supernatural power gave rise to monastic orders. Monks sought to control the natural forces: the ability to walk on water or fly through air, the ability to change shape, be immortal. They also sought control over the mind: freedom from suffering, from fear. These accomplished ascetics (siddhas) shunned all things sensual, like the female temptresses (yoginis) who wandered in groups as matrikas and mahavidyas.

The Buddha created the earliest organized, institutionalized, monastic order in India. In his monasteries (viharas) women were not permitted. When they were, finally, they were forced to follow more rules than men, as they had not only to control their own desires, they also had to ensure they did not ‘tempt’ men. These viharas were built around chaityas which housed the stupa that contained a relic of the Buddha. These were the first grand structures of India, carved into rocks. Before that, shrines (devalayas) of fertility goddesses and guardian gods existed only under trees, beside rivers and inside caves, unrestrained by artificial walls and roofs.

Temples of stone were built to counter Buddhist thought by highlighting the joys of household life. Temple walls and temple customs expressed song and dance and food and pleasure. The enshrined deities got married in grand ceremonies (as in Brahmotsavam in Tirupati). They were taken care of by priests and temple dancers. These complexes were a far cry from the serenity and silence of the vihara. They celebrated power and pleasure and beauty on a grand scale. But like Buddhist monasteries, these temples were controlled by men, the Brahmins. When the devadasis became too powerful, they were kicked out by being declared ‘prostitutes’, with a little help from the British.

Ironically today, temples—that embodiment of household life—are controlled by Hindu monks (mahants). Celibacy is seen as the hallmark of religiosity and purity, and embodied in celibate, women-shunning deities such as Shani and Ayyappa. In ashrams of modern-day gurus, male sanyasis are called ‘swami’ or master, while female sanyasis are called ‘maa’ or mother, thus endorsing the traditional roles of man as protector and proprietor and woman as procreator and provider.

Is celibacy a sign of respect for women, or just a clever form of misogyny? Why do the guardian gods, gurus, monks and male devotees shun the feminine? Is it to retain their semen, hence gaining supernatural powers, a common belief in tantric texts? Or is it because they want to purify themselves, and so stay away from pollutants, such as