Use of word "Mythological" or "Myth" for
Hi!
This is a very General, Straightforward and simple thread.
Not only westerners also many indians and and that too many hindu culture followers use word "Myth" for Hindu culture/tradition/shastras/Puranas.
According to Oxford Dictionary one of the meaning of "myth" is fictitious person or thing or idea"
meaning of "fictitious" according to Oxford Dictionary is counterfiet, not genuine, unreal and imaginary"
This definition can never be applied to Hindu Culture because Hindu Shastras are based on Facts and not fiction.
What has occured thousands of years ago or what has been written thousands of years ago just cannot be regarded as fiction simply because we don't have any proof of that.
Stories in Puranas and shastras are real and have been written down by our enlightened Sages thousands or years ago because they have happened in connection with spiritual matter, and just reading or hearing those puranas one gets on to straight path of Dharma, Arth, kama and Moksha.
What incidents are happening now are real and also they are true after thousands of years.
The pity is even Hindus call Hindu Culture a myth out of sheer IGNORANCE
So we are calling our culture sacred and in the same breath we call it as unreal.
Bye
Re: Use of word "Mythological" or "Myth"
Quote:
Originally Posted by torchbearer
This definition can never be applied to Hindu Culture because Hindu Shastras are based on Facts and not fiction.
The majority of Hindus will not agree with you, I think. Consider the following:
- -> Do you believe that solar eclipses occur because a disembodied head swallows the sun, and they end when the sun emerges from the head's severed gullet? Or do you believe that they occur because the moon blocks us from seeing the sun?
- -> Do you believe that the Milky Way in the sky is actually a large ocean of milk that's floating up there, or do you believe that it is a collection of stars?
In both these cases I believe the latter, and I will therefore call the former a myth. The Puranas sought to express the theology of bhakti in a form that would be easy to understand and implement. They did not seek to record literal truths, and I do not see why Hindus should believe that they do.
Re: Use of word "Mythological" or "Myth"
Quote:
Originally Posted by aravindhan
Quote:
Originally Posted by torchbearer
This definition can never be applied to Hindu Culture because Hindu Shastras are based on Facts and not fiction.
The majority of Hindus will not agree with you, I think. Consider the following:
- -> Do you believe that solar eclipses occur because a disembodied head swallows the sun, and they end when the sun emerges from the head's severed gullet? Or do you believe that they occur because the moon blocks us from seeing the sun?
- -> Do you believe that the Milky Way in the sky is actually a large ocean of milk that's floating up there, or do you believe that it is a collection of stars?
In both these cases I believe the latter, and I will therefore call the former a myth. The Puranas sought to express the theology of bhakti in a form that would be easy to understand and implement. They did not seek to record literal truths, and I do not see why Hindus should believe that they do.
Remember that languages change over time and that our current interpretation of what was said before may not be right. Also, there are certain "Ghanas" that were used to code writings. Hence, if you do not know the right "Ghana" then you will get the wrong answer. Sort of like a checksum mechanism in networking.
Having said that not all that was said was necessarily right nor wrong. They were observations or knowledge at that particular point of time. Fpr example, if you were to compute the life cycles of the fourt Yugas and the life of Brahma, it would roughly correspond to the total life of this cosmos as we know it today! To say that these were exaggerations or to dismiss them out-of-hand is not the right approach.
We do not have enough understanding of what was said then nor do we have enough understanding of what is being said today. Since science is by definition a process of inquiry, why are we not inquiring? As George Bernard Shaw said, "the only thing that we know for certain is what we do not know today."
Rgds, Aravind Sitaraman