Myth = Mithya - A Book Review

Mythology is the imaginary world that we have created by fascinating grandma ma stories, or those long awaited sunday mythological epic serials on television. Hindu Mythology for me is the most exciting and intriguing subject. 

The concept of 330 million Hindu gods is still unbelievable to many. This forced me to pick up, Myth = Mithya - A handbook of Hindu Mythology by Dr. Devdutt Pattnaik from the book shelf. A brilliant handbook on Hindu Mythology which is divided into three sub parts, Brahma and Saraswati, Vishnu and Laxmi, Shiva and Shakti. The three supreme Gods. The book has short stories associated to these gods/ goddesses from Vedas, Puranas, and folklore. God creates world as Brahma, sustains it as Vishnu and destroys it as Shiva. The life is a circle and every beginning has an end to it. "If myth is an idea, mythology is the vehicle of that idea" well defined by the author.

This book glued me till the last page. Each and every character in Hindu Mythology is known or has heard before. But the story behind each character is unveiled dramatically in this book. Few stories and instances described by the author is so trivial and connects the dots with the Gods and gods. Mind here, Gods/ Goddesses with capital G is the supreme power and creator, while the gods/goddesses are the infinite creation of the Gods. Like Shiva is a God, while Indra is god.
 

The stories of gods in this book are retold so beautifully that the reader is forced to nudge the person around and insist them to read this book or force them to hear the interesting story you just read. I couldn’t resist myself though. Few of the short god stories really shocked me.

 Like why there is full moon day and why the moon waxes? Chandra's favorite wife is Rohini, he waxes as he move towards her, and wanes as he moves away from her. 

Spending one day with Lord Brahma is equal to a thousand years on earth. (Again Mithya)

In the beginning was the self = the Purusha. He split himself and created the Prackriti. Purusha is "man" and prackriti is “nature". Purusha is conscious being, observer and inner reality while prakriti is ever changing, outer reality. All living organisms possess seed that helps procreate. Plants, animals and women (read prakriti) shed their seed involuntarily during pollination. The human male (Purusha) has the freedom to shed the seed. So white, the colour is Purusha the man, inner soul. Reason for the differentiation between men and women.

The Shiva ling that people worship, is one of the "Shiva roops" caught in midst of making love to Parvati.

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is a popular mythologist, who writes this book with such an ease and simplicity which grips the reader. On a personal level, mythology has always engrossed me, so did this book do. One of my best reads. Now I have many mythological stories in my inbuilt hard drive to take these stories my grand children to bed.