Myth and Fiction

• “Myth has two main functions,” the poet and scholar

Robert Graves wrote in 1955. “The first is to answer
the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such
as ‘Who made the world? How will it end? Who was
the first man? Where do souls go after death?

• The second function of myth is to justify an existing

social system and account for traditional rites and
customs.” In ancient Greece, stories about gods and
goddesses and heroes and monsters were an
important part of everyday life. They explained
everything from religious rituals to the weather, and
they gave meaning to the world people saw around
them.
• In Greek mythology, there is no single original
text like the Christian Bible or the Hindu Vedas
that introduces all of the myths’ characters and
stories. Instead, the earliest Greek myths were
part of an oral tradition that began in the Bronze
Age, and their plots and themes unfolded
gradually in the written literature of the archaic
and classical periods.
• The poet Homer’s 8th-century BC epics the Iliad
and the Odyssey, for example, tell the story of
the (mythical) Trojan War as a divine conflict as
well as a human one.
 Many consumer products get their
names from Greek mythology
• Nike are the namesake of the goddess of
victory, for example
• The website Amazon.com is named after the
race of mythical female warriors.
• Many high school, college and professional
sports teams (Titans, Spartans and Trojans, for
instance) also get their names from
mythological sources
 Mount Olympus
• At the center of Greek mythology is the
pantheon of deities who were said to live on
Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in
Greece. From their perch, they ruled every
aspect of human life. Olympian gods and
goddesses looked like men and women
(though they could change themselves into
animals and other things) and were–as many
myths recounted–vulnerable to human foibles
and passions.
 Greek Gods
• Zeus (Jupiter, in Roman mythology): the king
of all the gods (and father to many) and god of
weather, law and fate
• Hera (Juno): the queen of the gods and
goddess of women and marriage
• Aphrodite (Venus): goddess of beauty and
love
• Apollo (Apollo): god of prophesy, music and
poetry and knowledge
• Ares (Mars): god of war
• Artemis (Diana): goddess of hunting, animals and
childbirth
• Athena (Minerva): goddess of wisdom and
defense
• Demeter (Ceres): goddess of agriculture and grain
• Dionysos (Bacchus): god of wine, pleasure and
festivity
• Hephaistos (Vulcan): god of fire, metalworking
and sculpture
• Hermes (Mercury): god of travel, hospitality and
trade and Zeus’s personal messenger
• Poseidon (Neptune): god of the sea
• The characters, stories, themes and lessons of
Greek mythology have shaped art and
literature for thousands of years.
• They appear in Renaissance paintings such as
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Raphael’s
Triumph of Galatea and writings like Dante’s
Inferno; Romantic poetry and libretti; and
scores of more recent novels, plays and films.
Athena visiting Envy
Poseidon (Neptune)
 Retelling Mythology
(Why do you need a retelling?)
 Proliferation of Mythic characters
• Mythological tales getting a modern
makeover
• While the proliferation of the characters and
tropes of Hindu mythology is obvious in the
visual media—right from the days of B R
Chopra’s teleserial of the Mahabharata and
Shyam Benegal’s 1981 film Kalyug, to recent
Bollywood movies.
The Beginning in Contemporary Fiction
• Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel
(1989, Viking) is perhaps the best-known
novel in this category, in which Tharoor draws
a number of parallels between the
Mahabharata and his fictionalised account of
the Indian independence movement.
• The credit for bringing this new genre and
making mythology interesting goes to Ashok
Banker. It was only after his success that more
books on mythological fiction were published
 Mythic Fiction in 21st C
• Ashok Banker’s Ramayana series (Penguin),
starting with Prince of Ayodhya (2003), to the
most recent Ten Kings: Dasarajna, based on the
Rig Veda (2018)

• Amish Tripathi’s bestselling The Immortals of

Meluha (2010) and its recent sequel The Secret
of the Nagas (2011) are thriller/adventure novels
based on the life of the god Shiva.
 Bestselling Indian Trio

• Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi and Ashok

Banker are wooing readers with characters
cast in a human mould amid a masterful
weaving of mythology and suspense.
Amish Tripathy
• Like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, Amish
Tripathi was rejected by a series of publishers
before finding unexpected success with the
first book of his Shiva trilogy, which recounts
the exploits of the Hindu deity of destruction.
• “The Immortals of Meluha” became a
publishing phenomenon in 2010 and spawned
two sequels. The trilogy sold more than 1.5
million copies.
Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant,
mythologist and author whose works focus largely on the areas of myth,
mythology, and also management.
• Devdutt Pattanaik, author of several books on
mythology, including The Pregnant King
(2008, Penguin), a novel based on some of the
gender-bending characters from Hindu
mythology, responds to the question thus:
“No stories are original. Every story is based
on a mythic template. Our notions of right
and wrong, justice, fairness—all come from
mythology. You realize this only when you
deconstruct stories.”
In the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic text
• The Pandavas are the five sons of Pandu, by
his two wives Kunti and Madri, who was the
princess of Madra.
• Yudhishthira,
• Bhima,
• Arjuna,
• Nakula
• Sahadeva.
• dedicated to the path of Dharma and hence
he was called Dharmaraja and a prudent
politician ?
• a great knowledge of astrology. He was the
main tactical planner among the Pandavas ?
• Fearless and Brave. His physical power was
unmatchable at that time ?
• a great archer and most of his archery
knowledge was taught to him later by Devas ?
• a good trainer of animals. He was compared
to Kamadeva due to his good looks ?