Ours is an age where inordinate space has been
forcibly carved for the upkeep of individuality at the expense of collective
wellbeing. Political and regional sensitivities have never been more pronounced,
and it seems we are forever in the midst of culture wars which paint an
incongruent picture given that actual wars are also being fought with genocidal
intent. Which makes it a risky but necessary endeavor to devote oneself to the
study of comparative mythology with the focus on stories, traditions, rituals
and myths from across the globe with a view towards discovering common hunting
ground that just might strengthen the fragile bond of our shared humanity and
lived experiences which can serve to unite rather than divide.
Drawing from a treasure trove of mythology lovingly
gathered from Indian, Judaic, Christian and Greek sources with a smattering of
pop culture tossed in, Wendy Doniger in The Cave of Echoes makes a
noteworthy attempt to pave a path that would make the great stories across time
and space accessible to all, allowing us to think deeply and live more fully.
Clearly, Doniger has imbibed and internalized the world of mythology and is
eager to share her insights on questions pertaining to the relevance of myth
and the potential that myths from other lands have, to shed light on
existential conundrums in one’s own world. This takes on especial significance
in the prevalent climate where rationalists on a mission to modernize and
demythologize are on the rampage and would seek to sever science from
spirituality ignoring the possibility that coexistence is possible. As for
those who would paint mythology as little more than falsehoods carefully
preserved over the ages, she has the perfect rejoinder, “myths are not lies, or
false statements to be contrasted with truth or reality. Picasso called art a
lie that tells the truth, and the same might be said of myths.”
Doniger is keen to emphasize the fluid, ever –
changing nature of mythology which nevertheless appears to be a fixed entity in
the consciousness of those who call it their own. To the Westerners she
cautions, “we think that our classics are in a sense eternal – forever fixed,
frozen in the amber of carefully preserved written documents…our classics are
not fixed and eternal.” As for the Easterners who seem convinced their
mythology is set in stone, she states firmly, “As the culture retells the myth
over time, it constantly interprets it, however much the culture may claim that
the myth has been preserved intact.”
The book is expansive in its scope and suggests
sensible measures to incorporate within a scholarly quest for a systematic
study of diverse mythology that has a certain universality to it even while
retaining regional quirks and distinctiveness which share an underlying pattern
of truth and wisdom that might prove to be an invaluable tool in traversing the
landscape of this complicated existence. However, well – intentioned though the
book may be, the author occasionally gets stuck in the web she is adroitly weaving,
and her tangled thought processes keep reiterating the same points about the
efficacy of the other as a method to embrace one’s own with varying degrees of
effectiveness. There is a lot of overly belabored points about hunters, sages,
sages who hunt and hunters who are sages in their head and fishermen who fish
souls and the like.
Some pages of the book are devoted solely to the
prevalence of sacrifice – animal as well as human in the Vedic age, ancient
Greece and Biblical times and how it sits uneasily with modern views on
cannibalism as an act of unforgiveable barbarity and villainy even if the
cannibal is a Hannibal Lecter who is entirely fictional and suave and charming
as they come. She is particularly keen to enumerate the impropriety of this
savage practice in a religion which supposedly champions vegetarianism. Skilled
scholar though she is, it indicates holes in her research that she seems
unaware about or knowingly skirts the fact that a majority of Hindus are meat
eaters. In fact, it is well known that Brahmins partook of flesh in the Vedic
as well as Puranic age, since they consumed the burnt offerings of the yagnas
and were feasted with meat – based cuisine in many stories from the epics. A
story in the Mahabharata talks about Ilvala and Vatapi – Asura brothers one of
whom could transform at will into a goat to tempt the Brahmins with the promise
of a succulent cooked - goat meal before resuming his true form within their
entrails and tearing them apart. It was only after the Bhakti movement that
some Brahmins no doubt inspired by the Buddhists and Jains gave up meat.
Despite such shortcomings, this is still a worthy book
that offers a lot for the thoughtful reader to chew on.
This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine
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