Comparative mythology

SPLITTING THE DIFFERENCE - Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India: Wendy Doniger; Oxford University Press, 219, Anna Salai, Chennai-600006. Rs. 545.

THE AUTHOR holds a very distinguished chair established to commemorate the services of Miracea Eliade, a great orientalist and scholar in comparative religion and mythology to religious and ethical studies. She has quite an impressive record of service in comparative religion and comparative mythology. Her investigations in this field have yielded interesting results, which, however, may not find universal acceptance. There is, indeed a great deal to be said for such studies as she has undertaken. The fruits of these studies convey interesting facts. However, the comparisons she presents will seem in not a few cases, odd and even without much supporting basis. One, however, feels grateful for the exploration of a difficult but fascinating study.

The title is the most intriguing part of the book. What is the difference and what causes the split of the difference? In the opening chapter, the author says that Indian and Greek mythologies teem with narratives of doubling and bifurcation. She assembles an impressive amount of material in support of this statement. But one wonders if the apparent doubling and bifurcation do not derive from the central human fact that the minds of both Indians and Greeks of the ancient times have an inescapable natural tendency to think and feel alike. They tend to deify Nature and to treat the forces of Nature as heavenly superhuman powers. However superhuman they may be, they tend to behave as humans do.

Zeus has a strong appetite for making love; Apollo the Sun god, has his own attending ministers; Minerva, the Goddess of wisdom, a western Saraswathi, for whom learning springs from the head of love.

It is interesting that both Indians and Greeks look upon the deity of wisdom and learning as feminine.

Orpheus, the heavenly minstrel, has his counterpart in the flute- bearing Venugopal of Indian mythology. There are several other facts which call for close and critical examination.

While one cannot wholly endorse the author's findings and conclusions, he will have no hesitation in recommending the book to readers interested in the growth of myths and the tendency of these myths to resemble one another although they are geographically far apart and affiliated to different religious traditions.

P. V. SIVARAMA DIKSHITAR

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