Points of dissent
P. ANIMA
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Murad Ali Baig showed how mythology and history often do not gel
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Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
On mythology Murad Ali in New Delhi.
“Mythology makes life a little less boring.” Murad Ali Baig, author of “Reflections in a Sacred Pond”, tried to put mythology, religion and history in perspective during his talk at the Delhi Gymkhana Club over
the week-end.
Drawing heavily from his book published by Tara, Baig brought out myths associated with different religions to highlight the need for any discerning person to embark on a journey of exploration, to consider the possibility of tales one has grown up listening to being far removed from reality.
“Nobody has answers to everything, but it is necessary to open the box and think,” said Baig. The author said it was the Ayodhya debacle in the early 1990s that prompted him to work on the book and its updated new edition was released recently.
Taking a dig at the origin of mythology, Baig said, “At a time when there were no important modes of entertainment, the village story teller enthralled people with mythological stories. The nature of storytelling was based on exaggeration.”
He went on to argue that “history and mythology did not fit.”
“Mythology is the joker which consistently distorted both history and religion in every country,” writes Murad in his introduction to the book. That was the point he tried to emphasise throughout his talk: the need to adopt an objective towards mythology and not to make it the basis of religion and teachings.
He sought to dispute various beliefs and began with attacking the notion of Sanskrit being the mother of all languages. “Oldest Vedic texts like the Rig Veda were not written in Devanagiri but Kharoshti. Sanskrit is not the mother of all languages but the daughter of an older one,” he asserted.
With mythology as the touchstone, Baig sought to repudiate it with his facts and reason. He argued in his book that there is “no empirical historical evidence” of the places mentioned in the “Ramayana.” Through examples of names that bear a striking similarity to those mentioned in the “Ramayana” but located mostly in Central Asia, Baig threw open the possibility of the epic having unravelled beyond the geographical limits of the present-day India.
Possibilities of history
“Ramayana could have happened anywhere. One should not rule out the possibility of history,” he said.
Baig similarly had questions on Christianity and Islam. Questioning the origin of the scripture, Baig asked, “Who wrote the Quran?”
The verses were ordered to be gathered in a definitive Medina version 33 years after the death of the Prophet, Baig mentions in his book. According to him, one of the earliest versions of the Quran was based “mostly on recall” of the Prophet’s utterances and also the contributions made by other witnesses.
Baig used these details to ponder aloud how far the holy text was removed from the Prophet’s teachings and also on how an “extreme version” of the religion took shape.
“I am not saying what is right or wrong. But I want to show how religion has evolved,” he said.
“Even in Christianity, the messages of Christ would have died down but for Peter and Paul. Buddhism would not have been a religion but for Ashoka,” said Baig.
He also tried to establish the evolution of ordinary tales to myths, how “Gods” hardly mentioned in the oldest texts became powerful mythological figures later.
Baig never claimed the possibilities he threw up were the final answers. But he emphasised the need for everyone to probe the options.
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