Reading the smoke signals of history through the comparative lens of myth

The Implied Spider: Politics and theology in myth

by Wendy Doniger

Published by Speaking Tiger

232 pages ₹699

  After decades of engaging with the world of ancient Sanskrit narratives and mythology, Wendy Doniger is turning her eye inwards, adjusting the lens of her scholarship to examine the methods and biases that have come to frame the way mythology is studied and understood today. 

She is particularly interested in the comparative analyses that academics (including herself) have used to grasp the true meanings of myths and wants readers to engage with the methods that they have developed over the years. She wants them to question and understand, as she does throughout the book, the advantages and the criticisms against the comparativist toolkits. 

The inherent Euro-centric attitudes, colonial biases and the penchant to classify all myths into readymade categories cannot be ignored, and Doniger acknowledges the problems. But the solution for her is not less, but more and better comparison. She wants future students of the discipline to develop a keener eye for detail, not abandon the quest entirely.

  This is a book about the why and how different myths from different cultures should be compared, writes Doniger. Comparison is critical to understanding mythology and other cultures. It is a way to understand ourselves better, too, because it is also when we study other cultures that we get to know our own better.

  The interesting thing about myths is that they open up in different ways under different conditions. It is as if the stories contain an infinite number of possibilities that are waiting to be discovered. Doniger uses the analogy of the microscope and the telescope to help explain the way myths could be better understood. If we were to look at myth as a large quilt of stories and texts and other narratives, the telescopic view would give us the abstract theoretical treatise, while the microscopic view would lead the eye into the personal and experiential domain.  

Myths provide us with both the microscopic and the telescopic lenses. As examples Doniger compares The Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible and the Bhagavata Purana. Both explore ideas about God, divinity and the meaning of life, and both chart out an open-ended trail of answers that could help find a way through these big questions that link mythology and theology. The texts provide a telescopic and microscopic lens, and it was up to the narrators and their listeners and now, its readers, to pick and choose their options.

  Comparison is a rigorous process. If done well, it can illuminate a text for millions, but shallow lists of patterns and motifs can suck all meaning out of the myths. An example of a poor comparison is one that is commonly done between Sita (Ramayana) and Helen (Iliad). There is a version of the Ramayana that talks about a shadow Sita. In this telling of the story, Ravana never abducted the real Sita because she was divine and, hence, pure. She could never be touched by another male. A Greek story talks about a shadow Helen who was safely sent away to Egypt where she could not be seduced by Paris. The similarities in these stories are superficial; the Indian story that was composed after Valmiki’s Ramayana reveals the societal acceptance of Sita’s elevation to divinity, but the Greek story constructed by Plato, Herodotus and Euripides was meant to indicate the futility of war. Doniger says that the two stories must be read within the different cultural contexts, and also within the oral and textual traditions of the time.

  Not all comparisons follow the process. She writes, “…there is a great deal of shoddy and superficial comparative work flying about”. The problem is that many followers of the great comparatists of the early twentieth century have failed to live up to the leaders they swear by, she writes. Worse still, they have set up guardrails to prevent debate and deliberation around the hypotheses and theories that were developed around the study of mythology. Such meaningless gatekeeping damages the reputation of the scholars and the discipline.

  The other pit that comparative scholars have dug around themselves is that of an unhealthy obsession with grand patterns and global themes. Doniger writes she is infuriated by such comparisons (which are popular) and once lost her temper with American writer Joseph Campbell for what she calls his “static monomyth theory”. Campbell posits that there is a common heroic narrative in which a heroic protagonist sets out, has transformative adventures, and returns home. Its formulaic structure has great appeal for movie makers and writers, but it fails to capture the full meaning of the myths it seeks to compare.

  In many ways the book is a handbook for future comparative scholars. Mythology as she once wrote (The Cave of Echoes: Stories about Gods, Animals and Other Strangers) is impossible to define, but it would be cowardly not to try. In this book, she wants readers and new learners to not only look more closely at the myths but also engage more meaningfully with the discipline. It is a teacher’s appeal to students of all ages, asking them to handle the precious cargo of myths with care.

 

The author writes on comparative mythology and culture, and is cofounder of The Mythology Project