INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY FIELD

Historians and sociologists do not like the word “mythology”. They prefer words invented by them: ‘imaginary’. Government imaginaries are usually of two types: reforming imaginaries and reclaiming imaginaries. In Nehruvian times, the past that needed reforming was Brahmanical, feudal, unequal, in need of cleansing with a scientific temper. The narrative enabled suspicion of all private enterprise, and justified positive discrimination and minority appeasement. In Modi’s time, the past that needs reclaiming is Vedic, a homogenous society, full of great scientific discoveries, and nobility, disrupted by Muslim and British invaders. This is how the commonwealth –India/Bharat survives drawn into endless strategic alliances. This paper aims to discuss how Devdutt Pattanaik decodes the ‘myth of myth making’ that has shaped the country for what it is. The Greeks did not have the concept of the “false” God. They had many gods. New gods kept coming in and old gods kept losing ground. The strong Olympians overpowered the earlier Titans. Eventually, the all-powerful god of the Christians kicked every god out when the Roman Empire turned Christian. This was important to control the empire. Under Christian influence, ‘mythos’ became falsehood and ‘logos’ became truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth. Ancient Indian mythology however has no notion of true and false. There is but no ‘judgement’. Pattanaik points out “Ironically, Hindu Right wing have started adopting the Abrahamic version of God and the Left wing seems to agree with this definition of God. It has become the only definition of God, endorsed even by atheists and Bollywood”.