From: Mermaid (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Mon Jan 26 2004 - 08:29:01 MST
I have a proposal for a new project. Something I'd like to call Project Mythologia.
What are the mythological concepts that seem futuristic to you?
Here are some 'weird' mythical narrations:
In the Mahabharata, Queen Gandhari(princess of Gandhar kingdom--and married to the blind king Dhrithirashtra gives birth to a hard ball of flesh.(or a huge ball of iron..diff versions) She had obtained a boon that she would have a hundred sons and when she despaired, the royal guru breaks the ball of flesh(or iron) into one hundred pieces. He places each of them in a vat of ghee and asks her not to open them for the next two years. After two years, when she breaks open the vats, she had a hundred sons. This reminds me of the modern equivalent of test tube babies. At least in concept.
In Hindu Mythology, the gods and the demons are always fighting each other. Lord Vishnu's "chakara" is a twirling ring of fire that chases and terminates its victims. Lord Vishnu's chakra will obey his will, "lock" its target and will not return back to Vishnu without completing its task.
In Ramayana, the demon king Ravana kidnaps Rama's wife Sita and whisks her away to Lanka. He crosses the lands and the ocean in his 'flying chariot'.
Most South Indian temples have something called a 'vimana'(which is also the translation for 'plane'). It is the pyramid like structure over the sanctum santorum. It's one of Eric Von Daniken's inspiration for his infamous "aliens descended as gods" theory. The vimana is the 'spaceship' or as the temples say..the god's vimana..the god's flight machine...
The Akshayapataram which is a vessel that can feed any number of people, the elixir of immortality and finally ardhanareeshwara who came to being when lord shiva gave half of his body to his consort, shakti, is an early effort to create feminism.
All this is in no way 'science' or even 'technology'. They are ideas. What it conveys to me is that people have been dreaming of the same concepts for a long long time. Man has been trying to find solutions or at least imagining the solutions to the oldest problems..infertility, flight, aliens, poverty, gender equality etc.
I would like to hear from other mythologies. Not urban legends or folklore, but mythology and well established literary works. Considering that the Bible is all myth, its even ok to pick something from the Bible. What can you think of....
---- This message was posted by Mermaid to the Virus 2004 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=29877> --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jan 26 2004 - 08:29:40 MST