Talk:Hindu mythology

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This article is within the scope of WikiProject Hindu mythology, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Hindu mythology. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Hinduism, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Hinduism. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page. Guidelines: Manual of Style - Naming conventions How you can help: Notice board - Discussion board
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Contents 1 Mythology or Culture 2 Need some thought 3 Why? 4 Merger Request 5 Merger Request 6 Please expand 7 Indo-Iranian 8 Question on title 8.1 New discussion on "Living Religions" vs "mythology" POVs 9 Sources - Please supply citations for this incredible timespan.

[edit] Mythology or Culture

I'm worried about the vandalism topics like this will take (I'm a Hindu) by non-Hindus and Hindus. Not just this The Christian Mythology section too. Should we change Mythology to Culture in Articles referring to Mythology--71.163.68.87 00:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need some thought

As a follower and upholder of Dharma, as well as being an Indian, I would request that we critically look at the categorization of articles in this category, considering Mythology, the nature of myth and source material.

• As the Mythology article says, Myths are generally narratives based on tradition and legend designed to explain the universal and local beginnings ("creation myths" and "founding myths"), natural phenomena, inexplicable cultural conventions, and anything else for which no simple explanation presents itself. It specifically excludes heroic saga and epic.
• The same article elaborates on how adherents of Christiany or Jewish traditions disagree on whether to call Biblical accounts as myths. I would say that we also have the same disagreement in Dharma and Indian traditions. As such, it is best to not blanket them all as mythology.
• It is instructive that the sources materials Puranas, Katha, Itihaas in Sanskrit can be translated as "accounts", "stories", and "reconstructions".

To summarize, this category needs to be provided with an explanation similar to Christian_mythology and/or some of the articles should not be categorized into this. User:Savyasaachi, Aug 21 2005

completely agree. These texts were originally called mythology because it was non-Hindus that classified them as such. The title automatically discredits the validity of the religion to the non-Hindu audience that connect mythology with falsehood. In line with Christian mythology this page should have Pancharatra tales , Jataka tales etc. --Pranathi 13:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

---

What about defining some standards for the names, their source and source languages, and their transliteration into English? e.g., Why Jayanthi, Shivrathri above, should it not be Jayanti and Shivaratri?

Would Thaipusam be pronounced and heard as expected by a native English speaker. (Southern) Indians and native English have a quite different interpretation of those consonants written 'th'.

Is unicode sufficiently user friendly for us to use it everywhere?

See also the recent edits for the Rama article.

Imc 12:15, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yup, I've been having much the same thoughts. Unicode is definitely the way to go; as long as its in parentheses next to the ascii spelling it should be fine. By unicode, do you mean devanagari characters or accented roman (like Śrīmad Bhagavadgītā)? Either is fine with me (although the latter is easier to input.)

--Arvindn 12:38, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I meant accented Roman, after all this is the English wikipedia. And I can't read Devanagari without a reference at my side :) Imc 12:53, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Fine. Do you happen to have a "cheat sheet" or something so that the characters can be copy-pasted without knowing their unicodes? -- Arvindn 13:10, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, no, I don't cheat! I just cut and paste from the text of other people who have already done the hard work Imc 16:10, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Would this helpful for you guys?: User:Kukkurovaca/BuddhistShortcuts I slapped it together because I hated wading through broken Unicode when I go back to edit articles, but it might also make for easier input, if you don't habitually have itranslator open. Use like so: "N{{msg:a}}g{{msg:a}}rjuna" shows as "Nāgārjuna", and you still have a fighting chance of eyeballing even a long string of diacritics.

Template diacritics deprecated due to the additional stress they form on the server, as well as the fact that the five-include limit on templates breaks them. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 19:50, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)

Staying with the same issue, how about pronunciation references in articles with Sanskrit terms ? I find the standard European phonetic references are kind of inadequate in dealing with Sanskrit pronunciation. The usual method of capitalizing the stressed syllables (ref. Hare Krishna literature) also doesn't find many takers here. I found one such article in the Wikipedia:Cleanup page, where the poster was confused as to why there were random capitalizations? To work around this, how about - if we generate our own references (which may be standardized within the project)? For example, in the article Brahmacharya one may add (as a side linked pronunciation guide),

pronounced Brah-ma-char-ya

• 'Brah' as the 'Bru' in 'brush'
• 'ma' as in 'animal'
• 'char' as the 'ture' in 'accenture'
• 'ya' as 'ia' in 'vial'

I tried to use this a couple of times, but my edits were reverted (probably because somebody felt that went against the standards.) Will that be okay? Chancemill 10:04, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)

By "side linked pronunciation guide", do you mean a separate page for each article? That might be a bit too much. On the other hand a "Guide to pronunciation of Sanskrit-derived words" article sounds like a good idea. In that article we can have examples like the one you gave above.

Why do you say IPA is not adequate for Sanskrit? I thought it is pretty comprehensive and covers every possible sound you could make? In fact it looks to me like a small subset of IPA would do for Sanskit, or for any given language for that matter. The problem with IPA, though, is that it is hard to input and to read.

I like capitalization and use it a lot in email and such, but I think its out of place here (for the same reason you pointed out).

I prefer a simple set of accents, such as those used in the sanskrit package for LaTeX. Basically all that's required is: a bar and acute accent on top; a dot at the bottom, and occasionally a tilde at the top. This seems to be already a widely used standard in books.

-- Arvindn 13:35, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How about "Guide to pronunciation of Indic transliterations"? -- Paddu 11:42, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Should that guide be linked to from every page that uses Indic transliterations, e.g. by making each transliteration a wikilink to the guide? That might look awkward, but is there any alternative? -- Paddu 12:28, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

To clarify what I mean:

-- Arvindn 13:46, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hey, its all there in devanagari! I never looked at it until now :( -- Arvindn 14:02, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

See the ext link at Indic. That table is more comprehensive than the figures above. Also, in the figure "e" and "o" must be replaced with "ē" and "ō", resp. There are no short "e"/"o" in "modern" Devanagari. -- Paddu 11:36, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK, that link does say we could also use "e", "o" if the short forms are not involved ("non-uniform vowel option"), but I feel we should use "ē", "ō" since wikipedia may have transliterations from all Indic languages. -- Paddu 12:06, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It would not be practical to have alternate names of deities in parentheses for deities having too many names, each with many English transliterations in use. So we should come up with some other scheme. -- Paddu 12:59, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Make a new section for names, like in Vishnu. -- Arvindn 14:10, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I was wondering why this project is named "Hindu Mythology" rather than a more inclusive term like "Hinduism"? In any case, I found a very small stub article Badrinath that seems in need of attention. It had mentioned the word "maths", but didn't describe what they are, (monasteries). The article on monastery doesn't even mention that Hindus have monesteries. I'd like to help out more, but I don't know much about Hinduism. func(talk) 15:31, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here is the full unicode chart. If anyone uses Apple OSX+ it is super duper easy to insert unicode directly from a toggle keyboard mode on your menu bar. As far as unicode goes though I don't know of a character for the diacritical ring under the r in ऋ. That's the only real problem. This may be an English Wikipedia but I am so for using foreign originals whenever possible (in these) due to my own frustration of wondering how something is written in Devanāgarī (or any language for that matter). I.e. if someone writes 'Krishna' and not 'Kṛṣṇa' how would someone like me know it was कृष्ण not क्रिश्ना?! Khirad 07:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why?

Why is there a separate WikiProject for Hindu Mythology. It deals with nothing which fits under WikiPrject Hinduism. I am a participant of that project, I was planning to join this but then I realised there is nothing so special about this project. DaGizza

LordSuryaofShropshire raised an objection to talking about Hindu mythology, which I think is rather fair (see the discussion). Would anybody object to making this page a redirect to Itihasa, which includes practically all of the material here anyway? We can of course move anything additional over here there too. QuartierLatin1968 03:05, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree. And the linked discussion only compared it to Greek mythology - but a college grad recently told me that she couldn't call it that in her assignments and it should be called Greek history.. : )).. even that are becoming politically correct but Hinduism is still mythology.. Also see, Template talk:Hinduism small, the hinduism templates that call the texts mythology. --Pranathi 13:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merger Request

Hello,

I feel that Vedic mythology must be merged into the Hindu mythology article, since it was early Hinduism to begin with, and inseparable from each other.

Thank you, User:Rama's Arrow

Please see the talk-page of Vedic mythology for certain related issues. Thanks. --Bhadani 16:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Vedic mythology is different from Hindu mythology in the following: Hindu mythology includes Vedic mythology however Vedic is not nessecarily the only hindu mythology. The term Hindu is one of reference used by the old persians for the people beyond the indus river in the area termed (by them) as sind. the British later used this term changing it to hind and a dweller therin Hindu. Lazyness and convention soon applied the term to all of "India" including the deccan, baluchistan, the hindu kush/kasmir etc. Hindu mythology should reflect the mytho/poetic traditions of all india, including dravidian, burmese, thai, and any other culture associated with the indian culture complex. Vedic mythology only refers to the people of the vedas the so called "Aryans" and we still don't know how much harrapan, dravidian, etc. influence this "Vedic" mythology has, as none of it was written until (at the earliest) 2500bce. therefore Wikipedia is justified in keeping them seperate and as some people of supposed indian descent have no problem with the term Hindu I would keep it the way it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.59.14.193 (talk) 02:28, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger Request

Hello,

I feel that Vedic mythology must be merged into the Hindu mythology article, since it was early Hinduism to begin with, and inseparable from each other.

Thank you, User:Rama's Arrow

Different religions, despite what many think, and certainly very different mythologies. Would you require that Norse mythology and Anglo-Saxon mythology be merged into Germanic mythology because the latter is a broader term that covers both the others in the views of many mythologists? Or, worse yet, that Germanic mythology and Anglo-Saxon mythology be merged into Norse mythology because more information is readily available on the latter? I vow to oppose such a merge to the bloody end! elvenscout742 00:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Kindly also refer to my comments/ related discussion on the talk page of Vedic mythology. Thanks. --Bhadani 14:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please expand

In my opinion, the article requires massive expansion and re-arrangements of the current contents, as also re-writes, compacting certain contents, and so on. Frankly speaking, it should be a collaborative effort to give the subject a real encyclopedic treatment and presentation. Kindly come forward, and contribute. --Bhadani 17:42, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Bhadani, Can we dicuss what can be included as mythology and how to categorize it. Mythology, though it technically doesn't have implications of fiction, is used in common language to mean a fictional account. The topics covered in this page include many stories believed to be true by Hindus. To give some background, please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Hinduism - Mythology or Scriptures discussion. Also, see Jewish Mythology, Islamic mythology and the categories named similarly. The Christian mythology category is structured to handle mythology that is believed to be true by Christians to be classified as 'Narratives'. --Pranathi 02:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

This is really a fine idea> Frankly, I was looking forward to participate in any such discussion. I would request you to please present certain points. I will also do so within next two weeks. And, happy New Year to you and all others. --Bhadani 14:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Bhadani, Shall we move discussion to the project Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Hindu_mythology? That way we can come up with a stategy to present all mythology topics. I have already added discussion there. Please participate.--Pranathi 17:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Certainly Pranathi, you have done a nice thing. --Bhadani 16:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

To align with pages of Islamic and Jewish mythology - this page should not include stories that Hindus consider to be true - such as Ramayana and Mahabharata. The links to these epics can be added to the Hindu mythology category (where there is clarification on the word myth). If you look at Jewish or Islamic mythology - Arabian nights and such are included. Abrahamic mythologies do not include the flood, noah's ark or stories of moses under their pages with the same title. In the Hindu page also there is ambiguity and states that some stories are not mythology (untrue) because there is historic evidence. Mythology does not technically implies untrue story but other religions object to their stories classified as myth since the term is commonly used to imply falsehood. Narratives that are not historical are also not included in their mythology pages.

To align it with the other pages I should say limit this to Jataka tales, pancharatra tales etc. I guess other narratives can be added too, but I strongly object to Ramayana, Mahabharata and Vedas added here. Please discuss objections to removing them - or I will do so shortly.--Pranathi 02:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Pranathi. A small issue is that sometimes it's all mixed up. Like the Pandavas spending some time in Indraloka during their exile. deeptrivia (talk) 02:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Indo-Iranian

Please stop calling things Indo-Iranian. Why not call them plain and simple Aryan? The greek, roman, germanic, and nordic beliefs also have much in common with the Aryan beliefs. Why not call them indo-greek, indo-roman, indo-germanic, etc. Cygnus-hansa, do you prefer to call them Indo-Iranian. Why not call them indo-zorastrian, that would be better. Aupmanyav 15:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

how about Indo-European? they are supposedly all conquests of the "Aryan's" anyway. also the fact that all Aryan decended mythologies have natural forces as gods or at least analougous to a god is a possible starting point for seperation at least from semitic myths that have law or order as the utmost concern of the god or from the bronze age view of the eternal recurance you find in non aryan indan and chinese mythology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.59.14.193 (talk) 02:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question on title

Why not hold Puranas, Itihasas and Vedas as seperate divisions since these constitute the whole of hindu religion. Also, there is no "mythology" as such here but all the stories are given in the scriptures: Itihasas, Puranas and Vedas. So I don't get the title "Hindu Mythology".

I have some concerns about the title as well. I don't like how it is considered "mythology". Even though it is explained in the first few paragraphs, Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. Except in academic circles, Mythology is a term with a negative connotation, albeit less than the very blunt "myth". This article lists pretty much every single Hindu story as mythology. Compare that to the article on Christian mythology.--0rrAvenger 22:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the title has any particular negative connotation. Can you suggest alternative terminology? Buddhipriya 22:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

That's the problem. There is no alternative, it seems.--0rrAvenger 23:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... Does this article have a Hindi or Punjab counterpart?--0rrAvenger 23:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

No not at the moment. Punjabi Wikipedia vitually has nothing while Hindi Wikipedia and Sanskrit Wikipedia only have hi:हिन्दू धर्म and sa:सनातन धर्म respectively. Mythology is not as pejorative as "myth" and there are other articles like Christian mythology and Islamic mythology that exist. The only alternative which isn't negative I can think of is Legend, or maybe tale, but I don't really care which word is used. Gizza^{Chat ©} 09:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

What about Hindu belief, then? rohith 18:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

mythology is a topic in its own right, and not equivalent to "beliefs" or similar. As always, any question of terminology on Wikipedia can go no further than the question, which is the term used in mainstream English language scholarship? Find sources: Hindu mythology — news, books, scholar The term "Hindu mythology" gets 290,000 google hits, 3,700 hits on google scholar and 2,200 hits on google books. I thus don't see anything wrong with it. We might, however, consider a widening of the article's scope to Indian mythology (at present a disambiguation page). Every culture has its mythology (list of mythologies), it's an important part of what even makes it a culture. dab (𒁳) 13:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New discussion on "Living Religions" vs "mythology" POVs

It appears there has already been much discussion here on the appropriateness of Wikipedia using biased cultural terms like "mythology" to describe peoples' beliefs that are devoutly believed in by significant numbers of people in the world today. This POV that these scriptures are "mythology" is not shared by those millions who believe in them as sacred, and so such labels when applied to modern day religions and their canonical texts would appear to be a NPOV violation. Please see:

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion#List_of_articles_where_mythology_cats_are_potentially_problematic

Regards, Blockinblox 14:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

You are so correct. I only noticed this Bias when the Ganesha article became the article of the day or whatever. It is very telling when even Scientology does not even have the word "myth" or it's derivatives listed once on any of it's main pages. All worldwide recognized religions should be listed as religions and the question of differences in beliefs, stories and the historical nature can be discussed along with canon and non-canon as far as what is widely accepted. The abuse of the term "myth" by the Judeaochristian Wiki editors is just as bad as when earlier Christians used the term "Pagan" akin to evil for any religion that wasn't Christians. I am sure when they were being burned at the stake and being told that the term didn't mean anything bad made them feel better;) http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism.htm

All religions with a certain percentage of the world population must be treated equally. Here is a listing of the top 22 accounting for more than 99.9% of the world's population with the Nonreligious shown as well. The exact percentages don't matter...all of them should be listed as religions and belief systems as approriate and not at Mythology: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

--Thehighlndr (talk) 17:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

"mythology" isn't a "biased cultural term", give us a break. Look it up in a dictionary. Or read our mythology. A myth by definition is or was held sacred by some culture, otherwise it wouldn't be a myth, it would just be a story. --dab (𒁳) 13:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC) ____________________________________________________________________________

• • • Let me try to explain why mythology is indeed a "biased cultural term".***

As Dbachmann suggested I did consult the dictionary and read Wikipedia's "Christian Mythology" section titled "Controversy on the word "myth". I quote: "{Although the academic use of the word "myth" is generally not supposed to imply falsehood, many Christians feel uncomfortable with the label "mythology" when it is applied to Christian tradition. This discomfort has its roots in Christian history. Early Christian theologians used the word "myth" to mean "falsehood", and it was with this meaning that the word passed into popular English usage.[71] Hence, some Christians take offense when their own sacred stories are designated as "myths": they believe that such a designation implies that the stories are false.}"

The first sentence in the above paragraph says: "the academic use of the word "myth" is generally not supposed to imply falsehood". 1. Wikipedia is not written only for academics. The whole world refers to Wikipedia and takes the popular use of the word as falsehood. 2. The word myth is derived from the sanskrit word "Mithya" meaning falseghood. 3. The word "generally" in the above sentence makes it clear that one can not say "unequivocally" that "myth does not imply falsehood". It leaves the room for myth being falsehood. And that is the intent from the original Christian usage. 4. As you can surmise from the above paragraph, Christians originally coined this term to denounce other peoples beliefs as myths, but not their own stories. That's what makes this word a "biased cultural term". 5. Adding the word "generally" makes it possible to keep the dual meaning intact: myth is sacred to the followers, but false to other religions. 6. We must realize that followers of ALL other religions take the same offense as Christians do when they see their sacred stories are called myth.

This terminology continues to perpetuate the 'intolerance' inherent in the original Christian usage that other peoples beliefs are false, only Jesus is the savior, etc.

Websters defines Mythology as "a body of myths; esp: the myths dealing with the gods,demigods,and legendary heroes of a particular people and usually involving supernatural elements". If one uses the definition consistently, and puts Hindu Ramayan and Mahabharat in the myth category, then the Bible should also be included as a myth. If Ram in Ramayan and Krishna in Mahabharat are legendary heroes with supernatural powers,then Jesus should also be termed likewise. Following up on this logic for other religions, one reaches the drastic conclusion that chapters on ALL religions may be eliminated in Wikipedia and only sections on myths kept - because what is left in religion if you take out the sacred stories?!?! What is religion of Christianity if Jesus' virgin birth, crucifiction, and resurrection, are all myth? When one reaches at this logical point, one is forced to see the absurdity of the notion of mythology. Mythology only thrives on asymmetric (biased) treatment of non-Christian religions presented as myths, while Christianity is presented as the only true religion.

Therefore I agree with the assertions made earlier that 1. all religions' scriptures and sacred stories should be listed under religions and belief systems and not as Mythology. 2. Only tertiary texts (like Hindu Jatak tales) may be placed in the myth category. But non-christian faiths should not be treated in an asymmetric (biased)manner.

The paragraph I cited from the Christian Mythology section should also be added to Hindu Mythology chapter, and other religions mythology chapters, after making suitable modifications to make it clear that all religions take offence when their sacred stories are called myth. Viprak (talk) 22:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sources - Please supply citations for this incredible timespan.

To say that the Rig-Vedas were already sung by 7200 BCE is stretching it very, very, very far, unless the author of the statement is totally unfamiliar with comparative linguistics. Citations would be appreciated. But the opinio communis of Indo-Europeanists is that 7200 BC is a couple or few thousand years off. Cheers Io (talk) 18:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

nonsense additions such as these should just be reverted. --dab (𒁳) 13:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)