In this talk, Rohit Pharake, a humanities teacher and the creator of the Puran Project, delves into the significance of mythology and the pressing need for mythologists in understanding ancient myths and stories. He explains the distinctions between mythology and theology, highlighting the historical context and modern applications of mythological studies. By challenging common perceptions through the game "Two Truths and One Lie," he illustrates how myths, such as the ramayana, are often misinterpreted or altered over time, portraying the necessity of mythological expertise to preserve the original narratives.

The video gains importance as it underscores the role of mythologists in countering common fallacies like "argumentum ad populum," where statements contradictory to popular belief are dismissed without evidence. Mythologists, Pharake suggests, should be regarded as heroes for their role in clarifying mythological texts and confronting societal sensitivities to religious interpretations within India. Through critical evaluation of how stories are retold, Pharake emphasizes the need for authenticity in mythological narratives to maintain cultural integrity and prevent misinterpretations from taking root.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. mythologist [mɪˈθɒlədʒɪst] - (noun) - A person who studies myths, legends, and stories, distinguishing them from theology, which deals with divine entities. - Synonyms: (folklorist, storyteller, mythographer)

Three, mythologists study myths, legends and stories.

2. comparative mythology [kəmˈpærətɪv maɪˈθɒlədʒi] - (noun) - The study of myths from different cultures to identify common themes and characteristics. - Synonyms: (cross-cultural mythology, comparative folklore, myth comparison)

Two, I do have a postgraduate diploma in comparative mythology.

3. ramayana [rəˈmɑːjənə] - (noun) - An ancient Indian epic narrating the journey of Prince Rama to rescue his wife Sita. - Synonyms: (Rama's journey, epic tale, Hindu narrative)

I hope that you're all aware of the story of ramayana.

4. argumentum ad populum [ˌɑːɡjʊˈmɛntəm æd ˈpɒpjʊləm] - (noun) - A fallacy that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it. - Synonyms: (appeal to popularity, bandwagon fallacy, consensus bias)

argumentum ad populum. Now, this field of mythology is nicely garnished with the fallacy of argumentum at populum.

5. Valmiki ramayana [vɑːlˈmiːki rəˈmɑːjənə] - (noun) - The original Sanskrit epic of the ramayana, attributed to the sage Valmiki. - Synonyms: (ancient text, sacred scripture, Sanskrit epic)

However, there is no evidence of the third instance happening in the Valmiki ramayana.

6. bharatasya puran [ˈbʌrətəsə pʊˈrɑːn] - (noun) - A publication related to Vedic mythology, part of the Puran project. - Synonyms: (Vedic scripture, mythological book, ancient narrative)

This is an example of one of the chapters from the book bharatasya puran.

7. argumentative discord [ˌɑːɡjʊˈmɛntətɪv ˈdɪskɔːd] - (noun) - A state of disagreement and conflict resulting from differing opinions. - Synonyms: (conflict of opinion, dispute, disagreement)

Becoming a victim of argumentum ad populum just creates thriving spaces for argumentative discord.

8. swayamvar [swəˈjʌmvər] - (noun) - An ancient ceremony of choosing a husband, often involving challenges set by the bride's family. - Synonyms: (bridal selection, marriage contest, engagement ceremony)

Sita swayamvar is a pivotal moment in the ramayana.

9. viria shulka [ˈvɪriə ˈʃʊlkə] - (noun) - A concept of wooing for marriage through a display of valor, often used in myths. - Synonyms: (valorous wooing, heroic marriage, strength dowry)

On the contrary, it's a rather much simplistic idea of viria shulka.

10. foreshadowing [fɔːrˈʃædəʊɪŋ] - (noun) - A literary device used to give an indication of what is to come later in the story. - Synonyms: (prefiguring, predicting, presaging)

See what I did there? This is foreshadowing, setting up for something later.

Mythologists - Heroes that Bharat Needs - Rohit Phalke - TEDxGoodShepherdIntlSchool

Namaskar. My name is Rohit Pharake. I'm a teacher of humanities and the creator of the Puran project. Before we dive into this topic, let's get some pointers clear right in the beginning. One, no, there is no sacrificial fire outside where you might find me pouring ghee into it. If you have any questions about my attire. Two, I do have a postgraduate diploma in comparative mythology, apart from my economic credentials. Three, mythologists study myths, legends and stories. Mythology is distinct from theology, which deals with God and the nature of God itself. And lastly, mythologist is not a new term. Its earliest reference has been found to be in 1608.

So let me begin with a question. Is there a need for mythologists? Show of hands, please. If you agree, as far as I can see, as many of you are disagreeing, let's try and play a game, okay? I hope that you're all aware of the story of ramayana. Like, you may have seen it, you may have read it or you may have heard it, more or less, you know the story of Ramayan, so let's try and play a game. Two truths and one lie. There will be three statements shown. You all will indicate by a show of hands. Which one do you think is a lie based on your knowledge of ramayana? Statement one, Kaikai was extremely overjoyed when she heard that Ram was announced as a crown prince.

Statement two, Raavan physically grabbed Sita when he abducted her. And statement three, Lakshman drew a line around their forest residence to protect Sita in the golden deer episode. Now, how many of you believe statement one is a lie? Show of hands, please. How many of you believe statement two is a lie? Show of hands. And how many of you believe statement three is the lie? Well, actually, statement three is the lie. You can find the evidence for the first instance in the Ayodhya Khan chapter seven.

You can find the evidence for the second instance in Aranyakaan chapter 49. However, there is no evidence of the third instance happening in the Valmiki ramayana. But it might be somewhere in the 300 Ramayanas that Ak Ramanujan talks about. Now, I did play the same game online as well, with quite a big sample. And as you can see, the amount of people who believe that the statement is a lie drops drastically from the first to the last instance. So if you feel shocked by the revelation, don't worry, you're not alone in the boot. So now, I think there is a need to rethink the initial question.

Is there a need for mythologists. Evidently there is a need for mythologists. Now, my introduction to mythology spans over multiple contributors, right from the stories that my grandmother and father used to tell me to the comic strips of Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha by uncle Pai. Now, Amar Chitra Katha turned into historical and mythological fiction. And I got introduced to the likes of Ashwin Sanghi, Ananda, Neel Kanthan, Amish Tripathi, and of course, Rick Riordan.

Now, so many things from these reading endeavors used to just fly over my head. Like, why was Prometheus role so crucial to the last olympian? Or did Ravan and Valli actually meet? I decided that I should read the sources from where these authors take their inspiration from. I chose to read the Mahabharata because the complexities intrigued me. I got my hands on a copy of Jaya written by Devdatta Pattanayak.

To be honest, I was blown over. Like first time. I found that the stories that I had heard, read, seen, had so many connections to the Kuru family turmoil, like stories that should seem age old to the epic itself. As I started reading more retellings and such stories, I started feeling empowered with knowledge. Like, dude, I know things, okay? I know things. I used these books as my reference points in debates in college, and listeners used to applaud, which consolidated the idea that what I know is the knowledge.

However, every retelling I got my hands on used to have some minor tweak to a previously read story or some new minor story that I had not read before. All these fleeting glances into this bigger picture and the realization of what a retelling or an abridged version means. I realized that I was taking a teamsy step rather than what I had thought, that I had leaped.

I realized that I should read the translation of the critical edition of the original source. Now, getting the set of Mahabharat was really expensive. My parents were apprehensive when I first put forth this idea. So quarrels, bouts of silence, artful, convincing, begging from my side eventually turned into a, okay, fine, take it. Kind of a permission. Now, little did my parents know at that point that this was going to turn into a lifelong project. See what I did there? This is foreshadowing, setting up for something later.

Okay. Kitab Khana is a bookshop in Mumbai. It had a sale, and I got my hands on the set of the critical translations of Mahabharata and the Bhagavad purana. Stepping stones, baby steps, they all lead to success, right? So of course, I chose to read the Mahabharata now, as you can see, it went with absolute ease. But I was like, dude, I know Mahabharat like no one. Okay, so let me give the other smaller set a try.

The Covid-19 pandemic became the miraculous occasion for me to start reading. It took me two months to just comprehend the writing and translation style. It took me almost ten months to complete the reading of the Bhagavad Purana. Now, while the philosophical aspects of the Bhagavad puran are a different ballgame altogether, comprehending the factual aspects, like creation genealogy stories, are a huge task in itself. Now, I thought of mapping the genealogy of the Bhagavad Puran with a visual of creating something like the marauders map from Harry Potter. I found out some issues and gaps where the other 17 major puranic sources came to my rescue.

Now, while reading them as a reference point, surely bridged certain gaps, but created more where the roads were already permanent, or at least I had assumed them to be. The rescuers trapping the victim, furthermore. Sounds paradoxical, right? Well, that is exactly what happened with me and consequentially, my dad, my mom and my wife. And then it dawned upon me. We are the living epitome of the blind men and the elephant parable.

And surprisingly, we are the sighted descendants of these blind men, still using their interpretation of the elephant. The myths that we know and the myths that we believe, and the myths as told by the sources from where they come from, are far apart in every rubric 1 may consider. Which brings me to my core, why mythologists should be hailed as heroes.

Point number one. argumentum ad populum. Now, this field of mythology is nicely garnished with the fallacy of argumentum at populum. It means that any statement, any interpretation which is contrary to the popular belief is immediately falsified by claiming it to not hold any truth value. Now, today, if I say that Harry Potter used Avada Kedavra on Voldemort, the entire community of Potterhead would claim this to be falsified, as this nowhere exists in the canon story, right?

So let me try and extend this to mythology. So, Sita swayamvar is a pivotal moment in the ramayana, with ram picking up the boat, trying to tie it, and he breaks it, winning Sita's hand in marriage. However, the critical translation suggests no such evidence. The canon story, Valmiki Ramayan, no evidence of suitors coming in, competing for the bow, and nowhere it exists otherwise. On the contrary, it's a rather much simplistic idea. Of viria shulka, which is the hand in marriage, paid as a price for the display of valor. And this is in three unabridged translations, Hari Prasad Shastri, Manmattana Dutt, and Bibek Debroi.

Isn't it interesting that the Harry Potter instance did not make you squirm in your seats, but the Sith swayam were diddhe? I want you to be comfortable with this discomfort. It can be maybe the first instance. In recognizing the subtle influence of the fallacy, mythologists can help you ponder over whether what you know is the version that you should be knowing. They will help you ponder whether you have fallen victim to this argumentum at fallacy.

My next point is storytellers of mythology. Now, I know that these authors of retellings do have this added element to create a dramatic effect for the retellings. However, this added element, this dramatic effect takes the core myth further away from its original source. For example, let me walk you through two issues that I noticed in the chapter the killing of Tadaka, written by Devdatta Patnaik in his book Sita, an illustrated retelling of ramayana. The chapter states that Sita and her sisters were present at the yajna at Siddhashram, while the translation suggests of this not happening at all.

A second minor instance suggests that Maricia ran away, while the translation states that Mariacha was thrown far off by one of the arrows of Ram himself. Now, by stating this, I do not wish or do not mean to reduce the prowess that Mister Pattanayk has over storytelling when it comes to legends through simple, lucid language and illustrations. But I want you all to pause and reflect. Storytelling is crucial to humanity for passing on information at some point. We have all been audiences to storytellers of mythology like Mister Pattanayk. We have all been enchanted by this creative prowess that they all have. But the question to be asked is, how authentic are the stories that you know?

Point number three the sensitive religious climate of Bharat. The Bharati society is extremely sensitive to incidences stemming from misinterpretations and reinterpretations of maitho religious texts. Sati was a practice of the burning of a widow alive on her dead husband's pyre. Now, while the origins of this practice are questionable, the practice claims its validity from maitho religious texts. Sati, enraged by the insults that her father gave to her husband, Shiva, left her mortal body only to have it fall into a sacrificial fire. The character from whose name and personality the practice claims its identity self immolated for completely different motives.

And while her husband was alive. Such misinterpretation led to a rampant, inhuman ritual that plagued bharat for centuries, to an extent that people outraged when it was first abolished in British India. Mythologists can provide enough, as well as apt mechanisms in such cases, much like Doctor Meenakshi Jain providing the evidence of this misinterpreted validity of satihe through religio legal texts. To use the words of one of my favorite authors and speakers, advocate J. Sai Deepak, the question to be asked is, what have you read before you made this statement?

So, I think there is a need for rewriting this statement. Again, there is a need for authentic mythologists. Now, this is where I thought to take it upon myself to create an authentic portal for mythology. The roots of it stem from that genealogy mapping idea. The Puran project is an ongoing, multi mythological project, which I started four years ago with the sole objective of compiling this information that is scattered around sources so that the readers can get the myths and legends much more easily accessible and factually accurate.

And they don't find the difficulties that I faced. Now, this is an example of one of the chapters from the book bharatasya puran, which is about Vedic mythology, which has been recently published on the Puran project. Now, while I do strive for authenticity, I do not claim that this project is the only answer. However, it can be a start to a greater journey that we are yet unbeknownst of. The skepticism is growing.

The world is growing. Now, in these challenging times, there is a high need for heroes. Understanding the depths of the characters by reading better creates spaces for fruitful discussions. Basing what you know on becoming a victim of argumentum ad populum just creates thriving spaces for argumentative discord. Now, whether these mythological characters, places and events happened in reality should be a question left to historians, archaeologists and people who believe.

I hope that I have made some sense into this talk, and I hope that mythologists get the rightful place that they deserve in this modern world. And why not start from Bharat so that we can lead as an example for the modern world? Thank you and happy reading.

Mythology, Education, Inspiration, Cultural Preservation, Argumentum Ad Populum, Philosophy, Tedx Talks