Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology

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Devdutt Pattanaik, born in 1970, is an Indian author, physician, mythologist, columnist and consultant. He is currently the Chief Belief Officer of the Future Group. Pattanaik has written more than twenty-five books, some of which are Myth=Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology, Vishnu: An Introduction, Hanuman's Ramayan, and The Book of Ram. The author completed his MBBS from Grant Medical College, Mumbai, and then decided to pursue a course in Comparative Mythology at Mumbai University. Before he starting writing books, Pattanaik worked for fourteen years in the pharma and healthcare industry. He now writes a column for The Economic Times, and is an inspirational speaker as well as a leadership coach. Pattanaik has hosted TV shows, namely Shastrarth on CNBC-Awaaz and Business Sutra on CNBC-18. The author is a story consultant for Star TV, and he gave a TED lecture in 2009. Pattanaik lives in Mumbai.

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Pattanaik's Myth=mithya approaches Hinduism from an interestingly rational standpoint. This was one of the first things that struck me about the book. Normally, books about God(s) tend to be pretty partisan in their world-view. Religion in general feeds into the overwhelming human urge to explain everything with one grand all-encompassing sentence or formula. A theological 42, if you will. Myth=mithya on the other hand, approaches the world with the same rational observation-theory-hypothesis method that I would expect from a scientific paper. It makes no arrogant claims to authority, nor does it even pretend to be the be-all/end-all as far as Hindu Mythology goes. It simply states cases from Hindu Mythology and then draws correlations to different aspects of Hindu philosophy as opposed to religion. What makes it all the more interesting, and why I refer to it as theology is- Hindu Mythology is still a very integral part of Indian culture (and by stating this, I dont intend to undermine Muslim and Mughal influences on Indian culture in any way). While Greek, Roman and Egyptian myths are arguably more popular, globally; and are definitely studied/analyzed to a far greater degree, they are artifacts of now-defunct religions. Hinduism and the Hindu pantheon are still very much practiced and believed in, respectively. No scholar of Greek Myth actually believes that Aphrodite was born from Ouranos' genitals, but you try to tell my grandmum that Brahma was not born from a lotus that grew out of Narayana's navel while Narayana reclined on a thousand-headed serpent that floated on an infinite ocean of milk and I guarantee you that you are in for a bit of an argument.