Vice President’s Vices and Myths

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu is incapable of distinguishing between mythology and history.  Speaking at a leadership summit at the Indian School of Business the other day, Mr Naidu said that goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati were India’s finance and education ministers respectively.

Source: OneIndia

Gods and goddesses belong to myths.  Myths are important but not for teaching history.  Myths have been used by every culture to teach certain religious and moral lessons to the children.  They have also served well to help man deal with the demons in his subconscious and unconscious minds. 

Joseph Campbell, arguably the best scholar on myths, said that myths provide a cultural framework for a society to educate their young.  Even as we grow older myths may help us to deal with certain problems of life.  The function of myths remain, however, at the religious level. 

It is dangerous to mix myths with historical facts and events.  India is already going through a crisis caused by the mingling of myths with facts particularly in the last three years.  A person who occupies such a high position as Mr Naidu should exercise his brain a little more if India is to continue as a single nation of diverse faiths and myths and all such stuff which are as inevitable as the demons that occupy the deeper recesses of human minds.

“All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells are within you.”  Joseph Campbell.