Essays
“Karbala is a myth,” someone said to me earlier this year. While history shows this statement is factually incorrect, a question came to mind; so what if it is? The importance of myth, as myth alone, is such an integral part of not only our understanding of religion and spirituality but is also a window into the history of the human race.
It is somewhat difficult to reach a consistent definition of what exactly a myth is. Still, the meaning that this word has attained in modern discourse is certainly very different from the way it has been understood historically. While the word myth may connote something that is inherently untrue or fictitious to a citizen of the modern world, it carried a very different meaning in premodern times. In most pre-modern cultures knowledge was understood through a certain dichotomy, which the ancient Greeks called mythos(myth) and logos(reason). It is important to note that both of these forms of understanding were given equal importance in this understanding. While rational thought was considered necessary for issues like the cultivation of crops or war strategies it was recognised that there was a certain allusive truth that could only be understood through the framework of myth. Karen Armstrong rights in an essay titled What Is Religion, “ Myths may have told stories about the gods, but they were really focused on the more elusive, puzzling and tragic aspects of the human aspects of the human predicament”
Interestingly the earliest historical evidence of myth can be found in the ultimate tragedy of the human predicament: death. Excavations of Neanderthal graves from at least 50,000 years ago bring to light rituals such as burying the dead with jewellery and weapons. Moreover, remains have often been found in the fetal position, implying an idea of rebirth. At the very root, these early pieces of evidence seem to say that mythmaking came into existence as a result of mankind's intellectual clash with the dismal reality of its morality. Myths allowed early humans to find meaning in tragedy and opened a means of not only explaining life but also living it in a more meaningful way.
In evolutionary history, this tradition of myth-making also seems to be of importance as it differentiates early humans from animals. Animals do not need to ponder over the idea of death and find ways to live with it, but humans do. This ability to find meaning even where it can not be found rationally is unique to the human mind.
The study of Greek Mythology also seems to reveal that what these people were concerned with was not the search for some rational truth, but for a metaphor to understand the tribulations of human life. In many ways these myths were not even theological nor were they didactic as is evident in the moral flaws of the gods. Instead, they provided a parallel plane of existence that was richer, stronger and more enduring, serving as a mirror to understand this one. Similar trends have been seen in Hindu and Sinic mythologies.
In an increasingly rational, scientific world a historical understanding of myth can provide us with a means of understanding the truths that are to be found within ourselves. When understood through the eyes of the previous generation, myth can serve as a means of broadening our understanding of the limitations of scientific thought.
