Category Archives: Myths

Sacred narratives

Religious myth- How Ganesha got his elephant head

Story:

Ganesha’s mother Parvati asked him to guard the entrance to their house, while she was getting ready. She told Ganesha to not allow anyone to come inside the house, until she came out to see him. Ganesha stood guard outside while Parvati went in. Shiva, Ganesha’s father, came home. Ganesha refused to let Shiva go in because he was obeying his mother. Shiva got angry and there was a fight between the two of them. In the fight, Shiva beheaded Ganesha with his trident. When Parvati came out and saw this, she was enraged and cursed that the entire universe will be destroyed. Shiva regretted killing Ganesha. To bring Ganesha back to life, Shiva asked another god, Brahma, to bring him the head of the first animal that he sees. The first animal that Brahma saw was an elephant. So Brahma got the head of the elephant and gave it to Shiva. Shiva placed the elephant’s head on Ganesha and brought him back to life. This is how Ganesha has the head of an elephant and the body of a human.

Context:

JG is 59 years old and my mother. She grew up in India with a very religious Hindu family, before immigrating to the USA. She still practices Hinduism to this day, and follows all of the religion’s traditions, observes the festivals, and believes in its myths to this day. She tried to pass this on to me as a child, but her religious beliefs never really connected with me. She agreed to retell this myth to me for this assignment.

Analysis:

After telling me the story, JG explained to me that Parvati symbolizes the soul and Shiva symbolizes the mind. When Ganesha stopped Shiva from going into the house, he unknowingly stopped the mind from meeting the soul. The elephant head symbolizes memory and realization. Once Ganesha had the elephant head, he realized what he had done. Ganesha also symbolizes the removal of obstacles.

I remember from my upbringing that Ganesha is the first god you’re supposed to pray to before starting anything major. This makes sense because essentially, what this folktale is telling you is that praying to Ganesha connects your mind and soul, and allows you to remember things correctly. This myth probably comes from the Indus River civilization, where the origins of Hinduism can be traced to. This story remains as something that’s told to children, to entertain them and to familiarize them with the basics of Hinduism from a young age.

Celestial Myth- Why Does The Moon Have A Crater?

Nationality: Indian-American
Age: 59
Occupation: Lawyer
Residence: Richmond, VA
Primary Language: English

Story:

Ganesha is a god in Hindu mythology who has the head of an elephant. So one day, Ganesha was riding on the mouse in the forest. The mouse saw a snake – it got scared and ran away. Ganesha fell down. The moon saw this and started laughing at Ganesha. Ganesha got angry and threw his tusk at the moon. The point where the tusk hit the moon is where the moon has a crater. This is also why he has one broken tusk.

Context:

JG is 59 years old and my mother. She grew up in India with a very religious Hindu family, before immigrating to the USA. She still practices Hinduism to this day, and follows all of the religion’s traditions, observes the festivals, and believes in its myths to this day. She tried to pass this on to me as a child, but her religious beliefs never really connected with me. She agreed to retell this celestial myth to me for this assignment.

Analysis:

Ganesha is one of the most prominent and common figures in Hindu mythology. He is mostly known as the remover of obstacles, which is why Hindus like to worship him first before worshipping other gods or starting big tasks/activities. This myth shows Ganesha’s impulsiveness and short temper, which follows as his father is said to be the Destroyer. The origins of this myth probably come from the Indus River civilization, as its inhabitants tried to explain natural phenomenon in the sky with stories about the gods. Now, we know the factual, scientific reason why the moon has craters. However, this story remains as something that’s told to children, to entertain them and to familiarize them with the basics of Hinduism from a young age.

The Myth of the Jade Rabbit

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: March 26, 2023
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Text: “One day the goddess of the moon, Chang-e, needed help preparing the elixir of life. She knew that humans were too selfish for the task, so she decided to look among the animals. When she arrived, she asked all of the animals to bring her sacrifices, like vegetables and handmade gifts. All the animals offered her gifts, and she collected them, but when she got to the rabbit, the rabbit confessed that she hadn’t been able to find a gift. The rabbit felt terrible, so she jumped into a fire and sacrificed herself, becoming a roasted rabbit for Chang-e to eat. The goddess was so impressed with the rabbit’s bravery and sacrifice that she resurrected the rabbit and brought her to the moon to help her make the elixir. And today, if you look closely enough, you can see the image of the rabbit on the moon.”

Context: The informant is a 19-year old Chinese-American student who heard this at her local Chinese Christian church in Orange County when she was around 8 years old. She admittedly had some concerns about the accuracy of the story but told it how she remembered it. 

Analysis: Despite the story’s explicit condemnation of humanity, an interesting tension arises in how the animals in the story are still indirectly anthropomorphized as they display the ability to understand language and comprehend success/failure on an intellectual level. There seems to be an inherent contradiction embedded in the fact that a human is not able to carry out this task but an animal, who is humanlike in every other sense, gets chosen instead. To explore this further, the central focus of the myth seems to be selflessness and the search for the ideal selfless being. Pure selflessness seems only to be attained by creatures and beings that are simultaneously like and unalike us, such as Jesus Christ, the quintessential Christian sacrifice who was both human and God, or an anthropomorphic rabbit, a non-human animal that exhibits humanlike traits. The rabbit also seems to be a sort of Messiah figure who lays down her life and ascends to heaven to dedicate her life towards serving humanity. Perhaps the story suggests that as humans, we recognize and strive towards goodness/selflessness within ourselves, but at the same time acknowledge that this ideal is unattainable for us as imperfect beings. This fundamental tension embodies the paradigmatic approach to the myth pioneered by Claude Levi-Strauss, who explains how dichotomies inherent in myth are reflective of larger social and cultural paradigms. I believe the tension demonstrated here is the fundamental tension between mortality and the soul: our spiritual capacity for good but our mortal folly that prevents us from always acting on it. Only very special messianic figures, like Jesus and the rabbit, who are simultaneously both human and not, are able to act with this degree of selflessness and bridge the gap between mortality and the divine by performing the ultimate sacrifice. The difference between humans and the messiah is that humans are composed of both body and spirit, only part divine, whereas the messiah is both fully human and divine simultaneously, which is a great paradox beyond our ability to comprehend. Perhaps, this was why humans were not chosen in the story, because such a selfless task requires a being ontologically separate from (but still related to) humanity all together: a creature that physically embodies this Straussian dualism where mortality and divinity simultaneously inhabit the same being. Nonetheless, the connections to contemporary Christianity seem striking, and perhaps these messianic themes have more polygenetic roots than initially thought. This could also serve as a reflection on Christianity’s influence in China and an attempt for the Chinese people to reclaim their own form of cultural agency in the messianic narrative. 

 

The Monkey King

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 03/29/2023
Primary Language: English

Text:

AX: “There’s this old story about something called the Monkey King, and how he goes from being… he goes through all these trials and training, like Hercules and the twelve trials. He goes from this little monkey who goes through all these problems, solving some and causing others, he ends up achieving godhood and he’s the savior. He has a trusty staff that can expand in size. It was very special that we had to remember that he has 72 transformations. It’s him, a pig, and like a sage, and there’s a monk that all of them follow. A journey to the West. If you go west enough, further west, you’ll hit mount Olympus, or the equivalent of that: enlightenment. So they try and go to the West and everything. It was important that the monkey king had 72 transformations, his little brother had 36, and then his youngest brother had 18, it was very important that we remember that. So this Monkey King has a band around his head, it’s gold and it’s enchanted, so his monk, his master can chant something whenever he’s misbehaving and it’ll tighten around his head in punishment. So like as they journey to the west, he always has this headband on him, so when they finally reach the west and everything, Buddha takes off the golden band and replaces it with a halo to represent how he’s gone from being imprisoned from his thoughts to him being enlightened, above that. When it was on his head, it was in contact with his skin, but when it was replaced, it hovered slightly above it.”

Context: AX is a freshman at USC studying English—she’s a fellow student in our folklore class and knows the material well. She grew up in Chino, a small suburb outside of Los Angeles. She’s of Asian descent.

AX: “My mom always called me her little monkey king, and would threaten me. Don’t make me put a red band around your head! Like, yes ma’am. I cannot misbehave!”


Analysis: The Monkey King is a common story, common enough for me, a white Californian, to have heard of it. Right off the bat, she compared her story to Hercules and the twelve trials. In Western society, Hercules is more commonly known, partially due to academic emphasis on Greek/Roman mythology and the popular Disney movie Hercules. AX’s childhood in California may have resulted in this association, almost a need to preface with a comparison to Western culture. I wonder if AX’s knowledge of the folklore class impacted her interpretation. The numerology of the story itself is interesting, especially since AX knew they were important but didn’t know what they mean. All of the numbers AX said are multiples of 2, 3, 6, and/or 8, which are all lucky numbers in China. And, of course, each is a multiple of the other. 18 times 2 is 36, and 36 times 2 is 72. 72 in particular is frequently used in Chinese folklore, occurring across a vast number of stories, and it’s the base of calculation in the ancient Chinese calendar.

El Cucuy

“There’s like a monster called El Cucuy, kinda like the boogeyman, it’s meant to scare children. Basically if you misbehaved El Cucuy would like to come and get you.”

Background: The informant’s parents never used it to scare her as a child, she would sometimes hear it from family members at parties or at dinners. She says it was used more in a joking manner in her family, rather than as a tactic to keep the kids in line.

Analysis: The El Cucuy is mainly viewed as a Spanish myth or legend but it can also be viewed as a superstition as it is able to mysteriously hide under the beds of misbehaving children. El Cucuy is often equated with the Western idea of the boogeyman and has many different variations such as Coco, Coca, Cuca, or Cucuí. Many cultures often have a boogeyman in order to prevent children from misbehaving, though most families don’t take it seriously in today’s society, often using it in a joking manner so as to not completely terrify children.