Virginia Schomp

For my children's literature class, we had to choose a book of myths to read, so I found this one at my public library. I picked this out because I didn't know much about Hinduism.

The book divides itself into sections on Indian history, Hindu myths, and Buddhist Jataka Tales. All of the sections have a unified design, and before each myth the author explains the context of the story and the characters therein. In the back is a glossary, a list of references, and an index. The tone is very neutral throughout with little personal commentary from the author (aside from in the introduction, which I will get to in a moment). Overall, I felt like it was an excellent overview of Indian history and Hinduism. The Buddhist tales were enlightening (haha), but didn't go as in-depth about Buddhist beliefs.

I was relieved that the Buddhists were against the Hindu caste system, as one of the most horrifying things about Hinduism to me personally (aside from the wacked-out Gods with all the crazed violence of a Mel Gibson film and the visual wtf-ness of a Salvador Dalí painting--which is actually kind of awesome) is the religiously prescribed social hierarchy. In Western religions, God has been used as a lame excuse to oppress people and/or declare divine right with no basis in the actual teachings of Jesus, but it seems that in Hinduism it is actually part of their scriptures that people born into the lower castes deserved to be born there because of their past lives. There's no way for them to change that other than to fulfill their dharma (duty) in the role into which they were born, and hope that in their next life they will either be reborn into a higher caste or become one with Brahma, the creator god. To a Westerner steeped in the American Dream of being able to be whatever you want to be, that sounds like Hell on Earth.

Lastly, the one bone to pick I have with the author is her statement in the introduction that some historians use the abbreviations "B.C.E." and "C.E." (Before Common Era and Common Era) instead of "B.C." and "A.D" (Before Christ and Anno Domini) "out of respect for the diversity of the world's peoples." Calling a cow a horse doesn't mean that you can jump on its back, say "giddyap" and ride it off into the sunset. No matter what you call our time counting system and no matter what you believe about Christ, it is still based around his birth, so to call it something else in order to pretend that it's not is both illogical and ridiculous. If historians (including the author) really want to "respect the diversity of the world's peoples" in our system of counting time, then they should completely overhaul the system. My husband suggested Linux time, which is based on the number of milliseconds since some date in the '80's or '90's.… (more)