Parallel Myths

Early humans saw in the world around them repeated patterns: the seasons, the rising and setting sun, the movement of the stars and the tides. Without the science to understand these patterns, they mythologized them, even extrapolating them into an epic, cosmic cycle of creation and destruction. The Indian myth of Rudra speaks of this cycle repeating itself an infinite number of times: “[O]nly the Eternal knows how many times this has taken place” (237). The Tibetan myth of Maitreya speaks of a period of drought, followed by abundance and the eventual Enlightenment of all people. The Norse myth of Ragnarok foretells the “twilight of the gods” when Loki breaks loose from his bonds and wreaks havoc upon the earth and the gods will have to fight for survival (246). At the end of this apocalypse, however, the “eternal God” will create a new earth. Cycles are predictable, a soothing regularity for early humans thrust into a violent world of harsh nature and deadly predators. It makes sense that those cycles would be enshrined in myth.

Death may be the most terrifying reality faced by any human being. It’s the ultimate end (as far as we know). To cheat death—or to at least be given a second chance—is too tempting an offer to pass up. In many of these cultural myths of the apocalypse, humans are reborn into either eternal paradise or eternal damnation. The motif of rebirth occurs in numerous cultures: Judeo-Christian, Islamic, and the reincarnation myths of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Gnosticism. The latter three diverge from the Abrahamic traditions, however. In Hinduism, rebirth is part of the process of spiritual growth, a steady path toward Enlightenment and Nirvana. Islam and Judeo-Christianity depict a far more draconian outcome. Both have a final judgment component attached: A heavenly adjudicator will judge each person’s life and character; the righteous will be saved, and the wicked will be punished eternally. This fear of judgment also serves the purpose of moral guidance, holding society to a standard of conformity and obedience. The common thread among such stories—whether in mythology or in literature—is twofold: the human desire to transcend death, but also, on a mythic level, rebirth as a symbol of just another step on the hero’s journey toward self-realization.

Love as a motif in myth and literature never grows old. From the earliest Greek myths of Cupid and Psyche to the story of Coniraya and Cavillaca (Peru) and the Algonquin tale of Algon and the Sky-Girl and continuing to the contemporary rom-com genre in film, love is the enduring emotion, the one that drives people to madness and suicide (Romeo and Juliet). It seizes people—particularly young people in the grip of adolescence and hormonal turmoil—sending them to the extreme edge of passion and recklessness. Anger is perhaps the only emotion that has the same effect, although love has its own unique rewards with which anger cannot compete. Love has the unique and transcendent ability to give meaning to a meaningless world; “love becomes the ultimate human answer to the ultimate human question” (136). Whether romantic love or love and compassion toward humanity, all cultures have not only recognized its significance but embedded it in the fabric of their social being through myth.