Olympus

by Devdutt Pattanaik

  When Polyphonte joined Artemis as a virgin priestess, the goddess Aphrodite was so upset that she cursed that the young woman would be ravished by a bear and bear it children. The sons of Polyphonte and the bear turned out to be cannibals who were eventually killed by Zeus.

  Zeus took the form of Artemis to seduce Callisto, one of the goddess’s virgin companions. On discovering this, Artemis drove her away, and Hera turned her into a bear. In time, Callisto gave birth to a human child who grew up to be a hunter and hunted down a she-bear, not realizing the animal was his own mother.

  In Hindu mythology, the goddess Durga rides into battle on a lion, carrying weapons in her many hands. But she is also referred to as mother. In folklore, as in the story of Kanya-kumari, a goddess often stays a virgin to retain the power to kill demons.

  In Roman mythology, Artemis is known as Diana. Artemis got her bow and arrow from Hephaestus and her hunting hounds from Hermes. She captured golden-horned stags to pull her chariot. She is associated with groves of oak trees.

  Like Athena, this daughter of Zeus was sworn to celibacy. In Hindu mythology, though, celibacy is associated with men, not women. Women are expected to be chaste.

  At Ephesus in Ionia, Turkey, there once stood a temple to a fertility goddess with multiple breasts, who was ironically identified with the virginal Artemis, but was in all probability the goddess Cybele, or Rhea.

  The three Roman goddesses Diana (Artemis), Minerva (Athena) and Vesta (Hestia) vowed to remain virgins forever. The fire of Vesta was maintained by Vestal Virgins in ancient Rome. Mars (Ares) sired twin boys on one of these women—Romulus and Remus, who became the founders of Rome.

  The scorpion sent to kill the arrogant Orion became the zodiac sign Scorpio. In some versions of the story, Artemis sends the creature to kill Orion who claims to be a better hunter. In others, Gaia sends the creature, annoyed by the hunter’s masculine arrogance.

  Hermes

  Hermes was born from the union of Zeus and the daughter of the Titan Atlas, Maia, who hid the child in a cave to protect him from Hera’s wrath.

  On the first night of his birth, the child caught a tortoise and used its shell to create a musical instrument called the lyre. The next night, he stole cows that belonged to Apollo, making the animals walk backwards into his cave so that Apollo could not track them. But when Apollo complained, Hermes made peace by gifting him the lyre.

  Hermes was slippery in action and sweet of tongue, and so Zeus declared he would be the god of thieves, traders, travellers and inventors. Zeus gave him winged sandals and a staff with two serpents coiled around it, as he often served as messenger to, and herald of, the Olympians. He was made responsible for taking the ghosts of the dead across the River Styx to the kingdom of Hades.

  With Aphrodite, Hermes had a son called Hermaphroditus who was so beautiful that the nymph Salmacis fell in love with him instantly. She clung to him passionately while he was bathing naked in a pool and refused to let him go. Finally, the Olympians fused their bodies and turned them into a single creature with both male and female sexual parts. It was ordained that whosoever entered the pool of Hermaphroditus would also acquire genitals of both genders.

  Hermes is linked to Budh, god of the planet Mercury, and to the ability to communicate. Budh is often visualized as a combination of male and female principles.

  In Roman mythology, Hermes is called Mercury. Hermes has a winged cap and a pair of winged shoes. In his hand he holds the caduceus, a staff around which two serpents are coiled, as he conducts the living to the land of the dead.

  Just as Hermes is associated with winged sandals and a winged helmet, the Ramayana speaks of ‘vimana’ which is imagined as a winged chariot.

  As the god of roads and boundaries, Hermes was turned to ‘herma’ or a pile of stones placed at crossroads and boundaries, to which travellers would add more stones. Later, it became a pillar mounted with a head on top and a phallus on the side.

  Hermes’s children included Pan whose mother ran away at his birth after seeing his goat-like legs; Priapus, the god of male genitalia; and Autolycus the thief, who was Odysseus’s grandfather.

  The ancient cult of Hermaphroditus was popular in Crete and festivals involved ceremonies where men and women exchanged each other’s clothes.

  The Phrygian deity Agdistis is similar to Hermaphroditus. But Agdistis is feared by the gods and is so split into male and female forms.

  The Hindu concept of Ardhanareshwara can be connected with Hermaphroditus as a composite being created from the union of male and female principles.

  Pan

  Hermes fell in love with a nymph called Dryope and she bore him a strange child with the legs and horns of a goat. The sight of this child caused the midwives to panic and there was complete pandemonium in Olympus, which was why the child came to be known as Pan.

  Pan was a wild woodland spirit embodying the untameable side of nature. He had an insatiable appetite for sex and chased nymphs all the time. One of them, Syrinx, weary of his attentions, begged the river god to turn her into a river reed. Pan collected the reed that was once his beloved Syrinx, cut it into uneven lengths and created a musical instrument called the panpipe that he used to enchant other nymphs.

  In Hindu mythology, as in Greek mythology, there are many creatures that are part human and part animal. But while in Hindu mythology the trend is to depict such creatures as having an animal head and a human body, in Greek mythology it is usually reversed.

  In Roman mythology, Pan was called Faunus.

  Pan embodies the rural landscape that is not under the control of man.

  While fighting the monster Typhon, Pan jumped in a river and the part of his body above the water turned into a goat, and the part below turned into a fish. Thus came into being the zodiac sign Capricorn. Amalthea, Zeus’s wet nurse who was a goat, is also identified with Capricorn.

  According to ancient Greek historian Plutarch, Pan is the only Greek god who died. Many Christian theologians believe this ‘death of Pan’ coincides with the ‘birth of Christ’.

  Pan’s association with untamed wilderness eventually led to his association with Satan, who is imagined as having goat legs.

  Dionysus

  Zeus fell in love with the mortal Semele, princess of Thebes, and fathered a child on her.

  When Hera learned of the affair and the pregnancy she decided to punish Semele in the most awful way. She told the girl, ‘If Zeus truly loves you, ask him to show you his godly form, not the human form he takes when he makes love to you at night.’

  Thus, at their next tryst, Semele demanded that Zeus show her his godly form. Despite his warnings, she insisted on it, and Zeus showed her his godly form. It was so grandly radiant that Semele’s body burst into flames.

  Hermes rescued the unborn child from Semele’s burning flesh and placed it inside Zeus’s thigh. A few months later, Zeus ‘delivered’ this child born of two wombs: his mother’s and father’s. He was named Dionysus.

  Dionysus was given to Semele’s sister Ino who raised the boy, dressing him as a girl to avoid the gaze of Hera. But Hera learned the truth and drove both Ino and Dionysus mad. Ino in her madness boiled her son Melicertes alive; on discovering what she had done, she leapt to her death from a cliff overlooking the sea.

  Zeus turned Dionysus into a goat and took him to faraway Asia where he was raised by nymphs. As he grew up, he discovered how to make wine from grapes, and the power of music; he made friends with all kinds of wild forest creatures. Women in particular loved his company for he inspired them to dance and sing and to challenge all rules. They called him Bacchus and themselves, the Bacchae.

  When Dionysus was older and learnt how he had been cast out of his home by the machinations of Hera, he decided to return, armed with wine, music, intoxication and his new friends, the Bacchae. This meant travelling through Phrygia and then across the sea to Greece.

  In Phrygia, in the spirit of amusement, Dionysus fulfilled the deepest desire of t
he greedy king Midas by granting him a boon: everything he touched would turn to gold. Midas was delighted with his gift until he realized that he could neither eat nor drink, for everything turned to gold at his touch. When he hugged his daughter, even she turned to a statue of gold. Midas begged Dionysus to take back the gift, which he did after a good laugh.

  When it was time to cross the sea, Dionysus needed a boat. He stood on the coast until his beauty served as a beacon and drew a ship towards him. Impressed by his beauty and his gold the sailors invited him aboard. They planned to rob and then rape him, but when they tried to tie him down the knots in the ropes simply came undone. Suddenly, the mast of the ship turned into a grape-laden vine, wine filled the ship and all manner of animals and strange creatures and frenzied women appeared on the deck. Dionysus himself turned into a lion and roared lustily. The sailors were terrified and jumped into the sea, where they turned into dolphins, while Dionysus took charge of the ship.

  In Athens, Dionysus met the beautiful Erigone. She introduced him to her father, the king Icarus, who welcomed Dionysus and treated him cordially. Dionysus gave the local shepherds wine, and they, in a drunken state, attacked and killed their king. Grief-stricken, the princess Erigone killed herself by hanging herself from a tree. Dionysus punished the shepherds by making their daughters commit suicide in the same manner. He then placed Erigone in the sky as the constellation Virgo.

  When Dionysus reached Thebes, he expected to be greeted with open arms by the relatives of his mother. But his cousin, Pentheus, refused to indulge this new cult of wine, music and intoxication. He preferred the authoritative way of Zeus and the orderly way of Apollo, and thus prevented Dionysus from entering his city. But the ways of Dionysus enchanted the women of Thebes. They ran out of the city and into the woods, to dance and sing and drink and be intoxicated by Dionysus. When Pentheus tried to stop them, they attacked him and tore him to pieces with their teeth and bare hands.

  When the madness subsided and normalcy returned, everyone in Thebes bowed to Dionysus, the god from the East. Even the gods of Olympus let him sit amongst them, for they feared his madness, though they loved his wine.

  Many scholars have mirrored the Greek binary of Apollo and Dionysus, representing structure and fluidity with the Hindu binary of Vishnu and Shiva. Like Dionysus, Shiva is the outsider god, who forces his way into the Vedic pantheon when he attacks and destroys the ritual hall of Daksha. Just as Dionysus is associated with wine, Shiva is associated with bhang or the mildly narcotic Indian hemp.

  In Roman mythology, Dionysus is called Bacchus.

  Dionysus contrasts the Apollonian order of the West, and represents chaos and fluidity, and the East. He is associated with wine and unbridled frenzied passion and orgies. He is accompanied by satyrs and wild, lustful women called maenads who tear to pieces the men who do not submit to their desires.

  Dionysus’s companion Silenus is visualized as a satyr but with more horse-like features. He was always drunk but was also very knowledgeable and had prophetic powers.

  The cult of Bacchus entered Rome from Greece. Initially open only to women, it gradually became a secret cult involving drunken orgies of men and women that threatened the very stability and decorum of the Roman way of life. Seen as a counter-culture, this ‘Bacchanalia’ was outlawed and suppressed by the Senate. The Roman historian Livy who lived in the first century BCE writes on this rather sensational event that took place in the third century BCE.

  The cult of Dionysus was closely connected to Orphic mysteries, which in turn were linked to the gnostic (nastika?) traditions of India that spoke of mortal flesh, eternal soul, rebirth and liberation.

  Ultimately, there are twelve Olympians, like the twelve numbers on the clock, the twelve Apostles of Jesus, and the twelve Adityas of the Vedas. In each case, there is an outsider. Dionysus is the outsider in Greek mythology; in Christian mythology it is Judas; and in Vedic mythology it is Martanda.

  The list of Olympians includes Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Artemis, Apollo, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes and Dionysus. Hestia made room for Dionysus. Hades and Persephone, who live in the land of the dead, are not included.

  In the nineteenth century, the theory of the dying-and-returning god became very popular, establishing a connection between Dionysus and Jesus Christ: both were connected to wine, and both came to Europe from the East, facing and overpowering fierce resistance.

  Prometheus

  Prometheus, the Titan, told the Olympians that they needed someone to worship them and serve them. Zeus liked the idea, so Prometheus made dolls out of clay and breathed life into them. Thus was mankind created.

  Prometheus taught humans to forage and hunt for food. He taught them agriculture and herding and fishing. And, much to Zeus’s delight, he taught them to make oblations to the gods.

  Humans offered Zeus a choice of offerings: bones wrapped in fat, or beef wrapped in ox stomach. In other words, something bad in the guise of something good and something good concealed within something bad. Zeus accepted the former, and on realizing he had been tricked, decided to punish mankind by taking away fire, for creatures who could trick the Olympians into accepting a bad offering could one day overthrow them.

  Without fire, humans lived like animals, unable to cook meat or ward off predators, unable to clear dense forests for settlements or combat the darkness of the night. Prometheus begged Zeus to reconsider and forgive them. But Zeus remained unmoved.

  Finally, when Zeus was not looking, an exasperated Prometheus stole fire and gave it back to humanity.

  As the smoke from the hearths of human homes rose to Mount Olympus, Zeus became very angry. Enraged by Prometheus’s insolence, he grabbed him by the neck, tied him to a rock and ordered his eagle to eat the Titan’s liver all day long. But since Prometheus was immortal, the liver regrew at night and the torture resumed the next day—eternal suffering for one who dared disobey Zeus.

  Prometheus embodies forethought and his brother Epimetheus embodies afterthought. In Hindu mythology, a similar theme is expressed through the characters of the intuitive Bhrigu, who serves the asuras, and the rational Brihaspati, who counsels the devas.

  The Vedas speak of a ‘pra-math’, a thief. And Vedic myths mention the theft of fire by Matarisvan. Probably these stories have a common Indo-European root.

  The story of Prometheus draws attention to the Greek divide between the divine and the human. The Olympians both admired and feared humans.

  Prometheus has for centuries embodied the trickster who defies authority to enable the ascent of humanity and suffers for it.

  Pandora

  Zeus asked Hephaestus to create a woman using clay. He asked Aphrodite to bless her with beauty and Athena to give her womanly skills like cooking and weaving. He named this woman Pandora and sent her to Epimetheus who lived with mankind.

  Though they were brothers, Epimetheus was the very opposite of Prometheus. While the latter thought before acting, the former acted before thinking. Epimetheus fell in love with Pandora and brought her to live with humans, all of whom also adored her.

  Pandora carried a box with her, a gift from Zeus. ‘Don’t open it until I tell you to do so,’ the Olympian had told her. But Pandora could not contain her curiosity and opened it anyway. Out came disease and sorrow and envy and greed and gluttony, and all the things that plague humanity. Pandora shut the box quickly, but it was too late; the damage was done.

  The only thing that stayed within the box was hope, which would propel humanity forward.

  The story of Pandora comes from the seventh century BCE Theogony of Hesiod.

  Pandora’s tale is seen as the patriarchal corruption of the ‘all-giving’ Goddess of pre-Olympian times.

  Originally, Pandora carried a jar. But mistranslations in the sixteenth century turned the jar into a box.

  Both Greek and Biblical mythology hold women responsible for the suffering of humanity. Both Pandora and Eve take decisions that cause havoc. In
Hindu mythology, women are not blamed for the suffering of mankind, but the female form embodies temptations that distract the celibate hermit. In Buddhist mythology, all seekers are warned to stay away from the daughters of Mara, the demon of desire.

  Tartarus

  Zeus was clear that anyone who disobeyed him would be brutally punished, as Prometheus was. Most of those who offended Zeus found themselves in Tartarus, beyond the River Styx, suffering for all eternity. These included the audacious Ixion, the guileful Sisyphus and the treacherous Danaids.

  Ixion, king of the Lapiths, spun forever on a wheel of fire in Tartarus. His crime: he did not respect the rules of hospitality. He invited his father-in-law to his house to receive his bridal price, and killed him instead. When invited to Olympus for a feast, he tried to rape Hera herself.

  Sisyphus was made to roll a boulder all day to the top of a mountain, only to find it rolling down at night. Thus he was trapped forever in a monotonous meaningless task. His crime: though a king and a navigator, he was deceitful, crafty, known to kill his own guests and use the secrets of the gods as currency in negotiations. In exchange for having a spring to flow in his kingdom, Sisyphus told a river god the whereabouts of his daughter, the nymph Aegina, who had been abducted by Zeus. This infuriated Zeus and he decided to imprison Sisyphus in Tartarus. But Sisyphus was so crafty that when Thanatos, the god of death, came to chain him, he tricked the god into chaining himself by asking him to demonstrate how the chain worked. The chaining of Thanatos meant no one died on earth, which angered the gods, especially Ares, the god of war, who finally released Thanatos, and dragged Sisyphus to Tartarus.