Parallel Myths Chapter Summary

Out of the readings from the book Parallel Myths, a book sampling the Hindu scriptures, I have picked four selections to write about below. The first selection is The Thoughts of Brahma, which is about how Brahma created the world. The next is The Virtue of Compassion which is a story meant to teach a lesson about loyalty. The Third is The King, The Hawk, and the Pigeon which is another story about teaching a lesson, this one though is about keeping your word. The Last is How Rudra Destroys the Universe and is about how the world is created then destroyed through cycles. All four of these stories I found very interesting and entertaining and over the next few pages I talk about each one and what I thought about them. The Thoughts of …show more content…
The bird was born on the tree and spent it’s whole life living with the tree and did not want to abandon it. The sky god, Indra, saw the bird starving and slowly dieing because it refused to leave the tree and decided to go down a talked to the bird who told Indra that the tree had been a faithful friend and did not want to leave. Indra was moved by the bird’s loyalty and brought the tree back to life, but told the bird it was his loyalty that brought the tree back. This story is all about being loyal to your friends and was probably created to teach children, and adults, to stick by one another when times get hard. For example if someone has a lot of work they had to do to stay alive like hunting or growing food, their friends would stick by there side and help instead of abandoning them. The end of the story also talks about how if you hear this story you’ll be blessed and if you tell someone you’ll be twice as blessed. This would encourage people of the Hindu religion to spread this story fast making it more popular and thus more people would follow its teachings. I think that is a smart move when creating a story, to get it out to people as fast as possible so it won’t be