1. There seemed to be a lot of similarities between Hellenismos and E Asian religions for which I haven't always come across similarities in Hindu religion (could just be my ignorance). I think Korean religion is called Chendogyo (sp?). I think it means Way of Heaven, IIRC I read that Chendogyo has some 18,000 Gods.
At the moment I can remember 2 instances, but had mentally recalled several points of similarity. Guess I might write them up as I remember and can be bothered.
Warning to serious animal-friends: the first item may feel a bit uncomfortable. But there's no details.
a. Oracling by means of gutting/dissecting certain animals - birds inclusive - and inspecting their guts was common in Greek religio-culture, IIRC seen even in Homer. Existed down to the Roman period. IIRC this is even documented of Marc Aurely. [Which could explain why I think I remember seeing Marcus Aurelius (played by the Obi Wan Kenobi actor oh dear how can I forget his name - Alec Guinness :woohoo:, growing forgetful) in "Fall of the Roman Empire" I think it was, standing next to some associate of his [played by the ubiquitous James Mason?] who dissected some animal to foretell something or other. The script IIRC was by Will Durant who was no doubt trying to be as historical as a technicolour epic allowed. I can't remember much else in the movie, other than that Guinness looked suitably regal. Maybe I never watched it to completion.]
Anyway, oracling by inspecting the guts of dissected animals also occurs in Korean religion. Of course, generally considered a common feature in "shamanistic" religions, but I've only seen it so heavily documented in Korean and Greek religion so far.
[Not sure if any Hindus do or did this sort of thing. It's surely possible, but I've never heard of it myself, being ignorant and all.]
I think sometimes in Greek religion the gutted animals moreover get sacrificed, or as part of the sacrifice they get gutted and inspected for oracle info. I think the same appears to be the case with Korean religion also, though I can't remember well enough to swear by this.
b. Hades grabbing Goddess Persephone and making a rush for his realm Erebus, making her His Queen, with her not being too willing at first.
(This is a prodigiously sacred Greek narrative I understand - some of the key Hellenistic Mysteries are to be explicated in it - and I'm sorry to treat it so lightly. But better lightly than pretend I "know" what it is really about by regurgitating the explanations of the experts. I often feel like I should be the last heathen to be allowed to talk about heathen narratives at all, even where it concerns Hindoo religion, not being a deep or serious person in any sense. Hence I write about it trivially, but hopefully inoffensively otherwise.)
IIRC Persephone's Mother, Goddess Demeter, makes a convincing case to the other Gods of Olympos that they must do something about it. I think Hermes (or someone else important) is dispatched to go see Hades and convince him that his brother Zeus and the other Gods are none too happy, especially as Demeter is none too happy and things are threatening to go barren.
The narrative is well-known, I leave it there. It all ends relatively happily.
In Korean religion, their Sun God I think (or was it their Thunder God?) falls in love with a planty/tree-ish type of Goddess, daughter of another great Korean God. She gets locked into his palace after being invited there. IIRC her dad complains to the other Gods, with as result that the Sun God officially marries her, but he still won't give her up.
The rest of the narrative of course differs between that of the Greek and Korean Gods concerned (since they're not the same Gods obviously and have their own life-stories): the Korean Goddess doesn't spend 50/50 with husband and rest of family like Persephone does, but she runs off and has his bairn in an ancient Korean kingdom, from what I understand. Divine Bairn is suitably miraculously born from ....an egg. Apparently many Korean Gods are born from eggs too (at least one of whom was born from a golden egg, if not this very one). Divine Bairn is very famous Korean God who IIRC was also a famous divine ruler of the land, unless I'm getting him mixed up with another Korean God.
Yes it was the Sun God after all, because I remember the Sun God warmed his son, the egg, with his delightful rays, when the king of the Korean kingdom tossed the Divine Egg out on dry land, fearing it special/abnormal/dangerous (I suppose an exo-egg for a baby to hatch from was unusual enough to be suspect).
The PIE encroachment brigade can keep their paws off: unlike the Hindoo Soorya and his ratha of 7 ashvas or Hellenistic Helios with a chariot of 4 horses, the Korean Sun God has a chariot with 5 dragons harnessed to it :grins:* (or was it a 5-headed dragon, drat, can't even remember that much). And to be even more different: the orb of the Sun goes about in its fixed movement everyday, but the Sun God himself travels to earth in his ratha meanwhile.
* Were the desperate PIE-ists ever to find out, they will descend from no-where and try to delude themselves yet again to claim this too must somehow (as in magically) be MADE/force-fit to be traced back to... the unattested PIE swindl.. I mean theory, thus negating other people's living religion. I mean, that's what PIE-ists do. That's why they're "collecting" "world" "mythology" after all. To claim all the good exciting heroic stuff as "PIE" ultimately and as being graciously donated to non-IE populations by IE - somehow. ("Make it so!") Ugh yuck.
After all, PIE-ists always think/insist/desperately believe their invented PIE religion is "original" - i.e. that all the "features" collected for the PIE religion are original/uniquely PIE. And whenever they (eventually) realise it is NOT (i.e. that things claimed for IE are often actually attested in other ancient religions and not just so-called IE religions, thus making the features so far imagined to be "exclusively" IE turn out to be not specific at all to "IE"), then the PIE-ists' beady green eyes of uncontrolled raving jealousy will fester and ooze and the last of their remaining grey cells will work overtime to the draw the inevitable conclusion, inevitably without evidence: they will declare that "somehow", the "similar" "feature" in non-IE religion "must be" traced back to PIE. Even though there's no evidence for PIE and they give no evidence for how it traces back. Soon they will insinuate Hindooism or even - less sanely - Buddhism was behind the feature in Asian religion. Or maybe ancient continental Celts. Or Something. By gawd, anything! Except that this be Someone Else's Living Religion. But then PIE-ists don't have a living religion. They famously murdered their link to their own ancestral religion, which is why they treat everyone else's religion as dead too and why they invented PIE in the first place: as a substitute religion for the one they killed in themselves. Typical unheathenism. "World mythologists" - who are a subset of western unheathens - behave similar in reducing other - specifically living heathen - populations' living heathen religions into mere "mythologies" too.
Heathens have the last laugh of course: their heathen religions are still alive and their heathen Gods are known to be real. Whereas no PIE-ist I've ever read has ever seen a reconstructed "PIE" god. Personally, I'd diagnose this as being for very obvious reasons.)
2. Anyway, speaking of multi-headed dragons. A fearsome multi-headed - and multi-tailed - dragon called Orochi (multiple tails are common to special animals in Shinto religion), was famously vanquished by a heroic Shinto Sea God using a divine sword (which became a famous Japanese emblem). I don't remember if the dragon lived in a river or whether I'm confusing myself with the Daoist God Erlang heroically vanquishing a particularly meany man-eating dragon (as opposed to the usual sacred and good Daoist dragons) that lived in a river.
3. Reminds me. In Shinto religion, Oni-s are a type of super being that can be good or dangerous. They tend to be giants (humanoid form but not human, can have non-human number of certain features). The baddies can be man-eaters (sort of like raakshasas). Not being human, they have supernatural strength and abilities. They can be invisible or take human form. The term "oni" appears to sometimes also be used for vengeful ghosts, but that last appears to describe a different class of entities than the usual Oni.
Oni imagery is very famous, I am sure Hindus have seen these.
Some Shinto Kamis can be Onis (the way Rahu and Ketu are IIRC Asuras and not Devas): e.g. at least two famous Onis are Gods. These are the Thunder(+Lightning) God and Wind God of Shintoism. I think the two are brothers.
Still on the topic of Shinto religion: a famous traditional Japanese narrative of Shintoism, which even I am familiar with, features a very heroic boy who starts off lazy and becomes quite inspiring as he progresses (after being blessed by a great Kami). His mother was a lady-turned-into-a-dragon whom he eventually rescues from her curse, as part of his quest. It features two instances of forest-dwelling Onis. The giant Red Oni, a skilled percussionist apparently, who threatens to eat the protagonist and kidnap his heroic little girl-friend (so that she can play her flute to Red Oni alone, instead of to all the forest animals who gather to hear her: another common feature of Shinto religion is that humans and animals tend to form close friendships, often protagonists are said to be very dear to animals in the nearby forest and vice-versa). Our hero chastises the Red Oni by defeating him in IIRC a sumo/wrestling match (need to re-check) and then he launches said Oni into the clouds, where the Oni lands on one, learns his lesson and dedicates himself to drumming for the [Shinto] Thunder God and even returns to help the hero defeat an incorrigibly bad Oni: the colossal Black Oni with Extra Super Strength and IIRC an even larger club than the Red Oni. This one kidnaps the flute-girl and may even be preparing to eat her (or eat the hero when he comes to rescue her), but eventually gets bested by the hero with the help of his magic flying pony (I want one!) and I think also the help of the Red Oni bringing in the good-will of the Thunder God. The Black Oni is either tossed off a promontory or gets squished/imprisoned by a humongous rock. Gosh, I have a poor memory. Anyway, something climactic happens, Black Oni is incapacitated - he may still be there for all I know - and the cute little hero continues on his quest to find his mum and overcomes more intimidating and scary situations. You can never be too old for this stuff, it's just so kewl.
Anyway, man-eating giants with superpowers that either learn or have to be dealt with the hard way.
[Maybe, rather than modern JP popculture's "Shingeki No Kyojin" being inspired by the Giants of the Norse - as western viewers claim, despite the occasional fashionably German-ish lyrics for the OPs "Seid ihr das essen? Nein, wir sind der Jaeger!" and the equally catchy "Fluegel der Freiheit/Linie der Treuheit" :grins: - let alone the Kyoujin being called "Titans" by the English-language translators (when Laestrygonians/Lestrygons would be more appropriate: Titans are a type of Gods in Greek religion. Lestrygons were the less god-like population of man-eating giants that trapped and horrificly ate the crew of 11 of King Ulysses' 12 ships in super-speed. Not the same type of creature as the Cyclops, as the Lestrygons were not one-eyed: initally described as giant human-looking people - inhabitants of a proper kingdom a.o.t. the wilder, cave-dwelling cyclops - and then explained as looking like the very Titans whom the Olympic Gods fought since they turned out so fearsomely strong/irresistable. Note: Helios - Julian's iShTadevam - and the Moon Goddess of the Hellenes are actual Titans.)
Oh no, start again: Maybe, rather than Shingeki No Kyojin being inspired by the Norse giants or the Titans or even the Laestrygonians, the Kyojin of the modern work is inspired by Oni? Why not?]
At the moment I can remember 2 instances, but had mentally recalled several points of similarity. Guess I might write them up as I remember and can be bothered.
Warning to serious animal-friends: the first item may feel a bit uncomfortable. But there's no details.
a. Oracling by means of gutting/dissecting certain animals - birds inclusive - and inspecting their guts was common in Greek religio-culture, IIRC seen even in Homer. Existed down to the Roman period. IIRC this is even documented of Marc Aurely. [Which could explain why I think I remember seeing Marcus Aurelius (played by the Obi Wan Kenobi actor oh dear how can I forget his name - Alec Guinness :woohoo:, growing forgetful) in "Fall of the Roman Empire" I think it was, standing next to some associate of his [played by the ubiquitous James Mason?] who dissected some animal to foretell something or other. The script IIRC was by Will Durant who was no doubt trying to be as historical as a technicolour epic allowed. I can't remember much else in the movie, other than that Guinness looked suitably regal. Maybe I never watched it to completion.]
Anyway, oracling by inspecting the guts of dissected animals also occurs in Korean religion. Of course, generally considered a common feature in "shamanistic" religions, but I've only seen it so heavily documented in Korean and Greek religion so far.
[Not sure if any Hindus do or did this sort of thing. It's surely possible, but I've never heard of it myself, being ignorant and all.]
I think sometimes in Greek religion the gutted animals moreover get sacrificed, or as part of the sacrifice they get gutted and inspected for oracle info. I think the same appears to be the case with Korean religion also, though I can't remember well enough to swear by this.
b. Hades grabbing Goddess Persephone and making a rush for his realm Erebus, making her His Queen, with her not being too willing at first.
(This is a prodigiously sacred Greek narrative I understand - some of the key Hellenistic Mysteries are to be explicated in it - and I'm sorry to treat it so lightly. But better lightly than pretend I "know" what it is really about by regurgitating the explanations of the experts. I often feel like I should be the last heathen to be allowed to talk about heathen narratives at all, even where it concerns Hindoo religion, not being a deep or serious person in any sense. Hence I write about it trivially, but hopefully inoffensively otherwise.)
IIRC Persephone's Mother, Goddess Demeter, makes a convincing case to the other Gods of Olympos that they must do something about it. I think Hermes (or someone else important) is dispatched to go see Hades and convince him that his brother Zeus and the other Gods are none too happy, especially as Demeter is none too happy and things are threatening to go barren.
The narrative is well-known, I leave it there. It all ends relatively happily.
In Korean religion, their Sun God I think (or was it their Thunder God?) falls in love with a planty/tree-ish type of Goddess, daughter of another great Korean God. She gets locked into his palace after being invited there. IIRC her dad complains to the other Gods, with as result that the Sun God officially marries her, but he still won't give her up.
The rest of the narrative of course differs between that of the Greek and Korean Gods concerned (since they're not the same Gods obviously and have their own life-stories): the Korean Goddess doesn't spend 50/50 with husband and rest of family like Persephone does, but she runs off and has his bairn in an ancient Korean kingdom, from what I understand. Divine Bairn is suitably miraculously born from ....an egg. Apparently many Korean Gods are born from eggs too (at least one of whom was born from a golden egg, if not this very one). Divine Bairn is very famous Korean God who IIRC was also a famous divine ruler of the land, unless I'm getting him mixed up with another Korean God.
Yes it was the Sun God after all, because I remember the Sun God warmed his son, the egg, with his delightful rays, when the king of the Korean kingdom tossed the Divine Egg out on dry land, fearing it special/abnormal/dangerous (I suppose an exo-egg for a baby to hatch from was unusual enough to be suspect).
The PIE encroachment brigade can keep their paws off: unlike the Hindoo Soorya and his ratha of 7 ashvas or Hellenistic Helios with a chariot of 4 horses, the Korean Sun God has a chariot with 5 dragons harnessed to it :grins:* (or was it a 5-headed dragon, drat, can't even remember that much). And to be even more different: the orb of the Sun goes about in its fixed movement everyday, but the Sun God himself travels to earth in his ratha meanwhile.
* Were the desperate PIE-ists ever to find out, they will descend from no-where and try to delude themselves yet again to claim this too must somehow (as in magically) be MADE/force-fit to be traced back to... the unattested PIE swindl.. I mean theory, thus negating other people's living religion. I mean, that's what PIE-ists do. That's why they're "collecting" "world" "mythology" after all. To claim all the good exciting heroic stuff as "PIE" ultimately and as being graciously donated to non-IE populations by IE - somehow. ("Make it so!") Ugh yuck.
After all, PIE-ists always think/insist/desperately believe their invented PIE religion is "original" - i.e. that all the "features" collected for the PIE religion are original/uniquely PIE. And whenever they (eventually) realise it is NOT (i.e. that things claimed for IE are often actually attested in other ancient religions and not just so-called IE religions, thus making the features so far imagined to be "exclusively" IE turn out to be not specific at all to "IE"), then the PIE-ists' beady green eyes of uncontrolled raving jealousy will fester and ooze and the last of their remaining grey cells will work overtime to the draw the inevitable conclusion, inevitably without evidence: they will declare that "somehow", the "similar" "feature" in non-IE religion "must be" traced back to PIE. Even though there's no evidence for PIE and they give no evidence for how it traces back. Soon they will insinuate Hindooism or even - less sanely - Buddhism was behind the feature in Asian religion. Or maybe ancient continental Celts. Or Something. By gawd, anything! Except that this be Someone Else's Living Religion. But then PIE-ists don't have a living religion. They famously murdered their link to their own ancestral religion, which is why they treat everyone else's religion as dead too and why they invented PIE in the first place: as a substitute religion for the one they killed in themselves. Typical unheathenism. "World mythologists" - who are a subset of western unheathens - behave similar in reducing other - specifically living heathen - populations' living heathen religions into mere "mythologies" too.
Heathens have the last laugh of course: their heathen religions are still alive and their heathen Gods are known to be real. Whereas no PIE-ist I've ever read has ever seen a reconstructed "PIE" god. Personally, I'd diagnose this as being for very obvious reasons.)
2. Anyway, speaking of multi-headed dragons. A fearsome multi-headed - and multi-tailed - dragon called Orochi (multiple tails are common to special animals in Shinto religion), was famously vanquished by a heroic Shinto Sea God using a divine sword (which became a famous Japanese emblem). I don't remember if the dragon lived in a river or whether I'm confusing myself with the Daoist God Erlang heroically vanquishing a particularly meany man-eating dragon (as opposed to the usual sacred and good Daoist dragons) that lived in a river.
3. Reminds me. In Shinto religion, Oni-s are a type of super being that can be good or dangerous. They tend to be giants (humanoid form but not human, can have non-human number of certain features). The baddies can be man-eaters (sort of like raakshasas). Not being human, they have supernatural strength and abilities. They can be invisible or take human form. The term "oni" appears to sometimes also be used for vengeful ghosts, but that last appears to describe a different class of entities than the usual Oni.
Oni imagery is very famous, I am sure Hindus have seen these.
Some Shinto Kamis can be Onis (the way Rahu and Ketu are IIRC Asuras and not Devas): e.g. at least two famous Onis are Gods. These are the Thunder(+Lightning) God and Wind God of Shintoism. I think the two are brothers.
Still on the topic of Shinto religion: a famous traditional Japanese narrative of Shintoism, which even I am familiar with, features a very heroic boy who starts off lazy and becomes quite inspiring as he progresses (after being blessed by a great Kami). His mother was a lady-turned-into-a-dragon whom he eventually rescues from her curse, as part of his quest. It features two instances of forest-dwelling Onis. The giant Red Oni, a skilled percussionist apparently, who threatens to eat the protagonist and kidnap his heroic little girl-friend (so that she can play her flute to Red Oni alone, instead of to all the forest animals who gather to hear her: another common feature of Shinto religion is that humans and animals tend to form close friendships, often protagonists are said to be very dear to animals in the nearby forest and vice-versa). Our hero chastises the Red Oni by defeating him in IIRC a sumo/wrestling match (need to re-check) and then he launches said Oni into the clouds, where the Oni lands on one, learns his lesson and dedicates himself to drumming for the [Shinto] Thunder God and even returns to help the hero defeat an incorrigibly bad Oni: the colossal Black Oni with Extra Super Strength and IIRC an even larger club than the Red Oni. This one kidnaps the flute-girl and may even be preparing to eat her (or eat the hero when he comes to rescue her), but eventually gets bested by the hero with the help of his magic flying pony (I want one!) and I think also the help of the Red Oni bringing in the good-will of the Thunder God. The Black Oni is either tossed off a promontory or gets squished/imprisoned by a humongous rock. Gosh, I have a poor memory. Anyway, something climactic happens, Black Oni is incapacitated - he may still be there for all I know - and the cute little hero continues on his quest to find his mum and overcomes more intimidating and scary situations. You can never be too old for this stuff, it's just so kewl.
Anyway, man-eating giants with superpowers that either learn or have to be dealt with the hard way.
[Maybe, rather than modern JP popculture's "Shingeki No Kyojin" being inspired by the Giants of the Norse - as western viewers claim, despite the occasional fashionably German-ish lyrics for the OPs "Seid ihr das essen? Nein, wir sind der Jaeger!" and the equally catchy "Fluegel der Freiheit/Linie der Treuheit" :grins: - let alone the Kyoujin being called "Titans" by the English-language translators (when Laestrygonians/Lestrygons would be more appropriate: Titans are a type of Gods in Greek religion. Lestrygons were the less god-like population of man-eating giants that trapped and horrificly ate the crew of 11 of King Ulysses' 12 ships in super-speed. Not the same type of creature as the Cyclops, as the Lestrygons were not one-eyed: initally described as giant human-looking people - inhabitants of a proper kingdom a.o.t. the wilder, cave-dwelling cyclops - and then explained as looking like the very Titans whom the Olympic Gods fought since they turned out so fearsomely strong/irresistable. Note: Helios - Julian's iShTadevam - and the Moon Goddess of the Hellenes are actual Titans.)
Oh no, start again: Maybe, rather than Shingeki No Kyojin being inspired by the Norse giants or the Titans or even the Laestrygonians, the Kyojin of the modern work is inspired by Oni? Why not?]