The Differences Between East and West

This is a great video that I found that demonstrates the differences in Indian mythology and western culture.  It is not just a comparison of gods, it is an explanation of thought.  Check it out and let me know what you think of it.

The Flash is a well known superhero.  He got his start, however, in mythology.  The original character was inspired by the swift feet of Hermes, Greek messenger god and all around great guy to know.  You can see the inspiration from the winged helmet and the winged sandals.  The Flash that we know of now has no direct mythology allusion, but was inspired by the original Flash, so the allusion is indirect.

Here are a few of the fastest gods and goddesses around.


Hermes - Greek fast messenger god. He is so fast that he sometimes uses his speed to steal.  He stole all of Apollo's cows the day he was born.  He had to give them back.  He has been used to promote Goodyear Tires and FTD Floral delivery.  There is a car named after his Roman counter-part, Mercury.  There is a great commercial that shows that he's not quite that fast, though.

Iris - Greek rainbow goddess.  She also travels super fast and as such delivers messages like Hermes does.  In fact she may have been even faster than Hermes at the job and it is quite possible that she is, in fact, the true mother of Eros, but that may just be a nasty rumor.

Julana - Australian deity who travels fast by burrowing underground.  Sounds pretty neat until you realize that he uses his power of fast travel to surprise women and, er, take advantage of them by "holding their hands" very aggressively and without their permission.

Ashvins - These Indian gods were like mythological ambulances.  These doctor gods rode around in golden chariots drawn by flying horses to get where they were needed.  When not healing someone, they stand on guards at the gates of death.

Pheme - Greek goddess of gossip.  She flies at great speed.  Her feathers are always moving.  Beneath some is a eye, looking for problems, beneath some is an ear, always listening for juicy details, and beneath others is a tongue, ready to tell stories (always with some truth) to others.

O.K., who did I miss?  Let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Worse Mythology Allusion - EVER!

Congratulations to Burger King for winning the coveted Bubo's Blog award for WORST MYTHOLOGY ALLUSION EVER!  (applause) (cheers)

I was going to give them an award for a current commercial about the god of hamburgers, which is just a cheesy commercial.  Not cheesy as in Thunder Cats cheesy or old Batman TV show cheesy, but as in OMG(s) that's stupid cheesy.  However, I could not find that commercial on You Tube yet.  No worries, because I found another ad by Burger King that tops the bad cheesy commercial and wins this award hands down.  Here is the ad:

This ad appeared in Spain in 2009.  For those of you who don't read Spanish (like me) the above slogan reads "A SNACK THAT'S SACRED."  The goddess on the sign is Lakshmi, a Hindu goddess.

Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and prosperity.  She is also a goddess of fertility and courage. People look to her to bring good luck and she can keep you from economic woes.  Unless, of course, you use her to sell meat, which is forbidden.  

God Checker says this about her:

She can pop into your feet, thigh or naughty bits, or your bosom, heart neck or face. All these will bring good fortune appropriate to the part involved.

We can hear you muttering 'that's only six', but she will also do your head in if that's where she enters — and that is bad fortune. So the odds are six to one.

So I guess Burger King got it in the head.

Now I might say that using a goddess from a religion that is not only opposed to meat, but look at cows as sacred beings, to sell your hamburger products is clever.  I might would, if people no longer worshiped the Hindu gods.  However, there are approximately 950 million Hindus in the world.  It is an offensive comparison and down right stupid on Burger King's part.  They truly deserve this award.

Just to be fair, Burger King did issue the following statement shortly after the ad was released: "Burger King Corp. values and respects all of its guests as well as the communities we serve. This in-store advertisement was running to support a limited-time only local promotion for three restaurants in Spain and was not intended to offend anyone. Out of respect for the Hindu community, the in-store advertisement has been removed from the restaurants."

I challenge anyone to find me a worse allusion than this.

The Bubo's Blog Staff

Life has a way of getting in the way of things. Take me, for instance. We just celebrated the first birthday of my third child. Now you would think that by the third child, this would all be old hat and I could do this in my sleep (ah sleep... I remember sleep). However, I don't know if it is because this one is a girl (the other two were boys) or if it is because I am just hard headed, I just can't seem to get time for everything. As you can tell, one of the things that has fallen by the wayside for me is this blog.

Never fear loyal readers! This blog will continue to go and will be greatly improved the by addition of two guest writers - Ailia and Mr. Mythology. These fine outstanding mythophiles will add much needed class to the site and will be posting whenever they get the urge. I look forward to seeing their stuff.

Now to make this an official post, I need to include some mythology. So here it goes:

Kali is the Hindu goddess known as the Dark Mother. She is also known as "She who destroys" and "The Black One." That guy she is standing on is not one of her conquests (at least not in the destroying sense of the word). He is Shiva and she consorts with him from time to time. She is often shown standing on him.

How do I relate this to the above entry? Well, the above entry is all about time and the lack of it. Kali just so happens to also be the goddess of time. I assume it is because she is a destroyer and time destroys all things ("O Time! The fatal wrack of mortal things..." Sorry - allusions to Bradstreet are a result of my geeky English teacher nature).

Speaking of geeky, Kali is also the Kali Ma that is chanted to in The Temple of Doom. There is so much to her, that I don't have TIME to give her a proper post right now. Anyone who knows more about her (especially if you are Hindu) should certainly post a comment to set the record straight.

A Living God in the Hospital

Hey guys,


I've been terribly delinquent in posting for quite a while now.  I have several posts I would like to get to, but have just not seemed to have the time to do it.  You know what they say about life getting in the way.


I'll give you a post today and get to work on updating the blog some and finishing out the Ragnarök series soon (I think).  Thanks for your patience! 


I was looking at the news when a headline caught my attention: Living God in India in Critical Condition.  So I read it.  Here is the short version of the article.  You can get the whole version here: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.8fb83dbd49bee8cae7e88172dbbed82f.e1&show_article=1




One of India's best-known spiritual leaders, famous for his apparent miracles and long list of influential followers, is on life support in a southern hospital, officials said on Tuesday.

Satya Sai Baba, 85, who has devotees in more than 100 countries, was admitted to a hospital funded by his organisation in the town of Puttaparthi with lung and chest congestion on March 28.

His condition has since deteriorated and he is now on a ventilator and is receiving kidney dialysis, the most recent health bulletin from the hospital said on Tuesday.

Thousands of followers have begun arriving in Puttaparthi, home to Sai Baba's ashram in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, with many agitated by conflicting information given out by local authorities.

The wild-haired leader has a following of millions in India and abroad, many of whom believe him to be a living god, and the reincarnation of the great spiritual guru, Sai Baba of Shirdi, who died in 1918.

The guru, who claims to have performed several miracles including bringing men back to life, counts former Indian prime ministers, top businessmen and even the country's cricketers among his devotees.

His organisation funds health and education projects in India, including a string of hospitals that claim to be able to cure ailments beyond the capabilities of mainstream medicine.

The swami's birth in Andhra Pradesh is shrouded in mystery.

One hagiographical account by a biographer claimed the mysterious sounding of drums signalled his impending birth.

In his teens he is said to have begun singing verses in Sanskrit, a language of which he had no prior knowledge, and then became able to materialise flowers and sweets to the astonishment of observers.

His devotees also credit him with an ability to remember his past lives, a frequent claim of Indian holy men, and he is believed to produce sacred ash every day.

I find this all very interesting.  Now, if he dies and brings himself back to life, we've got a real story.  If someone reading this knows more about it, I am curious - is he really seen as a god on earth or as a great man?  The article says god, but I am wondering if they are just trying to boost the story some.

~

Robin Hood (New and Improved Entry!)

I recently saw Robin Hood and it was O.K.  The legend of Robin Hood, though, inspires me from time to time.  I have an old book by Pyle that has a pretty good compilation of the Robin Hood stories.  This, however, is not a post about Robin Hood per say.  Instead it is merely inspired by Robin Hood as wee look at mythical archers.  Who in mythology can match the famous Prince of Thieves?

Apollo -  Greek - obviously we start with the most famous god of archery - Apollo.  I've always thought of Apollo as being a bit of a goody goody and not much fun to read about, but his archery skills are supposedly second to none.  Once he was shooting at two of Poseidon's sons (who were giants).  The giants threw their javalins back at the first thing that they saw moving, which wasn't Apollo, but a doe (obviously they weren't the smartest things in the world, but hey, it is easy for me to say since I don't have the god of archery shooting at me at the time).  They missed the doe and hit each other instead.  Giants lose, Apollo wins! (Please see comments for additional notes on this loser.)
 
Orion - Greek - maybe a bit of a closer match, since Orion is not a deity.  He is one heck of an archer.  However, his archery story deals with someone else's shooting ability.  Orion is a hunter and he fell in love with Artemis, who actually fell in love with him as well (not Artemis's usual behavior).  Apollo didn't like it and tricked Artemis by challenging her to a shooting match.  Artemis, quite possibly Apollo's equal, agreed to shut her brother's mouth up a bit.  Apollo kept finding things for Artemis to demonstrate her skills on until he cleverly led her to shoot at this thing swimming in the ocean way, way off shore.  Apollo knew it was Orion, but Artemis did not and she shot him.  Because of her grief, he has been placed in the heavens by Zeus, with his bow and hunting dog.

Arjuna - Hindu - This guy is also named The Undefeatable.  He has description after description of his mighty archer exploits. I he deserves more than this blurb, but I'm not going to give it to him. 

Karna - Hindu -This guy is Arjuna's rival and is so cool he used a snake arrow (like James Earl Jones in the Conan movie). 'Nuff said!

Odysseus - Greek - His bow was so tight, only he could string it.  Not only that, he was able to kill several guys hitting on his wife after several years of being out of practice with it.

Cupid - Roman - I can't leave this little guy out.  He of course shoots people and makes them fall in love.  Not as cool as the snake arrow, though.

Ull - Norse - He is a god of archery among other things (much like Apollo).  He spends his winters hunting and his summers he likes to kick back in Hel for a while.  God Checker said he invented skis as well.  I thought they were joking, but it appears that he did. 

Atlaua - Aztec - the patron of archers.  That's about it for him.  I looked and couldn't find any great archer stories.  I'm only including him on this list because I looked for him and didn't want to waste my time.

Hercules - Greek - threatened to shoot the sun because it was too hot.  Maybe this would be good enough for my list, but he didn't do it and so I do not count him as a great archer.

Houyi - Chinese - this guy, however, didn't just shoot the sun, he killed nine of them.  There used to be ten suns and they acted like brothers act.  Houyi, tired of them scorching people and ruining the land, killed nine of the brothers with his bow. 


In my opinion, Houyi is the Archer Supreme!

In light of recent events, the title of Archer Supreme has been stripped from Houyi.  It is not due to the steroid use rumors that have been circling on the internet (they were only herbal treatments).  It is due to judges review - Artemis!  I know, I know, she wasn't even listed in the running, but read the comments and you'll see why she should have been.  I know that I have seen the error of my ways.  So let's hear it for Arrow-Pouring Artemis!

Jaganatha

I was sitting at a birthday party this weekend when I noticed a tattoo on one mom's arm.  Being the nosey person that I am, I asked it it had any meaning or if it was a design that she liked.  You never know.  I have high schoolers who get tattoos and they have no idea what it means, they just liked the look of it.  Anyway, it looked like this:

In Puri, India (about 300 miles southwest of Calcutta), there is a temple dedicated to the worship of Jaganatha, Lord of the Universe (I actually saw one site that titled him Master of the Universe and I just couldn't get the image of He-Man out of my mind).  He is an ancient Hindu deity that is either an incarnation of Vishnu or Siva (people differ as they sometimes do).  In this temple is a fiercesome looking idol that is a black block of wood with a blood-red mouth.  In a midsummer festival, the idol is placed on a 60 foot tower with wheels and is pulled by priests with some ropes.  Once the towers starts moving, it does not stop.  Devout worshipers throw themselves in front of it to be crushed by the wheels as a sacrifice to him (sheesh, and some people think tithing 10% in their church is too much!). 

This sacrifice is the origin of our word juggernaut (that which cannot be stopped).  These festivals are very popular and I read that about 70 to 80 thousand people go there to worship.  During the festival, all castes can eat together.

Pretty cool, huh?

Goddess of Small Pox

If you are used to classical mythology, then you are used to goddesses or beauty and wisdom, marriage and childbirth, the moon and the hearth.  However, the rest of the world was a bit more creative in their goddesses.  Take for example the many goddesses of smallpox.  That's right, you heard me, smallpox!

Sitala - a Hindu goddess that possesses people.  During her possession, you'd better feed her cooling food and cool liquids or her heat could really do some damage.  When she left you, you would be stronger than before . . . or dead.

T'ou-Shen Niang Niang - a Chinese goddess.  Her whole family got into the act.  each of her boys had a special part of smallpox that they looked after.  She especially liked to give smallpox to young children - beautiful young children, that is.  Some parents went as far to as to have their children wear paper masks at night while sleeping to keep her away from them.







These weren't the only ones.  You have Hoso-No-Kami of Japan, Sakpata of West Africa or Obaluaiye of a different part of West Africa.  It just amazes me that a disease gets its own goddesss.  The male chauvinist part of me also thinks it is funny that all cultures (that I found anyway) thought of woman when they thought of this horrible disease.  All joking aside, it just goes to show you how devastating this disease could be.  Today we pretty much have the thing licked and can worry about something as mundane as swine flu, but back then must have been a nightmare.

It's Not easy Being Green

The following is taken from The Sun newspaper of England:

A FROG that constantly changes colour is being worshipped as a GOD in India.

Hundreds of curious followers flock to Reji Kumar’s home every day to pray and ask for miracles.

Now one of the country’s top zoologists plans to study the rainbow frog. But Reji, 35, who keeps the creature in a glass bottle after finding it while out watering plants, is afraid it might CROAK first.

He said: “My one problem is that this frog does not appear to eat. I keep trying to feed it but it doesn’t eat anything. I don’t know what else to give it.”

The frog was a dazzling WHITE colour when Reji, from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, first spotted it.

Then it changed to YELLOW and had gone GREY by the time he got it home.

Lift worker Reji added: “By night the frog was dark yellow, and then it became transparent so you could see its internal organs.

"It seemed like a miracle to me that this frog had so many different coats. So now people come to see him and pray to him.”

Professor Oommen V. Oommen from India’s Kerala University, said it was not uncommon for animals to change colour.

He explained: “Frogs do change colour to scare away predators.

“But from what I have heard, the frog at Kumar’s place changes colour so frequently it is a bit unusual. I will collect it for study.”

Kali

The English teacher nerd in me saw a book with seven Jules Verne novels and said, "Hey, Mark, buy this and read some great Victorian literature over the summer."  Since the cool part of me was somewhere else at the time, I went ahead and did.  I read the titles to my 5 year old and asked him which one should I read first and his response was Around the World in 80 Days.  Since I was sure that the movie version with Jackie Chan was probably not very true to the book, I started.  Let me tell you, the English teacher nerd in me is very happy with that choice.

Once Phileas Fogg got to India, the mythology nerd in me got interested.  While crossing India on elephant, Fogg runs across a procession about to make a human sacrifice, or suttee.  Seems that a rajah had died and they were about to burn his corpse and, of course, his wife.  The wife, still being alive and all, was not all that happy about it.  The idea is to appease Kali, the goddess of love and death (as described in the book).

This was interesting to me since the only thing I really know about Kali is from The Temple of Doom, and I am sure that the suttees that took place in history didn't really have people getting their hearts removed and still living while the rajah held the still beating heart.  So, I did a little searching.

Now, as a little disclaimer, I usually do not talk about religions still being practiced as mythology, but I am making another exception here (as I have done on numerous occasions).  Anyone viewing this that can shed better light on the worship of Kali because they actually worship Kali or know people who do are free to correct me in the comments section.  

Kali is known as the Dark Mother and sports four arms on each side.  Most pictures I saw of her had her wearing human heads and a belt of human arms.  

Kali was born from the eyebrow of Durga, another goddess, while Durga was fighting evil.  Kali immediately joined in the fray and got so carried away that she pretty much destroyed everything.   Shiva stopped her by laying down in front of her feet.

As fearsome as she looks, her image is highly symbolic.  She wears fifty heads as symbol of her infinite wisdom (there are fifty letters in the Sanskrit alphabet).  She wears no clothes to symbolize nature.  Her white teeth show her inner purity and her sword is the destroyer of false consciousness and the bonds that bind her followers.  She has three eyes that represent the past, present, and future.

The suttee was associated with Parvati, which by some sources I found, is an incarnation of Kali, which is why my book makes the association.  These dark sides of Kali and other deities are not worshipped as much today.  The most recent suttee was performed in 1987.  Personally, I feel that a woman should rather be burned alive than to live without her husband.  Makes sense to me.  Think I'll mention that to my wife tonight.  I'm positive she'll agree.

By Jove! Jupiter's Up Next

Now that we have passed the asteroid belt and left Ceres and Pallas behind, we move onto the big planets, starting with the biggest planet of all (in our solar system, at least), Jupiter.  

We know the Jupiter is the same god as Zeus, but lets look at him just as Jupiter.  What did the Romans think of him?  He was the son of Saturn and Ops (in the Greek Cronus and Rhea) and married his sister, Juno (hey, back then, you didn't have a lot to choose from and Juno did have those ox-like eyes that so turned him on).  He held multiple titles: Tonans (maker of thunder - a title that made the Norse associate him with Thor instead of Odin), Triumphator (sounds like a lame Terminator-type title but instead means (granter of triumph), Fulgar (thrower of lightning), and Invictus (protector - in battle not as much in daily life). 

Instead of spending all his time on Mt. Olympus, as Zeus does, Jupiter hung out a lot on Capitoline Hill (reminds me of the old School House Rocks cartoons - "I'm just a bill, on top of Capitol Hill) where his temple was.

Want to know the will of Jupiter?  Watch the birds.  Don't ask me what to look for, I just know that he reveals his will through the flight of birds.  Starting something new?  You better pray for his blessings (along with Janus, the two-faced (no literally, not making fun of him) god of gates and beginnings).  Oh, and wear white.  Jupiter just digs white.  He has white horses, priests wore white for him, white animals were sacrificed to him.

By Jove!  Jove means Jupiter.

You can see Jupiter now at sunset in the southwest (look toward where the sun just set and turn slightly to the left.  If you are in the Northern hemisphere, Jupiter will be chasing Venus (Venus is the brighter of the two).  If you are in the Southern hemisphere (which after installing the ClutrMap at the bottom of the page that some of you are), you can see Jupiter also in the south west, but Venus will not be gracing your sky.  Both are very bright and you can see why it would command the attention of the ancients.  What did the non-Roman ancients think when they saw this brilliant planet in their sky? 

Well, in Mesopotamia, they thought of it as Marduk, another chief god.

In Egypt (really ancient Egypt, before Ra and them came into popularity), they saw this planet as Ammon, the ram-headed chief god.

Hindu astrologers referred to it as Brihaspati, who was a religious teacher to the gods. 

I found some sources that tried to tie Jupiter, the planet, into Thor, but the Norse were very odd about their star names and I'm not sure that is entirely accurate.

The Face(s) of War

I've actually been slowly working on this post for a week now. I'm determined to get it done today and move on! It's just been one of those weeks.

As we continue our journey through our solar system (having already past Vulcan, Venus, Neith, Lilith, and Apollo asteroids) we finally come to Mars. Mars is known as the red planet and it does not take too much imagination to put red with blood and blood with war and viola! You get the name Mars after, of course, the Roman god of war.

You might be thinking, O.K., we know Mars is red because we have telescopes. Why did they call it that way back when? Well, you can see Mars from your backyard from time to time. It appears as a bright star and has a distinctive red tint to it. In areas that have less light pollution the redness sticks out a bit. We can't see it right now because it is hanging out with Mercury and the sun, but I'll let you know when we can.

In Egypt referred to Mars as Horus the Red (Horus being the slayer of Set - yeah the evil Democrat we talked about earlier). The name Cairo comes from an Arabic word for Mars. In Hindu it is named after Indra, the king of the gods. The Babylonians called it Nergal, after their god of war. Nergal, by the way, is mentioned in the bible in 2 Kings 17:30. Don't confuse him with Nermal, the world's cutest kitten.


Those things are great and all, but what really interests me is not Mars the war god (by the way, I think it is funny that as Mars the Romans have him pretty tough and as Ares the Greeks have him as a wimp). What interests me more is the faces of Mars.


I'm sure you've seen this one. It comes from a 1976 photo taken by Viking Orbiter I. The face you see here is over 2 miles long and looks a lot like some Egyptian pharaoh. Could it be????? Well, unfortunately for all conspirators out there, a picture taken later in 2001 of the same rock showed that it was only shadows. Unless, of course, NASA is hiding something...


That is not the only face to show. I said faces. That is plural meaning more than one. Try this one out:
This was actually used in the Watchmen comic book. It exists and is real. Then there is this:
I know, it looks more like something my kids did at the beach, but it is a highly sophisticated space photograph. And last, but not least, here is the proof that NASA lies to us, a picture of Big Foot on Mars!

Now, I present to you as I finally end this incredibly long and fairly useless post. We have misnamed Mars. Sure the planet is red. But it is really a nice planet. It is full of happy smiling places. Hmmm. What Roman deity would be better? Some happy guy hanging around Mt. Olympus and all...  Dionysus?  He's already got his own asteroid.

Man.  Did I really write a post with Nermal in it?

Election Day Mythology

O.K., election day show down. I have my own opinion of who should win and you have yours. To Bubo's Blog, however, it doesn't matter what we think. We want to judge this race on a mythical basis. This blog will Google both "donkey mythology" and "elephant mythology" and from looking only on the first twenty results, will take the best mythology reference to each and compare. Which ever animal has the best mythological results will have their party endorsed by Bubo's Blog, regardless of my personal preference. To be sincere, I am writing this portion of the blog BEFORE checking Google - just to be fair and balanced.

And our contenders are:

Ganesha - Hindu god of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He is the son of Shiva and probably the most recognizable image of Hinduism. He is also worshipped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom, and wealth.

Possible election fraud here since normally we stay away from Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, or any other still practiced religion - however, there were no other connection to elephant and mythology other than in Hinduism in the first 20 pages on Google and precedent has been established for us to delve into these religions before, so election officials have decided to take it.

and

Set - The Egyptian god of chaos, war, storms, and the desert.  This nasty guy Not only killed Osiris, but cut him into little pieces and hid them.  He was a Pharaoh, but nobody liked him and

 eventually was replaced by Horus.  He has a donkey face, or at least part donkey face and tends to be mixed with many animals showing his chaotic side.  His evil nature is a force to be reckoned with and he has already shown he will do what it takes to get the position of power he craves.

The results:

Set leads a powerful campaign, pulling out all the stops and mud slinging.  At every turn, Ganesha seems to escape the brunt of the attack, but cannot seem to overcome this obstacle set (no pun intended) before him.  Ganesha struggles with running a clean campaign based on his views of education and the economy.  He is especially sidelined when allegation of fraud are brought up by Set due to Ganesha's status as really be mythology or not.  However, he continues to fight on, barely winning supreme court cases allowing him to run, only to be defeated in a landslide on election day.  Set lives it up high at his victory party for about an hour, until he is arrested for having ballot boxes stuffed.  Ganesha proves that he is indeed the lord of overcoming obstacles and moves on to be the first Hindu president.

Agree?  Disagree?  Mythologically speaking of course, not on your own political views.