Mahabharata and the Illiad

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Interesting correlations may exist. This will be interesting in the next few years.

 

 

Mahabharata and the Illiad

 

Religion As Manish recently noted, three Indian-Americans were awarded the Rhodes Scholarship this year. One of them is Ian Desai of the University of Chicago. Ian plans to use his time to make a comparison of the Iliad and the Mahabharata. From The Tribune of India:

 

A New Yorker, Desai graduated this year with a degree in ancient studies. In 2001, he tried to retrace the mythic journey of Jason and the Argonauts through Greece, Turkey and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

 

He traveled by bus, motor cycle, car and on foot. To get around, he used a little Greek, broken Turkish and the kindness of strangers. He even negotiated with Turkish fishermen to spend 10 days on their trawler.

 

At one point he and Michael Newton, a photographer who chronicled the trip, were warned by a Georgian train conductor that they were in bandit country.

 

“We’re very proud of him,” said Susan Art, Dean of Students of the University of Chicago’s undergraduate college. “Ian is a remarkable individual who has contributed so much to the university. I think his success does justice to the quality of the education we offer,” Art added. Desai hopes to build upon his undergraduate research that has explored a rarely undertaken subject: a comparison of the Iliad and the Mahabharata.

Now to me, mythology-geek that I am, this sounds like a fascinating study. I Googled the terms “Mahabharata and Illiad” to see what came up and this review of the Mahabharata which draws parallels to the Illiad was one of the first. I suppose all Myth is to a great deal interrelated. Joesph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces does a good job of exploring that hypothesis. In any case I hope to hear more about this in a few years when he finishes.