According to Joseph Campbell (The Mask of God, Occidental Mythology, ‘The Unity of the race of man, not only its biology but also in its spiritual history… has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony.’ Nowhere is this more evident than in Hindu civilization and the stories of its gods and goddesses. Both gods and devils have been presumed as supernatural forces either divine or demonic. In ancient times man regarded natural forces as those powers and gave them names. Hindu Dravidian, Aryan and Mongoloid inhabiting the banks of the sindhu river evolved as a single civilization evoking such gods and goddesses. The country that came to be known as Indian (or earlier as Indico), after the river Indus and its people also put in place a social system (replete with caste structure), deeply imbibing such mythology. The book deals with both Hindu and western mythologies and their differing views on the story of Creation. It extends the idea that ‘Truth is one but sages expressed it in different ways.’ The book projects the commonalities and differences amongst the Hindu, Greek and Roman civilizations and attributes the survival of Indian civilization (from the early vedic to Sanatan Dharma) to its assimilative power, its ability to compromise and integrate diversity.
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