The Danaids were forty-nine sisters who were made to fill water in a vast tub using a perforated pot. Their crime: on their wedding night they killed their sleeping husbands, the sons of Aegyptus, on their father’s instruction.
In Hindu mythology, the Garuda Purana describes various types of hell or naraka depending on the nature of the crime. But Tartarus is not just about common crimes, it is about hubris that affects the cosmos and so earns the displeasure of Zeus. It shows those suffering to be wilful agents of chaos who threaten harmony.
Being forced to perform a thankless, meaningless, monotonous task was the greatest punishment for the Greeks, and often the result of angering the gods.
In Hindu mythology, the material world goes through repetitive, senseless, purposeless cycles: all humans are thus Sisyphus. Wisdom is finding meaning through it.
Deucalion
Zeus noticed that humans, created and nurtured by Prometheus, were foul and cruel and more interested in fighting each other for wealth and power than in offering oblations to the Olympians. Worse, they had begun to doubt the power of the Olympians.
Once, when Zeus was visiting him, Lycaon, the king of Arcadia, decided to check if the Olympian was indeed a god and so, along with the flesh of animals, served him the flesh of a human, his own son, thus breaking the rules of hospitality and the rules against cannibalism.
Enraged, Zeus decided to destroy all humanity with a great flood. He caused the oceans to overflow and the rivers to swell and the rains to fall until the entire earth was covered with water. All living creatures, plants and animals and humans, were destroyed in this flood.
But then Zeus found floating on these waters a chest, within which were a man and a woman, the only survivors of the flood. The man was Deucalion, son of Prometheus, and the woman was his wife Pyrrha, daughter of Pandora. Like his father, Deucalion had foresight and had known that one day Zeus would lose his patience with humanity and devastate the earth. And so the couple had hidden in a wooden chest, and stayed safe and dry while the waters deluged and destroyed everything else.
When the waters subsided, Deucalion and Pyrrha came out of the chest and begged for mercy at the shrine of Zeus that stood nearby. Taking pity on them, Zeus said, in a rather cryptic way, ‘Throw the bones of your grandmother behind you and you shall establish a new line of humanity who will be as wise as you.’
The bones of their grandmother? Where would the couple find them? Then Deucalion realized what Zeus meant, and along with his wife began gathering rocks from the ground and throwing them over their shoulder, for the earth was their grandmother and the rocks were her bones.
The rocks thrown by Deucalion became men and those thrown by Pyrrha became women. These men and women, born after the flood, were the new line of humanity, fire controllers, who respected the Olympians and offered them oblations.
From this race of men would be born heroes, who would defy the limitations imposed on them by the Olympians. Some would become gods themselves, grudgingly admired by the Olympians. Others would earn a place in the heaven of heroes, Elysium, located in the underworld across the River Styx, reserved for those who live extraordinary lives. Those who upset the gods would be cast into the dark void that was Tartarus. The rest, the ordinary, the mediocre, would spend the afterlife in the shade of the Asphodel fields.
In Hindu mythology, Brahma is the grandfather of humanity—there is a biological connection. But there is no such connection in Greek mythology. The gods create humans from clay. In later myths, they are created from the earth by sowing the seeds of dragons and other monsters.
Some of the crimes that Zeus abhorred were the ill treatment of guests and human sacrifice.
Deucalion’s survival in the box reminds us of the tale of Noah’s Ark found in the Old Testament of the Bible, and of Utnapishtim who survives the flood of the Mesopotamian gods.
Augustine of Hippo who lived in the fourth century CE took the tale of Deucalion as historical fact, and considered him a contemporary of Moses. In medieval times, Deucalion’s flood was dated to around 1500 BCE , a regional flood that followed the more global flood witnessed by Noah.
Deucalion and Pyrrha had a son called Hellen from whom all the Hellenic tribes of Classical Greece arose: the Achaeans, Ionians (from whom come the Persian word ‘yunan’ and the Sanskrit ‘yavana’ that describes the Greeks), Dorians and Aeolians.
Book Two
Minos
‘Zeus reminds me of a king struggling to maintain order, contending with the violence of those who came before him, the quarrels of those around him, and his suspicion of those who stand below him,’ said the gymnosophist. ‘I can feel his struggle to harmonize the intellectual Athena with the passionate Aphrodite, the lucid Apollo with the intoxicated Dionysus.’
‘How interesting! You see the Olympians inside you,’ said Alexander. ‘I see them outside. In Crete, ruled by Minos, I find Dionysian mysteries, and in Athens, ruled by Theseus, I find Apollonian clarity.’
Io
Zeus demanded that the king of Argos give his daughter Io to him. The king dared not refuse a god, even though he knew his actions would upset Hera, for Io was her priestess and was expected to be faithful to the goddess.
As Zeus was enjoying Io’s company, he saw Hera approaching and, fearing for Io’s safety, immediately turned her into a cow.
But Hera was not fooled. She knew that the cow was not really bovine but a woman who had caught Zeus’s fancy. She told her faithful minion, the giant Argus, to watch over this cow, for sooner or later she would revert to her human form for the pleasure of Zeus.
Argus had a hundred eyes. And at any time, at least one pair was always open, so he could watch Io night and day. Nothing she did escaped his sight. Finally, Zeus sent Hermes to play his lyre until Argus shut all his eyes and fell asleep. Hermes then beheaded the sleeping giant and let Io escape.
Hera was furious. She placed the eyes of Argus, who had served her so well, on the tail of a peacock.
Then she sent a gadfly to sting Io and chase her around the world, giving her not a moment to rest. Io fled from Europe into Asia through a sea route that came to be known as the Bosphorus, or the path of the cow. She ran through lands that would later be known as Phrygia, Phoenicia and Egypt. Everywhere she went, she gave birth to Zeus’s children, who would rule these lands.
The peacock is linked with a tale of infidelity in Hindu mythology too. Rishi Gautama discovers his wife, Ahalya, in the arms of Indra, the king of the devas. He curses that Indra will sprout a hundred eyes on his body so that he can ‘see’ where his senses lead him. Eventually these eyes are placed on a peacock’s tail. A peacock’s feathers are used to ward off the ‘evil eye’ in many Hindu rituals.
Io is identified with the Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Isis.
From Io descend many Greek heroes like Perseus, Cadmus and Heracles.
Io is the name given to one of planet Jupiter’s moons.
Europa
One of Io’s many sons, the king of Phoenicia, had a daughter called Europa, who often took care of her father’s cows and bulls. Zeus saw Europa and, enamoured of her, he decided to seduce her.
He took the form of a white bull and walked towards her while she was gathering flowers. When she touched him, he lowered himself, inviting her to sit on him. As soon as she climbed on to his back, he ran into the sea, carrying her with him, jumping over the waves until he reached the island of Crete.
There he ravished her, and in time she gave birth to three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon.
Ancient cattle-herding civilizations revered the bull for its virility, which could not be tamed unless it was castrated and thereby stripped of virility. In the Indus Valley civilization, we find seals with the image of the bull. In Hindu mythology, Shiva rides Nandi, a bull. In Jain mythology, the first Tirthankara is known as Rishabha, which means bull, and his symbol is the bull as well. Even Buddha was addressed as a bull amongst men.
The story of Euro
pa is as old as Homer’s Iliad, which was probably composed around 2800 years ago. The name Europe comes from Europa, and at first it was used for parts of Thrace. It began to signify the entire continent only from around 1200 years ago, when it referred to the western part of the Holy Roman Empire that was Latin, and led by Charlemagne, and distinct from the eastern, Greek part.
The European Union currently acknowledges Europa, mother of Europe, through its website and currency notes.
Rationalists believe that Europa was a Phoenician princess who was kidnapped by bull-worshipping Minoans.
One of the moons around planet Jupiter is named Europa.
A rare earth element, europium, is named after Europa.
As a bull, Zeus connects Asia (Argos) to Crete, while as a cow, Io connects Greece to Asia (Lycia, Phoenicia) and Africa (Libya, Egypt). These tales thus establish a connection along the eastern half of the Mediterranean Sea. The western half is the theatre where the adventures of Heracles, Odysseus and Aeneas take place.
Pasiphae
Minos drove both his brothers out of Crete—Rhadamanthus because he was popular with the people, and Sarpedon because they both loved the same boy, Atymnius.
Then, to prove he was worthy of the crown, Minos prayed to Poseidon and asked him to send him a bull from the sea as a sign of his support, promising to sacrifice it to the sea god himself. Pleased, Poseidon let a bull emerge from the sea; Minos, however, liked the animal so much that he decided not to sacrifice it.
An angry Poseidon caused Pasiphae, Minos’s wife, to fall in love with the bull and want to have sex with him. To seduce the bull, Pasiphae had the inventor Daedalus build her a model of a cow with a compartment within which she could hide. The bull mistook the contraption for a real cow and responded as Pasiphae wished, giving her pleasure and getting her pregnant. Thus was born a terrible beast called the Minotaur, who had the body of a man but the head of a bull and an appetite for human flesh. The creature embodied the falsehood of Minos, the shame of Pasiphae and the anger of the Olympians.
Embarrassed by the creature, but terrified of killing it, Minos asked Daedalus to build a labyrinth under the palace that would serve as home for the Minotaur. Neither the monster nor those who entered it would ever come out.
Daedalus agreed. The inventor had fled his home in Athens and had been given shelter in Crete, and so was obliged to both his hosts.
In Jain and Buddhist stories, queens often dream of celestial creatures like elephants, horses and bulls entering their womb, an indicator that the child they have conceived will be a great king or sage. However, in these stories, the queens are never shown as desiring the animal; nor is there an instance of a god approaching a queen in the form of an animal.
The story of the bull emerging from the sea reveals how, in ancient Greece, royal power and legitimacy were derived from the Olympians.
The island of Crete, home of the Minoan civilization, was famous for rituals and sports that involved dancing around bulls and leaping over them.
Pasiphae was seen to be related to the witches of the East, known for their enormous sexual appetite, and this story of her copulating with a bull captured the Greek imagination.
Pasiphae had given her husband Minos a potion by which his semen would turn into scorpions in the vaginas of his mistresses. Thus she forced him to be faithful to her. But Minos ordered the inventor Daedalus to design the world’s first condom, using a goat’s bladder, by which he could protect his mistresses.
When the ruins of Crete were discovered, many archaeologists searched in vain for the mythical labyrinth. Finding none, they concluded the palace itself with its many rooms and corridors may have inspired the tale.
Minotaur is a word created by combining two words: Minos and Taurus (which means bull).
Androgeus
Minos and Pasiphae had another son called Androgeus, a handsome lad who went to Athens to participate in games held in honour of Athena. There he won many prizes and many admirers. Envious of his prowess, the Athenians asked him to fight the Cretan bull, which killed him.
Minos did not think that the fight was fair. In fact, he was convinced that Aegeus, king of Athens, had murdered his son in jealousy, and so he led an attack against Athens. When that was not successful, he asked his father Zeus to strike the city with pestilence and famine until they agreed to do as he bade them: ‘You have taken the life of one son of Minos. Now you must give life to the other son of Minos. Send seven boys and seven girls every nine years into the labyrinth of Minotaur.’
Aegeus had no choice but to agree.
This story of Minos’s vengeance comes from the second-century Latin work Bibliotheca (meaning library), a vast collection of Greek myths written by one Apollodorus. This is almost a thousand years after the epics of Homer and Hesiod.
Rationalists believe that Minos was a title, and perhaps referred to a great line of kings that ruled Crete. These kings had a navy that held sway over the Mediterranean and so were much hated by the Greeks, especially Athenians.
Mahish-asura, the buffalo-headed demon of the Hindu Puranas, reminds us of the bull-headed Minotaur. But the story of Mahish-asura dates back to the seventh century CE while that of Minotaur was known at least a thousand years before in the Mediterranean.
Aegeus
Long ago, the oracle at Delphi, who could understand the whispers of the Fates and the Olympians, revealed to Aegeus, king of Athens, a puzzle. Aegeus shared the oracle’s cryptic words with his friend, Pittheus of Troezen, who deciphered it to mean that Aegeus ought not to get drunk that night for then he would father a great hero, who would also be his killer.
Pittheus did not share the meaning with Aegeus. Instead, he got Aegeus drunk, and forced his daughter, Aethra, to have sex with him that night. That same night, instructed by Athena, Aethra waded across the sea to a nearby island where she was possessed by Poseidon. As a result of her intimacies with a man and then a god, Aethra became pregnant.
While leaving Troezen, Aegeus placed his sword, shield and sandals under a huge boulder and told Aethra, ‘If you bear a son and he is strong enough to push this boulder aside and find this sword of mine, tell him to travel to Athens and find his father.’
Sure enough, Aethra gave birth to a son called Theseus who grew up to be strong enough to push the boulder aside and find his father’s sword, shield and sandals. When Aethra told Theseus about his father, he decided to visit Athens. Pittheus tried to stop his grandson, for he knew Theseus would be the cause of his father’s death, but Theseus was in no mood to listen.
Stories of sons, raised by single mothers, who inherit their father’s strength are found in Hindu mythology too as in the case of Bharat, son of Shakuntala, who is raised in the forest, and is as strong as his father Dushyanta.
Like most Greek heroes, Theseus has two fathers, one mortal and the other immortal. Theseus’s divine father is Poseidon, making him the nemesis of Minos, who broke his word to Poseidon and incurred the god’s wrath.
The trope of a father asking his pregnant wife to send the child to him only if he is a ‘worthy son’—Theseus proves his worth by lifting the boulder to find his father’s sword—is a recurring theme in folklore, one that we see even in the tenth-century Persian tale of Rustom and Sohrab found in the Shah Nama.
The prophecy of a son killing his own father is also a recurring theme in Greek mythology.
Theseus, the son of Poseidon, was destined to rule Athens, a city that refused to make Poseidon their patron god and chose Athena instead, for he offered them seawater and she gave them the olive tree.
Theseus
Normally, people would travel from Troezen to Athens by sea, avoiding the land route that was full of violent highway robbers. But not Theseus. He travelled by road, outwitting all the thieves along the way and subduing all the scoundrels who plagued the land. Six of these are worthy of mention.
First was the lame thief, Periphetes, who would beat up unsuspecting travellers with his bronze c
lub.
Second was Sinis, who would tie his victims between two pine trees that he would bend simultaneously and then release, causing the hapless victims to be torn apart.
Third was Phaea, an old woman who would set upon travellers her man-eating pig.
Fourth was Sciron who would kick people off a cliff after tricking them into bending down to wash his feet.
Fifth was Cercyon who challenged people to a wrestling match and then killed them after defeating them.
Sixth was Procustes who invited travellers to spend the night in his home where he stretched the legs of short travellers till their knees snapped, or cut off the feet of tall travellers so that they fit the bed in the guest room.
By the time Theseus reached Athens, he had won the support of its people. And when he showed the sword to Aegeus, he was hugged and welcomed as the prince of Athens.
Sadly, it was the year to send the tribute of seven boys and seven girls to Crete. Theseus, never one to shy away from a challenge, decided to be part of the tribute. ‘Fear not, father, I will come back alive,’ he said.
The sails of the ship that took tribute to Crete were always black. ‘Replace these with white sails when you return, my son,’ said Aegeus.
In the Mahabharata, Bhima earns a reputation for himself by saving common people from the excesses of the rakshasa Baka, to whom villagers had to send a cartload of food every month: the demon would eat the food, as well as the cart driver and the oxen pulling the cart. In the Bhagavata Purana, Krishna makes Gokul and Vrindavan safe by killing various troublemakers who attack the village in the guise of animals, and sometimes as forest fires and thunderstorms. These acts of protecting the village make them heroes, as in the case of Theseus.