Conversation

Replying to
Rajamouli’s movies (Bahubali series) are a brave attempt to create entirely new stories in the spirit of Hindu mythology but I suspect the incumbency of the living canon is just too strong and entrenched to compete with. New material can’t rise above “entertainment” 🤔
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In the west, modern Christian storytelling (eg Hallmark movies) seems to ignore literal mythology and build an alt extended universe around Christian values, but I think it doesn’t really work. Either culturally or economically. It’s a kind of resistance art/rearguard action
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Islam tries really hard to counterprogram this human tendency to make fandom larps of everything but I don’t think it succeeds. Sufi saint culture is exactly the same, despite the strictures against representational art.
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I suspect people who take religion seriously try to look for its cultural adaptive functions at too high a level of abstraction, like “meaning making” The adaptive function is mainly at the action figure level for 90% of “believers.” Narrative sensemaking with Mary Sue options.
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By the typology in the Gita of 4 types of faith, I think the pie chart is: Gnana yoga (knowledge faith): 1% Raja yoga (self-mastery faith): 9% Karma yoga (righteous-action faith): 20% Bhakti yoga (devotional/fandom faith): 70%
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This is why Zuck is smart to bet on the metaverse. The Hindu metaverse will be a huge deal. And Meta probably knows it since half the content on Indian WhatsApp is fandom traffic. Images, songs, etc.
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Replying to
I’m surprised somebody hasn’t rushed to make nft collections based on Hindu mythology. Get each minted hash blessed by a priest. Famous temples could sponsor ongoing mints. Donate at Tirupati, QR code pops, scan it and you have proof-of-darshan nft.
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I mean all the blessed threads and amulets and stuff are basically physical nft mints. I just got a red thread from a family religious thing.
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Pilgrimages are collection quests. Often the collected artifact is holy water. People have mint condition sealed little brass pots of Ganga water in their home shrines. It’s like comic-con souvenir badges or something.
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