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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In both East and west, post-canon-freeze storytelling seems to effectively reduce to “lives of saints” stuff, which I can’t help but read as Mary-Sue stories. Eg Mirabai story reads like a Mary Sue story adjacent to Krishna canon to me.
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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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Oh damn I wonder if my pie chart of yogas can be mapped to keirsey mbti temperaments. Wouldn’t be surprising since jungian thought has roots in myth too.
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Replying to @vgr
having gods as action figures u can touch and pose seems very mbti S (sensory)
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Gnana yoga: NT
Raja yoga: SP?
Karma yoga: SJ
Bhakti yoga: NF?
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Speaking of tech updates, there’s this AR app coloring roll app for Hindu pantheon. You put it up on wall, kids color it, and scanning a god in AR app brings up augmented content.
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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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In case it isn’t clear, I’m taking the opposite view to the usual interpretation that comic book EU fandoms are modern religions. I think religions are old fandoms that acquired some intellectual/philosophical trappings. Religions supervene on fandom/larp phenomenology.
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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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An interesting Hinduism 1/1 NFT is saligrams: ammonite fossils that are co-opted as Vishnu symbols. Most religious households have a few and they play an important role in some rituals.
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