Devdutt Pattanaik on 14 things historians taught him
October 31, 2015 21:14
Before I explain what I learned, let me clarify definitions. For me, history is a construction of the past based on verifiable material evidence such as archaeological, epigraphic and textual records.
Mythology is the subjective truth of a people transmitted through stories, symbols and rituals. The former tells me what happened in the past and the latter tells me how our ancestors explained life.
We must distinguish both history and mythology from cultural memory '" how people remember the past. This has nothing to do with facts. It has to do with self-esteem of a tribe, a clan, or a community. One has to gently tread on it.
In colonial times, the world was divided into fact and fiction. But in post-colonial times we have learned to recognise the fluidity that makes such binaries rather simplistic. That memory of communities, their understanding of the world, and their articulation defy the rigid boundaries constructed by Marxists on one hand, and religious radicals on the other.
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