Where do our Stories Come From?

We often applaud our epics and think they are the most original and unique things to ever exist. However, if you look at them, they actually have similar elements. Let's look at three case studies: the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and Homer's Iliad.

First of all, all three of these stories are about a central war. There's the war that Rama and the Vanaras wage against Ravana, the Kurukshetra War between the Kauravas and Pandavas, and the Trojan War. All these wars are entangled with women - Sita, Draupadi, and Helen. (They're fought by men who think that a woman needs saving - for those of you feminists out there.) Something happened to these women: Sita was kidnapped, Draupadi was dishonored, and Helen was taken to Troy from her husband. (People just can't leave these women alone.) These women aren't mistreated in the same way, but what happens to them becomes entangled with the men's war.

Secondly, there's an interesting similarity between Achilles and Krishna. Achilles's mother, Thetis, dipped him in the river Styx, holding his ankle. This meant that he was invulnerable everywhere other than his ankle - and this was the only place he could be injured and killed. One day, the sage Durvasa visited Krishna's home as a guest. Krishna served him payasa, or kheer, and after Durvasa had eaten, he instructed Krishna to smear the remaining payasa over his body. Everywhere the payasa touched became invulnerable, except for the soles of Krishna's feet. Spoiler alert: both Achilles and Krishna eventually died because of a wound to the heel or foot.

Third, Achilles and Arjuna both have a moment where they don't want to fight anymore. Achilles withdraws from the battle because Agamemnon insults his honor. Arjuna has a moment during the war when he realizes that he is fighting his relatives and wonders why he is doing this. Of course, their reasons are different, but both of them have this moment where the greatest warrior on the battlefield suddenly questions the entire point of the war.

Apparently, epic writers discovered one of the oldest tricks in storytelling. They decided that if you want to show just how terrifyingly powerful a warrior can become, you should hurt someone they love. Patroclus's death brings Achilles back into battle with a vengeance. Abhimanyu's death drives Arjuna to make a terrible vow and seek revenge. And in the Ramayana, when Lakshmana is gravely wounded, Hanuman goes to extraordinary lengths to save him, eventually carrying an entire mountain because he cannot identify the herb Rama needs. If you want to make the greatest warrior or his closest companion absolutely terrifying, apparently the solution is simple: hurt the person they love most.

These epics also have an arrogant ruler. There's Duryodhana, whose pride, resentment, and refusal to compromise drive the Kurukshetra War. Then there's Agamemnon, whose pride and treatment of Achilles cause conflict within his own army. Both of these personal conflicts become everybody else's problem.

Another important comparison is how the greatest warrior isn't necessarily the king. Achilles isn't the king or the person in charge of the Greek army. Arjuna is one of the greatest warriors and archers among the Pandavas, but Yudhishthira is the king. Karna is also one of the greatest warriors in the Mahabharata, yet he spends much of his life being treated as an outsider because of the circumstances of his birth. He is actually Kunti's eldest biological son, although he grows up not knowing that. Later, Krishna reveals his birth to him and offers him kingship if he joins the Pandavas. Karna refuses.

Of course, ordinary swords weren't enough. Every epic needed weapons - or armor - that were touched by the gods. Achilles receives extraordinary armor forged by Hephaestus. The Mahabharata has divine weapons, or astras, such as the Brahmastra, which are obtained through divine knowledge, boons, or instruction. Apparently, if you were going to war in the ancient world, having a normal sword was simply not dramatic enough.

And then there are the gods themselves. The Greek gods interfere constantly in the Trojan War, choosing sides and helping their favorite mortals. The Indian epics are no different in their willingness to let gods interfere with human affairs. Gods give weapons, grant boons, place curses, offer advice, and occasionally make themselves responsible for problems that would have been much easier if they had just stayed out of them.

I'm sure there are so, so many other parallels we can draw. The more you look, the more you start noticing the same ingredients appearing again and again: the extraordinary warrior, the arrogant ruler, the complicated family, the woman whose fate becomes entangled with a war, the divine weapon, the wounded companion, the warrior who questions the fight, and the gods interfering with everything.

So what does this actually show?

What if all myths were derived from one original story? What if somewhere, long before the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, or the Iliad, there was one story that contained all of these elements? A story about a war, a hero, a woman, a king, a betrayal, a god, and a warrior who had one tiny weakness that eventually brought him down.

We don't know what that story would have looked like. We don't even know if such a story ever existed. But perhaps that's the fascinating part.

Maybe our epics aren't completely original stories after all. Maybe human beings have simply been telling the same few stories for thousands of years - changing the names, the gods, the kingdoms, and the monsters, but keeping the things that we have always cared about.

And who knows? Maybe we are still telling that same story today.