Pandora and Pandora’s box

I was a little taken aback when I first came to know that Pandora was actually created as a means to punish the humanity. Generically, it meant that all women were sent as a punishment, which is obviously not the entire truth. Pandora, as the myth goes was created by Hephaestus at the behest of Zeus, the king of Gods. Prometheus had tricked Zeus to steal the secret of fire and later shared it with the human beings, thus inviting Zeus’ rage upon himself and the entire human race.

Zeus punished Prometheus by tying him to a rock where an eagle fed on his liver every day. It was a perpetual torture because Prometheus was immortal and his liver would regenerate every night. From the mortals, Zeus not only hid the secret of fire, but also sent Pandora as a curse upon them. Pandora, as a word means “all-gifted” because at the time of her creation, all the Olympian Gods and Goddesses endowed her with special gifts or qualities.

All the traits you can associate with a woman were bestowed upon Pandora by the Olympians for she was indeed the first woman in creation. Aphrodite (Venus) gave her beauty while Hermes (Messenger of Gods) presented her with persuasion skills. Athena robed her, Zeus was responsible for her foolishness, idleness and mischief and his consort Hera rooted her with curiosity.

Despite his brother Prometheus’ warning against it, Epimetheus accepted Pandora as his wife, a gift from Zeus. Epimetheus often leapt before thinking and did not heed to his brother who had the foresight to anticipate Zeus’s ire and revenge.

The legendary box (Pandora’s box) is a pithos or a box structure that contains all the evils and diseases. It was given to her by Hermes. Pandora herself was harmless but unwittingly, just out of curiosity, one day she opened the box and let out all the evils that spread around the earth. As soon as she realized her folly, it was too late. All the evils had escaped and only hope remained trapped inside Pandora’s box. 

Can you now properly understand the metaphorical quality of the phrase?

Some texts refer to Pandora as Anesidora, which means “gift giver”. Some hold and endorse the view that Pandora represented everything that was exquisite and magnificent. We still marvel at what prompted Hesiod to present her so, he got to be a real misogynist because the current characterization and perhaps the most famous ones are found in his works:

“From her is the race of women and female kind,

of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who,

live amongst mortal men to their great trouble,

no helpmates in hateful poverty, but only in wealth”

It is to be noted that it was Pandora’s daughter Pyrrha, who along with her husband Deucalion was chosen by Zeus and warned about the deluge. One cannot hope to skip female company altogether, as Hesiod very wisely points out, because one needs companionship for his later years. Pandora’s only character flaw was perhaps her curiosity, a trait that reigns supreme in women (Remember Eve bit the apple out of curiosity?).   

Greek Flood Myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha

The tale is that of one honest man in an age of decadence and godlessness. The gods themselves have come down upon Earth to seek some sign of humanity. They find the honest man and warn him of terrible calamities. The man builds a gigantic ship and awaits the end. Eventually, it starts raining, and then the land floods. The water level rises and submerges all the sins of humanity. The honest man, however survives in his ship and when the flood ends, he anchors the ship upon a mountain and surveys an empty Earth.

Most people will name this honest man, Noah. The story however, refers to Deucalion the Greek. The flood myth, in this exact form, exists in the myths of every ancient civilization from the Greeks, to the Sumerians, to the ancient Indians, and even the Chinese. It is one of those common tales that points out some commonly experienced event or tale in the forgotten depths of history.

The Greek tale goes as follows. It was an age before our own, but the days of humanity living without knowledge of suffering and evil were long past. Greed and hatred had taken root and even as Zeus, king of the gods, looked upon the lands, he saw the race of humans grown degenerate and impious. Zeus, took with him, Hermes – the messenger of the gods, and landed in Greece, disguised as common peasants. As they travelled across Greece, Zeus realized that nothing could be done to redeem his people. He decided to destroy everyone in a massive flood. Hermes, however, convinced him to find those who still believed in the old ways and who still remained faithful to the gods. They met Deucalion, son of Prometheus, and Pyrrha, daughter of Pandora, who were married to each other. Their piety impressed Zeus and he revealed himself to them and warned them of the oncoming flood. Deucalion and Pyrrha now built a massive ship in which they took shelter during the deluge. This flood lasted for a total of nine days, and all the cities of Earth perished within it. When the waters of the flood abated, the ship landed upon a mountain. Deucalion and Pyrrha looked out and saw a depopulated land. They now sought an oracle who had managed to survive to know how to restore humanity. The oracle told them to throw the bones of their mother behind them to do so. This was obviously confusing, but Deucalion realized that the Earth was mother to them all. Therefore, they both gathered stones from the mountain and began to throw them. The stones thrown by Deucalion became men, and those thrown by Pyrrha became women.

A similar story exists for the Sumerian king Ziusudra, who also built a boat and landed on a mountain. In India, the tale of Manu rings the same, with the boat and a mountain. Both these tales also had forewarnings of the oncoming doom. The Chinese flood myth is somewhat different. It speaks of how long ago, the heavens split and the earth sank down into the ocean and was therefore, flooded. The goddess Nvwa rescued everyone by repairing heaven by using stones of five colours and the supported it with the legs of a giant turtle that she chopped off. She also killed an evil dragon and used its power to push back the waves and rescue humanity.




 By: Aditya Govilkar

The Three Realms, the Three Gods

There is so much to talk, write, discuss and learn about/from the Greek mythology. Perhaps, the avid God of War gamers already know much about it already. But that does not deter us from talking about the division of the three realms of the earth amongst Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, the three sons of Cronos and Rhea. As the tale goes, after dealing a crushing defeat to the Titans (for the sins of Cronos), there was a feud for power amongst Zeus, Poseidon and Hades.  

Earth already belonged to Gaia, Zeus lorded over the skies and hence came to be known as the King of the Gods. Poseidon, as you might already know or have guessed (thanks to the eponymous movie) commanded the sea and the wind. Hades reigned supreme in the underworld (and therefore the contemporary characterization as ‘The Grim Reaper’, although it is not exactly correct). 

Together with Hera, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus and Demeter, Zeus and Poseidon form the group of 12 Olympians who stay abode the great Mount Olympus. It is in the honor of Zeus, the King of Gods that the Olympics were held in ancient Greece. Some insist upon the exclusion of Hades from Olympians because he keeps mostly to the underworld, where his regime lies. Other mythologists consider him an important part of the Olympians but nobody seems to concur on this, so and so forth, the tale continues. 

The Olympians and their Roman equivalents find parallels in Indian mythology, because Hindu mythology is the oldest in the world. This in fact gives us a lot to talk and a chance to expand our knowledge in the sphere and as A.B. Keith points out in his book Indian Mythology, the Hindu myth has indeed withstood the invasion of various foreign cultures and the Gods and Goddesses are an important part of people’s lives. The Greek and the Roman myths have been merely accorded the status of folklore or classical studies. However, that does not diminish the interest of the Philomythists or the charm of Aphrodite and Venus.

From here shall our story branch out in various directions – past, present and future. There are so many parallels to be found in various mythologies from around the world but we shall devote all our attention towards Indian, Greek and Roman mythology.