"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another." - Oppenheimer on his thoughts during the detonation of the first atomic bomb.
what's funny is that the actual translation and localization from Sanskrit was "For I am Time, the destroyer of worlds, and I have come to engage all." The word "kalah" is misrepresented as meaning "death" but it really means "time"
Important thing to note is that this is not the first time Krishna reveals his true-self as the entire Universe and Nature/Reality itself or the "Viraat roop".
krishna does not tell Arjun to fight instead He presents the options before him and explained the consequences .... BhagwadGita is not about what to do instead it is about what should be done. It does not emphasis upon achieving your goal instead how you achieved it and that is what is called "Karma".
BG 2.18 The material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end; therefore, fight, O descendant of Bharata. yes he did...He advised to do his duty as a Ksatria .
Another theory I've heard as to why Gods of the Underworld tend to be connected to wealth and greed is that in a great many cultures, the underworld is literally under the world, with Gods of the the Underworld having their domains gradually expanded to include the other important things that lie beneath the surface: metals and precious stones.
+Anand Shridhar, It's the limitation of the human mind which can see me only in my human avatar on earth..I'm still the same in my cosmic body, and I've been the same forever..
here's a quote from Geeta, said by Lord Krishna, "Im the smallest as well as the biggest... I was before the beginning. I will be after the end. matter starts with me. matter ends at me... people worship me in different places call me with different names... the only thing that I judge the only thing that makes you different is nothing but your karma." so clearly Krishna was against caste and all the different kinds of religions. moreover what Arjuna saw was nothing but all the Hindu gods at one glance which means Hinduism too believes in monotheism. just the scholars has got it wrong
It is not monotheism. It is pluralistic monism. Monotheism is very degraded concept. There you can only follow one path Pluralistic monism on the other hand says that whatever path you may take you will reach only to a single goal.
@ 4:31..."and "MAYBE" we can read the biblical story of Jesus as a combination of savior and sage." Maybe, MAYBE? Cowards! Do you fear the wrath of God if you tell the truth about the Christian MYTH! +CrashCourse
Really? Have a nice picture of kurukshetra at that time perhaps? Know for sure either way? I love how ppl are so sure about stories that may just be representative and not real
The Mahabharata takes place well before the advent of photography, so...lol. There are loads of artistic depictions of Krishna, of course, but much like every other artistic depiction of history (including mythical history), they say more about the artist than the subject in question.
Joy Chakraboty I don't think that's what he meant. Krishna acted as if he is sage and he is, if you read the Mahabharata. Krishna is a saṃnyāsa of the highest order even though he participates in ordinary life, this art of getting involved in the regular life and still being a saṃnyāsa is taught by Krishna in the Bhagvat Gita. It does not mean he had long beard and is old.
All the videos in these series sneakily claims that all the other religion except Christianity and Islam are mythology. They are talking about all the characters in other religions as some categorical sub categorical creatures and tricksters etc. but, do not include Christianity and Islamic figures in the same way. That is abusive to non Christian/Islamic religions.
I'm a atheist so i have no dog in this fight but I don't think thats fair. The very first episode said that they will be treating all religion as myth and i think that so far the few times they have brought up christianity it has been in the same manner as every one else. Now on the other hand if they don't end up doing an episode on the Abrahamic religions i think that will be in bad taste.
They literally mentioned Jesus as an example of a Saviour God in this very episode. They used images of Christian origin to illustrate some of the other points. Maybe actually watch and listen with an open mind instead of blindly going on a crusade. It is not this series' task to "expose religion(s) as false" or any such nonsense. And maybe re-watch the first episode about what myths actually are (hint: not just "stories that aren't true"). One can seriously talk about the mythological aspects of Christianity or Islam while at the same time honestly believing in that very same religion.
Thinking of Gods as having skills or attributes rather than being "Gods of ___" is how I've been advised to think of the Deities in Irish polytheism and I really like that approach so seeing it mentioned, though only in a specific instance, is neat!
Congrats for having explained in this academic manner how Lord Shri Krishna embodies all these different kinds of male archetypes . Wait , it is even deeper ... : He also says that He is the source of all shaktis ( energies ) , His internal and external energies . The personified material energy , Durga , for example , is acting on his behalf . So there might maybe the bridge to the female Goddess archetypes . All there in the Bhagavad Gita .
What i liked about Mahabharata is that it took time building the characters of each and every characters who took part in that battle. If you get attached to one of those character's life it'll be hard to consider him a villain even if he did fight for the wrong side. Everyone is right in their own decisions but ultimately it was their final decision to chose side or were forced to bear it just out of duty. Ancient rulers from most of today's indian states took part including as far as Afganistan n may also includes kingdoms from far west wid weird names then so hard to figure out where exactly.
Just a heads up. Everyone seems to pronounce Kshatriya wrong. It's not 'kashatriya'. It's simpler to think of the 'k' as silent. It's not really silent but imaging it as such makes the pronunciation closer to what it truly is. So to avoid headaches from either side, just pronounce it 'shatriya' and you'll sound less awkward.
RJ didn't say the K was silent. They said, and I quote, "It's not really silent but imaging it as such makes the pronunciation closer to what it truly is." Basically, Shatriya is closer than Kashatriya. It might not be correct, but it's closer.
I am so sad that this series has yet to mention Tibetan mythology. The depth of heart and vision embedded in the words of bodhisattvas is something this audience would appreciate, hopefully.
That's so cool to see where the big mythological figure in my own cultural stories falls! Really looking forward to seeing the episodes about trickster gods! In Ojibwe stories, we have a trickster figure named Waynaboozhoo who is a shapeshifter and regularly angers lots of animal spirits haha. But in comparison to many other tricksters I've read about, he seems relatively tame and that he looks out for humans far more than most.
well let me answer that for you :) hinduism is not just one religion but a combination of thousands of religion. our religion did not grew in size by destroying other religions and cultures but it consumed those small religions and grew bigger and in that way we end up getting gods of those small religions. for example hinduism practiced in north India is different then the hinduism of south India and the hinduism of Indonesia is totally different then the hinduism of India becuz it grew by preserving the old religious practices unlike islam and christanity which grew by destroying cultures around the world(sorry if i offended someone)
in my opinion if you understand the core principle of hinduism then you will understand how hinduism simplifies the good and the evil and the god and the demons and the other things that modern religions stands for :)
If your video on dying gods includes a parallel between Hal Jordan/parallax and the god you mentioned today, I would be super impressed. Because they sound like the same story
Great stuff as usual, Mike and the Crash Course team! Just a small correction: The Bhagavad Gita isn't actually the 6th Book of the Mahabharata. The 6th Book is the Book of Bhishma. The Bhagavad Gita is a small 700-verse sub-section within the 6th Book. :)
great vid, but being an indian there are some few flaws in the krishna story. Krishna isn't the god but rather the reincarnation of Vishnu, the god u depict. Vishnu has reincarnated himself 12 times in different forms. So krishna doesn't approach Arguna as a sage but rather Krishna approaches himself as krishna, the charioteer and person of the stories involving himself, not some sage, but he does reveal himself to be Vishnu to Arguna. Great job on everything else though, one of my favourite Crash Course series to date.
@CrashCourse: There's a mistake in the facts that you show in the beginning. MAhabharata is the largest ancient epic in world literature, and not Ramayana. I like reading those facts. And great work, btw!
Hel would be a deity of the "underworld"/land of the dead but does let souls go (depending on their actions in their previous life) after they've been cleansed. She is death and life; womb and tomb - but I am aware that this was on male deities, haha Also, neters (originally) aren't the same as deities. Neters were more of teaching paths for life and enlightenment. Like proverb stories that teach a lesson. Sadly much of Egyptian beliefs became misconstrued and lost after the merging of northern and southern Egypt. Not to mention temples became greedy (as many do). It would have been like combining Greek and Roman mythology into one so that it works and all are valid. Now they are considered "gods" but I think it's important to add their older, more original means as well. Cool video, truly, I'm just really into mythology and ancient cultures so I'm giving the input I know.
Why are there any dislikes crash course is amazing if I could I would give crash course 999 trillion dollars to keep going for as long as possible i love their channel I've watched and learned so much CC please keep going you guys are amazing... keep telling the truth and not conforming to what everyone believes like the whole Columbus "discovered" America. I'm sorry im rambling ill end my comment here but i would like you guys at CC to know you guys are amazing and genious people please stay awesome
Hello Crash Course! I love mythology, simply put, both as a good story, and as a study. However, there is one mythology that I find hard to read about. The Tengriism of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tatar peoples of Central Asia. I would love to see them included in these series, and hopefully along with some sources too. Love watching you!
Here's a question that probably won't be answered - why does this series not have the previous and next episode links at the end of the episode? Those are pretty useful, and the next episode one usually provides a nice preview of what's to come.
2:07 Depending on which myth you go by, Tyr is not the son of Odin, but the the giants (like Odin) and is sort of adopted into the Aesir. Secondly, I don't see how Thor is a conduit of Odin when Thor represents purely masculine ideas while Odin not only is not too masculine (and is insulted in Lokasenna by Loki for this), but actually learned feminine magic (seidr) from Freyja. When you start generalizing archetypes across cultures, that's when you start to miss out on details like this. Also, what does "chief" deity mean in the context of Perun (pronounced 'pyeh-roon')? Considering how little we actually know about Slavic mythology, we can base it solely on his roles within the myths. If you mean it by "most popular", then maybe, but it could easily be because he's a thunder god, not a war god (like Thor, we we can geographically prove was incredibly popular among common people because of all the places named after him).
I too want to thank them for (finally) mentioning a slavic god. Yea we slavs dont believe in those gods for quite a long time now, but that doesnt mean that we are not proud of them. Perun is badass.
I am absolutely loving crash course at the moment. After leaving university I have missed learning! I think it is amazing that this channel is accessible and free - never been so proud of the internet's collective power!
there was also the karna son of sun who was not less that any warrior (may be the best among all but weaker than Krishna but Krishna promised not to fight ) but because of some terms and conditions he had to fight against the good side(Arjuna side) . Arjuna chariots comprised gods like Krishna , hanuman on the chariots as flag and providing their strength to the chariots but karna bows were too much powerful (actually mantras/spell) and energetic that they harmed more than Arjuna bows but because of the curse on karna and Krishna's strategy he was killed.(there is a twist in this story but it will take more time to explain) . tricks were played in this epic battle and there were different kinds of warriors and their different kind of weapons used. in this story there is a mention of a weapon which is similar or more advanced version of hydrogen bomb.
The panel showing Arjuna's 'family' actually shows his four wives - from right to left, Draupadi, Subhadra, Uloopi (that's the snakelike woman) and Chitrangada.
I think that the connection between gods of death and wealth is simpler than you are making it: most death gods rule an 'underworld', that people visualize as actually physically underground, and most gold and other precious materials are dug up from the ground. thus the association is natural.
I love these videos! But I am curious as to why the playlist tied to mythology cc is no longer being updated, and I normally prefer to go to that to see where I've left off and catch up whenever I can
so i was waiting for more than week for another episode of mythology series only to found out there is plenty of them done only not listed in the correct video series - please fix this and add all other episodes to the list of videos mythology series
Krishn knew the war would consume all of his kingdom and clansmen as well but still for the protection of Dharm he let the war happened while also trying to avoid it with any means necessary. After the war, the mother of 100 kauravs Gandhari curses Krishn that "because you let all of her sons die, all of his family, kingdom and clansmen would also perish". Being a God but in human form he had to take the curse.
Krishna is nirguna brahman, he is brahma he is shiva, his is Vishnu, he is Adi Shakti he is soma, varuna, agni, prithiwi, he is ganga, yamuna, he is maha Kali, Maha Durga, maha Lakshmi, maha Saraswati, he is the universe, in shree Bhagwat Geeta shree Krishna says that he is the embodiment of the supreme soul and many people worship him in different forms and ways and follow different paths leading to him ultimately, the everyday puja aarti and offerings we give to the Gods and Goddesses ultimately reach him because Shree Krishna is Brahman, Krishna is just another name for the supreme soul, no matter which God or Goddess we worship, we are worshipping the supreme soul.
It'd be really cool if you could also do an episode on genderless/third gendered/multiple-gendered mythological figures. There are tons out there! (Although many myths get changed by the west and sort these gods into western gender binaries so many people don't know that originally they weren't strictly male or female)
my 9 year old son and I have been loving this series of CC! thank you for the diversity and depth you attempt to put in 10 minutes. My son wants to know if and when you'll put in something in about the Maori God Maui :)
I'd really love to see some time spent on Buddhist myths. Buddhas themselves aren't gods, but there's a really rich tradition here, particularly when you look into beings like the Wisdom Kings and the Ten Demon Daughters: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acala
