Project Topic Brainstorm

Topic 1: Women of the Epics
Potential Source: Portrayal of Women

The reason I'm interested in studying women of the epics is because it always fascinates me how women are treated in ancient mythologies and ancient stories. I know a lot about Greek and Roman and more Western cultures myths and how women play into a lot of the stories, so I'd be very interested in how that varies or is the same in Indian Epics. I know absolutely nothing on the topic, so I think there's a lot of room for me to learn and find out new information. I'm hoping to find stories of a lot of strong women that I could tell either finding a theme to pull them all together or focusing on just one of them.


Topic 2: Elephants
Potential Source: Asian Elephants in Hinduism

My favorite animal is an elephant, so when I saw that I could potential do a project solely based on elephants in Indian Epics, I was really interested. I don't know much about elephants in cultures, but I'm hoping that there would be enough information for me to pull together a project about it. In western culture, elephants are typically portrayed as wise, big and gentle creatures, so I wonder if they would be true for a culture that is more accustomed to seeing elephants than we are.

Topic 3: Gods/Devas
Potential Source: Hindu Deities

My favorite part of mythology/stories is always the gods within them. Each of them has such a distinct personalities and character and makes each of the stories very unique. I would be very curious to see how the deities in Hindu culture behave and what the personality and mindset is behind each one of them. I would either focus on a common characteristic found among the most important deities in the myths or I would just pick one that fascinated me the most to do the project one.

Topic 4: Avatars of the gods
Potential Source: Dashavatar

The reason I picked this topic was because it's a unique topic to Indian Epics. When I started researching it I found out almost immediately that there's one god, Lord Vishnu, has 10 primary avatars himself. I would be very curious to see if the avatars the gods took ended up having a common thread between them, or if they're more random and just fit the story. I'd also be very curious to see what the avatars of the gods go and do. Most of the "avatars" from Greek myths only cause trouble for the human world and end up being a problem, so I wonder if this would be true for Indian Epics as well.

An Elephant from Flickr Images