An Overview of Reception of Myth in The Shiva Trilogy and The Shivapurana

Abstract

The dictionary meaning of Myth is, “a traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience and which often the forces of nature and of soul are personified; a sacred narrative regarding God, a hero, the origin of world or of the people etc.” (32)
While focusing on Amish Tripathi's opinion, it is more interesting, "Myths are nothing but jumbled memories of a true past, a passed under mounds of earth and ignorance." (112)
To understand the reception, it is generally believed that, it is something the way we response or receive the text, but it's a little bit more than that. One important aspect to remember while talking about reception of literature is, “where meaning can be found and from where the influence is taken.” Different theories focus on the meaning being found in the „writer‟, the „text‟ itself or the „reader‟, but it is basically focused on the reader, how the reader is engaged in the text and what type of sense does the reader take, the meaning of text is not really there until the reader engages with it. At the end it comes out as if how the reader receives. The reception of the text is more interesting because each of the reader is different and each reader may have different perspective and response either.