Pattanaik will be seen at the IAAC Literary Festival in New York City too.
Devdutt Pattanaik, the well-known author, illustrator, storyteller, mythologist, culture consultant, and leadership coach, is on a coast-to-coast tour of the United States.
Often dubbed as India’s Joseph Campbell and Dan Brown, Pattanaik has written over 30 books and 700 articles on the relevance of stories, symbols and rituals — both sacred and secular — in modern life. With his contemporary take on myth, which he defines as subjective truth, he breaks free from the left-right dichotomy that is fracturing contemporary society.
Pattanaik’s books with publisher Westland Ltd. — 7 Secrets of Hindu Calendar Art, 7 Secrets of Shiva, 7 Secrets of Vishnu and 7 Secrets of the Goddess — are designed to help readers negotiate, explore and celebrate a fabulous worldview that emerged in the Indian subcontinent thousands of years ago. It helps one understand why India has been a relatively tolerant culture despite being home to over 6,000 distinct and diverse communities. It provides unique ideas that could enrich the global village by enabling us to get the best out of our relationships, according to a press release.
Devdutt’s talks and writings provide a deep understanding of how myths and mythologies from around the world have shaped cultures and the world around one. His talks in the US have been organized by Westland Ltd.
Pattanaik, who began his tour with talks in Boulder, Colorado, at the recently concluded Jaipur Literature Festival, and then visited Seattle, Boston, and Palo Alto, will be seen today evening at Grace Street Theater, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia. He will deliver a talk entitled ‘Myth We Live In’. He will delve on how no society can exist without myth. Humans cannot function without myths because myth creates notions of right and wrong, good and bad, heaven and hell, rights and duties. Marriages, monogamy, peace, salvation, non-violence are all concepts based on myth; they don’t exist in nature. Also, that all religions, all nations, all tribes, all ideologies, all ways of life are based on myth. “Human rights” is based on the myth of equality. Only a world without humans is a world without myths.
The next stop for Pattanaik would be at Yale University, in Connecticut, at an event hosted by the Yale International Relations Association & Yale Hindu Studies Council, on October 7. He will talk on ‘Understanding Mythology’. He will talk on how every culture, Indian or Western, religious or secular, modern or tribal uses stories, symbols and rituals over generations to convey its own truth that is indifferent to rationality.
Pattanaik will swing into New York City after that, attend the Indo-American Arts Council Literary Festival at the NYU Kimmel Center, Washington Square Park, on October 9. He will deliver a similar lecture to one he has planned for Yale.
Pattanaik would also deliver a talk, hosted by the Jivamukti Yoga Center, in Jersey City, New Jersey, on October 9th. He will deliver a talk entitled ‘The Stories of Hindu Gods = the Fruits of the Vedic Tree.’ In that talk, he will discuss Hindu mythology, which abounds with fascinating gods, goddesses and larger-than-life fantastical stories around them.