Vedic mythology
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Ancient India may refer to:
- The ancient history of the whole Indian subcontinent
- History of South Asia and History of India
- Indus Valley Civilization — during the Bronze Age
- Vedic period — the period of Vedic Sanskrit, spanning the late Bronze Age and the earlier Iron Age
- Mahajanapadas — during the later Iron Age
- Magadha Empire — during classical antiquity (6th to 4th centuries BCE)
- Maurya Empire — the largest ancient Indian empire, contemporary to Hellenism in the west (4th to 2nd centuries BCE), golden age of early Classical Sanskrit literature
- Gupta Empire
- the Kingdoms of Ancient India as described in Sanskrit literature
- Middle kingdoms of India — during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages
- Indo-Greek Kingdom and Kushan Empire (2nd c. BCE to 3rd c. CE)
Sources of fantasy
India has a long tradition of fantastical stories and characters, dating back to Vedic mythology. Several modern fantasy works such as RG Veda draw on the Rig-Veda as a source. Hindu mythology was an evolution of the earlier Vedic mythology and had many more fantastical stories and characters, particularly in the Indian epics, such as the Mahabharata by Vyasa, and the Ramayana by Valmiki, both of which were influential in Asia. The Panchatantra (Fables of Bidpai) was influential in Europe and the Middle East. It used various animal fables and magical tales to illustrate the central Indian principles of political science. Talking animals endowed with human qualities have now become a staple of modern fantasy.
The Baital Pachisi (Vikram and the Vampire) is a collection of various fantasy tales set within a frame story about an encounter between King Vikramāditya and a Vetala, an early mythical creature resembling a vampire. According to Richard Francis Burton and Isabel Burton, the Baital Pachisi "is the germ which culminated in the Arabian Nights, and which inspired the Golden Ass of Apuleius, Boccacio's Decamerone, the Pentamerone, and all that class of facetious fictitious literature." (Isabel Burton, preface to Richard Francis Burton (1870), Vikram and The Vampire.)
