The Goddess Belonging to No Male

All ways of knowledge are your aspects, O Devi; so are all women in the world, endowed with various attributes. By you alone, O Mother, this world is filled – Chandi, II, 6

According to the Mahapuranas or ancient Hindu scriptures dating back to c. 250 CE, Durga (meaning "the inaccessible" or "the invincible") is the most popular incarnation of Devi, or the divine feminine, and is one of the main forms of Adi Parashakti in the Hindu pantheon. Durga's story appears primarily in the Skanda Purana and in the Devi Mahatmya, itself a part of the Markandeya Purana, but very similar stories are told in the Brahmanda Purana and also in the famous epic, the Mahabharata. She also appears elsewhere in tantrik texts, such as the Kulachudamani Tantra.

Durga Mahishasuramardini,  Orissa, 13th century CE.

(Courtesy: British Museum)

Durga Mahishasuramardini, 

Orissa, 13^th century CE.

Durga is a multi-faceted goddess, with many names and personas. According to the Skanda Purana, Goddess Parvati, who is the complete incarnation of Adi Parashakti, accounted the name "Durga" after she killed the demon Durgamasura, son of Ruru. In the most widely-accepted form of Mahishasuramardini, Durga is the destroyer of evil – with her ten mighty arms carrying lethal weapons, she triumphantly slays the demon Mahisha. Durga, through all her forms, encompasses the essence of salvation and sacrifice. She is the embodiment of purity, knowledge, truth and self-realization. ‘Aatman’ or supreme consciousness existing in any being or ‘jiva’ manifests itself through the dynamic energy that is Goddess Durga. She represents the power of the Supreme Being that preserves moral order and righteousness in the universe. Durga, also called Divine Mother, protects mankind from malevolence and misery by destroying evil forces such as selfishness, jealousy, prejudice, hatred, anger, and ego.

The projection of the stronger and fiercer side of womanhood is but obvious in the tales surrounding Goddess Durga. In her epic battle with Mahisha and his cohorts, she assumes the powers of the male gods to save the universe without any male assistance. As the warrior goddess, Durga is virgin and does not lend her power, or ‘shakti’, to any male. She is not seen as a submissive god, but one who can hold her own against any male on the battlefield. Her battles signify the universal war between knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, the oppressor and the oppressed. Mary Esther Harding, the American Jungian analyst, observed of “The Virgin Goddess” in Woman's Mysteries: Ancient & Modern: “Her divine power does not depend on her relation to a husband-god, and thus her actions are not dependent on the need to conciliate such a one or to accord with his qualities and attitudes. For she bears her identity through her own right.”

The myth encompassing Goddess Durga is saturated with the potential for violence inherent in the male-female oppositions. In the Puranas, and in North Indian traditions, there is an implied sexual tension between Durga and Mahisha; in the South, particularly in Tamil myths, this sexual tension is heightened. In fact, most Southern myths identify Mahisha as Durga’s suitor. As the story of Mahishasuramardini unfolds, the relationship between Mahisha and the goddess is manifested at many levels: psychologically both demon and goddess become what the other is, both behave like ferocious animals and one never knows what will happen in the next instant as the constant alternations, which range from the bestial to the divine, are the only reality. Thus, each of the antagonists can be symbolically interpreted with feminine or masculine attributes. Each can represent justice and power or evil and danger; each contributes to the orgiastic disorder necessary for recreation. The myth thus transcends the male-female alternative, signifying psychic totality.

Virgin Goddesses encompassing many different fields of enterprise have featured in other civilizations too, such as Greek and Roman. What they have in common is the fact that they are self-contained, pure, independent, un-corrupted and un-partnered. "Virgin" is not to be construed in the sense of a patriarchal society. Virgin in this context has more to do with state of mind and attitude rather than physical attributes or sexual status.

Goddess Ishtar on an
Akkadian Empire seal, 2350-2150 BC, 

Often the virgin goddesses are unmarried, but this does not mean that they are necessarily asexual. In fact, some of the virgin goddesses express their sexuality openly, owning their sexuality proudly and without shame. It is not given away or bartered or owned by their partners, it is wholly and solely within their dominion. Goddess Ishtar, worshiped in Mesopotamia since about 2000 BCE and depicted as riding a lion and had multiple arms holding many weapons in a striking resemblance to Goddess Durga, was thought to have had many lovers from all sorts of backgrounds. As a virgin goddess, Durga belongs to no one fully.  She is one of the consorts (a patriarchal position) of Shiva, the Destroyer, and shares a job with him – slayer of the demons.  However, unlike the relationship of Shiva and Parvati, their relationship is non-sexual; instead, we find them as battlefield comrades.

Another interesting trend shared by the virgin goddesses is that originally there was one goddess within each dominion, but over time she was divided up into differing personalities. For example, Markandeya Purana identifies ten forms of Durga: Durga, Dashabhooja, Singha-Vahini, Mahisha-Mardini, Jagadhatri, Kali, Muktakeshi, Tara, Chinnamastika, and Jagadguree.

The concept of virgin goddess is grounded in the assumption that prehistoric societies in various parts of the world worshiped a goddess who could appear in three forms or Trinity: maiden (often used synonymous with virgin), mother, and aged wise woman. Devi, being an equal counterpart to divine masculinity, herself manifests as the Trinity: Creator (Durga or the Divine Mother), Preserver (Lakshmi, Parvati and Saraswati) and Destroyer (Mahishasuramardini, Kali and Smashanakali). Susan Seddon Boulet, a well-known Bay Area artist, made the following observation about Trinity in The Goddess Paintings:

“The Triple Goddess, the original trinity symbolizes the three faces of the Great Goddess and is the earliest representation of her division into multiplicity. The Goddess with three faces is a universal motif, found worldwide. The Triple Goddess is intimately associated with the changing phases of the moon; just as the moon transforms from one phase to another, the Great Goddess moves among her many roles. Her three faces are usually virgin, mother and crone: virgin representing the strong, self-defined goddess; mother representing the nurturing goddess as source of all nourishment; and crone representing the goddess of death and transformation. This symbolism embraces the role of goddess in all phases of existence, from birth through death to rebirth. The Triple Goddess reminds us of our sacredness regardless of our age or function in life. She reminds us that despite her many forms there is one goddess, always present and always sacred.”

Based on their interpretations of Stone Age artifacts, some archaeologists, most notably Marija Gimbutas, promoted the idea of a parthenogenetic (Greek: parthenos, “virgin,” and gignesthai, “to be born”) primal goddess that might have emerged in the Paleolithic era. According to Gimbutas’ hypothesis, the primal goddess, who was a virgin, was equated with nature as a whole and therefore did not have a particular shape. The earliest goddess images, the so-called Paleolithic Venuses (dated before 10,000 BCE), are images of the awesome creative power associated with woman and nature. The goddess could be represented by triangular stones or by stone or bone carvings emphasizing her vulva, buttocks, and breasts. In the Neolithic or early agricultural era (which began c. 9000 BCE in the Near East), goddess images symbolized the cosmic energy of birth, growth, death, and regeneration, on which farming, and indeed all life, depends. She was often depicted in zoomorphic shape or with animals as her companions.

The anthropomorphic goddess images, according to Gimbutas, gradually became differentiated into two functions, one as "the giver and taker of all," and the other as “rebirth and regeneration.” Eventually these two images were characterized as the Mother and the Maiden. The Mother was the sustaining power, represented especially by the enduring earth, the bedrock that underpins all life. The Maiden, related to the forces of renewal and regeneration, was represented especially by new life, plant and animal, that emerges in spring. The Mother, the eternal, and the Maiden, the ephemeral power of nature, were understood to be two aspects of the same whole. It is interesting to note that the actual worship of Durga as stipulated by the Hindu scriptures falls in the month of Chaitra, which roughly overlaps with the spring season in Bengal, and is called Basanti (Vernal) Durga Puja.

A parthenogenetic goddess stands as a primordial creatrix who requires no male partner to produce the cosmos, earth, life, matter, and even other gods out of her own essence. Plentiful evidence exists that in their earliest cults, before they were subsumed under patriarchal pantheons as the wives, sisters, and daughters of male gods, various female deities of the ancient world were indeed considered self-generating, virgin creatrixes. Virginity, perhaps on account of its rarity in those days among women of a marriageable age, always had a halo of sanctity cast over it. The curious veneration for virginity, particularly the belief that some occult power was attached to the state of virginity, survived even up to the Middle Ages.

As the busy summer season gives away to a more predictable pattern of work-life balance, the nip in the air returns with the falling leaves in this part of the world. It is against this backdrop of ‘Aashwin’ that the Bengalis of New Jersey celebrate Sharodiya (Autumnal) Durga Puja. According to The Ramayana, this ‘Akal Bodhan’ or uncustomary time invocation of Durga was initiated by Rama at the onset of his battle with Ravana. The Sharodiya Puja also involves the worship of Shiva, Durga's consort, their (Goddess Parvati’s) children Ganesh and Kartikeya as well as those of Lakshmi and Saraswati, who are part of the Trinity that includes Parvati. The North Indian tradition of Durga Puja, which stresses Durga’s character as a gentle young wife and daughter in need of family tenderness, contrasts sharply with the South Indian tradition of depicting Durga as a dangerous, indeed, murderous, bride who poses a fatal threat to those approaching her sexually. Both traditions reflect strong influences of patriarchal societies that dominated most of the history of the Indian subcontinent.

The Virgin goddess appears whenever a woman is pursuing her own desires and ideas for herself. The Virgin or Maiden has been given a bad rap as a selfish wanton being for centuries in a culture that has taught women to only please and look after others to the exclusion of all else. She is now making a comeback as women everywhere are beginning to follow their own hearts and dreams to manifest a reality other than that of partnerships, motherhood and child rearing.

Note: Originally published in Kallol Shaitya Patrika, New Jersey, October 2014. 

How We Got Here: Our History in DNA

Source: National Geographic Genographic Project

Human species is an African one: Africa is where our species first evolved, and it is where we spent most of our time on Earth.

The earliest fossils of recognizably modern Homo sapiens appear in the paleontological record at Omo Kibish in Ethiopia, around 200,000 years ago. Our evolution at that time ran parallel to Neanderthals in Europe and in the Levant and to Homo erectus in Asia. Then major climatic shifts began to happen — a sudden cooling in the Earth’s climate triggered by the onset of one of the worst periods of the last Ice Age — that would have made life difficult for our African ancestors. The genetic evidence points to a sharp decline in population around this time. In fact, the human population likely dropped to fewer than 10,000. We were holding on by a thread.

Once the climate started to improve, about 70,000 years ago, we came back from this near-extinction event. The population expanded, and some intrepid explorers started to leave Africa between 60,000 and 70,000 years ago. As they ventured out of Africa, these explorers left genetic footprints still visible today. By mapping the appearance and frequency of genetic markers in modern people, scientists have created a picture of when and where ancient humans moved around the world (see above).

The earliest people to colonize the Eurasian landmass likely did so across the Bab-al-Mandab Strait separating present-day Yemen from Djibouti. Once these people were out of Africa, a brief period of interbreeding with Neanderthals occurred, helping to explain why individuals of European and Asian heritage today retain traces of Neanderthal DNA. These early beachcombers expanded rapidly along the coast to India and reached Southeast Asia and Australia some 50,000 years ago. The first great foray of our species beyond Africa had led us all the way across the globe.

Somewhat later, a little after 50,000 years ago, a second group appears to have set out on an inland trek, leaving behind the certainties of life in the tropics to head out into the Middle East and Southern Central Asia. From these base camps, they were poised to colonize the northern latitudes of Asia, Europe, and beyond.

Meadowcroft Rockshelter, near Pittsburgh, 

is the oldest known site of human habitation

in North America dating back 16,000 years ago.

                          Source: National Geographic

Around 20,000 years ago, a small group of these Asian hunters headed into the face of the storm, entering the East Asian Arctic during the Last Glacial Maximum. This era witnessed great ice sheets covering the far north that had literally sucked up much of the Earth’s moisture in their vast expanses of white wasteland, dropping sea levels by more than 300 feet. This exposed a land bridge that connected the Old World to the New, joining Asia to the Americas. In crossing it, the hunters had made the final great leap of the human journey. By 15,000 years ago, they had penetrated the land south of the ice, and within 1,000 years they had made it all the way to the tip of South America. Some might have even made the journey by sea.

These great migrations over a 50,000-year period eventually led the descendants of a small group of Africans to occupy even the farthest reaches of the Earth.

The story doesn’t end there, of course. The rise of agriculture around 10,000 years ago — and the population explosion it created — has left a dramatic impact on the human gene pool. The rise of empires, the astounding oceangoing voyages of the Polynesians, even the extraordinary increase in global migration over the past 500 years could all leave traces in our DNA. There are many human journey questions waiting to be asked and answered.

Have you ever wondered if you would want to test your DNA, perhaps after watching TV commercials like 23andMe or Ancestry? What would a DNA test tell you about your ancestors? What would it mean to you and how would it help your genealogy? Human genomics has made significant progress in the recent years to address our ancestral migration and in a way our own genealogical questions.

Population geneticists tend to focus on human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup — mitochondria, which is located outside the nucleus, is the powerhouse of a cell — to seek answers to these questions. Mitochondrial DNA not only tells us about people we match who are currently living, who share ancestors with us at some point in time, but it also reaches back beyond the range of what genealogy in the traditional sense can tell us — past the time when surnames were adopted, peering into the misty veil of the past!

A haplogroup is a combination of alleles (a variant form of a given gene) at different chromosome regions that are closely linked and that tend to be inherited together. Think of a haplogroup as your genetic clan. Haplogroups have a history and a pedigree chart, just like people do. Those are commonly depicted as the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree. Haplogroups and their branches can identify certain groups of people, such as people of African descent, European, Asian, Jewish and Native American.

Haplogroups are labelled A through Z in the order of their discovery. Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by differences in human mtDNA. Haplogroups pertain to a single line of descent and are used to represent the major branch points on the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree. Every single one of your ancestors has their own individual story to tell – and if you really want to know who you are and where each ancestral line came from, mtDNA is the insider story on your mother’s matrilineal line. Only females pass mtDNA on to their children, so all children carry their mother’s mtDNA.

While the matrilineal DNA is passed intact with no admixture from the father, occasionally mutations do happen — the rate at which mtDNA mutates is known as the mitochondrial molecular clock, which is an area of ongoing research with one study reporting one mutation per 8000 years — and it’s those historical mutations that form clans and branches of clans as generation after generation is born and continues to migrate to new areas. Understanding the evolutionary path of the female lineage has helped population geneticists trace the matrilineal inheritance of modern humans back to human origins in Africa and the subsequent spread around the globe.

The hypothetical woman at the root of all the mtDNA haplogroups on the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all currently living humans. This is the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers, and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman. She is commonly called Mitochondrial Eve (mtEve).

In terms of mitochondrial haplogroups, mtEve is situated at the divergence of macro-haplogroup L into L0 and L1–6. As of 2013, estimates on the age of this split ranged at around 150,000 years ago in East Africa. This analysis is consistent with a date later than the speciation of Homo sapiens but earlier than the recent Out-of-Africa dispersal.

One common misconception surrounding mtEve is that since all women alive today descended in a direct unbroken female line from her, she must have been the only woman alive at the time. However, nuclear DNA studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below tens of thousands. Other women living during Eve's time may have descendants alive today but not in a direct female line.

The definition of mtEve is fixed, but the woman in prehistory who fits this definition can change. Because mtDNA mapping of humans is very incomplete, the discovery of living mtDNA lines which predate our current concept of "Mitochondrial Eve" could result in the title moving to an earlier woman.

Of the lineages of macro-haplogroup L originating in mtEve, haplogroup L3 represents the most common parent maternal lineage of all people outside Africa, and for many individuals within the continent as well. The time to MRCA for the L3 lineage has recently been estimated to date to between 58,900 and 70,200 years ago. This is around the time of and associated with the Out-of-Africa expansion of the ancestors of non-African modern humans from Eastern Africa into Eurasia and with a similar expansion within Africa also from the East of the continent.

The descendants of haplogroup L3 outside Africa largely coalesce into macro-haplogroup M and its sibling macro-haplogroup N. The latter is found in Eurasia and parts of Africa due to back-migration. Haplogroup M, an enormous haplogroup spanning all the continents, represents more than 60% of South Asian mtDNA. The origin of macro-haplogroup M is estimated to be around 60,000 years ago. A sub-haplogroup M2, which is prevalent among the Bengalis of India and Bangladesh (also in Andhra Pradesh, coastal Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka), is reported to be the oldest lineage of macro-haplogroup M on the Indian sub-continent. Its age is between 30,200 and 42,400 years.

If you test your mtDNA using ancestry DNA kit like National Geographic’s Geno 2.0, Family Tree DNA or AncestaryDNA, you’ll receive a haplogroup assignment. If you opt for the entry level mtPlus test, which only tests about 6% of the available mitochondrial markers, those most likely to mutate, you will receive a macro-haplogroup like M, because that’s all that can be determined by those markers. If you take the mtFull Sequence test, which tests all the 16,569 mitochondrial locations, you will receive a full haplogroup designation like M2a'b, plus a lot more.

What stories are waiting to be told in your own DNA?

The Myth of Prodigy

They learn to read at age two, play Bach at four, fluently speak foreign languages by six, and breeze through calculus at eight. Their classmates shudder with envy; their parents rejoice at winning the lottery. Prodigious children make headlines in ever increasing number.

In the business of performing old music, the industry is relying on youth as never before. While symphony ticket sales are stagnant and classical album sales are plunging, talented teens are filling concert halls and putting CDs on the charts. The past few decades have seen more and more orchestras and record companies in the U.S. turning to youngsters to lift their sales. This trend is being seen in other industries too, such as in Indian TV shows featuring young musical talents. Indeed, today's swelling crop of prodigies reflects neither a sudden surge in talent among kids nor an improvement in teaching techniques. Instead, it reflects industry-specific economics, pure and simple.

So, who exactly is a child prodigy? In psychology, the term child prodigy is defined as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert performer. Wikipedia maintains a dynamic list of child prodigies covering the past four centuries who rose to prominence in various disciplines spanning mathematics, music, science, sports, etc. It features luminaries such as Mozart, Rabindranath, Ramanujan, von Neumann, as well as Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber”.

Ever wondered what happened to those wunderkinds from decades ago? Surely many of the prodigies on the Wikipedia list had reached the pinnacle of success in their respective domain. However, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, the careers of most tend to end not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Consider the most prestigious award in the US for scientifically gifted high school students, the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, called the Super Bowl of science by one American president. Since its inception in 1942 and until 1994, the search recognized more than 2,000 precocious teenagers as finalists. But just 1 per cent ended up making the National Academy of Sciences, and just eight have won Nobel Prizes. Of course, these odds are better than 1 in 1000 (of non-prodigious individuals) making the list of Nobel laureates. Yet for every successful prodigy, there are many dozens who fall far short of their potential.

To be a prodigy in music, for example, is to be a mimic, to reproduce what you hear from grown-up musicians. Yet only rarely do child musical prodigies manage to make the necessary transition from mimicry to creating a style of their own. The “prodigy midlife crisis,” as it has been called, proves fatal to all but a handful of would-be Mozarts. Early acquisition of skills — which is often what we mean by precocity — may thus be a misleading indicator of later success.

Precociousness is a slipperier subject than we ordinarily think. The notion of precociousness as an early form of adult achievement is much of the problem. Often the benefits of earlier mastery are overstated such as in the case of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Famously, Wolfgang Mozart started to compose music at age four; by six, he was traveling around Europe to give special performances with his father, Leopold; and went on to produce hundreds of highly regarded works before his death at the ripe early age of thirty-five.

Upon first glance, Wolfgang definitely supports the explanation that “talent” is genetic and not learned. However, if we take a closer look, we will find some very striking details that we may not have thought about before.

Leopold Mozart was a famous composer and performer in his own right.  He was also a very controlling parent who put Wolfgang in an intensive training program of music study starting at age three. Leopold was well qualified for this role as he was considered one of the most highly accomplished and sought-after teachers.  He also had a deep interest in how music is taught to children. In a way, Leopold was an 18th-century equivalent of a little league father.

Wolfgang’s early compositions have raised several questions upon close scrutiny by many scholars. These manuscripts are not written in Wolfgang’s own hand.  It seems Leopold always wanted to “correct” them before anyone else saw the compositions. It’s also interesting to note that Leopold stopped composing himself at about the same time he began teaching Wolfgang.

There are a few cases where some of Wolfgang’s compositions are not original.  In fact, the first four piano concertos written by him at the age of eleven do not contain any original music. They were put together using works by other composers. The next three works composed by the age of sixteen also do not contain any original music.  They are simply arrangements of works by Johann Christian Bach with whom Mozart happened to be studying with at the time in London. What these early works really represent are pieces by someone being trained as a composer by the usual methods of copying, arranging, and imitating the works of others.

The Piano Concerto No. 9, composed at the age of twenty-one, is considered Wolfgang Mozart’s first real masterpiece. This is still considered an early age, but we must remember that by this time, Wolfgang had been through eighteen years of gruelingly difficult, expert training.

Think about this for a minute.  If there was any magical talent that Wolfgang was born with, it still did not help him to produce his first masterpiece very quickly or easily. Contrary to the pervading myth, Mozart did not write music in his head as perfectly and completely as you might have originally thought! Today’s surviving manuscripts show that he was constantly revising, rewriting, crossing out, and reworking many sections of his music over time.

Mozart was the same as any of us but underwent intense training (or focused practice) at a very early age.  This is not something most of us do in our childhood.

The other way to look at precocity is of course to work backward — to look at adult geniuses and see what they were like as kids. A number of studies have taken this approach and uncovered a similar pattern. A study of 200 highly accomplished adults found that just 34 percent had been considered in any way precocious as children. The list of historical geniuses who had been notably undistinguished as children is rather long and includes Copernicus, Rembrandt, Bach, Newton, Beethoven, Kant, and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Child prodigies rarely become adult geniuses who change the world. As it turns out, the skill of being a child prodigy is qualitatively different from the “skill” of being a creative genius. What holds the prodigies back is their lack of originality. They strive to earn the approval of their parents and the admiration of their teachers. But as they perform in Carnegie Hall or on Zee TV and become chess champions, something unexpected happens: Practice makes perfect, but it doesn't make new.

Research reveals that the more we practice, the more we become entrenched – trapped in familiar ways of thinking. On the other hand, the passion that drives one to practice for hours is discovered through natural curiosity or nurtured through early enjoyable experiences with an activity or many activities. If that passion is appropriately channelized, there may be sparks of geniuses. Evidence shows that creative contributions depend on the breadth, not just depth, of our knowledge and experience. 

Relative to typical scientists, Nobel Prize winners are twenty-two times more likely to perform as actors, dancers or magicians; twelve times more likely to write poetry, plays or novels; seven times more likely to dabble in arts and crafts; and twice as likely to play an instrument or compose music. "The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition," Albert Einstein reflected. His mother enrolled him in violin lessons when he was five, but he wasn't intrigued. His love of music only blossomed as a teenager, after he stopped taking lessons and stumbled upon Mozart's sonatas. "Love is a better teacher than a sense of duty," he said.

Our romanticized view of precociousness matters. When certain kids are singled out as gifted or talented, it creates an environment that may be subtly discouraging to those who are just average. And we will never know how many kids, who might have been great achievers had they been encouraged and not discouraged from joining the fray, might have ended up as being very successful several years down the road.

The wisdom of wanting to provide learning environments suited to different paces of achievement is often overwhelmed by our irresistible desire to look at precociousness as a prediction. Predictions from childhood about adult performance can only be made based on relatively fixed traits. Unfortunately, many of the things that really matter in predicting adult success are not fixed at all. And once we begin to concede the importance of these kinds of non-intellectual, highly variable traits, we have to give up our fascination of precociousness.

Consider the story of two buildings. One is built ahead of schedule, and one is being built in New York City and comes in two years late and several million dollars over budget. Does anyone really care, ten years down the road, which building was built early and which building was built late? But, somehow, when it comes to children we feel the other way, that we get obsessed with schedules. If you want to know whether a ten-year-old musician will be a good musician when they’re twenty-one, you should wait until they’re twenty-one. It is impossible to predict which course a life will take.

Our Storytelling Engagements

"The greatest art in the world is the art of storytelling."

-          Cecil B. DeMille, Filmmaker and Founder of the Hollywood film industry

Everyone tells stories in everyday life.

Whether you think of yourself as a storyteller or not, you tell people what happened to you – be it over a long phone conversation or in a Facebook “status” update. How profoundly are you engaged in such activities? Jeremy Hsu notes in The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn (Scientific American, August/September, 2008) that personal stories and gossips make up 65% of our daily conversations!

It is not surprising that human history is nothing but a series of stories. When told correctly, these stories can teach us lessons, give us insights into a variety of concepts, or entertain us.  Every story serves a purpose, even if to simply relay a message.  Without history, without chronicled stories, mankind would never learn from its mistakes, would never dream to emulate past heroes, and would never see anything but the now.  We would be clueless to the past, and therefore helpless for the future.

Scriptures such as the Vedas and the Bible’s Old Testament spoke of men and women, of events and lessons learned that occurred many, many years before they were written.  A majority of the books relied on solid resources for their writings.  What were these resources?  Stories.  People witnessed events, heard the stories and kept them alive through word of mouth.  They told their friends, families and communities about the events, and a chain was formed, one link, one storyteller, at a time.

Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets weren’t meant to be published, but his status became legendary once they were.  He was known as a great storyteller to many of his close friends, but soon became immortalized in the works he produced.  From a young street rat in London to being the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist, he made his mark on literature forever.  How did he do it?

Storytelling.

Steve Jobs was famous for his keynotes.   Whether launching new products or making an announcement, Jobs would agonize for hours over the details of his presentations.  People were amazed at his ability to craft a narrative, to create and maintain suspense and to deliver a solid message.  It wasn’t dazzling special effects or crazy props.

It was storytelling.

The history of storytelling comprises stories of all varieties: myths, legends, fairy tales, trickster stories, fables, ghost tales, hero stories, and epic adventures. Passing down over generations, these stories reflect the wisdom and knowledge of early people. There are stories explaining important but often confusing events and natural disasters at those early times, e.g., fire, storms, thunder, floods, tidal waves, lightening etc. It was common for people to believe in the stories of gods, which bound them to a common heritage and beliefs.

In fact, it is believed by most historians and psychologists that storytelling is one of the many things that define and bind our humanity. Humans are perhaps the only animals that create and tell stories.

Wikipedia defines storytelling as the conveying of events in words, and images, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation, and instilling moral values.

Don’t you want to know how it all began?

Stories predate our recorded history. As human civilization evolved, the art of captivating audience through stories transformed. However, our desire to tell and hear stories has remained unchanged. Today, stories are woven into the fabrics of our societies and culture. Movies, books, music,  news media, religions, architecture and painting, you name it, and the influence of storytelling can be seen in all aspects of our life. Proliferation of video games has given rise to the new genre of interactive storytelling.

The storytelling history is quite ancient, lost in the fog of time. Nobody knows when the first story was actually told. Thirty four thousand years ago, in a large cave in Southern France, an artist used pigment to create some of the first known paintings. Herds of bison, charging rhinos, leaping gazelle – the animals, some of them now extinct, were rendered in startling detail. However, these were not simply portraits. The animals were interacting with one another – and interaction is story. The artist was a storyteller.

During Mesolithic era (10,000 to 4,000 B.C.), storytelling through rock art emerged in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas. The notable among these rock paintings are the ones found in Bhimbetka, India. These mostly depict groups of humans engaged in hunting, dancing and various other rituals, as well as everyday activities. When closely examined, these early murals actually followed very simplistic series of events in their narratives.

Fast forward to 700 B.C.  The first printed story, the epic of Gilgamesh, was created and began to spread from Mesopotamia to other parts of Europe and Asia.  The story was carved on stone pillars for all to see and share.

In the 200s B.C., Aesop’s fables were documented, which continue to teach life lessons even today.  Aesop lived in the 500s B.C., but his stories were remembered for centuries through oral tradition. Isn’t that amazing?  Oral storytelling was so powerful and people remembered Aesop’s tales so well that even 300 years later the stories were revered enough for mass consumption. Around the time Aesop’s fables were being popularized in the West, Jataka Tales, a collection of some 550 anecdotes and fables depicting earlier incarnations of Gautam Buddha, was being incorporated into the canon of sacred Buddhist literature in the East. Storytellers of that era discovered fables to be the appropriate vehicle to encapsulate ideas that were timely and appealing and to be more amusing than tales. Fables turned out to have lasting appeal because of their many interpretational levels and because their heroes are reflections of ourselves.

Stories have been carved, scratched, painted, printed or inked onto wood or bamboo, ivory and other bones, pottery, clay tablets, stone, palm-leaf books, skins (parchment), bark cloth, paper, silk, canvas and other textiles. More recently, stories are being recorded on film and stored electronically in digital form. Oral stories continue to be created by impromptu storytellers, as well as committed to memory and passed from generation to generation, despite the increasing popularity of written and televised media in much of the world. Modern storytelling has a broad purview extending beyond history to encompass personal narrative, political commentary and evolving cultural norms.

Some believe that the origin of storytelling may have come across as an excuse for failure. Perhaps stories were used as ways to calm the fears or doubts of a family. As families grouped with other families and formed clans, the storyteller, who was good at telling heroic events or other important events of the tribe began to reach position of respect and power. People found them interesting and began to listen to them. The priest, the judge and the ruler were perhaps the earliest to use this craft with efficacy.

The ability to tell stories effectively and memorably was a valuable skill.   Why?  As wars were fought and valiant deeds were done, people needed a way to remember them.  Instead of simply stating what happened, stories began to emerge as a way to preserve the raw emotions of the actual event. Storytelling days became important in social calendars.

Before man took to writing, he had to rely on his memory to learn anything. For this, he had to be a good listener. A good storyteller could easily find an audience, eager to devour every exciting bit of information in the stories. These stories were also shared with others in faraway lands, when people traveled. And when they returned home, they brought with them exciting new tales of exotic places and people.

In order for stories to live on, they must appeal to human emotions. Thus, the art of storytelling rely on sound, rhythm and repetition of words to paint word pictures. A story can only be told at a particular place and time, with someone telling it and someone else listening. Since every situation is unique, it follows that there is no unique way to tell stories.

Stories can be told from an omniscient point of view, where the person telling the story sees and knows everything, or from a limited point of view, where the reader only sees, hears, or knows what a certain narrator does. Some stories use different points of view at different points in the story.

Fractured fairy tale is a classic example of storytelling. It utilizes familiar stories but alter characters, setting, points of view or plots. The popular children stories such as The Princess and the Pea, Jack and the Beanstalk, or Little Red Riding Hood belongs to this genre. Most traditional fairy tales are told by a narrator from the omniscient view point but who still has a certain way of looking at things. For example, the wolf is always “the bad guy.” But many new versions of these stories narrate from a different point of view — for example, these are told by the giant or the pea.

If you’ve enjoyed listening and would like to try storytelling, here are a few basic rules (according to experts).

The first step is to find good stories. A good story has single theme which is well defined with a good plot. With a dramatic appeal, it is faithful to source. It should bear good characterization and be appropriate for the listeners. The best stories often come from personal experiences.

One should learn the story as a whole, always knowing the first and last lines by heart! The beginning of the story should set the stage, introducing the characters and the location. One should not lose the original flavor and essence of the story while simplifying or adapting it. Even when narrating an old and well known story, narrators can use their imagination to make the story come across as fresh and alive.

The true storytelling art aims at keeping the storyline brief and simple and taking the story as close as one can to the audience. Adapting to the audiences is essential for effective storytelling, for the audience has a very important role to play. A good storytelling involves deep interaction between narrator and listener. However, with the attention spans getting shorter and more demanding, storytelling has become more difficult.

People are not good at visualizing things and imagining independently. However, a well-stimulated audience may able to use their imagination to feel, smell, touch and listen, visualizing vivid pictures. So one’s storytelling skills should be strong and immaculate to lock the attention of the audience completely. A good and well-presented story is remembered long after over others.

Stories can reach well beyond their intended audiences. According to the noted screenwriter Robert McKee, stories "fulfill a profound human need to grasp the patterns of living—not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience."

Stories connect human race.

When Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared on March 9, 2014, the media launched extensive coverage of the story. I, for a change, followed the news for weeks. What drew cable subscribers like me to feast on the information coming out of the search and rescue command post?

The answer is simple. At the heart of every issue is a human element that leads to the question: What happens next? One who can fulfill that yearning is a storyteller.

Psychologists and neuroscientists have begun to explore the human predilection for storytelling. Why do our brains seem to be wired to enjoy stories? And how do the emotional and cognitive effects of a narrative influence our beliefs and real-world decisions?

The answers to these questions appear to be rooted in our history as a social animal. We tell stories about other people and for other people. The safe, imaginary world of a story may be a kind of training ground, where we can practice interacting with others and learn the customs and rules of society. And stories have a unique power to persuade and motivate for such role playing, because they appeal to our emotions and capacity for empathy.

What are the physiological underpinnings of storytelling? It turns out that our brain activities are higher during storytelling engagements than when passively participating in intellectual discourses. When we tell to others, the stories that have really helped us shape our thinking and way of life, we can have the same effect on them too. The brains of the person telling a story and listening to it can synchronize, says Prof. Uri Hasson of Princeton University. Greater the anticipatory speaker–listener neural coupling, greater is the story comprehension.

Why does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the other, have such a profound impact on our learning? It is because our brain is wired that way. A story, in its most elemental form, is an ordered set of causes and effects. And that’s exactly how we think. Whenever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences. That's why metaphors work so well with us. While we are busy searching for a similar experience in our brains, we activate a part called insula, which helps us relate to that same experience of pain, joy, or disgust. A simple story is more amenable to metaphorical analysis than a complex one, hence has a greater appeal.

Self-revelatory stories, such as those heard on the Moth Radio (themoth.org), often have cathartic and therapeutic effects. The goal of the self-rev is the expression and transcendence of the issue, and the transcendence might even be in the future, but it is alluded to in the performance. These efforts are growing in their use and application, as in Psychodrama, Drama Therapy and Playback Theatre.

We all crave stories because they allow us to sympathize with characters.  Tell your audience a story, and you will gain their support.  You will create a following for your cause and inspire your audience to act and believe.

In your next presentation, remember the power of storytelling.  Remember that even in a straightforward business presentation, a story helps to illustrate a point better than a set of facts.  A story gives people a reason to care about what you’re saying.  They relate to the characters, the plot and the lessons learned.  They relate to your story, and therefore your message.

So, what’s your story?