Q: Black Draupadi?

[Pratap Kumar]

> 	Hence I suppose nor Draupadi, nor Helen, beeing historical or
> ethnical characters, but that's just my opinion.
> 	Regards,
> Dominique
> 
> Dominique THILLAUD
> Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France

 
This is great stuff.  I have been waiting for someone to say this. I 
think a lot of Indian materials could be understood through  comparative 
mythology and this might be problematic to those who tend to argue that 
there is nothing unique about the Indian materials. But that is not the 
point, but what is important to recognize is that many of the characters 
of epics and other texts of the Indian traditions have parallels 
elsewhere, and this could have happened in the 
course of a long interaction between cultures.  
Thus it is true for most ordinary people reading 
Indian epic texts to consider them as historical 
persons, but scholarly treatment of these texts 
need to bear in mind all the critical issues 
involved in such assumption and therefore should 
indulge in serious compartive studies.  For 
instance, there are many structural relations 
between many creation stories present in both 
Indian texts as well as western texts such as 
Biblical, Babylonian and other mythologies. 

Pratap