Initial Thoughts on Hinduism & Vedic Mythology

I have come to the conclusion that there was a vast ancient Indo-European conspiracy to make my life hard. 
not really
As you may recall from my post on my initial thoughts on Greek mythology, ancient polytheistic* religions are hard! 
And to make it worse, western culture has almost no references to any Sura or Asura.  I mean, I knew that Shiva had 4 arms, and The Simpsons once made a joke involving Ganesha, but that's not much.  And to top it all off, most clades derive their names from Greek or Latin words, rather than Hindi, so my curiosity about evolutionary biology doesn't even help! 
Fortunately, I know someone knowledgeable on the subject who's quite willing to field questions on the matter.  Nevertheless, I suspect that I'm going to be making more diagrams for this one, too - and yes, there are multiple versions of some things, so I'll have to sort that out, too.  I just have to decide whether to use colors or shapes to indicate of which of the Trimurti each being is an aspect. 

I also feel that I should mention that, like the Greek mythology research, this is for a (separate) personal creative project that you might see.  I'll still try to post any insights that I might have here, that they might be useful to others. 

*By most accounts, Hinduism is not technically polytheistic.

P.S.:  Props to Firefox/Blogger for knowing all of those words up there. 

Initial Thoughts on Greek Mythology

I have come to the conclusion that ancient Greek poets had a personal vendetta against me. 
not really
However, my attempts to research ancient Greek mythology have been met with a certain degree of frustration.  I didn't expect quite as much variation as what I got.  In fact, early on, it seemed like it might not be so bad:  For instance, it seemed like the Orphics just tacked on Chronos and Ananke at the front end.  Of course, they also had to change all the begetting after Chaos and so on, so it's not quite so smooth. 
To make hide or hair of this, I'm at the point where I'm just taking each tradition one at a time and diagramming it on its own, before I get into the comparative stuff. 

As a side note:  How lame is it that the Hekatonkheires and Cyclopes seem to be little more than plot devices, to be pulled out whenever is convenient? 

I feel like I should mention why I'm researching this, if only to say that it's for a personal creative project that you might never see.  I'll try to post any insights that I might have here, though, that they might be useful to others. 

Sudden Short Story 25

One man lay upon the battlefield, alive yet bleeding.  Around him were the slain bodies of countless men and angels.  In his right hand he gripped his sword, its blade nearly three feet in length and its pommel featuring what appeared to be a snow globe, which had been vigorously stirred from the melee.  He propped himself up on his left arm, for over him stood an angel with a sword of its own.
"Congratulations," said the angel, "You are the last human left alive.  Trust when I say that it will be of little comfort where you are going."
"I rather doubt that," said the human, managing a smirk despite the pain.  "Tell me, angel, what do they call you?"
"I am called Alphael."
"Well, that seems appropriate, since you'll be the first to die."
"I see that your sin is vainglory, for that while you managed to slay many of us with that ridiculous sword of yours, you are mortally wounded, and your comrades lay dead.  Prepare to die."
The man muttered a name and, though the angel could not hear it, it somehow sent chills through him.
"What?" he asked.
"I said that this sword, secreted from myth and history alike, the key to the ultimate plan, has a name.  I know the secret that even you have forgotten, for you, angels, are jotun, and this," he said, raising his sword, "is Fimbulvintersverð!"  The jotun prepared to strike, but the human swiftly smashed the pommel against a rock, and from it sprang forth the most bitter cold that Midgard has ever known.
The winged jotun attempted to fly away, but the cold and wind made it impossible.  In a panicked attempt, he dropped his sword, but he may as well have picked up a boulder for all the good that it did him.  The cold bit so bitterly that all that he could do was wrap his wings around himself as he huddled into a ball for what little warmth he could get.
"It was Loki who devised the plan.  Let you go long enough, and you'd start to believe your own lies.  Eventually, you would fulfill your own prophecies, which included raising the dead to fight amongst the living."  Winter spread past the horizon, and kept going.  "What could you have done more foolish?  Now, they have all died warriors' deaths!  The Aesir's army could not be any stronger, and it's all thanks to the jotun.  There is only one thing left to do now."  And with a gut-wrenching leap, the last man alive on Midgard leapt through the air with the last of his strength, felling the now-frail Alphael in one blow.  And there he died, too, though he was soon taken to Fólkvangr.