Avatar and my ancestral religion

Today I finally got the opportunity to watch James Cameroon's Avatar (3D) in IMAX. I did see this movie in Dec last year but that was in Fame-Surat, 2D and Hindi, undoubtedly an insult to the genius Cameroon is.

Teaser Poster

Though I was literally emotionally black-mailed by Sumit (friend and ex-colleague) to watch this movie again. (which didn't appeal to me and I still believe for its technically generated grandiose, the movie fails to deliver quality entertainment ) But we enjoyed the movie, by the end of the movie Sumit almost fell in love with the female Na'vi protagonist, princess of the Omaticaya ... Neytiri. Now this is indeed an example of mixture of Astrophilia and Paraphilia :P

Neytiri-the huntress in her pristine form, Interesting Sumit, huh

Anyways, the thing I would like to discuss today the parallelism of astonishing degree I noticed between my ancestral religion-Hinduism and Avatar-the movie. The features of movie which I noticed were:


1) Avatar, the term is associated with Hinduism means the incarnation of Hindu gods.
2)The core concept of Hinduism is that all animate and inanimate things are the result of a single energy source, which is Brahman or God. All the plants, animals, human beings rise and fall in this single energy source. One of the important themes of Avatar is the existence of existence of Nature God by the name of Mother Eywa. In the movie, the Na'vis are able to physically connect to animals and plants. And they believe that they are just a part of the whole which includes all animate and inanimate present on their planet Pandora. This concept is explained beautifully and there is a magical scene in which the Tree is connected to the human body and this body is connected to all the Na’vis through holding their hands each other.

Na'vis worshiping Eywa

3)Another concept found in Hindu Puranas is Parakaya Pravesham – leaving one’s body temporarily and entering the body of another person. Adi Shankaracharya is believed to have done this to enter a king’s body so that he can learn about material world. Something quite similar happens in the movies as Humans are able to temporarily enter the body of a Na’vi.


4)Another striking aspect is the use of the color blue. Hindu Gods are depicted blue in color. Blue is the color of the infinite. All Hindu gods are an attempt by the human mind to give form to the formless Brahman (God). The color blues symbolizes immeasurable and all pervading reality – formless Brahman.

Radha-Krishna 

5) A more visible symbol in the movie is that of the characters in Avatar riding on a flying dragon like being. This is more like Lord Vishnu riding on Garuda.

 Bhagwan Vishnu on Garuda

6) One more similarity was the way Na'vis greet eachother. Na'vis say "I see you." which is very close to Namaste used by Hindus. Namaste means "I bow to you."


These are my observations, my mom would be glad and thrilled  to hear this (she is a devout hindu). You guys can add to it or disagree. As always am open to criticism.


Namaste
vsr