Comparative Mythology, Volume 1

Why do peoples tell similar stories about gods, trees, the sun, and the beginnings of the world? In this first volume of Comparative Mythology, Takagi Toshio investigates the relationship between belief and narrative, weighing linguistic, anthropological, and religious approaches to the study of myth.

His argument ranges from Japanese shrine traditions and ancient chronicles to Chinese legends, Vedic hymns, Greek gods, and northern European giants. Poems and classical quotations sit beside discussions of oral transmission, historical evidence, and the dangers of interpreting every resemblance as proof of a common origin.

The later sections consider the conflict of sun and storm, the gods of fire, water, wind, and earth, and stories in which the world arises from a giant’s body. The volume closes at the supplied division within the study of Chinese cosmogony; the discussion continues in Volume 2.