Oriental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume II: Oriental Mythology v. 2 [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This idea is not exactly clear in the beginning of the work, and the initial chapters about the Pharaohs start with a jerk, leaving some readers wondering "Why start here, so far west?" The idea is stated more and more explicitly as the book progresses, so that by the time we reach the Chinese section, Campbell writes about the "primacy of the West-to-East cultural flow". Later in the same section, Campbell writes "the question of the impact of sentiments and ideas carried from one domain to another, which is basic to our study, is ...well illustrated by the annals of the settlement of Buddhism in China..." Is there really enough evidence to support the idea of a single common mythology that spread from West to East? Is this theory accepted by modern specialists in mythology? A reader who comes to this book independently of a class or other mythology background can only speculate on these questions.

Campbell does a masterful job of laying out similarities across cultures, such as his description of the "archetypal Savior Biography", where he lists the following elements (among others):
--scion of a royal line
--miraculously born
--amid supernatural phenomena
--of whom an aged holy man prophesies a world-saving message
--whose childhood deeds proclaim his divine character
--engages in arduous forest disciplines
--which confront him with a supernatural adversary
He points out that this list applies to the Jains, Buddhists, as well as Christians, and, if I read him correctly, presents it as one piece of evidence for linkage between Western and Oriental mythologies.

The lucidity of Campbell's descriptions and summaries of myths vary. Sometimes he quotes stories or myths at great length. But other times, he passes over the details quickly with such statements as "We need not rehearse the legends of his miraculous birth..." in his haste to get to commentary about the stories in question. For newcomers to the topic, this can be somewhat of a disappointment, since the commentaries are difficult to understand if one is not already familiar with the stories, and it is to learn about the stories themselves that some readers pick up this book. The book itself seems to have developed from Campbell's notes. Thus, there is considerable explicit enumeration of points, as well as the occasional sentence fragment. This style of writing requires very active study from a reader who is determined to wrestle the kernel of meaning from Campbell's words.

The one disappointing chapter was the chapter on Tibet, which actually includes only a few paragraphs about the mythology of Tibet. The remainder of the chapter is a brief collection of ideas from Maoist communism, juxtaposed with stories of atrocities during the Chinese takeover of Tibet. While the story of Tibet is indeed extremely lamentable, perhaps these details would better fit in a political description of Tibet in order to make more room for an overview of Tibetan mythology.