Erothanatos: A Peer-Reviewed Quarterly Journal on Literature

The enduring presence of Indian myths in the cultural and intellectual imagination reflects their remarkable adaptability across time and form. Indian myths are not relics of a distant past—they are living, breathing forms that pulse through the veins of our art, literature, and ritual practices. They whisper through folk songs, echo in temple sculptures, resurface in speculative fiction, and find new voices in feminist, Dalit, and queer narratives. This special issue of Erothanatos, titled “Timeless Tales, Living Forms: Indian Myths in Art, Word, and Ritual”, invites critical inquiries into the dynamic and ever-evolving manifestations of myth in India’s literary, artistic, and ritual traditions. Rooted in sacred texts and folk narratives, Indian myths continue to be revisited, reinterpreted, and reimagined through diverse mediums—from classical epics and tribal storytelling to digital art and feminist retellings.

As Guest Associate Editor, I envision this issue as a confluence of scholarly perspectives that engage with myth not merely as inherited narratives, but as living cultural texts—texts that resist closure, invite dialogue, and shape socio-political realities. Whether through the lens of resistance in Dalit literature, the reconfigurations of gender in mythic re-narrations, or the visual aesthetics of contemporary reinterpretations, the contributions to this issue will interrogate the role of myth in constructing and contesting meaning across contexts.

This issue encourages nuanced engagements with myth as a site of cultural memory, political symbolism, and artistic reinvention. It seeks to illuminate how ancient narratives are retold, resisted, and recontextualised in the shifting terrains of politics, gender, ecology, and performance. In gathering voices from diverse regions and disciplines, we hope to offer a kaleidoscopic view of Indian myth—its persistence, its transformations, and its power to both reflect and reshape the world we live in.

 It is our hope that the discussions fostered herein will further enrich interdisciplinary discourse around Indian myths as both timeless tales and living forms.

Sneha Biswas, Guest Associate Editor
Assistant Professor of English, Amity University, Patna, India.