Came across two articles recently about storytelling based on religious traditions. The religions involved are very different — Judaism and Hinduism — as are the purposes in telling these stories.
“Rabbi” notes that he (or she) has been asked: “With so many stories why do you mainly tell religious ones?” The rabbi’s response:
I have told ancient, medieval, American folktales and Jewish stories in
the past, but it seemed that the religious stories were being lost. So many other storytellers tell the vast gamut of secular stories, and every Jewish storyteller tells the Chasidic tales. I chose to tell the biblical, midrashic and medieval Jewish stories so that they will inspire and touch the heart and soul of the listener…. Too many people stop with Bible stories and have forgotten the art and skill of spiritual storytelling. … Spiritual storytelling always has an underlying purpose, which is to inspire people with faith and communicate wisdom and values.
Meanwhile, in New Delhi, India, Devdutt Pattanaik uses ancient Hindu myths with a different purpose and intention — to help “create a set of management principles that are steeped in Indian culture” because “Not all the Western management models of standard operating procedure fit us. How do we create management practices that are grounded in our rich repository of stories and rituals?”
(As a side note, I was particularly intrigued by the way Pattanaik contrasts the Western fervor for metrics and quantitative views of business with India’s anti-metrics culture: “The standard Western management principle is ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. In our ethos, ‘if you measure it, you destroy it,” Pattanaik notes.)
Further, Pattanaik says:
I am a pattern-finder. The mythologies are stars — I point out the constellation,” he said. “The world of business and the world of our mythological tales are not too different. The characters and the situations are similar. I apply their meanings to modern corporate management. Business is run on a pattern of behavior. I help create the belief that governs behavior. “
Unlike “Rabbi,” Pattanaik doesn’t tell these stories out of deeply rooted spiritual convictions. Says the Washington Post article about him: “Avid readers of his books on Hindu mythology often express disappointment, he said, when he affirms that he is not ‘overtly religious.'”