Lord of the Rings is my most favorite fiction. It took me a couple of weeks to read it. That was the time when I wanted to come home early from office to join Frodo in middle earth. Here I am trying to draw some parallels between Hindu mythology and the great fiction.
In LOTR there are four ages and in Hindu mythology there are four Yugas. Towards the end of the third age there is this great battle and here we had great battle Mahabharat towards the end of the third yug.
There are various humanoid species in the earth and a human species. As the ages progress human influence increases and interventions of other species decreases. After the third age other humanoids disappeared. In our mythology also there is one human species and various humanoid ones. Other humanoid gradually disappear and after dwapar (3rd yug), all other humanoids disappear.
The wizards can be compared to sages who like them had lived for thousand of years and also had long beards. Orcs can be easily compared with rakshasas though orcs are meaner. An Elf and a Deva lives till end of the world unless killed.
All of us know that the Avatar borrowed heavily from Hindu mythology – Cameron himself admitted that. However, here this is not to suggest that these ideas were actually borrowed in LOTR. I just found it amusing to draw parallels.
