ABSTRACT
In this chapter Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty makes use of several overlapping but not, she think, contradictory definitions of myth and reality; definitions of myth, like myth variants, build up a composite image of something that cannot be said once and for all. Hindu myths of this sort pull the carpet out from under reality by lifting the barrier expressed by the image of the mouth of God. The myth attempts within the frame of the story what the text attempts in the culture: to teach the philosophical doctrine of illusion to nonphilosophical worldly Hindus who dwell in the common sense world of materialism and science. The myths of the mouth of God provide a mirror image of conventional social evaluations of what is real and what is not real, denying not only the claims of society but even those of soi-disant physical reality as defined by Newtonian science.
