The thought came to my mind about 3 years ago when I watched Troy, a beautifully shot and directed movie starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom.
I couldn't help noticing some striking similarities between Troy and the Indian Mythology.
It starts with Trojan Prince Paris taking with him Helen, Menelaus's wife. The spartan king vows to take revenge by destroying the Trojan Empire. The incident is similar to kidnapping of Sita by Ravana and attack on Lanka by Rama.
The location of Trojan Island, surrounded by sea is similar to the land of Lanka.
Achilles, the great spartan warrior was believed to have been dipped in waters of immortality by his mother. She held her son with his ankle in her hand. And later on Achilles died when an arrow hit him in the vulnerable spot. Striking similarity lies between Achilles and Krishna, who was also killed (mistakingly by a hunter) in similar manner.
Some voices were raised to let Helen return to Sparta for the fear of impending doom. But it becomes the matter of pride and honor to the Trojan King, a behavior shown by Ravana, even when all of his warriors were being killed one by one.
Greek mythology suggests that Helen had been taken by Mt. Olympus away from the mortal world. Sita on the other hand was encapsulated by Prithvi.
The opponents of the theory would disagree by saying they differ on lot of accounts. But all I am trying to suggest here that there are certain similarities and with concept of Aryans coming from norther part of the globe, both the epics might have been inspired by same incident and may have changed their forms, locations and antics over the years according to the culture they were fed with.
While in the process of composing this post I googled a few things about Greek Mythology and I am loving this whole new world of spartan myths. :)
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