On realising how ignorant I am about Indian mythology, I set out to read as much as I can on the same. A professor of ours declared one day in class, that anyone who calls himself educated should have read the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the entire works of Shakespeare, Greek tragedies.... and many other such!
I read C. Rajagopalachari's 'The Ramayana'. It helped me get things in perspective, and to put together bits and pieces of this epic that I had heard over the years.
The next book I picked up was the result of me doing a palm leaf engraving of the images of the 10 different avatars of Vishnu. I chose a book on Vishnu. Now I know a tad bit more about his different avatars, his symbolisms, his different names, references in sacred texts, and so on.
It followed very naturally to pick up another book on Shiva. This one leaves me thinking Shiva is a very cool god in Indian Mythology. :) And I am particularly interested in the Ardhanarishwara (half male half female/ half Shiva half Parvata image), the Nataraja image where Shiva is doing his Tandava with one leg over the Apasmarapurusha( the demon who stands for laziness and ignorance) and the Harihara image (half Vishnu half Shiva).
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