ced by theodicy. A very early Buddhist text asked, satirizing Hinduism's inability to resolve the contradiction, "if [Brahma] is master of the whole world . . . why in the world did he ordain misfortune [and] make the world with deception, lies, and excess, with injustice?" (Bhuridatta Jataka, quoted in O'Flaherty 5).
Yet it has long been held by Indologists and philosophers that there is no Indian theodicy. The problem of evil and attempts to resolve it are, however, major features of Hindu mythology and O'Flaherty has shown that it is neglect of mythology that has led to the philosophers' misconception. Rather than ignoring myths as mere popular fiction, they must be understood as "metaphors for human situations" because, while myths may "appear to be about origins, implicit in them is a concern for the way things are" (O'Flaherty 9).
In Hindu myth, from the Vedas to the present, the nature of evil is elucidated through its presentation in stories. While the terms of the philosophic investigation of evil are necessary, myth goes farther and places philosophic questions in a commonsense context through which a direct answer is sought. This answer is "illuminated by 'coarse' ritual imagery" that philosophy rejects (O'Flaherty 9). But ritual is the level at which the ordinary human being usually confronts such disturbing questions as the problem of evil. Thus it is often in the context of myths about evil that rituals dealing with the problem are prescribed. In order to understand the ritual for the transfer of evil, however, it is necessary to grasp the nature of the evil that the ritual addresses. The historical development of the Hindu notion of evil is extremely complicated and has taken place over many centuries. But the general concept of evil, and the mythological context in which this idea was advanced, have been clarified by O'Flaherty.
In Christian theology a basic distinction is made between moral evil, w...