Abstract:

According to Freud’s well known psychoanalytic theory, children in their phallic periods (3-5 years period) develope jealousy and hatred against the parents of their own sex while seeing their parents with the opposite sex close to themselves. Freud called this theory “oedipal complex”. This case theme is exemplified in the mythologies of many societies. and it is largely perceived as a struggle for throne or power, but the underlying structure is the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal cults. In Indian mythology Gaṇ esha, in Greek mythology Oidipus and in Sri Lankan mythology Sinhabahu form the basis of this study on oedipal complex. As comperative studies gain importance it is seen that many important issues in terms of human history can not be attributed to only a certain community. Oedipal complex is one of these issues. This issue was also dealt with in the mythologies of Indian, Greek, Sri Lankan, Egyptian, Chinese and many other communities and numerous myths were created about it. Kṛ ishṇ a, Gaṇ esha, Oidipus, İsis-OsirisSeth, Nezha or Sinhabahu are some of the heroes that take part in the myths on oedipal complex. This comperative mythology based study is related to many other disciplines like History of Religions, Philology, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature and Gender Studies.

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