Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is a movie based on the game of the same title. It is littered with Hindu imagery and statues of Ganesha in the background of many scenes. The Persian army invades Alamut on suspicions of the latter harbouring weapons to be used against Persia (an analogy of the ongoing US-UK invasion of Iraq on unfounded suspicions of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction). As most movies from Hollywood, this is another good vs. evil story.
Alamut is ruled by a benign princess and is shown as a spiritual, peaceful and wealthy city. It is scenes in Alamut that are peppered with background images of Ganesha as well as other Hindu icons – see gallery below. The high temple is also shown with smoke from burning incense. The story is entirely fictitious as is the game and the relevance of Hinduism to the movie is non-existent. There is hardly any interpretation to be made of Ganesha’s use in the movie except that He is God in Alamut, the side that is ‘good’ in the movie.
The relevant part of the story, which as far as I know has no parallel in Hindu legends, goes:
…the Sandglass is the vessel holding the Sands of Time, which the Gods conjured to punish humanity for its sins. A pure hearted girl, offering her life, convinced them to seal the sands; should the Dagger of Time be used to pierce the Sandglass, the sands would be released and destroy the entire world. The holder of the dagger may also turn back time as far as they please.
What particularly caught my attention is the pillar of fire shown towards the end (see gallery below). When the dagger is pierced into the Sandglass, there erupts a Pillar of Fire which is essentially Time. The Pillar of Fire legend in Hinduism goes like this:
When Brahma and Vishnu approach Shiva asking Him which of the former two are greater, Shiva turns Himself into a Pillar of Fire and tells them to determine Its beginning and end. Neither of them succeed and end up admitting His superiority over theirs. – Shiva Purana
The Pillar of Fire is analogous to the Sands of Time. The pillar is symbolic of Time as well as Space neither of which have beginning or end. However, the key to moksha in Hinduism is to transcend time and space. Thus, Prince of Persia the movie incorporates Hindu symbolism and legend in its climax.
What did you make of the Hindu imagery in the movie? Tell us what you generally think of Hindu religious imagery in movies?
Coming Soon: Avatar, the movie’s integral link to Hinduism.
Apologies for the Picture quality in the gallery.
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Hinduism is a cool religion that is also oriented towards peace and prosperity.”;’
the religion of my grandfather is Hinduism and he says that it is a great religion.*”.
hinduism is a good religion, my father is hindu and also my mother *~*
HINDUISM is really great religion, even the caste System was introduced with some other intention, but the people of later generation used the Caste system for wrong uses..and now all people hate hinduism because of caste..
Except that caste system, HINDUISM is very scientific, great and every one in the world should follow true hinduism, which now in india is followed by very less number of people.
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Both the ps2 game version and the movie version has indian religious iconography in them. I’ve seen ganapati, durga, buddha etc in it.
I think what has happened is that the west thinks the persians and indians are the same race. So they think both might have followed the same religion in the past.
You can see this perception in geopolitics too when US lawmakers mention a possible and probable alliance between india and iran.
Nothing is farther from the truth. They are not the same race and nor do they follow the same religion. The sanskrit script/hindu gods have nothing in common with the persians.