Posthuman Echoes in Cultural Memory:Dialogues with Indian and Japanese Mythologies

Abstract

Posthumanism as a philosophical concept is frequently situated within the contemporary discourse of technology and artificial intelligence. However, this paper argues that the posthuman condition — characterized by hybridity, transformation, and human-nonhuman interconnectedness — is not an emergent modern phenomenon but a primordial pattern embedded in ancient cultural mythologies. Drawing on parallel mythological traditions from India and Japan, this study undertakes a comparative analysis of selected narratives from the Dashavatara, the mythological figures of Hanuman and Ganesha, Shinto cosmology, and supernatural entities such as kami and yokai. Through the theoretical framework of posthumanism, the paper demonstrates that ancient cultures celebrated rather than problematized the dissolution of boundaries between the human and nonhuman. The study argues that integrating these mythological frameworks into contemporary posthumanist discourse offers a richer, culturally plural understanding of posthuman subjectivity — one rooted not in technological anxiety but in deep-seated cultural memory.