Reading Notes: Reading D: 51 Lesser Known Tales from The Mahabharata

I finished reading 51 Lesser Known Tales from The Mahabharata by Sharath Komarraju. In the last part of the readings, most of the stories are about the different creatures and individuals that have smaller roles in The Mahabharata. In the stories, The Non-Human Races: Kinnaras and Kimpurushas and More Non-Human Races: Yakshas and Gandharvas, I was able to learn more about some of the different characters in the book. Since The Mahabharata has so much to cover, the book that I read did not go into great detail describing the different types of non-human characters the Pandavas brothers come into contact with. From these stories, I learned that Kinnaras are males that are half-human, half-horse. The Kinnari is the female version, but they are half-human, half-bird. The Kimpurushas were half-men half-lion with no female distinction. The male Yakshas are warriors or stouts like dwarfs and the Yakshinis are the female version is beautiful young women that protect nature. But the Gandharvas are also a nature spirit that shapeshifts and also deliver messages between the heavens and Earth. I wish I would have gotten to read this book before The Mahabharata so I could have known and pictured the different creatures that played roles in the book. The main story I thought had potential to be rewritten was The Unlikely Hero: Yudhishthira. The tale points out that there is not one hero singe hero in The Mahabharata, but this story argues that Yudhishthira should be considered the main hero because he is the brother that goes through the most drastic character change. Once I read through this, I agreed with this statement. He was the one who got his entire family thrown into exile because he could not stop gambling, but as the story progress, he begins to become wiser. This is shown in the tale of The Yaksha Prashna. When the brothers are in exile they all drink from a lake even though a crane warns them not too, Yudhishthira is the only one that listens and then rescues the brothers from the Prashna. I think I could write a story from Yudhishthira point of view on how he feels that he has grown as a person after going into exile and then the war between the families.

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Image: Yudhishthira on the throne with Draupadi surrounded by the other Pandavas brothers. Source: Wikipedia by Raja Ravi Varma