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.

******

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

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

I am still reading 51 Lesser Known Tales from The Mahabharata by Sharath Komarraju. I read thirteen tales for the 3rdpart of the reading. Two of the stories that stuck out to me and could be joined together to create my own unique story was the tale The Three Myths of Ganesha and Kartikeya, the Forgotten Brother. Ganesha is one of the more famous Hindu gods, and it seems that his brother, Kartikeya popularity began to dwindle when Ganesha was brought into the picture. One of the notes in both of the stories is that the brothers often have competitions between each other and Ganesha is usually the brother that wins. A famous story being when the boys raced around the world, and while Kartikeya used a peacock to fly around the world, Ganesha just walked around their parents Shiva and Parvati. Ganesha was claimed the winner because of his intelligence and wisdom. While I understand the importance of Ganesha symbolism of what his "world" is, I still felt bad for Kartikeya. Since I am the second born child in my family, I have some sympathy towards Kartikeya. While I understand the importance of Ganesha being the older, wiser brother for the Hindu culture I would like to create a story where Kartikeya gets the best of Ganesha and can teach Ganesha a lesson. Another story that I enjoyed reading was the Demolition of Arjun’s Vanity: The Chariot. What I enjoyed the most about this story is it told a side of Arjun’s personality that I did not get when I originally read The Mahabharata. Arjun is given everything throughout the story, but at the end, he must lose everything because that is how the world works. The final sentences in the tale were very powerful. They read, “We wonder why everything is being taken away, forgetting, that it had all been given to us on loan and that every loan has to be repaid.” I am not sure what story I could create to go with this lesson, but I really enjoyed this aspect of the story. 

******

Image: Shiva and Parvati with their two sons Ganesha and Kartikeya. Source: Wikimedia Commons by Keijona

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

For the second part of the reading of Sharath Komarraju book, 51 Lesser Known Tales from The Mahabharata, I read fourteen short stories that deal with characters from The Mahabharata. The first story I enjoyed reading was the tale of The Three Men in Amba’s Life. For those that do not remember Amba was the eldest daughter of the three princesses that Bhishma stole for his brother to marry. The problem was she was already in love and promised to be married to another King when Bhishma releases her to marry the other man he rejects her because she was kidnapped by another man. This causes hatred and revengeful mind in Amba that she passes along to her daughter Shikhandini. Because of the hatred, her mother instilled in her when she was young Shikhandini wants to kill Bhishma and follows through with her mother’s plan. But we do not hear how her mother got her to hate Bhishma so much. Instead of getting to hear bedtime stories was Shikhandini forced to listen to tales of how mean Bhishma was to her mother? I think a story could be created about Shikhandini childhood and how she grew up only hearing about the terrible things Bhishma did which is why she has such a strong desire to kill him. The second story I really enjoyed is The Avatar of Convenience: Mohini. So, Mohini is one of Vishnu’s avatars. She is a beautiful woman that uses her beauty to get some of the “villains” in the India Epics world to end their own lives. She seems like a very intelligent woman and would love to get to read some more of her stories in depth. But I also think I could create a story for Mohini that goes into The Mahabharata. Iravan (Arjun’s son) chooses to be sacrificed to help the Pandava’s win the war but before he is sacrificed he wants to marry a woman, enjoy a night of passion, and then have her mourn the loss of her husband. Accordingly, Krishna assumes the form of Mohini and completes everything so that Iravan can sacrifice himself to help the Pandavas win the war. Does Mohini seduce Iravan? How does there one-day whirl-wind romance go down? I think this could be a fun, quirky story to write about a man finding a wife in a day to then die the next day. I am sure the encounter is all kinds of awkwardness.

******

Image: Mohini seducing Bhasmasura. Source: Wikipedia by Raja Ravi Varma

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

For this week’s reading, I chose to read 51 Lesser Known Tales from The Mahabharata by Sharath Komarraju. **A note if anyone wants to read any of the stories in this book, I was able to download the book for free on my Kindle through Kindle Unlimited. I did the free one-month trial and was happy to find that most of the readings that we have in this course you can download for free. ** The stories are very short so for the first part of the reading and I read through thirteen different stories. Because they are so simple, I think that anything I recreate will be fully in my imagination with little storyline before because the stories do not go into depth in details. One of the stories that were unique was Pandu’s Last Wish. In the story, while Pandu is on his deathbed, he tells his five sons to eat his some of his corpses and then they would become gyanis (people that can see into the future). Rightfully so, none of the boys want to eat their dead dad, but the youngest Sahadeva who they explain is the most impressionable. Thus, a four-year-old boy eats his dead father's finger and is then able to see into the future, but he cannot do anything to change the future. I think a story could be written to go more into depth if Sahadeva tells his brothers that he can see into the future and about the coming war. Or if he never tells anyone in his family and must keep this huge secret from his brothers and mother. The second story that I really enjoyed was the tale of The Other Wives of Arjun. In the version of The Mahabharata that I read, I did not remember Arjun have so many wives, but in this short tales, we learn about three other wives, other than Draupadi. According to the new story, Arjun only truly loved his wife Subhadra, who is the sister of Krishna. Their meeting or his kidnapping of her by Arjun at her brother's wishes is not explained in great detail. Maybe she did not care about Arjun mighty skills in archery which only drew him to her more. I think a story could be created to explain Arjun unwavering attraction to Subhadra.

******

Image: Painting of Arjun and his wife Subhadra. Source: Wikipedia by Raja Ravi Varma

Reading Notes: Reading B: Twenty Jataka Tales

For the second part of the reading of Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat, again I found a story, The Sarabha that was similar to Banyan from the first part of the reading. Both stories have a magnificent deer that that helps a King learn a lesson, and then the King vows to not hunt any more creatures. It seems that both stories, the author thinks of a deer as the wise creature in the forest and reiterates the common saying when a King would decree that no one could hunt creatures in their forest. Because of how much the deer is brought up in these stories and a King, I think trying to create one that would seem to flow with the stories would be easiest. Another story that is familiar is The Goblin Town. In the story, she-goblins are transformed into beautiful women and try to allure sailors to stay with them so that they can eat them. One sailor learns the truth and tries to tell everyone. Only some of the sailors believe him, and those that do can escape with the help of a flying horse. In this version just, a voice from the sea sends the horse that helps the men but what if it was a she-goblin who did not want to eat her husband. What if she had fallen in love with a human and knew the only way she could save him was to let him find out their goblin secret so that she could send a flying horse to keep him safe. The third story I enjoyed reading was The Golden Goose. At first, I thought it was going to be similar to the story, The Golden Feathers that was in reading A but they were pretty different. In The Golden Feathers, a husband is turned into a golden goose so that he can help his low-income family but his wife becomes greedy and tries to take all of his golden feathers. But in The Golden Goose, even though a King is obsessed with a golden goose and his wisdom he does not try and keep him in the palace but allows him to live his life as distance friends. I think the comparison of the two stories shows the separation of people that are greedy for money in life to those that are respectful and understand limits of others. I think the story of The Golden Goose could be combined with The Golden Feathers where the wife learns from the goose and her daughter how to be respectful of the golden goose.

******

Image: A goose with a golden-ish color. Source: Wikimedia Commons by Thelostrobot89

Reading Notes: Reading A: Twenty Jataka Tales

For this week I wanted to read some more of the Jataka Tales so I picked, Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat. There were ten stories to read and some of them were familiar tales while other were completely new. One of the familiar tales was the story, The Tortoise and the Geese. This story is about the turtle who cannot, not talk long enough for a pair of geese to fly him to a new better home, so he falls and dies. But what I liked in this story is they added a King at the end that learned a lesson. Most of the stories in this reading have a King that learns a valuable lesson from the animals in the story. I really liked this aspect and the added character of the King in the stories and want to find a way to incorporate this into my own story. The second story that I liked was, Banyan this story is very similar to a story that I had read and then rewrote about last semester (The Foolish Deer that Lost). The story of Banyan, is about two golden deer that are in charge of separate herds but the King ends up taking one deer from each herd to eat everyday. The two golden deers have the other deers take turns to see who is suppose to be killed for the day but on one day a doe of a little deer ask to have her turn later so that she can be with her baby for a little while longer. Banyan selflessly puts himself as the deer to be killed to save the doe but when the King sees that he says he will not kill any deer. However, the King goes on to say that he will not kill any creatures. I think this is a little far fetched and should be changed. I think it is great that the King learns a lesson but he went a little too far. The last story I really liked was the lesson from, The Young Parrot. The young parents goes out to eat rice every day but always comes back with rice in his mouth to feed his parents. I really like how the parrot even though he is considered the most beautiful parrot still thinks about his family. I would like to figure out a way to incorporate this lesson into my story I create. 

******

Image: The King.  Source: pixabay by Clker-Free-Vector-Images

Reading Notes: Reading B: The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India

Friends, Teasing, and Love.

For the second part of the reading of The Giant Crab andOther Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. I was supposed to read through twelve stories, but one of the stories would not open, so I only got to read eleven. I enjoyed the first story, Birds of a Feather because of the final lesson/poem that was at the end. There is a mean horse Chestnut that does not get along with any of the other horses, and the king uses him to hurt other horses to he can buy the bruised horses at a discounted price. But a horse seller tries to use his mean horse Strongjaw to be mean to Chestnut so that he will not hurt any of the other horses. But when the two horses meet they do not fight but seem to become friends which is how the saying birds of a feather flock together came into play. I think this story can relate and does relate to humans. Like how two troubled teens may not be able to make friends with other students at school but when they meet can become instant friends. This could be a possible rewrite. The next story I thought I could rewrite was the story; Silence is Golden. In the story a lion cub has a lion for a father and a jackal for a mother. As the cub is growing up, he looks like a lion but has the voice of a jackal. Becuase of this when the other lions hear the lion-jackal cub attempting to roar they laugh and make fun of him. He learns that he cannot talk to the other lions, but I am curious how the jackals would feel about the lion-jackal cub. Since he looks like a lion and we can assume he has the power of a lion and they might want to make him their leader. He could intimidate the other animals and the lions. The last story I would like to change is the ending to The Jackal Would A-Wooing Go. In the story, a jackal has fallen in love with a lioness. He gets the courage to go over to her den and ask her to marry him. The lioness gets offended that the jackal even thinks he could marry her because she comes from a higher status than him. Long story short to protect her honor two of the lioness brothers die and then the jackal dies just because the lioness thinks she is too good for the jackal. I think this story could have a more Romeo and Juliet feel. Where the lioness is in love with the jackal but she must hide it from her brother. The couple then decides that they will have to sneak off in the middle of the day to try and escape her brothers. This story could turn into a happier romantic recreation. 

******

Image: Lion love. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Reading Notes: Reading A: The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India

More animal tales. 

From taking Mythology and Folklore, I have become a big fan of the stories with the animal lessons in them, mainly the Jataka Anthology stories. I chose to read The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. The first part of the reading was a collection of twelve different stories. However, I only found a few that I liked and could recreate. This first story idea I came up with was creating a prequel tale to The Giant Crab. In the story, the giant crab kills any animal that comes into the water to drink and eats them (which is how he got so big). In the end, a husband and wife elephant couple trick the crab and crush him to death. I think I could create a story about how the crab became so big and meant to other animals because they picked on him for his small size. Another story that I could possible recreates only came from one line in the story The Crocodile and the Monkey. In the story, the wife crocodile is upset and wants the monkey's heart to eat, and the husband finds this out because she is crying "crocodile tears." When I heard the phrase "crocodile tears, I came up the idea of creating a story about how humans began to use to phase "crocodile tears" meaning someone was fake crying. I could use the wife crocodile to trick the husband by fake crying to get everything she wants, and the monkey helps the husband discover that she is fake crying to get what she wants. The final idea came from a combination of two stories The Monkeys and the Gardner and The Goblin in the Pool. In the story of The Monkeys and the Gardner, the gardener tries to take a break from tending the garden to enjoy himself at a fair. He asks the monkeys that live in the garden to help take care of the plants while he is gone and water them. Sadly, the monkeys pull up the roots of the plants to decided how much water to give each plant based on the length of the roots which obviously kills the plants. The monkeys are seen a foolish and not very smart in the story even though they try to help the gardener out. However, in the story of The Goblin in the Pool, the monkeys know there is a creature in the pond that they want to get water from so they cannot drink from it. A human comes along and helps the monkeys by showing them that they can use a reed to drink out of the pond. In this story, the monkeys can learn from the human on how to drink water without being eaten by the creature. I think the lesson that the monkeys learn in the goblin story can be incorporated into the story from the monkeys in the garden where they learn from watching the gardener how to water the plants.

******

Image: Monkeys in India. Source: Wikimedia Commons 

Reading Notes: Reading B: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu p. 98 - 118

War Never has a Winner

For the second part of the reading, I finished up the shortened version of the Mahabharata by Richard Wilson called, The Five Tall Sons of Panda. The endings are the same with the Pandu brothers winning the war but pointing out that no one really won because of all of the lives that had to be lost. Again, I am focusing my reading notes on Karna. I think in the second part of the reading you can still tell that he is angry with the Pandu brothers for how they have treated him. Like someone beneath them. Even when Karna finds out that he is really the oldest Pandu brother, he does not tell anyone and sets out to kill Arjun to prove he is the most skilled warrior. It seems that Karna's anger and jealousy of wanting to be something he does not think he is entailed to fuels his death. It is sad but can also be added to my story. Karna will not feel worthy until he proves himself as a warrior and defeats Arjun. He thinks that all of his troubles will go away and have self-acceptance if he proves that he is the best warrior. I think a story could be created about what lead Karna up to the point that he is at. Something must have happened when he was younger to have made him want to defeat the Pandu brothers. I felt that in this story, unlike the Mahabharata, Duryodhan side was winning most of the war. It seemed that even though they would lose the head of the army the rest did fine and in the overall picture the Pandu brothers side suffered more. I also was surprised that Krishna seemed more like a warrior in this version than the original Mahabharata. In the original story, Krishina was just there for support and to give advice but would not fight. But in this version, he fought alongside the Pandu brothers. He is not considered a reincarnation of Vishnu and therefore does not seem to have a higher power above. He seems more human in this story.

******

Image: Arjun kills Karna in thier final battle. Source: Wikipedia 

Reading Notes: Reading A: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu p. 69 - 98

Wanting to be more. 

For this week’s reading, I chose to read Richard Wilson version of the Mahabharata called, The Five Tall Sons of Pandu. There was an explanation before the reading guide that informed me that Wilson took out the gods and the supernatural elements from the book version of the Mahabharata I had read. Because of this shift in the story, the Pandu brothers are not born from different gods with supernatural abilities, but they are still considered great warrior and honorable princes. Arjun is also still considered the greatest bowman and is challenged by his half-brother Karna (they do not know this yet). In this version, it seems that it mentions a lot more that Karna is from a lower birth the princes. They even have a scene where Karna bows to a charioteer and one of the Pandu brothers makes fun of him and remarks that he is from inferior birth. It made me feel sorry for his character. But it also made me angry towards the Pandu brothers who are thought to be grand examples of how royalty should act. Draupadi also thought Karna of a lower status than her, even though he had been crowned king by Duryodhan, she would not let him even attempt to win her in the archery contest. I think a story could be created from Karna point of view of him not feeling like he is enough when he is around anyone other than servants. Even though he is a mighty warrior, he still feels out of place being a king. Also, he could have always loved and wanted to be with Draupadi but knew because of his birth he would not want her. So, from a young age, he aspired to be the greatest bowman so he could one day impress Draupadi. One particular part that was the same in both stories is Arjun wins Draupadi in the same contest concealed as a hermit. However, instead of Draupadi being shared amongst the brothers as all of their wives, the gift of Draupadi is bestowed upon the oldest brother Yudhishthir. Even though I enjoyed a woman getting to have multiple husbands in the other story, this seemed to be a more "normal" storyline. However, Draupadi’s feelings are not taken into account. How does she feel about going to the eldest son? Maybe, even though she marries Yudhishthir, Draupadi also harbors feelings for Arjun the great bowman who won her from the start.

******

Image: Marine Corps practicing. Source:  U.S Department of Defense