Indian Epics Fall 2019

So as I am finishing up this course I thought what better last assignment than to do a reading of my favorite thing to read in this class, Jatakas. I decided to read another one from the Twenty Jataka tales because that hadsome great ones in it that I thought I would go back and read. This time around i wanted to focus on the swan kingdom story because swans are incredible and they fit perfectly in Indian epics due to how majestic but also mysterious they are. In the beginning of the story it sets the scene by mentioning tons of swans in the area. Picturing this in my head I could see cherry blossoms, a beautiful lake and then the king swan with his silver leaves lying under one of the trees. This picture in my head is what ended up coming true in the story as a new lake was decided to be built by the king and everything that I just mentioned was actually built. After this is where I get a little confused. The lake is built but the king is not at the lake. All of the other swans unde...

In the interest in time for this semester, as this will be my last reading notes post, I decided to skip to the end of the book and read the last part. Before the ending of the book, I did want to mention that this book is where my favorite Jataka is from. The story of the crane and the crab. It was by far my favorite and I even wrote a sequel to it to try and tie of any loose ends it may have had. It was a story that Buddha told, and I did not know that originally. Throughout the end of this book, there were many other Jatakas that the Buddha told, but I will not focus on those. I want to focus on when he ascended into Nirvana. The scene that is set in the story is so vivid and I can picture it so well. It talks about two cherry blossoms that are in full bloom, but some of the flowers falling. These are in full bloom even though it is not the season for them. That is just how powerful Buddha is. Ananda, one of his disciples is there and goes to comfort the Buddha, but also he is s...

Now that the Buddha has finally become the Buddha, there is still so much left to the story. To begin Part two of the book that is written on the life of Siddhartha, the first Buddha, he is still meditating under the tree of knowledge. From what is written he meditates for four weeks straight. During the even weeks he goes on these "journeys" that I assume are like astral projecting a bit. For the first journey it is a long that that takes him through "all the worlds." I think this journey would be a great way to tell a story because it never elaborates on exactly what happens, so I could go wherever I please with the story. In the fourth week he goes on another journey, but this is one shorter and he travels from coast to coast. I am not sure where exactly this is set, whether it be in India or some fictional land that no longer exists, but I am going to assume India. I think this may be a better story to tell because the journey is shorter and would be much easi...

For this week I decided to read more abut Buddha because I still have not come to the point where he becomes the actual Buddha. This week was interesting because it started off with Siddhartha going away on a pilgrimage away from home to learn the teachings of peace basically. However, when he gets there, he realizes that the man who is teaching him may not know what he is talking about. I was a bit confused by this because the teachings seemed like what I know Buddha for. Subjecting yourself to harsh treatments, but still being able to survive and be calm throughout them. Siddhartha did not agree with these teachings and decided to leave to start his own teachings with meditation. Eventually he came across the Tree of Knowledge and started to meditate there. This caught the eye of the King of Evil, Mara. Mara started to become afraid that he would not be more powerful than the Buddha if he continued to gain wisdom from the tree. The way Mara is described is almost like a beast, but ...

For the second half of the reading, I finally got to see the prince in a new light. The man who I thought was Buddha (and still was Buddha) gave me insight that the Buddha was not born without the normal thoughts/temptations of man. I have always made the comparison between Buddha and Jesus, thinking that he was always without the thoughts normal people have. This section of the reading really gave me a new view on who the Buddha is/was. At first when they were speaking of the three men who came to see him while he was going through the city, I was convinced that he was going to treat them with compassion and have something wise to say about it, but rather it was the opposite. He became sad with each new person that he saw. This is just like many children when they first experience these things. The difference between a child and the prince is that the prince was so sheltered that he was not exposed to sadness or the real world until after he got married. This made me mad at first an...

For this weeks reading I decided to read about Buddha. While it is not a traditional "epic", it makes me wonder how the story of the birth of Buddha was. My favorite part of "The Life of Buddha" was the birth of Siddhartha. The stories here are written in old English and it translates hard to read. It would be cool to write a story in this manner, but that would take me way too long and I do not think my audience would enjoy it that much. The birth of Siddhartha was very interesting to read. For some reason I thought Buddha would have been born in the winter under the light of one candle. What I read was the complete opposite. I envisioned a warm summers day with greenery surrounding a large house. Everything was so bright and vibrant. The reading even mentioned there were peacocks. The husband and wife were very interesting too. Their dynamics were like it was almost a business to birth the Buddha. At the same time it seemed like they both loved the child more th...

For the second half of my reading, I read more Jataka tales from the same book as before. This is one of my favorite collections of Jataka tales so far. The first story that I really enjoyed was the Great Elephant. It brought together sadness, a great message, and a happy ending. I mention sadness because that is something that is not seen very much in Jatakas, but this one was particularly emotional. Elephants are known to be noble animals and seeing one be so distraught over the safety of man hit a heart string with me. Because I have seen elephants in real life and even bathed them, I have a close connections with them. These men were not bad men either. They were trying to escape a terrible leader. This story also parallels modern issues. There are often immigrants that travel to try and find safe refuge from their country, but many do not make it on the way. Thinking abut someone who is willing to risk their life for people to be able to reach safety is something that could go rea...

Reading Jatakas is one of my favorite things to do in this class because they are such easy reads and they remind me of all the stories that I would hear as a child. One of the stories that I read today that stuck out to me was "The Empty Lake." there was nothing of significance as far as people surprising or out of the ordinary, but I loved how it took personification to the next level. It gave things such as wind, rain, and thunder life and I pictured them in my head that way. When Mother Earth's came down to drink the water away, I actually pictured Mother Earth as a human, coming and drinking the water from the lake. When Queen Rain began to fill back up the lake with King Thunder, I saw both of them working together to try and refill the lake. If I were to write a full story with this as my source material, I would try an elaborate on the King Fish. They did not give him as much insight to him as they did the other characters. I dislike when a character is made a s...

For this reading, I stuck with the Jataka tales and realized how much I loved reading these. They feel less daunting than a whole book so the reading goes by so much faster. This week the first story I chose I did not actually like. I actually hated it because the message it had was not a good lesson and did not have an actual ending. It was the "Silence is Golden" story. It started off with a lion and a jackal having a kid together. While he looked like a lion, he sounded like a jackal. Because of this he would never speak. One time he decided to speak and he was made fun of. After that he decided to never speak again. Then the story just ends. It ended like the lesson was telling us to be ashamed of something we were born with. I get that this story was not written in 2019, but wow. If I were to write a story with this as my source, I would definitely change it to make sure that he learned how to speak up and not be ashamed for what he sounded like. As a kid and even now ...

The story that I enjoyed the most was the story of The Axe, the Bowl, the Drum, and the Diamond. It has a lot of things that I have always enjoyed. It has Castaway elements, a flying pig and even some Lord of the Flies in there, except I hated lord of the flies. To start off the story we have a character that gets stranded on an island. Typical for most stories that start in the ocean, but all of a sudden he sees something without wings flying toward him. It creates new meaning to the phrase "when pigs fly." I had always pictured a flying pig to be majestic and cute with these huge angel wings, but this pig is not like that all. It has no wings and is large and has tusks. Far from cute. The next part I am a little confused about. The pig does not even see the man on the island. He lands and basically goes straight to bed. I guess the man was hiding and then is brave enough to creep on the pig as it is sleeping. That is how he discovers the magical diamond. The next part mad...

There were two stories that stuck with me this week in the first part of Krisha's stories. I decided to watch the video versions of them because taking a break from reading is much needed at this point in the semester. The first story that was that of Krisha's Mouth. I am not sure why I liked this story because at first I thought it was pretty odd and strange. I thought it sounded familiar when I watched it but could not put my finger on why. After thinking about it for a second I realized when he opens his mouth, it is very similar to a seen in the movie IT by Stephen King (The new one). Where Pennywise (the eil clown) open his mouth and the girl who is staring into it gets put into a trance like state. I think that each character saw something similar, but rather than the evil in IT, the mother of Krishna saw the universe and all its creations. A story that could be a good idea would be a more detailed account of what she saw when she looked into the eyes of Krishna. It mus...

The part I am going to focus on is the final battle. I have always been a big fan of final battles and this one feels very reminiscent of the final battle from Lord of the Rings. When I was a kid, I used to put on the movie and just watch the final battle, so when reading this story, I just replaced what I remember from the movie with the characters and description from the book. As the first few lines start you can picture the chaos going on. I see Drona flying around and destroying everything like Danerys in the last season of Game of Thrones. I see the slow motion fighting of everyone while Krishna tries to come up with his plan. They find a moments rest and you already known Arjuna is not the character to try and win a battle by trickery. Arjuna is powerful and can win by strength, but he could not do it alone. It surprised me that Drona, after all the destruction he was causing, gave up that easily when hearing his son was dead. Rather than getting angry like we often see other ...

I wanted to focus on the story of the Padavas brothers and the water riddles. I love a good riddle and I think riddles always can make a story more interesting. To start off, these brothers are supposed to be brave and smart, gifted by the gods, but they are completely dumb when it comes to being thirsty. Honestly, it could be a metaphor for men who are "thirsty" and do no think straight. If you know what I mean. Though interpreting the story in that way may not be the best idea. The fact that Nakula and Sahadeva died first does not surprise me. They did not even bother putting up a fight or even trying to answer the questions. I can understand being thirsty or dehydrated, but at least try to listen to the talking crane. There has been a few times on a hike or something where I see a pond or river and all I wanted to do is jump in it and drink all of it, but I always refrain. I am not part god, so this part is confusing to me. I love Arjuna's attempt because it matche...

The Eighth Baby: They were very nonchalant about killing seven babies. It seems many of the characters follow a similar theme, with them being very nonchalant about death, yet extremely passionate about carrying on the family legacy. At first I did not think I was going to like Bhishma, but he quickly grew on me as he was sticking to his vow. Though all the things that followed because he stuck to his vow were a bit odd. The whole page about the fish smell and how a fish/human hybrid baby was born, except the only trait of a fish that she kept was the smell. It seems like for my own stories I could get a little more outlandish. I also laughed out loud whenever Vyasa said he needed a full year to prepare for sex. I had anticipated more of an emphasis on Vidura, but they chapter ended with the emphasis on the Padavas and the blind kings many sons So far this is very different from the Ramayana as so much happens in very few lines. Praying to gods seem to usually end with a powerful...

Vali: This has been the easiest chapter for me to read so far. Rather than stopping every few lines because I got stuck on a word I could not pronounce or forgot what I just read, I was able to fully comprehend this chapter. What stuck out to me the most was the long monologues from Vali and Rama after Vali was shot. It was very endearing and emotional to hear both sides of the story. Vali trying to stay strong and defend himself at first. He did not want to seem like he was defeated fairly, rather he was shot out of nowhere. His anger for this was present in his speech. Rama came back and defended himself, for Rama does not do anything without good reason. He knew exactly what he was doing and had even thought about it during a conversation with Lakshmana. One thing that I noticed is that Rama did not mention his wife even after Vali brought her up a few times. Even though Rama is a god, I think that some of the reason Rama helped Sugreeva was for his wife. You can feel the emotion ...

Rama's Initiation: The sage that appeared before the king is very mysterious and has yet to show what his motives are. For someone to ask another person to take two of their children away from them is a stretch that I am not sure many would have agreed. I could see why the king was hesitant but it still surprised me that he allowed it. Sages must be powerful beings or the king is inherently trying to repay a sage because a sage is what gave him children. Yagna = ritual sacrifice Thataka's Story: "A woman of demoniac tendencies loses all consideration to be treated as a woman." Rama becomes the hero of the world extremely quickly. I am assuming the actually story was much longer. I still have many questions though. How did the sage know? Do most sages know things like this? If so, then a most stories could start with a prophecy from a sage. Lastly, the brother was not mentioned at all in in this chapter.  Mahabali's Story:   This is another story o...

Out of all the stories that I read, there were three that were all very common in how they were told, they characters within them, and the overall theme. These were " The Cunning Crane and the Crab " by W.H.D. Rouse, " The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart " by Marie L. Shedlock, and " The Crocodile in the River " by Robert Chalmers. (Crane deceiving fish. Source: Jatakas ) The latter two included the exact same characters: a hungry female crocodile, a loyal male crocodile, and a cunning monkey. The crocodiles were not dumb however, for they had a smart plan of themselves to try and trick the monkey, but the monkey just happened to be smarter. This was also the case in the story about the crane and the crab. The crane was extremely smart himself by tricking the fish into thinking that he was kind; however, the crab was able to outsmart even the crane. For each of these three stories, the "villain" (i.e crocodile and crane) was driven ...

I will be reading the novel version of the Ramayana by Narayan. I have always loved novels and find it to be the easiest for me to read. Reading off of a computer screen is difficult for me at times and I never get as immersed as I do when I have a book in my hand. When it comes to comic books and videos, there were a few that caught my eye. The first being Elephanta: The Island of Shiva . Shiva is one of the few Indian gods/goddesses that I have heard of, so I want to learn more because the only thing I know right now is the name. There was not a description of this particular comic book, but the other two about Shiva did not peak my interest. The next comic book that interested me was  Nachiketa: A Collection Of Stories From The Upanishads   because it had variety of stories in it, with the last one getting my attention the most. Seeing a story where all three beings of different power were miserable with their lives relates to the real world a lot, which I enjoyed. The ...