Indian Epics Fall 2019

For my storybook, Kumbhakarna makes a great character to play the main role due to the curse that he receives and my personal interests. The first story that I am getting information from is  Kumbhakarna: The Sleeping Giant , a comic book found in the OU library. This tells the origin of the curse and why Kumbhakarna has it. This is necessary to start my story and give background as to where his deep sleeping came from. For another source, I found a book titled Iliad of the East  that contains a chapter about Kumbhakarna. It tells of the giant who sleeps and a more in depth story than the comic could give. I think this would greatly helped by providing more detail on the characters of the story. I do not think Kumbhakarna is as bad of a guy as the stories make him out to be. This book would also provides the story of his time while sleeping. I think it would be a great idea to tell the story of a dream he had while asleep. The dream could be about how Kumbhakarna saves the ...

Day 1: Today I, Ahalya, decided to start writing a diary. There has been a lot on my mind lately and this was the only way I could get it out. If I continue to bottle it up any more, I am going to burst.  Day 2: It has been three days since I have returned to Gautama and he still continues to act as if nothing has changed. Typical man. Acts like everything is fine and dandy after turning me to stone for 16 years. He has not even said sorry! Day 4: Gautama asked if I wanted to go on a date in two days. Maybe he will finally apologize for turning me to stone after all those years. All I need is closure and I think I am going to get it. Day 5: Gautama told me to wear my nicest outfit. I have a few to choose from, but I think I am going to go with the red one. It was always his favorite. Day 6: The date was going so well and as soon as I thought he was going to apologize, he asked if i had any money to pay! HE FORGOT HIS WALLET. I am done. Day 7: As I was packing up ...

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...

Today, people feel the need to constantly be giving feedback to one another. While this can often be a good thing, it can also be a negative thing. Good feedback would be constructive criticism, while bad feedback is just criticism. As a college student, I receive and give both forms of feedback. For me, I like constructive criticism. It may not make me feel good right away, but I generally take it well and try to improve. The thing I do not like, which is what I receive more than than good feedback is straight up criticism. This criticism is mostly about material things like the clothes we wear to the things we say. I cannot put full blame on everyone else though, because I even criticize people even when I am not meaning to. It is something we all need to be more aware of because criticism hurts.  One of the articles that I read was titled " Why Rejection Hurts so Much ," which talked about how the feelings behind rejection are mostly caused by ourselves. Personally, I h...

Topic 1: Ganesha As my last few blog posts have referenced, I am quite interested in Ganesha and the stories behind him. The main reason behind my interest is all of the questions I still have about him. Why does he have an elephants head is the most glaring one, but also what are his origins? According to Wikipedia , his origin story has been told in many different ways. This would be beneficial in telling my own story because there is not a set narrative for Ganesha, making it easier for my mind to come up with something original. Topic 2: Reincarnation As a child who grew up in a religious family, reincarnation has always been a taboo during conversations. As I have gotten older I have become more open to other religions around me and accepted that questioning is normal. While I still consider myself religious, looking at the aspect of reincarnation is something I have not been able to go in depth about. A story idea that came to mind when thinking about reincarnation is rathe...

In a lake far from the lake where the Crab now lived, was the brother of the Crane that was killed. In this lake, the Brother Crane chose not to eat the fish, but rather the fruit from the nearby trees. One day, Brother Crane started to miss his sibling who he had not seen in a long time, so he decided to pay Crane a visit. The flight was long, but there was plenty of fruit on the trees for him to eat. After 9 days of flying, Brother Crane finally arrived. He called out to his brother, "Crane! It is I. For I have flown many nights to see you. Why do you hide from me?" There was no response. Again, Brother Crane called out, "Brother, where are you?" No response. Meanwhile, Crab was resting in a shallow area of the lake when he heard shouting. He was angered by the noise and decided to investigate. When he came to the surface of the lake, he searched the trees for the voice until he spotted Brother Crane. Crab was frightened, for Brother Crane looked exactly like hi...

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 ...