Indian Epics Spring 21

Russell Graves I just finished reading stories 51-100 from the Tiny Tales from India book. Most of these were a continuation of stories about animals, groups of animals who were friends and saved each other from trouble as well as animals who tricked others, leading them to their doom. Near the end there were stories about the Buddha's past lives as animals. All of these stories have some sort of lesson to takeaway.  If I were to use any of these stories to retell this week, it would probably be story 85, The Deer and his Nephew. I thought this one was interesting because it seems like every deer should want to learn how to not get caught by hunters, but this deer was so prideful and did not care to listen to his mother or uncle and it ended up costing him his life. I feel like this is relatable for a lot of us, not necessarily in things that are life and death, but we get caught up in doing things our way or thinking we know the right way to do something and so we ignore what othe...

Pinterest For this week's free choice of reading, I decided to read the first 50 stories of the Tiny Tales from India book. So far, I'm really enjoying it, I like that each story is something new! The stories so far have been about animals, usually one tricking another and eating/killing them. I enjoyed the ones about the lions, tigers, jackals, camels and elephants most so far. I think if I were to retell one of these stories, I would choose story 8, The Jackal and his Brothers. In this story, a lion brings a baby jackal to his lioness that had just given birth to two lion cubs. The lion thought for her to eat the baby jackal, but instead she nursed it as her own and he grew up with the lion cubs. Eventually, she sent him away out of fear his brothers would kill him for being different. He ran away and found the other jackals. I would like to retell this story, and include a part later on where somehow the lions reunite with their jackal brother. I'm interested in whether ...

M V Dhurandhar 1867 - 1944 Wikimedia Commons Just finished watching the second part of Epified's Krishna series.  I enjoyed these stories a lot, and I think the ones I found most interesting were 13-15, when Krishna and Radha realized they couldn't be together because of Krishna's destiny. Then just after, his destiny seems to have come when he is invited to Mathura and says goodbye to his village. I would have like to see some sort of goodbye between Krishna and Radha, especially since it was previously said they had become "one soul." If I were to use part B in my storytelling, I would like to write that goodbye. Bibliography: Epified Krishna, Part B

Pinterest/KrishnaArt For this week's reading I chose to watch the Epified Krishna videos! I love the style of these videos, the art is so good and having the narrator makes the stories so interesting. I wanted to take some notes on just Krishna as a whole. He is the 8th avatar of Vishnu. He is destined to slay the king Kamsa, and was born to Kamsa's sister. Kamsa killed all seven of their children and planned to kill Krishna, but wasn't able as he was hidden away. Krishna was raised by someone else in a little village, and began to show signs of his divine power even as a child. For this weeks storytelling, I might want to retell the story of Krishna's birth and his being switched with the other child. I feel like the emotions there must have been so heavy for his parents, and I would love to explore that. I wouldn't change anything too much, just give more details. The basic plot is that he was born at night, and just after his birth, when the guards were going to ...

Amba I just finished reading Part A of the Mahabharata and so far it's just okay. For now I still like the Ramayana better (it's also easier to spell), but we'll see if that changes as I get further into this epic. The episodes I found most interesting in this first part were the ones about the Kashi princes being kidnapped by Bhishma. I was curious why he was able to just take them and no one continued to try to get them back. I was even more surprised when Amba when back to her fiance and he turned her away because she "belonged" to Bhishma. This definitely reminds me of when Rama was skeptical about letting Sita come home with him, and of course we know he eventually sent her back into exile. This tells us a lot about the culture of the time and how women were viewed.  I might like to retell the story of Amba being taken away and eventually taking her life in order to speed up her revenge on Bhishma. Bibliography: Laura Gibbs, Tiny Tales from the Mahabharata, S...

Sita Wow, that was a bit of a disappointing ending. After all Rama and Sita had been through, he literally fought a war for her, only to exile her again just because of gossip. I really really did not like that. I just felt like all they had to do was something to prove her faithfulness in front of everyone, just like with the fire before. Something that wouldn't literally take her into the ground, never to be seen again. I think if I retold anything from this part, it would be changing what happens when Rama finds out about the gossip. I would want him to make a very public announcement about how Sita was faithful to him, and find some way to prove it to the citizens so they could trust their king and queen again. And then Sita could give birth to her children, and many more than just the twins, with her husband there to raise them. And I'd probably have to come up with new names for them. Bibliography:  Laura Gibbs, Tiny Tales from the Ramayana, Stories 180-200.

striped Indian palm squirrel Going into this weeks reading I thought for sure Sita would get rescued in Part C. So I was surprised to find myself at the end of this part and them still fighting the war. But I really liked it, I like that it has taken a lot of effort on behalf of not just Rama but so many people to get Sita back. My favorite part of this reading was the story about building the bridge, especially the squirrel helping! The part that said the India squirrel's striped are because Rama touched the squirrel got me interested so I did some Googling and was pleased to find that that really is the legend! And then I went deeper and saw that there really is a "bridge" to present-day Sri Lanka. Of course it wasn't built by anyone, let alone monkeys, but it's always really nice when myths have realities in them. If I do a retelling based on anything in Part C, I think it would be the bridge building and the squirrel. I was actually thinking that I would tell ...

Jatayu and Ravana I just finished reading part B of the Tiny Tales Ramayana! There was a lot of adventure and interesting things in this part. When I decide my retelling, if I did anything from part B it would be the kidnapping of Sita. That was the most gripping part for me, but it also had me shaking my head at the decisions she made. First it all started when Ravana's sister Shurpanakha wanted to marry Rama, and then tried to attack Sita. Lakshmana went at her with his sword and ended up mutilating her face. She ran away, and her cousins Khara and Dushana tried to avenge her by fighting Rama and his brother. The two brothers defeated Khara, Dushana and their army of rakshasas. Word about this got back to Ravana, who decided he would punish who had done by taking their wife, in this case Sita. So Ravana went to Maricha and made him agree to lure Rama away from Sita by taking the form of a golden deer. While Rama was away, Ravana would take Sita for himself. Maricha agreed o...

Marriage of Rama Bharata Lakshmana and Shatrughna After reading the first 50 stories of the tiny tales book, I was definitely most intrigued by the story of Rama and Sita. I might like to retell their meeting and marriage in my story this week. Here are some notes that will help me remember + inspire me. Rama first learns of Sita through Vishvamitra telling him about the bow and the test that must be passed in order to marry her. I do wonder if Rama actually wants to marry her or just wants to prove that he can lift and string the bow.  Sita is not Janaka's biological daughter, but he obviously treasures her like she is. I thought the origin stories were all a little odd, a baby coming from the ground. But the first origin story was my favorite, I liked the idea that Sita really was just a gift to Janaka from the gods. I liked the story about Sita learning to cook, and I think it points to a really sweet relationship with her mother. I'd like to know more about that/maybe use t...

Crocodile in River - Tecolutla - Veracruz - Mexico - 01 I loved this week's reading, I liked that it was several short stories. That made it easy to keep my attention focused. My favorite story of them was 'The Crocodile in the River' . It was the first one that was the Buddha telling a story about a past life, and I just thought the whole murderous monk being the crocodile was really interesting. I decided that's the story I will retell this week, so here are my reading notes. The story begins by saying the Buddha is telling it when he finds out about one of his monks, Devadatta, planning to kill him. My first question was that I wonder who exactly he's talking to. He says "brethren," so it seems he's talking to more than one person. I wonder if it is only his most trusted monks. I would want to include more detail on that in my retelling. I also have to wonder why these crocodile females are so obsessed with a monkey's heart??? I don't really...

Shiva and Parvati ( British Museum , circa 1800) I chose this image because I mention a comic about Shiva and Parvati and I am interested in learning more about their love story. For my reading of the Ramayana, I've decided to go with the tiny tales book! I'll be honest, the biggest factor influencing this decision is that it's the shortest version and I know that while I would love to read the one that is more like reading a novel, I probably wouldn't read all of it. So this is just me helping out my future self. I also like that I can just read it on my computer! As for the comics, I am interested in  Shiva Parvati: A Story of Divine Love (Volume 506)  for sure! I'm interested in this because, like I mentioned in my storybook favorites blog post, I'm somewhat familiar with the story of Parvati and Shiva because of the book series Tiger's Curse . I'm also interested in  Savitri: The Perfect Wife (Volume 511) . This one is interesting to me because of th...