Week 6: Reading Notes, Mahabharata A

This week, we start reading a new Indian class, the Mahabharata, I chose to read the PDE (public domain edition) again, and this serves as notes for the first twenty stories within the epic. During the reading of the Ramayana, I would pre-read the plot on Wikipedia, this time, I will try to read only the PDE first, then the Wikipedia story if necessary.

One thing that immediately stuck out was the high character turnover, compared to the Ramayana. In the Ramayana, there were not too many different characters, and the plot seemed to revolve around the characters. In contrast, the Mahabharata seems to have the characters revolve around a different plot. This seems to highlight the role that karma and the Gods play in the fate of the other people as their wills are shaped to the God's destiny.

A second thing that stuck out was the role of curses in this story as well. In the ninth story of the PDE, "Pandu and His Wives", there is a similar role of a character killing something, that something being revered or holy, and a curse being attached to the character. The same thing happened to Rama's father in the Ramayana where he accidentally kills a homeless person, resulting in a curse on his life, and in this book, it happens to be a bhamin disguised as a deer.

On an off note, a continuing theme amongst these stories is some role of illogical nature to their plots, last story, I critiqued the role of a life saving herb that a monkey could travel thousands of miles to get, this time, I will critique the thirteenth story, "Bhima and the Nagas." In this story, he is poisoned by snakes. But it is revealed that he had already been poisoned, thus, reversing the role of the poison in his body. This again, is very hard to believe, as the poisons would have to neutralize each other if we were going off of some chemical reason, and being cured by poison does not seem to make any sense on a symbolic level.

Overall, this collection of stories exhibits many similarities to the Ramayana, but there is a more interesting role around the characters this time as they are churned in and out of the story more quickly. Instead of seeming to be a story about two people at war as in the Ramayana with Ravana and Rama, this time it appears to be two larger groups of people in a longer stretch of war.

The Mahabharata is an Indian Classic. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Mahabharata, Public Domain Edition, Link.

Comments

Story Lab: TED Talks

This week, I completed a Story Lab, in which I watched two separate TED Talks, the links can be found here . The first talk seems to epitomize the first impressions we develop from stories, while the second one delves into the relationships we make with characters. In the first talk, the idea of a first impression is further discussed, where the speaker notes how she had opinions of a country that had been built up solely from a few stories she had been told, and how when she encountered other people, they already had predispositions based on stories they had been told. This can be broadened to a wider audience to suggest that we often see short amounts of information, and then we make the conclusions ourselves. For example, people often just read the headlines of news articles and believe they know everything about that topic afterwards, as opposed to ever reading the article. The second talk digs into the connections we make with fictional characters, and why we spend so much tim...

Famous Last Words: Week before Terror

This Thursday, I was proctoring a pre-calculus test when our Complex Analysis professor announced that we would have a midterm in a week. Two days after my Thermodynamics midterm. Two days before my Fluid Dynamics Midterms. All within five days of my Numerical Analysis midterm. While this all seems super stressful, atleast once Fluid Dynamics is over, I can look forward to smooth sailing for a few weeks. This week, in contrast to the next few, is looking to be very peaceful as a whole. I got to play soccer with some friends this weekend. I had not played in a few months, but it was great to get back out on the field and run around a little. Even better, I finally decided on a Halloween costume as well- Russell from Up. The only hard thing has been finding badges. Finally, WE GOT A DOG. This part has been most exciting. She came by at some point this afternoon, a friend had brought her up. She basically explored the house for the first bit of the day, and now, she's getting more u...

Learning Challenge, I Wish My Teacher Knew

This week, I changed things up, and I decided to learn more about teaching skills. I read the article entitled, " What Kids Wished Their Teacher Knew " by Donna De La Cruz. This article is of interesting to me because I TA for two separate classes. Some of these are interesting for learning, such as "I wish my teacher knew that I wanted to learn more about history," while others are heartbreaking such as "I wish my teacher knew my family and I live in a shelter." The interesting topic between all of these are that teachers sometimes can make presumptions on students. The article confirms for me that children are excellent at hiding things. Whether it be poverty or a genuine interest in a field, they can mask that up to where there teacher would never know. One thing that I learned is that teachers often make presumptions about students based on their own upbringing and how they went through school themselves. This resonates with me pretty heavily, beca...

Indian Epics Blog

Search This Blog