Reading Diary B Week 13: Ryder's Twenty-Two Goblins

I'm still continuing to read through Ryder's Twenty-Two goblins. I think my favorite story from this section was about the family that sacrificed themselves for the King, and then the King in the main story says that the King made the biggest sacrifice. I'm starting to get the impression that these stories are satirical because they're so over the top. I'm also wondering now why the story is called the twenty-two goblins when in actuality it's the same goblin each time. I'm hoping there will be a better explanation at the end, but for now I just have a lot of questions.

Arthur Ryder, translator: source: wikimedia

Reading Dairy Week 13: Ryder's Twenty-Two Goblins

Western Representation of a goblin; source: wikimedia

This week I decided to read Ryder's translation of the Twenty-Two Goblins. I really like the format of this tale because it helps incorporate the story-within-a-story technique really well with all of the different fables told by the goblin. Each individual story is also really interesting. I really enjoyed the story of the dead girl and the three lovers, and it was interesting to see the logic the king used in explaining his answer about the riddle. I'm wondering if these are supposed to be taken as correct, or if we'll find out at the end that all of them have been impossible to decide and the King will be punished for not realizing that. I also really liked the story of the thrush and the parrot, but again, his reasoning at the end about all women being bad is a bit striking. I'm really looking forward to see if I can get more into the king's mindset as the story continues.

Portfolio Guide

This is the index page for my Storytelling Portfolio! Check back every so often to see what I've added to it.

The Breaking of the Bow- Rama and Lakshmana arrive in Mithila in time for a grand competition.

Creation of the Mahabharata- Vyasa recites a tale to Ganesh.

Bed of Arrows -  The tale of Bhishma and the Bed of Arrows

Draupadi's Diary - An entry from the new bride's journal

The Death of Sati - The tale of Shiva and his wife Sati

Week 12 Storytelling: The Death of Sati

Once upon a time, there lived a very powerful and proud king named Daksha, who was blessed with many beautiful daughters. The youngest of these was Sati, and she was the most virtuous and pure of all her sisters. Unbeknownst to her father, Sati had devoted every part of her being to the Great God Shiva, who returned Sati's great affection. Their love was revealed at Sati's Swayamvara, where she chose Shiva to be her husband. Daksha was furious at his daughter for out of all the wealthy princes and lords, she chose Shiva who had very little material wealth. Daksha cursed his daughter and forced the two to leave his kingdom and never come back. This was, of course, a very ineffectual punishment, as Sati and her husband were very happy in their home far from the rest of the kingdom, and also Shiva was the Great God, so the idea that Daksha's punishment would matter at all is utterly ridiculous, but I digress.

After some time, the couple was visited by the great sage Narada, who somehow managed to be an insufferable gossip despite his infinite wisdom. Narada told the great Shiva about an upcoming feast that Daksha was planning to hold to honor every member of his family, and then Narada proceeded to be a huge jerk by trying to rub it in Shiva's face that he wasn't invited. Shiva, having fallen asleep during the conversation, paid him no attention. But Sati was consumed by her "woman's curiosity," and yes, that is apparently a real thing according to the story. Shiva told his dear wife that she had to stay home, but this greatly upset her. She was so frustrated she turned into the ten-armed goddess Durga, also known as the goddess of death. Ignoring the wishes of her husband, who happened to be not only a god but the GREAT god, Sati went back to her father's kingdom to attend the feast. To this day, no one really knows why she thought this was a good idea at all. One could only assume that she was very hungry, or just really into feasts.

Once Sati arrived at her father's kingdom, wearing the simplest of dresses and no jewelry, she was greeted with the ridiculing laughter of her many sisters because apparently all of her sisters were like mean high school girls. Daksha then rose and addressed his daughter, his voice dripping with rage. He was furious she had dared to show her face in his hall, for she was just the lowly wife of a beggar. Sati could not stand her father's condemnations of her husband (who was still the GREAT god) and refused to listen further. Apparently, Sati was such a dutiful wife that even hearing her husband be slandered could be considered infidelity. She then spontaneously combusted as an act of suicide, adding a whole new meaning to the phrase "going out with a bang." Shiva was meditating during all of this, because I guess he couldn't be bothered to go protect his wife's honor.  But to his credit, he did decide to summon a demon army to kill Daksha in revenge, so I guess it's all good.

Sati is rejected by her father; source: wikimedia

Author's Note: This story is based off of Sister Nivedita's story Sati, The perfect Wife, available here.
My story is a fairly straight representation of the original; I didn't change any major plot points or anything like that. The story to me just seemed like one wild overreaction after the next, so I wanted to try to play that up in this version. Most of my other stories have had more straight-forward humor, so I tried to make this one more dry or sarcastic. It was also my first time using a more biased narrator to comment on the story. I really like the idea of having a narrator as a character who engages with the story so that was something I wanted to try this week. At first, I thought I would write a children's-story style piece (hence the once upon a time) but I think it maybe turned into a more satirical story. The character of Narada in particular was such an amusing portrayal of the wandering sage archetype we've seen so much of, so I had to include him and how he plays into the plot. I also decided to try writing a story without any dialogue to see how well I'd be able to still convey the story. I've gotten a number of comments on how good my dialogue is, but that makes me think I should practice the prose more.

Week 12 Reading Diary B: Nivedita's Shiva

Today, I read the second set of readings from Sister Nivedita's stories about Shiva. These stories were a lot more direct and easier to follow than Nivedita's other writings, and I think I got a lot better ideas about how to describe the characters, physically and emotionally. Especially in the first story, Nivedita goes into a lot of detail in specifying who Shiva is, how he can be characterized, etc. I'm also glad that she included another story about Uma and her role in everything. It was kind of hard to follow all of the different avatars and reincarnations of different characters in the other stories, but here it's laid out much more simplistically. I think doing something that focused on mistaken identity or reincarnation for my story this week would make a lot of sense.

Shiva statue; source: wikimedia

Week 12 Reading Diary A: Nivedita's Shiva

This week, I decided to read Sister Nivedita's stories about Shiva. I really enjoyed what she had to say about Krishna and Kali, so I thought I would try reading another one of her works. Her stories about Shiva are really interesting because she intermingles them with short sections explaining the evolution of Hindu theology, like how some myths have become more popular and dominant over older myths that might be contradictory, like the story of Shiva and Sati. I really thought it was intriguing how Nivedita describes all of the different parts and representations of Sati as different women, and it definitely seems like Shiva is quite the ladies' man. I also really liked the section where Shiva is so angry he decides to summon a demo to wage war against Sati's father. It adds an interesting dynamic to the relationship between the gods and the demons.

Shiva: source: wikimedia

Week 11 Storytelling: Patient Report

Nivedita Psychiatric Hospital

Patient 4106 Kali: source: wikimedia

Patient Number: 4106

Patient Name: Kali (aliases include: Mahakali, Parvati, Durga)

Physical Description: Long, black hair, often tangled and unkempt; Red blood-shot eyes; Dark black complexion; Patient has four arms; Patient often sticks out her tongue (of unusual length)

Clothing and Other Artifacts upon Admission: 1 curved sword, 1 trident, 1 white cup, a large number of human heads arranged into a necklace (No other clothing)

Behavioral Report: Patient often prone to violent tendencies, including murder and decapitation. This is often with slight provocation, and patient can only be calmed by dancing on or with her husband. Patient also tends to display a number of strong maternal instincts, including the nourishment and protection of her followers and family. Patient often vacillates between these two extremes.

Diagnosis and Treatment: It's clear that the patient has very strong manic-depressive mood swings, and can often fall into a rage without notice. At the beginning of her time here, the patient was much more prone to these sudden changes in behavior, and we believe this was a coping mechanism that she developed to protect her husband and family. We have been hesitant to try pharmaceutical solutions as the patient's digestive tract seems to only accept blood of enemies she has slain. However, the patient has recently made great strides in controlling this rage. Our team of counselors here at Nivedita Hospital have focused on positive reinforcement strategies to augment the patient's natural maternal behaviors. This seems to be proving a success in helping reform the patient, who has fully accepted a new motherly identity.

Future Recommendations: While it is unlikely that the patient will ever fully relinquish her violent impulses, these will continue to function in the scope of her role as "Mother of the World." Our goal has been to elicit more peaceful behavior with the hopes of eliminating the patient's deeply ingrained rage, however this seems to be key to the patient's personal ideology of motherhood. Patient should be ready for discharge within a few weeks. 

Author's Note: This is a re-imagining of the goddess Kali as she is depicted in Sister Nivedita's Kali the Mother (found here). From other, more traditional stories I had heard of Kali, she is often depicted as a sort of wildling, with unruly hair and bloody weapons. She was often shown to be provoked into a rage where she kills a number of evil forces and has to then be calmed by her husband Shiva. I tried to incorporate these details into the story in a lot of ways. I also tried to reference the other forms that Kali has been shown to take in various other stories, and her patient number is based on the number of arms she has in each form (4 for Kali, 10 for Mahakali, and 6 for Durga). I thought Sister Nivedita's representations of Kali were so interesting because they provide a much softer, gentler side of Kali. I did a bit of research and it turns out that most contemporary devotional movements based around Kali show her as a much stronger maternal figure, like Hera in Greek mythology. This change was so fascinating because it kind of shows the necessary duality to motherhood: a mother is often caring and nourishing for her family, but can be wildly protective if that family is threatened. Nivedita talks about this a bit in one of the sections in her writings and I saw it as a really interesting concept. 

Reading Diary B: Nivedita's Kali the Mother

Today I finished reading Nivedita's Kali the Mother. There was a lot more substance in the last section than there was in the first, and I think I'll have a lot of material to pull from in describing Kali as a character. I really liked the passage at the end where she talks in first-person, and the poem in the very last section was a very neat change in style from the rest of the text. There weren't any clear stories or tales that I could adapt, so maybe I'll just use the characteristics of Kali and make a new story about her, or insert her into another story.

Kali the mother; source: wikimedia

Reading Diary A: Sister Nivedita's Kali the Mother

For this week, I decided to read another story from Sister Nivedita. I really liked her stories about Krishna, and this week I thought it might be a nice change to look at something other than the epics. Her writing is much more essay-like in this story and it was a complete shift away from what I had expected. She had some really interesting passages on the importance of language and symbols and how we use those to create our own ideas of divinity. I really liked a lot of her thoughts, but she didn't present a lot about who Kali is and what she's done. I'm hoping there's a bit more in the second part that would allow me to generate more ideas for telling a story.

Kali the mother: source: wikimedia