Week 14 Reading Diary A: Ryder's Twenty-Two Goblins

This week I decided to continue on with the Twenty-Two Goblins from Ryder. I really enjoyed the first week's set of readings, and I'm interested in seeing how things turn out for the King. I thought that the second story from this set of readings, the one about the King and His general, was really interesting, especially because of the moral at the end. I keep thinking that the King's reasoning doesn't make too much sense, such as how he declared the King more virtuous simply because he was a king so it was harder for him to be a good person. It seems like a lot of the stories deal with Kings or love in some aspect, so these themes might be interesting to work into a story.

A "King" card; source: wikimedia

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.

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

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

Reading Diary B: Peter Brook's Mahabharata

Today I finally finished the movie! I really enjoyed it but I'm also glad that I was able to finish such a long movie. My week has been kinda hectic, but it was nice to take time and just finish watching everything. I really like the ending sequence of the movie, so I might try to use that as inspiration for my storytelling assignment this week.

Ascent to heaven: source: wikimedia

Reading Diary A: Peter Brook's Mahabharata

This week, I'm just continuing to watch Peter Brook's version of the Mahabharata. I really enjoyed the movie last week, but I'm looking forward to finishing the film. I hadn't really realized how long the film would be when I started watching, but it's been really good so far. This section was really nice because it was building up to the big finale, so the plot really picked up a lot. It's funny how similar the book and the movie can be in terms of pacing and story mechanics, and yet still be so different.

Battle at the conclusion of the Mahabharata: source: wikimedia

Reading Diary B: Peter Brooks Mahabharata

For this reading diary, I'm still making my way through Peter Brook's version of the Mahabharata. I'm really enjoying the film so far, and I like how it feels more like a theatrical piece. The "special effects" and costumes are all very basic, and nothing is too dramatic or over the top, which I think would have been really easy to do.

Director Peter Brook; Source wikimedia

The story of the film seems to be holding pretty close to the original, other than the more prevalent "story-within-a-story" elements. Still, the whole theatrical aspect definitely gives me some ideas for how I could write a story that's more drama-oriented. I'm really looking forward to watching more of the film next week and seeing how all of the action at the end is portrayed on screen.

Reading Diary A: Peter Brook's Mahabharata

For this weeks reading, I decided to watch Peter Brook's version of the Mahabharata. I thought it would be interesting to watch the film version to get see how the story differs in a different format.

The boy, Ganesh, and Vyasa source: wikimedia

The thing that was most striking about this version was how the beginning of the story was different. There is a young boy who is present for the telling of the tale by Vyasa, and Ganesha has a much more active role in how he questions and talks to Vyasa. Moreover, it was interesting seeing the film use such a huge and diverse cast. I read somewhere that Brook's used actors from many countries to represent the idea that the Mahabharata is the story of all of humanity. This is a really interesting idea that I don't think I really picked up on in the other version. I am really excited to see how the rest of the story develops and to see how the film version differs from the book.

Reading Diary B: Krishna by Sister Nevedita

Krishna kills the tyrant Kansa: source: wikimedia

There was definitely a lot of action in this second part of the stories of Krishna. We see the epic fight between Kansa's forces and Krishna, as well as the large battle that makes up the end of the Mahabharata. It was really interesting seeing this fight from a different perspective that paid more attention to Krishna's involvement. This is also true of the aftermath of the battle in seeing Gandhari's interactions with Krishna, and seeing how she cursed his clan to death. Again, it was really noticeable throughout all of the stories that Sister Nevedita focused mainly on the religious aspects of the stories, and there are a lot of times where she describes Krishna and the gods in relation to their Divinity and their more spiritual aspects.

I think the most interesting thing to take away from these stories are the various ways Krishna is represented. He's a bit of a mischievous child, and then a very cocky and rash warrior when he fights Kansa. After that, he seems to mature and calm a lot when we see him next, and a lot of people look to him for his wisdom later in life. The ending of Krishna's stories was a bit anticlimactic, I must admit. He gets shot by a hunter who mistook his foot to be a swan, and this wound is what ends him. It seems a bit strange to me that someone who has demonstrated a number of different powers and extraordinary abilities would be felled by a single shot, but I guess this just adds to the tragedy of the tale and serves to show the strength of Gandhari's curse

Reading Diary A: Krishna by Sister Nevedita

Statue of Krishna with his flute: Source: wikimedia

This week I decided to look at Sister Nevedita stories of Krishna. I thought this would be a good opportunity to learn more about Krishna, who was a very enigmatic character in Narayan's version of the Mahabharata. Sister Nevedita definitely skews her perspective on the stories towards more religious aspects, and this makes for an interesting contrasts with the other things I've read in this class so far. The first section starts with Krishna's birth, and Nevedita calls him "the Indian Christ-Child," which I'm not sure is entirely appropriate, but oh well. There are a lot of really interesting stories about Krishna's childhood in this first section, including the story about Brahma, who suspected that Krishna was actually an incarnation of Vishnu. Apparently, the easiest way to do this was to make a bunch of cows fall asleep in a cave to see if Krishna would be able to find them and then herd them back. This story is really interesting because we see some motivations of the gods, specifically Brahma who hasn't been talked about a lot in the other stories. It's a bit funny to think about the gods acting like a sort of rivals, keeping tabs on each other's activities and trying to make sure they're always one step ahead of the others. There were a lot of other interesting excerpts in this section, including the battle between the monstrous snake Kaliya and Krishna.

Reading Diary B: Narayan's Mahabharata

It finally happened! The epic battle that the whole book has been leading up to finally happened. I'm a sucker for big fight scenes, and I have to say this was by far my favorite part of the story. We see all of the characters that have been introduced throughout the story as well as number of characters who show up as reminders of brief or minor events from the beginning, like Bhima's rakshasa son. Following the events of the fight was really exciting, but I did think there was some silliness. Namely, Bhisma's falling on the bed of arrows.

Bhisma on the bed of arrows; Source; wikimedia

While this event is a bit strange in and of itself, I especially liked how everyone dropped what they were doing just to come and gawk at Bhisma. I guess the fighting wasn't that important? This is not the strangest thing to happen in the story, but it just stuck out to me as especially bizarre. The rest of the battle was fairly predictable: the righteous Pandavas overcome Duryodhana and his ilk, and then rule the kingdom. I can't tell if I like the character of Yudhistira or not. There are more than a few times where he laments his role as a kshatriya, which is understandable because he does not seem to like fighting and violence as much as his brothers. However, he still does a lot of stupid, rash things throughout the story. Bhima and Arjuna are both very aggressive, while the twins are there  just hanging out, so it's not hard to make Yudhistira seem like the rational one; but still, it seems strange that he was so willing to punish the Kaudavas but then talks about his unfortunate circumstances as a warrior.

Reading Diary A: Narayan's Mahabharata

This section of the Mahabharata set up a lot of plot for the final battle between the two families, but it did have some really interesting scenes. The "hundred questions" scene in particular was really interesting I thought. We know that these texts are supposed to be very important to the larger context of Hinduism, but sometimes it's hard to see how that can be. In this scene, we're gien a number of very straightforward philosophical ideas and values. I also like the idea of Yudihistira's father coming to Earth to test him and make sure he was turning out okay. The fathers of the Pandavas are mentioned in the very beginning but it seems like most fathers in these stories take a rather hands-off approach. I also like how this is the scene where Yudihistira undoubtedly redeems himself in the eyes of his brothers. Yeah he may have lost all of their wealth and fortune twice, but at least he answered all the questions and everyone got to come back to life. It kinda balances out I guess.

Statue of the god Yama; source: wikimedia

I also really liked the stories of the Pandavas while they were at Virata's court. It's an entertaining trope, seeing these highborn nobles taking on more demeaning tasks, but it also does a lot to characterize them. Honestly, it's very easy to forget about the twins, and it was a nice change to se Bhima excited to do something other than fight and/or kill things. The scene with Arjuna and Uttara fighting together was especially interesting because of the dynamics between the two characters, and we can see how easily Arjuna can slip between his two personas. There was a lot of brief mentions of different alliances and deals made with other kings/rulers, so I'm really excited to see how it all plays out in the final battle.

Reading Diary B: Narayan's Mahabharata

The miracle of the cloth; Source: wikimedia

The second part of this week's reading was a lot easier to follow. I will admit that I got a bit lost with trying to keep all of the characters names straight in the first 40 pages, but now it seems like the division between the two sides of the family is a lot clearer, so it's a lot easier to keep up with all of the different names and characters. That, in turn, makes the story waaaaaaay more interesting!

I really liked the scene between Yudihistira and Sakuni. It was a bit predictable in that you could tell Sakuni would win with every wager, but it was still really entertaining to watch the usually serious and rational Yudihistira fall deeper and deeper into a gambling frenzy. The story also brought up some really interesting moral questions: if a person engages in something willingly and in full knowledge of the consequences, are they the only one to blame for their circumstances? This was exacerbated when he wagered Draupadi, because she brought up a pretty straightforward argument about how he couldn't have wagered her as he was already Sakuni's servant. I think the most interesting aspect of this whole story is how it humanizes most of the characters. All of the named characters have some aspect of divinity or  the supernatural as part of their characters, but in this scene it was just two guys gambling over things and everyone arguing about the rules. Of course, the scene at the end with Krishna's miracle of the endless cloth can't really be considered "normal" but it was pretty cool.

Reading Diary A: Narayan's Mahabharata

For the Mahabharata I decided to go with the Narayan version instead of the Public Domain version. I liked the online accessibility of the PDE version of the Ramayana, but the radical changes in styles and forms between sections was a little bit too much for me. In Narayan's writing, the prose is all under the same structure, so it's much more consistent, and I can get a better feel for the text

Vyasa recites the story to Ganesh; Source: Wikimedia

The story here is a lot more sprawling and epic than the story of the Ramayana. It opens with a description of Vyasa and Ganesh agreeing on how to copy down the story and the launches into the actual tale. I like this story within a story framework, but it seems like it will only be mentioned at the beginning of the story. I also like how Vyasa himself is a pretty major character in the story.

The sheer number of characters makes it a bit difficult to follow. We're introduced to all of the members of both sides of the family pretty quickly, and a lot of them have very similar names. Moreover, there are three generations worth of lineages to keep track of. This familial drama reminded me a lot of Game of Thrones or the Lord of the Rings; I'm really considering sketching some family trees to keep everyone in order. My favorite episode from this section was watching Bhisma taunt the rakshasa. The dialogue was pretty funny, and it really made the scene entertaining to watch unfold.

Reading Diary B: Public Domain Ramayana

Today marks the conclusion to the Ramayana, and I have to say it definitely feels like a grand finale to the story. We see the final battle between Ravana and his forces and the allies of Rama, and this takes up roughly half of the reading. The battle was really exciting because it brought back so many of the other minor characters that we've met throughout the story, and it was much more drawn out and tumultuous than the other battles portrayed throughout the story. While the outcome may have been a rather obvious outcome, it was still exciting to read through the story and watch the action unfold.

Sita's trial by fire; Source: wikimedia

The second part of the readings focused on the aftermath of the battle, which was mostly about what to do with Sita, after she was dishonored by being forced to live with Ravana. Rama says he cannot allow her to continue to be his wife as it would bring him dishonor, so she asks for a trial by fire to prove her innocence. On the one hand, this is terribly misogynistic and hints at the valuing of women as only sexual objects, as Sita's entire worth and value seems to be determined by if she was faithful to Rama or not. However, going through the trial of fire and attempting to appease the gods to show her innocence was the most characterization she's shown in the whole story, so I'll take it. The epilogue stories concerning Rama's sons and the exile of Sita seem a bit extraneous, but the final chapter was a nice way to tie everything up and end the story.  

Reading Diary A: Public Domain Ramayana

This section of reading had a lot of action in, definitely more than in the previous readings. We're also introduced to Hanuman, a follower of Rama who is arguably the most important character of this section.

11th century statue of Hanuman; Source: wikimedia

The first part that really stuck out to me from this set of readings was the description of the battle between the monkey king Sugriva and his brother Vali. Not only was the battle very dramatic and much longer than other fights/conflicts we've seen thus far in the texts, it also seemed to place a lot of emphasis on the role of Tara, the wife of Vali. Tara was trying to calm the two, and ultimately failed, but the text talks about her calm demeanor and wisdom. It's just striking to me that she is portrayed as such when it seems like most descriptions of female characters are almost non-existent or focus only on the beauty and grace of the character. 

I also really enjoyed the adventures of Hanuman in Lanka, the kingdom of Ravana and the Rakshasa. Like all of the other named animal characters, he is very clearly portrayed as having human attributes and intelligence, but a lot of his actions seem to show the capriciousness one would associate with a monkey, such as running around and burning the whole city to the ground while his tail is on fire, and then realizing that he might have accidentally hurt or killed Sita. Another example of this would be when he jumped three thousand leagues into the sky because he thought the sun was a piece of fruit. I'd really like to hear more stories about Hanuman, because he seems like such an interesting character, and maybe a bit more nuanced than Rama (who is always the strongest/most righteous/most moral/etc)  

Reading Diary B: Public Domain Ramayana

The second part of this weeks readings seem to be a bit more action packed. I really liked all of the scenes after the introduction of Ravana and it feels like we're getting into the real meat of the story. A lot of the beginning scenes were too disconnected to really get a feel for the story but now I think it resembles what we could consider a more a traditional story. I'm sure part of this is also the nature of public domain edition, with sections coming from a number of authors and styles. If I have time, I'd really like to read the other version to see what it's like in comparison.

Defeat of Khara; source

As I said, the episodes with Ravana and his cohorts were very engaging and they made much more compelling antagonists than the other random Rakshasa. I also think it's very interesting that the act that ultimately spurred on a lot of these scenes was Rama's rejection of Shurpanakha. Women in the Ravayana seem to get the proverbial short end of the stick. Sita is the main female character but she doesn't really seem to have her own personality or any agency in her story: she gets kidnapped by a rakshasa, and she's tricked by Ravana. The majority of the other female characters have been monsters (the rakshasi) or the women of the court, who either have very little to do with the story or are scheming and manipulating the men. I understand that the traditional epic probably places an emphasis on the male characters for cultural/ideological reasons, it's just hard to not point out the disparity.