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Week 14 Reading: Epified's "7 Secrets of Hindu Calendar Art" Videos, Part C

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Ardhanari on  Wikimedia For this week, I chose to continue onto parts C and D of Epified’s “Seven Secrets of Hindu Calendar Art” YouTube videos. Part C is on the gods Ardhanari, who I had never heard of before, and Shiva. I liked the videos that I watched in week 13 as they were more eye-opening and informative than I had expected. I also think that watching these videos is good for anyone who struggles with paying attention, especially in reading assignments. Furthermore, as I have watched many Epified videos throughout this course, I can say that Epified does a great job of summarizing important aspects of Indian epics and Hinduism and that they make them easily attainable for those who are new to this kind of storytelling. Ardhanari’s secret is “God is stillness within, Goddess is movement around.” In this video, I learned that gods can be with or without form and that a god is never limited to only one form. Also, there is both a male and a female trinity
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Week 13 Storytelling: Narayan's Apocalyptic Sleep

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Image on  Pinterest Vishnu’s eyelids are becoming heavy, and he realizes that he is growing tired again after billions of years without sleeping. The water levels on the innumerable worlds throughout the universes are steadily rising. Vishnu knows that in a few million years, those waters will grow into raging storms, and all life will be eliminated from the planets. He knows, too, that cosmic disasters like the explosions of stars and the widening of black holes will become more frequent until his droopy eyelids finally close. With Vishnu’s sleep always comes the end of the world. Rather, the end of all the universes. Vishnu is finally asleep, so he is now referred to as Narayan, and his body floats on an endless bed of unmoving milk. Imagine a soft white ocean with no edges and no land to contain it stretching on forever. All is calm, and Narayan does not dream. Perhaps there is no sense of consciousness within him at all, only perfect peace. He drifts along
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Week 13 Reading: 7 Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art, Part B

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Image on  Wikimedia This is a continuation of my Epified “7 Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art” YouTube video notes. Secret 2, Part B is on the god Narayan, and his secret is “What dies is always reborn.” Whereas I had known a little bit about the god Ganesha before taking my Part A notes, I did not know anything about Narayan before watching this video. The video is almost half an hour long and worth watching. The very beginning was fascinating to me and made me interested to know more about Narayan. There is an image in the video of Narayan waking up from a sleep, and this is when the universe begins. However, assuming that Narayan wakes and sleeps in a cycle just like everyone else, it must be that the universe has existed before and is now beginning again now that the god is awake once more. So, the universe either or exists or does not exist whether or not Narayan is awake, and each time he wakes is a new beginning. Something else int
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Week 13 Reading: 7 Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art, Part A

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Image on  PxHere This week, I chose to watch the videos on YouTube entitled “7 Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art” by Epified. Secret number one and Part A is on Ganesha, and secret number two and Part B is on Narayan. I had heard of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god with four arms, before, but I am not sure if I have ever learned about Narayan. Ganesha’s secret is “Different people see God differently.” Something that I liked about this video and did not expect from it is that is talks about Hinduism and other religions as subjective depending on a certain person/people. Epified does not try to convince the viewers that Hinduism is the only “correct” form of religious, but declares that all religions are based on myths and a certain set of beliefs, which is what I personally believe. The narrator repeated in the video, “Who is right?” many times. The fact is that no one is “right” or “wrong” in terms of religion. Also, how one chooses to react to others’ diff
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Week 12 Storytelling: Krishna's Mother

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Read the updated version of this story on my Indian Epics portfolio blog here: link . Image on  YouTube I clearly remembered giving birth to a girl, yet when I awoke the next morning, the child was a boy, and he was blue. Maybe I was so distracted by the pains of childbirth that I was not able to think clearly… I had decided that I would call my girl Maya, but I then decided to go with the name Krishna. Also, my husband had brought another baby to be cared for by me, a boy, Balram. I was so confused when people came from far-off cities to meet Krishna, for I didn’t know any of them and they wished to pay him respect. There was none of the same excitement for Balram. The two boys grew up to be quite the troublemakers, and I often had to vouch for them when the neighboring women came to the house and claimed that they had stolen butter. At first, I did not want to believe that I could have raised thieves, but I eventually began to punish the boys qu
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Week 12 Reading: Epified Krishna videos, Part B

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Image on  Wikimedia This is a continuation of my Epified Krishna videos notes. These videos greatly cleared up some confusions that I had had about Krishna while reading the Mahabharata. Before, I did not understand Krishna’s real importance in the epic. These videos are great in that they give a decent summary of all of the important events that took place in Krishna’s life, and there are hand-drawn pictures that aid in imagining the setting of the tales. I recommend turning on the captions to learn some of the difficult names of people and places. Although I did not mention it in the last set of notes, as Krishna had previously humbled Indra with his powers, he now humbles the Brahma himself. Krishna is constantly being underestimated by townspeople, gods, kings, and even the Creator god. It is no surprise when Krishna continuously defeats all of his enemies. In this section of videos, it is also apparent that Krishna’s kindness is an essential part
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Week 12 Reading: Epified Krishna videos, Part A

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Image on  Flickr For this week’s free reading choice, I watched the Epified Krishna videos on YouTube. I had found these videos super helpful when studying the Mahabharata and thought that this would be a great way to learn some more about one of the most important characters in the epic. I like these videos because they go over important relationships and names of people and places, and the drawings are cute and provide a nice visual for the tales. I recommend turning on the captions when watching, as some of the Indian names are difficult to spell and remember. From the first half of these videos, I was reminded about the events preceding the birth of Krishna, as well as his birth and his childhood. It was prophesied that King Kamsa of Mathura would be killed by his sister and brother-in-law’s eighth child. For this, he locked the two away for years. When the eighth child was born, the gods protected the husband, Vasudev, and instructed him to switch out th
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