Epics of India MLLL 4993

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 tri...

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...

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’ ...

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 p...

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 ou...

Fort comme un boeuf on  Wikimedia This is a continuation of my Eastern Stories and Legends notes. These are all Jataka tales, or stories of the Buddha’s past lives. Most of these tales demonstrate important morals or lessons to live by, and they also show what happens to those who are not kind to others. In addition, they reward those who do kind things for others, and all the stories show the gentle nature of the Buddha. Two of these tales were very similar, and both were about Bulls. In each, the Bulls have been brought up by kind masters who they wish to repay in some way. The Bulls (who are each living a separate life of the Buddha) decide that they will work to bring some income to their masters. In the first tale, The Bull That Demanded Fair Treatment , the Bull tells his master to bet with another man. The bet was to be that if the Bull could pull a determined heavy wagon load, then the other man would pay the master. The master agrees to this,...

Buddha as King on  Wikimedia This week, I read Eastern Stories and Legends, and these are all Jataka tales. Jataka tales are tales about the Buddha’s past lives. I realized that I had read many of these stories in previous units. It is interesting to see how these tales changed according to different authors. I will discuss the ones that I had not read before here. The majority of these tales incorporate important morals to live by and demonstrate the effect that kindness can have on one's life and others' lives. I had never read The Spirit That Lived in a Tree before. In this tale, the Buddha is the spirit living within a 600,000 year old tree. He also rules over many other trees who would would be able to feel his pain if he were to experience it, almost like a collective consciousness. When a greedy king decides that he wants to have the most extravagant palace that only rests upon one column instead of several, he calls for this ancient, worshiped tr...

Image on  LinkedIn This is a continuation of my Twenty Jataka Tales notes. These tales all incorporate important life lessons, and many of them are “happily ever after” tales. These happy endings are achieved through the kind ways of the Buddha, as all Jataka tales are an episode of one of the Buddha’s lives. As mentioned in the last set of notes, though I did not go into detail, I went to a Buddhist event earlier this year. It was part of my Sociology of Religion course in which each student had to choose an event to attend from a religion that differed from their own. I had originally wanted to go to a “normal” Christian church service. I am not religious, but Christianity is what I am most familiar with. Not being allowed to go to a Christian service was a good thing for me as I was made to try something new. If I had not been made to attend the meditation service, I probably would have never gone on my own as I was nervous and felt like an outsider. T...

Image of Buddha on  Wikimedia This week, I read Twenty Jataka Tales for my reading notes posts. I chose this unit because I liked the Jataka tales that we read as a class at the beginning of the semester. I was reminded that a Jataka tale is one about a life of the Buddha. All of these tales give lessons to be learned and the majority are “happily ever after” tales. The main theme running through this unit was the power of kindness. In each of the Buddha’s lives, he is selfless and has a sweet disposition so that no human wishes to do him harm. He has the power to change the way others perceive the world, and he teaches them the kindness that is natural to him. In January, I visited a Buddhist temple for a class assignment. I participated in meditation, and the feeling of calm that permeated that exercise is very similar to how the Buddha is portrayed in this unit. In The Monkey-Bridge , a monkey king uses his own body as part of an escape bridge to avo...

Image of Kunti and Pandu on  Wikimedia This is a continuation of my week 9 Mahabharata notes. I chose to watch the Karmic Revolution videos on YouTube, as I watched a film version of the Ramayana for the second edition of that epic, too. These videos are a great way to quickly learn about the Mahabharata or to refresh one's memory after reading the full version. It might even be a good idea to watch these videos before reading a longer version of the epic in order to become acquainted with some of the characters and key aspects of the tale. This version greatly helped me in keeping characters’ relationships straight in my mind. Any questions that I had about the birth of the Pandavas was completely eradicated, and I now understand why Kunti is such an important character in the epic. Here are some of the notes that I took while watching Karmic Revolution: Kunti tells Pandu about mantra, but not about her first son. Pandu asks her to call upon gods to m...

Sitas Exile by Raja Ravi Varma on  Wikimedia I have enjoyed the Epics of India course, and I think that I am doing well, overall. I had intended to get ahead a little bit at the beginning of the semester. As I mentioned in the Reading and Writing post for Mythology and Folklore, as well, I work over 30 hours a week. My shifts usually begin at 4:30 a.m., and I am so much more tired than I thought I would be when I get home! So, I am managing to keep up with all of my coursework, but I have not done any extra credit assignments like I wanted to. My favorite post from this course has been my story, The Unruly Cock. Since I decided to use this story as part of my Portfolio project, this is the tale that I have worked on the most for this course. Reading the comments from my peers has been very useful, and I have used them to make my story even better. I am proud that I have something to show for these two courses of Ms. Gibbs’. I frequentl...

Duel Between Duryodhana and Bhima on  link This is the last section of my Mahabharata Reading Notes. In the previous section, I decided to focus on specific morals that I thought were relevant in a YouTube summary video, and I related those back to the text. I thought that I might do the same with this set of notes, but this last section of the Mahabharata was more action-packed, making it a bit harder to do so. War was more of the focus on this last part than any religious considerations. All of the characters will experience profound loss, and so the epic becomes very tragic. Arjuna is forced to attack Bhima, and both Arjuna and Bhima lose their respective sons. I was not able to relate the morals that I found in the video easily to the text, but I did find some moral considerations on my own. I think that it is important to talk about the moral crisis that occurs in the section entitled Death of Drona , as well as the wise words of Yudhishthira at the ...

Yudhishthira and His Dog, Ascending on  Wikimedia This is a continuation of my Mahabharata notes. I found it extremely easy to get lost in the reading. This is for several reasons, and I am sure that other students, or other people experiencing the Mahabharata for the first time, probably find it a little overwhelming, too. The names are strange, people have multiple spouses, characters go on their own adventures for years, etc. As I had with the Ramayana, I went to YouTube to find a summary video to help me make sense of things. The first video that I came across was “Summary of Mahabharata” which you can access here: link . From this video, I took note of important morals to be learned from the epic. It is still necessary to read the original text, but I thought that it would be a good idea to try and take notes in a different form. In this set of notes, I have talked about key themes or morals in the story and given examples that I thought were important to menti...

Image on  Flickr For my Reading B notes of the Mahabharata, I took my notes in list format. I noted important names (trying to keep people and relationships straight!) and events. Also, I occasionally quoted directly from the reading notes provided with the PDE version to help. When I do this, I always use quotation marks so that I do not accidentally plagiarize when it comes to summarizing the work or writing my stories. I also watched the YouTube video explaining some of the key differences between the Mahabharata and Game of Thrones, one of my favorite shows. Some of the character comparisons did not seem as important to me. One of those was Littlefinger and Shakuni, and I had to look up Shakuni to remember who he was. Shakuni was Duryodhana’s uncle who was said to have started the Kurukshetra war. This relates to Littlefinger in that both men are highly intelligent, but they often cause others harm. In Game of Thrones, Littlefinger ends up bein...