Reading Notes: Narayan's Ramayana Part B

Two thing stood out to me most in this last part.

First, the devotion of Sita to Rama, as well as everyone's devotion to Rama. She had the chance to stay behind in splendor and wait for him to come back, and Lakshmana had the chance to stay behind and be treated as a royal, but they both followed Rama into the woods to face whatever was coming at his side. I was a little surprised by how ready a few people were to kill themselves when Rama didn't get to be king or when they found out that Dasaratha was dead (see the giant eagle), but that's just ancient devotion I guess.

The second thing was the trickery of Soorpanaka, and the fact that all of her tricks in this story came because she, as the embodiment of evil, fell hopelessly in love for Rama, the embodiment of good. It was funny to read when she was talking to Ravana and trying to cover up her feelings - everything I've encountered so far has made me want to read the poem itself rather than just the prose version.

I'm also greatly enjoying all of the art coming along with the research over these stories. This style of art is gorgeous!

Citations:
Picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shurpanakha
Reading: Narayan, R. K. (2006). The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic. London: Penguin Books.

Comments

Reading Notes: Nine Ideal Indian Women; The Story of Savitri

The story of Savitri had a great affect on me this week because of her strength, and ability to know what she wanted from life. When she was presented with situations that she did not like, she accepted what was inevitable, but knew her own power and what she was able to accomplish, and used it. I loved the style of writing throughout the story (enough to buy the whole book on Amazon), because all of the descriptions were about the relationships between characters or what they were feeling. There are definitely some beautiful stories that have a lot of detail poured into the surroundings and the background to set up a better mental image, but the relational writing here was beautiful. This depiction of Savitri following her husband into the woods spoke to me because she did not try to plead or prevent what she knew was inevitable, but she did everything she could to deal with it when it happened. Bibliography: Devee, M. S. (1970, January 01). Nine ideal Indian Wo...

Reading Notes: Nine Ideal Women Part E

This will be the last of my reading notes on Nine Ideal Indian Women, so I'll be going over the last stories about Damayanti and Uttara, but mostly just talking about the book as a whole and wrapping up my thoughts about it. Damayanti was the miracle daughter of a maharajah who had not had children for most of his life. A phrase that I really loved in the beginning of the story that described his happiness all blighted by this one sorrow of being childless: "A crumpled leaf lay in his bed of roses, and whichever way he turned he felt it, for no child had come to bless his manhood and his whole being yearned for the joy of hearing the name of father fall from baby lips" (page 175). I loved that quote because it was the most poetic and graceful way of showing the sorrow of being childless I had seen out of all of the multiple instances in the stories I've read throughout the semester. This story was also more poetic than most of the others throughout. It remin...

Reading Notes: Jataka Part B

For this week I read: The Bull That Demanded Fair Treatment, The Bull that Proved His Gratitude, Horse that Held Out to the End, The Monkey that Saved the Herd, The Mallard that Asked for Too Much, The Merchant Who Overcame All Obstacles, The Elephant that Was Honored in Old Age, and The Faithful Friend. In The Bull That Demanded Fair Treatment, the common theme of the importance of respectful treatment of all living things is shown. This theme is consistent in most stories, and is usually only acceptably broken when the object of disrespect has compromised their own personal integrity in some way. Again in this story, the main character traits were played out through dialogue, either to the self or to other characters in the story. In The Bull that Proved His Gratitude, a similar story comes about - there is a bull treated very well, he wants to make a living for his owner, he pulls some heavy things, and in the end is rewarded by further adoration from his owner. T...

Indian Epics

Search This Blog