Spring 2018 Indian Epics

Pour you a drink, kid? Who, that? Why son, don't you know that picture there's the Honorable Judge Goodness? He rid this town from Black Bennett and his gang... This was back in, oh, '85 or '87 I suppose. Before the century turned, at any rate. Bennett had began rustling from a few of the north side pastures come early fall, and the ranchers were pissed. Horace Goodness, not a judge yet then, was working deputy part times. Sheriff Dugan was getting up there in years, and Horace was the one you came to if you had a problem.  I'm sorry? No, he didn't kill them! He was the kindest son of a biscuit you ever met, and I don't think he so much as swatted a gnat in all his days. No, son, what he did was much smarter than that. See, the Bennett gang had grew considerable over the last few years, and bolder too. A firefight was out of the question.  It was after they raided the Gunter's homestead; that was messy business and left the whole tow...

For the first half of this week's reading, I chose to categorize each of the short Jataka tales into The Shapes of Stories. While this was fun, I think there are quite a few tales so short or even so different as to not fit precisely into a specific story "shape." So, for this reading I am going to focus on my favorites and why I enjoyed them. The Stupid Monkeys This story reminded me so much of the children's book series featuring Amelia Bedelia , a woman whose good intentions always led her astray. I loved that series, and read them as a kid quite often. One of my favorite stories was when she decided to boil and salt the potatoes before planting them in the garden, so that they would be ready to eat when they finished growing. This story talks about practicality and foolishness in much the same way, using foolish monkeys so concerned with saving water they uproot each plant to check the root size before watering. I also think that the monkeys are more concerned ...

I've decided this week to use The Shapes of Stories , as described by Kurt Vonnegut, to classify each of the Jataka readings. I chose the Francis and Thomas Jataka Tales because I wanted to continue comparing each of the ancient Hindu stories with those of other cultures (it's insane how many of them are similar, or even spring from the same source), and their collection contains more than each of the others, giving me several weeks worth of reading. Web Source:  The Shapes of Stories The Little Guildmaster This is a delightful tale of pulling one up by one's bootstraps. Shrewd, skillful business and trade is used by the little guildmaster, beginning with a mouse and ending with a fortune and a family. I'm pretty sure I've read other stories along the same lines, but this is always a fun story concept. This falls strongly under the "Creation Story" shape (life quality very poor initially but steadily increasing, and ending with near maximal quality...

I knew I needed to do a little research on some of the characters featured in my storybook for Rama's Bridge, and I decided to look a little harder at the Vanara brothers this week. Nila, the brother of Nala, was my starting point. Nila  (Ramayana) Both of the brothers have some amazing credentials, but Nila is no less than the commander-in-chief of the Vanara army, while Nala is the architect of the bridge. Sources vary explaining precisely who built the bridge and who carried the rocks for it, but Nila has a rich military history and is regarded as a legendary general, as well as the son of Agni, the fire-god. Both of the brothers apparently have the ability to make stones float on water, which is related to Rama by Varuna during the Ramayana pre-bridge effort. Varuna While the sea-god Varuna has a brief mention in the Ramayana, he is one of the oldest known deities associated with Hinduism, and he is also associated with Buddhism and Jainism.  Rama conducts a three-da...