Spring 2018 Indian Epics

I chose this reading to learn a little more about Pujahs, rituals of India, and their origins.  Satya Naranaya Puja, religious worship of Vishnu Image Source: Wikimedia Commons The Manasa or Naga-Panchami Ceremony (performed July) Firstly, learning where Nagini's name came from was really cool, as this ceremony features the worship of snakes (Naga... Nagini!). The dry season historically can bring illness and intestinal epidemics to regions lacking sanitary restroom facilities, and this ritual was viewed as a way to honor the deities responsible for such illnesses, and I'm guessing to alleviate in advance their most painful and potentially life-threatening repercussions. Briefly featured in The Divine Brothers, Manasa briefly leaves her divine home to enjoy the Pujah of the ceremony devoted to her. A human girl staying in Manasa's house at the behest of Manasa's two divine sons wreaks havoc galore when asked to keep the baby snakes fed, other children of Manas...

This will be my last post to finish this class, and while I'm ecstatic to have more time to focus on finals, I am quite sad to finish. I loved the steady stream of facts, tidbits, images, and motivational snippets presented here, and I might have to teach myself how to use that Twitter thing just to keep enjoying all the extras this class held. This semester I learned: How to create a blog How to create a website How to positively give functional feedback How to legally source photographs for web use How to brainstorm for creative writing (which I've actually done precious little of since grade school) How to make memes on the fly How to conduct a horse sacrifice (that's one I will never actually do, but now I know) And that's not even including the content we studied! Rama, Hanuman, Krishna, Vishnu, Yama, and so many more. I loved discovering similarities between folktales of India and other cultures, and I loved all of the origin stories (as my bridge projec...