Spring 2018 Indian Epics

Squirrel Helping in Bridge Building Between India and Sri Lanka Image Source:  Hindu Gallery Everyone likes a good conspiracy theory. I always get a nice chuckle out of videos and posts regarding a flat earth, faked moon landings, or especially chemical trails. These ideas, while laughable, are undeniably in keeping with the tradition of our species to give stories and life to that which cannot be immediately explained or understood. Our relatively recent advances in science and technology are but the tiniest layer atop millennia spent ascribing divinity, legend, and myth to all we see. The Storyteller, Josephine Wall Image Source: Pinterest Mythology showcases the absolute creativity of the human race. We imagine unique explanations for everything around us. Mountains were the bones of the giant Ymir's body. The sun was pulled by a chariot across the sky. The stars were thrown into the sky as quartz chips by an ancient trickster coyote. So many physical, tangi...

I began this trail while looking up more information on King Sagara , mentioned in the "Bhagiratha and Ganga" story in the PDE Ramayana. He was said to have lost 60,000 sons and I wrote my story this week on that. While reading about him, I was interested to learn more about the age he lived in, because the scale of time involved in the story is massive. That led me to the Satya Yuga , the first of four Yugas (great ages) which cycle through endlessly. They are not the same length, and the Satya Yuga is 1,728,000 years long. This was fascinating because I already learned about the Kali Yuga, the final and darkest age which concludes with the arrival of.... Dasavatar: The Avatars of Vishnu Image Source: Wikimedia Commons Kalki , the final avatar that Vishnu occupies in the cycle of existence. He arrives to end the dark age of Kali Yuga, and he is mentioned not only in Puranic texts but also Buddhist literature. A text from Tibetan-Buddhism mentions that there are a...

REIGN OF KING SAGARA King Sagara’s grandson Anshumat found the ashes in an open plain.  The horse was there also, but hours passed before he realized that the powdered grey sands he trod upon were the ashes of his uncles. As any good nephew would, he searched for water to consecrate their deaths. There was none. He traveled north, then east, and finally south. In the far south of the plains he found a man, who explained that no water would suffice for oblation save that of the Ganga, the holy celestial rivers of heaven. Anshumat left the plain of ash, and returned the horse to his grandfather. King Sagara despaired, but resolved to find some means of moving the Ganga to earth. King Sagara spent his reign in mourning for the loss of his sixty-thousand sons. He failed to attract the attention of the gods.  His rule lasted thirty-thousand years. REIGN OF KING ANSHUMAT I wait. Many thousand years have passed, and I wait. My brothers wait with me, all sav...

"Wikipedian Protester" Great example of constructive feedback Image Source: Wikimedia Commons I chose to focus on two articles which explored the potentially negative side effects of praise. Presence, not Praise  relates a study performed in 1998 which analyzed the effects of praise for intellect vs. praise for effort. The findings of this study support the idea that not all praise is equal; the children who were praised for effort approached their next set of problems with greater patience and a higher success rate than those who were praised for the sharpness of their intellect previously. In fact, the very act of acknowledging cleverness in many of these children was found to cause anxiety and fears of failure, reducing their ability to solve the next set of problems. This makes sound sense to me, and I think all parents should consider the praise factor while their children are still young. In a scholastic sense, this is also valuable advice. Stating that some...

Significant plot progression of the Ramayana thus far seems to be linked to a series of bad choices made by female characters. Beginning with Donald A. Mackenzie's relation of  Manthara's influence on Kaikeyi  to banish Rama, the theme continues with Surpanakha's instigation of Sita's kidnapping. While this is happening, Sita herself contributes to her own folly by shaming Lakshmana into chasing after Rama following the death of Maricha, leaving herself alone and undefended when Ravana arrives. With the exception of Shabari, the wise woman waiting in the shrine untouched by time, the female characters portrayed so far are responsible for the majority of the conflicts described. Kecak Ramayana in Bali, a dance recreating the battle from the Ramayana Image Source: Flickr Seen from Ravana's point of view, his actions are not so morally reprehensible, at least not at first. His sister Surpanakha has been permanently disfigured, and his brother Khara is killed...

Ganges River Delta Image Source: NASA The story which grabbed my attention immediately was that found in The Great Indian Epics, by John Campbell Oman, of Bagiratha and Ganga : The origin of the Ganges River , told to Rama by Vishvamitra prior to their visit to Mithila. The sheer scale of time involved in this story is impressive. Just for fun, if Vishvamitra was telling Rama this story at ~5085 BCE (which is taken from this fascinating page regarding  Scientific Dating of Ramayan Era ), and this story relates ancient times, then using the reigning time given for each ruler as seen below, 92,000 total years elapsed within the ancient story alone. For this story to be dubbed ancient when it was related implies a passage of time nearly mind-boggling.  Sagara reigned 30,000 years.  Anshumat his son reigned 32,000 years.  Dilipa, his successor, reigned 30,000 years. Only Bhagiratha was able to succeed in his quest to elevate his 60,000 dead un...