Skip to main content

Week 3 Reading Notes: Ramayana Part A


  • People 
    • Dasharatha - ruler of Koshala, father of Rama, of "the solar race," has no sons by any of his 3 wives
    • Janaka - ruler of Mithila and father of Sita 
    • Vashishtha and Vamadeva - family priests to Dasharatha
    • Kaushalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra - wives of Dasharatha 
  • Places
    • Koshala - powerful kingdom in Hindustan, ruled by Dasharatha
      • Ayodhya - capital city - richly decorated with towering temples and noble palaces, "full of prosperous and happy people"
    • Mithila - powerful kingdom in Hindustan, ruled by Janaka
  • Sacred acts (I really don't know what else to title it)
    • Aswamedha - ceremony in which a horse is sacrificed in offering to the gods so that Dasharatha might be granted sons - successful and the deities promised that he would have four sons
  • Deities
    • Brahma - a creator god in Hinduism, has 4 faces, creator of the 4 Vedas - one for each of his mouths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma
    • Vishnu - the "preserver" in the Hindu trinity (other 2 = Brahma and Shiva), depicted as having a dark or pale blue complexion and 4 arms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu
    • Shiva - one of the principal deities of Hinduism, "destroyer of evil and the transformer," depicted with a third eye and a crescent moon on his head, matted hair, and a blue throat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva
    • Indra - Vedic deity in Hinduism, king of heaven, has similar powers as Indo-European deities such as Thor, Zeus, Jupiter, and Odin, celebrated as having killed the great symbolic evil (Asura). Depicted wielding a thunderbolt and riding a white elephant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra
    • Maruts - storm deities and the sons of Rudra and Prisni, number varies from 27 to 60, depicted as violent and aggressive and "armed with golden weapons i.e. thunderbolts and lightning:" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maruts
  • Storytelling notes: After reading all of part A I decided that I wanted to try to keep track of all the characters, important places, and deities so that I can have a reference guide for my storytelling. This is just a small sampling because there are just so many names to keep track of. I have a running OneNote doc with all of the names I have come across so far in Part A. If I had included them all this would be a ridiculously long blog post. 

Image result for ramayana
(Ramayana from "10 Epic Events that Happened After the Great Ramayana" on YouTube)

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Comment Wall

23 comments
Read more

Week 13 Storytelling: Kumby's Plan

(Kumbhakarna from Smite Game Official Wiki ) As he slumbered the pounding of drums and the ringing of trumpets rolled through his unconscious mind.  Though he was cursed to slumber for half of the year, Kumby still absorbed the happenings around him. Kumby slumbered on but the pounding of drums grew steadily louder. He rolled over, covering his ears with his massive arms. However, his giant arms were not enough to drown out the sounds. "Kumby! Wake up brother, I need you now!"  a distant voice called, cutting through the fog in his mind. "Rav?" he muttered groggily. The voice called again. Kumby's eyes opened slowly blinking away the sleep. He rubbed at them with the backs of his meaty hands. "Kumby, brother, the kingdom is under attack. We are at war. I need you fighting beside me," Rav said, clapping his brother on his enormous shoulder. Kumby, the giant, blinked again willing all of the grogginess out of his mind. "What wa...
8 comments
Read more

Project Brainstorm/Research

I have been going over ideas in my head and I know that I want to do a storybook rather than a portfolio.  I might retell the Ramayana in a new, unique way. Don't ask me what that new and/or unique way is because I have no idea yet, but I'm working on it. Source:  http://ackguide.blogspot.com/p/ramayana.html Source:  https://www.tatacliq.com/que/ramayana-modern-retelling/ I am leaning more toward this option: I want to take the deities and mythological creatures found in these epics and create a completely new epic of my own. Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_deities Source: https://spiritualray.com/list-of-hindu-gods-goddesses-their-powers I have also been thinking about taking some of the women from the various stories and making them the heroes or gender flipping the male leads to make them women. Gender flipping always makes for a fun read and fresh look at an old tale. Source:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draupadi So...
Post a Comment
Read more