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 14 Review

This video caught my eye because I had heard the story of Esther many times in church but I liked the way they told the story in this video. The song was clever and the video was humorous. Also, I didn't know what the festival of Purim was or that it celebrated the story of Esther, pretty cool stuff.  ( Image Source ) I loved this image because it is an important thing to remember when writing. As a writer, I am always hypercritical of my own work. That's, why it took me so long to conclude that I should: a) be an English Writing major and b) actually let people read my writing. There have been several posts this week about remembering that a fear of being wrong or striving to be perfect will only hold you back.
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 14 Reading: Seven Secrets of the Goddess Part B

Rural cultures v. urban cultures rural valued fertility - associated with women urban valued obedience - associated with men, making women subservient  indicated control and discipline urbanization led to more rules and the idea of evil - one who does not submit to the rules Chinese myth Yin & Yang work in harmony to create life Yin - male dragon in the sky yang- the earth like a phoenix that recreates itself from ashes  Confucian traditions favor culture over nature favoring hierarchy, making the man more important  patriarchal societies link women with nature and men with culture culture domesticates nature --> men are asked to domesticate women Mesopotamian myth Marduk (male god-king) defeats Tiamat the primal female monster and brings order to the world stories like this abound across cultures Adam & Eve Eve tempts Adam to eat the forbidden fruit before Eve, God created Lilith who refused to be subservient to Adam a...
Post a Comment
Read more