From Here To India- My Epics of India Course Blog

  Image of Babbity Rabbity      Once upon a time, there was a witch named Babbity Rabbity who lived in a charming house. She loved practicing her magic. She had to do it in secret, however. For these were the days of the Witch Trials, and any person accused of practicing witchcraft was usually killed.      One day she was practicing her magic as usual, and she thought she was doing it secretly enough, but a sliver of her curtain was open. A young man, who had been passing close by her house as he did everyday, glanced into her window and witnessed her reciting incantations. Face paling with horror, he ran to the town leader to tell him what he had observed. The leader, angry and frightened, rounded up the townsfolk and went to her house.      The witch, surprisingly, didn't deny the accusations. She was a witch and she was proud of it. She was a kind witch, who had never hurt anyone with her magic. They gathered around her, offering suggestions for what to do with her. &q

     For this half of the reading, I chose to focus on "The Ox Who Envied the Pig. The story starts out that a farmer had two oxen and a pig. The farmer's daughter was to be married, so they decided to fatten up the pig to serve at the feast. The two ox noticed that the pig was being fed choice food and they were being feed lean food.      The ox Big Red told Little Red that the pig ate the food of death! HE was being fattened to eat. The pig was killed, and Little Red learned a valuable lesson. They could eat lean food like grasses and live for a long time. Or they could eat the food of death and die soon. Little Red soon became very grateful that he was eating the food he was, because it meant that he could continue to work and live.  This story gave me vibes of "be careful what you wish for". Also with the death part it reminded me of the scene in Game of Thrones, where (spoiler alert) Joffrey dies from poisoning. Someone slipped poison into his food. The p

    For this week I chose to read Jataka Tales. Specifically, I wanted to write about the story of how the turtle saved his own life. The story starts out talking about a king who decided that he wanted to put a lake in the courtyard. The princes played in the lake all the time, and eventually their father the king told them that fish had been put into the lake. So they went to the lake to see the new fish. It so happened that there was a turtle lying on the bank. The princes had never seen a turtle before, and they thought it was a demon.     They came running their father, and when he heard he had the turtle/demon brought in and they decided what to do with it. Many suggestions were made about how to kill the poor turtle. Then a man, who was scared of the water, suggested throwing it into the river. The turtle was cunning, and upon hearing this he said things like "Oh, not the water!!" The people took him for his word, and the turtle was brought to the water, where he w

For this week, I decided to do a story lab, and for my story lab I decided to watch the Ted Talk videos about A New Theory of Human Intelligence, and Copyright is Brain Damage.      In A New Theory of Human Intelligence , the speaker begins with showing two different reports. One may think that they are two entirely different students, but it is revealed that they are in fact the same student, years apart. He explains the theory of the twice-exceptional student, who has lots of strengths but also unique challenges as well. In order to discover how many kids are falling through the cracks, he suggests looking at the Four C Model: Capacity, Competence, Commitment, Creativity. He talks about competence and the I.Q. test. Many people surprisingly over-perform and under-perfom based on that test score! I thought that it was very surprising, it clearly shows that the I.Q. test does not give you the complete picture of a person's ability.      Finally, I watched the second video calle

    Now I'll be taking notes as I watch through the second half of these episodes. In episode 11, Brahma decided to test Krishna's divinity by taking his friends and their cows. Krishna, discovering all this missing, decided to use his divinity to understand that it was Brahma behind this. So he decided to play a funny trick on Brahma to humble him. He created the cows and his friends out of himself, and no one was any the wiser. For a whole year this went on, and Brahma, discovering the trick, bowed before Krishna's power. He learned a valuable lesson that day.     In the next episode, which I enjoyed, Krishna declares that he will ride Hastin by the next full moon. No one believed him. But day after day Krishna would come to the cowshed where Hastin was and would play his flute for hours, and feed sweet food to him. He was slowly winning Hastin over, and was able to move closer and closer to Hastin Eventually, during the next full moon, Krishna lept onto Hastin and rode

     I really enjoyed the Epified Mahabharata, so for this week I wanted to do the Epified about Krishna. I look forward to reading about this one because aside from previous readings I have no previous knowledge about Krishna. It will be interesting to hopefully get a deeper insight into his story.      The story begins that while Arjuna, one of the Pandavas's was being born, Krishna was being born too. There was a cruel king in a faraway land called Mathura by the name of Kansa. He married his cousin to Vasudev, Kansa was told that the 8th child of this couple would be the one to slay him. As such he decided to lock them away in prison, and every time a child was born to the couple he did a very cruel thing and threw the child against the walls of the cell. Eventually Krishna was born.That night, led by a voice, Vasudev was able to exit the cell and was led across a river to a camp. There he exchanged his son for a cowherd's daughter Maya, who had also been born that night.

     Duryodhana, born to Ghandari, grew up jealous of Bhima. He believed that Bhima was getting all the attention. Everywhere Duryodhana went it was Bhima this and Bhima that. He decided to take matters into his own hands and kill Bhima, so for once the attention would be on HIM. He put his plan into action by inviting the Pandevas to a wonderful picnic by the water. Little did the Pandevas know that Duryodhana had laced the food with a powerful poison. Bhima sat down and ate. And he ate. Eventually he fell into a deep sleep.      Duryodhana, pleased with his success, tied ropes around Bhima's hands and feet while the other Pandeva's weren't looking. "Now we'll see who's Bhishma's favorite," he whispered quitely to his foe, who of course couldn't hear him. Without further ado, he pushed Bhima into the water to drown.      And so Bhima sunk in the water. Down down down... ........... Bhima fighting the Nagas As Bhima sunk, he was attac

    Episode Nine opens with a summary of what happened in the last episode, and tells the story of Kunti's secret, that she had a child with the sun god Suryadev. He was born with golden earrings and was armored. Because she was unmarried, she knew that she would be unable to keep him, so she placed him in a basket and floated him down a river.     In the next episode, Pandu and his wives decide to spend some time in the forest together. Pandu decided to go hunting, and while hunting he shot an arrow at a hermit couple who were making love. Because of this, as the hermit died he decided to curse Pandu that the moment he became intimate with another woman, he would die. Kunti decided to tell Pandu of the mantra she'd been give that would allow her to summon any god and bear the god's child. Pandu was glad to hear of this because Hastinapura would be given a line of succession. She had 3 sons : Yuhistira, Bhima, and Arjuna. But Madri was without children, so Kunti agreed to

     For this weeks reading's I decided to watch the Epifed version of the Mahabharata. Part A first introduces us to the story, then begins with the Shantanu marrying the river goddess Ganga (on the promise that he'd never question her decisions). She gave birth to eight children, and one by one she drowned them in the river, except for the last one. Davarata, his last son, grew up and eventually was reunited with his father. However, King Shatanu fell in love with a fisherman's daughter. Since Davarata's children would always take precedence in the line of succession, King Shatanu could not marry her. Davarata decided to take matters into his own hands and make a terrible vow. Davarata vowed to never marry or father any children, and became known as Bhisma. Bhisma then toook the fisherman's daughter to his father for his father to marry. Davarata felt, instead of happy, like his heart had doomed them. The fisherman's daughter gave birth to two sons, one of whi

Feedback Cat: Rise to the Challenge      Looking back, I am happy with my progress so far. I'm right where I should be, even slightly ahead. I am most proud that I've been able to stay on task with my person schedule even with everything that is going on right now (I'm taking two 8-week courses and they're finishing up this week, plus I've done several interviews). I would consider that I have a good weekly routine, it's changed slightly with trying to get things for my 8-week courses finished, but overall I have a good routine going. The class assignment that I enjoy the most so far is working on my storybook project, though I do find the readings to be pretty interesting, since before I started this course I knew very little about Indian mythology. I have used a couple of the extra credit options, but my other courses take up much of my time. As soon as I finish my 8-week courses this week and the vast amount of reading for a different course, I want to

Feedback Cat      Overall I'd say that my classmates are giving really good feedback so far. The comments that are most helpful to me so far are specific ones that give me suggestions about how I can improve my writing. I didn't do much of this kind of writing before I started this course so I always appreciate constructive suggestions on how to make it better. Suggestions like "Try making a new paragraph every time a different person speaks" are very helpful, and make the story flow so much better.      I try to give the same kind of feedback that I want. I like getting specific comments on how I can improve my writing, so after I talk about what I really enjoyed about their story, if I see if there is anything specific suggestions I can give for them to make their stories even better. I am getting some good ideas to improve my own writing as I analyze other people's work.     I would say that I sort of get to know people by looking at their blogs. I w

    Luke from my Comment Wall      Looking back, overall the reading and writing assignments are going great for me. This course is allowing me to express my creativity in a new and fun way. I'm pretty happy with my blog and project website, I still need to tweak the background a bit to get it perfect, other than that I'm happy with it. I'm really satisfied with how the writing is going for my story book project. This is the most fun I've ever had on a final project and it honestly doesn't really feel like work to me. I'm also enjoying writing the weekly stories, because it allows me to practice my story writing and improve on it as I get ready to write the stories for my storybook assignment. Overall I think it's going well, my classmates are giving me good tips on how to improve my stories so that they get better and better.      I consider one of my biggest accomplishments in this course to be conquering my fear of writing. When I first started wr

   Jeopardy Logo    "Welcome everyone, to Life or Death Jeopardy, I'm your host Dharma, and on today's show we have the five Pandava brothers. We'll be bringing in each brother one at a time and if they can answer all the riddles, they win a fantastic prize," Dharma said. Smiling, he turned to his assistant. "Could we have the first contestant please?" he asked her. She turned and walked away, and brought onstage the first brother, Nakula.       "Excellent," Dharma continued. "Now Nakula, in order to win the prize, you must answer the riddle, and answer correctly. If you do not, you will unfortunately perish. Are you ready?"       But Nakula didn't want to answer the riddle. He demanded the prize now. And so he died. Sahadeva came on stage after him, and refused to answer the riddle also.Arjuna came onstage after Sahadeva, and not only refused to answer the riddle, but attacked the host also. He fell over dead like a

     The story that most caught my eye in this final portion of the Mahabarata was the story of the Night Raid. Duryodhana was dying on the battlefield and was visited by Ashwatthaman. Ashwatthaman was given permission to attack the Pandavas while they slept. So he went to do so. He came across the god Shiva, and since he had nothing else to offer Ashwatthaman threw his body into a fire. Shiva entered his body and decided to fulfill Ashwatthaman's desire. The Night Raid      Ashwatthaman slaughered all of the Draupadi's sons with a vengance. It was horrible. This is something that I would perhaps see in a show like Game of Thrones. Perhaps if I were to do a story on this, I would give it a Game of Thrones type setting.      Draupadi is grieving the loss of course, and she demands revenge be taken. They keep refusing her and refusing her. Finally, Draupadi says  that they should take the jewel of Ashwatthaman so that he will be vulnerable. They agree to do so and fina

     One of the stories that really caught my attention while reading this portion of the Mahabarata was Riddles at the Lake. This story starts off with them coming upon a stag that carried wood in it's antlers that the brahmins used for fires. The Pandava brothers were begged to get the wood for them, and eventually they agreed. So they chased the deer until they were exhausted and thirsty. So they looked for water.      The came across a pool of water that told the princes that they would be allowed to drink the water if they could answer a riddle. The first brother, Nakula, was impatient and drank from teh water and fell dead. So it went, brother after  brother falling dead because they were too impatient to answer the the riddle. Finally, Yudhishthira went to the water and saw his dead brothers. The pool once again asked for his riddles to be answered, and revealed himself to be a yaksha. Yudhishthira  answered each riddle, one by one, until the pool of water was satisfied.