Reading Notes: C.A. Kinkaid's Mahabharata, Part B

• The Pandava brothers have finished their 12 years of exile and now have to do their one year of disguise in King Virata's kingdom
• Yudhishthira becomes a gambler
• Bhima becomes a cook
• Arjuna becomes a dancing teacher
• Nakula works in the stables
• Sahadeva becomes a cowherd
• Draupadi becomes Queen Sudeshna's maid
• Kichaka, the queen's brother, tries to rape Draupadi
• Bhima dresses as Draupadi when Kichaka comes to rape her, and he kills Kichaka
• Draupadi tells the queen she has a celestial husband that killed Kichaka
• Duryodhana learns that Kichaka has died, and launches an attack on King Virata, taking King Virata captive
• The Pandavas' year of disguise ended right after Virata was captured, and the Pandavas decide to retrieve King Virata
• The Pandavas are victorious in getting King Virata back, and they then reveal their true identities to Virata
• Arjuna's son, Abhimanyu, marries King Virata's daughter, Uttara
• Yudhishthira tries to make peace with King Dhritarashtra, but Duryodhana forces King Dhritarashtra to decline the offer
• Duryodhana tries to force the Pandavas to spend another 12 years in exile
• Pandavas do not want to spend more years in exile, so they do battle with the Kauravas
• Bhima once again vows to break Duryodhana's thigh and drink his blood
• The Pandava army is much smaller than the Kaurava army
• Arjuna kills Bhishma and attends to Bhishma as he dies. There is a small ceasefire at this time
• Arjuna slays Karna when Karna's chariot becomes stuck
• Duryodhana, Aswatthaman, and Kripa and Kritavarman only Kauravas left
• Duryodhana hides under a lake from the Pandavas
• Duryodhana agrees to come out to fight Bhima in single combat
• Bhima breaks Duryodhana's thigh
• Kaurava survivors go kill all of the remaining Pandavas except the brothers and Krishna
• Arjuna's son. Abhimanyu among those who was killed
• All of Draupadi's sons had been killed
• All 100 of Dhritarashtra's sons have been killed so Dhritarashtra tries to kill Bhima but accidentally crushes a statue instead as he is blind
• Dhritarashtra and Kunti go to a forest to escape the rule of the Pandavas and die in a fire
• Yudhishthira becomes king of Hastinapura
• Uttara, wife of Abhimanyu, has a child named Parikshit
• Krishna dies after being shot after he was mistaken for a deer
• Arjuna took all five of Krishna's wives north to rivers but the wives are captured by barbarians
• After hearing of the Krishna news, Yudhishthira decides to leave the world with all of the Pandavas and Draupadi
• Parikshit named king of Hastinapura
• Bharatas are all reunited in death
• Each of the Pandavas and Draupadi die while hiking the Himalayas
• Yudhishthira was the last to go, and was tricked multiple times
• Indra told Yudhishthira to go to heaven but Yudhishthira would not leave his dog - he passed the loyalty test
• Yudhishthira and his dog went to heaven, but his brothers were not there so Yudhishthira asked to go to hell and found his brothers there - this was passing another test so all of the Pandavas, Duryodhana, and Draupadi returned to heaven.
• Duryodhana and Yudhishthira embrace and are, once again, brothers that love each other. Duryodhana has no more jealousy

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Duryodhana_found_in_the_lake.jpg/657px-Duryodhana_found_in_the_lake.jpg

Bibliography

"The Mahabharata". C.A. Kinkaid. Found online here

Reading Notes: C.A. Kinkaid's Mahabharata, Part A

Family Tree

For each family, an indent denotes a new generation

• Vichitravirya - King of Hastinapura
• Dhritarashtra - Blind son of Vichitravirya, King after Pandu dies
• Duryodhana - eldest son of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari
• Pandu - King of Hastinapura
• Yudhishthira (son of Kunti) - becomes leader after Dhritarashtra
• Bhima (son of Kunti)
• Arjuna (son of Kunti)
• Nakula (son of Madri)
• Sahadeva (son of Madri)

Other Information

• The sons of Pandu are known as the Pandavas
• Dhritarashtra and Queen Gandhari have 100 sons
• The sons of Dhritarashtra are known as the Kauravas
• All of the Pandavas and Kauravas are long descendents of King Bharata
• Drona is the teacher of the Pandavas and the Kauravas
• Leads attack on Drupada, and Drupada prays to the gods for revenge on the Bharatas
• Draupadi is born from Drupada's sacrificial fire
• Duryodhana decides to kill the Pandavas and their mother, Kunti
• The half-brother of the Pandavas and Kauravas, Vidura helps the Pandavas escape the planned fire
• Karna is the secret child of Kunti and sun god Surya
• Draupadi is going to be married away
• Karna and Arjuna compete in an archery contest for Draupadi
• Karna was winning, but Draupadi announced she will not marry Karna because Karna was raised by a charioteer
• Arjuna wins Draupadi and they are to get married
• Kunti mistakenly tells Arjuna that he must share what he has gotten thinking that Arjuna had received food
• Kunti can not take back her word, so Draupadi must marry all five Pandava brothers
• The Pandava brothers all had weddings with Draupadi, one immediately after another
• The Pandava brothers became allied with King Drupada after they married Draupadi
• Bhishma is the uncle of King Dhritarashtra
• Bhishma urges Duryodhana to forgive the Pandavas and make peace
• Duryodhana invites the Pandavas to have half his kingdom and the Pandavas name the kingdom Indraprastha
• Arjuna is exiled from the kingdom after he enters Draupadi's room uninvited while Yudhishthira is in Draupadi's room
• Arjuna is son of Indra and has done favors for Agni, the fire god and received celestial weapons from Agni
• Arjuna meets Subhadra and marries her
• Subhadra is the sister of Krishna, who likes Arjuna immediately because Krishna knows who Arjuna truly is
• The Pandava brothers get a palace from Maya, an asura who Arjuna spared while killing all of the nagas
• Yudhishthira declares himself emperor of the palace
• Shakuni - Duryodhana's maternal uncle
• Shakuni urged Duryodhana to exploit Yudhishthira's gambling problem to gain the palace
• Duryodhana does so
• Yudhishthira loses everything to Shakuni in games of dice
• Yudhishthira even gambles and loses Draupadi
• Duryodhana taunts Draupadi by showing his thigh
• Bhima vows to break Duryodhana's thigh in battle
• King Dhritarashtra gives everything back to the Pandavas and Duryodhana is outraged
• Duryodhana once again challenges Yudhishthira to a game of dice and Yudhishthira wages 12 years in exile and loses
• Vyasa is the grandfather of the Pandavas
• Vyasa urges the Pandavas to send Arjuna in search of celestial weapons
• Arjuna gets the weapons
• Bhima captured by a snake in a cave
• Snake tells Yudhishthira that he will free Bhima if Yudhishthira answers enough questions correctly, and Yudhishthira does so

Draupadi as she is being gambled away by Yudhishthira. Image courtesy
of  Wikimedia

Bibliography

"The Mahabharata". C.A. Kinkaid. Found online here

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Feedback In

Overall, I think the quality of comments I've gotten from my classmates has been very good. On most of my stories, someone has commented with a way to make my story better. On the comment wall, I got some very good suggestions that I think have really improved my storybook. I definitely find critical comments the most useful. I know I am not a great creative writer, and getting any critical feedback helps me improve my creative writing.

Feedback Out

I think I have left good feedback for my classmates, but sometimes I do struggle to leave feedback. Sometimes I read stories and cannot think of any way to improve upon what the original author had already written. I've found the WWW strategy for feedback to be the most useful for me. Using the WWW strategy, I have a good method to lay out the positives of each story and then mention what I think could be good potential revisions. Through reading other people's stories, I've found some interesting ideas for future stories, and I hope to get to try these ideas in one of the coming weeks.

Blog Comments

I think that I have some sense of getting to know some people in the class, but I do not feel like I know anyone super well. It seems that the blog comment randomizer typically sends me to the same blogs over and over again, so I am trying to start branching out more without the randomizer to visit more people's blogs. I do think that my introduction was a pretty good introduction to me - it summarized me pretty well. I've gotten some good comments back on my introduction.

Looking Forward

I'm not sure what I could do to improve my future feedback for others and myself. I think that the more stories I give feedback on, the better I'll get at offering feedback. For now, I think it is best to focus on the content within each comment and maybe check back to see if authors accepted the advice or not as a sense of whether my feedback was good or not.

Image

I've chosen the following image because I think listening skills are some of the most important professional skills there are. Without being capable of listening well, you cannot possibly grow as a professional or grow your skills.

Image by Tanmay Vora

Week 8 Reading and Writing

Looking Back

Overall, I think I have learned a ton about Indian mythology this semester. Two months ago, I couldn't have named any gods/goddesses, and I definitely could not have told anyone anything about the Indian epics. I think the writing assignments force me to critically review the reading assignments I've completed so that I can adapt the story from its original story. At this point in time, I am very happy with my project. I feel like I have a topic I am interested in and a plan that is solid. I am learning a lot as I research for my stories. I am mostly happy with my blog, but I feel that I struggle with stories quite a bit. Most times, I have problems thinking of stories to write for my blog. I want to write something interesting, but I am not a good creative writer. I tend to like highly technical papers; I typically only read and write technical reports. On that note, I think my biggest accomplishment to date is my WWE Mahabharata story. I was able to make a creative story without any problems, which is not typical for me. I do think my reading notes are the only reason I'm able to come up with stories. If I took worse notes, writing a story would be nearly impossible. I think my favorite reading strategy that I've found is researching as I read. If I'm interested in something, sometimes I'll hop over to Wikipedia and get more information about the topic. My favorite reading so far has definitely been the Ramayana. It was super interesting to start learning so much about Indian mythology so fast and I enjoyed the plot more than I enjoyed the plot of the Mahabharata. I can recall a lot more information from the Ramayana as well.

This picture of a temple in Vijayanagara has been my favorite picture from
any of my reading notes. I was amazed at the beauty of the architecture and
stone-working in the temple. Image from Wikimedia

Looking Forward

Going into the future, I think I need to take more time to digest stories and research the background information so that I can get more out of the readings. If I get more out of the readings, writing will be easier and I will learn more about each topic. I also should experiment with more note-taking strategies going forward with the class. 

Week 7 Story: Duryodhana's Battle

Here I sit, in heaven, reflecting on the battle where I eventually lost my life. The whole time, I knew what destiny had in store for me, but I did not want to accept it. I knew the twelve years of exile were soon to be up for the Pandavas. I dreaded their inevitable return to me. I knew that the Pandavas would want the kingdom, and I was not willing to give it up. When the Pandavas finally showed up, asking for the kingdom, it was time to go to war. Krishna tried to peacefully settle the situation, but we all knew that this wouldn't work out. I was not ready to make peace with the Pandavas, and they weren't ready to make peace with me. Once Krishna returned to his kingdom, I knew my best chances at winning the war were to get him on my side. Krishna was always so powerful. I showed up at his kingdom, and Krishna was asleep. Then, to my disbelief, Arjuna came strolling in too. It was only fair that I got Krishna's help since I was first. However, Krishna defaulted to Arjuna for advice first. However, Arjuna turned down Krishna's army and instead took Krishna. This was the first time I felt confident in our chances. I thought Arjuna was foolish for neglecting to choose the army. Oh, how I wish I would have known better...

In a last-ditch effort, Krishna came to my palace and assumed the All-Form of Indra to threaten us to make peace with the Pandavas. I thought that he knew that the Pandavas would lose the fight, and was trying to get us to accept peace. I was wrong.

The battle broke out soon after. At first, our forces seemed level with the Pandava forces. I thought we would pull ahead. We had the numbers, and fierce warriors in Bhishma, Karna, Drona, and others. However, we soon fell behind, thanks to Bhishma. Bhishma was not aggressive enough. He failed to exploit the weaknesses of the Pandavas. I'm sure we would have made more progress if he had been a better warrior. I tried to pressure Bhishma into letting Karna take over, but Bhishma denied. Eventually, Bhishma decided he would make a push. I was happy to hear this, but knew a quickly planned battle would not go well for our forces against Arjuna. However, I didn't mind to see Bhishma relinquished from duty. Sure enough, Bhishma perished at the hands of Arjuna - as I expected. Bhishma was not a strong enough warrior or leader to win a fight with Arjuna. Then, I put Drona in charge. In retrospect, I wish I had put Karna in charge. Drona followed in similar footsteps as Bhishma, and faced the same fate. Around the time Drona fell in battle, we also lost many other formidable soldiers. At this point, I knew my forces were doomed to lose. We had hardly anyone left, and the Pandavas still had great forces. Arjuna slew Karna in a cowardly way, but what else could I expect from a Pandava? However, I couldn't live to see my kingdom in the hands of the Pandavas...

I went to hide in a lake - I thought that the Pandavas would assume I fled and would not hunt me down. However, Bhima found me. Bhima had it out for me. Sure enough, we did battle. I thought I would surely crush Bhima. However, he cheap-shotted me in the knee with his mace. What a cowardly way to end a battle. This was my fate. I'd rather be dead than see the Pandavas in power.

In the end, I do not regret doing battle with the Pandavas. I only regret not electing more powerful generals. Bhishma and Drona cost me the war. I should have taken Krishna on my side, he was more powerful than his entire army - even when not fighting. I should have won. The kingdom should still be mine.

Me and Bhima fighting to the death.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia

Author's Note:

Instead of rewriting one small story from the Mahabharata, I decided to rewrite the battle from Duryodhana's perspective. Throughout the story, I wondered what the story would be told like if told from Duryodhana's point-of-view. Would the Pandava's be cast as the bad guys? I wrote the story of the war from Duryodhana's perspective, and I felt that he was quick to cast blame to others and was excessively confident. He was quick to throw both Bhishma and Drona under the bus when things went south, and I think that he would blame the loss on the two of them. I felt that Duryodhana and his forces generally did not recognize their wrongdoings throughout the Mahabharata. For example, Karna did not hesitate to ask for safety while he fixed his chariot but fired upon Arjuna while he restrung his bow during their fight. I hope to have captured a sense of arrogance while accurately retelling events from the war from Duryodhana's perspective.

Bibliography:

"Indian Myth and Legend" by Donald A. Mackenzie [Online]

"Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists" by Sister Nivedita
"The Story of the Great War". By Annie Besant 

 

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata, Part D

Characters

Information

The Conclusion of the Mahabharata

In the previous reading part, I wrote about the beginning of the war between the Kauravas and Pandavas. I left off with Duryodhana trying to relieve Bhishma of his duties, and that's right where we pick up. Once again, Duryodhana tries to get Bhishma to let Karna take over, but Bhishma denies the request. However, Bhishma also announces that he will either die on the battlefield or defeat the Pandavas that day. Ultimately, Bhishma ends up fighting with Arjuna, and after hours of battling, Bhishma is slain and both sides of the battle are at his side as he passes away. Following Bhishma's death, Drona takes over for the Kaurava's side. Drona promises to capture Yudhishthira and Arjuna promises to defend Yudhishthira. Then, Arjuna's son, Abhimanyu, was brutally killed by the Kaurava forces, and Jayadratha was the killer. Arjuna vowed to slay Jayadratha in the next day, or Arjuna would not have gone to heaven. The Kauravas became aware of Arjuna's vow, and did their best to hide Jayadratha. After going through many of the Kaurava soldiers, Arjuna eventually located Jayadratha right before nightfall. After some strategic planning with Krishna, Arjuna tricked the Kauravas into thinking it was already night and that Jayadratha would be safe. Arjuna then killed Jayadratha. Then, Bhima's son, Ghatotkacha, was slain by Karna, using Indra's dart. The next day, Duryodhana was wanting Drona to hand over the army to Karna. Like Bhishma, Drona stated that he would either slay Arjuna the next day or die trying. However, the Pandavas tricked Drona. Drona's power came from his son being alive. The Pandavas slayed an elephant named Ashwatthaman, Drona's son's name, and stated that Ashwatthaman was dead. Drona fell for the trick, and ultimately perished. Next, Arjuna and Karna fought. An arrow of Karna's struck the bowstring on Arjuna's bow, and Karna would not wait for Arjuna to restring his bow. However, Karna's chariot wheel got stuck and Karna requested a ceasefire for the time being. Krishna then stated that Karna had killed Arjuna's son, and Arjuna immediately fired an arrow that killed Karna. Then, one by one, the Kaurava army was decimated. Soon, Duryodhana and Ashwatthaman were the only two notable warriors left. Duryodhana was slain by a blow to the knee from Bhima. The war starts to wrap up with Arjuna killing Ashwatthaman and grief being everywhere. Nearly everyone has lost a family member in the war, and some had family members on each side of the battle.

Arjuna slays Karna as Karna fixes the wheel of his chariot.
Image found on Wikimedia

Bibliography

"Indian Myth and Legend" by Donald A. Mackenzie [Online]

"Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists" by Sister Nivedita

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata, Part C

Characters:

• 
  

Information:

War between the Pandavas and Kauravas started in this section of reading. The reading started out with the Pandavas, once again, wandering through the forests since they had lost possessions due to gambling. However, the time spent in the forest was worthwhile as Arjuna became more powerful while on a journey where he met Shiva amongst many other gods and received many gifts. Soon, the Pandavas' twelve years of exile were up, and they returned to wage war with the Kauravas. Krishna wanted the argument to be settled peacefully, and Krishna retreated to his kingdom peacefully and asked to be left out of the war. Then, Arjuna and Duryodhana set out to ask for Krishna's help. Duryodhana arrived slightly before Arjuna, but they arrived on the same day. When they arrived, Krishna was asleep. Both Arjuna and Duryodhana sat by Krishna's bed, and when Krishna awoke, he offered to grant one his army, and one himself. Arjuna got first choice because he was younger, and Arjuna chose to have Krishna, who was not allowed to fight, be on his side. Duryodhana was pleased to get the full army. Arjuna asks Krishna to drive his chariot, and Krishna agreed. While armies were being put together and getting ready for war, the Pandavas tried one last time for peace. When no immediate answer was given, Krishna went to the Kauravas to attempt to get the Kauravas to agree to peaceful negotiation. When Krishna became aware that the Kauravas were plotting to capture and harm him, Krishna showed his true form as Vishnu, in the All-Form that contained many other gods as well, all of the Kauravas and their men except Duryodhana trembled in fear. Krishna then tried to negotiate Karna to the Pandavas' side by telling Karna that he is the brother of the Pandavas and that the Pandavas would proudly elect him king as the eldest brother. However, Karna politely rejects by saying that he wants to stand by the Kauravas, his friends, even though it is certain to fail. Karna says Arjuna and he must meet on the battlefield as destiny intended. Kunti then tells Karna that he is her son, and begs for him to join the Pandavas. Once again, Karna declines. However, Karna promises to only do battle with Arjuna, and to spare the other four Pandavas. As the battle begins, the Kauravas and Pandavas trade-off with victories, eventually the Pandavas take the upper hand. Bhishma, the leader of the Kaurava forces, tells Duryodhana that they will surely lose, and Duryodhana wants Karna to take over as leader. However, Bhishma is not yet ready to relinquish his duty as leader of the forces.

Arjuna and Krishna ride in Krishna's chariot. Image from Wikipedia

Bibliography

"The Story of the Great War". By Annie Besant 

"Indian Myth and Legend" by Donald A. Mackenzie [Online]