Week 2 Reading Overview



The real focus of the class begins here, on Week 2. I chose to read the PDE Ramayana. I feel the older style fits better for such a story and the various authors' tones makes it seem as if it were being told around a campfire or something. A classic retelling from the styles of different authors, it's almost as I were going around from town to town in India and hearing the same story from different tellers. Plus, it's free. 

Going in as a complete beginner to Indian literature and stories, in order to get some kind of background, some comic books and videos were provided for our perusal. Here are a couple of each I found interesting and my thoughts on them.

Comic Books:
Rama is a central figure in the Ramayana, but I know nothing about him, so I thought it would be good to get an idea of where he came from. Thus, I stumbled upon this comic book, which goes back to Rama's great-great-grandfather (four generations!) and explains the circumstances and feats of his ancestry and birth. 

So basically, Hanuman is the best best friend a guy can have. To save Rama's brother Lakshama, he needs to get an herb from a mountain. In the process, he fights a monster, defeats a heavenly dancer cursed to be a crocodile, puts the sun under his arm to stop the day from progressing to give Lakshama more time, and, upon getting to the mountain and not being able to find the herb, decides to just nonchalantly bring back the entire mountain. Who is this guy! Oh, and he puts the mountain back - while fighting off seven assassins - after they find the herb and heal Lakshama. All in a day's work for Hanuman.

Videos:
Because of the comic book, I decided to learn more about Hanuman. Apparently, he's the ambassador of Rama, hence why one of his names is "Ramadhuta." He also has some other names, that mostly have to do with his origin or his ancestry. 

Karma is quite a popular ideology in the West, but the explanation as it pertains to India is much deeper. It goes further than the shallow "don't do this or you'll regret it" mindset to "karma holds the universe together." I'm not sure I really understand how it does so, but my understanding is that, because your actions affect either your life now or your next life, you want to try to do good things to improve it. But this seems...selfish? You're basically doing good deeds to improve your own life (or next life), and this mindset, if a civilization applies it, would improve the world around us? There are parallels to this found in many eastern cultures, most notably the Chinese yin and yang - every action has a reaction to keep the balance. 

File:Yin and Yang.svg
(Yin and Yang symbol)




Musing on these matters,
Smith



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