Epics of India

"What a fool! I guess a blind man's son is fated to blind, am I right?" The mocking laughter echoed again and again in my head. Every night it was like this. How could someone so beautiful and serene be so ugly and twisted within? It was useless to dwell on such matters. I would obtain my revenge, by any means necessary - an ugly woman deserves an ugly fate, and he would make sure she fulfilled it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What an idiot! A truly honorable idiot," I gleefully thought, as Reuben reluctantly took the challenge. Not like he had a choice. This is what you get for being a royal warrior. I could see the conflicting emotions on his face. Duty-bound to never back down from a challenge? What a joke! That just means your enemies can always ambush you. "Your uprightness will get you nowhere in a game of pure chance," I cackled as my uncl...

Taken from  The Mahabharata, A Summary   by John Mandeville Macfie. 61. Bhishma Falls Poor Bhishma. They got swept up in their emotion, but at the end of the day, death is death. And the death caused by members of your own family - what can be more cruel? I guess this is the fulfillment of Amba's threat/curse/promise? Because she blamed him for her not being able to marry anyone, at the beginning of the story. 64. Ghatotkhacha Another son dies. Who's next? 65. Death of Drona It's Drona, but only because the Pandavas tricked him into believing his son had been slain. Controversial! His son was the only reason he continued to hold on to life. The irony makes his death all the more sad. What will his son think? He doesn't even know his father is dead. We met Drona in the beginning of the story; he acted as a tutor and mentor to the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and now, he dies at their hands. Terrible. 67. Arjuna and Karna This is the supposedly the climax of t...

Taken from  The Mahabharata, A Summary   by John Mandeville Macfie. 42. Krishna's Visit A very interesting difference in attitudes from the Ramayana. In the Ramayana, Sita unquestioningly and loyally follows Rama, without a single complaint. Draupadi, on the other hand, is so moved with anger that she even questions the gods. Surprisingly, Bhima takes Draupadi's side, for Yudhishthira to take action and take back his kingdom, but Yudhishthira, as Rama did, is more prudent toward the keeping of his word than his position. The Mahabharata seems more...human than the Ramayana. I mean, yes, I get that Rama was the incarnation of Vishnu, so he's the "most righteous and upright, etc." but I feel as if the things he did/put up with were pretty unreasonable as a man. And the way he responded to them made him seem completely inhuman, which gives the reader nothing to connect to. In the Mahabharata, however, the reader can empathize with Draupadi, and have probably gon...