First Indian Epics Blog

The Monkey and the Crocodile The Crocodile and the Monkey In the forests of India, there was a long and winding river that was the home of many crocodiles. On the banks of this river were several great trees, and in these trees lived dozens and dozens of monkeys. On the opposite side of the river from the monkeys there were many exotic fruit trees, and the greedy monkeys gathered together to try and figure out a way to get across the river so that they could get this foreign fruit. One of the hatched a brilliant scheme. "I'll trick one of those crocodiles to the rivers edge," he said, "and I will convince him to give me a ride across the river on his back, and then we will get the fruit!" This seemed like a good plan to the other monkeys, so they began to try and coax a crocodile to the rivers edge. The monkeys knew that crocodiles often had a taste for monkey, so they thought they came up with the perfect plan to trick the crocodiles to the ...

Why the Owl is not King of the Birds The story begins by comparing owls and crows Crows torment the owls during the daytime, while owls try and kill the crows at night In the beginning, each species chose a king for themselves, and all of the birds gathered together to elect a king. They decided to elect the owl as the king of the birds. All of the birds decided on the owl except for one old crow, who said that the owl looks to cross and angry to be king. Ever since, the crows and owls have been enemies. The Turtle Dove was later chosen to be king of the birds. U.S. Department of the Interior Source:  Babbitt, Jataka Tales

The Monkey and the Crocodile A elder crocodile asks a younger crocodile to get the heart of a young monkey for him to eat, so now the crocodile has to figure out how to trick one of the crafty monkeys. He decides to offer one of the monkeys a ride on his back to the other side of the river, where there is a lot of ripe fruit. The story mentions that the crocodile is stupid, but the greed of the monkey also plays a key factor in this story. Once the monkey is on the crocodiles back and they are about halfway across the river the crocodile announces, very stupidly, that he is going to drown the monkey so that his mother can eat his heart. But the crafty monkey then tells the crocodile that he does not have his heart with him, so that even if the crocodile does drown him, he will not get the heart. So now, the crocodile thinks that they must go back to the shore so that the monkey can get his heart. The monkey flees, but the crocodile finds him farther down the river. The two have ...

Shantanu, a King of Hastinapura in the Mahabharata, saw a beautiful woman on the banks of the river Ganga; 1894 Shantanu is one of the key characters in the early beginnings of the Mahabharata so I thought it would be interesting to research into his background a little more and maybe tell a story from his perspective. He was a descendent of the Bharata race and was the youngest son in his family. His middle brother, Bahlika, abandoned his fathers kingdom and lived with and soon inherited his uncles kingdom in Balkh. His eldest brother, Devapi, had leprosy and relinquished his title to Shantanu so that he could retire into the woods and become a hermit. Writing about potential conflict within Shantanu about taking his brothers place could be a good storyline. Writing about Shantanu going on an adventure to find a cure for his brothers leprosy could also work well as a story. This could allow him to meet gods or goddesses that do not appear in the original Mahabharata. In ...

The Mahabharata Son of the Sun: Kunti, raised by her uncle (a king), befriends the curse laying sage that everyone fears. However, Kunti does not fear him and engages him in conversation. When the sage left he gave Kunti a mantra, which allowed her to summon any god she wanted. She tests it and the Sun god appeared before her. After a blinding light, Kunti is left with a beautiful son in her hands. Unable to claim him (since she was unmarried and had no way to explain the baby) so she sent him adrift in a basket along the river. Epified: Mahabharata

Epified Point of view that it is an account of how Karma functions. story begins similarly to what was read before, with the drowning of the kings children. Shantanu finds a young archer taming the river with arrows, only to find out that it was his long lost 8th son, Bhishma. Bhishma decides to go to the father of the girl that Shantanu has fallen in love with, in order to talk some sense in him. quite ambitious for a fisherman Bhishma vows to never marry or sire children, for the sake of his fathers happiness. Although, this dismays his father. *The animated short stories are not only easier to digest and easy to listen to, there is a lot more entertaining to have these stories read aloud than reading them yourself. The animators and narrators did a fantastic job with this Epified: Mahabharata Videos

Looking Back: So far, I am not super thrilled with my progress. I think I am still in a position to finish with an A, but I am not where I need to be. This is a class where all I really need is a C, its just a Gen. Ed. class to get me my diploma, but I would really like the A. My weekly routine is pretty good as long as work doesn't get in the way. It seems like the past few weeks there is always an assignment that I miss, but waking up at 4 am every morning makes it difficult to remember some things (at the end of most days I am so relieved to see my bed I can't think straight). I plan on utilizing the extra credit opportunities in the next few weeks so I think that will give me a boost. Looking Forward: I certainly need to start making some serious changes for the second half of the semester (first off, ITS ALREADY THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEMESTER????). Buckling down and getting all of the assignments done for that week is key. Extra credit is also something that I plan on u...

I have taken quite a few online classes here at OU, so I have gotten a lot of feedback and comments on discussion posts and the like. This class has definitely had some of the best teacher/student comments that I have experienced. Mrs. Gibbs feedback has been great, but I have gotten a lot of good feedback from students on ways to flesh out my posts and helps me focus on areas that I need to work on, especially on my blog posts. In regards to the feedback that I have left, I think that the feedback strategies that we have learned have come in handy throughout the semester. I do feel like I am getting a sense of who people are in the class from their blog postings, not just on their project posts, but their posts within blogger. I was pretty happy with my introduction post and I think that it does give a good sense of who I am in this moment in my life. Looking forward, I think that even though I have been happy with the feedback that I have been able to leave for my fellow students,...

So far the reading assignments are working really well. Everything is broken down enough so it is (mostly) easy for me to keep up with the class and my hectic work schedule. I think the King Yudhisthira's Horse story was my favorite so far. I had a lot of fun tweaking that story and putting a new twist on it.  At first, I was having some trouble with the class project. I was a little confused and just overall frustrated with a lot of things outside of the class. But once I hunkered down and focused I was able to use a lot of feedback from Mrs. Gibbs to make something much more pleasing to the eyes, as well as get my head around what she was actually looking for in the assignment.  Below is a art print of the churning of the ocean, which is what my project is focusing on. This was one of the first images that I found when I began researching for my project and is always the first image that pops into my head when I think about it.  The churning of the Ocean of Milk...

Horse O' War: King Yudhisthira's Horse leading Arjuna into Battle The story that I am about to tell you is one that has yet to be told in its original context. By now you are well aware of the story of the moon-white horse with a plate of gold strapped to its head. You know, the one that the army of Arjuna followed for a year, conquering rajah after rajah? Well, there are several very important aspects of that story that all but a very few are unaware of.  For starters, it may seem that the horse had very little to do with the many victories that Arjuna experienced, for I am just a simple horse, wandering around the land. That is where you are wrong.  But, it is not your fault as the reader, it is more my fault for keeping such a low profile in this story for so many centuries. Who am I, you might be asking? Well, let me tell you. I am Skanda, the firstborn son of Shiva, and the god of war, and during these particular events told in The Mahabharata I was str...