Reading Notes: Mahabharata One Week Version A
Overview: Epified Mahabarata, Karmic Revolution
Author sources: Epified TV (India)
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Introduction:
Mahabharata is a story which is continuously altered and passed down to how it is known today. And today, it is used as a traditional story to describe India and cultural origins. The story surrounds kings, queens, gods, and the communication between them which ultimately results in the fate of war. The narrator of the video explains that the style at which the plot takes place is a cycle of karma manifesting upon itself-- cause, then effect, then the effect resulting in another cause.
In episode 1, we are then introduced to King Shantanu. He falls in love with a goddess of the Ganga river. Enamored with her beauty, King Shantanu asks for her hand in marriage. She agrees to marry him contingent only that he never questions her actions. Horrifically, we see her give birth to babies, and her drowning them one by one. How could a goddess kill a child? Although clearly disturbed, King Shantanu is does not question the goddess. At what cost is it worth being with a goddess, if she commits such heinous actions? Eventually, he confronts the queen, and she then explains that she was cursed to give birth to 8 celestial spirits (babies) and them free them from mortality through drowning them. What was Queen Ganga's mindset when dropping her babies in the river? Did her being the goddess of the river change the fate of the drowning babies? I think it would be interesting to also get insight into the origin of the event and curse which made her do this. Like she first warned, Queen Ganga takes the last baby and leaves King Shantanu. In pain from losing his only alive son and wife, he goes back to the river many years later to find a man taking control of the river with a bow and arrow. What do these weapons symbolize? Ganga then appears again to King Shantanu explaining that the young man is Devavrat, the son she left with many years later. Devavrat is a major player in the rest of the epic, as we see after this father son reunion.
Author sources: Epified TV (India)
Click!
Mahabharata Overview, Epified
Introduction:
Mahabharata is a story which is continuously altered and passed down to how it is known today. And today, it is used as a traditional story to describe India and cultural origins. The story surrounds kings, queens, gods, and the communication between them which ultimately results in the fate of war. The narrator of the video explains that the style at which the plot takes place is a cycle of karma manifesting upon itself-- cause, then effect, then the effect resulting in another cause.
In episode 1, we are then introduced to King Shantanu. He falls in love with a goddess of the Ganga river. Enamored with her beauty, King Shantanu asks for her hand in marriage. She agrees to marry him contingent only that he never questions her actions. Horrifically, we see her give birth to babies, and her drowning them one by one. How could a goddess kill a child? Although clearly disturbed, King Shantanu is does not question the goddess. At what cost is it worth being with a goddess, if she commits such heinous actions? Eventually, he confronts the queen, and she then explains that she was cursed to give birth to 8 celestial spirits (babies) and them free them from mortality through drowning them. What was Queen Ganga's mindset when dropping her babies in the river? Did her being the goddess of the river change the fate of the drowning babies? I think it would be interesting to also get insight into the origin of the event and curse which made her do this. Like she first warned, Queen Ganga takes the last baby and leaves King Shantanu. In pain from losing his only alive son and wife, he goes back to the river many years later to find a man taking control of the river with a bow and arrow. What do these weapons symbolize? Ganga then appears again to King Shantanu explaining that the young man is Devavrat, the son she left with many years later. Devavrat is a major player in the rest of the epic, as we see after this father son reunion.
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