Thursday, October 19, 2017

Reading Notes; Epified Mahabharata, Part B

Part B of the Epified Mahabharata videos actually had a few things in which R. K. Narayan's version did not have, so I thought that was super interesting! They were just small things in which the Epified went into more depth about. 

#1) Gandhari's demonic children

In the Epifieds, it showed how Gandhari gave birth to a large lump of flesh, after which Sage Vyasa separated the lump into 100 little lumps and allowed them to grow, each in a different pot. It turns out the children came out looking demonic / scary, but since Gandhari and Dhritarashtra were both blind, they didn't notice. They were just happy to have children. In R. K. Narayan's story, it just mentioned that the couple had 100 sons. They never went into depth about how they were born. If I were to rewrite this part of the story, I would make all the characters some sort of bird. The 100 sons could be eggs that suddenly hatch, instead of lumps growing in pots. I kind of thought of an "ugly duckling" sort of story, because everyone noticed that Duryodhana and all his brothers were quite abnormal. 

#2) Ekalavya's story

I don't think this story is in R. K. Narayan's version, but I really like it! I can't believe Ekalavya handcrafted an image of Drona and used that to practice in front of. That shows true dedication to me and I believe he should have been praised for it. Instead, Drona asked him to cut off his right thumb, knowing that would take away from Ekalavya's true potential. I thought it was kind of sad and in a way, it was Drona spoiling Arjuna. He only did this to Ekalavya because he was outsmarted and I don't think that's fair, so maybe I'll make a story in which it IS fair and Ekalavya DOES get to reach his true potential and get praised for it.

Source: Ekalavya praising his handcrafted image of Drona.

Bibliography: Epified Mahabharata, Part B.

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