Thursday, January 21, 2016

Indian Epics Course Overview

I plan on reading the Public Domain edition of Ramayana. The main reason I chose this is because I like the ability to listen to the reading. Hearing someone else read it while you follow along can give different perspective and emphasis on what you read. It is also nice that it is free even though $6 isn't much to ask for the other option.

I am interested in learning more about Buddha due to his widespread influence. I'm also interested in learning about Shiva because I have heard the name multiple times, but have never known the history.

I took a "Religion in Everyday Life" class that gave a history of religious belief and how it influenced everyday life. Beyond that, I have little to no history with Indian history and beliefs.

I'm not sure if there is any correlation, but the demon Nikumbha looks oddly like the goat Philoctetes from the Hercules cartoon:


Krishna, Arjuna and Pradyumna 
fight the Demon Nikumbha 
(circa 1820, shown in Sotheby catalog)
Check out all these great Pradyumna images in Sotheby catalogs!
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  1. Laura GibbsJanuary 22, 2016 at 5:21 PM

    That sounds great, Nathan! Buddhism was taking shape as a religion at much the same time as the epics that we are reading in class, and there are some famous stories told by the Buddha, the "jataka tales" which have a lot of overlap with stories that are told in the epics. If you are interested in that, you can look at the page on Jataka Tales here; they are something you can read in this class and you could even do a Storybook project based on those if you are interested: Jataka Tales Reading Options - I think they are marvelous, and they make a great complement to the epics, looking at the theme of Dharma (justice, truth, righteousness) but with different kinds of characters and plots.

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