Reading Diary A: Week 9

·       The intro does a good job of letting the reader know this epic is originally very very very long and he has simplified the version. Also, the story of the real author is cool since he indicates he is just a translator not the author of the original text

·       Drowning babies = satisfaction for mother?? ….Later realize the mother is justified in her actions according to this world’s terms

·       Devavratha raised in the river without his father for some of his life then handed to him to live with after raised by mother and having to part with his mother is weird

·       The king could accept the first wifes conditions of no questions asked but wont for this wife as her fathers request of their son be successor? Eventually he gets his way due to his river sons actions and praises

·       Firm vow of devavratha to celibacy causes vow to the girls father of her children being successor to his fathers throne

·       Bhishma = Devavratha

·       “issue” term is used as children or child in this book

·       Why would Vichitravirya (son to satyavathi) be married so long to his wives (7 years before dying ill) and not try to bare children if this seems to be very important in this story?

·       When was this son of Satyavathi born? Before she met her husband (Santanu)? Vyasa

·       Ambika forced herself to lay with her dead husbands eldest brother for what? She seemed to be in a trap to me which is sad

·       Stealing a cow led to celibacy vow as well as killing a mating deer, I wonder if celibacy is related to the maltreatment of animals in a way?

·        Satyavathi is acting like a female pimp(what is that word again?) to her son’s widows for her eldest son born without a father in order to retain the family name. his seems like a character trait that makes her selfish

·       Vidura born without purpose of his conception between parents, not forced, since the maiden was the one who Vsaya found in the bed of the woman he was supposed to be mating with (again)

·       Hard to tell which characters in this epic are central to the rest of the story and who to focus on because with so many names it is difficult to follow the connections between characters

·       Women are having a lot of boy babies and with gods?

·       The blind king had a lot of sons – setting up family/cousin conflict

·       Passionate death to Pandu and Madri, each separately with different actions but for eachother

·       They seemed to live well together as a family after madri and pandu die but then they get annoyed with eachother and one side tries to kill the other? To think if families were like that nowadays instead of having to accept who your family members were lol

·       The ceremony to show off skills of weaponry and fight remind me of roman times with the coliseum

·        Arjuna vs karna -----brothers, but they don’t know this, hardly anyone does but their mother does

·       Duryodhana made karna a king of anga so that there could be an equal fight?

·       “…time changes everything” –what king drupada says to Drona when drone comes to him to ask for milk for his son since his mother had died and they used to be friends… pg.38-39