Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Week 7 Reading Diary continued: Sambara and Jarasandha's Deaths

Shri Krishna of Dwarka and Other Stories by C. A. Kincaid (1920).

I really enjoy stories about karma and I feel that the following story is a perfect example of it. The mighty demon Sambara disguises himself so that he can steal the six day old Pradyumna from his parents. He then tosses the baby into the ocean and goes about his way. Pradyumna is swallowed by a great fish, which is then caught by a fisherman. That fisherman sells the fish to Sambara’s wife to be eaten. When she cuts the fish open she finds the baby and raises him to kill her evil husband. This is a long chain of coincidences or maybe fate that ends up biting Sambara in the butt. I would like to tell this story from Pradyumna’s point of view. I could either use the letters home writing style I used before or do a journal entry style.

I love all of the fights that are told in these stories. Thank goodness they continue to happen one after another. Krishna needs help defeating Jarasandha whom he has failed to defeat before. He takes Arjuna and Bhima to Magadha where Jarasandha rules discguised as Brahmins. It is there that Bhima and Jarasandha wrestle for hours in front of a crowd. Eventually Bhima lifts Jarasandha in the air and throws him to the ground, which breaks his back. These are all of the details given about this fight. I would like to tell the fight with more imagination and context. Maybe adding some dialogue to give the feeling of being at the fight.



1 comment:

  1. Taler, just a quick note to say that I am so glad you picked this reading unit: I just finished putting up the text this weekend. I still need to add the links to the later pages, but I am glad it worked even without the links. Aren't those Krishna stories great? In some ways, he is the most epic of all the heroes, so I am really glad you read about him. If you want to do more Krishna in the second half of the semester, there are lots of excellent Krishna comic books at the Library, including this big comic book that is like a regular book that you can check out and use for your reading in the second half of the semester if you want: it's 9 comic books bound as a single book, so that is good for four and a half weeks of reading:
    Bhagawat: The Krishna Avatar (unlike the other comic books, this one is one you can check out like a regular book and take home)

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