Ashwatthaman's Jewel: Ash has jewel that protects him from thirst, hunger, poison, wild animals, etc. Draupadi mourning death of brother and 5 sons, asks husbands to avenge them and take kingdoms Krishna says she has less to mourn than Kunti and Gandharri Draupadi demands Ash's life, then decides she just wants his jewel because it is precious to him Bhima takes jewel Yudhishthira's Horse: Visa tells Yud to perform horse sacrifice to atone for sins Horse allowed to wander for 1 year; Arjuna leads army that follows horse Horse finds rock that is actually a cursed woman; Arjuna touches rock and breaks curse Enters the land of "woman warriors", detained by queen, let go Enters a pond and becomes a mare, enters another pond and becomes a lion Arjuna killed in battle with rajah His son fights nagas in underworld to claim jewel which brings dead back to life, restores Arjuna Horse is sacrificed, Krishna tells Yud his fame will endure forever
Okay, okay, so I know you've heard the story. And I know it sounds kind of crazy. But I think it's time I set the record straight. This is going to sound bad, but hear me out!
So the first brother comes up to my pond. He's looking pretty rough, like he just chased a deer for some twigs or something. Seems like a weird activity, but hey, I'm one to talk, right? Point is, he's looking pretty parched, and I can tell he's got one thing on his mind as he approaches the edge of my pond. So I say to him, "Hey, kid. You can have all the water you want, but first I need you to answer some questions." Reasonable request, right?
APPARENTLY NOT. Because this kid -- he doesn't even say a word! -- he just bends right over and helps himself. Um, hello? Disembodied voice here? I'm just trying to be polite, jerk!
So then of course, the next thing he does is fall over dead. Typical! Whatever, it's not like I didn't warn him.
Now I'm back at square one, except now there's a dead guy hanging out next to me, and I'm kind of mulling over what just happened. Mostly, I'm just thinking about the lack of common courtesy people show ponds these day.
Then, before I know it, the same guy walks down to my pond. I'm thinking, 'uhh... okay...?' but I say to him pretty much the same thing I said before. "Hey! Maybe I wasn't clear the first time, but you really can't drink until you've answered my questions." Again, no response. Again, he helps himself. Again, dead.
By this point, I'm thinking my morning can't get any weirder. How many more times am I going to have to tell one dude to hold off on my pond until I get my answers?
I got my answer pretty soon with a different guy comes down the same path. I realized he kind of looked like the other two -- who I figure must have actually been twins, not the same guy twice -- and that's when I realized that all these guys were related.
He seems older though, and way stronger, so I start hoping that he'll be a little more cautious than his dumb younger brothers.
I start into my usual greeting. "Hey there, I need your help. Answer my questions, and I'll let you have all the water you can dri--"
"YOU TALKIN' TO ME?" he interrupts.
"Um. Yes. You. With the bow. Don't drink this water yet. I need you to answer some questions first."
"Oh, you want answers?! Well, maybe ask my arrows!"
He starts loosing arrows into the water. Seriously. He did that. I couldn't make this up. I didn't say anything. Like, what can you say? After a long freak out session, he finally lays his bow down triumphantly and drinks from my pond. He dies. Honestly, by this point I'm kind of thinking good riddance. A couple minutes later a fourth brother comes down. You know the drill by this point. "Hey, don't drink from this water yet." He drinks from the water. He's dead now.
Real talk: I was feeling pretty ready to give up. I guess people just have no respect for ponds anymore. Finally, a fifth brother approached. I tried not to sound too over the whole thing, but I know I wasn't as polite as I was the first time around. "HEY. DON'T. DRINK. THIS. WATER. Yet. I really need you to answer some questions." "Speak and I will answer thee." Wait, what? I'm stunned. Did I finally find the one guy reasonable enough to listen to a pond? I'm feeling pretty cautiously optimistic. "Who makes the sun rise?" I inquire hesitantly. He answers without even thinking: "Brahma maketh the sun rise." Oh, that's right! He's right! I'm stoked, so I fire off a few more questions. "Okay, who keeps Brahma company? Who makes the sun go down? In whom is the sun established?" He's answering just as rapid-fire: "The gods accompany him; Dharma maketh the sun to set; in truth is the sun established." YESSS. I've hit the jackpot. I asked him riddle after riddle, and he didn't sweat the whole time. This guy was a real scholar! After what seemed like a million questions, all of my homework was done and my teacher's curse on my pond was lifted.That's right -- contrary to what you might have heard, none of this was my fault. I tried to warn everyone, but nobody ever listens to me. Anyway, I guess the smart guy's dad had been watching, so he restored his dumb brothers' lives and gave him some sweet godly rewards. Whatever, at least I got my pond back!
Author's note: The second half of the Mahabharata was filled with so much negativity, and the stories I've previously written drew more upon the darkness of their source, so with this week's storytelling I decided to try something completely different. This particular story was so strange it was almost funny, so I've chosen to play that up. It definitely felt weird for me to attempt the lighter tone; given how important the stories of the Mahabharata are to Indian culture, I definitely didn't want to come across as dismissive or insensitive. I always hesitate to poke fun at something that isn't native to me, so in this story, I tried to walk the line between tongue-in-cheek and disrespectful.
I changed the ending because I wanted to tell highlight the unique peculiarities of this encounter through a casual, conversational voice, and the original story didn't have as much room for that. In the original, the voice belongs to Dharma, god of wisdom and justice, who reveals himself as the "celestial sire" of Yudhishthura. My invented narrator is perhaps a yacht with a lot of homework.
Source Pandavas living in exhile: Draupadi "laments her fate": used to sit on ivory chairs, now on grass, used to be queen, now a beggar, etc. etc. Yudhishthira tries to maintain faith in group, but Draupadi and even Bhima begin to lose confidence ("Thou art unripe fruit!") Story idea: same story, but with characters in different context (children in playground turf battle?) Riddles: Pandava brothers come across a pond. Voice says don't drink until you've answered my riddles; Nakula, Sahadeva, Arjuna, and Bhima all drink first, proceed to "fall dead" Yudhishthira responds, Voice begins asking riddles, Yud answers all. Eventually Voice reveals himself as Dharma, God of wisdom and truth and Yud's "heavenly sire." Restores life to brothers and gives them ability to "remain unrecognized by anyone in the three worlds for the space of a year" Karna and Kunti: Kunti reveals to Karna that she is his mother Karna's response: "O lady, it is now too late to command my obedience. Why didst thou abandon me at birth? If I am a kshatriya, I have been deprived of my rank. No foeman could have done me a greater injury than thou hast done. Thou hast never been a mother to me, nor do thy sons know I am their brother."
There are two main things I appreciate most in good blog comments. First is specificity: the more precise someone is when they leave me comments, the more I feel I can learn from them! Comments that just say a story was "good" or that I'm a "good writer" are encouraging, and I definitely enjoy reading them (who doesn't love flattery?), but they don't really help me grow as a writer. Second, I love when someone comments on my specific adaptive choices. When they relate my story back to details from the original text or notice decisions I made to adapt original elements to my own story, it gives me an idea of how I can approach these assignments in future weeks.
Author's note: My heart broke for Amba when I read her story. I loved her complexity: strong but fragile, unstoppable but fundamentally broken. I also enjoyed the depiction of Ganga's time on earth, and thought that an interaction between these two similar but opposite women might be interesting.
In the original story, Ganga is the mother of Bhishma, who takes an oath to never take the throne. Instead, he wins by abduction three princesses to wed the eventual king, but releases the eldest, Amba, when she confesses that she in in love with another king. Her lover is embarrassed by his defeat, however, and turns her away. Amba then lives in a hermitage, where she prays so devotedly Shiva appears and grants her a wish; by this time, she has come to blame Bhishma for her misfortune, so she asks for his destruction. Shiva says that she will be reincarnated as a warrior who will destroy Bhishma, and Amba is so impatient for this she immediately throws herself on a funeral pyre.
The instrument mentioned, the jal tarang, is an ancient Indian percussion instrument made from various ceramic bowls filled with water. I thought its droplet-like timbre and associations with water were beautiful and perfect for this context. Link to a short video which features the instrument.
Amba faded from the earth, flames consuming her vision and her own voice ringing in her ears, echoing into infinity: "I do this for the destruction of Bhishma! To obtain a new body for the destruction of Bhishma do I enter this fire! I do this for the destruction of Bhishma! To obtain a new body for the destruction of Bhishma...!"
Then all was black. The echo rang on, but muffled, as if through a heavy curtain -- "...do I enter this fire! I do this for the destruction..."
All that existed was the distorted voice. Amba felt nothing, saw nothing, had no sense even of her own body; she occupied no space in the blackness, or maybe she was the blackness itself; as her mind turned itself inside-out in search of orientation, she decided that she must be either an expansive abyss or a minuscule singularity. The fury that had fueled her soul for so long faded in an instant; her soul mirrored her surroundings, black and empty and unforgivingly numb.
"...of Bhishma! To obtain a new body for the destruction of Bhishma do I enter..."
The voice became more muffled, and a fuzzy distortion rounded out its shrill edges. Each syllable became lightly disjointed from the next until their tones were more jal tarang than voice; at the same time, the distortion unfocused into a soothing hush sound, whispering into Amba's ear, or perhaps emanating from Amba herself.
Finally, the sounds refocused, but Amba no longer recognized her own voice; instead she heard water, coursing and trickling, lapping in waves at a non-existent shore. Her existence felt wet but murky, so she was unsure whether she was in water or had become it.
Finally, the blackness turned blue, and Amba heard a voice that sent ripples from the water into Amba's soul and out again.
"Brave, foolish child."
Amba tried to call out to the voice, but no words formed, only bubbles, rising up through infinite water.
"Poor Amba. Unfortunate girl."
In the blue, Amba thought for a moment that she saw floating in the water an enormous orb, which became an eye, then two, then water once more.
The water began moving around her, as though agitated by sharp winds. Memories crept into Amba's consciousness like a thick fog. Blackness. Flames. Her own voice.
"...this fire! I do this for the destruction of..."
"Your resolve is admirable, unfortunate girl, but I fear you have misapplied it."
More memories: Shalwa, her love. Her love's face. Her love's face as he turned her away. His scorn. His disgust. The pain. Another face. The water was turbulently heaving now, this way and that.
"My son was only trying to help."
The face. The flames. Her wrath. Her pain.
The water was roiling violently, and suddenly hot, burning Amba's entire being, scalding her body and her spirit with white-hot tides, crashing into her from every direction.
"I pray you find peace, child."
And then blue became white, and water became fire became earth, and Amba existed once more.
Ekalavya: wants Drona to train him in archery, but Drona says no because he is a Bhil (aboriginal, outside of caste system, "highwaymen and cattle-lifters" "It would be akin to impart unto one of them great knowledge in the use of weapons." Ekalvya is heart-broken, resolves to become a warrior anyway; makes a clay statue of Drona, worships it and practices until he is a famous archer Drona and princes go hunting in Bhil kingdom, Ekalvya tells them he is "a pupil of Drona", kisses his feet; Drona says Ekalvya owes him a reward, Ek offers "whatsoever thou dost desire", Drona asks for his right thumb, Ek cheerfully cuts it off and gives it to him After, had to draw bow with middle fingers, but "lost his surpassing skill" Story ideas: Ekalvya hears that Drona is coming, prepares to meet his idol; after incident, faced with statue and regret
Karna: son of young Kunti and sun god; enters contest against Arjuna, who is angry at having been matched
Duryodhana, jealous of Arjuna, makes Karna a king
Kara's adopted father appears, Bhima mocks Karna for his assumed lineage
"Karna grew pale with wrath; his lips quivered, but he answered not a word. He heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the sun."
Story idea: Kunti watching her two sons, the only one who knows that they are brothers; or, Yuhishthira, the scholarly eldest brother, sees his mother's reaction and suspects she knows something
Vyasa: sage who wrote the Mahabharata. Grandmother is a fish. Searched for someone to tell his stories to, but realized no human could handle all the important details, so settled for a god (Ganesha, elephant head) *Ganga: takes human form to raise 8 temporarily-mortal gods; strong-willed and consistently ensuring her own interests are served: "made each of the Vasus promise to confer an eighth part of his power on her son"; "she must needs at once depart from [King Shantanu] if he spoke harshly to her at any time or attempted to thwart her in doing as she willed" (negotiating with a king!) Doesn't tell King about deal with Vasus, so he freaks out when she drowns 8 babies in a row; she leaves, but comes back long enough to bring the King his son, who has the power of Vasus Devavrata AKA Bhishma: son of Ganga; has to promise not to take the throne so his dad can marry Vyasa's mom, Satyavati. Satyavati son #1 dies in battle pretty quickly. Satyavati son #2 is young, so Bhishma rules in regent. Has to find SS2 a wife, so he wins 3 princesses in a battle contest. *Amba: Oldest princess, already in love with another king, who ends up being terrible. Blames Bhishma. Lives in a hermitage and fasts/prays until Shiva responds and says she will be reincarnated as a mighty warrior who will slay Bhishma. "Beauty and charm became nothing in her eyes. Her hair became matted and she grew thinner and thinner. For hours and days she would stand in stillness and silence as if she had been made of stone." Kills herself on funeral pyre: "as she took her place upon the throne of flame she said over and over again, 'I do this for the destruction of Bhishma! To obtain a new body for the destruction of Bhishma do I enter this fire!'"
Amba as a shadow puppet, from PDE Mahabharata blog; CC
Story ideas:
Parallels in Ganga's and Amba's stories. Both are strong-willed women who go to great lengths to attain their desires. One gets what she wants, and one doesn't. One operates for her own well-being, the other lets bitterness consume her.
Author's note: In reading the stories of Rama's journey with Vishvamitra, I found it curious that Lakshmana was present for essentially every major event in the adventure. One of a set of twins, one would expect Lakshmana to be more connected with Shatrughna, but he alone is chosen to accompany Rama. With each subsequent event in Rama's journey, it became clear that he was by far the most important figure in the story, with the most importance, and I became more curious as to why Lakshmana was included in the story at all -- Rama was consistently depicted as someone with the powers and blessings necessary to overcome any obstacle. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me. Would Lakshmana ever rise to the status of his brother? Would he eventually grow tired of his role as the side-kick, and yearn for more? Or was he really content to stay firmly in Rama's shadow, ever the loyal companion but never the equal? More than anything, I thought about how it must have felt to come to the same realization I did as I read the stories -- Rama was truly special, unprecedented, and superior. Lakshmana, though conceived by the same blessing of Vishnu, would never be the favored son.
