Possible Storybook Topics

1. Possible topic: Minor characters. I noticed when reading and searching for images this week that some of the Ramayana characters, like Anusuya, have other stories associated with them. These are pretty minor characters in the context of the epic, but it looks like they appear in other canonical tales. What kind of picture would emerge for such a character if all their stories are pieced together in one place?

Research so far: Anusuya was the character who most caught my attention. In The Ramayana, she's identified as the wife of Atri, and the couple offers extremely generous hospitality to Rama and Sita. According to Wikipedia, however, more famous stories about Anusuya involve Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva testing her and, when she passes the tests, being born to her as incarnations. There's several different tales about this.

Anusuya Feeding the Hindu Trinity

 anonymous c1907 wall painting from Krishna-Sudama Temple of Porbandar, India

photograph by William Pearl, 2013 

source: Wikimedia Commons

2. Possible topic: How we met. When reading the chapter on Rama and Sita's marriage, I thought about making my Storytelling for this week a contemporary version of their love story (with Once Upon a Time-esque sense of fate and repeating what's happened before). Given that just the first half of The Ramayana has several couples' stories, I'm anticipating that there will be still more to draw from in future readings.

Research so far: Rama and Sita's love story is given in detail in The Ramayana, of course. Reviewing Wikipedia and Google search results isn't giving me any other versions. With Ahalya and Gautama, however, the Wikipedia article for Ahalya notes different textual sources with different versions of their story. Tales where there are multiple versions of the same story would be more interesting to include in the Storybook, since there are various sets of plotlines and details from which to draw.


3. Possible topic: Festivals. As in most religions, Hinduism has annual holidays and festivities that are often associated with religious events and figures. An interesting approach to a Storybook would be to have the mythological figures associated with each festival attend a modern celebration and branch out from observing the festivities to reflecting back on the events that inspired the holiday. I especially like this idea because it can combine contemporary cultural studies with the ancient texts we're reading in class.

Research so far: According to this Wikipedia article on Hindu festivals, there are several held in honor of mythological events. Thaipusam, a Tamil festival, is about Murugan's defeat of Soorapadman. Holi is about Prahlad's killing of Holika. Rama Navami celebrates Rama's birth and marriage (back to Rama and Sita again!). Gudi Padwa centers on Brahma's creation of the world, and Sitalsasthi celebrates Shiva and Parvati's marriage. There's various stories behind Deepavali, including the return of Rama and Sita from exile. And the list continues.


4. Possible topic: Panchatantra. I'm not familiar with the stories in this collection (yet!), but it looks like a fun read, and a collection of fables is sure to provide plenty of material for a Storybook! This book has been on my to-be-read list for a while, and this class is a good opportunity to finally get around to reading it.

Research so far: Penguin Classics offers an unabridged (!!) translation of the collection. The published version is attributed to Vishnu Sharma but goes back to ancient oral traditions, surprise surprise. The Hitopadesha is a related fable collection. We tend to think of fables as fun little stories now, so I'm a bit surprised that this work falls under the category of the more serious-sounding "treatise on political science and human conduct" (Wikipedia).