I enjoyed getting into the first epic of the semester. I'm struck by the similarities of heroic stories across cultures -- connections with the gods, divinely-ordained destinies to be fulfilled, exile, unbreakable promises, impossible tasks, romances with princesses, and more! The Ramayana seems to have it all.
scene from Javanese dance, depicting Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana in exile
photographer: Gunawan Kartapranata
source: Wikimedia Commons
I'm thinking about both the weekly storytelling assignment and possible Storybook topics as I begin reading. Several things stood out to me that could somehow be developed into either of these two assignments:
Waste Land theme. This was covered in a poetry course I took last semester, relating specifically to the Grail myth of Arthurian legend. But Rama and his companions also travel across a wasteland (in this case, specifically a desert) created from a once-fertile land for nefarious magical reasons.
Reincarnation. I was vaguely aware that Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu, but I'd never connected together the full story before. It reminds me of the TV show Once Upon a Time, with characters in our world having backstories they've forgotten in the fairy tale world, and I'm thinking for this week my storytelling post could be setting Rama and Sita's romance in a modern setting. The wedding chapter was my favorite of the ones I read for today, even if Sita's lovesickness seemed just a tad too much.
Frame tale. The first chapter of The Ramayana intersperses other stories throughout Rama's travels. A possible Storybook idea might be to pick out my favorite substories from these epics and have them retold within the frame of travelers, like Chaucer did with The Canterbury Tales.
Oh, what a great use of the reading diary, Susanna: brainstorming about story ideas and making connections to stories and traditions that are familiar to you — that is exactly the idea! Super! The avatars of Vishnu must be one of the most amazing features of the Indian storytelling tradition; other gods can take avatars, too — the goddess Ganga makes a crucial appearance in the Mahabharata as you'll see later. It's also an ideal Storybook topic if you are interested in learning more about that... it is endlessly fascinating; here's Wikipedia on Vishnu: Wikipedia: Dashavatara. And he had others besides the "big ten" — like his incarnation as a woman, Mohini: Wikipedia: Mohini.
ReplyDelete