Reading Notes: Mahabharata (Part B)

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

This section of the Mahabharata is particularly dense; keeping up with places, people, events, and themes proved tricky. I’m still not sure I am clear on everything. Also, I have noticed this far into the epic that compared to the Ramayana, the writing style is more consistently prose than it is poetry. This compels me even more to try to turn my preferred episode into a written verse version when I write Week 6’s story. Now that we are a couple weeks into the project, I’m trying to “read like a writer” even more by mentally bookmarking the scenes that inspire my imagination. The episodes that appealed to this part of me were more limited in Part B, since some were exciting but don’t exactly compliment my Storybook topic of twinhood. Even still, the two-three that stood out are still interesting.

One of these was episode 28, “The Story of Nalayani.” So far, we have encountered stories that suggest karma was at play but none that interconnects as this one does with the concept of reincarnation. If I’m remembering right, the only instances of “rebirth” that I can recall are exclusively Gods being born in an earthly form as “avatars.” Drupadi, however, is simply a human character. In her former life, her name was Nalayani. As her husband was a rishi who turned to celibacy before his wife felt her sexual libido was spent, her five prayers for a husband was met with a promise of five husbands when she was to be reborn as Draupadi.

I also really enjoyed the 31st episode, “Arjuna and the Apsaras.” It’s sort of just a side story, but how Arjuna was pre-destined to return water nymphs’ back to their original shape after a curse that turned them into crocodiles was a nice little aside to the core narrative. They had been given this fate for tempting a holy man to break his vows. This story really reminds me of sirens in Greek mythology who were known to enchant sailors with their singing. This is all I know about them though, and I think if I were to do a re-write of this story I would do a bit of research to incorporate these magical creatures as a parallel to the Indian water nymphs since they are each known as seductive women. If my memory isn’t wrong, they are symbolic of human beings’ more secular compulsions like lust or sex. This theme of unchecked impulses and worldly desires leads right into the final episodes where Yudhishthira loses everything in a gambling match. I guess I will have to wait and see how this theme of choices and consequences plays out in Part C

Bibliography:
Author: Various
Title: Mahabharata
Source: PDE Mahabharata, web


(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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