Storytelling for Week 11 - The Churning Waters

Once upon a time, in a far away land, both gods and demons were presented with the challenge of churning the ocean in order to receive great treasure. They had previously been wiped out by the recreation of the universe, so they had a big desire to gain some treasure back. Now, as we all know gods and demons don't exactly work well together, but against their will, the gods had to suck up their own pride and ask the demons if they would help them in their task of churning the ocean of milk. They knew that it could not be done on their own, and they needed the demon's strength. In exchange for their help, they gods offered them an equal share of the treasure. The demons agreed and they got on to brainstorming ideas on how to churn this entire ocean full of milk! One demon came up with an idea fairly quick, "How about we rip out Mount Madura from unders its roots and use it as a stick for churning the ocean! I'm brilliant!" and everyone agreed with the idea. They grabbed a hold of the mountain from underneath and was able to spin it around like a stick, using it to move the ocean waters. While churning the ocean waters, there were many things that happened along the way. In the midst of the churning, the god Vasuki began to vomit a poison into the ocean, threatening to contaminate the ocean water, Shiva took the vomit in his mouth, turning his mouth blue. As the churning went on after the first incident, Mount Madura began to sink into the ocean bed and had to be saved by Visnu, in the form of a tortoise avatar, Kooma. He took one for the team and used his own back as a pivot point for the churning stick. Next, the churning began to uncontrollably produced treasures! Laksmi, the goddess of wine, Chandra the moon, Rambha the nymph, Kaustubha a jewel, Parijata the wishing tree, Surabhi the cow of plenty, Airavata the white elephant, Sanka a conch shell, Dhanas a mighty bow, and Visha the poison vomited by Vasuki. And last but not least, the ocean produced the Armit, and both gods and demons immediately tried to seize it, but the demons were first. But, while they were quarrelling for the treasure, Visnu took the form of a beautiful woman, taking the Armit and giving it to the gods, while giving the demons liquor. The demons were quick to catch on and tried to grab the Armit. In the midst of the quarrel it fell down on earth, in four places. These places on earth are now known to be of great religious importances, and serve as locations for the Kumba Mela, an extremely large pilgrimage. 

Image Information: Churning of the Ocean of Milk

Author's Note: I chose to retell this story because it was actually one of the stories I put in my storybook. I am writing a travel brochure, and I used one of the locations where the Armit landed in India, as one of my destinations, and told all about its importance. I decided to retell this story without changing much of the general storyline, because it is already such a simple and easy story to read. This story is one of my favorites that we have read this year, so I was quick to want to retell it once again!

Buck, William (1973). Mahabharata. 

Week 11: Reading Diary B - The Great Fire

Reading Diary B Pg. 49-91
The Mahabharata by William Buck

• The reading begins with Duryodhana asking Dhritarashtra who he thinks, him or Yudhishthira, will rule Kurujangala after he has stepped down. He then says that the people of the town say that Yudhishthira would look after us he cares for Bhisma. Dhritarashtra is saddened by this and says, "The people say! Am I already dead? I will send the Pandavas away for a little while  and I will give you this kingdom or I won't, I will divide it."
• The King's songs Duryodhana and Duhshasana get the minister, Purochana, to build some sort of fire trap at the house where the Pandavas are staying. Yudhisthrita is warned about this dangerous plan, and they prepare a tunnel route that will allow them to escape in time. They were able to safely escape from the fire trap, but they had to leave six corpses behind in their place. 
• Vyasa takes the Pandavas to the swayamvara of Draupadi, the daughter of king Draupada of Panchala. Draupada had recently been captured by Drona, and was forced to give up half of his kingdom. He felt much humiliation from this. He begged and begged the god Shiva to give him a son who could defeat Drona. Later on, in a dream, Shiva appeared to Draupada and told him to pour two cups of butter, one for a son and one for a daughter. Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadia, his sons, were born this way. 
• Drapada had set up an archery test in which only Arjuna could pass, so Arjuna wins Draupadi, to everyones surprise. Krishna, an avatar of the god Vishnu, tells Arjuna to remember their past together, but he does not remember. 
• Draupadi marries all five of the Pandava brothers. 
• Dhritarashtra is so excited to find out that the Pandava brothers are alive and grants them the region of Khandava to rule. With that, the Pandava brothers build the city of Indraprastha. 
• Arjuna goes to visit, Krishna, but he ends up falling in love with Krishna's sister, Subhadra, and with Krishna's approval he takes her to be his wife. The fire god, Agni, comes to see Krishna and Arjuna in the form of a woodsman with with gold skin and dressed in black rags and butter smeared all over his mouth. Agni keeps trying to burn down the forest, but the storm god, Indra, protects it with its rain. Agni burns the forest while Arjuna and Krishna distract Indra. 
• The Asura, Maya, the architect god flees out of the forest and seeks Arjuna's protection from Agni. As a reward for this rescue, Maya builds a palace for the Pandavas.

Week 11: Reading Diary A - The Mahabharata Begins

Reading Diary A Pg. 1-49

The Mahabharata by William Buck

• William Buck begins his version of the Mahabharata by introducing some characters. 
• He introduces Duryodhana, saying that he "causes all creatures to be slain and wastes the earth; he fans the flame of hostility that at last consumes all". 
• He introduces Arjuna, saying that he "is the prince of all bowmen: with spells of bewilderment he guards these pages embellished with elegant expressions and conversations human and divine". 
• He introduces Nakula and Sahadeve, saying that "Nakula is dark and Sahadeva is fair: they guard Arjuna's chariot wheels; in this whole world of men they have not their equals in beauty and strength and excellence of conduct".
• He introduces Yudhishthira, saying that "he is the embodiment of all manlieness: he is kindhearted; cease to fight him, do not court defeat". 
• William Buck begins chapter one with dialogue between Sauti and Saunaka. Sauti tells him that he head Vyasa's Mahabharata was first written down for the poet by the elephant god  Ganesha, and then goes to explain to Saunaka the background of the story of the Mahabharata. 
• Vyasa was the composer and Ganesha was the scribe. Vyasa composed the Mahabharata in his head and then asked Ganesha to write it down for him. Ganesha is the son of God Shiva, and he opposed this and tore off his human head, and then used an elephant head to replace the missing one. 
• He then told of the story of the churning of the ocean: Long before the ocean was salt, it was made of milk. "Churn the ocean, and she will yield amrita, the nectar of immortality, and precious gems, and all manner of illusion and revelation". So, they places a snow mountain , Mandara, in the middle of the milk sea in order to churn the ocean waters. Once this happened, Gods began to emerge. Those who emerged were: Lady Lakshmi, bearing good fortune to men; Airavata, Indra's elephant; Surabhi, the white cow who grants any waish; Parijata, the wishing-tree of fragrance; Rambha, the nymph, the first Apsaras; and Dhanwantar, the physician, bearing a cup filled with amrita, the essence of life. 
• Poison bursted as a result of the churning of the ocean and Shiva swallowed it, resulting in her tongue turning blue. 
• Next, the story of the snake sacrifice of Janamejaya is told. (look at reading guide for reference)
• The Mahabharata finally begins with the story of Shantanu and Ganga falling in love. The dead king Mahabhisha sat in heaven watching over the world. He spots Ganga walking along the banks of the Ganges river, and he was enchanted by her looks. Their eyes met causing Mahabhisa to perspire, which only happens in heaven when one is ready to be reborn, as Shantanu. Meanwhile, Ganga goes to Shantau's father and explains her love for him. When his father dies, he becomes king. Shantanu meets Ganga in human form along the river, and they agree to get married but Shantanu must agree to never question any of Ganga's actions. Ganga gives birth to a child a year, and drowns each one in the river. She does this because of a comittment, to free them from punishment and send them up to heaven. Ganga leaves with the last child, named Bhishma.
• Shantanu later marries Satyavati, and have a son names Vichitravirya. 
• Bhishman obtains three wives: Amba, Ambika, Ambalika. 
• Introduces the Pandavas and Kripa and Drona.
• Arjuna is Drona's best pupil and is the only one of the prines able to pass Drona's test of shooting the bird made of straw. 

Storytelling for Week 10: Never Question a Woman

Once upon a time there was a king. This king went by the name of Shantanu and was a Kuru king of Hastinapura. One day Shantanu was standing along the banks of a beautiful river just admiring the scenery. As he walked along the shore of what is known as the Ganges River, something magical seemed to have happen. Shantanu thinks to himself, "My oh my, is that a beautiful woman coming my way", being all flustered. A beautiful woman appeared before his eyes. The woman took his breath away and it was love at first sight for the two. Shantanu, without knowing the woman's true identity, asked her for her hand in marriage. The woman's response was quite unexpected to Shantanu as she said, "I will give you my hand in marriage as long as you vow to never questions my actions, for they all serve a purpose". Shantanu willingly accepted that answer, and off they went. Later after getting married, the couple had a beautiful son together. One day while along the banks of the river, Shantanu turned around and saw his wife drowning their child. His initial reaction was pure shock, "Nooo, what have you done! My beloved child!", he screamed in his head, but remembered that he had vowed to never question her actions. He distraught by the sight of this, and he was even more distraught by the fact that he was not able to question his wife about her action. Time goes on and Shantanu slowly begins to forget about the incident, and they end up having another child! When he finds out of the news Shantanu cheers with excited and exclaims, "All I want in life is to have my name be carried on by a beloved son of min!". After the child had been born, the same incident occurs. He turns around to watch his own wife drown his own child in the river. This continues to happen, until she had eventually ended up drowning seven of her babies. By their eighth child, Shantanu can not longer take it. She begins the motion of drowning the eighth child, when Shantanu abruptly stops her. "NO, please don't drown another one of my beloved children. I am desperate for a child! Why, oh why, must you drown all of our children, I do not understand!", he says in a fury. Even though this had broken the vow that Shantanu had once made to his wife, she explains to him. My dear husband, "Our eight children were the Eight Vasus who were cursed by Vasishtha to be born on earth as humans. However, he limited the curse and said that they would be free from the curse within a year of their life. So, I released each of them in order to return them to heaven". Ganga then leaves Santanu alone and devastated as she takes the child with her and submerges into the waters. He is left with nothing, and does not know if he will ever see his beloved wife or child again.

Image Information: Shantanu rushes to stop Ganga. Wikimedia

Author's Note: I decided to retell the story of Ganga drowning her children in the river, because I was really intrigued by this story. For my storybook, I wrote about the Ganges river, and I had actually read about this story before our assigned reading, so I knew I had wanted to do a storytelling post about it. I wanted to add a little bit of dialogue and inner thoughts to what Shantanu might have been thinking, and to kind of retell the story in my own way, but keeping to the same storyline.

Narayan, R.K. (1978). The Mahabharata.

Week 10: Reading Diary A - The Suspense of the Battle

Reading Diary Pg. 85-131

• The gods send a gandharva to provoke Duryodhana.
• A battle breaks out and the gandharvas take Duryodhana captive, but he later gets freed by the Pandavas.
• Duryodhana's original plan to humiliate the Pandavas had completely backfired. 
• In the forest, the Pandavas are approached by a brahmin. He comes to them desperate because a giant deer has stolen his equipment that he uses to make fires. 
• The Pandavas chase after the deer in attempt to catch it, but fail. 
• As they are walking back, Nakula finds a lake and wants to drink because he is thirsty. 
• A voice arises from the lake telling him that he must answer a series of questions before he is allowed to drink out of the lake. 
• He ignores the voice and drinks out of the lake water anyways. This kills him instantly.
• Sahadeva, Arjuna, and Bhima also drank out of the lake without acknowledging the voice and ended up dieing as well. 
• This ended up being a test by their father, who is the God of death. 
• The brothers are brought back to life, and are sentenced to exile. On their thirteenth year of exile they received the gift of unrecognizability.
• They spend twelve years of exile in the forest and then are disguised during the thirteenth year.
• Draupadi is raped by Kichaka, so Bhima squeezes him to death.
• The story of Kichaka raises suspicion in Duryodhana's eyes. Susharman takes king Virata prisoner, but is backfires as Bhima rescues him and then captures Susharman. 
• Susharman, one of Duryodhana's sidekicks shows excitement when he hears of his death, and suggests that they attack Vitrata and steal his cattle.
• Prince Uttara, the son of Virata, hears the news of the cattle raid and take his charioteer. He ends up being terrified as they approached the enemy and then runs away. He is told to drive the chariot so that he can fight instead. 
• In a moment of anger, Virata throws dice as Yudhishthira and draws his blood 
• Uttara and Abhimanyu get married. 
• Krishna and Balarama attend the wedding and send a messenger to ask Duryodhana if half of the kingdom could be given to Pandavas. 
• Satyaki urges that everyone prepare for war. Both of the pandavas and Duryodhana are recruiting allies for the upcoming war. I have a sense that they are really nervous for this war or battle to break out. 
• The Pandavas end up making another bid for peace, asking that they all be given five villages and in turn the war can be avoided. 
• Duryodhana wants to accept the offer but when the time comes he cannot resist his will.

Week 9: Famous Last Words

I'm not going to lie, this week has been a tough one! Coming back from OU/TX, I had a slow start with all of my homework and assignments this week. Thankfully, for extra credit I can catch up on my points from missed assignments! One of the reasons why I love this class so much is because there is a lot of freedom to do what you want with your blog. It is also so exciting to me when I see page views and comments on my blog and knowing that people are actually reading what I am writing! I love that there are only the basic criteria for the blog posts, and the rest is up to our creativity. This class has really helped me to expand my mind, and bring out the more creative side of me. Since I am majoring in the health field, I don't have to do much writing for my classes, so this class has definitely helped me work on my writing and grammar skills. Looking back on all of the work we have done this semester, it is really cool to look at the progress made with each week and to see our blogs and storybooks change, grow, and become better! Even though this week was a tough one for me, I definitely plan to get back on schedule next week and work harder! I am really excited for this weekend because it is finally the homecoming game! We get to walk with our float in the homecoming parade before the game, which is always one of my favorite things to do! I love getting to see all of the different floats each year, it just amazes me what people can actually do with some paper and some wire! The homecoming pep rally is friday night, which is also always a blast! Even though we are cheering for our specific houses or groups to win the competition, we are all ultimately one and are rooting for the same team! BOOMER SOONER!

Image Information: Personal Photo: Alpha Chi Omega, Sigma Chi, and Kappa Sigma's homecoming board

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Here is the video of a Salsa Dancing Dog, enjoy!

Week 9: Reading Diary A - The Mahabharata

Reading Diary Pg. 1-39
Mahabharata by R.K. Narayan

• Shantanu is a Kuru king of the city of Hastinapura. He is a descendent of the Bharata race and the lunar dynasty. He is the youngest son of King Pratipa. Each of this siblings had gone down a different path and Shantanu just happened to become the king of Hastinapura by default. 
• Shantanu falls in love with a woman, who ends up being Ganga of the Ganges river. He asks her to marry him and he agrees under one condition, that he never questions her actions. He agrees, and they soon wed. 
• Time goes on and they soon have babies. Shantanu still does not know that the woman he has married is Ganga. She then drowns their newborn babies each in the river. Although Shantanu agreed never to question his wife's actions, he protests her against drowning their eighth child. This is when she tells him that she is the river Ganga.
• The story goes, that she is the river Ganga, and was incarnated into her present form in order give birth to eight gods. These eight gods would go by the name of the vasus, who are being punished with a human incarnation for stealing Vasistha's cow. By drowning the babies, they return to heaven. 
• She disappears into the river with the eighth child and later returns him to his father when he is fully grown. His name is Bhishma. 
• Since his wife has been gone, he eventually falls in love with another woman by the name of Satyavati. They later get married, and have two sons of their own - Chitrangada and Vichitravirya. 
• Chitrangada becomes king, but dies soon after. Bhishma then takes over and ruled as regent for Vichitravirya. 
• The king of the kingdom next door holds a swayamvara for his daughters: Amba, Ambika, and Ambalika. Both Ambika and Ambalika marry Vichitravirya. He later dies before ever having the chance to be a father. Satyavati begs Bhisma to take over and help his daughters to have children. He refuses because he took a vow of celibacy. They decide that the widows will bear children with Satayavi's son, Vyasa. 
• Ambika is terrified when she looks at Vyasa, because he is so ugly. She sleeps with him with her eyes shut, so their child is born blind. His name is Dhritarashtra. 
• Ambalika turns pale when she sees Vyasa, and therefore their child is born very pale. His names is Pandu.
• One of Ambalika's servants sleeps with Vyasa, and she reacts very positively her him. She bears a flawless child.
• Dhritarashtra marries Gandhari. She covers her eyes to share her husband's blindness
• Pandu has two wives, Kunti and Madri, but cannot have children
• Kunti has a mantra for obtaining sons from the gods. She conceives a child named Karna. 

Week 8: Reading Diary Self-Assessment

Going back and reading through the instructions of the reading diaries, I have realized that I have drifted a bit from what the reading diaries are supposed to be. I have been writing my reading diary based on the main ideas and summaries of the chapters, while the point of the diary is to reflect on how you feel about the readings and what stands out to you the most, as well as character development. For my reading diaries, I have pretty much had a different strategy for each post. One week I will pick a couple main characters and write about them, while other weeks I will write what stands out to me from each chapter, and others I will simply write bullet points for what happens in the readings as I go. I haven't really found a strategy that I like best yet, I just kind of see how I feel about it each week and choose. Typically, my diaries are around the same length each time since all of the readings are about the same length. Sometimes I will put in my favorite quotes or what stood out to me the most in each reading. I did that more so in the beginning of the semester than I do now, but I definitely want to start doing that again. I do not add images into my diary posts, which I also think is something that I want to change. I think adding in an image would really summarize and put the diary to life. I would definitely say that I remember the readings better in this class since I am not being tested over it. I feel like I can just enjoy the readings and reflect on what I think about it, without having to worry about what I think may or may not be on a test or having to remember technical things. Overall, I would say that I am doing pretty good with the reading assignments. I haven't missed one yet, so I feel caught up on everything. One thing I do find myself doing sometimes is skimming through some of the chapters. I do need to work on more detail and really reading into the stories and reflecting on that rather than main ideas or summaries.