Alex Lagge's India Adventure

Defeating The King of Death: i haven't even read this story, but I hope it will be an epic one! I have been reading a lot of these Jataka Tales, but none of them have caught my eye like this one. The title sounds crazy. Well that wan't what I was hoping for at all. This story was pretty boring. All that happened was the evil king dies and everyone is happy that he is dead. They make sure he can't be reincarnated by burning his body with 1000 cart loads of wood. Then they was his body away and dig the whole area out. They must have all hated him terribly. It seems that reincarnation is something that everyone goes through. I just find it funny that somehow people are able to keep people from being reincarnated. That is kind of weird that mere mortals could take away someones who life. That seems like something a god would be able to do not just a person! A king of death! Bibliography:  Jataka Tales  H.T. Francis and E. J. Thom...

Somehow this whole page got deleted so I am going to do my best to remember what I wrote. The Treacherous Chameleon : In this story, a Chameleon makes friends with another small creature. The dad tells the son not to hang out with chameleons anymore because they could betray you. Of course, the father is right when the chameleon tells a hunter where the den is. The only person who escapes is the father. I like the morals of this story because it's something that my parents have told me. You can def get dragged down by your friends if you are not smart. The next piece I read was The 2 good kings. This story was pretty funny because the kings are mad at each other when they come to pass in the road. I guess it was common courtesy to allow higher ranking people to pass in the old days. The Kings have the same age too so they are at an impasse. Eventually one is able to pass. It was because he was kind and not brash. I think It shows that being nice is a good idea. 2 Kings ! ...

The Stolen Jewels: This story is about a monkey who steals a necklace when a slave is asleep. First off I find it to be weird that there are so many monkeys on the palace grounds. I would think of monkeys to be dirty and something that you wouldn't want even close to you as a ruler. Especially with the caste system, I would think they would want anyone not like themselves to be on the grounds unless they are servants. Anyway, 5 of the main people in the palace accept their fate for stealing the necklace even though they didn't. I think they did that because the king was hard to get along with and would be tough. The advisor is smart to realize that the reason for all of them confessing is because they would probably go to jail anyway. He then tricks the monkey to get the necklace out by making all the other monkeys have bad necklaces. Moral of the story is being smart is good and being hasty is bad. Also, get the monkeys out of the palace! Some stolen jewels. The Too...

The crow and the pigeon is a good story about greed. I like to think of my self when I gamble and what not. I could be ahead with like 10$ and if I stop I will have made money, but if I am greedy like the crow I usually lose. Also, it shows that it is important to live up to your commitments. The crow said he would only have his own food, but then he lied and got so fat and greedy that he died. The Robber's and the Treasure: Another great story about greed. This story is funny since they all end up killing each other over and over. I think the way Buddhism is makes people not want to be as greedy. That is probably why they keep giving stories about it. I also liked the imagery of having so many people die all of a sudden. I could think of it as a good idea to have a large battle over one item. Are you a pigeon or a crow?  Bibliography:  Jataka Tales  H.T. Francis and E. J. Thomas

The Little Gildmaster: I  really liked this story. It was a story about being smart and cunning in able to get ahead. I think of this as a story about doing a little will eventually end up as a lot. Every little investment you put into yourself slowly gathers up into a major change. Just as you won't get an A by studying for a week in the end. It is a better idea to study a little throughout the semester as opposed to cramming. It's much easier to have a hot bod for the beach if you start going to the gym the summer before not a month before. You don't become a millionaire by winning the lottery you do by saving up little and little throughout your life. This story makes me think of the legend about the girl who asks for one grain of rice to be doubled on the chess board. It looks as if she's going to have no rice, but by the end of the board there isn't enough rice to give to her. I believe that is also an Indian story, but I am not super sure.  I also am takin...

The foolish and wise merchant: I like this story because there is an excellent insight into life. Don't count your chicken before they hatch. Don't throw away preparation because you think something good is going to happen. I know my self I had calculated my chickens way before they hatched and it led to me being mad. I will try to live with these good ideas. Me counting my chickens too early! The next story I am looking at is Princes and the water sprite. This story doesn't seem to have much meaning to me. I think that it is kind of a dumb story because the princes make a house for the sprite that tries to kill them on the palace. This just makes no sense to me.  The Kings White Elephant: This is a story about having good looks. If a person has good looks, they will be able to go far in life if they do very little. The white elephant was a good elephant that worked hard and played well, but the King could find an elephant that was hard working. He could not ...

The monkey and the crocodile is a funny story. The crocodile is not that smart at all. The monkey is able to trick the crocodile in almost every way. This is how I sometimes feel when I have to deal with some people sometimes! I'm not sure what the moral of this story could be maybe it's don't be utterly braindead like the crocodile, but I am not super confident. I feel bad for the mama crocodile that the son was so dumb. I am not sure if I will add this story to any of my blog posts because it is so foolish.   Go get me that monkey heart! How the Turtle Saved its Own Life: These past few stories have just been people tricking other people. It seems like the authors think that people are just not that smart at all and are easily fooled. The merchant of Siri: This story is about a greedy merchant who wouldn't pay anything for a golden bowl. He could have offered a small amount and taken the bowl easily. He was so greedy that he wouldn't even offer anythi...

The Golden Feather: This is a beautiful story about greed. A man is given a way to provide money o this family by having golden feathers. The wife is so greedy that she takes all of the feathers from him. This causes the feathers to all to be regular ones because of the greed. I think I might try to add this element to a story. It would be interesting to have a concept where someone if given great things, but they become so greedy that they lose it all. The Young Parrot: This story is about a parrot that is trapped after going to eat in a field. The parrot lets his people eat before saying he got captured. He talks about how the most essential thing in life is taking care of your family. I can agree with this because my family has been there to support me many times through the thick and thin. I really enjoyed this story. One of my favorites that I have read. A beautiful golden feather  Bibliography: Inayat Jataka Tales 

For this week I choose to do Sister Nivedita's Krishna stories. One common theme in most religions seems to be a God being born from a mother. In this one, Vishnu is being born to Devaki. I think a good story would be something about a god or chosen one's birth story. I might make it about art girls since she has been a central character in many of my stories. The ideas of being born with sacred objects that make the people being able to recognize them will help. I am very surprised by how much overlap there is between religions. In the Bible, all newborns are supposed to be killed by I believe King Harold. When Moses was born all Jewish children were to be killed if they were boys. Maybe people aren't as different as they seem. I also like when they life Krishna they capitalize his name. I think this is a stylistic choice showing his divinity. Another same kind of divine birth . Bibliography: Cradle Tales of Hinduism Sister Nivedita

I again am watching the epicfied version of the Mahabharata. I like how the Kunti is able to summon any god she wants to. I find these old epics to be very funny thinking of people being able to summon gods. If someone was able to give out the ability to summon any god to everyone think of the mayhem that would ensue. I think a less serious story I could write would be a story where someone gets the saying to summon someone then everyone starts to summon the person or god over and over. That would cause some hilarious situations. I also feel bad for Kunti because she has to give up her sone since she isn't married. I am not exactly sure about the history back then, but I would assume having a child out of wedlock and even not being a virgin would be terrible for a woman back then. I am glad we live in a more accepting time for sure!  The pandus curse one is also kind of funny. It seems like there are a few weird things always happening in the...

I decided to watch the Mahabharata on youtube. I thought it would be a nice change of pace to watch something instead of reading it. Since I am more of a visual learner this made it much easier to conceptualize what was happening. King Shantanu is very sad when his wife kills their child by drowning it. He finds out that they were heavenly beings that needed to escape from their bodies. He is also very sad when his wife leaves with the last child. I feel bad for the king. I had missed the first time Devavrat taming the river with his arrows. Some of the ways people think things came to be are pretty funny. It is hard to even imagine a river stopped by arrows let alone one as big as the Ganges. I feel bad for the king he is never going to find happiness it seems. How I watched my videos ;) Bibliography:  The Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution BY  Epified TV (India) 

I am at the point where Amba finally gets revenge for on Bhishma. It only took her what seemed like 1000 years hahah. The battle between them was described as so spectacular that both armies could do nothing, but watch. When you actually read the story you barley get any imagery. This is something that I haven't liked about theses readings. I try to add good imagery to make up for the lack of it in the reading. I mean the books literally like oh Bhishma gets shot with an arrow and slowly dies. That doesn't tell you much about the battle at all. If a battle went on for hours you would want to hear or get it described whats going on. This will be the final part of my stories I will use. The bow used to kill Bhishma Bibliography:  India Myth and Legend  Donald Mackenzie

Duryodhana sends a messenger to tell the Pandavas that they are going to be going to war soon. I enjoy this part of the Mahabharata because I enjoy the battles and the parts leading up to war the best. Krishna is more that welcoming the fight. He uses good descriptive language about burning up the army like grass.Kind of funny to think about, but I saw a video on twitter where some people light their grass on fire when playing with fireworks and the grass is burning very fast. So i can see how this will cause some serious damage. I really like the way they have their similes and metaphors back in the olden days because they are much different from what we would use in modern times, but some of them are timeless. Duryodhana has a much larger army, but a bigger army doesn't mean success. A good story idea will be about a small army defeating a large army. Next comes a beautiful song that is the most popular part of the whole story. I think it would be fun to have a song played for th...

The House of Fire: Price Viruda is the smartest of his brothers but is not able to be the kind becasue his mom is a slave. He is kind and just and doesn't have hatred in him like his brothers. Yudhishthira is also on good terms with Viruda. Yudhishthira goes with his mom to a palace but quickly realize that there is a trap set for him and his mom to be killed. It is very obvious that the King is trying to have all of them killed. I mean come on there is oil all over the palace and the whole palace became highly flammable wood out of no where. The only thing that I am kinda confused about is why it took so long for the plan to be enacted. I mean Yudhishthira had enough time to have a miner dig out a whole tunnel and they still hadn't set fire to their palace. I'm just confused what the king was thinking because even if he didn't realize it right away he would have seen eventually all the signs for a fire. This was by far the worst premeditated murder attempt I have ever ...

A common character in both stories we have read so far is there being an archer that can beat anyone in their way. I am starting to think having a good skill of archery is something that is looked up on in ancient Indian culture. Bhishma is able to kill all the challengers from his car. I assume this isn't a literal car but maybe a sky chariot as the ancient Indians wouldn't have know what a car is. Amba is going to meet Bhisma as a warrior later in the story. She gets rejected by noth kings and wants her revenge. She will become a warrior that will kill him. I think this would be a good story for my portfolio as it can show over coming something and maybe showing someone up. Bhisma another divine archer fighting off the kings  Bibliography: Myths of the Hindus and Buddhist by Sister Nivedita 

For this reading notes I decided to look into the part where Rama is going to save Sita from the 10 headed king. Rama for one has an awesome power with his bow. It seems like every foe he faces stands no chance, except for Virdha. He can instantly take anyone out that he needs to. This is the ultimate power. This reminds me of animes where the protagonist is overly powerful. He also uses his monkey army as spies to help relay to Sita he is coming to rescue her. There is a nice element of using the ring as a way to say that hope will arrive. This is the use of foreshadowing that Rama is coming to kill the beast. We already knew he would though since he has awe inspiring power! Rama and his bow  Bibliography:  The Divine Archer  F.J. Gould 1911

This week I read the Ramayana by Gould called the Divine Archer. I liked this book a lot better than the PDE version. It was much easier to read and it helped my understand the story better. I didn't realized that Rama and Sita were exclaimed and not allowed to enter the city for 14 years. I feel like the other version of the book was a little convoluted, but also now being better at reading the names of the characters and going back over it makes it much easier to get a clear picture. The cover of the book Bibliography: The Divine Archer F.J. Gould 1911

I am doing some notes on the pre battle before Rama and his army of monkeys storm Lanka's palace. Since Sita believes Rama to be dead because of the bow and Rama's head, she has little hope. She cried out in the last chapter. We are given a new character named Garuda who is there to heal the army of Rama. I will use this guy in my story maybe as someone who trains Rook and Justin before their battle with Sam. This is also a good story learning about the battles of India. This is where Sita believes Rama has been slain Bibliography: Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists By Sister Nivedita

The Sandals: I really liked this passage because of the importance of giving up the sandals. Not only where the sandals solid gold, but they were also very important for the times when this was written. Most people would only have one pair of shoes and on top of that being a forest without any shoes would be very painful. Rama is giving up something very important for his lively hood. As a writer a good part for this story would be to have someone give up something very important to them. I am not sure exactly where I want to take the story, but I am going to try to piece important parts of each story together. Viradha: This is a good battle scene. There is a good amount of action with Rama and Lackshmana attacking Viradha. They inflicted more than enough damage to kill any other opponent. It was discovered that the Viradha was invincible. They quickly dug a hole to take him out. Since this is such a major battle I will probably write my story about this section. I like that the your...

King Dasharatha: I started with this one because I wanted to try and get the base characters and setting. Group of people/ country Koshala. Ruler: Dasharatha Kids: Rama Mithila Head providence: Janaka Daughter: Sita Capital: Ayodhya Performs horse sacrifices to try to get a son, but gets 4. There is great imagery all through out this should be a major focus for me. Help for weapons: They bring a sword and bow.  Thataka: important for my battle and weapon story possibilities. They fights Thataka and cut off her arms and nose. Then they get their celestial weapons when giving a bone and blood sacrifice.   King Janka: In this story there is talks about a bow that is so strong and hard to use gods can't even break it. The king is going ot give his daughter's hand in marriage if someone can bend it. The only problem is is the bow can't even be bent by gods, so it begs the question will the boys be able to do it. (Vishwamitra) Having a challenge would be a good idea for...