Skip to main content

Reading Notes: Kincaid. Mahabharata- The Princes of Elephant City, Part A

I really like the fascinating, yet unique stories of the Princes of Elephant City. I like the detailed description of rich family history: "Long after the reign of King Bharata, there was a king in Hastinapura called Vichitravirya, who died and left two sons: Dhritarashtra, the older son, who is blind, and his brother Pandu, who becomes king. Pandu has five sons: Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna by his wife Kunti, and Nakula and Sahadeva by his wife Madri."


It's a very complicated history of a family with lines of succession. Surprisingly, as generations progressed they had more kids. Vichitravirya had two sons, Pandu had five sons, and Dhritarashtra had whopping 100 sons! As I read this story of procreating so many sons, I thought King Dhritarashtra and Queen Gandhari must have been exceptional people who could have so many kids like that. I know India is the second most popular country on Earth, and it even hints why that is in its mythology.


This description of Duryodhana sounds just like who he was in the PDE Mahabharata version I had read: "Duryodhana, meanwhile, grows even more jealous when his father names Yudhishthira as his heir, and so Duryodhana plots to kill the Pandavas and their mother, Kunti."


Duryodhana is a jealous, power-hungry, amoral, and relentless character who would kill and slay other people to accomplish his purposes.


This also sounds just like the Great Escape story I wrote about a couple of weeks ago: "Duryodhana's agent Purochana arranges for their death in a fire, but Vidura (half-brother of Pandu and Dhritarashtra) warn the Pandavas, and they escape the fire by means of a hidden tunnel."


Although this version of Mahabharata seems to focus more on describing the characters and their inner psychology, the main plots remain the same. There are hundreds of thousands of different versions and variations of Mahabharata stories, but this Kincaid version didn't strayed too much.


The story of Hidimba and Hidimbi, too, sounds very familiar. The bravery and strength of Bhima is also well-illustrated in the plot.


It was really interesting to read about Kincaid version of Mahabrata. It's actually fascinating in that it illustrated and showed the psychology of characters.



Drona teaches the young princes. Source: Drona's Teaching




Bibliography:


The Indian Heroes: Mahabharata- The Princes of Elephant City, C. A. Kincaid (1921)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Comment Wall

Link to my Portfolio                                         Skyline of Seoul. Source:  Seoul Skyline

Week 10 Review

**While I was doing Part 2, check-up, I've found that I didn't declare for one Reading Notes that I did back in Week 5. So, I declared it for Extra Reading for Week 10 instead. When Your Brain Doesn't Sleep (Graphic) I've found this graphic to be relevant to my current state. It's also interesting to learn about the science of brain and sleep. Brain perhaps is the most important organ in our body, and it does many important jobs to make us stay afloat. I've also found several brain malfunctioning experiences I've had due to sleeping less. Lost memories, anger, impaired wit, head in the clouds, slurred speech, and risky decisions all sound very relevant to my personal experiences of getting inadequate sleep. It's so fascinating to learn about the interesting correlation. The graphic is obviously very effective at fulfilling its purpose of informing people about the danger of sleep deprivation. Tapasya (Video) It's truly interesting to ...

Assignments

As I was reading through the various class assignments, two distinctly different thoughts came into my mind. I've had both positive and negative thoughts, yet positive thought is much bigger than negative one. One thought is that there are many, several weekly readings and assignments, and they can get quite overwhelming at some point during the semester (e.g. Midterm). The other thought is that all those readings and assignments are.. in fact.. FUN!! I know for sure, no matter how much reading and assignments there are, I will be thoroughly enjoying them. I love reading interesting fairy tales, myths, and legends. This class is all about that. In addition, I love the fact that the purpose of the assignments are to write authentically and creatively.  I'm intrigued by writing a storybook for class project. I've never written a storybook before, but I'm sure I will be having so much fun doing it.   Extra credit assignments are just as intere...