Week 5 Reading Diary: Part B

Below is a continuation of my reading of the Mahabharata:

·       Kunti and the five sons escape the fire before it kills them. Duryodhana and the King believe they are dead however. The family escapes into the forest in order to hide.

·       In the forest, the boys and the mother face the rakshasa Hidimba and his sister Hidimbi. Bhima defeats the evil Hidimba.

·       Hidimbi falls in love with Bhima. This is very similar to that of Shurpanakha and Rama. There are many parallels with the Ramayana and I will continue to try and find similarities. The two elope and have a child.

·       Bhima futher proves his fighting skills against the asura Baka. He defeats him very easily.This also is similar to the Ramayana because Rama is such a great fighter and would do anything to save people. Bhima seems to have characteristics that resemble that of Rama.

Source: Wikipedia

Bhima and Baka

·       Draupadi, a supernatural being, has a swayamwara to be married. The Pandavas hear of this news and attend it. Arjuna was able to bend the bow and shoot it accurately. He has won Draupadi.

·       She will now be married to Draupadi, however, due to them being the sons of Indra, they all are one. Therefore, all five of the sons will be married to the newly won woman. I do find this different than most of the stories because usually there are multiple women to one man. This is very unusual and could have problems later on in the epic.

·       Arjuna is exiled because he breaks one of the rules regarding the five husbands and one woman. He meets the daughter of the nagas and has a son with her. I find it interesting that he continues to marry different women. He is unlike Rama because he desires many women. I enjoy Rama more because it makes the entire story have reason filled with love and a certain dynamic. He finally marries another woman Chitra and has a son.

·       Mayasura builds the Pandavas a huge palace that furthers Duryodhana anger. Yudhishthira is asked to go to a gambling match where he loses Draupadi. This is where the plot changes to that of revenge for the Pandavas against Duryodhana.

·       They are all exiled to the forest for the next 12 year.

Overall, this is a great end to Part B. I am excited to continue reading this epic because of the revenge story that is building up. I am curious to see what the Pandavas do to avenge their exile and the taking of their wife. 

Source: Arnold, Besant, Devee, Dutt, Ganguli, Kincaid, Macfie, Mackenzie, Nivedita, Seeger, and Tagore 

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