Week 7 Reading Diary: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu

Below is my reading of Part A of the weekly reading: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu:

·       The story starts off with the same type of jealousy in the original Mahabharata. Duryodhana does not like his cousins, The Pandavas, because of their heir to the throne.

·       Arjuna meets with a very skillful fighter in Karna. Karna comes off very confidently and tells Arjuna of his wish to defeat him. I find this to be interesting because of the future implications of his desire to defeat him (his death).

·       Duryodhana attempts to murder the Pandavas and their mother by burning them in their house.  Greed is an important aspect of this epic, the original Mahabharata, and the Ramayana. It is the root cause of many of the main plot points.

·       I do find it interesting that Kunti tells Arjuna that Yudhishthira should be married to Draupadi. I do like either one of these outcomes because Arjuna deserves to have her. He outright won the swayamvara, just like Rama had done.

·       The Pandavas get the rough part of the kingdom. I find this ironic because they deserve to be the kings instead of Duryodhana. It is unfair and they should be in charge of the entire kingdom.

·       Yudhishthira, like the original, loses Draupadi in a gambling match with Duryodhana. Again, I feel for Arjuna because he deserved to be wed to her, not Yudhsihthira. She convinces the gambling winners to allow her to be forced into exile with the Pandavas. The brothers go into exile. 

Source: Pandavas in Exile

·        After exile, the Pandavas finally are ready to return to their kingdom and overthrow Duryodhana. I am excited to see if there are in other changes to the battle scenes. I hope there is more detail and not just quick plot points. 

Source: Wilson, Richard. The Five Tall Sons of Pandavas. 1914. 

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