Reading Diary Part A Week 9

The story of Shiva’s son being beheaded and his head being thrown to the Himalayas

His head is replaced by and elephant head

This seems like an odd thing to have lying around the house an elephant head but ok

This story is narrated by one person telling the story to another person that is writing the story down on leaves.

Dharma in the first part, the king kills a snake and is cursed to be killed by a snake

The king tries to trick the serpent god but in the end the king is tricked by the god and is bitten and killed.

The genealogy in this book is hard to follow

So many names this is like a maze or puzzle to try to sort out

A family tree would be helpful

There really seems to be no structure to this story, it seems like a collection of events that have nothing to do with one another.

The beginning appears to be a creation story somewhat

Then it is followed by the king being killed by the snake

Then the son of the king promises a boon for the capture of the snake

I think this is a story of humans and gods but I am not sure this could be the story of god’s at war with one another because when the serpent is captured and held over the flame the serpent is called a god and Indra is also called there and defeated by they humans or rather left powerless to stop them because they were casting mantras?

Is this saying that the god’s are not more powerful than humans and that in some way the humans are somewhat equal to the god’s

The story also seems extremely obsessed with sex

The young girl is able to call upon any god she wants and that god will come down and have sex with her and she is guaranteed a child.

Children of the god’s are born in one day

She places the child in a basket and sends it down river and this seems a lot like the biblical story

The child is taken in by a couple that could not have children

100 babies taking two years to be born

Once they are born they are just a ball of flesh

The ball is separated into 101 pieces and placed in jars of butter

Two years later they are born.

100 boys and 1 girl

They girl that can call upon god’s to mate with her marries a king

That king kills two deer having sex and he is cursed to never again be able to have sex without dying

He has two wives and rather than leave him they live with him

He wants son’s and has his wife call upon the god’s to mate with her

She does and the other wife wants a child so she also calls upon the gods to do the same

The king sees her bathing and can’t resist her and as soon as he begins having sex with her he dies

She dies with him in her arms from a broken heart

Drona is turned away by the king because of his class

Drona teaches his children to be archers and warriors and they capture the king

Drona tells the king that he will be released for half his land and that Drona will become king of that land so that he and the king could be friends or enemies without regard to class

I don’t understand what the not eating in the dark thing was

The sons of Drona seem to be involved in some sort of competition

This story really needs to narrow in on a few characters and focus on their journeys as it is the story really bounces around making it hard to engage.