Famous Last Words: Divinity

I found many similarities between The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. They both involved somewhat divine heroes, and their faithful, beautiful wives. It involved an epic battle between an enemy and those said heroes. It also involved divine intervention in the form of weapons, boons, and curses. I am starting to realize that the epics of India have a writing style all their own, and I really enjoy reading these. I cannot wait to start on the fleshed out version of The Mahabharata next week. I would love to eventually study the whole thing, although from the introduction that sounds like it would be quite the undertaking. In a very loose sense of the word, this is somewhat like a bible to me. It describes life and death, how certain types of positions should act, and various parables that guide one’s life. It is all through the various tales of unordinary people’s lives. It had some striking similarities to the Christian bible, but obvious differences as well. I definitely found this more readable than my bible. It is like a religious text and an epic legend all in one. However, one of the most striking differences I found was that God was questioned in The Mahabharata. Granted, I do not blame Draupadi for questioning his existence and powerfulness. She was mishandled and almost raped and completely humiliated in front of her husbands. I would not be feeling all lovey-dovey towards God either if I had gotten treated the way she was. It surprised me that this passage was put into The Mahabharata, when the rest of the text is highly invested in religion and the gods. Of course, the words were put into the mouth of a woman, because a man would never say something that stupid. There were a surprising amounts of contrasts in this epic that I enjoyed very much.

Draupadi and Krishna
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