Reading Notes: Narayan's Mahabarta, Part A


I read R.K. Narayan's version of the Mahabharata for this week’s reading. I really enjoyed reading his version of the Ramayana and thought it would be fun to continue to use his work for this and next week’s reading. Jumping into reading the stories it was like seeing an old friend. The style felt familiar and it made it easy to get back into it.
The story starts out with the tale of a king who has no wife. He meets a woman by a river and immediately falls in love with her. This woman turns out to be Ganga, the earth goddess. They have eight children together, of which she drowns seven for crimes they committed in a past life. The eighth is allowed to live, and Ganga leaves. The king, now without a wife, happened upon a beautiful girl in the forest. He wanted to wed her, but her father demanded that he make their son the heir.
The son of the king visited the fisherman and made a promise to be celibate. The king was thus allowed to marry the daughter of the fisher man. The king and his wife had two sons. These sons were unable conceive, and so Satyavath had to summon her other son, and he conceived three sons. One of the sons conceived 100 sons. The other son, cursed to die when he laid with his wife, had his two wives conceive with the gods. From the start these cousins bickered among one another, when they were trained to be warriors, their disagreement came to a head. The 100 brothers tried to kill their cousins, but their cousins escaped.
The story really revolves around different deities and how they interact with the characters. This story centers around the conflict between these cousins and how that plays out.


Mahabharata Source



Bibliography
R.K. Narayan. Mahabharata. Kindle

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