The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
By R.K Narayan
Part A: Pages 1-39
Wow this book is very event-packed already. There are a lot of relationships forming and reforming and lots of marriages and children and deaths but the main takeaway is Bhishma is reincarnated as a human to pay for the fact that he killed somebody's cow and now he has to be celibate only all these people want him to have sex because of the aforementioned deaths, but he convinced someone else to do it and three children arose from it: Dhritarashtra, Pandu, and Vidura, and I have a feeling they'll be important to the rest of the story.
The themes of sex are really prevalent in this story--there's been multiple curses regarding celibacy and weird things arising from sex like blind and pale people and women keep being forced into it which is not cool
"a child was born of this union (a rapey one), his future indicated by the fact that he was born encased in armour and wearing large earrings" yeah I suppose that's one form of foreshadowing/predestination
The Pandevas, also important to the overall plot of the story I think, were born of gods through a mantra because Pandu couldn't have sex anymore or else he'd die. Since they were born of gods they got some important endowments. (Reminds me of demigods in Greek mythology a bit)
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| The Pandevas Brothers (Source) |
Meanwhile the blind king (Dhrit) had 100 sons (ouch) with his wife and they formed the other half of the important conflict in this book
Interesting backstory on Drona (a guru): his childhood friend became a king, and when he went to ask him for a cow one day, said he could have all the gifts he wanted but that he couldn't be friends with him bc they were no longer equals "There can be no such thing as permanent friendship; it is a childish notion..." Drona's response was to have all the cousins and brothers seize his old friend, and when they brought him back he said, "okay, now I'll take half of your kingdom, and then we shall be equals, and then I will be your friend again."
The fire- this was interesting because it was mentioned in the introduction. I thought it was interesting that they ended up setting the fire themselves rather than waiting for it to be set on them.
One of the brothers (Yudhistira) always "calmed them with his philosophy of resignation and hope" Can you have both of those things? Are they calming?
There's some fourth wall breaking in this story, when it says things like "In that assembly was a person who was to play a vital role in the Mahabharata later"
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