Week 7: Essay: India Unit

For weeks 6 and 7, I read two different sections of stories in the India unit of the Un-Textbook. The two were Indian Fairytales and Bengali Folktales. Overall I liked this unit very much. I found it hard at times to choose between stories to read. They are all so interesting to me. The reasons why I chose the two that I did were

1.     I like reading about fairytales from other countries. Last semester, in the Mythology and Folklore class I had the opportunity to read many different stories from around the world. Along the way I noticed that each Unit of stories had a similar theme to them. For example some of them had happy endings and others had bad ones.

2.       The Bengali and Indian Fairy Tales units had easy to see and clear cut motifs within some of their stories. All of the Bengali stories had a happy ending. The Indian Fairy Tales stories had some tricksters in it.

My favorite stories from the two units were The Tiger the Brahman and the Jackal, and The Story of a Brahmadaitya. I believe that the first story is clever because the Jackal ends up out-smarting the tiger, which puts bad karma on him. The second story is also my favorite because it is a feel-good story about a poor man who finds great fortune thanks to the Brahmadaitya. I didn’t really have any least favorite stories. I thought that all of the stories were told well. There were some connection I found in the India unit from reading the Ramayana. Mostly, it was just simple things like the names of the type of people and gods. Overall I really enjoyed this Unit in the Un-Textbook. I was surprised by how well the stories were told in the Bengali section. 

Flag of India

Wikipedia

The Man and the Brahmadaitya

The Haunted Tree and the Brahmadaitya

I once was a poor man growing up. I had no wife , no kids, and no friends. Everyone that I ever known or loved left me. I was alone and a helpless, homeless, man. Seven years ago my life changed forever. I was on the way to the new laird’s house and he was explaining to some of his servants that there was this supposedly haunted banyan-tree on the outskirts of our village was haunted by many ghosts. No one ever went to the tree at night and when they did the ghosts would come and kill anyone who disturbed the tree. The laird decided to make a challenge for anyone who wanted to attempt it. The challenge was that you were supposed to go to the tree and cut off one of his branches and bring it back in the laird. If you were to complete the take them we would reward you with 40 acres of land!

As a poor man, I saw that I needed to accept this challenge. I knew that it could have been potentially my last day to live, but what did I live for? I had nothing and I would have rather died tring to achieve a goal then die from starvation without doing anything.

I accepted the Laird’s challenge, and the other folks around laughed at me. They all doubted me, but I didn’t care. I made my trek the next night into the forest to find the haunted tree. Almost toward the tree I decided to take a break under a large vakula-tree. On my break, I began to have doubts. I was panicking and wanted to die. Little did I know, the vakula-tree was haunted as well by a Brahmadaitya who heard my worries.   He said he was there to help and I explained to him the situation and what I was trying to do. He offered his help and told me to go toward the tree. We reached the tree and I began to cut at the branch of it. Immediately a bunch of ghosts swarmed me and was about to kill be, but the Brahmadaitya stepped in to save me. He explained to them everything and they let me take a branch back home.

I was so excited that I raced back home to show the Laird what had been done and I asked for my part of the deal. He didn’t believe me at first, so he had to go to the tree and find the exact cut and see if it matched. It did, and the laird put together a contract and made it official. I had my 40 acres! It was rich with fruits and grain, but there was one problem. Since I was poor I had no tools to tend the land. I asked the Brahmadaitya if he could help me harvest all this food. He accepted and called out all the ghosts of the forest to tend the land at night. I woke up the next morning with the whole plot of land tended and a huge store house. I thanked the Brahmadaitya over and over again never fully expressing the joy and gratitude I felt. He said that it was time for him to go. He explained that befriending a good man like myself for a while enabled him to not be cursed as a ghost. It was time for him to go to heaven.

I lived happily for many years after that. I sold all the grain and corn from my land and became rich. I found a wife, had sons, and grandsons later. Together we got the tools and people needed to take care of our land, and this is where you see me today. 

Brahman and Brahmadaitya

Souce: Spirit of the Ages

Author's Note

This week I decided to base my story of off The Story of a Brahmadaitya in the Un-textbook. The reason why I chose to write about this story is because I liked that it had a good ending to it. Reading the story I thought that something bad was going to happen to the man, but nothing did. I also liked how the Brahmadaitya's spirit went to heaven after helping the man. It was his destiny  to help the man. I kept my story mostly the same the only differences were that I told it from the Brahman's point of view instead of a narrator. I wanted it to feel like he was talking to an audience asking him about his life. 

Week 7 Reading Diary B: Bengali Folktales

Bangali Folktales 

• There was a wife of a Brahman that was walking to a tank. She accidentally brushed up against a ghost and it angered it. 
• The ghost grabbed the wife and put her into the trunk of a tree. The she-ghost then put on the cloths of the wife and went back to the home of the Brahman and mother. 
• After some time the Mother noticed that her-daughter in law was not acting the same as before (but better actually). This caught the attention of the family them she began to do things that were not human. 
• They called and exorcist and make the ghost tell the family where the wife really was located. They retrieved her and made the ghost not bother the family again. 
• My favorite part about this story is when the exorcist man began to beat the ghost with his show. 
• The Story of a Brahmadaitya is a quite interesting read
• The main plot of the story is that a poor man is desperatly trying to survive and he takes on the impossible task that has the potential to get him killed. On his way, a Brahmadaitya helps him and provides the Brahman with 3 requests that make him rich!, In the end, due to the Ghost helping out the once poor man he " sent to heaven.
• The story is a "Feel-" one like most of the stories in this section. I like how the poor man gets rewarded for his bravery and selfishness. I will think about writing my storyteling post over this story. 
• The Story about the Rubies is another feel good story. (I like all these stories within the unit. They have nice and happy endings). 
• I thought that toward the end of the story when the young man went to the palace in the whirlpool that he would get in some kind of trouble for taking the rubies, but I guess not. Also at the end when he became a husband to a second wife, I wonder why he didn't go back to the goddess. 

Ruby 

Source: Wikipedia

Week 7: Reading Diary Part A - Bengali Folktales

The Evil Eye of Sani is the Fist story I decided to read in the Indian section of the Untextbook called Bengali Folktales collected by Lal Behari Day.

• This story is different because I though that the main focus would be about Sani, or Lakshmi, but instead it is only indirectly about them.
• Sani curses Sribatsa and places his evil Eye upon him. Throughout the story he encounters jealous people, theifs, and evil men. They steal his wife and boat. 
• Eventually Sribatsa meets a King and he tells him this whole story. The curse is lifted and Sribatsa is reunited with his lovely wife a pile of gold which he took from a cow. 
• We also learn that he was the Child of Fortune, so that explains why he was even getting gold cow dung in the first place. 
• I like the story " The boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled." It is a revenge story about an demon wife who tricks a King into blinding and killing his old 7 wives.
• Instead the Wives are just blinded and go into hiding. All of the wives bore a child, but only one of then the seventh one kept the child. Each of the seven mothers took care of the boy and he grew up to be very strong. 
• In the End the boy received a bird that would kill her mother if harmed from the country of the demons. As he returned home there was a giant bird terrorizing the city. The boy insisted upon tearing the limbs of the small bird off to kill the big one. Instead it was the queen that suffered and then the boy was named the rightful heir, and the all lived happily. 

Gold Bars: Wikipedia