Week 3: Topics

Gods/Goddess: 

I see that the theme for all of these stories has to do with Hinduism. These topics are a bit different than the ones that I looked at last week, so I'm excited to see what I find on the internet, or through research. 

Hindu Goddesses

Indra and Vritra: 

• The first thing that caught my attention was the title Indra and Vritra: The Demon who terrorized the Gods. When I first saw the title I was thinking that there would be a battle between demons and the Gods. In my research I found out that Vritra (enveloper) was a dragon who was as tall as the sky and that his enemy was Indra. Vritra had a vendetta against the world and turned it into a wasteland. When Indra, the king of the Gods, was born, he attacked Vritra. In the end Vritra was destroyed by Indra, just by a thunderbolt.  
• Link: Demons vs. Gods

Durga: 

• The meaning of Durga means "a place which is difficult to overrun". That was the first sentence in one of the websites that I looked at. I thought that it defined Durga as someone that is not easily convinced of things. Another interesting that I found was that Hindus believe in Durga. Because they believe that the goddess Durga protects people from evil spirits or any evils of the world and also removes the miseries of people.  
• Link: Durga

Tapati: 

• Tapati is known as the daughter of Surya. When I was doing some research about Tapati, it seemed that she trapped in a world that was not made for her. Her dad tried to marry her off so she really tried to keep to herself, because guys were throwing themselves at her left and right. Once a guy gathered up all his courage to actually tell Tapati how he felt about her she ended up disappearing. I wonder how she felt, with all these guys trying to win her over so that she would be their wife. Or how did she feel about her dad trying to marry her off.  
• Link: Tapati

Ganesha: 

• One thing that I thought was cool about Ganesha, was that all spiritual worship begins with the invocation of the Lord Ganesha. To break down what Ganesha (Isha=Lord, Gana=of all existing things). Ganesha is also known as the elephant-headed god. Stories explaining how Ganesha were interesting on the website that I was looking at. One of the stories talks about Shiva cut off Ganesha's head when he forbade Shiva to see him. I thought that was interesting because there were multiple stories about how Ganesha became known as the elephant-headed God.  
• Link: Read Here