Week 5: Reading Diary A

This week we are focusing on The Mahabharata and I have found that its content is a little bit different than The Ramayana. The one thing that stuck out to me when I first looked through the first few pages, was how they gave a generation tree, explaining Santanu and Santanu's second wife. I like the generation tree because it helps me piece together the different characters.  

Shantanu stops Ganga from drowning their eighth child, who later was known as Bhishma

Chapter 1: The Eighth Baby:  

• Santanu is the ruler of the ancient kingdom Hastinapura. In present day the is the state of Uttar Pradesh, about 100 km N.E. of Delhi.  
• He stumbled across a maiden by the river where he was hunting and fell in love. She had some conditions before marrying Santanu. He should not question anything that she would do.  
• One of her deepest darkest secrets was that she would drown her children.  
• His wife was known as Ganga, the goddess of the river, whom took human form to give birth to 8 children.  
• Their sons name is Devavratha, the great warrior.   
• Santanu later finds his second wife, a beautiful maiden in the woods. The daughter of a fisherman named Satyavathi. 
• Satyavathi give Santanu more children, two sons, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya.  
• Chitrangada becomes King, but soon dies. The king holds a swayamvara for his 3 daughters. 
• Vichitravirya marries 2 of the 3 daughters. 

Chapter 2: Enter-The Players 

• Kunti and Pandava go to live in Hastinpura, Dhritarashtra is ruling as king. 
• Pandu's sons, Pandavas and Kauravas are raised together. 
• Drona whom is the boys guru, trains the Pandavas and the Kauravas together with his son Ashwatthaman. ( pg 12-16) 

Chapter 3: House of Joy-and Ashes 

• Dhritarashtra announces Yudhistira as his heir to the throne.  
• Duryodhana and his brothers are not as popular as Yudhistira and announce to their father to exile the Pandavas.  
• Purochana an agent of Duryodhana, build a House of Joy for the Pandavas. The house is made of oil and straw which makes it easy to catch fire. 
• Everyone thinks that they died. 

Title: The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
Author: R. K. Narayan
Year: 1978