Wikipedia Trails: From Janmashtami to Bharata

I started by looking at an Indian holiday called Janmashtami which is actually just a celebration of the birth of Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu. There is a bunch of fasting, eating, dancing, and meditating that happens in celebration of this holiday. This made me look closer at Krishna himself, and I learned quite a bit about how he has been portrayed through Hindu literature, and how those portrayals inspired dances such as Kathakali, which is like a play and a dance all in one. They also wear costumes like the one below.
Kathakali Costume
From that page, I also found a link to Bharata Muni. He was essentially the father of Indian theater and was an ancient dramaturg. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading Notes Narayan's Mahabharata B

Image
Arjuna The main focus of this reading was a large gambling match. It was actually awful to read how carried away they got with the betting. Yudhistira bet away their entire kingdom and even his brothers and wife. Then, the old king took pity and gave it all back, but what did Yudhistira do? He bet again and he and his four brothers were exiled. While exiled, Arjuna acquires a bunch of divine weapons, but also becomes a eunuch. Bibliography: Title: The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic Author: R. K. Narayan Year: 1978 Link
Read more

Week 9 Review

Image
Here is this really neat video previewing some of the art from the graphic novels in Bizzell. I haven't had the chance to go look at them, but maybe once my semester tapers off, I'll finally get the chance to head over. The art in this looks really well done, so it would just be nice to look through once before I graduate. And here is the cover one one of those novels :
Read more

Reading Notes: Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists: Ramayana A

Image
From what I can tell so far, this version of the Ramayana is very similar to Narayan's. The key differences are in the details. Most of the stories in this version have more dialogue, and more development of setting and character. However there are slightly different variations in the plot of the overarching story, such as Ravana taking Sita away by her hair rather than by picking the earth up underneath her. This version is shorter, but it seems more enthralling than the first version I read. There are also stories such as the one with Vali and Rama, that don't get any detailed discussion whatsoever. A story told in this one that I had not seen in the other version of the Ramayana, is the short bit when Hanuman is leaping across islands towards Lanka, and is caught by a sea demon. He grows even larger in size and kills her, before proceeding upon his way to Lanka. Sinhikha Bibliography: Title : Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists: Ramayana Author : Sister Nived...
Read more