Hiya boys and girls!
Hello Elsa.
Hey, someone actually reads these things ! ^_^
Once upon a year ago, I promised Biles-sama to show the
parallels of two of my most favorite ancient epics, the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana from Hindu mythology, to his works.
Hmm. Interesting thought. Well, it's debatable that I'm any expert on
fanfiction, but Shiva only knows how many years I've studied Hindu
mythology. :) Few quick and not-so-quick comments and corrections...
Lucky you. I studied them back in high school, and got back when
I started on my thesis for the college.
Well, during the interim, some slimy piece of shit managed to
steal my only copies of those two texts. May he rot in hell,
that bastard. Considering those copies were probably the bst
ever translation from Sanskrit and rare items, I will probably
have to work ten years to get another copy. Anyway, I do
Ouch, that really bites. I have a few copies in Sanskrit and English and
my
family back in India have a few more, but nothing that detailed.
And may he rot in hell for that crime.
BTW, thanks for the corrections. I haven't read these books
in a while since RL didn't allow me the time to reread them again
and the bastard.....AAAAARGGHHH!!!
remember the sum of the both of them. Mahabharata is the story
of five brothers: Bhima, Arjuna and the three others have
sufficiently confusing names that I forgot them, and of their
Yudhishthira, the eldest. And the twins: Nakula and Sahadeva.
single wife, (Yes, you heard me right they were all married to
one woman.) Draupadi. Ramayana is the story of King Rama, his
Arjuna won her in a contest and when the five brought her home to meet mom,
Bhima said something to the effect, 'Guess what we brought?' And mom
replied, absent-mindedly, and not actually seeing the girl yet, 'Whatever
it
is, split it equally among the five of you.' Being devoted sons who
followed the path of Dharma (truth) the did whatever their mother
commanded.
Hey, now wouldn't that make a nice Ranma story. ^_^
Thanks for the refresher.
wife Sita and his destined war with the demon king Ravana.
The Ramayana is my favorite. Not quite as dark as the Mahabharata.
Yup, my favorite, too.
I'd probably have a shrine to Hanuman right now, if I weren't Catholic. ^_^
Strangely, the five brothers of the Mahabharata parallel
the Senshi quite well, give or take a few things. Serenity would
probably be a better fit than Usagi, making a nice queenly
Drudhistra (did I spell that right?) and Minako is not as crazy
Yudhishthira. Hmm, I'm not sure. Did Serenity ever do anything that she
knew was wrong, just to get her way? Yudhisthira did once, during that
final great war. It was said that, up until that time, that he had
committed no sin, and his feet never touched the ground. Once he did, he
was truly a human being, like the rest of us sots. :)
I forget most of the details of the Mahabharata, just the basics and
the character archetypes.
as some people portray her to be. She�d make one hell of a good
Arjuna, while Makoto would make one good Bhima. Which results in
I agree with Makoto, I don't know Minako well enough. Arjuna was charming,
passionate, and loved his art more than battle. He truly did not want to
kill, thus the story of the Gita.
hmmm... Ami then?
Mamoru becoming Draupadi. ^_^ Now that makes one good fic idea:
in Crystal Tokyo, all of the Inner Senshi are married to Mamoru,
along with the Queen, resulting in one very satisfied King. ^_^
Hehehe... that would be fun!
And would make a really nice lemon fic. ^_^
Anyway, the Mahabharata tells the travels of the five
brothers and the wife after being banished from their kingdom.
They go through battles, diplomacy and a hell of a lot of
things: arrows that destroyed worlds, a weapon that would bring
death to any who thought of battle and killing, killing most of
their relatives and meeting up with Krishna, a manifestation of
that cool guy with four hands and wrecked worlds, Shiva. I
Hm, no. Krishna is one of the Avatars of Vishnu. As is Rama.
<WHAP> I am sorry! SORRY! SORRY! I AM NOT WORTHY TO
LIVE !
Really I am. I just haven't read this stuff and I get confused.
think. Along the way we are treated to stories within stories,
like the story of Indra, the thunder god and how he crafted
Indra is Arjuna's father too...
Yup, a lot of gods and demigods running around too in Hindu
myth.
Then Drudhisthra does something that is technically
stupid. He rejects paradise, to keep the dog company, to reward
its faithfulness. And if I remember correctly, he berates the
gods, too, and gives vent to quite a few insults. And as he
walks away from paradise, dog in tow, the truth is revealed.
It was all a test, to see his purity of heart. He was rejoined
with his brothers and they lived happily ever after in Paradise.
Along with the dog. ^_^ Please correct me if I am wrong in the
telling of the tale, but it has been quite sometime since I have
Well, he goes to hell first. And the rest of his family is there. And he
is given a choice, stay in hell or go to heaven, and he chooses to stay
with
his family, and THEN they all get to enter heaven. One of the gods
explains
the balancing of men's souls. A person has to spend a certain amount of
time in hell, depending on how many bad things they did while alive.
I remember the dog part. Damn must have mixed it up with another
culture.
The lesson here kids is do not read too much. You'll probably start having
mistaken ideas of one culture after another. ^_^
For the Ramayana, Shiva is the hero of the story. So that
rules it out, since SHIVA is the villain of Biles-sama�s piece.
Um, once again, Vishnu. Not Shiva.
Again sorry about that.
^_^ Just kidding. Shiva is the hero, or to be more exact, one of
his four parts is the hero. Shiva divides himself into four
pieces when he came to the world to born as a man, so he would
be able to destroy Ravana, the demon king who was blessed by
Brahma to be never killed by any god, demon, spirit or any
supernatural being. So Shiva exploited Ravana�s only chink in
the armor. He became human, exempt from Brahma�s ban. He was
born as Rama with his twin brother Lakshmi, another aspect of
Um, no. Lakshmana and Rama were not twins. Lakshmana and the forth
brother
were twins. I think Lakshama's twin was named Sugreeva. (or was that the
monkey kind?) Anyway, Lakshmana was close to Rama and Sugreeva was close to
Bharta, the other brother.
Damn it! I will really kill that bastard who stole my copies, the moment
I find out who it is!!!!!
But there is another parallel, though a bit weak. Hanuman
does not join in the Great Passing, where everyone else dies.
No, he remains, along with his friend the King of Bears, charged
Interestingly enough, he shows up in the Mahabharata. He rides on the flag
of Arjuna's chariot in the battle, and acts like a shield for the chariot.
After the war, he leaves his perch and the whole chariot bursts into flames
and self desctructs. Only with Hanuman's strength was it able to withstand
all the divine weapon attacks against it.
Another thing I love about these epics is the large amount of divine
weaponry flying around.
Nukes are nothing beside these babies.
Anyway, that's about it. Hope it was helpful, and if ya ever want to
discuss any of this stuff let me know! I've been reading this stuff
forever, and I love it. :)
Me too! Of course the reading forever stuff will probably be delayed
awhile after I scroung up money for another translated copy of these
epics.
See you,
Anand
Thanks !!!!!
And everybody please note the corrections !