Reading Notes: The Tortoise and the Geese

I found this story to be a little strange but still very good in its lesson. Starts with 2 geese and 1 tortoise that live in pond until the pond dries up and the 2 geese decide to leave so they wont die. However the tortoise doesn't want to be left to die in the pond. After discussion on the matter the geese agree to take him but he must not speak at all because the only way they could get him there is if he held on to a stick while they fly. Once they had almost made it to a new pond they went over a few people then they started laughing at the trio so the turtle got mad and yelled at them which resulted in him dying. I think the lesson is this is to not be to quick to anger because it could result in bad things. I would like to find a way to make this modern somehow and have some back story to really represent the lesson of this short story.

"Tortoise and the 2 geese"- Source

Reading Notes: Deer Stories

Ruru the Golden Deer

I really liked this story and that it is a Jataka makes it awesome. Through out this story a boy lives and is spoiled by his parents his entire life. After his parents die the boy has no idea how to spend money and eventually blows through all the money in his possession. The boy tries to become rich again by barrowing money to eventually gaining enough back to pay them back. However, all the people who lent him money wanted it all back after several months of no repayment. The boy then takes all of the lenders to the river to drown himself rather then to let the other men deal with him. Once the boy was trying to drown himself a golden deer named Ruru that lived in a hidden spot on the river saved him. The only thing that Ruru asked in return was that he told no one of his location.
Days later the King of the town issued a search for a golden deer. The boy lead them straight to the deer!.

I think that I could be able to take the position of the deer in this story. After he saved a boy that is drowning or a near death experience he sits down with him to talk. After talking to the boy I will explain what the boy was doing to get into trouble that way I have a way to explain the other half of the story. Then I will have the boy leave to tell a person or hunter where the deer is to show that betrayal is not a good thing.

"Ruru the Golden Deer": Source

Book Source Information: 

Bizzell Library
Deer Stories: The Gentile Wisdom of the Jataka
Author: Anant Pai

Story: Love-Driven Sister

It’s a funny thing having a brother that on any given day just might not like the way you look at him and then decide to kill you. The crazier thing is that the person my brother had told me to kill this time was the love of my life. Once Hidimba smelled human flesh somewhere in the forest he tasked me with the job of finding and bringing him back this wonderful aroma to eat. However, once I arrived I found five sleeping humans and one man that I could not turn my eyes from. At this moment I knew I wanted this man to be my husband. I would not be able to complete this task for my brother.

I had to warn him quickly if I was going to save him. As I got closer to this man I knew that for me to have any chance in convincing him to leave I must transform into a beautiful woman. Once I approached this hulk of a man I was hoping that the sheer sight of me would make him want to leave and run for the hills with me as his wife. However, this was not the case as I hoped it would be. Once I got close enough he introduced himself as Bhima.

As I tried to get Bhima to just leave me and abandon these people that were with him he stopped me with a powerful booming voice proclaiming, "I will not leave my family behind!" I pleaded with him again that if he wouldn’t wake up his mother and brethren that they would become my brother’s food for the night, but this mighty man didn’t listen to me. He claimed that he would not wake his family because he wasn't afraid of rakshasas or of my chieftain brother. With pride Bhima said,"Look at me! I have the arms of oxen, legs of mighty trees, and the strength of a thousand men. Do you really think I am afraid of your brother? I will not be the one to be slain tonight but your brother will if he wishes to make this a challenge!"

Hidimba all the while had been listening from afar getting more and more impatient with the passing time. Once he had heard Bhima boast about killing him he was engulfed in rage and began his charge toward Bhima. As soon as he arrived he looked straight at me with his rage-inflamed eye and screamed, “Oh sister, since you want to disguise yourself as a human you will die with these humans!” Then he rushed me like a bull with intent to kill me where I stood before moving on to the others.

However, Bhima quick on his feet intercepted my brother and his attempt to slay me. In all reality I was so frozen with fear of my brother it would have been nothing for him to defeat me right then and there, but luckily Bhima wasn’t scared of Hidimba at all. Bhima cried, “You will not attack a woman whenever I am around! On this nightfall your sister will witness your death by way of a one on one battle!”

Hidimba responded, “I will destroy you first, Bhima! Then one by one your family will fall, until finally I will slay my betraying sister!”

I was honestly relieved that Bhima had challenged my brother to combat, but I thought to myself, "If Bhima loses to my brother I am dead meat!"

Once the fight commenced it was like witnessing waves crashing against each other, with each punch acting like lightning striking the ground. Through all of this wrestling trees had been dislodged from the ground and rocks had been split as if an earthquake had happened.

As time passed the fight progressed to eventually wake up Bhima's brethren to rush to his aid. As I watched from afar I could hear one of the brothers yell out to Bhima to not play with this beast anymore and finish the job.

Bhima responded, “Do not fret, brother! This monster will not be able to escape my grips!”

“Brother, please hurry! The strength of rakshasas becomes much stronger when they are in the daylight, and that time is almost upon us!”

As I was watching Bhima respond to his brother's words it was like a switch turned on in his head. He lifted my brother high above his head and with the power of a thousand men brought him back down to the middle of his knee. That being the final blow of the battle. Bhima had broken my brother’s back.

I finally felt free from the evil of my brother thanks to Bhima. Now the only thing I have to do is try to get him to become my husband...

Source: Bhima fights with Hidimba

Author’s note: The source for most of this story is from PDE Mahabharata: Bhima and Hidimba. I wanted to retell this story because it has been one of my favorites I have read in this class up to this date. I told the story back from the sister’s point of view because I think it would have been a very confusing thing to watch the person you love and your brother fight it out. Also I tried to capture what the sister must be feeling throughout the story. I’m not too sure if I was able to capture how she felt as well as I wanted to so this could be a possible revision point I can work on this next week. I would want to add more detail to the fighting scene but I didn’t have enough room to place what I wanted. Overall I will want to go back and add a lot more detail to the story as a whole. There is room for me to be able to make it more descriptive. 
I went back through on revisions and added a few extra lines of dialogue that added some description to the story. I also went through and made a few changes that I think helped the story flow a little better. 

Story: Blood under the Sun

                The sun rose over the north Texas plains and I knew what I had to do. Fort Worth was a large city, but I would find him. I would find the man who ruined my life. The man who stole my joy. The man who took the life out of my eyes. The man who took away what I loved the most in this world. The man who killed my son, Boomer.

                I spent the day finding out what I could around town. The best information I heard was that he liked to hang out in a bar called the Stockyard Saloon. I walked over to the saloon, and right when I was in sight of the bar I saw him walk inside. I knew I couldn’t go inside and do it in there. There would be too many witnesses. I had to wait.

It was just me and the sun waiting outside together for hours, but the sun eventually started to inch further away from me towards the horizon. The sun was about thirty minutes away from disappearing, and then he appeared: Bevo, the man with the face of a bull. I followed him through the streets of Fort Worth, all the while my rage was building and building. My hand wanted to grab the shotgun on my back so badly, but I knew I had to wait for the right moment.

                He turned down an alley and at this point I realized this was my chance. I wanted to shoot the bastard in the back with everything I had, but I knew I couldn’t stoop to his level the same way he took my son out. I wouldn't let him take my integrity away from me too. I yelled, “Hey Bevo! No guns, just you and me, man against man.” At that instant, Bevo whipped around and drew his revolver and fired the first shot. I dove behind a car and pulled out my shotgun. “Come out, come out,” Bevo hollered firing another shot. “This is only going to hurt a little.” Another bullet whizzed just over my head.
              “That’s three,” I thought to myself. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Your son sure didn’t," said Bevo. Another bullet flew by and my rage grew immensely. “He didn’t even see me coming,” Bevo taunted as he fired another shot. My blood boiled and I rose to fire a shot. Right before I pulled the trigger a bullet tore through my left shoulder. I cried out in agony and looked at what remained of my shoulder. I looked up at Bevo and smiled, “That’s six.” The look of pride and arrogance drained from his face and what remained was a look of horror. Sweat dripped from my brow. The pain from my shoulder faded away as I pulled up my shotgun and drew a bead between his eyes. “Boomer,” I said as I squeezed the trigger.

                Looking out over the sun setting over the north Texas plains I can’t help but think my son is watching me. And I hope he knows that I would do anything for him... anything.

"Boomer and Bevo": Source

Author’s notes:  Mahabharata Online: Public Domain Edition:"Arjuna and Karna." In this story I went with a very dramatic Red River Rivalry scenario! The story has more of a one on one battle scene than the both of the warriors meeting in the midst of a war. The reason I chose the one on one battle is because of the Red River game instead of them meeting in the middle of a war like in the original story. To give it a fun and interesting vibe to the story I added a few local locations like the Stockyard Saloon. Which is an awesome place if you have never been there! The idea behind the weapons that Boomer used was modeled off of the Roughnecks' cannons that they fire at every game so the only gun type I could conjure up was a shotgun. Bevo was given the revolver basically because he is from Texas and the revolver is a very “Texas” weapon. I also wanted to tie in the counting of the bullets for the revolver just like when Karna ran out of arrows in his battle in Arjuna. In my opinion in the original story line when Karna brought up the death of Abhimanyu to Arjuna that was the turning point for the battle. That is why I had to incorporate Boomer in the story to give Sooner a true reason to go after Bevo. I wanted to keep the drama of losing a son so I had Sooner be the son of Boomer. I really hope that you enjoyed this story and you got a few laughs out of it! Have a safe and Happy Texas Hate week! BOOMER!

Nivedita, Shiva: Reading Notes A

Supremacy of Shiva

In this story they talk about how Shiva isn’t welcome in Daksha house or welcome to any of his daughters for their worship or anything of that matter. I thought this story was a little hard to follow up to the point that I stopped on but pretty interesting. I think I could retell this part so that it is a lot clearer to understand and follow.  At the end of this Shiva is able to gain entry to Daksha house by way of one of his daughters who has been praying to him in secret for a long time. But she somehow died at Daksha’s feet at the end of this paragraph.

The Anger of Shiva
This was a really cool paragraph. After Sati in the last paragraph dies basically by the hands of Daksha Shiva is extremely anger with him and the sacrifices that he has at his house. Once he hears what happened he pulls a hair out of his head and throws in in to ground and a huge demon pops out of it.  Shiva then tells this demon to attach Daksha and his sacrifices. The demon cuts off his head at the end of it and destroys the gods that were in attendance there. Brahma advises the gods to make peace with Shiva because he could destroy the whole universe. They describe the demon really well in the story but that was pretty much it as far as what he did. The battle wasn’t even in the story so I think I could write about that. That I could also describe the Gods when they approach them. I really like a lot of this part of the story but I wish they would have added more information about it because it kind of lacked a lot of description for me.

(Uma beloved of Shiva: Source)

Story: Source;

Author: Sister Nivedita 

Portfolio Introduction

The Story of Jon and the Fire Leopard: Original Story

This story is about how a young boy was gifted with a special weapon that helped shaped his life in a positive way. This would eventually lead him on the path of a hero to benefit the people around his village.

"Fire Leopard": Source

Story of Jon and the Fire Leopard

There used to be a great warrior named Jon. During his time on earth Jon lived a very different life than many warriors. Growing up Jon was gifted with a magical weapon that a great sorcerer gave to him. Many people believe Jon was given this weapon because of how well he lived in his previous life. after being given this weapon Jon soon found out that it could change forms throughout a fight. In many instances this special ability would give him the advantage in any quarrel that Jon found himself in.

Growing up as a young boy Jon put it on himself to protect his homeland and surrounding cities from monsters and help whoever wanted or needed his assistance because of the incredible weapon he possessed. Progressing into manhood Jon became one of the strongest and most talented men that this world had ever seen but through all his battles and monsters he had slain Jon would have no idea what challenge was lurking around the corner.

A man from a distant village came running up to Jon in a panic that his entire home was being burned alive by a crimson fire-breathing leopard. The man told Jon that the reason the leopard was attacking the village was because they had to take one of her mystic fire stones to give to the Gods. He then continued by pleading with Jon that he was the only one with the skill and capabilities to be able to defeat this leopard. Jon told the man that he would go and defeat this leopard for his village! Jon had never dealt with any animals that were able to breathe fire out of their mouth before, but as with all the other fights he had been in he was ready for the challenge. 

As soon as he got to the village a darkness had fallen over the entire sky with no light other than the red embers of the burnt down huts all around the village. Jon then got a sudden inner feeling as he then understood the importance and emergency of the situation he had walked into. With each step that Jon took he could feel the heat of every little fire that was burning around him, but still he lurked around looking for the leopard that had destroyed everything in the village. Just as Jon was about to let his guard down a giant glowing red leopard shot out at him like a scorching ball of fire. Jon was shocked and frightened by the quickness and power that this leopard showed him. Frantically Jon was trying to figure out what kind of weapon he wanted to use in this situation. Suddenly it came to him that he could make his magic weapon turn into an ice bow that shot out frost arrows. 

The battle with this terrifying leopard went on and on with each foe exchanging shots with fire and ice. But eventually the leopard made a mistake that caused her to lose the battle. Jon had noticed that each time the leopard shot a fire ball at him she always returned to a pit of fire to replenish the fire that was all around her body. So once she shot her last fire ball, instead of aiming at the beast Jon shot an arrow straight into the fire pit nearest the leopard and hit her in the center of her heart. As a few seconds went by the frost arrow that entered the leopard's heart had slowly started to turn a blue color before freezing over and shattering into a thousand pieces!

After this fight Jon returned to the man just outside of the village to tell him the good news that the leopard was gone. Jon also told him the bad news that the entire village was basically burned to the ground. The man then was moved to sheer joy that Jon was able to kill the beast and informed Jon that they could rebuild their new village all because of him! Satisfied and proud of himself Jon took all that he had learned from this experience to heart. Then after Jon had his last interaction with the man of the village he packed up his belonging and headed back to his home village. 

Fire Leopard: Web Link

Author's notes: The story that inspired this was the story of Thataka in the PDE Ramayana. I changed the name of Rama to Jon for this story for two reasons. One I didn't want to keep his name so the story could have my own special touch to it. Secondly, I changed it to Jon because of “Jon Snow” who is one of the main characters in Game of Thrones! Since Rama fought off monsters using a magic weapon I thought it would be really cool to translate that idea into this story. I tried to give the weapon the same feel that it had in the original story so I kept that aspect so it could change into anything that Jon wanted it to be. This is also where I got the frost arrows idea from.  I used the bow concept for Jon in the story because Rama uses a bow in many of his stories even though Jon Snow uses a sword in his stories. I didn't really want to use the same monster that was in the original story so I changed it to a leopard that uses fire to give it a little more danger to the plot. That is also an extension of Game of Thrones because there are fire-breathing dragons in the main story line so in my story the leopard was given fire to match. In the Ramayana, Rama was guarding the village from Thataka attacking it, but I wanted it to resemble Game of Thrones by Jon protecting the ice wall in the North.  I tried to place as many Game of Thrones ideas into this story as I could think of to give the reader a cool mash up story! Hope all who read this story enjoyed it! In case anyone is interested in Game of Thrones or didn't quite understand what I was referencing here is a link.

Bibliography: PDE Ramayana: Thataka- Source