Week 2 Reading Overview

I am looking forward to reading the Ramayana, as the battle between Rama and Ravana sounds very interesting to me. I have chosen to read the Narayana version of the Ramayana as it is told like a story. While the public domain edition is free (which is very appealing) I feel that reading an anthology will make understanding the overall story more difficult, as there is no beginning, middle, and end to follow.  

I have looked over the various comic books and videos that have been linked to get a better understanding of the readings to come, and I have discovered that though the many names can be confusing at first, the stories told are very interesting. For example, the comic books "Vasantasena, A Dancer and Her Most Precious Jewel," and "Tales of Balarama: Valiant Brother Of Krishna" (Which can be found here and here respectively) caught my eye, as the stories consisted of 2 sides of good and evil in a conflict. What was even more interesting was how the story of Vasantasena inspired Shakespeare. I enjoyed the videos "A Diwali Story: Rama and Sita Defeat Ravana, the Demon King" and "Rama and the Ramayana: Crash Course World Mythology #27" (which can be found here and here respectively) as they were able to teach/tell a story in an easy to understand way with complimenting visuals, opposed to a great deal of text or a single person in front of a camera talking. The simplistic story telling with the illustrations/animations made for an educational experience that did't leave me having to rewind the video multiple times to make sure I understood what was said.

Hanuman carries the mountain

Source

I chose to include this image because it shows the lasting effect of the mythology in India. Though these are stories of old, this picture shows that the teachings of these stories and the impacts they have had are still alive and well.