Indian Epics

I liked the video  How Languages Evolve  by Alex Gendler. It is crazy that there could be somewhere between 3000-8000 different languages. So far, I know English, Korean, Latin, and Spanish. I learned Latin in high school and it really helped with learning Spanish because it was my first experience with conjugating. Although Latin is not a spoken language, many languages derive from it. I learned Spanish in college and I am planning on minoring in it. I used to get annoyed when people would ask if I could understand another Asian language because of languages are so different. The Korean alphabet doesn't share the same alphabet as the Chinese or Japanese. It is even difficult to understand North Koreans even though we speak the same language, because they have a different dialect. However, after learning Spanish I understood a little bit why people thought Asian people spoke the same language. People in Mexico and Spain share basically the same language although there are diff...

In  Wife of the Five Pandavas  by Donald A. Mackenzie, Shiva granted Draupadi five husbands because in her previous life she was a pious woman named Nalayani who prayed to him for a husband. She prayed five times to Shiva about a husband so he gave her five husbands. Her five husbands were the five Pandava princes. This is so weird to me. It kind of reminds me of the show 'Sister Wives', but I guess it would be called 'Brother Husbands' for this story. As the story continues on, they made a pact that only one of them should be with  Draupadi at a time. However Arjuna broke this pact and he was sent to exile for twelve years. He goes on and finds different women. I feel like there are a lot of gaps in this story so I would retell this story by filling in these gaps. A recurring theme in the this part of the stories is the unique births. In the  Birth of Draupadi  by  Donald A. Mackenzie,   Drupada wanted children so he performed a sacrificial rit...

I was very surprised at the story of King Shantanu and Ganga  by  Donald A. Mackenzie . King Shantanu fell in love with Ganga. Ganga is actually the goddess of the Ganges River. King Shantanu did not know this because when they met Ganga was in her human form. She agreed to be his as long as King Shantanu did not speak harshly towards her. Whenever Ganga and King Shantanu had children she would drown them in the Ganges River. She did this seven times. By the eight time, King Shantanu had enough and went off on Ganga. She left him and revealed that she was the goddess of the Ganges River. I appreciated the fact that Ganga was a strong woman who knew when to leave, unlike Sita in Ramayana. Ganga agreed to stay with King Shantanu did not speak harshly towards her. However, I feel like Ganga abused this statement. When she drown their children in the Ganges River, Ganga should have told King Shantanu she did this so they could return to their celest...