Reading Diary A: PDE Mahabharata

My very first impression of this story was that it might be more challenging for me to keep up with simply because of how many characters there are.  It seems like the Mahabharata has many more characters than the Ramayana and all of their names are much longer and harder to read so keeping up with the plot line is harder to do. To circumvent this, I have had to write down all of the names as I read along and write out what their role is so I can keep track of everything.  As far as the beginning of the story goes, I find it very strange that Uparichara "dropped his semen" in to the river so that a female fish may be impregnated by it.  I don't understand why he would do this and I find it very puzzling, as I have never read anything like that in a story before. Perhaps there is more insight in to why he did this and I should read about it on the internet. Something that really caught my attention was the part of the story that talks of Ganga's marriage with King Shantanu. It really strikes me that a female character has such influence and dominance over her marriage as compared to every other female character I have read of in the epics of this time period. That was very fascinating for me and makes me wonder why Ganga has such power. I really want to know the reason why she drowned her first seven children into the river before finally halting to King Shantanu's plea to stop with the eighth child. It says in the story that she gave the reason why she did this and then disappeared, never to return again, and does not explain what exactly she said her reason was. I want to do some research on this outside of the reading to figure out what she was doing. The next thing I noticed was the fact that Bhishma captured the three girls he planned on taking as wives for Vichitravirya, instead of winning them over in a contest. This is dissimilar to the style of the Ramayana in my opinion, because it seems that all of the main characters in the Ramayana are much more honorable in their ways and would not take any maidens by capturing them in battle.

Ganga

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