Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Reading Diary A: Gleanings from Indian Classics: Krishna and Kabir
For this week's reading, I have begun reading a book that introduces Krishna and the Buddha as wise and spiritual leaders. I thought this book would be perfect for me to read this week since the theme of my portfolio is about Parashurama, the wise spiritual leader, and could greatly benefit from including other powerful spiritual leaders as well. The story begins by explaining the birth of Krishna, as his mother and father were held captive by the wife's evil brother, who is the tyrannical king of their village. According to prophecy, the king's sister would give birth to eight children and the eighth and final son born would kill the king. In order to prevent this, he locks up his sister and her husband in his palace and kills the first seven children born but they manage to get the eighth child out safely; this is Krishna. Krishna eventually returns to this kingdom, knowing that the king wishes to kill him but once he arrives, slays the king on the spot and releases his father from prison to once again rule as a just leader. This story is very interesting because the later part of Part A for this book merges Krishna with the 5 Pandava brothers from the Mahabharata. It's like this book is from the same timeline of the Mahabharata, but starts with the point of view of Krishna and his back story, rather than from that of the 5 brothers. I love this reading so far and can't wait to read more.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is great, Tucker: you are the first person to have chosen that book, and I am really glad you like it! The author was a very great Indian scholar, and he worked very hard to translating the old Sanskrit texts into English and also in writing books to share the stories with a wider audience. I am very happy you are liking it. I think the Krishna stories are fantastic!
ReplyDelete