Week 9 Reading: Mahabharata by C.K Kincaid Part A

It was cool reading this story after already having a good idea of the characters and plots within the Mahabharata.  This story seemed much more face-paced, to the point where I thought that some things may have been in a different order than in the PDE of the Mahabharata. For instance, I didn't remember the Pandavas helping their teacher Drona get vengeance on his old friend Drupada so soon in the story and in their training.  The boys in this story start off as prodigies.  Also, Duryodhan attempts to murder them so quickly! After reading the first few pages it was clear that this was a very condensed version.  I had a good refresher on Vidura as a character and his role in ultimately looking after his nephews.  The man eating demon in this story is called Hidimva.  The fight between Bhima and Hidimva is pretty much how I imagined it.  In this story, Arjuna teases Bhima about being tired thus prompting Bhima to end the fight and kill Hidimva.  I remember I liked this fight scene so much the first time I read about it, I decided to write a story on it.  In this story, we did not hear about the warrior Karna until he competes for Draupadi's hand in marriage.  I feel pretty bad for Karna hearing this version of the story.  He was worthy in terms of competing for her love, but Draupadi pretty much humiliated him anyways.  I can see why he would have pent up anger.  I really enjoyed reading about Arjuna after his exile and his adventures.  I especially enjoyed the scene where he saves the water nymphs who were cursed to be alligators.  I could see myself writing a story similar to that.  It was amazing and I didn't remember that Arjuna used a flurry of arrows to shelter the forest from the rain and keep the fire going.  I didn't remember that from the first time I read the story.  I thought it was pretty humorous that in this rendition, it described Arjuna as kidnapping the beautiful maiden who was sister to Krishna with no context at all.  In the PDE of the story, Krishna had recommended doing that.  King Jarasandha was pretty unfortunate to have to wrestle Bhima.  I don't really remember this scene too well, and I was surprised to see how close the match was. Regardless, Bhima beat the king.  I'm sure the king was surprised; he was clearly a stud wrestler if he almost defeated Bhima.  I didn't recall that Bhima killed them, and then led an army to overtake the Magadha kingdom.  I really liked reading about Arjuna's encounter with the mountaineer Shiva.  His pride almost got the best of him in that encounter, though he ended up with celestial armor regardless.

Bibliography: The Indian Heroes by C.A. Kincaid (the Mahabharata story)

Shiva gives celestial armor to Arjuna

Source: Commons