Portfolio: What goes around, comes around

Children's love bedtime stories, and each and every bedtime story come along with a moral or message per say. One of the greatest message that we can learn from the Epics of India is Karma. Karma teaches one to always treat others with respect and how you would want to be treated. You should never lie, hurt or wish bad upon others, since it can come back to haunt you. This is what these stories behold before you:

1. Jayadratha's Death
2. Karna's Curse
3. Jatayu and Sampathi
4. Brahma gives Ravana his boon
5. King Dashratha and his ego

Week 14: Reading Diary B

The Pandavas and Dhitrashtra go and visit Bhishma, who has the power to choose his time of death. Bhishma isn't angered at the Pandavas at all and talks to Krishna and passes away. Yudhisthira is in depression due to the death, he brings about. When sleeping, he sees that he is able to go to heaven, but finds his brothers and Draupadi in hell and he curses the gods. He wakes up from that dream back in Kurukshetra and so he goes on with the coronation ceremony. Parikshetra, Arjuna's and Uttara's son, is born and is revived by Krishna. Arjuna's weapons were destroyed by Agni and the Pandavas and Draupadi abandon the world and head north, leaving Parikshetra as king.

Week 14: Reading Diary A

Duryodhana and Bhima fight, and Bhima defeats Duryodhana and Duryodhana waits for his death at the lake. While waiting he is visited by Ashwatthaman, who he makes the commanding general. Ashwatthaman assembles a night raid and raids the Pandavas camp, and kills most of the people at the camp. Only few people are left on either side after the battle. Krishna and the Pandavas who decided to sleep outside the camp find out and are outraged. Ashwatthaman uses the Brahma mantra to attack Bhima, but Arjuna uses the same mantra to counteract the attack. Dhitrashtra shatter a statue of Bhima thinking he has killed his son's killer.

Tech Tip: TypingRace

I started playing different games on the provided website. I really wanted to increase my typing skills so this was perfect for me and I had a lot of fun doing this as well. I really like Ninja Cat, but the game I liked even more was the TypingRace game. I really liked this game because I was able to play against other players across the website and brought the competitive side of me out.

Week 13 Storytelling: Jayadratha's Death

Arjuna is informed of the death of his beloved friend Uttara. Uttara was trapped behind enemy lines by Jayadratha and finished off by the Kauravas. At first, Arjuna was in shock and just stood still in awe of what had happened. He has lost someone that he had really grown close to and has considered one of his best friends. This really angers Arjuna and he promises to avenge Uttara’s death by killing Jayadratha. He was so angry that he vowed not to sleep till he has avenged one of his best friends.

Krishna asks Arjuna to take a seat and calm down after seeing all the anger in Arjuna’s eyes. Scared Arjuna might do something abruptly, he says, “ You must not let the anger get the best of you. Do not make a hasty mistake.”

Arjuna replies, “ What do you mean? I am just doing what is right by avenging my friend’s death. That barbaric king of Sindhu, Jayadratha, managed to trap him and then allowed for the Kauravas to kill him. ”

Krishna replies, “I am not saying you should not avenge your friend. I am just saying you are being hasty and should wait and listen to this story.”

The story begins.

It was the day that Jayadratha was born. His father was so excited. He had finally received his life-long dream, a son. He stepped outside just to get some fresh air when he saw an owl. His first thought was, “How dare an owl come here on such a great day?” He took his bow and arrow and beheaded the owl.

Before the owl passed away, he said, “You may have taken my life today by cutting my head off, but your son will meet the same fate that I have met.”

The father thought to himself, “What have I done? I have brought my son’s death to be by being beheaded. How horrible of me!” While thinking this, he went to his son and said, “ I curse the person that beheads you. He will have his head burst as soon as your head hits the ground.”

After finishing this story, Krishna says, “So you must outsmart this curse. Make sure to be careful to not let this curse hurt you.”

Arjuna had heard Krishna out, but the anger still boiled inside of him. He got in his chariot and drove to where he knew Jayadratha was. He cut off Jayadratha’s chariot, trying to stop him. They both got out and started fighting with their swords. Arjuna’s anger allowed him to win and behead Jayadratha, but knowing that he shouldn’t allow Jayadratha’s head to fall. So, he took out his bow and arrow and hit Jayadratha’s head in a manner that made the head fly right into the lap of Jayadratha’s father, who was praying for Jayadratha’s safety during the battle close by. Unaware of what had just happened, Jayadratha’s father stands up and the head falls to the floor and immediately Jayadratha’s father’s head bursts.

Jayadratha's death. Source: Wikimedia commons.

Bibliography

Buck, William (1973). Mahabharata.

Author’s note

I chose this story because I had never heard this story and this story really was interesting. I felt as though this story had a really great message that needs to be taught to kids. Jayadratha’s father had placed the curse to keep his safe son, but in the end Jayadratha gets killed and his father was hurt by the curse too. I felt as though this curse was placed for selfish reasons and that is why the curse didn’t work out. The curse almost came back to hurt Jayadratha’s father and kill him since he had used the curse for selfish purposes. The result was almost like karma because anything done in a selfish manner or done to hurt someone can come back to hurt one’s self. I wrote this story in this manner because I feel as though Krishna is wiser and all-knowing (being the re-incarnation of god, Vishnu). I feel like he would be one to know about the curse placed by Jayadratha’s father compared to Arjuna or anyone else and he is always looking out for Arjuna’s best interest throughout the war. I had a great time writing about this story and hope the moral teaches children to never do things for selfish purposes or in bad faith.

Week 10 Storytelling: Karna's curse

Karna kneeled in front of Arjuna, begging him for mercy. Everything was going against Karna on that battlefield. First, his chariot's wheel got stuck in the mud and now he was unable to remember the mantra needed to use the Brahmastra weapon against Arjuna. Karna wept and said to Arjuna and Krishna, "Please forgive me. I have been a fool to pick a battle against you. You are the almighty and I will owe my life to you if you allow me to live." 

Krishna, talking to Arjuna, said, "Don't listen to Karna. These problems have come to him due to the curse place on him by his guru, Parasurama." Krishna began to tell Arjuna the story:

 One day his guru had fallen asleep in Karna's lap. He was fast asleep and had warned Karna to not awaken him for any unnecessary reasons.  It was a beautiful day so Karna sat on the park bench with his guru in his lap, just enjoying the view of the birds and other beautiful creatures. While this was going on, he realized there was something crawling on him. If he were to move, it would wake his guru up and anger him. So, he sat there as still as possible, looking at the creature. It was a centipede. When he focused more on it, it was a demonic centipede that had pincers. As soon as the centipede found a good spot on Karna’s leg, it used those pincers to draw blood and create a meal out of it. The blood just kept oozing out and eventually created a big enough puddle that Parasurama was lying in it. Parasurama, feeling the blood, woke up.

 At first not realizing what had happened, Parasurama asked Karna, “ What is going on? Where is all this blood coming from?” 

 Karna explained himself, “This demonic centipede bit me and I didn’t want to wake you, so I let it.” 

 Parasurama relied, “ How were you able to bear all this pain? You had told me you were a Brahmin. There is no way you are a Brahmin. A Brahmin wouldn’t be able to bear such a pain.  You have lied to me and deceived me. Tell me who you are at once.” 

 Karna, seeing Parasurama in anger, replied, “Okay, I might have told one small little lie to benefit from your teachings. I am the son of Surya, the sun god, and I am no Brahmin. I was told that you only taught to Brahmins and therefore, I portrayed myself as a Brahmin. I was in a real need of the Brahmastra to defeat Arjuna and that is why I did all of this.”

 Parasurama, angrily, replied, “You have deceived me for this weapon and for this you will forget it when in the need of it the most.”

 After finishing the story, Krishna looked up at Arjuna and said, “ This is just Karna’s karma, coming back to him. He deceived his guru and that is why he is paying for it now. Do not feel sympathy for Karna. These are just the causes of his own actions.”

 

Karna asking for Arjuna's mercy. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bibliography
Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata. Author’s Note

Author's Note

I chose to write about this story because one of the most interesting topics to me is karma and this was a really great example of how karma came back to hurt Karna. Karma is when actions in the present or past come to affect the future and that is exactly what happens in the story. This topic has always been something that interests me and something I would like other people to know about. I feel as though this story would also be a great lesson for children. It teaches children that you should never lie or cheat some one because it can always come back to hurt you.  Karma is something that whether you are Hindu or not you still kind of believe in. It's like when parents teach their children you should act towards others the way you want people to act towards you. This is basically what Karma is saying except Karma is looking at long term whereas this lesson is more like a short term thing. Karna lies to his guru, or teacher, to receive his skill and in turn gets killed by that same skill. This should teach children that lying and being deceitful is never a great thing and can hurt you in the end.