Agenda, 17 March 2009 Ramayana, Jataka, Bhagavad-Gita

1. Agenda, 17 March 2009Ramayana, Jataka, Bhagavad-Gita leading into folklore motifs

2. Valmiki – like“Homer” – narrating oral epic, ca 400 BC Valmiki lived a simple life as a poet and holy man in a hut in the forests of northern India. Valmiki was inspired to compose his verse after visits from the Gods Narada and Brahma. Valmiki had a burning question and asked Narada: who was the greatest person in the world – the most accomplished, wise and compassionate? Narada replied that the ideal human being was a famous king called Rama. Inspired, Valmiki created….

3. Desai on Ramayana Ramayana as vehicle for diffusion of Hindu culture from India throughout Asia; as are Buddhist Pali Canon and Sanskrit Sutras Goes westward into China (162AD? where it shows up as 2 Buddhist tales where Rama is a Buddhist) and into Tibet (where it’s also a Buddhist tale), but also incorporates the Valmiki epic. Goes eastward into Burma, Thailand and Laos; by sea into Indonesia, Malaysia: adapted into each culture – in Malaysia, it includes many Muslim legends

4. Desai on Valmiki values Each culture, each Asian country selects, adopts and adapts various values about what are ideal relationships between father and sons, brothers, and husbands and wives – but many, such as China, do not internalize the caste system or assume Rama to be an incarnation of God The life of righteousness acc. to Hindu values is to endure sufferings and trials with grace and integrity

5. The Ramayana is perhaps one of India’s greatest reflections on what the ideal man and woman, brother and sister, wife and husband, and friend and king should be Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu Rama

6. A pair of Animated videos • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6HSpRJqh3c&feature=related Sita in the forest • This site lists English, Hindi and Marathi animations http://www.rajshri.com/animation/mythology/index.asp?page=1

7. Rama and Sita in the forest

8. http://www.bhagavad-gita.us/

9. From the Hindu pantheon 1. Brahma : the god of Creation : He is usually depicted as a four faced, hoary, old man with a flowing white beard seated on a lotus flower. He is one deity you won't find anybody worshipping or any temples built for. 2. Vishnu : the god of Sustenance, the Preserver : He is usually depicted as reclining on a huge coiled serpent with his consort serving him at his feet. He is also a four handed deity with a mace in one hand a conch in another and a spinning disc on a finger of yet another. 3. Shiva is the destroyer of the world, following Brahma the creator and Vishnu the preserver, after which Brahma again creates the world and so on. Shiva is responsible for change both in the form of death and destructionand in the positive sense of the shedding of old habits.

10. Incarnations: Rama One of the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu, Rama is an epic hero. His life story forms the epic Ramayana, written by Sage Valmiki. He is the embodiment of virtue : the Perfect Man, the Perfect husband, the Perfect brother, the Perfect king, the obedient son. He is believed to have taken birth to kill the demon king Ravana.. This Perfect One is depicted usually with his wife Sita and his obedient brother Lakshmana and his great devotee, the monkey Hanuman at his feet.

11. The deathless one, hs is a bachelor. Worshipping him is said to give one the strength to fight off evil. There are many traditional style gymnasiums in India which are named after him, where the practitioners also worship him. Hanuman, devotee of Rama

12. Krishna is another incarnation of Lord Vishnu and is the key figure in another epic of India, the Mahabharata. He performed many miracles and is also regarded as the person who created the Bhagavad Gita (the Divine Song). Here is the Baby Krishna, found on the lotus leaf Krishna the beloved

13. Useful website

14. Gibbs on Tales from India The Tales from India include three different kinds of stories: jatakas or "birth stories" of the Buddha; animal stories from the Panchatantra tradition; and Indian fairy tales - which you will probably find to be amazingly similar to European fairy tales (there are scholars who have argued that many popular fairy tales of Europe have their origins in India)

15. Jataka tales • Jataka tales were a major source for inculcating in people a deep sense of moral values. The Jataka tales date back to the third century BC and are considered the oldest form of story-narrating practice. Lack of literacy in those days necessitated the appointment of Jataka storytellers known as Jataka bhanakas. • The Jataka bhanakas would travel far and wide to propagate the message of kindness, compassion, generosity, non-violence, self-sacrifice, charity, refrainment from greed etc. through these stories. The Buddha himself used jataka stories to explain concepts like karma and rebirth and to emphasize the importance of certain moral values.

16. They depict incidents during the earlier lives of the Buddha leading to his Enlightenment through stories of these incarnations, both human and animal – particularly the virtues of charity, compassion, and self-sacrifice. Jataka have been performed, written, and depicted in art since the earliest years of Buddhism in India. Some of the stories also traveled along the trade routes and influenced storytellers in many other world areas. Collections of teaching-stories illustrating Buddhist virtues

17. Two Jataka tales, animated • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRwFsYzPIkM Monkey and the Demon • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIfgcKDyd14 Greed does not pay • Children’s site with short clips http://www.jatakkatha.com/

18. The turtle who couldn’t stop talking …. The village children saw the two Geese flying along with the Turtle and cried out: "Oh, see the Turtle up in the air! Look at the Geese carrying a Turtle by a stick! Did you ever see anything more ridiculous in your life!" The Turtle looked down and began to say, "Well, and if my friends carry me, what business is that of yours?" when he let go, and fell dead at the feet of the children.

19. The Mogau caves: wallpaintings in the Dunhuang oasis (China)Cave 257, Northern Wei (439 – 534 CE) Caves along the Silk Road, at the edge of the Gobi desert. They include paintings of Jakarta tales. In the year 366 AD, a local monk set about carving out a cave for solitary meditation. Over the next thousand years, hundreds of similar caves were cut into the same rock face - to become not bare monastic cells but richly endowed and adorned shrines. 492 caves remain. See http://www.textile-art.com/dun1.html

20. Does this tale sound familiar? • ONCE upon a time, a Rabbit was asleep under a palm-tree. All at once he woke up--  He jumped up and ran.   "What if the world should break up! What then would become of me?" • At that moment, some Monkeys dropped a coconut. It fell down on the ground just back of the Rabbit. • Hearing the noise, the Rabbit said to himself: "The earth is all breaking up! I must run and tell…"

21. From Aesopfables.com

24. Surely you remember the Stork…

25. His modern version is truly fearsome

26. In these Wisdom Tales, who are the narrators? The tellers? The authors? What are the roles of the talking animal? Goffman analyzes the speaker into 3 separate functions: animator, author, and principal—the one who utters, the one who selects the sentiments that are expressed and drafts the wording, and the one "who is committed to what the words say" (1981:144). How can we use that? With these fables,

27. In addition to Fractured Fairy Tales and Shrek, we now have Fables

28. We’ll work with this next week “After the Brothers Grimm, European scholars began collecting folktales from Europe and all over the world. The 19th century witnessed an explosion of publications containing folktales and fairy tales from every possible corner of the earth. Because European imperialism was continually extending its reach, there were anthropologists and "gentleman scholars" who collected and published stories from many different traditions in Africa and Asia and around the world. They published these stories most commonly in English, French or German translation.

29. Thompson & Aarne-Thompson In the early 20th century, scholars began to realize that they needed a system for organizing the massive quantity of folktales that had been published in some printed form. Unfortunately, the solution they came up with is not a very organized or efficient system, but it is still useful: the system is called motif indexing.”

30. Motif index entries look like this • D. Magic There are many D motifs because magic is prominent in both Märchen [fairy tales] and myths. These motifs may refer to the types of magical transformation, to magical objects, or to magic powers. A few examples of D motifs are:                         D174. Transformation: man to cuttlefish.                        D711. Disenchantment by decapitation.                        D1069.1. Magic handkerchief.                        D1573.1. Much butter made from little milk by power of saint.                        D1964.1 Savage elephant lulled to sleep by virgin.                        D2143.1. Rain produced by magic.                        D2197. Magic dominance over animals. http://www.talesunlimited.com/STmotifsearchhelp.asp