In the name of Krishna, whose devotee he was, guru Drona had promised the suppliant that he would give her whatever she wanted from him. The stranger asked him for Abhimanyu’s head. He was shell shocked. When he recovered, he was furious. He condemned her and threatened to curse her. The one without equal, Bhishma, …
French, German & Hindi retellings
Some posts from this blog have been retold into French (by Gilles Schaufelberger, http://www.utqueant.org/net/telech.html), German (by Christa Scheler, http://www.hindumythen.de/das-sarala-mahabharata) and Hindi (by Ankita Pandey, https://hindisaralamahabharat.com/).
"Language Matters"
My book "Language Matters" (132 pages) was published last month (by Dhauli Books, Bhubaneswar). It's a collection of 32 short essays (only a few contain more than 2000 words) on various topics: communication, language and its study, language in education, football, books (including Sarala Mahabharata), haunted houses, etc. These are "personal essays", written in a …
DIVYA CHAKSU
In Vyasa Mahabharata, Sanjaya had divya chaksu – divine (“special, extraordinary” in this context) vision – bestowed on him by the great sage, Vyasa. Sitting with King Dhritarashtra, away from the battlefield, he could see the many battles being fought on the different battlefields of Kurukshetra and narrate them to the King. The blind Kuru …
THE STORY OF BABANA BHUTA
(This story is remarkable in that it connects the loka katha (folk literature) with the classical in a fascinating and non-intrusive manner.)Our ancients created a colourful and delightful universe in which there were cognitive existences other than the humans: devas(gods), asuras (demons), gandharvas, kinnaras, apsaras and bhutas (ghosts), among others. In popular talk in Odisha …
THE STORY OF A BLESSING BY MISTAKE
After Bhishma withdrew, obeying Krishna, the divine arrows he had shot to kill Arjuna, he asked the avatara, still on his chariot, why he did not kill him. He had deliberately used those arrows, he told him, knowing that he would have to intervene openly in order save Arjuna. That had happened. With his sudarshana …
THE STORY OF BELALASENA
Belalasena’s story is in two parts: the first part is about his decapitation; the second, about his saying what he had seen happening in the battlefields of Kurukshetra. The avatara had asked for his head and he had prayed to him to behead him. He wanted to see the Mahabharata war, so by Krishna’s grace, …
SARALA’S SANJAYA
In Sarala Mahabharata, Dhritarashtra did not ask his minister Sanjaya to tell him what was happening right then on the battlefields of Kurukshetra, neither did Sanjaya volunteer to tell him. He got the news of the war every day after the fight stopped. He would then share his feelings with Sanjaya and sometimes would ask …
WAR OR NO WAR? THE FINAL ANSWER ACCORDING TO TWO ODIA MAHABHARATAS
The Mahabharatasin question are Sarala’s Mahabharataof the fifteenth century and Mahabharataby the sixteenth century poet, Jagannatha Dasa, known and revered as the author of Odia Bhagabata, which is a sacred text. Incidentally, there are at least three retellings of the Mahabharata in Odia. The third is the Mahabharata which seems to have been written in …
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THE REVENGE OF THE DEAD: THE STORY OF THE SPECIAL DICE OF SAKUNI
From one point of view, it was not Sakuni who avenged the brutal murder of his father, uncles and relatives by his nephew, Duryodhana; it was indeed his father, King Gandharasena himself who did. He was the Causer Agent: Sakuni was merely “doing agent”, more an instrument than an agent. In fact, in a Sanskrit …
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Sarala Mahabharata 