Story: The Bumbling God Finale

And so Krishna had aged and the demons had all but given up hope of ending the man's life. There was no hope of bringing him down for luck was always on his side. No matter what had been sent at him the boy has survived untouched for his entire life. Despite being frail to behold, weak, and sickly, he had made it into adulthood through all the trials and tribulations of his life.

Kamsa had grown extremely frustrated over the years for no matter what he tried, his attempts to end Krishna's life had failed. It seemed there was no hope. Still, Kamsa hoped that either the prophecy had been wrong or that he would find a way to end Krishna's life and prevent the prophecy from occurring. All the the times Krishna had survived against all odds led Kamsa to believe the prophecy was true though and the boy was only being kept alive so that he could fufill the prophecy. Kamsa had one final plan. He sent his soldiers far and wide to find someone that looked exactly as he did. The goal was to have Krishna kill the lookalike and thus the prophecy could perhaps be fulfilled.

An older man who looked like Kamsa was found and brought to the palace and dressed in royal Garb and Kamsa himself dressed as a lowly servant and served his lookalike, but secretly he still gave orders through whispers to his soldiers and servants. Kamsa had his lookalike issue a great proclamation throughout the land that summoned the man known as Krishna to the palace and great wealth was promised to whomsoever was able to get Krishna to the palace. It was Kamsa's belief that simply escorting the man wouldn't let unnatural luck save the man.

Krishna heard of this proclamation and decided to go himself to claim the great wealth for his family but his mother and father begged him not to go. "It will be your death," they said.
"Fear not, mother and father," Krishan said. "I will be fine. The gods watch out for me." And they let him leave though they mourned in their hearts for their son.

Krishna came to the great palace and he was escorted into the throne room where Kamsa's lookalike was sitting on the throne.
"Krishna, welcome to my palace. I have heard of your abilities and would like to personally challenge you to a duel. If you shall win, you may take my place on the throne." Krishan knew he could not deny the duel or he would simply be killed on the spot and thus he agreed. The date and time was set. The duel was to occur the following morning shortly after sunrise.

Krishna was escorted to a grand room and he was brought expensive foods and drinks but he did not take them. Kamsa had had it all poisoned but again Krishna was saved by luck. He was simply not hungry or thirsty that night.

The next morning came and Krishna was escorted from his room and into a grand arena where Kamsa's lookalike was already waiting in the center in golden armor, carrying a massive sword. Krishna wore only a simple tunic and belt.

"Choose your weapon!" Kamsa shouted and suddenly many slaves ran at Krishna all holding various weapons. They stopped a few feet from him and held them out to him for the man to pick. Krishna was not strong and his deformity meant he couldn't use a bow or arrow well and so he took a simple wooden spear. He did not expect to win this fight but he was prepared to die. He had lived a good life and survived against great odds to get so far. It was time. The slaves retreated back to their hidden corners and the two men stood in the arena. Suddenly, a great horn sounded and the battle began. Kamsa charged forward towards Krishna but Krishna did not flee. He lifted the spear up and took aim, prepared to launch it into his enemy. Kamsa grew closer and closer until he was almost on top of Krishna. Krishna let loose the spear and it flew straight but it completely missed Kamsa and soared far past him, impaling a single servant hiding against the outer wall. All the servants and soldiers shouted for it had been the real Kamsa that had been struck. The lookalike stopped just short of cutting Krishna down and he saw where the king lay dead. He dropped his sword and fell to his knees in front Krishna, the new king. And thus, the prophecy was fulfilled.

Authors Note: I wanted to finally end this series before I finished this class and so I put together this ending. I tried to make it seem like Krishna would finally die in this one but then there's the big surprise ending to tie everything up. It probably could have used a bit more information at the ending but I'm satisfied with it for the most part. I hope you enjoyed!

Bibliography: Epified Krishna, link

(Avatars of Vishnu, wikimedia commons)

Reading Notes: Seven Secrets From the Hindu Calander Art Part D

I'm still enjoying this series quite a bit. It does get a bit dry but since this is probably the last reading assignment I have left in this class, I figured I might as well just get it done with since I already had come so far with the series. This portion focused on two videos: "Shiva's Secret Part 2" and "Devi's Secret". Personally I liked Shiva's secret a bit more. It was just a bit denser on material I felt and overall it was a more enjoyable watch. The visuals are never great though but they're not a huge component thankfully. It could still be better though.

I did like all the material that I learned about Shiva. Shiva is shown to be a destroyer - he beheads his father-in-law but he also has other roles in the Hindu religion and system. It's very interesting to me to be able to read this kind of information when I really wouldn't have been exposed to it otherwise. The main roles focused on here are the transition from destroyer to householder and this unfolds through the familial conflict between Shiva and his wife's family. Shiva doesn't understand the social order around him and thus he is trying to destroy it. Shiva the destroyer is also shown to be very mournful after he loses his wife and he sulks greatly. The other gods try to pressure him into marriage but he is too defeated.

Biblography: Seven Secrets from hindu calendar art, link

(Lord Shiva Images - An artistic representation of Lord Shiva and the 12 Jyotirlingas associated with him, wikimedia commons)

Reading Notes: Seven Secrets from the Hindu Calender part C

So I've been enjoying this series quite a bit and though it's been over a week since I last looked at it, it's still fairly fresh in my mind. I've personally found that going through and reading the transcript below before watching is the best way to glean what's going on. What I mean by this is if you want to try this series, make sure you open up all the links in the transcript below and get a feel for the topic material because the video goes very quickly and you'll get lost if you don't already have a pretty good idea of what they're talking about. So it's really worth reading the notes that are provided below. If you don't you'll certainly regret it.

There's plenty of interesting and new information in these videos as well. I found it very interesting that there is idea that God can be modeled with form and without and that there are even words to describe this. In these cases, the formless one is the more perfect one because any form is inherently limited. It is made clear though that when god is modeled with form there can be certain forms that present the best example for Hindus to see so that they don't just have to believe in this abstract idea. It's very interesting to me because it acknowledges the weaknesses of the human mind and seeks to satisfy those. It

Bibliography: Seven Secrets from the Hindu Calendar, link 

(Standing Ardhanari, wikimedia commons)

Portfolio Introduction

This portfolio is going to focus on my attempts at retellings of the stories we've read in Epics of India.


This first piece is an absurdist rewrite of the original tale of Hanuman's leap. I tried to take the original tale and eliminate some of the more magical elements of the tale and then do an aburdist version that's still loosely based in reality. Enjoy!


This second piece is also pretty absurd, though not quite as much so as the first one. It is the story of the Pandavas hunting the white deer and then their unfortunate trial at the lake but I've rewritten it pretty significantly and replaced the person asking the riddles with something else. Stephen King fans will probably figure it out pretty quickly. Here it is! I hope you enjoy it!


This third piece was kind of experimental but like most of my stories ended up being more comical than I had intended even if it's a bit more serious than my others. I should probably just accept that most of my stories are going to be based in comedy to some extent. This piece deals with the servant's perspective as he tries to save the Pandavas from the soon-to-be burned Laq palace.

This third story is part of a series of stories I've been working on. I was inspired by the Epified Krishna video series and I decided to tell the story of Krishna if he was mainly kept alive through blind luck rather than his divinity. I hope you enjoy it and I'll be adding stories to this one in the future as well. link

This next story in my portfolio is a continuation of the series I started several weeks ago. I've been working on this series several weeks now and I plan on finishing it up pretty quickly since the class is about over. Here again, you see Krishna, despite all his misfortune survive against great odds through blind luck. link

Story Planning: The Bumbling God series

So I have decided I actually want to put some more planning into my next piece in the series that I’ve been writing. They’ve gotten very repetitive and personally, I would say that has made them very predictable and quite stale so I wanted to take this week to really plan out what I wanted to do with this series now.

            For those that are new to this piece, the idea of this series is that Krishna is actually a frail, sickly child who only survives due to blind luck rather than godly powers. I’ve based this on the original narrative I found in the Epified version of “Krishna”.

            My original idea was to finally kill Krishna off but that seemed too on the head and a very satisfying ending for this work so thought maybe I should put him in a situation where he actually suffers and doesn’t get magically saved. I’m ultimately leaning to this idea but I’m still not certain how this piece needs to end. The style has been fairly macabre for the most part and I don’t want to mess that up with a suddenly extremely dark or upbeat piece. I’ll probably leave the style untouched this time and focus mainly on changing up what actually happens in this story.

Character development has been pretty weak so far and so I think I want to really flesh out Krishna as a character for once. In most the stories so far stuff happens to him instead of him doing something. I’m going to try to change this up so he is actually the actor. I think having him actually cause something to change in the world will actually make the whole series more enjoyable and give more weight to his character as well. This is the biggest change I want to make. He needs to be more substantive in the work.

Bibliography: epified Krishna, link

(Bodleian Library Indian paintings, wikimedia commons)

Reading Notes: Seven Secrets of Hindu Calendar Art Part B

So I have continued on with the series "Seven Secrets of Hindu Calender Art" and I still enjoy it quite a bit. I think I'm finding that reading the notes in advance before watching the video itself is actually the best way to enjoy this series. Just like "Seven secrets of Vishnu", this series is extremely dense and I mean extremely dense. It's very hard to follow what's going on unless you already understand what is happening. Thus, I really reccomend reading the notes before you actually start watching the videos themselves. There is a massive trove of information within these videos and you'll get new information every few seconds and so using the wikipedia links while you watch is still reccomeded. Being able to have links to these new topics that pop up is really useful.

As for the actual information in the series, it's of very good quality and the explanation format works very well. I found it really interesting that the Greeks did not believe in rebirth. I guess I'd always known the Greeks believed in an afterlife but the separation between an actual rebirth and an afterlife is a very distinct point that I guess was clarified by this video series. The focus on rebirth in Hinduism is almost something entirely unique to it in its form.

Biblography: Seven Secrets of Hindu Calendar art, link

(Calendar art, wikimedia commons)

Reading Notes: Week 13 Seven Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art

So I decided to do another video series and honestly, this one is so much better than the series "The Seven secrets of Vishnu" that I watched for the past few weeks. Like I had no idea how much I was missing and I even tried to use Wikipedia in the last series and I still missed so much. This is so much better with the annotated notes that really show you what's going on and give the actual meaningful information behind the piece. I immensely appreciate all the work put into the notes so thank you Laura for making this stuff much more accessible. I actually am really glad to be able to access this material for once. I had been so discouraged with the last one I went through over three weeks.

Bibliography: Seven Secrets of Hindu Calendar art, link

(Hindu Calendar, wikimedia commons)