Description: “This one is called Mahabhrata. It’s really complicated. It starts off-idk if I can even describe this one, it’s so complicated. Basically it’s two royal families that descend from one and they like beef over the throne and the crowned prince of one family is like super arrogant and stuff and at the same time gods are intervening and things going on. And one of the main Hindu gods like comes down to help and like the whole thing culminates into an epic battle. In the big epic battle Krishna, the god, he’s like the prince from the moralistic family side. He’s this chariot guy. And the prince, the leader, pussies out in the end and he’s like how can I find my own family and he gives him a very long moralistic talk and it’s like very highly revered amongst like people who study it like theologians and stuff. It’s honestly super complicated. It’s really important in Hindi theology. Also, one of the older characters in the book is like a grand uncle who’s given immortality and he can die whenever he wants. At the end of the epic battle he’s like a great warrior but he’s old. He gets pierced with like a thousand arrows and gets like a bed of arrows to lay on that go through his body but he lays through it in pain just so he can see the end of the battle. And also, on the moralistic side of the family they go into exile for some reason. I forgot why. One of the brothers falls in love with this demon chick that can change forms and she’s really beautiful. And they have a son but they don’t live together or anything after they get married. They live in the forest. But the son comes to help them in the big battle and he’s just like this giant demon on the good guys side wrecking the other team. A demon is just a subspecies of human that has magical powers and like they’re generally evil. It’s comparable to a demon from western culture, but it’s not the same. They look like humans. In the movies they’re dark skinned. They have magical powers. They have some sort of weird practice, or what normal people would regard as weird practices. The only thing I can think of is the south indian people are darker skinned. I think there’s racism against them but I don’t know. I don’t think it ties to any of this. The motivational speech is the pivitol point in the story. It’s called the Bhagavad Gita. It has 700 verses. It’s pretty interesting. He gives it to him after the grappa guy dies. And it happens right before the final battle. At this point, the chariot guy is like I’m gonna show you my true form. The prince is a normal human being but the god granted him the power to see him in like god form. It was like a positive holy crap. He basically just talked about his role in Hindu spirituality and devotion and stuff. Theological devotion. It’s honestly like super complex. I think it’s something you should read if you want. It’s super important in Hindu theology.”

2. He knows this story from family and children’s books.

3. I walked into his dorm and asked him to tell me some Hindu folklore. This was one of them.

4. Obviously he may not be the right one to ask about this story. He hasn’t done too many in depth studies but it appears to be one of the most prolific Epics in all of Indian History. From this one tale you can pull out an entire world of Hindu belief systems. It’s almost like a story bible for a script. It has all the characters and creatures right there.

Dharma, Krishna. Mahabharata: The Greatest Spiritual Epic of All Time. Los Angeles, CA: Torchlight Pub., 1999. Print.

Description: “So there’s this one called Ramayana. So the the pretense is like theres this demon in Sri Lanka who’s like gonna fuck up the whole world. I think it’s the whole world but the people who wrote the story didn’t know anything about anything outside of India, presumably. There’s like three main Hindu gods and one of them is like I’ve gotta go down there and destroy this man before he destroys earth, right? So he comes as a prince, or he’s born as a prince and he grows up into a very good prince/king everybody wants him to be the king. His dad who’s the king has many wives, right? And one of his wives who’s not Ram’s, the main character, direct mother, is jealous that her son is not the crowned prince. So like I forgot what the exact stipulation is but she puts some weird condition on the king where she had to send away like he had to send away Ram. And her actual son is Ram’s little brother and best friend who’s also like a great warrior and a great person. So they end up leaving. He takes his wife who’s like a princess from another kingdom in India. They encounter like all kinds of crazy phenomena. And they do all kinds of miracles and what not. He’s like a very good warrior with magic and fighting and stuff. Eventually, and keep in mind this is all precipitated by the god himself he needs all this to happen. He doesn’t speak on it, but he knows he’s the reincarnation of this god and he knows what his duty is truly at a certain point. And, there’s a point when they’re in their exile and he knows the peak of his duty is coming. So he calls on the god of fire and says can you protect my wife until this is all over. And so the god of fire takes his wife to his realm and leaves his wife with a fake version or a replacement that’s like exactly the same. Something like that. Eventually, like I don’t remember how exactly it happened, that demon king kidnaps the wife. They’re like alright we gotta go get her back. He also befriends a kingdom of ape like humans who are really strong like warriors and stuff.  He helps them. The man general guy, his name is Hanuman, like people have tattoos of him because he’s known to be really strong and stuff. He becomes one of their squad members and is like a really good fighter. They go down to Sri Lanka. I believe they bring an army and they build a rock- they build like a rock bridge to the Sri Lanka and they get there and they have camps. First the ape dude, Hanuman, he fights the demon and like beats his ass but something stops him from killing him. His tail catches on fire and he sets the whole demon kingdom on fire right? One of the demon king’s brothers who’s like a reasonable man. He’s like biologically a demon in the mythology but he’s not like a demon in the mind. He joins Ram’s faction, the good guys, and tells him all the secrets and trains him and like in ways in new magic and stuff that can like helm him defeat. I don’t know if that part is true or not actually. I don’t remember. Eventually there’s this huge war and it comes down to them shooting arrows at each other and what not. It’s this huge epic battle. Between the demon army versus Ram and his army. Eventually it comes down to them using magical god given arrows at each other. They’re clashing and like he finds out the only way to kill him is to shoot him in the naval. Eventually he gets him there and like he dies. That was the rough version. I haven’t read about it in over ten years.

2. My friend read stories like these when he was a child but it’s also transmitted by word of mouth as well.

3. I went into his dorm and asked if he could tell me some Hindi folklore. He said sure and started off with this one.

4. This is definitely a tale on an epic scale. I see a few similarities with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is God born into a human body so that he may redeem the world. In this case He is 100% God and 100% a man. Ramayana is a god (small g) and is born into human form. From what my friend told me it doesn’t seem like the story is very clear on his deity versus his humanity. That’s just about the extent of the similarities though. As far as I could observe, Hindu people don’t exactly think that Ram was real. At least today they don’t.