Week 6 story: Reincarnation of Draupadi

Before Draupadi was born she was a reincarnation of Nalayani, who was a women happily married to her husband Rishi Maudgalya. They were know to be the most loving couple in the universe. When they got married they vowed to be with each other for all the seven cycles of rebirths. Rishi was into meditation and he wanted to be one of the best Rishi's out there so one day he went into the mountains to meditate. He spent almost a week by just meditations, until finally Shankar came down to visit him.

Shankar: Why have you summoned me?

Maudgalya: I want to be the best Rishi, who can get powers through meditation.

Shankar: Why you wish for such, only the gods can have such power.

Maudgalya: I will only use the power for the common good, help people around by spreading positivity. If you see me use it for evil, you can avenge me.

Shankar: I will only be able to grant you such a boon, if only you leave your loving wife forever.

Maudgalya: WHY? We have vowed to live together for 7 cycles of rebirth. We have been together since the very beginning. She is my destiny.

Shankar: I did not say this was going to be easy, if you want power then you must earn it.

As Shankar was almost about to leave. He hears Maudgalya shout.

Maudgalya: I WILL DO IT!

Therefore, Shankar granted him the boon. However, Maudgalya certainly felt guilty of such deeds. He meditated more to get power. Until He was so immense in meditation, he finally forgot his wife Nalayani. 

Nalayani looked for her husband for days. The forest was so big and since Maudgalya was meditating in a secret spot, she never found him. Nalayani spent rest of her life in sorrows, until finally one day one of the gods visited her and asked what she wanted. This is where Nalayani asked god for a happy marriage life, where she will always be taken care off and never left alone. As always there was a twist, god did not just give her one loyal and caring husbands, but five. She was assured that in her next birth cycle, she would be queen Draupadi and she will marry five princes.

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata

Rishi meditating to get power

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Author's note:
Originally this story starts with the Rishi wanting to focus more on meditations and Tapas, giving up his wife and life. His wife Nalayani gets upsets as she is not satisfied with his love and want him to be there for her throughout the many cycles of rebirths. However, her husband just leave and she starts meditating, where she gets visited by god, who grants her five husbands because she says I want my husband five times. I wanted to make it more interesting, on why Rishi wanted to leave her and how he is granted the boon of power. I changed up the story by flipping the point of view.

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata Part B

For this part of the reading I liked the story of Draupadi, how she was married to a man, who never loved her so she prayed until one of the gods promised her five husbands, even though she only wanted one. Then later, she is shown to become a wife of five Pandavas brothers, which was shocking. Later in the epics there comes to dice battles, which is one of the significant battle of Mahabharata as the oldest Pandava brother Yudhishthria looses everything over a con game, he even ends up losing his wife. Then later when the king finds out he grants Draupadi two boons for all the troubles she went through, where she only used one to exile to forest with Pandavas. I was thinking about re-creating a story based off the dice game. Maybe come up with a different game, where they do not give away Draupadi.

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata 

Draupadi's fate due to the gambling game 

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Reading notes: Mahabharata Part A

I choose to read the PDE Mahabharata for this reading. When I first started reading this story I was a little confused on some of the character's birth, especially of Vyasa's birth. I had no idea how this could be real, fish getting pregnant with two babies from swelling a semen that fell from the sky.  I have never heard of this part of the story as I am familiar with Mahabharata. It was also interesting of how the king Shantanu marries Ganga, who throes away all her babies until the last one because king asks her not too. This is where she leaves the king because he breaks his promise of not getting mad at her. Later on, she brings the last son to the king. I liked the part where king Pandu marries to two wives Kunti and Madri and they go to forest, where Pandu kills the sages disguised into a deer form and the sages comes to his real form, cursing the king that he will die similarly with one of his wife in the forest. This resembles the story from Ramayana and I want to recreate it. Maybe in a different context. I think reading all these stories from Mahabharata is more intense than Ramayana. This focus a lot on the Pandavas and Kauravas, who basically turn on each other, creating many battles. There were so many characters in this epics that it was hard to keep track of each individual, I can only imagine how much others struggles as they have no background in Hinduism.

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata

Ganga bringing back her last son 

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