Reading Diary A: Public Domain Ramayana

5. Thataka - Rama does really well for his first battle.  He slays Thataka and gets magical weapons.

Rama and Lakshmana battle the rakshasas

Image from Images and PDE Epics Blog

6. Bhagiratha and Ganga - I do love a good geneaology.  Boy does Sagara have an interesting family tree.  Somehow one of his wives has 60,000 sons!  If someone had twins every 9 months, it would take 22,485 years to have all 60,000 kids.  Of course, Sagara reigned for 30,000 years so there is plenty of time to spare.  If the oldest son could grow 6 inches of beard hair every year, he could have a beard 3.4 kilometers long by the time the youngest was born!  It sounds like Feodor Vassilyev is going to be put out of business.  When the 60,000 sons get burnt to ashes along with all their beards, it takes five generations (and 62,000+ years) to bring down the River Ganga to send them off to heaven.  Bhagiratha son of Dilipa son of Anshuman son of Asamanja son of Sagara finally does the trick.

Imagine a 3.4km beard

Image from Aaron Morton

14. Manthara and Kaikeyi - Here is where things turn sour.  Up to this point, Rama has smashed in the heads of rakshasas and won the hand of the fair Sita.  Just when he is about to rule the kingdom, Manthara messes things up.  Manthara is described as an ugly hunchbacked woman.  I tend to picture her as the wicked witch from Snow White, except without an apple.

Witch from Snow White

Image from Joe Penniston

19. Dasharatha's Karma - Dasharatha is having a really bad time.  He lost his son, and now we are told a story from his youth when he accidentally kills a young boy.  In Orange is the New Black, Yoga Jones does something similar.  She shoots what she thinks is a deer eating her marijuana plants but is actually a little kid.  Jones ends up in prison and Dasharatha looses his son and dies in sorrow.  If only they had both taken a gun safety class.