Storybook Favorites
Reflecting on this story, it really is tragic. You have two brothers, Vali and Sugriva, who eventually end up directly in opposition to each other. The motivation for why Sugriva turned on his brother is even more tragic. Realistically, it boiled down to a matter of Kali's wife and kingdom? These matters ended up splitting up brothers who were nigh inseparable earlier on in their life? Perhaps the most interesting part is that Sugriva knew about the power that Vali held, especially with the boon that allowed Vali to steal strength from his opponents. This was demonstrated when Vali slayed Ravana when Sugriva was wrongly captured by Ravana. Vali seemed to have no problem defeating the evil 10-headed demon king Ravana. So Sugriva had to resort to tricks and get Rama, one of the Four Avatars of Vishnu, to side with him to take down Vali. It just seems so sad that material possessions and envy can cause a brother to hate his own blood so much. From the blog itself, I liked the way that the text was divided but the POV quotes (especially with anachronisms) were not my favorite method of storytelling.
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Engineering India - Vishvakarma, God of Engineering and Architecture
The illustrious and opulent city of Lanka was a sight of legend. A beautiful city on an island in the sea surrounded by golden walls and palaces makes for a majestic site. Lanka was so extravagant and Vishvakarma spared no detail in the construction of this city. With a setting as glorious as Lanka as with central objects as divine as Pushpaka and Varunastra, Vishvakarma's chariot and sword, words can only do so much justice. Pictures and their respective interpretations do the description best. That was what I really enjoyed from this blog. The balance of image to text was really solid in relation to the story.
(Lanka and its golden walls (referred to here as "The Golden Abode of King Ravana") from Wikipedia)
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On top of the clever title, the pacing of this blog was fantastic. Perhaps it's because there were fewer and less complicated characters, but the stories were a lot easier to digest, and the happy-good-good feeling that you get from reading a fable at the end was nice. This blog highlighted the contrast from each story and made each story's page feel unique to the story it was sharing.
I particularly loved how this collection of stories tied together the use of animals as tests and trials from the Indian gods. For example, the dog that climbed up the mountain with Yudhishthira but was supposedly denied access to heaven by Indra. However the dog was really Indra in disguise, testing the mortal and his dharma. Again, I really do like how this site made each story feel self-contained yet also as a part of a larger and overarching theme.
(Yudhisthira with a dog as a golden chariot from heaven arrives - Ramanarayanadatta) - from Wikimedia
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