Week 7 Storytelling
The Pandava's
The Pandava's, consisting of Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva, are the five sons of Pandu. Three of the sons, Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna, were birthed by Kunti, who mated with three different gods, as commanded by Pandu. The two remaining sons, Nakula and Sahadeva, were born by Mardi, who had the sons with the Ashwins.
These five sons escape from Hastinapura, where Dhiritarashtra is king. Duryodhana, the son of Dhiritarashtra, is very upset to hear the news that the Pandava's are still alive. As for the king himself, he cannot find a reason to dislike them.
Dhiritarashtra being the king, he decideds that he would like to see the Pandava's again and proceed to invite them back to Hastinapura. In order to gain the Pandava's trust, Dhiritarashtra gives them a part of the kingdom for them to rule themselves. This part of the kingdom becomes known as Indraprastha.
Yudhishthira is crowned the king of Indrapratha. Many people attend this ceremony including Duryodhana. While at this ceremony, Shakuni talks to Duryodhana, warning him that the Pandava's possess very powerful weapons from the gods. As he walked around the assembly hall, Duryodhana started getting fooled by the optical illusions that the temple had. The Pandava's see this and laugh at his which enrages Duryodhana.
Duryodhana goes back to Hastinapura and starts to brainstorm ways to get his revenge. He first gets the idea tp build the Crystal Palace in order to rival the Pandava's assembly hall. Shakuni goes to Duryodhana and pitches the idea of playing the Pandava's in a game of dice. Shakuni is a master at dice while Yudhishthira is not. Dhirarashtra agrees and sends Vidura to invite the Pandava's to the Crystal Palace.
Yudhishthira cannot refuse and the Pandava's go to Hastinpura. Because Yudhishthira is not very good at the game, he loses everything that he owns, but continues to gamble. He goes on to lose his brothers and even gambles away himself and the Pandava's wife, Draupadi.
Dhirarashtra, who likes the Pandavas, gives Draupadi a wish. She wishes Yudhishthira to be set free. He honor his promise and sets him free. He proceeds to give her a second wish where she asks for the other four husbands be released as well. He does so and offers her one last wish. She refuses this wish but Dhritarashtra, being a nice guy, gives all of the Pandava's items back and lets them go.
Duryodhana is enraged that his father has let them leave without taking anything from them even though they won fair and square. Duryodhana proposes that they invite them back for a second game for a very high stake. The Pandavas agree and make their way over.
The loser of this second die game is to go into exile for 13 years, 12 in poverty and one in disguise. To no surprise, the Pandavas lose once again and have to leave everything to go into exile. Many of the Indraprastha people follow them into exile
The first thing that Yudhishthira does is pray to the sun god Surya. He receives a copper bowl allowing him to have an endless supple of food to feed everyone.
Throughout this exile, the Pandavas learn about a great mantra, which allows them to get weapons from the gods. Arjuna loves the idea of this and goes off on a five year journey in order to collect and learn about many weapons of the gods so that they may use them once the exile is over.
Hello again, Matt!
ReplyDeleteGreat work on the retelling. There's a lot of material to cover, and it can be kind of daunting, but I think you did an excellent job.
That said, it looks like spellcheck might have made itself your enemy while you were finishing this: "Pandava's" replacing "Pandavas" when it's not a possessive use of the word, little things like that. If you've got access to one of the newer versions of Microsoft Word (2016+), it'd be worthwhile to copy/paste your text into it. The included grammar editor isn't flawless, but it should catch some of the spots where simpler tools (like browser extensions/spellcheck) might have failed you. Hope that helps!
Hi Matt,
ReplyDeleteGood job writing your retelling of the story. You managed to incorporate all the important details in this writing, which isn't easy considering all the factors at play in the original story. I like how you focused on the Pandavas losing everything through gambling and being forced into exile for their own foolishness. There are some spellchecking errors in this writing though, which can be easily fixed.
Hey Matt,
ReplyDeleteGreat story that you have written here. I think that you covered a lot of the original. Perhaps for the next few story, you can choose your favorite part about the story and create your own version of it. Maybe you can try and give the character some new names to give them a more relatable theme for your story. Good luck on your next story.