Comment Wall

Leave comments here

Week 4 Essay: Twenty-Two Goblins

This week, I read the Twenty-Two Goblins unit in the Un-Textbook. Overall, I thought the premise was very interesting-this unit is a frame tale in which a quest is introduced: a monk requests that a brave king retrieve a corpse from a sissoo tree. The original text was translated from Sanskrit and is part of a collection of Indian lore. I didn't know much about the culture before I read this unit, so it was intriguing to see how the culture influenced the text. Traditionally, goblins are fairly morbid: they inhabit corpses and if loved ones want to retrieve the bodies, they will have to answer a series of riddles that the goblin proposes until he gets tired. The "story within a story" theme runs throughout; the each new chapter is another riddle.

What I really appreciated about this unit was the background given before each riddle. For example, I had heard of the caste system in India before, but I did not know what the different levels were. Before the second riddle (Brave, Wise, and Clever), the introduction given was beneficial in helping me understand the members of the Brahman caste and how they fit into the society. I also was not familiar with the epic Ramayana, so the explanation of the characters was enlightening as well.

This was another thing I enjoyed about this unit: the allusions to other texts -- even unrelated ones such as the Bible -- brought a broader worldview and made me think about both Eastern and Western influences. For example, the introduction to the story The General's Wife prompted the reader to compare the actions of the king and their outcome to those of King David with Bathsheba and their fate in the Bible. This was certainly a fascinating thing to think about: though the kings acted in completely different manners, the two stories told the same moral. Without this thought experiment, I never would have made those connections.

Overall, I loved reading the riddles and trying to solve them. The goblin does a good job of being tricky, but the king is wise and intelligent, and I enjoyed reading his banter and his calm, logical way of explaining each answer.

Week 4 Storytelling: The General's Wife

"What a day," I said wearily to my page.

"What happened to you today? You look defeated," he asked, worried.

"I saw the most beautiful woman in the world today," I explained, "she was so stunning that I fainted. When I came to, I found out that she was Passion, whose hand in marriage I rejected a few months back. I can't stop thinking about her. I can't believe I let her go."

Let me backtrack and explain myself. My name is King Glorious (interesting name, I know--I used to get teased about it all the time, and I can only hope to live up to it) and I preside over the lovely Golden City. A few months ago, one of my best merchants approached me and told me that his daughter was old enough to get married and he begged me to marry her. I sent my loyal Brahmans to the merchant's home to see if she would be a good fit for me. When they came back, they listed all of her bad habits and flaws, so I decided that she wasn't right for me. I suggested that the merchant give his daughter to my best warrior, the general of my troops.

Well, hindsight is 20/20, and I realized today that I should have gone to meet her myself (dating nowadays is so complicated). The city held its annual spring festival today, and as I proceeded through the parade, I looked up and suddenly saw the most elegant, stunning woman I'd ever laid eyes on. Instantly, my heart started to race and I was overcome by love. Overwhelmed, I blacked out and fell off the elephant I was sitting on--luckily, I had my trusty servants to catch me.

The elephant I rode on in the parade. Source: Wikipedia.

When I woke up, I asked my servants, "Who was that who caused such a reaction in me?" They told me that the beauty was Passion, and I immediately started. This was the woman who had so many faults? I definitely didn't see them. I called in my Brahmans and demanded an explanation. They told me that they saw her beauty and became afraid for my kingdom--they thought that if I married her, I would think of nothing else and let the city go to shambles. I appreciated their concern for the greater good, but I was also disappointed. I had to dismiss them.

For the next few days, I was a mess. I couldn't stop thinking about Passion and her beauty and virtuousness. I confided in my loyal page, and he suggested countless times that I simply take Passion away from her husband. I adamantly refused--this just wasn't the right thing to do. Eventually, the word somehow got out that I was pining for this woman. My general himself approached me, full of remorse. He even offered to give me his wife. At this, I got angry and told him that there would be no virtue in that action, only sin.

Oh well. I guess I'll just have to wait to find the right woman.

-----

Author's note: For this storytelling exercise, I chose to retell the story of The General's Wife from the Twenty-Two Goblins unit. Instead of using a third-person omniscient storytelling style, I chose to  recount the tale from the first-person view of King Glorious. This reading unit was a frametale consisting of 22 riddles that a goblin tells to a king. In this particular riddle, the ending is more morbid than I made it to be--Glorious dies from his lovesickness, and then the general dies because of his mourning for the king. When the goblin finishes telling this story, he asks the king who the more virtuous person was and why. The wise ruler says that King Glorious was more admirable because he didn't take advantage of his power and displayed his strength in character by refusing to transgress against his people.

Bibliography:
Story: The General's Wife
Unit: Twenty-Two Goblins
Source: Un-Textbook.
Original: Twenty-Two Goblins (Sanskrit: Vetālapañcaviṃśati), translated by Arthur Ryder. Source: Project Gutenberg. 2000.

Week 4 Reading Diary: Twenty-Two Goblins

This week, I chose to read Twenty-Two Goblins, excerpts taken from Arthur Ryder's translation of the Sanskrit manuscript Vetālapañcaviṃśati. I made this decision because I had never read anything from this culture before. Based on the description, it sounded like something that I would enjoy reading (and I certainly did): I love riddles and trying to solve them, and some of the ones featured in this unit definitely challenged me. Overall, it was thoroughly entertaining.

First of all, the premise of the frametale caught my attention immediately. The goblin inhabits a human corpse and the hero of the story, a wise king, must solve its riddles lest his head explodes from the goblin's magic. I had never heard this version of the legend before, and it was an interesting (and morbid) way to introduce the series of riddles that followed.

The Three Lovers: This first tale was one of which I had heard many variations in the past. Somehow, I had never known the proper solution to this riddle despite the countless times I'd heard it before. The king was very wise to consider different relationships to the princess and determine which suitor was the right one to marry his daughter.

With each of these riddles, it was tricky to determine the correct answer because the way the goblin told the tales was sometimes so paradoxical. However, in each case, there is one answer that stands out and, after the king verbalizes it, it seems almost obvious. This seems somewhat unnecessary to say--this is the point of riddles, after all--but each time I read a new chapter in the unit, I would be stumped as to the answer, but when the king answered, it would make sense and I wondered why I didn't come up with the solution myself.

The Four Scientific Suitors: I guessed the answer to this riddle correctly, but I wasn't sure if it was just because I was biased towards the art of battle. Part of the king's answer reminded me of another tale where a peasant makes a deal with a king that if he can stack one hundred gold pieces, then the king should give the gold to him. The king agrees and keeps his word, but when the peasant shows off his talent, the king also gives him lashings for wasting his time with such a useless talent. The king in this tale points out a similar situation with one of the four scientific suitors.

The Three Delicate Wives: I also managed to determine the solution to this riddle, as it seemed appropriate that the wife who was not affected by any of her senses yet still was injured would be the most delicate. However, I did not really understand the point of this--why would she want to be the most delicate? I thought that it would be a major inconvenience to be as frail as these wives.

Reading Diary B

The Snake's Poison: This story stood out from the previous ones because out of the choices that the goblin gives the king for the solution, he thinks outside the box and chooses one that the goblin does not offer. Throughout this unit, I have been very impressed by the king's wit and wisdom, and this story solidifies that feeling.

The General's Wife: I thought the introduction was very interesting when it mentioned the story of King David and Bathsheba in the Bible. As I read, I realized the validity of the great contrast between the two stories. King David's downfall in the eyes of his people was due to his temptation and his not staying in community with his troops. The king in this story is endlessly virtuous and would rather die than betray one of his servants, even though it might have been expected of him.

The Four Brothers: This reminded me of the story of the three brothers who brought a woman back to life, found earlier in this unit. This riddle has a twist, however--it is about four brothers who give life to a lion, and the goblin asks the king who is to blame when the lion kills them all after its revival. Again, the king impresses me with his critical thinking skills.

Father and Son, Daughter and Mother: I was very excited to read this story simply from reading the introduction--apparently, it is known as the goblin's "Great Puzzle." It certainly was a challenging riddle, and even the king thought so as well. However, the goblin was previously so impressed with the king that he allows the king to take him back to the palace where the monk is.

Week 3 Essay: The Gospel of Mark

Jesus teaching his disciples. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

This week, I read the King James Version of the Gospel of Mark. I had read this book of the Bible before in various small group settings, but had only previously read it in more modern versions. I chose the unit this week because I was interested to see how the different translation lends a new interpretation of the scripture. Historically, the King James text has been the most widely printed and distributed version of the Bible, so I wanted to see how scholars of the Renaissance and beyond might have studied it.

As I was reading, I'll be honest--I had some difficulty with the language (older versions of English have never been my forte, and even though I like Shakespeare's work and similar styles, I do not necessarily understand everything). To counter this, I just referred to another version that I had on hand. I appreciated the way the Un-Textbook was set up: there were no verse numbers--and, understandably, it would be very time-consuming to insert every single number throughout the book--but it was broken up into chapters, so if I got confused with the diction, I could read the same passage in another translation with relative ease.

If there was one book in the Bible that I would have picked to be a reading unit, it would have been the Gospel of Mark. At the heart of this text are all of the fundamental principles not only to be a good follower of Christ, but also to be a kind person and to have success in life in general. Obviously, Jesus's parables are meant to teach spiritual lessons, but even on a non-religious level, he preaches about generosity, the perils of envy, and the value of hard work.

For someone who has never read the Bible before, this may not be the best choice for a reading unit; admittedly, the Christian culture has a lot of jargon that is derived from the Bible, and especially with the older language, it may be a bit difficult to understand at times. However, if one were interested in religious studies, this would be a good bet to gain more insight into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and to learn about the foundation of Christian beliefs.

Week 3 Storytelling: The Sons and Their Harvest

A farmer sowing his seeds. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

An aging farmer had three sons, and as he felt like he did not have much longer to live, he wished to pass on his wisdom and his land to his sons. He fairly divided up the land into three equal parts and gave a plot to each of them, instructing them to do their best to maintain the soil and have good harvests.

The youngest son did not have much experience with farming, as his brothers had always been called first to help on the land. He tried his best to sow and till the seed, but got frustrated easily and did not finish the job. Eventually, he simply let the land be, and weeds and thorns grew up and crowded the land, overpowering the fruit. At the end of the year, he had harvested barely anything and was very disappointed in his crop.

The second brother fared slightly better than the first. He knew what to do in order to produce a plentiful harvest, but the land that his father gave him had several trees on it. The trees drew all of the nutrients out of the soil and made a rocky foundation. The crop grew quickly soon after he planted his seeds, but when their roots went deep enough into the soil, they died because of the lack of nutrients. The second brother saw that there was nothing he could do--although he tilled the soil day and night, there was no way to make the land healthy again. He became frustrated at the rapid growth and withering of his fruit.

The third brother, however, had a much better yield. His land was dense and had good soil. He worked tirelessly, constantly digging up and turning over the soil. After he sowed his seeds, he watched as his crop multiplied. Day after day he picked his crops, noticing that he had more than either of his brothers or any of his neighbors. Looking at his harvest, he realized the hard work that was necessary to produce much fruit.

-----

Author's note: When I read the parable of the sower in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4, I equated the sower to a farmer planting his seeds to harvest a good crop (a fairly understandable and self-explanatory likening). The original parable that Jesus preached is about a sower spreading his seeds, with mixed results--some seeds fall on barren land and cannot grow, others land in rocky soil so their roots could not grow deep and they eventually wither away, and still others are planted in good soil and flourish. Here, Jesus tells his followers that their spreading of God's Word will similarly bring both fruit and frustration.

I wanted to retell the story in a different way, so I looked up stories about farmers. Because Jesus's parables are meant to teach lessons to his followers, I wanted to incorporate another story that also intends to give its readers a lasting moral, so I searched in Aesop's fables and came across the story about a farmer and his sons. In this, the farmer is ailing and on his deathbed, and he wishes to pass on his land to his sons and make sure that they have a good harvest. He tells them that there is a treasure hidden somewhere on the property and that it could be theirs if they find it. They dig frantically and find nothing, but the next year, the land yields an abundance of crops because the land was thoroughly tilled. The moral here is "Industry is itself a treasure."

The overall theme that I wanted to get across was the blending of these two stories: from a biblical point of view, it can be said that the spreading of God's Word can take a lot of effort--it does not always fall on accepting ears and it takes a lot of investment to make faith work. Even from a non-religious point of view, though, the lesson of reaping what one sows is a good reminder to all to be diligent in every goal that one may have.

Bibliography:
The Gospel of Mark, chapter 4
King James Bible (1611).
Found in the Un-Textbook.

The Farmer and His Sons
Aesop's Fables, illustrated by Milo Winter. 1919.
Source: Project Gutenberg.

Week 3 Reading Diary: The Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark

Reading Diary A:

Mark 1
In this chapter, John the Baptist encounters Jesus, the son of God. Throughout this first chapter, the reader immediately sees Jesus perform many miracles, such as releasing an evil spirit from a man's body, healing the "sick and demon-possessed" (Mark 1:32 NIV), and making a leper clean. This is a perfect introduction to Jesus's life--it accurately represents the practical servitude he has for his Father in healing His people and spreading His word.

Mark 2
I love the story of Jesus's healing of the paralytic because it is a good message to Christians about having faith in God to do virtually anything. The men in the story are not deterred by a crowd where so "many [are] gathered together, insomuch that there [is] no room to receive them," and have enough diligence to carry their friend on a mat all the way up to the roof, and proceed to cut a hole in the roof, just so they can get their ailing friend in Jesus's presence. And, "when Jesus saw their faith," he healed the man completely so that he could walk out of the house completely healthy. This is an especially good lesson for spiritual leaders: that they may be persistent in serving the Lord and have faith that they can change lives.

The reader consistently sees Jesus leading by example throughout his life. When he is questioned by Pharisees for eating with sinners and tax collectors (who, in those times, were seen on a similar level as sinners), he preaches a message of love and explains that he is in the world to heal the broken, not to save those who are already righteous.

Mark 3
In this chapter, Jesus begins to show his affinity for speaking in parables, or stories used to demonstrate spiritual morals. The reader will see in the next chapter that he uses these copiously to show his followers how to think and behave.

Mark 4
The parables in this chapter speak to all followers of Christ, but some pertain especially to leaders in the church. The story of the sower is an example of this. Jesus states that a leader must spread the word of God extensively, but warns that some preaching will inevitably fall on deaf ears--the lesson here is to be persistent and to spread love, so that no matter how the word is received, they will at least have had the love of God demonstrated for them.

Jesus also tells his followers to be a light in the world (or a "lamp on a stand"). He implores them not to hide their faith, but to spread it to others. He also assures them that if they have an inkling of faith the size of a mustard seed, then God can use them to multiply and do great works.

Mark 5
Jesus as a healer certainly is a convicting thing for anybody to read about! In chapter 5, a demon-possessed man and a woman who had had an illness of the blood for twelve years approached Jesus at a desperate time in their lives. They had great faith, and in the end, Jesus was able to heal them because of this.

Mark 6
This chapter discusses John the Baptist's beheading, then goes on to tell about the miracles that Jesus performed. The reader sees that Jesus, with faith, can multiply five loaves of bread and two fish into a full meal for five thousand men (and, some believe, all the women and children who were with them, totaling about 15,000 people). Jesus's followers also see him walk on water in a storm and are terrified, thinking that he is a ghost, but he calms their fears and then calms the waves and wind. Throughout this book, Jesus tells his followers to have faith, and only then can they do the extraordinary with God's help.

Mark 7
During the time that Jesus lived, the Pharisees were a group of people who believed in God, but some of them did not necessarily believe that Jesus was the son of God. They went through all the motions of loving their Lord, but did this out of fear instead of love for their Father (my campus pastors would call this "head knowledge" instead of "heart knowledge"). Jesus calls them out on this and rebukes them in this chapter.

Mark 8
This chapter is pivotal in Jesus's life. One of the most important things about it is that Jesus predicts his own death towards the end of the chapter--that Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, would betray him. He assures his followers that whoever gives up his own life to pick up Jesus's cross will be rewarded with eternal life in Heaven.

Mark 9
The last part of this chapter is a very convicting passage. Jesus rebukes all sin and encourages those who sin to cut off all temptation in their lives--for example, if a person's hand causes them to sin, then they should cut it off because it would be better to enter Heaven maimed than to go to Hell with both hands. Obviously, with a modern-day interpretation of scripture, He is not necessarily telling people to literally cut off their limbs, but to eliminate the source of sin.

Reading Diary B:

Mark 10
This chapter is a collection of practical teachings by Jesus for everyday life. He discusses divorce, the upbringing of children, and materialism, and how people should act with each of these cases to demonstrate God's glory.

Mark 11
This is also known as Jesus's triumphal entry--when Jesus enters Jerusalem, his disciples go before him and bless his name as he rides a colt, and everyone declares Him to be his Lord. Later on, however, Jesus's authority is questioned as he waits in the temples. He responds that John's baptism was from Heaven, and so He has the authority from Heaven to perform his good acts.

The remainder of this Gospel is an account of Jesus's prediction of his death, the last supper, his crucifixion, and his resurrection. These are quite possibly the most important parts of the Bible for a follower of Christ. In some schools of belief, to be a true Christian, one must proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God and the Lord and Savior. He must declare that Jesus died and, three days later, rose again to join his Father at His right hand in Heaven.