Week 12 Reading Diary B: Gods and Goddesses

This reading was the real reason I chose Cox's Krishna and Other Gods for my reading this week. I have always been fascinated by Indian mythology, and was craving the chance to learn more about the other gods.

I did find it interesting that each god/goddess was presented to us through a story of their exploits. SO far [at the time of me writing this] my favorite has been Indra's. Indians sure do love their epic battles between good and evil, don't they? But I must say, the imagery of Indra firing red lightning bolts, backed by flaming storm warriors, all attacking a billowing storm cloud fortress is just tantalizing!

Yeah this is when you know you f**ked up

I was also immensely fascinated by the Soma entry. Soma actually factors into my novel, so it was very very fascinating seeing the ancient Indian perspective on it. For those that don't know, Soma was an ancient drug that gave people hallucinations and psychedelic visions. The interesting thing is that no one in modern times knows the plant from which it was derived from. The Indian mythology explaining all of this (how Soma came to earth from the heavens, but went on to anger the gods and incite a war only to be banished from earth by Brahma) was a mesmerizing rendition of historic fact.

Also, that story about Brahma was just about the most funny thing I've ever read for this class. It starts out all cosmic and mystical, and gives this huge sense of all powerfullness to Brahma and his wife. And then he holds a sacrifice, and she doesn't want to show up before the other gods' wives and she has chores to do around the house, so Brahma gets impatient and get Indra to find a new wife for him. Then Brahma's wife gets pissed and curses everyone. It's just such a contrast to the beginning of the story; totally humanizes Brahma to the point of comedic effect. I loved it! hahaha