Reading Notes: Narayan's Ramayana Section A


  • A full moon ritual needs to be done, but evil spirits are preventing it from being done in the sacred place. The practitioner asks for the help of the younger, not the older, which frustrates the older.
  • It's stupid that Ahalya is turned to stone for the sins of Indra, who is covered with vaginas, then eyes. Gautama doesn't seem wise for a sage. It would interesting if Ahayla was released by Rama in the modern day, and became some sort of Black Widow fighter assassin and made Indra pay. "Rama said to Ahalya, 'May you seek and join your revered husband, and live in his service again. Let no your heart be burdened with what is past and gone.'" (22). And Ahalya laughed in his face and went off to seek her justice. Rama said her heart was purified, but it was never impure in the first place, for no man's hands had the power to sully her glory.
  • I need a bed on a slab of moonstone.
  • There's a lot of good stuff about auspicious stars.
  • "I dream of comets, hear foul screeches from nowhere." (38)

Narayan, R. K., The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Version of the Indian Epic. (Reading Guide)

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