Project Topics

1. Possible Topic: Ravana and Family.  I got this inspiration from the fact that in stories we've read so far, we have already met several of Ravana's family members including his uncles, Maricha and Subaru, and his sister, Surpanakha.  Their stories really got me interested in how the family dynamics play out for Ravana and his family, which the more I research the more extensive the family seems to become!

Research so far:  Well I read through the Wikipedia article for Ravana and he has a lot more family than I expected.  He has his two uncles, six brothers, two sisters, three wives, and seven sons! One of his wives was the daughter of an ancient king of the demons and his grandmother is Thataka!  Also apparently Ravana's advisor is actually his great-uncle Malyavan, who is the brother of Sumali: the father of Kaikesi, the mother of Ravana!  I had no idea he had such an extensive family!

(Ravana)  

2. Possible Topic: Lady Villains. I thought it would be very interesting to focus on all the women who seemed to be on the dark side of the Ramayana such as Thataka, Manthara, Surpanakha.  I found it interesting that the Indian culture seemed fairly one sided when it comes to gender and the demons in the Ramayana are no different.  There is very little mention of women even on the darker side of the celestial beings, and it seems that even when mentioned that get little notice.  There are three times as many men celestial beings and characters as there are women celestial characters.

Research so far:  Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a whole lot on any of these people but I hope that more will surface as I read more into the Ramayana, and continue to sift through web pages. However there is some information on why these people are the way they are such as Manthara, who became antagonistic to Rama after he broke her knee as a child.  Then in turn it seems Manthara poisoned Kaikeyi throughout her childhood with her scheming, making it easy to make Kaikeyi jealous and take her advice against Rama.

(Kaikeyi)

3. Possible Topic: Animals in the Epics.  I thought this was pretty interesting because when you start to think about it, animals have played a large role in the Ramayana.  My specific memory is that of Jatayu trying to save Sita from Ravana when she was being kidnapped.  I'm interested in seeing how else animals will tie into the stories the further that we read.

Research so far:  As it turns out, Jatayu has a bigger background story than I thought, there are some bits about his brother, and there is also the mention that Jatayu is old friends with King Dasharatha! How surprising! Upon further research I saw that the gods actually have a few animals that they like to inhabit especially including the eagle, the bull and the elephant.

(Jatayu)

4. Possible Topic: Celestial Weapons.  I find this topic very interesting because I have noticed that Indian weapons are similar yet not like anything usually found in western literature. These weapons go by the names of chakra, which is sort of like a Chinese throwing star in disk form. There are so many weapons that are given to heroes by the gods and wielded by the gods as well. I thought there were enough that they deserved their own topic.

Research so far:  I've spent some time looking through wikipedia articles and I think the best thing I have noticed so far is that every god has more than two arms and therefore are able to wield more than one weapon but in addition to weapons they also tend to wield other things in their extra hands as well, such as Vishnu who is seen wielding a chakra, a mace, a lotus, and a conch shell.

(Vishnu)