Thursday, August 27, 2015

Course Overview: Epics of India

Although my home country, China, is beside India, I knew very little about India. In the previous semesters, I took the Human Geology course; it is also an interesting course, but it did not tell me detailed information about India and other non-western countries because class time is limited.   I believe I can learn this country from its culture, which is the reason I enrolled in this course.

I knew very little about Ramayana; when I was in elementary school, my teacher told couple stories, probably edited story for small kids, from the Ramayana. And I did not know it is an epic of India, though the name Ramayana was kind of weird for me. They were like mythology for me at that time.

When I think about “mythology”, the first thing come to my mind is the Journey to the West, a Chinese novel published in the 16th century. I think it might have the same influence on China as Ramayana does in India. They are all great book from the ancient.
The Human Geology class mentioned some religions and their factors, but they were very rough knowledge. The Hinduism is very rare in China; I did not meet anyone who said he was a Hinduism. However, I did meet a lot of Islam. We went to school together and play together, but we eat different food. I LOVE Islam food so much, so I quite often dined in Islam restaurant.

I do not listen to India music, but I watched few India movies. One interesting thing is dance in the movie is not predictable, but the Indians are really good at dancing. The dance is organized very well and they looks really enjoying.


The picture that I am interest in is the Rama confronts Kabandha. It looks like a fight with a monster like man with wolf head and twenty arms. I recognized a similar character in the picture; multiple arms is also in Chinese mythology. See picture below.

Rama confronts Kabandha Source
Similar character in Chinese mythology Source


I have never been to India, but I am planning to visit this neighbor country after finishing my master degree. 

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