Week 12 Essay: The Life of Buddha

        This week, I explored The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold translated by Paul C. Blum. The original text was written in French but the translation by Blum was seamless. The story flowed very well, and gave enough background information within the story itself to keep confusion at bay. Each chapter was relatively short, but incredibly descriptive and entertaining. It is obvious that this book was well thought out, and each word was placed with intention.

        The Life of Buddha was my favorite Un-Textbook story I have read. The simple, modern English made the reading so much easier than a couple others I have come across. The only issue with the available text was a lack of PDF. I often close everything out, without thinking and found myself having to re- find the website and re-find my place in the book. Not a huge deal, but enough of an ordeal for me to think of it as a hassle.

        I have always been somewhat acquainted with the story of Buddha, but told from the Asian point of view which, believe it or not, is different. Every piece of information I gathered from Buddha throughout my life focused almost exclusively on him after his revelations. Learning the story of Buddha from birth was so informational.

        My favorite story from the reading was Siddhartha’s trips into the city in Gopa’s Dream and Siddhartha is Eager to Know the Great Truths. Siddhartha was shocked to discover pain and suffering. So much so that he completely changed his entire life path toward seeking the end of these terrible pains. These two stories took me by surprise not because of their content but the message. We so often brush off the pain of the world and accept that sickness and age and death are inevitable, and while that is true and should be remembered it is all too often a justification. To see that Siddhartha was so incredibly inconsolable, reminded me that suffering is not mundane. Life is not mundane. The parallels between the story of Jesus and Siddhartha was also a little unexpected. I have always been aware of the principle of universal history but these two stories were much more similar than I had originally realized.

        I absolutely loved The Life of Buddha. It is one of those things that I feel was unjustly excluded from being a classic. The religious aspects aside Siddhartha’s story is such a good “Food for Thought” provoking story. This story has inspired me to re-kindle my exploration of the Greek, Roman, and now Eastern classics. 

Image of Buddha Meditating
Provided by Wikipedia

Bibliography: The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922) 

Translated by Paul C. Blum (1927)

Mentioned Stories: Gopa's Dream & Siddhartha is Eager to Know the Great Truths

Week 11 Essay: Twenty-Two Goblins Overview

Essay: Twenty-Two Goblins

          This week, I explored the Un-Textbook Stories of Twenty-Two Goblins translated from the Sanskrit version by Arthur Ryder. These stories began with an introduction of King Triple-Victory, the indirect focus of the stories.

          In this introduction, King Triple-Victory received fruit every day from a Monk. The King did not want the fruit and would give them to his Treasurer. His Treasurer also finding no use for the fruit would throw them out of the window. King Triple-Victory gave the fruit to his monkey who decided to open the fruit one day to find a gem in it. Shocked, King Triple-Victory went and asked the Treasurer if all of the other fruit had gems in them as well and soon realized that there were heaps of gems. The Monk returns the next day and King Triple-Victory asks him why he gives him such a nice gift each day. The Monk leads him to a tree which contains a goblin, beginning the series of stories.

          Throughout each story, there is a weird paradox of morality that King Triple- Victory must answer to the satisfaction of the Goblin. Each story is a different strange situation that seemingly has no real answer. However, King Triple-Victory manages to answer to the goblin’s satisfaction leading to another story each day.

          These stories were quite strange to read but so entertaining. Each story was a strange series of events that did seem to go together. The introduction of the story was hardly a preparation for the first series of events, which was different from the next set- each sentence was something a little… wonky, could I say? The goblin also asked equally as strange morality questions that King Triple-Victory always instantly knew the answer to. It was as if the stories King Triple-Victory were hearing were not the same stories I was interpreting which made it even more interesting to me; everything came together as an incredibly interesting story.

          Each story was something of a “Food For Thought” that made me pause in my busy day and think about what this story was truly about and what the point and lesson of the story was. While I still don’t know for some of these stories, I really appreciate the process of “Read and Think” that Twenty- Two Goblins led me to do.

Image of a Book Cover of
Twenty- Two Goblins by Arthur Ryder
Provided by Tumbler

Links: 

         Twenty-Two Goblins

          Introduction 

         And also because I thought it was a strange word to choose in this          mythical setting: Goblin

Week 7 Essay: Mini Khasi History Lesson

          This week I explored Folk-Tales of Khasis by U.K. Rafy. I absolutely loved the entire collection of the stories! The format of the PDF was very easy to use and make sense of. The large titles before each story helped you move on from the previous story, to the new story- even if you didn’t want the story to end.

          Each story was so expertly crafted. The language was very modern and crisp, always getting right to the point. Rafy also used introductions of sort before each story giving background of the modern, real-life implication of these folk tales on the mountainous people Khasis. She also used parenthetical asides to help give more back ground, or explain a term throughout the stories. These tid-bits of information really help when you are quite unaware of Indian culture and names as I was.

          Many of the stories flowed together, often formatted in such a way that the introduction of a character in one story was often followed by the story of the character themselves, or their role in Indian Folk-Tale. This style made these stories not only works perfectly singularly, but also as a whole in a collection of stories of wonderful history.  Many of these stories also reminded me of many other American fairy-tales and stories. While they may have had different story-lines, the principles were generally the same and refreshing.

          In all, I really enjoyed reading these stories. I would have never chosen such a topic to read on otherwise, so the opportunity in and of itself was very enticing. Upon choosing the Folk-Tales, I was not disappointed. These stories were very vibrant and informational and fun. The history embedded within the stories gave a perspective on current Indian culture, religion and customs. Overall, I was very pleased with these stories, and would highly recommend anyone read a few, if not all of the stories!

          

Image of Khasi Children
Provided by Wikipedia

Bibliography:Folk-Tales of the Khasis by Mrs. K. U. Rafy (1920).

Link to the Folk-Tales: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37884