"How about I tell you a story of our ancestors?" Rama asked. He started the story of his ancestors and Ganga.
Ganga flows through our land and everywhere she touches is holy. People can attain salvation from her. She wasn't always in our land, though. She had to be brought down from the sky.
Sakara, an ancestor of ours, ruled the earth a long time ago. He was very successful when he was ruling the earth, but he wanted to expand his kingdom. He planned to do this with a sacrifice that would make him supreme lord of the earth. It was called The Horse Sacrifice. A decorated horse was freed to roam the lands of many kingdoms. The kingdoms that let the horse roam through accepted the plans of Sakara. When people stop the horse this causes a war. When the horse finally returns back to the kingdom of Sakara, the sacrifice is done.
These plans make the gods very nervous, because they don't want a king to have that much power. They keep watch for plans like these and try to stop them. One of the gods, Indra, stole the horse and hid it underground. He guarded the horse with Sage Kapila. When the people found out about this, Sakara's sons started to dig underground for the horse. When the boys found the horse they were mean to Sage Kapila and took back the horse. Sage Kapila was angered with them and turned them to ash. Only one survived: a grandson. He apologized for their actions and returned to Sakara's kingdom to help complete the horse sacrifice.
The grandson's son, Bhagiratha, learned of his ancestor's fate many years later. It upset him that his ancestors did not get salvation, so he made it his goal to attain salvation for them. He prayed to Brahma who was the creator for thousands of years. Brahma advised him to ask for the help of Shiva to help Ganga descend to the earth. He prayed to Shiva for thousands of years and then Ganga for thousands of years. Finally, Shiva gave in and helped him to bring Ganga down to the earth. Bhagiratha attained salvation for his ancestors and also helped everyone on earth for the future.
Sita added, "I think a lesson you can all learn from this story is to never give up on what you believe in and what you want. If you work hard enough and believe, then you can achieve it."
The two parents kissed their children goodnight and left them to sleep peacefully.
Author's Note: For this story, I decided to make it a bedtime story based off of Ganga's Story from our reading this week. I got the idea from storytelling prompts that we were given. I decided that Rama and Sita should be the ones to tell the story since they are a huge part of our reading. I changed the story into my own words and took out a few little details. For example, the challenges Bhagiratha went through with Ganga and Shiva.
Bibliography:
"Ganga's Story" by Narayan, R.K. (1972) The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic.
Hilary, your choice to describe a tale which includes the Ganges River is particularly fascinating to me (likely because of my fervor for all things outdoors). The image that you included causes me to want to go kayaking or fly fishing. Moreover, I appreciate how you tied the content from the book into a story that carried a purpose (i.e. never giving up). Great job.
ReplyDeleteHilary, I like how you decided to retell Ganga’s story as a bedtime story. By doing so, you made the story brief, understandable, and even gave a moral that relates to personal struggles. I think The Horse Sacrifice was a really interesting part within the Ramayana, and I’m so glad someone wrote about it this week. Overall, I liked that you made this story about redemption and perseverance.
ReplyDeleteI just finished reading your story, and I enjoyed how your made the story a bedtime story. One suggestion I have is to add some more detail; I noticed that you used a lot of abrupt sentences that just kind of ended. I think it would have been nice if you were to have elaborated on some of the sentences. This would also add to the setting of the story, giving it more detail, which I believe is important for bedtime stories. Maybe putting more dialogue, and varying the length of your sentences will help to change up the pace of your story. You could add dialogue between the two sons while they were digging, or something like that. I do many of the same things when I write so I know that it is hard to overcome sometimes. One thing I would suggest, and this is just about the look of the story post, but maybe you could actually separate the paragraphs more so we can really tell where the breaks are. I did enjoy reading your story, and I look forward to reading more!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love that you chose to write a story about Ganga. In Narayan, this story seemed a little strange to me, and almost chose to write about it. I like the simplistic language you used- it really does sound like a story you could tell to children. I also really like how you added a lesson, just as if you would for a child to help them understand why you told them the story. I really enjoyed this writing!
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