Extra Credit Reading Notes: Mahabharata Part B

For my reading of part B of the public domain version of the Mahabharata, I chose to focus on the setting. The extreme variety of natural settings, palaces, cities, and rivers was fascinating, and each seemed to have an impact on the story.

The forests almost always implied a certain level of mystery or mischief. Often the environment was described as being scenic, but it usually either burned down or was filled with rakshashas. The palaces were always described as being filled with riches and fair women, although the nature of them changed. They either belonged to noble or mischievous people, and often were involved in scenes of jealousy or revenge. The cities were generally used to describe stopping points for the characters, and was almost always where children were born. The rivers had a magical element to them, involving nymphs, rakshashas, and gods. Everything that happened at the rivers had a mystical element to it, and generally involved at least some interaction with the gods.

So in essence, scenes in natural environments involved mystical-like problems, and scenes in human-created environments involved human-created problems.

Burning of the Khandava Forest