Sorry to be blogging several days late! Let me say first, that I am really enjoying this book. I am trying to resist the urge to look up the actual Mahabharat, lest I spoil the story. I have also resisted the urge to read other people’s blogs before writing this one, so I’m sorry if there’s overlap in what I say and what other people have said (but not really).
To respond to this week’s question, I think Dhri and Panchaali/Draupadi’s birth from fire is absolutely literal. This story is of a time and place in which Deity and magic are totally real, and play a part in every day life. When Krishna’s magical exploits (demon killing, mountain lifting, superhuman seduction) and possible godhood are addressed (8 – 10), Panchaali, of course, brushes them off, as people love to exaggerate (19). But her tone indicates that she doesn’t really feel there is reason these things couldn’t being true. In other words, her close personal acquaintance might be a god, but this matter doesn’t bear much consideration or concern.
Then also there is Panchaali’s question to Dhai Ma (sorry I don’t have the page number or exact quote), if Dhai Ma believes human beings can be born from gods. Dhai Ma’s response is basically, “just as surely as they can be born from fire!” It strikes me that she is referring to a literal fire-birth here.
On the other hand, I’m made to wonder whether the author is attempting to normalize what would appear divine, when Panchaali and Krishna’s skin tones come up (once again, sorry no page number). They are both stated to be so dark that they are called blue. I wonder if this actually might have been the origin of blue gods and heroes in the Hindu tradition – I mean whether blue was originally a description of realistic and very dark human skin color, which Hindu artists later took to be literally and unnaturally blue.
Either way, this is a story about real people. I don’t see why some aspects of what we now would call magic and divinity could not be fully literal – so much so that the human characters in Illusions are a little jaded toward them – while some aspects might be explained away, and nothing special.
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I really like Panchaali, the clever and slightly rebellious girl who tussles with destiny and tradition vs. choice. My favorite of her exchanges, and one which I feel helps the reader get to know her pretty well, is on page 40, when the sage makes reference to her pride, temper, and vengefulness. She glares and fires back, “I’m not like that!”
That’s all for now.
-Kevin
Interesting...I had the same reaction about the reference to the blue skin tones. It had never occurred to me that one could be so dark as to appear blue, but when that was mentioned I stopped to think about the other blue gods in Hinduism. I think this is the part you are referring to,
ReplyDelete"When I was fourteen, I gathered up enough courage to ask Krishna if he thought a princess afflicted with a skin so dark that people termed it blue was capable of changing history. He smiled" (8).
If we want to think of this literally or symbolically I think we should lean on Aryana for some input since she is the one teaching philosophy of religion next quarter and I am pretty sure she knows the Mahabharata. Personally, since they are to be supreme beings, mythical, gods-if you will, I imagine the blue skin could be almost like an aura of sorts. They could be darker than dark with a haze about them so that mortals may not view them as regular people. If they were not blue what would stop one from seeing Vishnu as Dhri or any other civilian? Hmmmmm.