Week 3 Story: The Beginning of Mahabali
The Beginning of Mahabali
There once was a kingdom in South India that was full of life, love, and peace. There was never any crime, no altercations, just love. This kingdom was so pure, they say, that even the villagers left their doors unlocked at night without an inkling of doubt that they would be harmed as they slept. The kingdom itself was magical, pure. The green grass grew with enthusiasm and the birds sang praise to the Gods.
"What a wonderful world we are in with our King to guide us," they sang.
This King, of course, was none other than the kind and virtuous Mahabali. His home was the sole palace in the kingdom, but he only kept few people to help him with his work. For he believed in hard work to achieve prosperity. He performed daily prayers to Lord Vishnu to watch over his kingdom and to continue to provide them with the protection and safety that they lived in.
King Mahabali himself was of large stature. He was tall and brooding, but his large, bushy mustache and long, thick hair were the source of this broodiness. The king was strong and protective, yet kind and caring for his kingdom. The families, from children to older members of the community, were constantly praising the king and truly loved him.
Mahabali was so devoted to the Gods and learned from his teachers the Vedas and more. From his knowledge he was able to defeat the mighty Indra and overtake the heavens. Indra, being Indra, was highly upset but knew that Mahabali had won it rightfully so. Indra's sadness was too much for his mother Aditi to bear. So she performed yagnas, specific rituals, that were meant to invoke Lord Vishnu.
"I am impressed and satisfied with the yagnas you have performed, Aditi," Vishnu exclaimed.
"What ever can I do for you?" he asked.
Aditi was concerned for Indra and wished for Lord Vishnu to reincarnate and defeat Mahabali to reclaim the heavens. What mother would not want their children to be happy? Vishnu happily obliged to her wish and was born as Vamana. Vamana grew up under Aditi's care and obtained a vast education.
Meanwhile, in the kingdom, Mahabali was elated at his victory over Indra. His elation slowly began to turn into greed. He wanted more than the heavens; he wanted the three worlds!
"What can I do, master?" Mahabali asked his teacher.
"You must perform 100 yagnas. Only then can you receive what you are looking for." he replied.
Mahabali, year after year, performed each yagna with the intention of achieving the three worlds. The yagnas were carefully conducted, not a single element out of place. This careful, but selfish action was bound to have its repercussions.
Vamana became well educated and was prepared to take down Mahabali. The greed that Mahabali demonstrated for the three worlds was about to be vanquished. The rest was history.
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| Mahabali. Source: Flickr |
Author's note: I found the background of Mahabali so interesting. Reading the main story in R. K. Narayan's Ramayana inspired me to know the story beforehand. As I read Mahabali's story, I wanted to retell the "prequel" to the story. This piece of information is vital, in my opinion, because only the middle part of the story was portrayed in the Ramayana. Although the point of that was to teach Ramayana a new lesson, I think it portrayed Mahabali as a bad person when in fact he was a devotee of the gods. He simply let his greed to conquer the worlds get the best of him. Once he was put in his place again, he was again a constant devotee to the gods and still cared for his people enough to come back each year as the festival of Onam. Last week I had changed the story to a different plot, so this time I wanted to retell the prequel to both try a new story making idea and provide new information.
Bibliography:
Mahabali's Story in Ramayana by R. K. Narayan. Book source.
Simran,
ReplyDeleteYour story had really great elements to it. I thoroughly enjoyed your description of King Mahabali and his kingdom. I was able to develop vivid imagery about his character. Some feedback I would offer is to go into more detail about other character's backgrounds like, Indra, Vishnu, and Vamana. I think it would also be helpful to explain to readers what "yagnas" are. Additionally, listing repercussions for performing 100 yagnas would enhance the importance of the consequences to his actions. Overall, your story was very interesting and enlightening. I think honing on background of each character and concept within the story, will offer readers more insight!
This was a very cool story! I really liked that King Mahabali started out as a kind and fair king. It's cool that he started out with good intentions and was corrupted by greed.
ReplyDeleteAlso Vamana sounds similar in name to Rama, that makes sense since he's another incarnation of Vishnu. I can tell that you have quite a bit of background knowledge on this subject! You've got me excited to read this story now!
Simran, I really enjoyed your story and thought that it was really engaging. You continued to keep my interest by the elements you employed in your writing to keep it interesting throughout the story. A wow moment for me was in your description of King Mahabali’s community. The community itself sounds great and it sounds like something everyone would want to be a part of. Another distinct wow moment was Indra’s mother calling on Vishnu to do something about the situation. Even more so, the fact that Vishnu did something about it when Mahabali had gained his position rightfully seems suspect. I wonder if there was some other reason Vishnu decided to act on this or was it a matter of balance and order that played a primary role in this decision. I enjoyed Aditi’s part, but what if you added more to her back story? I think it would give her a more profound role, and it would further clarify why she made the decision she made.
ReplyDeleteHi Simran!
ReplyDeleteI do not know too much about Mahabali, but I did really enjoy your story. I like how he started out as a kind and gentle king but then grew to be selfish and kind of evil. I wish that there were more details about how Mahabali defeated Indra and took over the heavens because that story seemed like it would have been super interesting.
Hi Simran! I liked your portrayal of kingdom. It was nice to read that a kingdom full of people are so trustworthy of each other to leave their doors unlocked. I also like how the kingdom was full of love. It was also interesting to read how King Mahabali was a good kind full of love and care for his people before he was easily filled with greed.
ReplyDeleteTAG Comment:
ReplyDeleteHey Simran,
I like how your story focused on Mahabali’s character before he exiles Sugreeva. It’s really interesting to see Mahabali as a glorious and kind ruler, who was a great devotee of the gods. Also, I like how you showed Mahabali as humble rather than greedy as that is what we are shown in the Ramayana. I’m really visual person, so I enjoyed how descriptive your story was; especially the description of the palace. Did you consider maybe adding it bit more information about the extent of Mahabali’s greed? You add a lot of information about Mahabali’s devotion to the god’s and his humility, so it might have been interesting to see what events led to Mahabali’s downfall. One suggestion I have would be explaining what yagnas are as not everyone knows what they mean? We see the performance of yagnas a lot in the Ramayana so maybe a little bit more information about theses practice might be useful for the story. However, I think that your story was great and I really enjoyed it.
Hi Simran,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the focus on Mahabali's story, It is relevant to the Ramayana but not really discussed, especially in the Narayan version. It is fascinating to see him as this great ruler, while he was framed so poorly in the Ramayana. Your descriptions of the kingdom were fantastic and I really liked the description of the birds and grass in the beginning. From your A/N I gather that you wanted the readers to see Mahabali in a different light, did you consider expanding more on his time as King before he was consumed by greed? It could be interesting to see the 'kind and virtuous' King. One small mistake was in this sentence -> "the villagers left their doors unlocked at night without an inkling of doubt that they would be harmed as they slept." The way this is worded makes it seem like the Villagers are sure that they will be harmed. Maybe word it like this, "The villagers left their doors unlocked at night, knowing without a doubt that they would be safe as they slept." Otherwise, I greatly enjoyed reading your story!
Congratulations, your story was told with decent technical proficiency, that's rare among stories. 'm not being sarcastic, telling a story in a clear and understandable manner is more difficult than people think, you've either written before, or you've definitely proofread. I especially like the description of Mahabali; I think it made his character quite clear in a straightforward, but interesting way.
ReplyDeleteI’m curious as to why you chose to retell the story so straightforwardly. It seems to me that you could definitely add your own variation to the story and still tell it well, yet you chose to retell it in a very straightforward fashion.
In the future, I would recommend that you allow your characters to define themselves through their own actions. Implicit characters are all the rage these days, everyone loves, them, and that means that you should too. Although, it can take a lot of words to convey a character this way, so that may be an obstacle to this form of characterization.
Simran, great story! The first thing I liked about your story most was how easy it was to read. You did a great job spacing out the paragraphs from the conversions. Some stories have been really hard to read, but you did a great job. One thing I would have like to see was you maybe adding your own twist to the story. I know that when I change characters and even the setting the stories are so much more fun to write. It makes the assignments go by very fast and not seem super boring. Maybe even adding a new character to the story could help. You could even have the story be told from a different point of view and make it almost of a retelling by someone close to the king with different insights to give the reader some new additions to the story. Overall I really enjoyed your story.
ReplyDeleteGood morning Simran! I really enjoyed reading your story. As I saw the previous commenters have already stated before me, your description of King Mahabali was great. You gave so much detail in your construction of his character that I, as the reader, was easily able to form his image in my mind. The only suggestion I have would be more background to the other characters; perhaps also of the history of the setting and more reasons why the King felt this addition of world powers was so necessary. How did he become so greedy?
ReplyDelete