Module 3

Literatures of Japan

Table of Contents
Page Number
Objectives ..................................................................... 23
Introduction .......................................................... 24
Creation Myth ............................................... 24
Literatures of Japan ............................................... 25
Discussion and Activities
Haiku .......................................................... 25
From Essays in Idleness ..................................... 26
Madman on the Roof ..................................... 27
The Anatomy of Disaster ..................................... 35
Assessment ..................................................................... 38

Objectives

At the end of the module, the students are expected to:

1. discuss the requirements of haikus;
2. write haikus;
3. read Essays in Idleness;
4. explain the prominent statements found in the essay ;
5. read The madman on the roof;
6. identify the cultures of Japan that are depicted in the drama;
7. read The Anatomy Of Disaster; and
8. appreciate the literatures of Japan.

MCCabacang 23
Introduction
Creation Myth
The Japanese have a popular account of their origin and early history based on myths
and legends. This ancient account is preserved in two books-The Kojiki (Records of
Ancient Matters) and the Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan). From these books we learn
that a divine pair, the god Izanagi and goddess Izanami created Japan. The two deities
standing on a floating bridge of heaven thrust down into the ocean a jeweled spear
and raised it aloft in the sky. The 4,233 drops of water that fell down from the spear
headed became the 4,233 island of the Japanese archipelago.
Izanagi and Izanami lived together and gave birth to the Japanese people. One
of their divine children was Amaterasu, the sun goddess. Her grandson appeared in
Kyushu with a mission from the gods to rule Japan forever.
On february 11,660 B.C., Jimmu Tenno, the first human emperor ascended
throne of unbroken line of monarchs, which have ruled the country to the present day.
His symbols (divine) of authority were the mirror, sword and jewel, which were believed
to be given by the gods.
The Japanese people claim that they are of divine origin being descendants of
the gods. Historically, the Japanese arose from a mixture of various races. The original
inhabitants of Japan were believed to be Ainus, Mongolians, and Malays came the
Japanese race. The Japanese are polite, dignified, clean, industrious, disciplined, and
highly nationalistics.
Long before, the Japanese people were influenced by the Chinese’culture,
Confucianism and Taoism. They had developed a religion of their own. This religion
was called Shinto (way of gods). It is a worship of spirits called kami. These spirits
represented the ancestors, the heroes, the mountains, the rivers, the stars and and
other forces of nature. Above the spirits were, the gods and goddesses, notably
Amaterasu, the Sun goddess. Shintoism teaches the superiorityof the Japanese race
and the divine origin of the people.

Discussion
The poetry of Japan, like so much of its painting is work in miniature. The tanka
is a five line poem. The first and the third lines have five syllables each and the others
seven, making a total of thirty-one syllables per poem. Out of this already short poem
of three lines arranged in lines of five, seven, and five syllables. These brief but
beautiful poems describe bits of life, strikingly beautifull scenery, or lovely things that
appeal to the senses.
The Japanese poet, when expressing his feelings is more likely to use a few
words used by someone long ago adding a little and giving to the old words the new
accent of the present.
The two most popular forms of expressing the poet’s feelings are the tanka and
the haiku. The tanka, in original Japanese, consists of 5 lines of 31 syllables spread
out this way:
5 syllables
7 syllables
MCCabacang 24
 5 syllables
7 syllables
7 syllables

These poems when paraphrased in English usually turnout more or less than
31 syllables.
The haiku is the more popular Japanese verse. It is a shortened tanka in that
the last two lines are deleted.
Example:
Turning from watching (5 syllables)
The moon, my comfortable old (7 syllables)
Shadow led me home. (5 syllables)
--Shiki

The requirements of the haiku are:

1. It must suggest one of the four seasons.
2. It must purely be objective description, with
the subjective sentiment left for the reader to
realize or feel.
3. It must depict the external beauties of nature.

Now, try reading the haikus silently and see if they

adhere to the three requirements and the required
number of lines and syllables

A Haiku Harvest
Detestable crow!
Today alone you please me...
Black againts the snow.
--Basho

--- That duck, bobbing up

From the green deeps of a pond
Has seen something strange...

Activity
Bearing in mind the requirements of writing a haiku, write at least five haikus.You can
try any subject you may want. Use drawings or illustrations to highlight your ideas.

MCCabacang 25
Discussion

Another text that you need to read is Yosheda Kenko’s From Essays in
Idleness. Underline the statements you think are very meaningful in
everyone’s lives.

From Essays In Idleness

Yoshida Kenko

The three essays of Yoshida Kenko from Japan are part of Essay in Idleness written about 1340. A
collection of the prose works, the book has 243 sectionsof essays whose length varies from a few lines
to several pages. A former court official and a renowned, Yoshida Kenko was also a Buddhist Monk.

Were we to live o forever were the dews of Adashino never to banish, the smoke
on Toribeyaman ever to fade away-then indeed would men not feel the pity of things.

Truly the beauty of life is its uncertainly. Of all living things, none lives so long
as man. Consider how the ephemeron awaits the fall of evening and the summer
cicadas know neither spring nor aueumn. Even a year of life lived peacefully seems
long and happy beyond compare; but for such as never weary of this world and are
loath to die, a thousand years would pass away like the dream of a single nght.

What shall it avail a man to drag out till he becomes decrepit and unsightly a
life which some day needs must end? Long life brings many shames. At most before
his forthieth year is full, it is seemly for a man to die.

After that image it is pitiful to see how, unashamed of his looks, he loves to
thrust himself into the society of others and, cherishing is offspring in the evening of
days craves to live on and that may watch them grow and prosper. So he continues,
his heart set on nough buy worldliness, and hardening to the pity things.

Are we only to look at the flowers in the full bloom, at the moon when it is clear?
Nay, to look out on the rain and long for the moon, to draw the blinds and not to be
aware of the passing of the spring-these are used even deeper feelings. There is much
to be seen in young boughs about the flower, in garden strewn with withered blossom.
Men are wont to regret that the moon has waned or that the blossoms have
fallen, and this must be so; but they must be perverse who will say, “This branch, that
bough is withered, now there is nough to see.” In all things it is the Beginning and End
that are interesting. The love of men and women-is it only when they meet face to
face? To feel sorrow at an unaccomplished meeting to grieve over empty vows, to
spend the long night sleepless and alone, to yearn for distant skies, in a neglected
house to think fondly of the past-this is what love is.

Rather than to see the moon shining over a thousand leagues, it sinks deeper
into the heart to watch it what at last it appears toward the dawn. It never moves one

MCCabacang 26
so much as when seen in gaps between the trees, pale green over the tops of the
cedars on distant hills, or behind the clustering clouds after showers of rain. When it
shines bright on the leaves of oak and evergreen, and they look wet, the sight sinks
deeply into ones being, and one feels “Oh! For a friend with whom to share this!” and
longs for the capital.

And must we always look upon the moon an the blossoms with the eye alone?
Nay, in the very thought thereof, in the spring though we do not go abroad, on
moonlight nights though we keep chamber, there is great comfort and delight.

A well-bred man does not show strong liking. His enjoyment appears careless.
It is rustic boors who take all pleasures grossly. They squirm and struggle to get under
the blossoms, they stare intently, they think wine, they link verses, and at last they
heartlessly break of great branches. They dip their hands and feet in spring; they get
down and step on the snow, leaving footmarks, there is nothing they do not regard as
their own. It is joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one’s own
hear, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world;
but such, alas, are few and far between. Not that one desires a companion who will sit
opposite and never utter a word in contradiction-one might as well be alone. Far better
in hours respect to your vies, will disagree a little, and argue, saying “yes, that is so
but.” For this reason such and such is the case.”
And yet, with those who are not of the same way of thinking or are contentious,
a man can discuss only things of passing interest, for the truth is there must not be
any wide gulf between bosom friends.

Activity
Discuss the following: You may agree or disagree with the given statements.
1. The beauty of life is in its uncertainty.
2. Long life brings many shames. At most before his forthieth year is full, it is
seemly for a man to die.
3. Are we only to look at the flowers in the full bloom, at the moon when it is clear.
4. In all things it is the Beginning and End that are interesting.
5. A well-bred man does not show strong liking

This time, you will be reading a very popular drama. This is Japan’s best literature
ever. Take note of the characters and their significant rolein the story.

The Madman on the Roof

[Okujo no Kyojin, 1916]
by Kikuchi Kan (1888-1948)

Characters
KATSUSHIMA YOSHITARO, the madman, twenty-four years of age
KATSUSHIMA SUEJIRO, his brother, a seventeen-year old high school student
KATSUSHIMA GISUKE, their father
KATSUSHIMA OYOSHI, their mother
TOSAKU, a neighbor
MCCabacang 27
KICHIJI, a manservant, twenty years of age
A PRIESTESS, about fifty years of age

PLACE: A small island in the Inland Sea

TIME: 1900

The stage setting represents the backyard of the Katsushima, who are the richest
family on the island. A bamboo fence prevents one from seeing more of the house
than the high roof, which stands out sharply against the rich greenish sky of the
southern island summer. At the left of the stage once can catch a glimpse of the
sea shinning in the sunlight.

Yoshitaro, the elder son of the family, is sitting astride the ridge of the roof, and is
looking out over the sea.

GISUKE (speaking from within the house) : Yoshi is sitting on the roof again. He’ll
get a sunstroke---the sun’s so terribly hot. (Coming out.) Kichiji! --- Where is Kichiji?

KICHIII (appearing from the right) : Yes! What do you want?

GISUKE: Bring Yoshitaro down. He has no hat on, up there in the hot sun. He’ll get
a sunstroke. How did he get up there, anyway? From the barn? Didn’t you put
wires around the barn roof as I told you to the other day?

KICHIJI: Yes, I did exactly as you told me.

GISUKE (coming through the gate to the center of the stage, and looking up to the
roof) : I don’t see how he can stand it, sitting on that hot slate roof. (He calls.)

Yoshitaro! You’d better come down. If you stay up there you’ll get a sunstroke and
maybe die.

KICHIJI: Young master! Come on down. You’ll get sick if you stay there.

GISUKE: Yoshi! Come down quick! What are you doing up there, anyway? Come
down, I say! (He calls loudly.) Yoshi!

YOSHITARO (indifferently): Wha-a-at?

GISUKE: No “whats”! Come down right away. If you don’t come down, I’ll get after
you with a stick.

YOSHITARO (protesting like a spoiled child): No, I don’t want to. There’s
something wonderful. The pries of the god Kompira is dancing in the clouds.
Dancing with an angel in pink robes. They’re calling to me to come. (Crying out
ecstatically.) Wait! I’m coming!

GISUKE: If you talk like that you’ll fall, just as you did once before. You’re already
crippled and insane---what will you do next to worry your parents? Come down, you
fool!

MCCabacang 28
KICHIJI: Master, don’t get so angry. The young master will not obey you. You
should get some fried bean cake; when he sees it he will come down, because he
likes it.

GISUKE: No, you had better get the stick after him. Don’t be afraid to give him a
good shaking-up.

KICHIJI: That’s too cruel. The young master doesn’t understand anything. He’s
under the influence of evil spirits.
GISUKE: We may have to put bamboo guards on the roof to keep him down from
there.

KICHIJI: Whatever you do won’t keep him down. Why, he climbed the roof of the
Honzen Temple without even a ladder; a low roof like this one is the easiest thing
in the world for him. I tell you, it’s the evil spirits that make him climb. Nothing can
stop him.

GISUKE: You may be right, he worries me to death. If we could only keep him in
the house it wouldn’t be so bad, even though he is crazy; but he’s always climbing
up to high places. Suejiro says that everybody as far as Takamatsu knows about
Yoshitaro the Madman.

KICHIJI: People on the island all say he’s under the influence of a fox-spirit, but I
don’t believe that. I never heard of a fox climbing trees.

GISUKE: You’re right. I think I know the real reason. About the time Yoshitaro was
born, I bought a very expensive imported rifle, and I shot every monkey on the
island. I believe a monkey-spirit is now working in him.

KICHIJI: That’s just what I think. Otherwise, how could he climb trees so well? He
can climb anything without a ladder. Even Saku, who’s a professional climber,
admits that he’s no match for Yoshitaro.

GISUKE (with a bitter laugh) : Don’t joke about it! It’s no laughing matter, having a
son who is always climbing on the roof. (Calling again.) Yoshitaro, come down!

Yoshitaro! ---When he’s up there on the roof, he doesn’t hear me at all---he’s so

engrossed. I cut down all the trees around the house so he couldn’t climb them, but
there’s nothing I can do about the roof.

KICHIJI: When I was a boy I remember there was a ginko tree in front of the gate.

GISUKE: Yes, that was one of the biggest trees on the island. One day Yoshitaro
climbed clear to the top. He sat out on a branch, at least ninety feet above the
ground, dreaming away as usual. My wife and I never expected him to get down
alive, but after a while, down he slid. We were all too astonished to speak.

KICHIJI: That was certainly a miracle.

MCCabacang 29
GISUKE: That’s why I say it’s a monkey-spirit that’s working him. (He calls again.)
Yoshi! Come down! (Dropping his voice.) Kichiji, you’d better go up and fetch him.

KICHIJI: But when anyone else climbs up there, the young master gets angry.
GISUKE: Never mind his getting angry. Pull him down.

KICHIJI: Yes master.

(Kichiji goes out after the ladder. Tosaku, the neighbor, enters.)
TOSAKU: Good day, sir.
GISUKE: Good day. Fine weather. Catch anything with the nets you put out
yesterday?
TOSAKU: No, not much. The season’s over.
GISUKE: Maybe it is too late now.
TOSAKU (looking up at Yoshitaro): Your son’s on the roof again.

GISUKE: Yes, as usual. I don’t like it, but when I keep him locked in a room he’s
like a fish out of water. Then, when I take pity on him and let him out, back he goes
on the roof.

TOSAKU: But after all, he doesn’t bother anybody.

GISUKE: He bothers us. We feel so ashamed when he climbs up there and shouts.

TOSAKU: But your younger son Suejiro, has a fine record at school. That must be
some consolation for you.

GISUKE: Yes, he’s a good student, and that is a consolation for me. If both of them
were crazy, I don’t know how I could go on living.

TOSAKU: By the way, a Priestess has just come to the island. How would you like
to have her pray for your son? ---That’s really what I came to see you about.

GISUKE: We’ve tried prayers before, but it’s never done any good.

TOSAKU: This Priestess believes in the god Kompira. She works all kinds of
miracles. People say the god inspires her, that’s why her prayers have more effect
than those of ordinary priests. Why don’t you try her once?

GISUKE: Well, we might. How much does she charge?

TOSAKU: She won’t take your money unless the patient is cured. If he is cured,
you can pay her whatever you feel like.

GISUKE: Suejiro says he doesn’t believe in prayers…. But there’s no harm in

letting her try.
(Kichiji enters carrying the ladder and disappears behind the fence.)

TOSAKU: I’ll go and fetch her here. In the meantime you get your son down off the
roof.
GISUKE: Thanks for your trouble. (After seeing that Tosaku has gone, he calls
again.) Yoshi! Be a good boy and come down.

MCCabacang 30
KICHIJI (who is up on the roof by this time). Now then, young master, come down
with me. If you stay up here any longer you’ll have a fever tonight.

YOSHITARO (drawing away from Kichiji as a Buddhist might from a heathen).

Don’t touch me! The angels are beckoning to me. You’re not supposed to come
here. What do you want?

KICHIJI: Don’t talk nonsense! Please come down.

YOSHITARO: If you touch me the demons will tear you apart.
(Kichiji hurriedly catches Yoshitaro by the shoulder and pulls him to the ladder.
Yoshitaro suddenly becomes submissive.)

KICHIJI: Don’t make any trouble now. If you do you’ll fall and hurt yourself.
GISUKE: Be careful!
(Yoshitaro comes down to the center of the stage, followed by Kichiji. Yoshitaro is
lame in his right leg.)

GISUKE (calling): Oyoshi! Come out here a minute.

OYOSHI (from within). What is it?
GISUKE: I’ve sent for a Priestess.
OYOSHI (coming out). That may help. You never can tell what will.
GISUKE: Yoshitaro says he talks with the god Kompira. Well, this Priestess is a
follower of Kompira, so she ought to be able to help him.

YOSHITARO (looking uneasy): Father! Why did you bring me down? There was a
beautiful cloud of five colors rolling down to fetch me.

GISUKE: Idiot! Once before you said there was a five-colored cloud, and you
jumped off the roof. That’s the way you became a cripple. A Priestess of the god
Kompira is coming here today to drive the evil spirit out of you, so don’t you go
back up on the roof.
(Tosaku enters, leading the Priestess. She has a crafty face.)

TOSAKU: This is the Priestess I spoke to you about.

GISUKE: Ah, good afternoon. I’m glad you’re come---this boy is really a disgrace to
the whole family.

PRIESTESS (casually). You needn’t worry any more about him. I’ll cure him at
once with the god’s help. (Looking at Yoshitaro.) This is the one?

GISUKE: Yes. He’s twenty-four years old, and the only thing he can do is climb up
to high places.
PRIESTESS: How long has he been this way?

GISUKE: Ever since he was born. Even when he was a baby, he wanted to be
climbing. When he was four or five years old, he climbed onto the low shrine, then
onto the high shrine of Buddha, and finally onto a very high shelf. When he was
seven he had begun climbing trees. At fifteen he climbed to the tops of mountains
and stayed there all day long. He says he talks with demons and with the gods.
What do you think is the matter with him?

MCCabacang 31
PRIESTESS: There’s no doubt but it’s a fox-spirit. I will pray for him. (Looking at
Yoshitaro.) Listen now! I am the messenger of the god Kompira. All that I say
comes from the god.

YOSHITARO (uneasily): You say the god Kompira? Have you ever seen him?
PRIESTESS (staring at him): Don’t say such sacrilegious things! The god cannot
be seen.

YOSHITARO (exultantly): I have seen him many times! He’s an old man with white
robes and a golden crown. He’s my best friend.

PRIESTESS (taken aback at this assertion, speaking to Gisuke): This is a fox-spirit,

all right, and a very extreme case. I will address the god.
(She chants a prayer in a weird manner. Yoshitaro, held fast by Kichiji, watches the
Priestess blankly. She works herself into a frenzy, and falls to the ground in a faint.
Presently she rises to her feet and looks about her strangely.)

PRIESTESS (in a changed voice): I am the god Kompira!

(All except Yoshitaro fall to their knees with exclamation of reverence.)

PRIESTESS (with affected dignity): The elder son of this family is under the
influence of a fox-spirit. Hang him up on the branch of a tree and purify him with the
smoke of green pine needles. If you fail to do what I say, you will all be punished!
(She faints again. There are more exclamation of astonishment.)
PRIESTESS (rising and looking about her as though unconscious of what has
taken place): What has happened? Did the god speak?

GISUKE: It was a miracle.

PRIESTESS: You must do at once whatever the god told you, or you’ll be
punished. I warn you for your own sake.

GISUKE (hesitating somewhat). Kichiji, go and get some green pine needles.
OYOSHI: No! It’s too cruel, even if it is the god’s command.

PRIESTESS: He will not suffer, only the fox-spirit within him. The boy himself will
not suffer at all. Hurry! (Looking fixedly at Yoshitaro.) Did you hear the god’s
command? He told the spirit to leave your body before it hurt.

YOSHITARO: That was not Kompira’s voice. He wouldn’t talk to a priestess like
you.
PRIESTESS (insulted). I’ll get even with you. Just wait! Don’t talk back to the god
like that, you horrid fox!
(Kichiji enters with an armful of green pine boughs. Oyoshi is frightened.)

PRIESTESS: Respect the god or be punished!

(Gisuke and Kichiji reluctantly set fire to the pine needles, then bring Yoshitaro to
the fire. He struggles against being held in the smoke.)

YOSHITARO: Father! What are you doing to me? I don’t like it! I don’t like it!

MCCabacang 32
PRIESTESS: That’s not his own voice speaking. It’s the fox within him. Only the fox
is suffering.
OYOSHI: But it’s cruel!
(Gisuke and Kichiji attempt to press Yoshitaro’s face into the smoke. Suddenly
Suejiro’s voice is heard calling within the house, and presently he appears. He
stands amazed at the scene before him.)

SUEJIRO: What’s happening here? What’s the smoke for?

YOSHITARO (coughing from the smoke, and looking at his brother as a savior).
Father and Kichiji are putting me in the smoke.

SUEJIRO (angrily). Father! What foolish thing are you doing now? Haven’t I told
you time and time again about this sort of business?

GISUKE: But the god inspired the miraculous Priestess…

SUEJIRO (interrupting). What nonsense is that? You do these insane things merely
because he is so helpless.
(With a contemptuous look at the Priestess he stamps the fire out)

PRIESTESS: Wait! That fire was made at the command of the god!
(Suejiro sneeringly puts out the last spark.)

GISUKE (more courageously): Suejiro, I have no education, and you have, so I am

always willing to listen to you. But this fire was made at the god’s command, and
you shouldn’t have stamped on it.

SUEJIRO: Smoke won’t cure him. People will laugh at you if they hear you’ve been
trying to drive out a fox. All the gods in the country together couldn’t even cure a
cold. This Priestess is a fraud. All she wants is the money.

GISUKE: But the doctors can’t cure him.

SUEJIRO: If the doctors can’t, nobody can. I’ve told you before that he doesn’t
suffer. If he did, we’d have to do something for him. But as long as he can climb up
on the roof, he is happy. Nobody in the whole country is as happy as he is---
perhaps nobody in the world. Besides if you cure him now, what can he do? He’s
twenty-four years old and he knows nothing, not even the alphabet. He’s had no
practical experience. If he were cured, he would be conscious of being crippled,
and he’d be the most miserable man alive. Is that what you want to see? It’s all
because you want to make him normal. But wouldn’t it be foolish to become normal
merely to suffer? (Looking sidewise at the Priestess.) Tosaku, if you brought her
here, you had better take her away.

PRIESTESS (angry and insulted). You disbelieve the oracle of the god. You will be
punished! (She starts her chant as before. She faints, rises, and speaks in a
changed voice.) I am the great god Kompira! What the brother of the patient
springs from his own selfishness. He knows if his sick brother is cured, he’ll get the
family estate. Doubt not this oracle!

SUEJIRO (excitedly knocking the Priestess down). That’s a damned lie, you old
fool.

MCCabacang 33
(He kicks her.)
PRIESTESS (getting to her feet and resuming her ordinary voice). You’ve hurt me!
You savage!

SUEJIRO: You fraud! You swindler!

TOSAKU (coming between them). Wait, young man! Don’t get in such a frenzy.

SUEJIRO (still excited). You liar! A woman like you can’t understand brotherly love!

TOSAKU: We’ll leave now. It was my mistake to have brought her.

GISUKE (giving Tosaku some money). I hope you’ll excuse him. He’s young and
has such a temper.

PRIESTESS: You kicked me when I was inspired by the god. You’ll be lucky to
survive until tonight.
SUEJIRO: Liar!

OYOSHI (soothing Suejiro). Be still now. (To the Priestess). I’m sorry this has
happened.

PRIESTESS (leaving with Tosaku). The foot you kicked me with will rot off!
(The priestess and Tosaku go out.)

GISUKE (to Suejiro). Aren’t you afraid of being punished for what you’ve done?
SUEJIRO: A god never inspires a woman like that old swindler. She lies about
everything.

OYOSHI: I suspected her from the very first. She wouldn’t do such cruel things if a
real god inspired her.
GISUKE (without any insistence). Maybe so. But, Suejiro, your brother will be a
burden to you all your life.

SUEJIRO: It will be no burden at all. When I become successful, I’ll build a tower
for him on top of a mountain.

GISUKE (suddenly). But where’s Yoshitaro gone?

KICHIJI (pointing at the roof). He’s up there.

GISUKE (having to smile): As usual.

(During the preceding excitement, Yoshitaro has slipped away and climbed back up
on the roof. The four person below look at each other and smile.)
SUEJIRO: A normal person would be angry with you for having put him in the
smoke, but you see, he’s forgotten everything. (He calls.) Yoshitaro!

YOSHITARO (for all his madness there is affection for his brother). Suejiro! I asked
Kompira and he says he doesn’t know her!

SUEJIRO (smiling): You’re right. The god will inspire you, not a priestess like her.
(Through a rift in the clouds, the golden light of the sunset strikes the roof.)
SUEJIRO (exclaiming): What a beautiful sunset!

MCCabacang 34
YOSHITARO (his face lighted by the sun’s reflection): Suejiro, look! Can’t you see
a golden palace in that cloud over there? There! Can’t you see? Just look! How
beautiful!

SUEJIRO (as he feels the sorrow of sanity): Yes, I see. I see it, too. Wonderful.

YOSHITARO (filled with joy): There! I hear music coming from the palace. Flutes,
what I love best of all. Isn’t it beautiful?
(The parents have gone into the house. The mad brother on the roof and the same
brother on the ground remain looking at the golden sunset.)

Activity
Try answering the following questions for a clearer understanding:
1. Who are the prime characters in the story?
2. What are their significant role in the story”
3. Is Yoshitaro really a madman? Why?
4. Do you believe in the priestess? Are there still present nowadays?
5. If you are Sujiro, will you do the same?
6. Are the parents correct in consulting a priestess?Why?
7. Name the cultures of Japan that are depicted in the story.

Read
silently
.

The Anatomy of Disaster

Fletcher Knebel and Charles W.Bailey

Early at dawn on August 6,1945, Hiroshima, Japan, was a busy city. But 43
seconds after 8:15 that morning, Hiroshima was no more. It was the world’s first city
to meet an atomic death. The Anatomy Disaster describes the effect of the first A-
bomb fall on another city.

August 16,1945 was little different in Hirooshima from previous Mondays in this
year of shortages, defeats, evacuations, and forced labor. Women in almost every
house were cooking breakfast over the little charcoal burners that serve Japanese
homes as combination stoves and heaters. Work parties were forming up or just
starting their tasks. Among them were a number from outside the city, groups sent into
Hiroshima to speed up the demoltion and firebreak work.
Busy with morning routinesof one kind of another, most people in Hiroshima
paid little attention to the air-raid alert that sounded at nine minutes past sven o’clock.
Those who looked up at the faint drone of engines found, if their eyes were sharp, a
single B-29, flying very high. Probably it was a weather plane of the kind that often
MCCabacang 35
flew over in the morning. It crossed the city twice and then, at 7.25, flew out to the sea.
The warnig system sounded the all clear at 7:31.
The all-clear signal made little changes in the tempo of the city. Most people had been
too busy, or too lazy, to pay much attention to the alert. The departure of the single
highflying B-29mthe weather plane cause no more stir than its arrival over the city 22
earlier.
At 8:15 the few people in Hiroshima who caught site of new small formation of
planes notice that three parachutes blossomed from one of them. These have been
dropped from the blast and radiation-measuring ; they supported instruments to
broadcast such measurements. Seeing the parachutes, some shared, thinking the
enemy planes much be in trouble and the crews were starting to bail out. For three-
quarters of minute there was nothing but the parachutes in the clear skies over the
city. Then, suddenly, there was no sky left over Hiroshima.
For those who survived to recall it, the first instant of the atomic exposion over
Hiroshima was pure light, blinding intense, but of awesome beauty and variety. One
witness described a flashed that turned from white to pink and then, to blue as it rose
blossomed. Others seemed to see’ five or six bright colors’. Some saw merely’ flashes
of gold’ in a white light that reminded them this was perhaps the most common
description of a huge photographic flash bulb exploding over the city. The sole
impression was visual. If there was sound, no one heard it. Thousand did not see
anything either. They were simply incinerated where they stood by radiant hit that
turned central Hirushima into gigantic oven. Thousands of others survived for perhaps
second of two, only to be shredded by the scattered window glass that flew before the
blast waves, or crush underneath walls, beams, bricks, or other solid objects that stood
in the way of the explosion.
Several factors combined to produce more devastation than the nuclear experts
had prediicted. First, the precision of the drop. For major Ferebee’s aim was nearly
perfect. Despite the fact that it was released from a fast moving air craft over 3 miles
to the east, nearly 6 miles in the air, the bomb was detonated only a little more than
200 yards from designated aiming point.
Then, the time of the explosion. All over Hiroshima thousands of charcoal
brziers full of hot coals from the breakfast cooking. Almost every stove, knocked over
by the massive blast wave, became a torch to fire the wood and paper houses.
Openheimer, had assumed that most people would be in air-red shelters and had
estimates 20 thousands casualties. But there had been no specific alert-small
formations of planes had flown over the city many times without dropping bombs and
most people were on their way to work. Thus, there were more than 70 thousands
casualties. The initial flash spawned a succession of calamities. First came heat. It
lasted only an instant but was saw intense that it melted roof tiles. Fused the quarter
crystals in granite blocks, a charred the exposed sides of telephone poles for almost
2 miles, and destroyed nearby humans so thoroughly that nothing remained except
the outline of their shadows turned into asphalt pavements or stone wall.

Ten miles from the city, the mayor of Kobe space distinctly felt the heat on his
face as he stood in his garden. At two-and-a-half miles from Ground Zero, the heat
still burned skin. At a mile and a half, a printed page exposed to the heat rays had
black letters burned completely out of the white paper, Hundreds of women had the
darker parts of their Kimono. After the heat came the blast, sweeping outward from
the fireball with the force of a 500-mile-an-hour wind. Only objects that offered a
minimum surface resistance-handrail on bridges, pipes, and utility pole-withstood its
force. The walls of a few office building, which had been especially constructed to

MCCabacang 36
resist earthquakes, remained standing. But they enclosed only wreckage, as their
roofs were driven to the ground, carrying everything inside down with them.
The blast broke water mains everywhere, so that Hiroshima surviving firemen
two-thirds of them where immediate casualties were helpless to cope with the
thousands of fires that started within seconds. Between them, blast and fire destroyed
every single building within an area of almost five-square miles. After heat, blast, and
fire, the people of Hiroshima had further ordeals to face. A few minutes after the
explosion a strange rain began to fall. The raindrops were as big as marbles and they
were black. This frightening phenomenon resulted from the vaporization of moisture
in the fireball and condensation in the cloud that spouted up from it. There was not
enough of this “black rain” to put out the fires, but enough to heighten the panic of the
people already in served by what had hit them.
After the rain came a wind the great “fire wind” which blew back in toward the center
of the catastrophe, increasing in force as the air over Hiroshima grew hotter because
of the great fires. The wind blew so hard that it sprouted huge trees in the parks where
survivors were collecting. It whipped up high waves on the rivers and drowned many
who had gone into the water to escape from the heat and flames.
“My God, what have we done?”
Tibbets had been warned of a shock wave would probably hit the plane about
a minute after the bomb exploded. Anticipating this; he pointed the nose upward to
gain altitude and lose speed- a tactic were aerodynamics experts calculated would
lessen, the impact.
From the rear turret, Bob Caron presently saw a shimmering line rushing toward the
plane. It resembled a heat wave as seen far from an asphalt highway, but it extended
in a long curve like a ripple from a rock tossed in a pond. It was visible because the
heavy compression of air was followed by a vacuum in which vapor condensed
instantaneously, forming a belt of speeding mist. The shock wave raced the plane at
a speed of 12 miles a minute. Although its probable force had been stressed in
briefings, the actual violence of it astounded the crew. “flak!” Tibbets yelled
involuntarily as it struck. Parsons experienced a similar reaction. It felt as though a
large anti-aircraft shell had burst 20 feet from the plane.
“Here comes another one”, Caron warned on the intercom from his rear vantage
point.
A reflection on the blast from the ground, this second shock wave hit them; then
the peril was over. In information with the accompanying planes, the Enola Gay now
flew south along the outskirts of Hiroshima, and for the first time the crew observed
what they have wrought. Dust boiled up from the entire city, and long, swirling gray
shafts rushed toward the center. A column of white smoke, incredibly tidy in form,
stood straight up. At the base it was flecked with red and orange and at the top it
spilled into an almost perfect mushroom. The stem of the strange cloud flower
reminded one man of an enormous grave marker. Within minutes the cloud mushroom
pushed upward almost four miles.
Conflicting emotions jostled the minds of the airmen over the ruined city. Some
were elated that the bomb had worked, and hoped it would end the war. Some were
torn between pride and dismay. Some simply could not relate what they saw to reality.
Capt. Robert A. Lewis, Tibbets co-pilot, was one of the first to speak.
“My God, what have we done?”
Tibbets ordered a radio message sent in the clear, notifying Tinian that the
Enola Gay had bombed its primary target visually with good results; no fighters, no
flak. Then, as they settled down to the long flight back to the Tinian, the report was

MCCabacang 37
elaborated in code “clear cut, successful in all respects. Visible effect greater than
Trinity.
When the Enola Gay returned, she had barely taxied to her hardstand before
200 officers enlisted men crowded under her wings. The greetings delegation included
General “Tooey” Spaatz, new strategic Air Force, Brig. Gen. John Davies, 313th Wing
Commandeer-indeed, more generals and admirals than most of the plane’s crew had
ever seen.
“Attention orders” barked General Davies.
Spaatz stepped forward and pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on the
breast of Tibbets dirty flight overalls. Tibbets his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep,
and hours overdue for a shave, was caught off guard. He hastily palmed his pipe in
his left hand and tucked the stem under his sleeve. Spaatz shook Tibbets; hand and
the crowd milled around again. Every man of the Gay was the center of a group of
eager interviewers.

Activity

1. Discuss with your group the effects of the Abomb.

2. Present an illustration of the effects as described in the story.
3. Write a summary.

Assessments
Get ready with a long quiz. This will be an objective type of test.

MCCabacang 38
Module 4
Literatures of India

Table of Contents
Page Number
Objectives .................................................................. 39
Introduction ....................................................... 40
Mother India-Land of Prayer ................................. 40
Historical literature ............................................ 40
The caste system ............................................ 40
Discussion and Activities ....................................................... 41
Literatures of India ....................................................... 41
The Lion Makers ....................................................... 42
The Mahabharata ....................................................... 43
Mahamaya ....................................................... 46
Non-violence ....................................................... 50
Assessment .................................................................. 51
Resources .................................................................. 51

Literatures of India

Objectives

At the end of Module 3, the students are expected to:

1. name the caste system;
2. familiarize the important terms used in Indian literature;
3. read the Lion Makers;
4. appreciate the story of Mahabharata;
5. identify the unique cultures of India as depicted in the story;
6. read Mahamaya;
7. write an ending of the story of Mahamaya;
8. memorize some prominent dialogues of the characters in
Mahamaya; and
9. define non-violence.

MCCabacang 39
Introduction
Mother India - Land of Prayer
(World’s Largest Democracy)

India’s name came from the Indus River, site of one of the world’s oldest
civilizations. India is the Seventh largest country in the world and it has the second
largest number of people.
This vast land contains contrasts of every possible kind-in its peoples,
languages, customs, religions, and landscapes. India is a huge triangular peninsula of
South Asia, surrounded by China the Himalayan kingdoms, Bangladesh, and
Pakistan. The great triangle of India points down into the Indian Ocean. It occupies
most of a huge landmass, which, along with Bangladesh and Pakistan, is often called
the Indian sub-contiment. Himalayas some of the world’s highest mountains. The
foothills of the Himalayan Mountains are covered in forest where leopards and tigers
roam.

Historical Literature

Indian civilization began in the Indus Valley up north about 3,000 BC. The ruins
of the ancients cities are found in Mohendro-Daro and Harappa (now in Pakistan). The
early, dark-skinned people called the Dravidians built cities, temples, and art works as
old as those of China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. Today the Davidians are members
of the lower castes.
About 2000 BC, the fair-skinned Aryans invaded the Indus Valley. They spoke
the Sanskrit and founded small kingdom in the fertile plains of north India. They gave
India the Vedic literature composed of religious poems and hymns of praise.

The Caste System

The caste system provides a rigid class distinction. Four initial castes are
formed. Caste membership is determined by birth and one is expected to remain to
the said caste until he dies.
Men are divided according to a way of life or social strata called caste (a
Portuguese word). This was introduced by the Indo-Aryans during the epic age. These
are five kinds of people in India:
1. Brahmans- the highest strata and composed of priest and scholars. They are
considered as the most noble among the population.
2. Kshatriyas- composed of leaders and warriors.
3. Vaishyas- whose members are farmers, herdsmen, businessmen and artists.
4. Sudras- laborers and slaves
5. Untouchables- they are the outcasts since they do not belong to any of the
castes. They are referred to as the lowest kind of people in the country. They
live in a different community and usually get the lowest kind of job. At times,
they required to produce sounds to give a warning as they approach a group of
people. This is done due to the belief that merely touching or being near them
will mean lowering of caste of the victim. Their smell at times would cause
impurity of the air.

MCCabacang 40
 This caste system was introduced due to the Aryan’s desire to be distinguished as
a better race from the black Dravidians. The outcasts were then prohibited to use
puclic comfort rooms, temples or restaurants. The caste system is one of the main
factors of disunity among the Indians.

Hinduism
Hinduism, also known as Brahmanism is the oldest religion of India. Indians
believed that God created the caste systm. The Hindu god is Brahma, “the soul of
the earth”. They have accepted the fact that life on earth is sorrowful and even
death cannot provide happiness. Reincarnation or transmigration of soul was
widely accepted. Hinduism introduced the idea that when a man dies, his soul will
be born again in another body. Oneness with Brahma is called nirvana. Man’s main
goal in life is to be good, to unite with Brahma to enable him to acquire total
happiness. Hinduism played a major role in the istablishment of caste system in
the country. The Hindus believe in almost 300 gods.
Hindus are generally vegetarian for they believe in the sacredness of the cow.
They do not kill some animals for food.

Characteristics of Indian Literature

1. Indian literature is based on piety, a deeply religious spirit. The Indians believed
that knowledge of God and a strong belief in Hinduism is necessary to save
mankind. Their earliest poems, the Vedas, are the Bible of Indians.
2. Indian literary masterpieces are written in the form of epics correspond to the
great epochs in the history of India. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are
the most important epics of India. The Indians believe in reincarnation, meaning
that the soul of a person after death returns to the earth in the body of another
person, an animal, or even plant. Consequently, they also abstain from
destroying plants because in that plant might be reincarnated one’s dead
relative.

The Ramayana- is about the reincarnation of the creator god. Vishnu in the
person of Krishna. These reincarnations of Vishnu are called Avatars or
descending of the god.

The Mahabharata- is considered the greatest epic of India. It tells the story of a
civil war that may have taken place in the early years of the Aryan occupation
of India. It is a long poem, almost as long as the combined epics of all Europe.

Discussion and activities

The first literature that you will be reading is The Lion Makers.
This is a tale from the Panchatantra .

MCCabacang 41
The Lion Makers
Excerpt from Panchatantra

Even men of learning and noble birth are sometimes devoid of common sense. For
true is the saying
Book-learning people rightly cherish;
But gumption’s of all to me.
Bereft of gumption you shall perish,
Like to the Lion-makers three.
“How was that?” said the Man-with-the-wheel. And Gold-magician narrated:
In a certain place there dwelt four Brahman youths in the greatest friendship.
Three of them had to go to the further shore of the ocean oc science, but were devoid
of common sense; while the fourt only had common sense and no mind for science.
Now once upon a time, these friends took counsel together and said, “Of what profit
is science, if we cannot go with it to some foreign country and receive the favor of
princess and make our fortune? Therefore to the Eastern Country, let us go.” And so
it came to pass.
Now after they had gone a little way, the eldest spoke: “There is one among us,
the fourth, who has no learning but only common sense; without learning. Not a whit
willI give him of all that I gain; so let him go home.” And the second said, “Ho there,
Gumption! Get you homeward, for you have no learning!” But the third made answer,
“Alas, it is not fitting to do so; for we have played together since we were boys. So let
him come along, too. He’s a noble fellow, and shall have a share in the riches that we
win.”
From then on, they went together till in jungle, they saw the bones of a dead
lion. Then spoke the first: “Ha! Now we can put our book learning to the test. Here lies
some sort of a dead creature. By the power of our learning, we will bring it to life. Ill
put the bones together .” And then that he did with zeal. The second added flesh,
blood, and hide. But just as the third was breathing the breath of life into it, Gumption
stopped him and said, “Hold: this is a lion that you are turning out. If you make him
alive, he will kill every one of us.” Thereupon made answer the other, “Fie, stupid! Is
learning to be fruitless in my hands?” “Well, then,” said Gumption climbed down and
went home.
“Therefore,” concluded the Gold-magician, “therefore, I say:
Book-learning people rightly cherish;
But gumption’s best of all to me.
Bereft of gumption you shall perish,
Like to the Lion-makers three.”

Activity

Answer the following questions:

1. Who is the narrator in the story?
2. What is the mission of the scholars?
3. Discuss in sequence the journey of the four Brahmans.
4. What is the moral lesson in the story?

MCCabacang 42
The Story of the Mahābhārata
The innermost narrative kernel of the Mahābhārata tells the story of two sets of
paternal first cousins—the five sons of the deceased king Pāṇḍu [pronounced
PAAN-doo] (the five Pāṇḍavas [said as PAAN-da-va-s]) and the one hundred sons
of blind King Dhṛtarāṣṭra [Dhri-ta-RAASH-tra] (the 100 hundred Dhārtarāṣṭras
[Dhaar-ta-RAASH-tras])—who became bitter rivals, and opposed each other in
war for possession of the ancestral Bharata [BHAR-a-ta] kingdom with its capital
in the "City of the Elephant," Hāstinapura [HAAS-ti-na-pu-ra], on the Gaṅgā river
in north central India. What is dramatically interesting within this simple
opposition is the large number of individual agendas the many characters pursue,
and the numerous personal conflicts, ethical puzzles, subplots, and plot twists that
give the story a strikingly powerful development.

The five sons of Pāṇḍu were actually fathered by five Gods (sex was mortally
dangerous for Pāṇḍu, because of a curse) and these heroes were assisted
throughout the story by various Gods, seers, and brahmins, including the seer
Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa [VYAA-sa] (who later became the author of the epic
poem telling the whole of this story), who was also their actual grandfather (he had
engendered Pāṇḍu and the blind Dhṛtarāṣṭra upon their nominal father's widows in
order to preserve the lineage). The one hundred Dhārtarāṣṭras, on the other hand,
had a grotesque, demonic birth, and are said more than once in the text to be
human incarnations of the demons who are the perpetual enemies of the Gods. The
most dramatic figure of the entire Mahābhārata, however, is Kṛṣṇa, son of
Vasudeva of the tribe of Andhaka Vṛṣṇis, located in the city of Dvārakā in the far
west, near the ocean. His name is, thus Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva [Vaa-su-DAY-va]. But he
also a human instantiation of the supreme God Vāsudeva-Nārāyaṇa-Viṣṇu
descended to earth in human form to rescue Law, Good Deeds, Right, Virtue and
Justice (all of these words refer to different facets of "dharma," the “firm-holding”
between the ethical quality of an action and the quality of its future fruits for the
doer). Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva was also a cousin to both Bhārata phratries, but he was a
friend and advisor to the Pāṇḍavas, became the brother-in-law of Arjuna [AR-ju-
na] Pāṇḍava, and served as Arjuna's mentor and charioteer in the great war. Kṛṣṇa
Vāsudeva is portrayed several times as eager to see the purgative war occur, and in
many ways the Pāṇḍavas were his human instruments for fulfilling that end.

The Dhārtarāṣṭra party behaved viciously and brutally toward the Pāṇḍavas in
many ways, from the time of their early youth onward. Their malice displayed
itself most dramatically when they took advantage of the eldest Pāṇḍava,
Yudhiṣṭhira [Yu-DHISH-thir-a] (who had by now become the universal ruler of the
land) in a game of dice: The Dhārtarāṣṭras 'won' all his brothers, himself, and even
the Pāṇḍavas' common wife Draupadī [DRAO-pa-dee] (who was an incarnation of
the richness and productivity of the Goddess "Earthly-and-Royal Splendor," Śrī
[Shree]); they humiliated all the Pāṇḍavas and physically abused Draupadī; they
drove the Pāṇḍava party into the wilderness for twelve years, and the twelve years
MCCabacang 43
had to be followed by the Pāṇḍavas' living somewhere in society, in disguise,
without being discovered, for one more year.

The Pāṇḍavas fulfilled their part of that bargain, but the villainous leader of the
Dhārtarāṣṭra party, Duryodhana [Dur-YODH-ana], was unwilling to restore the
Pāṇḍavas to their half of the kingdom when the thirteen years had expired. Both
sides then called upon their many allies and two large armies arrayed themselves
on 'Kuru's Field' (Kuru was one of the eponymous ancestors of the clan), eleven
divisions in the army of Duryodhana against seven divisions for Yudhiṣṭhira. Much
of the action in the Mahābhārata is accompanied by discussion and debate among
various interested parties, and the most famous sermon of all time, Kṛṣṇa
Vāsudeva's ethical lecture accompanied by a demonstration of his divinity to his
charge Arjuna (the justly famous Bhagavad Gītā [BHU-gu-vud GEE-taa])
occurred in the Mahābhārata just prior to the commencement of the hostilities of
the war. Several of the important ethical and theological themes of
the Mahābhārata are tied together in this sermon, and this "Song of the Blessed
One" has exerted much the same sort of powerful and far-reaching influence in
Indian Civilization that the New Testament has in Christendom. The Pāṇḍavas won
the eighteen day battle, but it was a victory that deeply troubled all except those
who were able to understand things on the divine level (chiefly Kṛṣṇa, Vyāsa, and
Bhīṣma [BHEESH-ma], the Bharata patriarch who was emblematic of the virtues
of the era now passing away). The Pāṇḍavas' five sons by Draupadī, as well as
Bhīmasena [BHEE-ma-SAY-na] Pāṇḍava's and Arjuna Pāṇḍava's two sons by two
other mothers (respectively, the young warriors Ghaṭotkaca [Ghat-OT-ka-cha] and
Abhimanyu [Uh-bhi-MUN-you ("mun" rhymes with "nun")]), were all tragic
victims in the war. Worse perhaps, the Pāṇḍava victory was won by the Pāṇḍavas
slaying, in succession, four men who were quasi-fathers to them: Bhīṣma, their
teacher Droṇa [DROE-na], Karṇa [KAR-na] (who was, though none of the
Pāṇḍavas knew it, the first born, pre-marital, son of their mother), and their
maternal uncle Śalya (all four of these men were, in succession, 'supreme
commander' of Duryodhana's army during the war). Equally troubling was the fact
that the killing of the first three of these 'fathers,' and of some other enemy warriors
as well, was accomplished only through 'crooked stratagems' (jihmopāyas), most of
which were suggested by Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva as absolutely required by the
circumstances.

The ethical gaps were not resolved to anyone's satisfaction on the surface of the
narrative and the aftermath of the war was dominated by a sense of horror and
malaise. Yudhiṣṭhira alone was terribly troubled, but his sense of the war's
wrongfulness persisted to the end of the text, in spite of the fact that everyone else,
from his wife to Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva, told him the war was right and good; in spite of
the fact that the dying patriarch Bhīṣma lectured him at length on all aspects of the
Good Law (the Duties and Responsibilities of Kings, which have rightful violence
at their center; the ambiguities of Righteousness in abnormal circumstances; and
the absolute perspective of a beatitude that ultimately transcends the oppositions of

MCCabacang 44
good versus bad, right versus wrong, pleasant versus unpleasant, etc.); in spite of
the fact that he performed a grand Horse Sacrifice as expiation for the putative
wrong of the war. These debates and instructions and the account of this Horse
Sacrifice are told at some length after the massive and grotesque narrative of the
battle; they form a deliberate tale of pacification (praśamana, śānti) that aims to
neutralize the inevitable miasma of the war.

In the years that follow the war Dhṛtarāṣṭra and his queen Gāndhārī [Gaan-
DHAAR-ee], and Kuntī [Koon-tee], the mother of the Pāṇḍavas, lived a life of
asceticism in a forest retreat and died with yogic calm in a forest fire. Kṛṣṇa
Vāsudeva and his always unruly clan slaughtered each other in a drunken brawl
thirty-six years after the war, and Kṛṣṇa's soul dissolved back into the Supreme
God Viṣṇu (Kṛṣṇa had been born when a part of Nārāyaṇa-Viṣṇu took birth in the
womb of Kṛṣṇa's mother). When they learned of this, the Pāṇḍavas believed it time
for them to leave this world too and they embarked upon the 'Great Journey,' which
involved walking north toward the polar mountain that is toward the heavenly
worlds, until one's body dropped dead. One by one Draupadī and the younger
Pāṇḍavas died along the way until Yudhiṣṭhira was left alone with a dog that had
followed him all the way. Yudhiṣṭhira made it to the gate of heaven and there
refused the order to drive the dog back, at which point the dog was revealed to be
an incarnate form of the God Dharma (also known as Yama, the Lord of the Dead,
the God who was Yudhiṣṭhira's actual, physical father), who was there to test the
quality of Yudhiṣṭhira's virtue before admitting him to heaven. Once in heaven
Yudhiṣṭhira faced one final test of his virtue: He saw only the Dhārtarāṣṭras in
heaven, and he was told that his brothers were in hell. He insisted on joining his
brothers in hell, if that be the case. It was then revealed that they were really in
heaven, that this illusion had been one final test for him. So ends the Mahābhārata

https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Sanskrit_in_Classics_at_Brown/Mahabharata/MBh2Sto
ry.html

Activity

You may try another link for the detailed events of the story before
answering the following questions.
1. Who are the characters in the story?
2. Who is Yudhisthir?Duryodhan? Draupadi? Arjun?
3. Discuss how Yudhisthir is defeated by Duryodhan?
4. What is his weakness?
5. Explain the unique cultures depicted in the story.
6. Why is Mahabharata considered the longest epic?

MCCabacang 45
What is love? Have you asked yourself if love is worth fighting for? What is the
meaning of giving promises or assurance? Does it take forever?These are the
questions that you will be needing after reading the short story written by Rabindranath
Tagore..

Mahamaya
Rabindranath Tagore
Translated from the Bengali by Mohammad A. Quayum

Mahamaya and Rajeev met at a dilapidated temple by the edge of the river. Without
saying a word, Mahamaya cast her inherently solemn gaze at Rajeev with a slight
reproof. The essence of it was, ‘How dare you ask me to come here at this unearthly
hour. You have become so bold only because I have obeyed your every word so far.’
Rajeev always saw Mahamaya with a little awe; her sombre glance made him even
more nervous. He had thought of saying a few words that would be lucid and
intelligible, but he had to forego that wish hastily. Being unable to avoid giving a reason
for their meeting, he sputtered, ‘Let’s escape from this place and get married secretly.’
This no doubt conveyed what Rajeev had in mind, but the preamble he had so carefully
planned for it remained unsaid. His words therefore came across as dry, bare, and
even strange. He himself felt embarrassed by them; there was not even the possibility
of repairing the words by some tweaking and padding. After summoning Mahamaya
at high noon to this run-down temple by the riverside, all that this silly man could
manage to say was, ‘Come, let’s get married.’ Mahamaya was an unmarried woman
from an aristocratic family. She was twenty-four years old. Like her teeming age, she
teemed with beauty; and like the autumn sunlight, she looked like an icon of pure gold.
Similar to the luminous ray of autumn, she was bright but silent, and her eyes were
open and unafraid like the daylight. Her father had passed away, but she had an elder
brother named Bhavanicharan Chatterjee. Brother and sister were alike; not a word
from the mouth, but there was a glow about them that blazed silently like the midday
sun. People were fearful of Bhavanicharan for no reason. Rajeev was a stranger to
the village. He was brought along by the British manager of the local silk factory. His
father was an employee of this Englishman. After the father’s demise, the Englishman
took responsibility for the young boy and brought him to this village when he was still
a child. The boy’s only family was his aunt. They lived as neighbors of Bhavanicharan.
Mahamaya grew up as a childhood companion of Rajeev and she shared a deep
affectionate bonding with Rajeev’s aunt. Rajeev crossed sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen, and even entered the threshold of nineteen, but he refused to get married
despite his aunt’s repeated pleas. The Englishman felt very happy at this sign of good
sense in the Bengali boy, and thought that the boy had taken after him as he had
himself remained a bachelor. The boy’s aunt passed away in the meantime. On the
other hand, it was proving difficult to get a suitor for Mahamaya from an equally
respectable family without spending more money than they could afford. She also
continued to remain single. But it needs to be said that although the god who overseas
matrimonial relations was not particularly mindful of this young couple, the god of love
had wasted no time.

While the ancient Prajapati, the lord of creatures, was in a drowsy state, the youthful
Kamadeva, god of love, remained ever alert and vigilant. The god Kamadeva exerts
his influence on people in different ways. Instigated by him, Rajeev stayed alert for a
leisure moment in which to express his secret thoughts to Mahamaya, but Mahamaya

MCCabacang 46
never allowed him that opportunity; her silent look created a tremor in Rajeev’s restless
heart. Rajeev had succeeded in bringing Mahamaya to this ruined temple by
passionately urging her numerous times. So he thought he would divulge everything
weighing on his mind, and either live happily thereafter or die eternally. On such a
critical day of his life, all Rajeev could spurt out was, ‘Come, let’s get married.’ After
that, he remained tongue-tied like a confused student who had forgotten his lesson.
Mahamaya had never expected Rajeev to propose to her so hastily, so she also
remained wordless for a long while. The midday has many unspecified plaintive
sounds of its own; they manifested in this silence. The partially attached door-panel of
the temple went on swaying gently with the wind, occasionally giving out a low piteous
cry. Pigeons kept cooing continually sitting at the temple’s windows; woodpeckers
were pecking monotonously, perching on the branches of the Silk Cotton tree; a lizard
ran through a heap of dry leaves making a rustling noise; a gusty tropical wind came
suddenly from the open field shaking the leaves of the trees into a clatter; the roaring
waves of water kept dashing against the collapsed river quay in a splashing sound. In
the midst of such dull, dreary din, a shepherd playing a rustic tune on his flute sitting
under the shade of a tree in the distance could be heard. Lacking the courage to look
at Mahamaya’s face, Rajeev stood there leaning against the temple’s pillar, somewhat
exhausted and in a dreamy state. After a while, turning his face, Rajeev looked
towards Mahamaya with pleading eyes. Mahamaya shook her head and said, ‘No, that
is not possible.’ Mahamaya’s shake of head shattered Rajeev’s dream. Rajeev knew
that Mahamaya’s head moved according to her own laws, and no one could sway it in
a different way. With her deep-seated pride of family, how could she agree to marry a
low-class Brahmo like Rajeev? Love is one thing but marriage is another. Mahamaya
knew that Rajeev had grown so daring only because of her own rash conduct. She
prepared to leave the temple immediately. Rajeev grasped the situation fully and
hastily said, ‘I will leave the village tomorrow.’ Mahamaya’s first reaction was to
pretend she could care little. But she failed to fake that emotion. She tried to move her
leg to take a stride but could not. Calmly, she asked, ‘Why?’ Rajeev replied, ‘My
manager is moving to the factory at Sonapur and wants to take me with him.’
Mahamaya kept silent for some time. She reckoned that their lives were moving in
different directions – it was not possible to have charm over someone forever. So
opening her tightly pressed lips a little, she mumbled, ‘Very well.’ It sounded almost
like a sigh. Following that brief exchange, Mahamaya was yet again about to leave the
temple when Rajeev exclaimed in utter bewilderment, ‘Mr. Chatterjee!’ Mahamaya saw
that her brother Bhavanicharan was coming towards the temple.

She instantly knew that he had found them out. Sensing Mahamaya’s imminent
danger, Rajeev tried to jump through the temple’s broken wall. But Mahamaya
restrained him by holding on to his hands with all her strength. Bhavanicharan stepped
into the temple and took one hushed, collected look at the two of them. Mahamaya
turned her eyes on Rajeev and said in a calm voice, ‘Rajeev, I’ll become your wife one
day. You wait for me.’ Bhavanicharan stepped out of the temple without a word and
Mahamaya followed him in silence. Rajeev stood there dumbfounded, as if he had just
been handed a death sentence.

That same night Bhavanicharan brought a red wedding sari and called up Mahamaya,
‘Go, put this on.’ She came back wearing it. He then said, ‘Come with me.’ No one had
ever even hinted at disobeying Bhavanicharan’s orders, and so with Mahamaya. The
two started walking towards the cemetery near the river. It was not far from the house.
An old Brahmin was lying there biding for death. They came and stood by him. A priest

MCCabacang 47
was also waiting nearby and Bhavanicharan gestured at him. Immediately the priest
made arrangements for the auspicious occasion and stood ready. Mahamaya knew
instantly that she was going to be married to the dying man. She didn’t raise even the
faintest of objections to it. In a dark house, dimly lighted by the fire from two near-by
funeral pyres, the wedding ceremony was carried out with unintelligible religious
incantations mixed with distressful cries of the dying. Mahamaya became a widow the
next day. She was not gravely distressed by it. Rajeev was also not shocked by the
misfortune like he was by the sudden news of Mahamaya’s marriage. In fact, he even
felt somewhat delighted by it. But that feeling did not last long as a second piece of
news followed which bowled him over completely. He heard that there was a lot of
pomp and pageantry at the cemetery as Mahamaya was to be cremated alive with her
dead husband. Rajeev’s first reaction was to call up his English manager and ask for
his help to forcefully stop the dreadful incident. Then he remembered that his employer
had left for his new posting at Sonapur that morning. He wanted Rajeev to come with
him as well but Rajeev had stayed behind with leave for one month. Mahamaya had
advised him, ‘You wait for me.’ No way could he defy those words. He had applied for
one month’s leave for the time being. If need be, he would extend it to two, and then
three months; eventually he was prepared to quit his job and live by begging but never
give up the wait for Mahamaya. While Rajeev was running frantically about and
thinking of suicide or something equally crazy, a torrential downpour with a cataclysmic
storm arrived in the evening. The storm was so fierce that Rajeev felt the whole house
would crumble down on him. When he saw nature being lashed by the fury of his own
heart, he felt somewhat appeased. It seemed as if the whole universe was acting on
his behalf to redress the horrific situation. The same force that he would like to
marshal, but could not, was being wielded by nature from heaven to earth to
accomplish his mission. Just then, someone pushed the door from the outside with
full force.

Rajeev opened it and saw a woman in wet clothes walk in. Her face was covered with
a long veil. Rajeev knew instantly it was Mahamaya. Ecstatically he asked,
‘Mahamaya, you have escaped from the funeral pyre!’ Mahamaya replied, ‘Yes. I
promised I would become your wife. I am here to fulfil that pledge. But Rajeev, I am
not the same me anymore, everything about me has changed. I am Mahamaya only
in my thoughts. Now tell me… I could still return to the funeral pyre. If you promise
never to open my veil and see my face, only then I could live with you.’ It was enough
to have someone return from the jaws of death; everything else seemed trivial. At once
Rajeev said, ‘You live with me as you wish. I’ll die if you ever desert me.’ Mahamaya
replied, ‘Okay then, let us flee right now to the village where your employer has
relocated.’ Leaving behind his domestic possessions, Rajeev stepped out of the
house in that storm taking Mahamaya with him. The storm was so fierce that it was
difficult to stand still; the velocity of the wind lifted coarse grains of stone from the
ground and blew them against their bodies like piercing raindrops. Lest uprooted trees
came crashing on their heads, they travelled through an open field, avoiding the main
road. The torrential wind pelted them from behind. They appeared as two human
beings blown away from the village towards some universal dissolution.

Tied hand and foot, Mahamaya was consigned to the funeral pyre, and it was duly set
on fire. The fire started blazing, but soon a violent storm and torrential downpour
began. Those who came to cremate them quickly ran into the nearby house for dying
people. The fire blew out rapidly. In the meantime, the rope that tied Mahamaya’s two
hands had burnt and set the hands free. Groaning in pain from the burns, Mahamaya

MCCabacang 48
sat up and quietly unfastened her two legs. Then she stood up, wrapped her body in
her partially burnt sari and, almost naked, first went to her own home. Nobody was
there, as all the family members had gone to the cemetery. She lit a lamp, changed
her sari, and then took one look at her face in the mirror. Violently throwing the mirror
away, she thought for a second. Then covering her face with the end of her sari, she
went to Rajeev’s house. Readers would already know what followed after that.
Mahamaya was now living with Rajeev but there was no happiness in his heart.
Nothing but a veil stood between them. Like death, it remained as a permanent feature
in their life and tortured them even more than death. Despair slowly numbs the anguish
of separation from death, but the veil that separated them continued to vex their
dreams. There was already a kind of reserve and reticence in Mahamaya’s
personality, the repressive silence caused by the veil made that doubly insufferable. It
felt like Rajeev was living within death’s embrace. Trapped in its fatal clasp, he started
to grow haggard every day. The Mahamaya he knew previously was lost, and any
desire to nurture their beautiful childhood memories also became impossible because
of the recurrent presence of this veiled form in his life.

Rajeev thought everyone was different especially Mahamaya who, like Karna in the
Hindu mythology, seemed to have been born with a natural coat of mail. She always
had a protective layer around her personality, but now born again it looked like she
had returned with yet another covering. Living in the same house, she was still so far
away that Rajeev didn’t know how to reach her. Waiting outside a magic circle, he was
only trying to solve a delicate but powerful riddle with an insatiable thirst, like the way
the stars keep awake with steadfast eyes for the whole night to penetrate the nocturnal
darkness in vain. The two lonely creatures lived together in that way for several
months. On a monsoon evening, on the tenth day of the brighter half of the lunar
month, the clouds dispersed for the first time and exposed the moonbeams. The
hushed moonlit night kept waiting at the head of the sleeping earth’s bed. Sleepless,
Rajeev went and sat by his window. An odor from the nearby forest scorched by
summer’s heat and wearied songs of crickets were floating into the house. Rajeev saw
a large motionless pond at the end of a row of trees shining in the dark like a silver
plate. It is difficult to say if a human being could think straight at that hour. Rajeev’s
mind kept on wandering aimlessly. Like the forest, it reeked of some smell and
produced faint sounds like the humming crickets in the distance. No one knew what
exactly went through Rajeev’s mind but he suddenly felt defiant of all rules. The
monsoon night without the clouds looked tranquil, unruffled, and beautiful, like the
Mahamaya of earlier days. His soul rushed headlong for that woman. Rajeev got up
in a dreamy state and walked into Mahamaya’s bedroom. She was sleeping. Rajeev
came close to Mahamaya’s bed, leaned down and saw a strip of moonbeam covering
her face. But, alas, what was this! Where was that familiar face he had known all his
life.
The brutal flames of the funeral pyre had licked away a part of her beautiful left cheek
and left behind a mark of its vicious appetite there. Perhaps Rajeev was startled by
the sight and made a whimpering noise. Mahamaya woke up in alarm and saw Rajeev
standing by her bed. In a flash she pulled the veil over her face and stood up. Rajeev
realized he was about to be hit by lightning. He fell on his knees and begged, ‘Please
forgive me.’ Mahamaya dashed out of the house without a word or looking back and
never returned again. No one could find a trace of her anywhere. The mute anger
created by this heartless goodbye left a bruise on Rajeev’s life forever.

MCCabacang 49
 Activity
1. Discuss the beginning of the story.
2. Describe Mahamaya and Rajeev.
3. Enumerate the practices expressed in the story like suttee and
marriage.
4. State the promises of Rajeev and Mahamaya. Discuss.
5. Write your preferred ending of the story.
6. Define love in the truest sense of the story.

Read Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-violence. Take a closer look at its definition.

Non-violence
Mahatma Gandhi

I do justify entire non-violence, and consider it posible in relation between man and
woman and nation; but it is not “a risignation from all real fighting againts wickedness”.
On the contrary, the nonviolence of my conception is a more active and real fighting
againts wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increased wickedness. I
contemplate a mental, and therefore a moral, oppositions to immortalities. I seek
entirely to blunt the edge of tyrant’s sword, not by putting up againts it a sharper edges
weapon , but by disappointing his expectations that I should be offering physical
resistance. The resistance of the soul thatI should offer instead would elude him, which
recognition would not humiliate him but would uplift him. It may be urged that this again
is an ideal state. And so it is. The propositions from which I have drawn by arguments
are as true as Euclid’s definitions, which are nonetheless true, because in practice we
are unable, even to draw Euclid’s line on a blackboard, but even a geometrical
difinition. Nor may we, the German friend, his colleagues and myself, dispense with
fundamental proposition on which the doctrine Satyagraha is based.

I have often notice that weak people have taken shelter uder the Congress creed or
under my advice, when they have simply by reason of their cowardice, been unable
to defend their own honor or that of those who were entrusted to their care. I recall the
incident that happened near the British when no-cooperation was at its height. Some
villagers were looted. They had fled, leaving their wives, children, and belongings to
the mercy of the looters. When I rebuked them fro their cowardice in thus neglecting
their charge, they shamelessly pleaded non-violence. I publicly denounced their
conduct and said that my non-violence fully accomodated violence offered by those
who did not feel non-violence and who had in their keepng the honor of their
womenfolk and little children. Non-violence requires far greater bravery than that of
swordmanship to non-violence is posible and, at times, even as easy stage. Non-
violence therefore presupposes ability to strike. It is a conscious deliberate restraint
put upon desire of vengeance. Vengeance is any day superior to passive, effeminate,
and helpless submission. Forgiveness is higher still. Vengeance, too is weakness. The
desire for vengeance comes out of fear of harm, imaginary or real. A dog barks and
bites when he fears. A man who fears no one on earth would consider it too trouble
some even to sum up anger againts one who is vainly trying to injure him. The sun

MCCabacang 50
does not work vengeance upon little children who throw dust at him. They only harm
themselves in the act.

Activity
1. Define non-violence.
2. Illustrate the non-violence emphasized in the text.

Assessment
Midterm Examination will be an objective type of test. Wait for further
announcements on Messenger. Lecture notebooks where anwers in every activity are
written should be submitted to the professor a week before the said examination.

Resources
Billones, Patricia S. Exploring Life Through Afro-Asian Literature, Phoenix Publishing
House, Incorporated, Quezon City, 2004.

Calixilam, et al. Gems in Afro-Asian Literature.

Duka, Carolina R. The Literatures of Asia and Africa, Rez Bookstore, Manila
Philippines, 2005.

Mercado, Nenita V. Et al., Afro-Asian Literature (Integrated Approach), National

Bookstore, Inc. Caloocan City, 1977.

Nem Singh, Rosario P. Et al., Gems in World Literature, National Bookstore,

Mandaluyong City, 1990.

MCCabacang 51