Possible Topic - Yama: Yama is the god of time. He's actually present in several ancient Indian religions, but in Hinduism, he is the son of Brahma. He is also the god of death, something very closely connection to time in Hinduism. I was primarily interested in him because I love the idea of using time as a literary device. I particularly like the idea of a fish out of water story, with a character traveling to a different time. Also, the ideas of death and reincarnation could give a story like that an interesting twist.
Research so far: For this topic, I'll have to do a lot of research into the Hindu concepts of time, death, and jiva (the soul). Other gods are apparently referred to as gods of time, but in Hinduism, time is relative, and Yama seems to be most associated with human time. I also just sometimes associated with Dharma, which could be useful, but I'll have to see how prevalent this is. I did some reading on his Wikipedia page, and I also found an article on time that discuss him briefly. The Wikipedia page also had a pretty good picture of him:
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| Yama (Imra) standing on a buffalo Courtesy of Wikipedia |
Possible Topic - Krishna: Krishna is one of the avatars of Vishnu. He's extremely popular, and one of the most powerful of Vishnu's avatars. I'm particularly interested in his exploits and pranks as a child and his participation in the Kurukshetra War as a young man. I think the idea of a mischievous childlike god could make for an interesting story, and from descriptions of Krishna's abilities as a brilliant tactician, I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at some of his tactics.
Research so far: Krishna's Wikipedia page has a ton of information. I focused mostly on the sections of his life mentioned above and depictions of his appearance. As I said before, he's very popular, and there is an abundance of info on his exploits. He's done so many things that it's hard to nail down a particular area that I want to focus on. But, I think I'll have a better idea after reading the Mahabharata. Likewise, I can read the first part of the Harivamsa to learn more about his childhood.
Possible Topic - Rakshasas: I think that the demons of Hinduism have some of the most interesting imagery. Likewise, the stories involving are often grandiose. I've found their powers to be very interesting and sometimes completely unexpected, like when Ravana walks outside and turns off the weather in the Ramayan. I would like to do a storybook that involved several of the demons. So far I've been toying around with the idea of exploring the punishments of defeated rakshasas, or looking into the stories of the good rakshasas.
Research so far: Of course, I've read about some of them through the Ramayana, and I looked little deeper into Maricha's background while I was brainstorming for my last story. I've been reading over the the Rakashasa page. In particular, I looked into the Wikipedia pages on Vibhishana, Prahlada, and Hiranyaksha. I thought Prahlada's resilience, and the various trials he went though were quite interesting. I also looked at the Wikipedia page on Naraka which has some brief summaries of the 28 hells.
Possible Topic - Brahma: Brahma the god of creation and one third of the trimurti. He is actually the least popular of the three. I thought he was an interesting character to look into, coming into my attention mostly from the boons he granted. It seems like most demons get their powers/semi-immortality through boons from Brahma in particular. I thought it might be interesting to explore the idea of boons. I also enjoy creation myths, and thought it might be cool to explore the creation of the universe.
Research so far: I wanted to look into the trimurti, and I found Brahma to be particularly interesting, probably because I'm an engineer. On that note, Vishwakarma is the god of engineers, and from what I can tell they reference the same entity, but there isn't a whole of material on them, particularly Brahma. I've looked on both of the Wikipeda pages (linked above), and I've also seen Brahma referenced in most of the Rakashasa pages I looked at.
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| Picture of Brahma, the god of creation Courtesy of Wikipedia |
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