Reading Diary B: public domain Mahabharata

    Although I did not enjoy this portion of this week's reading as much as the first there were still some chapters that stood out to me. One chapter that I enjoyed was Ashwatthama's Jewel. In this chapter, Draupadi grieves for the death of her brother and her five sons. In her grief she requests the head of AShwawtthaman. In place of his head she will accept a jewel of his. Apparently the jewel that he has is just as precious as his life is to him. Arjuna found Ashwatthamann and took the jewel from him and gave it to Draupadi.
   Another chapter that I though was interesting was the Horse Sacrifice. In this chapter, a horse is sacrificed. Before sacrificing the horse, they had to determine if it was pure. This did this by pressing its ear and if milk flowed out of it, it means that it is indeed pure. The animal has to pure in order to be considered good enough for the gods. Bhima began the sacrifice by severing its head. To further determine that the animal was pure the inspected the insides of the horse. A bright lite appeared inside the animal; this means that the animal is indeed pure and is good enough for the god Vishnu.
    The third chapter that I though was interesting was Death of Krishna.In this chapter, the people were drinking and began to fight. Fathers were killing sons and sons were killing fathers. Krishna was trying to fight the rebels but died upon leaving the city. He was mistaken for a gazelle by a hunter and was shot.

(Death of Krishna)