Indian Epics Storybooks

       While reading through various storybooks by past students related to Indian Epics, I stumbled across a couple that managed to catch my eye and make it onto the list of favorites I found today. One of them was a story pulling influence from both the world of Harry Potter and the Indian epic Ramayana, named Voldemort's Reincarnation. I was unfamiliar with the story of Ramayana, but recognized key characters from Harry Potter. The introduction weaved together the stories of both worlds in a way that kept me interested in reading what would happen, as the combination of familiarity with an already established plot and unknown influences was something new to me. The site was designed well and each section was clear on the topic being covered.

    A topic more familiar to me is Greek mythology, and another favorite story of mine was one involving the old Greek gods and an Indian one as well. The story is called Indra Lord of Thunder, where the Greek god Zeus and the Norse god Thor come to terms with sharing power in the skies when another thunder god named Indra appears on the scene. The introduction covered the situation well, with Thor and Zeus having already established a truce with each other due to an equal standing in power, before becoming aware of a third powerful god of thunder. This site was also designed well and the transition between each section of the storybook was seamless. One curious thing I found was that while Zeus and Thor fought by themselves respectively, Indra fought on an elephant.

Indra and his elephant Airavata, a celestial mount

    The final story is definitely my top favorite out of the three I've picked today, as it involves a meshing of the Star Wars universe and celestial weapons. The story, Celestial Weapons in the Star Wars Universe, spans three episodes, pulling elements of the story from the original Star Wars trilogy, and weaves in the use of celestial weapons from Indian epics to advance the plot. Similar to how Luke holds faith in the Force, in this storybook, he also has to hold faith in one of the weapons Trishula and use it to defeat his father in battle. As someone already familiar with the world of Star Wars, it was pleasing to see how well the celestial weapons complemented the story without having an overbearing presence that would ruin the tale.