F is for Fatima Al-Amira Dhat Al-Himma (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

Sirat Al-Amira Dhat Al-Himma
Arabic

This book is the longest English translation of this epic, but it is by far not a complete one. The original epic (sira) - the only Arabic epic named for a woman - is the longest in this tradition, and in the original it fills 7 volumes (more than 5000 pages). The events take place in the 7th to 9th centures CE. The epic has been circulating in the oral tradition for centuries, but it was only written down in published in 1909. The oral telling usually took more than a year to complete.

This book contains the translation of 11 episodes out of the 455 in the original Arabic. Which, honestly, is barely enough to whet one's appetite. Especially because the translator admits that she was not trying to do a literal translation. She has taken out "gratuitous violence" and excessively bloody scenes, as well as many religious references. While I get the idea, it did make the text feel stunted at places. It was also strange that the translation used modern slang in some moments, which made the heroes sound badass, but it was also jarring.

The epic of Dhat Al-Himma was usually performed by male tellers. Which is why it is interesting that it has such a prominent female hero - but also a lot of traditional values to bind her within "the anxieties of patriarchal society about women who break the roles of their gender."

What is it about?

TL;DR: Fatima is raised in secret because she was born a girl, and teaches herself how to be a warrior. Through her strength and skill she rises to great power. She is forced into marriage and has a son, but despite her ex-husband's evil schemes, she goes through many adventures and always comes out victorious.

CW: this story includes mentions of sexual violence

It is a cycle of stories following several generations of warriors from the Bani Kilab tribe. This translation introduces us in a short first chapters to Fatima's great-great-grandfather Al-Harith, his son Jundaba, his grandson the romantic poet Sahsah, and Fatima's father Mazlum and his evil brother Zalim. From here, the epic turns to telling Fatima's story.

Zalim and Mazlum agree that whoever has a male child gets to lead the Bani Kilab. Both children are born on the same day: Zalim's son Walid, and Mazlum's daughter Fatima. A sympathetic midwife helps hide the girl's existence, saying instead the newborn was a boy who did not survive. Fatima is raised by servants. When she is still a small child, a neighboing tribe raids the camp and steals the servants, including Fatima. She refuses to cower before her captors, and they send her to herd horses and camels. Fatima teaches herself to ride and fight, covers her face in the custom of noble women, and becomes a self-taught warrior.

Her first heroic act is to kill a man who repeatedly tries to assault her. Since she is a slave, her owner has to pay the blood price for the kill. Fatima promises to reimburse him by raiding a neighboring tribe and taking their wealth. From that day on she becomes a respected warrior of the tribe. One day she ends up raiding the camps of her own father's people, the Bani Kilab. When she captures him, the servant woman who raised her reveals her identity, and Fatima returns to the Bani Kilab, celebrated as a hero, and happily accepted by her father and mother.

Fatima's life takes a turn when her cousin Walid takes an interest in her, and wants to force a marriage at all cost. Zalim and Walid decide that the marriage would not only get Walid a great wife, but they can also "break her", thus destroying her father's standing in the tribe, making Zalim the true leader. Fatima vehemently resists the marriage - she doesn't want to marry at all - and her father supports her decision. However, when the tribes travel to Baghdad to meet the new Abbasid caliph, Walid finds a way to get the caliph's approval of the marriage. Fatima is forced to marry her cousin. 

Meanwhile, the Byzantine armies - also led by warrior women - cross the border into the caliph's lands. Fatima leads an army against them, going through many battles and adventures, and wins herself a fortress, and the highly respected position of a general. She refuses to share a bed with her husband, until Walid manages to pay her best friend to drug her, and he violates her. From this, she has a son, who is born with black skin. They name him Abdelwahhab.

The birth of a black child sends Walid, Zalim and the entire tribe into an uproar, and Fatima is accused of adultery (neither Fatima nor Walid is black). Despite proving her innocence again and again, they eventually travel to Mecca to ask for a ruling from the elders. On the way there, a fearsome warrior takes a liking to Fatima and manages to threaten Walid into divorcing her. In turn, Fatima rejects and kills this new suitor - but at least she is now officially divorced. She raises her son with loving care to be a warrior just as clever and fearless as her.

Offended by the ruling of the elders that Fatima is not at fault, Zalim and Walid decide to cross over to the Byzantine lands, get baptized, and turn on their own people. They take hostage the son of one of Fatima's friends. Fatima sets out to rescue the child; she manages to capture the Byzantine emperor's son and do a hostage exchange. She wins the emperor's respect (and Zalim and Walid's fury), and spends some time in Byzantium, helping them defeat an invading Portuguese army. 

On her way home with the boy and 150 people, she is ambushed by Zalim and Walid's army. They fight a desperate battle on a mountain, rescued in the last moment by a Byzantine prince who saw Fatima in a dream. He even converts to Islam after the battle is done.

After many adventures and a long life of fighting, Fatima and her son resolve to take the pilgrimage to Mecca every year. Eventually, the famous amira passes away on one of these journeys, and is buried in Mecca. Her son dies soon after.

The highlights

There are several memorable adventures in this story. I loved the part about the siege of Amida, a Muslim fortress attacked by the Byzantine army. Among the attackers there is a scholar with an ancient book written by Aristotle that contains information on the fortress' water source. The Byzantine soldiers divert the water and the besieged army almost dies of thirst before they are liberated by Fatima's army. Once the battle is won, they try to fix the water supply - and in the end they find the problem by walking all the way up the empty water channels to the source.

(I loved the moment where the starved and thirsty people inside Amida decided to break out - "even if they kill all of us, at least our animals wil survive.")

I also enjoyed the episode where Fatima takes the Byzantine emperor's armor, and fights a duel in his name - throwing her Portuguese opponent off balance when she accidentally shouts Allahu Akbar! during the fight.

I liked the scenes where Fatima appeared as a tough but loving mother. In one of them, she tested her son's bravery and skill by disguising herself as a bandit and ambushing him on the road. After he defeated her, she revealed herself, and kissed him on the forehead.

One of the translated chapters deals with an adventure later in Fatima's life, when her son Abdelwahhab already has his "Knights of the Round Table" style company of heroes. They are all captured by a warrior princess named Nura. Fatima and her army has to fight a series of duels against Nura's female companions (her lovers), until Abdelwahhab and his friends manage to free themselves from the dungeons of an evil bishop. The whole adventure has excitement and humor, and begs for a movie adaptation. Nura eventually marries Al-Battal, the first male hero she shows interest in. She and their daughter join the team of heroes following Fatima on her adventures.

The last adventure in the book is the most exciting. Fatima, along with all the named cast of the epic, is trapped in a cave during a battle, and they get snowed in. After eating their horses, they explore the caves and find a secret burial chamber. It contains the body of a scholar, and preserved food that keeps them from dying. When things become desperate, they decide to take the scholar's funeral bed apart and build a ladder to try to find a way out. Hidden in the bed they find a tablet that informs them that the scholar had foreseen all this, and has a genie ready to appear and rescue the party. They return, months after being presumed dead, accompanied by an army of djinn just in time to save their warriors from defeat.

(This was the ordeal during which Fatima and Abdelwahhab swore they would take on the pilgrimage every year if they survived.)

THIS WAS A TRULY EPIC STORY.

I wish I could have read more. It sounds like a really cool group of hero characters, both women and men.

Would you read more if you had the chance? Who do we talk to about this? :D

E is for the Epic of Manasa (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

I know I know, this is a cheap shot for E, but if you have seen how much reshuffling I did with this list, you'd appreciate the effort.

The Triumph of the Snake Goddess
Bengal

First off, the introductory study in the book was titled "Sympathy for the Devi" and I applaud that. (It talks about the origins of serpent worship in India, and especially the role snakes play in the Mahabharata.)

The devi in question is Manasa (also called Padma, Padmavati, or Kamala), a serpent goddess who appears in folk tradition all over the subcontinent, but is especially revered in Bengal. The epics about her emerged from indigenous Bengali oral tradition, and the first recorded versions are from the 15th century. They represent a "snake-eye view" of Hindu mythology, telling popular myths from the perspective of Manasa and her nagas, and their struggle for recognition. Because of this living folk aspect, the gods are also less mighty in these stories - there is a lot of humor, trickery, and imperfection involved in their characters, often bordering on folktale tropes (e.g. evil stepmother). Manasa is worshiped to this day, has her own altars and festivals, and the epics are still performed in her honor.

The book itself is an interesting take on publishing a folk epic: the translator took several versions collected from the oral tradition, and pieced together the various episodes into a cohesive, compound version. The introduction calls it an "uncritical edition" (as opposed to critical editions trying to zero in on one "original" layer of a story). The Manasa epics slightly differ in North, West, and East Bengal, so the translator decided to include some from each region, making the story more detailed.

What is it about?

TL;DR: Manasa is a serpent goddess accidentally born to Shiva. She spends the epic fighting to gain respect and recognizion as a goddess, first among the gods, and then among mortals.

CW: Mentions of sexual abuse.

The epic has two parts: the first takes place in the divine realm, and the second among mortals. 

DIVINE REALM

The divine half begins with creation, and tells the origins of Shiva, his marriage to Chandi and Ganga, and the birth of his sons. It also tells of the origin of snakes, and their emnity against the Garuda bird. Eventually we get to the birth of Manasa (see below). She is raised in the underworld by the sage Kasyapa and hailed as the goddess and queen of all serpents.

Eventually she sets out to meet her father Shiva. At first he doesn't believe she is his daughter, and tries to force her - so Manasa kills him with her venomous gaze. And then brings him back to life. Shiva reconsiders, and brings her home, but in secret, fearing his wives would get jealous. And they do. When he leaves, they discover the girl, and Chandi gets so angry that she beats Manasa senseless and gouges out one of her eyes (she has been one-eyed ever since). Even though Shiva manages to calm her down (after Manasa kills Chandi too, and then brings her back), eventually Chandi insists they should exile Manasa into the wilderness. Shiva does so, but from his tears he creates a sister for Manasa: the clever and loyal Neta. From this point on through the epic, Neta is Manasa's brains, conscience, and PR advisor.

Manasa makes her home on Mount Sijuya, creates a splendid city filled with all kinds of people from all castes, as well as all serpents, and lives her best life. She marries a sage on her father's insistence, but he flees from her on their wedding night, so she raises her son Astika alone. Astika later stops a horrible massacre of snakes in a ritual sacrifice.

During the churning of the ocean of milk (a famous episode in Hindu mythology), Shiva sacrifices himself by drinking the deadly kalkuta poison that emerges from the milk. Manasa shows up to bring him back to life, and the gods entrust her with the poison, since she is the only one powerful enough to handle it. She distributes it among her snakes, and keeps some in her eye.

MORTAL REALM

Manasa eventually decides she wants to be worshiped by mortals, so she descends to the human realm. Neta advises her that if she manages to convert a merchant king named Chand, the rest of mortals will follow. However, Chand just happens to be the most stubborn follower of Shiva, and he absolutely refuses to sacrifice to Manasa. The second half of the epic is a string of disasters and tricks Manasa and Neta devise to make Chand change his mind - by offering boons, by disguise, by converting his wife, by killing his sons and promising to bring them back, etc.

Chand has a secret mantra that keeps him safe and revive the dead. Manasa visits him in disguise, seduces him, and steals this power, making him defenseless. Still, he holds out, regularly calling her a "one-eyed bitch" and taking swings at her with a stick. He hires famous sorcerers who can fight snakes (ojha), but Manasa manages to trick and kill all of them (and then she revives them and adds them to her own household).

It all culminates in the story of Behula and Lakshmindar, an epic within an epic that is still very popular in Bengal. Manasa exiles a heavenly couple to earth to enact Neta's plan. One of them is incarnated as Chand's new son, the other as the princess Behula. Before the baby is born, Manasa tricks Chand into going on a trading mission to Lanka, and puts him through an odyssey for several years, concluding in sinking all of his ships. Chand comes home as a broken beggar, but he still refuses to bow to Manasa.

Meanwhile, Lakshmindar grows up, but he doesn't marry because prophecy says he will die of snakebite on his weddnig night. Manasa then puts him in a positon where he grows infatuated with his aunt, and he assaults the woman. His parents, finding out what he did, decide to get him a wife after all - in the person of 12-year-old Princess Behula. (They don't actually consummate the marriage). On the wedding night they lock the couple in a steel panic room, but a snake still gets in and kills Lakshmindar.

When Lakshmindar's body is set on a raft on the river (as they do to snake bite victims), Behula decides to accompany him, and travel on the raft until she finds a way to bring him back to life. Thus begins her own epic of many encounters and adventures (inlcuding finding out about her husband raping his aunt), until, after 6 months, she convinces Manasa to let her ascend to heaven and dance for the gods. With her dance, she wins a boon, and Manasa brings Lakshmindar back to life. And his brothers, and the ships, etc.

Chand, relieved, finally makes a sacrifice to Manasa, and the epic concludes on a happy note.

The highlights

The introductory study mentioned the fascinating concept of dvesha-bhakti, or devotion through hatred, represented by Chand. The idea is that any strong emotion directed towards a deity is a form of connection with them.

The birth of Manasa is one of the most convoluted I have ever seen in mythology. Basically, Shiva gets aroused by seeing some breast-shaped fruit and has a wet dream, during which he ejaculates. His sperm ends up on a lotus leaf, and a bird eats it, but it burns, so the bird drinks water and throws it up. It then falls onto another lotus, turns into an egg, and from the egg hatches Manasa.

I loved Manasa's personality, because it made for a fascinating story. She is extremely powerful, loves trickery, tends to be quick to anger and holds grudges (Neta often has to hold her back from going from zero to murder immediately). But she can also be convinced to change her mind, she is kind to her followers, and she enjoys life as a goddess very much. I also loved her physical descriptions throughout the epic: she wore a deadly snake as a necklace, rattlesnakes as anklets, snakes in her hair "for a novel coiffure" etc. She decks herself out like this for her wedding night, for example, which is why her husband flees. She doesn't mind.

I also enjoyed Manasa and Neta's duo, and the way they worked together. Manasa was all anger and power, and trickery when needed, but Neta was the one who knew where to topple a domino to get results down the line. At one point, Manasa called her sister "a wonderful scriptwriter". She really was.

Another fascinating character in the epic is Behula herself. At first glance she seems like a meek girl who wants to be "the perfect wife". But she does defend her husband from snakes with a machete on the wedding night - successfully, until she falls asleep. And she goes through a lot of harrowing experiences on the river. She comes back a mature and experienced (and somewhat disillusioned) woman. Also, before the wedding, she obtains the secret mantra from Manasa to bring her husband back from the dead three times - Lakshmindar just wastes all three of them by repeatedly getting heart attacks during the ceremony because he is paranoid and sees snakes everywhere.

One of my favorite moments of humor in the epic was the story of Hussain and Hassan, two Muslim rulers who destroyed Manasa's altars. Manasa sent an army of snakes against them. Defeated, Hassan fled into a haystack, and there he came face to face with a chameleon that just shook its head in a judgmental way. That was the last straw that broke Hassan's pride. (Introduction noted that epic-tellers don't include this episode in the epic anymore, because it would be seen as an attack on the Muslim community) (I just liked the judgmental chameleon).

Another favorite scene was where Manasa sent a cobra to kill Chand's six sons. The ("somewhat matronly female") cobra, however, found all six of them engaged in activities - one was playing board games, one was having sex with his wife, etc. - and felt so sorry for them that she let them live. Eventually, Manasa found another way to kill them, with poisoned food. (The snake she sends before the cobra is "easy-going" and friendly, but manages to bungle the mission by being dumb, and she takes his venom as punishment).

Possibly my favorite episode of the whole epic was the battle between Manasa and Yama. Manasa declared that people killed by snake bite should belong to her, infringing on the territory of the god of the Underworld. When she also claimed two heavenly dancers for her plan, Yama summoned his infernal army to put her in her place - and she responded in kind, with an army of serpents. It is an awesome, epic scene, that concludes with Manasa's victory over death.

The best part about Chand's odyssey was the series of attacks his ships endured from various water creatures - consecutive armies of leeches, cowries, prawns, etc. Another amusing episode was the part where he bartered with the king of Lanka, and introduced him to coconuts for the first time. On the way back Manasa sent Hanuman the monkey king to sink the ships, but Chand had a magic boon that no ship he travels on could be sunk. So, Hanuman got him on a technicality: he knocked him off he ship and then sank it. Another amusing scene ensued here, as Chandi (who took Chand's side, obviously) kept bringing up the ships, and Manasa kept sinking them again. The two women went on like this for a while until Shiva intervened.

I was fascinated by the descriptions of rituals that accompanied pregnancies throughout the epic. At five months pregnant, women were ritually fed five sweet things (yoghurt, milk, ghee, sugar, honey), and at nine months "they went through the ritual of eating whatever they craved." Children were ritually introduced to solid foods at the age of 7 months.

I liked it that characters throughout the epic actually called each other out on a lot of questions that I myself had: "If Manasa is so powerful, why doesn't she cure her own eye?" (Chand, obviously). "What will people think if you keep abandoning the ones that worship you the most?" (Chandi to Shiva).

The intro calls this epic "a rollicking, violent, emotionally charged tale full of utterly unbelievable things and yet making complete sense." It really was.

What do you think of the concept of "uncritical editions"?

D is for the Deity of the Wind and Matabagka (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

Matabagka searches for the deity of the wind
Talaandig

This is actually a story that is a part of a larger epic cycle called Nalandangan. Nalandangan is the main epic of the Talaandig people who live on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.

The story of Matabagka has been translated as part of an MA thesis by Corazon A. Manuel, but the manuscript is "too fragile to browse" (I reached out to the library). I read it in an extensive summary in this book that also includes selected parts of the verse text. It is divided into 10 parts.

What is it about?

TL;DR: When her kingdom is threatened, Matabagka sets out on a quest to steal wind-controlling magic instruments from the enemy. She succeeds at great cost, and wins peace in the end.

The great hero Agyo is warned by his guardian spirit that an enemy is preparing to invade his kingdom, Nalandangan. The enemy's name is Imbununga, and he has power over windstorms, so his victory is assure. Agyo confides in his sister Matabagka, who decides to set out on a quest to save the kingdom. She travels flying on her sulinday hat until she finds Imbununga. However, when she arrives, he forces her to be his wife, and keeps the winds from helping her fly home. His brother sends out people to find her, but they don't succeed.

Matabagka eventually finds out where her husband keeps the instruments that let him control the wind. She drugs him and escapes with them. When Imbununga wakes up, he sends his warriors in pursuit of her, and makes her flying hat land by the sea. She puts up a heroic fight that lasts for days, and kills many people, but eventually she is overwhelmed (but not killed, because Imbununga orders his men not to harm her). Just in that moment her brother's warriors finally catch up to her, and help her escape.

Arriving home, Matabagka tells her story while her family nurses her back to health. Her brother decides to stop the war by negotiating with Imbununga. They all return to the seashore, where Matabagka uses her magic to revive the dead warriors, and returns the wind instruments to her husband. Peace is achieved.

The highlights

Matabagka is described in the story as "a distinct woman... nobody could equal", a "remarkable maiden" because she is courageous and fearless. When she summons the wind to fly, instead of ordering or controlling it like Imbununga does, she addresses and calls it, and it is referred to as her "friend and acquaintance." She flies around, looking for Imbununga until it occurs to her to ask the wind itself for directions - addressing it in as a friend and partner. The wind chides her gently for not asking for directions sooner. I loved this relationship.

At first I was taken aback that the resolution of the story is that Matabagka stays with the man that forced her to marry him. But in the actual text, it seems like she gains respect for him when he refuses to let his warriors harm her, and she agrees with her brother that Imbununga would be a good ally for the kingdom. It was also interesting that the war was resolved by Imbununga taking the warriors' "vigor" away with his wind magic, while Matabagka revived them. So everyone lived, but the energy to fight had gone out of them.

The best line comes from the warriors facing Matabagka in battle, where she wields her knife beheading her attackers: "We are in trouble like a defeated decoy chicken!"

THIS STORY IS A PART OF A LONGER CYCLE, BUT MATABAGKA STILL GETS HER OWN EPIC SONG TO SHINE.

Are there other epic heroines you wish would get their own story?

Alternately: what would your flying instrument be?

C is for Candravati's Ramayana (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

A woman's Ramayana: Candravati's Bengali epic
Bengal

In the late 16th century in what is now east Bangladesh, a woman named Candravati rewrote the Ramayana. The Ramaya, one of the great epics of India, has had many retellings over the centuries, and yet hers stands out. She wrote it as a distraction from heartbreak. 

Candravati (or Chandravati) was the daughter of a famous Brahmin poet Vamsidasa, and thus well read and educated. Still young, she fell in love with a man, and their marriage was approved and arranged. However, just before the wedding the groom fell for a Muslim girl instead, converted to Islam, and married in secret. When Candravati found out about his betrayal, her heart broke, and she swore off marriage for good, instead devoting herself to Shiva. It was her father who suggested she should occupy her mind by rewriting the Ramayana. So she did. From the point of view of Sita, a woman who unduly suffers hardship and injustice.

(Her lover later repented and came back, but when Candravati refused to see him, he drowned himself in the river.)

Candravati's Ramayana was not preserved in a manuscript; it went into the oral tradition, and it was still sung among the people at the beginning of the 20th century, when it was recorded and reassambled. Women often sang parts of her epic on auspicious occasions such as weddings. Her telling of the story, still distinct after centuries, lived on in the oral tradition because it spoke to women's experiences.

The edition I read was excellent and informative. It has a detailed intro, and also several appendices: summaries of other Ramayanas that influenced Candravati, summaries of her other poems, details on literary parallels, glossaries, sources, and the summary of Candravati's own life as written down by a later poet (Nayancand Ghosa).

What is it about?

TL;DR: A retelling of the Ramayana from Sita's perspective, focusing on the suffering of women and the devastation war brings to innocents.

Candravati's epic is basically a retelling of the Ramayana, entirely from Sita's prespective. She skips the battles and heroics, and focuses on the heroine's suffering and loneliness, and the devastation of war on both sides. She omits several commonly known episodes and scenes, and implements others from various sources.

The story starts with Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, and his war against the gods. He plunders the heavens, enslaves the gods, and since they are immortal, he harvests the blood of holy sages to poison them and kill them for good. He entrusts the blood to his wife - however, she is already devastated by her husband consorting with captive goddesses and forgetting about her. She tries to poison herself by drinking the blood, but instead of dying, she gives birth to an egg. Ravana sets the egg afloat on the ocean. A fisherman finds it and delivers it to King Janaka - and from the egg, Sita is born.

Sita is raised as a princess, and in time she marries Rama, prince of Ayodhya. However, he is soon exiled into the wilderness by the scheming of his brother's mother. He is accompanied into exile by Sita and another brother, Lakshmana.

The middle part of the epic is a baromasi, a form of Bengali poetry that recounts events over the course of 12 months, like a poetic calendar. This is how Sita recounts her experience of being exiled, then kidnapped by the demon king Ravana, and rescued by her husband's armies. The account focuses on her suffering and loneliness, only mentioning the war by hearsay.

After the war, Sita and Rama are reunited. However, Rama's evil sister Kukuya decides to sow discord between them. She makes Sita draw a picture of Ravana (even though it's traumatic for her and she says so), and then uses the picture as proof that Sita is "enthralled" by her abductor. Rama thus falls for the idea that his wife was unfaithful while in captivity. He orders Sita to be exiled, five months pregnant, into the wilderness. There she is taken in and protected by the sage Valmiki - the first known author of the Ramayana. She gives birth to twins. However, due to her exile, the entire kingdom falls into ruin, so years later Rama is eventually forced to bring her back. He sets a condition: she has to prove, through trial by fire, that she was faithful all along. Bowing to this last, great injustice, Sita walks into the fire. The River Ganga bursts up from the ground, quells the flames, and the earth goddess Vasumati takes Sita away, leaving Rama and his people to contemplate their actions alone.

Image from here

The highlights

"Instead of glorifying battles, the poem mourns the victims." Even those lost during the fall of Lanka - the wives and children of the demons slain. Compassion in suffering is a running theme throughout the epic, especially the compassion of women. Sita even has compassion for Kukuya, her evil sister-in-law. When Kukuya is burned by the fire she tries to kill Sita with, Sita soothes her injuries. Sita's own mourning and suicidal thoughts in captivity are mitigated by the companionship of the demoness Sarama, Ravana's sister-in-law. Compasson thus transcends the battle lines of good an evil.

Honestly the best character in the epic is Lakshmana, Rama's brother. He cares for the exiled couple deeply and helps them in the wilderness, sacrificing his own comfort. Later on, when tasked with taking Sita into exile, he is the only one who shows compassion for her.

I also enjoyed the descriptions of pregnancy in this epic - how pregnant queens preferred to lie on the cool ground, were constantly sleepy, and craved certain foods.

There is a fun little scene in the story where Sita's twins encounter the monkey king Hanuman in the wilderness, and decide to capture him. Sita recognizes the king who once helped in her rescue from Lanka, and chastises her sons for not treating Hanu well.

I also appreciated the small detail where Sita, abducted by Ravana, tries to fight him off using her jewelry (even though she doesn't succeed).

THIS EPIC PROVES THAT POINT OF VIEW MATTERS.

What other epics would you like to know from a woman's perspective?

B is for Bidasari (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

Bidasari: Jewel of Malay Muslim culture
Malaysia

The story of Bidasari is one of the most popular epics in Malaysia (it was even turned into a movie in 1965). It is a "romantic syair", almost always written and performed in verse, although it has existed in the oral tradition for long enough to also have prose versions (in the 19th century syair was so popular a storytelling form that even prose stories were retold in verse). These long poems were written down in the early 19th century. Their form is traditionally recognizable, written in specific metre, rhyme, and style - the introduction to the book goes into detail on these.

The book I read presents a Malay-English mirror translation side by side. Translation is also explained in detail in the introduction, since syair texts were created to be performed with music, instead of read in silence. The translation is based on one version of the epic, but occasionally includes stanzas from other versions where the original narrative or wording was fractured or unclear. The English text is translated in prose, focusing on story rather than wording, but the pantun parts - songs embedded in the story to express emotional high points - are translated closer to the original wording. Pantun in performance gave an opportunity to inject more humor and folk art into the story through a minor character (such as a court lady). The book also includes a long study on the different versions of Bidasari, and the forms of oral performance that gave it birth. The translator specifically chose a manuscript that included pantun parts, as well as the side quest of Raja Putra and a more detailed history of the wicked queen.

What is it about?

TL;DR: Basically a Snow White type story, except a lot more elaborate. Young, beautiful maiden is persecuted by jealous queen, falls into a death-like sleep, but the king eventually takes her as a second wife and exiles his wicked first queen.

CW: References of abuse, domestic violence, dubious consent

A warlike garuda bird descends from the heavens and devastates a kingdom. The sultan flees with his wife, who is seven months pregnant. In exile, hiding from the garuda, the queen gives birth to a baby girl on an abandoned boat, with the help of her husband. With a heavy heart they decide to leave the baby behind - wrapped in precious jeweled fabric - and trust her to the will of Allah. The baby is found by a rich merchant named Lela Jauhara. He happily takes her home to his wife, and they name her Siti Bidasari. They place the girl's semangat (soul) in a fish, and they hide the fish in a strong box. They raise Bidasari as their own and she grows up to be a beautiful maiden.

In this other kingdom lives a sultan named Johan Mengindera, with his beloved wife Lela Sari. He dotes on her, madly in love. The queen, however, is insecure, and she keeps asking her husband whether he would take a second wife if he found someone prettier than her. The sultan tries to placate her by saying he would only take a second wife as a friend to her - obviously the queen is not placated. She decides to preemptively order a search, to see if she has a rival to fear. She sends out four of her handmaids to offer bejeweled clothes to young women, and watch closely to see if any of them is beautiful enough to be a threat. The four ladies encounter Bidasari. They immediately see how radiant she is. When she offers to buy the treasures, her mother, the merchant's wife expresses her suspicion, but Bidasari doesn't heed her warning. Her doting father buys her the goods. The four ladies report back to the queen.

The queen orders the ladies to kidnap Bidasari for her. However, the ladies have grown to like the young maiden, and they know their queen is cruel and jealous. They sing Bidasari's praises, trying to convince her not to hurt the girl. The queen resorts to trickery: she declares that she wants to adopt Bidasari as her daughter (she is still almost a child), and has her brought to the palace. Bidasari's parents let her go reluctantly, full of love and worry.

The queen locks Bidasari away in a small cell. She cries alone, distressed, and the queen decides to cover the noise up by punishing her. She beats and abuses her with extreme cruelty. To her husband she says she is just disciplining a servant (to which the king replies with worry that she migh tire herself out too much...). Seven days pass, and Bidasari's parents worry about her. The queen doesn't pass on their gifts and messages. Finally, exhausted by the abuse, Bidasari reveals the secret of her soul-box to the queen, wishing her suffering to end. The queen orders a lady to steal the box for her, and hangs the fish around her own neck, thus stealing Bidasari's life force. The girl falls into a death-like sleep: she is still breathing, but otherwise she appears dead. 

The court ladies take her body back home. Her parents are obviously distressed - especially when her father tries to revive her, and discovers that the box with the fish is gone. However, at night Bidasari wakes up. She tells her parents what happened, then falls into a faint again in the morning. Her father decides to build her a house in the woods to hide her from the queen and other prying eyes. From that day on, Bidasari lives in the house, awake at night and in death-like sleep during the day. Her only companion is a storytelling parrot (who doesn't get as much screen time in this story as it should).

Meanwhile, King Johan has a dream about the moon falling in his lap. It is interpreted as him getting a new wife, even though he resists the idea, claiming the queen is the only one for him. Then he goes on a hunt, and predictably comes across the house in the woods by accident. The parrot tries to ward him off, calling the place a house of spirits and devils, but he enters anyway, and finds Bidasari asleep. He is equal parts stunned by her beauty, and distressed that he can't wake her up. Eventually, he laves. Bidasari wakes up in the evening, and discovers signs of someone having visited her house (her betel had been chewed). She grows scared and worried. The king, on his part, can't help but visit again, and once again finds her asleep. He figures she must be a fairy, only awake at night, and decides to stay after dark.

The scene that follows is intended to be romantic, but for me it made a difficult read. Bidasari wakes up and is scared by the presence of a stranger, who pursues her reletlessly around the house, voicing his longing and lust for her. She curses him and he laughs, he pulls her onto his lap and she tries to break free. She tells him in no uncertain terms to leave, but he doesn't. She even spits in his face. He finally discloses he is the king, but she replies that she is only a daughter of merchants. She weeps, terrified what the queen would do to her if she returned to the palace. She tells him she fears the queen, but he immediately chides her, telling her the queen is above reproach. However, finally, she tells him the whole story of what happened, and he believes her. He is overcome by anger at his wife's wickedness. He returns home, and pretends to be kind to his wife to ascertain that she has the fish around her neck. The next morning he tears the necklace from her, and returns to the woods.

This time, the king intends to marry Bidasari. He meets with the merchant and his wife. In order to keep Bidasari from the queen, he has a fortress built for her in the woods. Eventually Bidasari convinces him to go home and visit his wife. They have an epic fight, and the king basically exiles the queen, telling her she will be provided for and taken care of, but she has to pay for what she had done. At the end of the poem, she is still living alone, "resenting herself above all." (There are other versions, however, where the two are reconciled).

Meanwhile, Bidasari's birth father regains his kingdom, and doesn't cease mourning his lost daughter. The couple has a son, Raja Putra, who grows up and finds out he used to have a sister. He immediately wants to find her. He talks to merchants from all parts of the world, until by chance he encounters a young man who used to be Bidasari's playmate. His name is Sinapati. He recognizes Bidasari's features in the prince. They figure out that Bidasari might be the lost princess, and set out together so that Raja Putra can meet her.

The travelers arrive to Bidasari's fortress where they are greeted with excitement. After some subterfuge, the siblings are reunited. It soon becomes clear that Bidasari is born royalty. Even the queen finds out, and she laments her mistakes (at one point Bidasari talks her husband into visiting the queen again to try to reconcile. "You did jerk her necklace - perhaps you injured her neck!" she claims as an extenuating circumstance). Sinapati is sent as an ambassador with a letter back to the sultan to invite him and his wife to meet their daughter and son-in-law. The whole family is reunited in celebration.

To continue the festivities, the sultan suggests they should all take a trip to the island of Nusa Antara. They set out in decorated yachts and make camp on the island. The men set out to hunt. Raja Putra pursues a deer and comes upon an enchanted pavilion. This is a whole side story where he fights evil demons and rescues a princess named Mandudari. In the end, everyone is married, and everyone lives happily.

The highlights

Image from here

I was touched by the care the merchant and his wife showed Bidasari. When she is taken to the palace, they worry about her. When she is brought back home, they set servants to guard her so she's not taken again, and they sit beside her, warming her and stroking her and hoping she wakes up. They feel guilt that they trusted the court ladies. The epic was very realistic in that she was brought home with bruises and wounds, and her parents immediately knew she had been abused (although they asked "what did you to anger the queen?" first). When she is sent to the woods, her father says "I am not getting rid of you, my darling, I am protecting you from death." Her father regularly visits her in the little house. When the king proposes to Bidasari, they express their worries that the queen might hurt her again. When Bidasari finds out that she is a sultan's daughter, she "clicks her tongue in disapproval" and says "the merchant is my only father." The mother even worries when Bidasari tries to reconcile the king with the queen, saying she is too naive.

It was a touching moment that the king embraced the merchant when they first met, calling him brother. Later on he called him "father to madam Bida". However, the most beutiful moment is when the reunited family retires to sleep on their first day. The queen, Bidasari's birth mother, lies down in bed next to her and tells her the whole story of their exile and wandering. Later on, when they arrive to the island, mother and daughter "dangle their feet" in the water together.

There were a lot of great descriptions of beauty throughout the epic; one of my favorites was "her heels resemble chicken's eggs". At the king's wedding feast, drunken revelry is described as "floral hair pieces drooped over ears."

There was a strong scene where Bidasari woke up the first time, seeing the king's traces in her house. She noted "it  was perhaps the work of evil spirits", because - she argued - if a human had been there, they would have raped her, and if her father had visited, he would have left supplies.

The fight scene between the king and the queen is pretty epic too, feature a lot of choice words and accusations. It is good to see a story like this with the villain being called out on her actions. I also liked it that the prince called his parents out on abandoning his sister for "no good reason". His father described how he was also born in the woods in exile, but nursed in turn and protected from mosquitoes by both his parents. After that, the prince insists they should have done the same for his sister. The king, on the other hand, explains to Bidasari that she can't judge her birth parents for abandoning her, because their life in exile was hard. Later on, when taking their leave, the birth parents tell the king to feel free to "correct" Bidasari if she doesn't behave; "even a beating will bring her no shame." However, the king takes offense and rejects the idea of hurting her.

The description of Bidasari's fortress is pretty epic. It has three levels, and the princess' bower is made of 24 carat gold. The first gate is made of steel, guarded by genies and "corps of cannibal ogres". The second is made of brass, guarded by a cannon and gun post, manned by "mischievous spirits". The third gate is made of silver. The entire fort is lit with shining bezoar stones.

THIS EPIC PRESENTS AN INTERNALTIONALLY FAMILIAR PLOT IN A WHOLE NEW FORM.

What changes do you think result from the details of telling it as an epic? What is it like to look at it from a contemporary perspective?

A is for Agu-Nogon-Abakha (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

Gar'julaj-Mergen and his brave sister Agu-Nogon-Abakha
Buryat 

This story is a Siberian Buryat epic song or üliger. I read it in a prose translation in this book in English, and another version in Russian (with Google Translate) here. There are other Russian versions here (with illustrations) and here. While the story is titled after both siblings, the brother doesn't really do much in the story, other than dying and being saved.

Further sources: Бурятские сказки [Buryat folktales], Volume I, edited by L.E. Eliasov (Ulan-Ude: Buryat Book Publishing House, 1959), 120. More book sources here.

What is it about?

TL;DR: A girl sets out to win three princesses who can revive her dead brother. She goes through a series of adventures and succeeds by her strength, bravery, and kindness.

The hero (mergen) Gar'julaj rides out on a hunt, and encounters a Mangathai (a multi-headed monster). The monster devours him, and his faithful horse returns home with his clothes. His sister Agu-Nogon-Abakha sets out, kills the Mangathai, and recovers her brother's bones. After she buries him, she decides to set out on a journey to find three princesses (the daughters of the deity Esege-malan) who have the power to revive the dead. She dresses in her brother's clothes, arms herself, saddles his horse, and travels disguised as a man.

Along the way, Agu-Nogon-Abakha gets into various adventures. She encounters an old woman who tries to poison her, saves an anthill by wrestling a bear (!), drinks the Water of Life that gives her extraordinary strength, saves three heroes that swear loyalty to her, and rescues an invisible dog. Eventually she makes it to Esege-malan, and since she doesn't think the princesses would help otherwise, she presents herself as a suitor for all three of them.

There are two other suitors at court, so Esege-malan gives all three of them a series of tasks. With the help of the beings she'd saved, Agu-Nogon-Abakha completes all challenges, and wins the three princesses for her wives. They suspect she might not be a man and test her, but she passes every test. On the way home she hurries ahead, retrieves her brother's bones, lays them out, and escapes before the princesses arrive (she is worried they would be furious about being cheated). Agu-Nogon-Abakha turns herself into a hare and runs into the woods. 

The princesses find the bones, realize what happened, but decide to revive the brother anyway. Once he is alive, they fall in love with him, and forget their disappointment. They tell him everything that happened. Gar'julaj rides out into the woods, finds the hare, and turns her back to her human form. The princesses forget about being tricked, and they live happily ever after.

The highlights

At first read, it seemed to me like the helpers were doing all the heavy lifting (pun intended). Agu-Nogon-Abakha is advised by her horse along the way, and to win the princesses she summons the dog, the ants, and the invisible heroes to assist her. But the more I thought about it, the more episodes I found where she faces challenges herself: when she rides out and kills the Mangathai monster, when she wrestles and throws a bear, or when she passes the tests devised to reveal her gender (e.g. the princesses lighting a fire on her chest while she sleeps). She proves her own skill and bravery more than enough - and the helpers she does win by her kindness and quick thinking. A "strong female character" doesn't need to do everything unassisted.

I also liked the small detail that every time something bad happens to her - her brother gets lost, or she has to bury his bones - she "cries for a long time" and then gets up, and makes a plan. Her strength is not illustrated by not crying, or immediately knowing what to do. It's okay to fall apart first, even for epic heroes.

Another endearing detail is the care the siblings show for each other. Agu-Nogon-Abakha cares for her brother's bones (it is described in great detail) until she can revive him. Gar'julaj immediately goes out to find her after his return, and doesn't rest until he lures the hare back to safety.

IN THIS EPIC, THE GIRL (actually four girls) RESCUES THE GUY.

Did the story go the way you thought it would?

Women's Epics A to Z: Epics in general knowledge

As I was preparing for this year's challenge, reading several epics with women as protagonists, it kept occurring to me how unfair it is that most of these amazing, special stories didn't make it into the general consciousness (as much as I can tell with my Hungarian/American, generally Western educational background). Back when I was in high school, we got a pretty comprehensive look at a few of them: we studied Gilgamesh, the Kalevala, had to read the Odyssey, skimmed over the Iliad, and even the Ramayana and the Mahabharata got a mention. But that is still pretty narrow compared to the richness of the world's epic traditions.

So I put together a survey, asking people how many epics they recognized, and which ones they were generally familiar with.

I listed 50 epics in the survey, asking people to mark if they heard about them / read them.

The survey received almost 200 responses, mainly from people in Europe and North America. Here are some interesting things I observed based on these responses:

There were only 3 epics out of 50 that were universally known

As in, no one clicked the "Never heard of it" option. Wanna guess? 

The Iliad, the Odyssey, and Gilgamesh. Beowulf held on for quite a while, but then it got 3 negative responses. The Aeneid came close with only 11 negatives.

More importantly to this year's A to Z: none of the top 10-15 epics included a woman protagonist. We're gonna rectify that.

Some surprises

There were some epics on the list that I would have guessed are better known than they are. The Kalevala, for example, got 50 "never heard of it" replies, and 80 people only "heart about it". More than half of the respondents didn't recognize the Táin bó Cúailnge at all (although more might have, see below). Also more than half didn't know the Mahabharata or the Ramayana, which surprised me because I thought if any non-European epics were kinda sorta in the public knowledge, these would have been the ones. Great Chinese classics (Journey to the West, Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms) also didn't fare well, which surprised me, given that the first one especially has a lot of modern adaptations.

The least well known epics were mostly about women, and/or not from Europe

No surprise there. Out of the 50, there were 22 epics that received almost all "Never heard of it" responses. 12 of them were about women protagonists. Most of them were from Africa or Central Asia. The most generally unknown epic was Umesiben Mama (mentioned last week; makes sense, since it doesn't have an English edition). It only got two "heard about it" responses. Close behind her was Shirin Mama, which you will encounter in April, and it was one of my favorites. Also almost fully unknown was Bidasari (coming up in April), and Ibong Adarna, which I blogged about before. I am happy to report, that out of these 12 unkown women's epics, 9 will be included in the A to Z posts in April :)

People don't always immediately recognize epics

I often wondered, reading the comments to the survey, if people recognize these stories just by title. For example, Journey to the West didn't seem to get strong responses, but then people commented about "Monkey King" missing from the list later on. The same with people missing "Cú Chulainn" while the Táin was on the list, or missing "Jason and the Argonauts" while the Argonautica was right there. It seems like people recognize stories by the hero's name more so than the name of the epic.

There are a lot more epics than these 50, but people also don't always know what an epic is

I got a lot of great suggestions in the comments for many, many more epics that could be included. And then a lot of other comments added things that are not traditional epics by definition: anything from Lord of the Rings to Waterworld, from The Hunger Games to Star Wars to various folktales. There is an argument to be made for modern day epics, and stories that fill that role in our current popular culture.

Anyway, it was interesting to see how responses outlined general knowledge of epics. I know the sample was not nearly representative enough, but it was still a fun survey to do just out of curiosity.

Which epics are you familiar with? Which ones were mentioned at school?

See you next week for A to Z!