Guide to Indian Epics Reading 

As the semester progress, you will have more and more different choices to make in your reading, and I've prepared a separate guide for each section of the course to help you:

• Weeks 2-3 Information: Ramayana. As you read the Ramayana for the first time, you have a choice between Narayan's Ramayana, which is a modern book, and the Public Domain Ramayana, an online anthology of many different versions of the Ramayana. You'll want to spend some time thinking about that choice, and if you have any questions, let me know:
• Week 4 Information: More Ramayana. You will choose a one-week version of the Ramayana this time, with online books, an online film, or Bizzell Library graphic novels and comic books to choose from.
• Weeks 5-6 Information: Mahabharata. As you read the Mahabharata for the first time, you can again choose to read Narayan's modern version in book form, or you can read the online Public Domain Mahabharata.
• Week 7 Information: More Mahabharata. You will choose a one-week version of the Mahabharata this time, with online books or Bizzell Library graphic novels and comic books to choose from.
• Weeks 9-14 Information: Free Choice. In the second half of the semester, things totally open up: you can read more versions of the Ramayana or the Mahabharata, or you can explore stories of the Indian gods and goddesses, heroines and heroes, or you can look at Indian folktale traditions, including the Buddhist jataka tales.

This will all make more sense as the weeks progress! In the past, the reading for this course was very regimented: there were four paperback books that everybody read at the same time and in the same order. But after I redesigned the Myth-Folklore class so that everybody was choosing their own reading paths, I realized that this class should work the same way. I needed the help of the Library to make that work, though, in order to make sure you would be able to choose from a truly wide range of materials. I am really excited to see what you think about it!

So Many Reading Options! 

The OU Libraries has an OER Grant program to help faculty redesign their courses so that students don't have to buy a textbook, and I received one of those grants this summer! That means I was able to buy an amazing variety of materials to put on Reserve in Bizzell Library (comic books, graphic novels, Kindles with ebooks, Kindles with audiobooks, plus regular books), I also spent a lot of time looking for online books that people could use anywhere, not just in the Library. Below, I've listed the TYPES of materials you might choose to read this semester. As you explore, you'll get a sense of which kinds of reading you prefer!

The links below go to our "Diigo Library" listings which show the various titles in each category; click on the title of any item for more information:

OU BOOKSTORE. For those of you who want to buy your own paperback books to have, you can certainly do that! The four books I always used for this class are available in the Bookstore very inexpensively. If you want to use those to do your reading, you can do that... but I hope you will also want to try some of the other resources too!

FREE ONLINE BOOKS. There are A LOT of free online books that you can read at sites like Project Gutenberg, Hathi Trust, and other full-text online book sources. Most of these are public domain books (pre-1923), but there are a few more modern books online too.

BIZZELL LIBRARY. There is some absolutely fabulous stuff on Reserve in Bizzell Library, specifically:

* Amar Chitra Katha comic books. Each of these single-issue comic books provides a half-week's reading, so you can choose two comic books for a week's worth of reading. I think you will really enjoy these!

* Graphic novels. In addition to the ACK comic books, there are graphic novels based on both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The shorter ones provide one week's worth of reading, while the longer graphic novels will work for two weeks.

* Kindle ebooks. If you like to read ebooks (I do! BIG FONT!), you will find some excellent books available as Kindle ebooks in the Library: you check out one of the five Kindles available, and the books are all there for you to read. You can also purchase these Kindle books for yourself if you don't want to go to Bizzell; Kindle books are great because you can read them on any mobile device or you can read them in your laptop web browser. I've been keeping a list of the Kindle books that are cheap (under $10) and super-cheap (under $5) if you prefer the convenience of having your own books.

* Kindle audiobooks. There are also Kindle audiobooks! Make sure you also get the earbuds (or bring your own) when you check it out the Kindle at the Reserve desk. I love listening to audiobooks, and maybe you will find that you like it too!

* Printed books. If all goes well, the Library should also have print book copies of the ebooks and audiobooks also! That is going more slowly, though (the ebooks are fast to get!) — but hopefully the books will all be in before the second half of the semester when you might wanting to use them. You can also find some of these books very cheaply online by buying them used from Amazon; I'm keeping a list of books that I see available for sale cheap (under $10, incl. shipping) or super-cheap (under $5, incl. shipping) at Amazon if you want to buy your own copy of something.

A Few Highlights

I know that is probably overwhelming already, but I will include just a few highlights to give you a sense of the things that are out there for you to read this semester:

Samhita Arni. You can read the gorgeous versions of both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata written by Samhita Arni, an incredible young writer... and you can even have a conversation with her at Twitter (@samarni), and you can learn more at her website: samarni.com.

Devdutt Pattanaik: He's my favorite Indian mythologist, and you'll have several of his books to choose from, covering the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, along with his book about Shiva and and a collection called Pashu, stories about animals. You can see what he's like by visiting his website: Devdutt.com.

Krishna Dharma. For those of you who want/need free online books, I am so excited that Krishna Dharma's contemporary translations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are both freely available online, thanks to the generosity of the author and the Bhaktivedanta Database project.

Ashwin Sanghi. This bestselling Indian author is the "Dan Brown" of the Hindu world. If you liked the Da Vinci Code, I am pretty sure you would enjoy his book The Rozabal Line, which is about the legend of Jesus in Kashmir (!!!), and he has also written a book that blends the ancient Krishna story with a modern thriller: The Krishna Key.

Amar Chitra Katha. There are over 100 ACK comic books that you can choose from for this class, and I am guessing some of you will want to do comic books for Week 4 and Week 7 and for the whole second half of the semester — I would be tempted to do the same thing! The range of stories including these comic books is incredibly exciting, and I would recommend you spend a few minutes just browsing the Amar Chitra Katha comic books collection to see what you find there! You might also enjoy watching this video about Anant Pai, the founder of ACK who has made these comic books a part of the modern Indian experience: