Wikipedia Trails: From Surpanakha to Rakshasa

For my storybook this week I am writing about Surpanakha, so I decided to look on her Wikipedia page for any information that wasn't covered in our readings. One of the interesting things I looked into were her parents' history because I'm honestly still a little confused about the Rakshasa identifier in Indian literature. Is it a separate race or just a group of evil humans? Anyway so I clicked on her father, Vishrava first, and guess what? He is a powerful and respectable yogi! So why are Surpanakha and Ravana so evil? Her rakshasi mother, Kaikesi apparently schemed in order to cause Vishrava to leave his first wife and have four demonic children with her. From there I clicked on a link to the Rakshasa page where I sorted out all of the confusion I had. They are there own distinct race although they apparently have children with humans all the time. There is a negative connotation related to cannibalism (man eater is another name for them) although there are good rakshasas. Mainly their powers of illusion are what make them distinct from humans.

Image: Demon, Wikimedia Commons

Wikipedia Trails: From Varna to Nature Worship

As I've mentioned in some reading notes, the Indian caste system really interests me so this week I did some extra research on it. I started by following a link from the Mahabharata to Varna, the Sanscrit word meaning class. This led me to Purusha Sukta, the hymn where varna is first mentioned. However, many scholars like Max Muller believe that the part about the varnas was not apart of the original text. He believed that the Vedas is a form of nature worship which I might agree with concerning earlier Hindu texts, but definitely not the ones that we have been reading for this class.
Image: Pyramid of Indian Caste System, Wikimedia Commons