Week 5 Planning: Crossing The River

For this weeks Storytelling, I am doing planning about the Public Domain Ramayana story "Crossing the River." I have found incredible new perspective on the location of the story that will be so interesting when I do the retelling!

Research Highlights

• Ganges River
• The Ganges River is the river that Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana cross when they leave Ayodhya
• The Ganges River goes through India and Bangladesh
• The river is 1,569 miles long, making it the third largest river 
• The great size and length of this river is something I did not know before hand. This could be dramatized in the story so much more. How crazy is it that they cross this river?  Obviously having a whole section on them doing so is a big deal, but it would be awesome to have more description in the story to show how much a feat it is to complete this 

Ganges River Bank
Source: Wikimedia

• Ayodhya
• Where Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana were located before they crossed the Ganges River 
• This is a city in India and is believed to be where Rama was born, which is emphasized in the Ramayana readings
• This is one of the seven sites for pilgrimage sites for Hindus
• I found this awesome and fascinating because I am currently in Sociology of Religion and Into to Religion and I am really enjoying learning about new religions. This was something I had no idea about, but it will be coming up in my learning soon. It will be awesome to be able to tie this with my learnings from this course
• The fact that Rama is leaving his birthplace could be made into a much bigger deal. Not so much as people freaking out, but maybe showing more subtle significance when he leaves, such as darkness surrounding him. Or even him thinking to himself what this means that he is leaving his birthplace to complete another journey. Just something to allude to how important Ayodhya will be in the future!