Sunday, April 17, 2011
Popol Vuh-The Book of The People
I want to comment something about Popol Vuh. This article is a great source for everyone to read not just because to understand indigenous people's mytho and historical events, but also adsorb the idea about karma which is the fate that a person has to face upon what he did in the past. There are several examples in the article that shows the ideology of karma. First of all, the underworld lords want to kill the twins just because they disturb the lords' lives underground. So the lords figure a lot of tests trying to kill them. But eventually, the head of the lords get killed by the twins. So this tells us that there is always a cause and effect in the cycle. If someone do something bad on a person, he or she will finally sacrifice something. In this case, the lord loses his life and never have the evil power again. And for the maiden case, it is like the adam and evil case. Once a person does something that is against the norm, then he or she needs to be responsible of what he or she has done in the past. The maiden reaches the sacred tree and so she is cursed. People give her a bad look on her since she is pregnant. Thus, karma reminds us that we should always do things in conscience and follow the right path. Otherwise, we need to be responsible of what we have done.
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I really like how you brought up "karma!" I think it's true- what ever you do that is either hurtful or wrong, it will come back to bite you! Since the Popol Vuh reflected a lot of the Christian point of view, I feel that in order to understand life and to go through hardships, there must be consequences. No one's perfect and the world isn't perfect. With karma, I feel that it helps people grow as a whole and to better themselves. Doing right vs. wrong, I agree that it allows us to follow the right path. I feel that karma allows us to not only challenge our life, but also allows us to figure out what to do. For example, the Hero Twins learned from their father's mistakes in order to beat all the Gods to conquer Xibalba.
ReplyDeleteKarma is a very interesting theme to look at in the Popol Vuh and I had never really though of it until i read your post. The section you brought up about the underworld lords receiving the negative karma that they deserve after sending the hero twins through all the different tests and stages is a prime example of direct karma in the story. In an attempt to kill the hero twins the underworld lords sent them through stages and the twins end up coming back and killing the lords. Another instance of karma that is in the Popol Vuh is in the monkey twins story. The monkeys twins older brothers were mean to them and picked on them. karma came back and the older twins were turned into monkeys and their grandma laughed at them 3 times so they had to run away.
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