Week 10 Reading Diary: Tales from Old India retold by Rouse

For this week’s reading diary I chose to read The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India retold by W. H. D. Rouse. I was looking to learn more about Buddhist legends and ended up choosing this reading of Buddhist jataka tales because the summary caught my attention, which read, "This is a fun collection of Jataka tales, with some delightful illustrations too. I was not disappointed by my selection and would highly recommend this book if it sounds like s

omething you may be interested in too. This creative retelling of stories by Rouse is exactly what we are supposed to be practicing in the course Epics of India.

My favorite part about this book was Rouse’s retelling of The Turtle Who Couldn’t Stop Talking which I also retold in my storybook, Kurma and Karma, in the section called Boarding School. Rouse called his version The Talkative Tortoise. I especially enjoyed The Talkative Tortoise because I got to hear yet another perspective on this old tale. One thing that was different about Rouse’s version was that the fish were annoyed with this chatty turtle and that the birds were actually saving the turtle from this pond where he was unwanted.

The story of The Giant Crab was very entertaining. First of all, Rouse used beautiful descriptions and the story had great flow. Next, he made it funny by making this monster of a giant crab into a “great flirt”. It was quite humorous that this crab had scared of everyone and so no longer had anybody to flirt with. I would love to read the original version of this story. Here is an image of the elephant who finally killed this monstrous crab:

Elephant Crushing the Giant Crab. Source: Gutenberg.com