User talk:Priyanath/sandbox

Family Trees For Mahabharata & Ramayana

Copying discussion from Hinduism Notice Board here. Abecedare 14:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I propose creating a family tree project for Mahabharata & Ramayana, making it easy for new readers to understand the relationships and story line in the two epics. Is there a template available for family trees? And is there a portal for Mahabharata into which we can add this or perhaps we can add it as a separate article.

let me know your comments. Vinwe 05:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It is a good idea. I believe the best way to go about it is by creating a new article, either a separate article for each or combining them together. One benefit from merging the family trees into one page is that we can extend the family trees beyond the Ramayana and Mahabharata and include legends from the Puranas and to a lesser extent the Vedas. It is take some work however to explain the complicated relationships well to someone who doesn't know these epics well. Nice inititive! I was thinking about creating one myself a long time ago but was too lazy/busy to much more. I along with some other I hope, will be willing to help you. Gizza^{Chat ©} 12:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea, and would like to help also. There are several different family tree templates at Wikipedia:Family trees. I suggest finding consensus on which format to use first. I like the top--->bottom tree style (as opposed to just a list) templates for looks. The last one named 'Template' looks best to me at a quick glance. But it needs to be one that's easy to use, so different editors can keep adding to it without having to know too much code. The image format approach loses the ability to edit, so a template is best, I think. Perhaps others could look there and say what they like. When I have time, I'll give them a test drive for usability. ॐ Priyanath talk 17:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to be of help too. Am curious to see if, (1) the templates are set up to handle the complexity of Pandavas parentage(s) and marriage situation; and (2) if we will manage to crash the wikipedia servers or the just client PCs when we add the Kaurava brothers to the family tree :-) Abecedare 03:23, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I've started playing with a template in my sandbox. Check it out. It might work (though we may not have to name all 99 brothers!). Feel free to experiment, or copy to your own userspace. It takes some playing with to get used to the code, and alot of 'show preview', but it's doable. ॐ Priyanath talk 03:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice start, ॐ Priyanath! I'll play around (preview mode!) and try to get a hang of the template. Abecedare 03:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's good start. For the Pandavas, how can we add the corresponding devas, eg. Vayu for Bhima and the Ashvins for Nakula and Sahadeva? Or do we not add them because of the complexity? If we get very pedantic, I think we could add hundreds of gods and people! If we wanted to, we could add the gopis that Krishna gets married to though I don't think it is mentioned in the Mahabharat but a Purana. Gizza^{Chat ©} 05:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Also who are Krishna's "true" parents - the birth-parents or the ones who adopted him, or both ? Ditto for Karna, Kunti and Balarama, who arguably has two "birth-mothers"! Wish wikipedia had a richer toolset for indicating such information ... but its worth giving it a try and see how far we can proceed. Abecedare 05:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

(Continue the indenting :p) Another example of the difficulty on where to cut the boundary is Ravana's extended family. There are plenty of Asuras/Rakshas we can add as well. Also, I wonder how avatars will be denoted (Rama/Krishna for Vishnu, Lakshman/Balarama for Sheshnaga, Hanuman for Shiva or Madhavcharya depending on sect). And because Ganesha transcribed Vyasa's words, it is possible to add Shiva, Parvati and Murugan! I suppose we can create small, concise versions and some extended ones so we can compare and see which serves more purpose. Gizza^{Chat ©} 08:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

@Gizza - I would like a separate article also. We can start off with the main set of characters and expand further. The current templates however, aren't great. Also, I would think we can just name each Avatar separately in the tree(and maybe link the same origins somehow) @Priyanath - We can think of some minor modifications for the template to add devas etc for each character(or avatars etc). And your template is a really good start for the family tree. I'll try to make changes as well. @Abecedare - The kaurava situation might cause us some problems.. :). Also, only birth parents are to be added. In Karna's case it is clear. However it might be a problem in Balarama's where we can call it a surrogate mom--real mom in a side branch. Vinwe 14:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Comments

I've added an example of how different classes of characters in the Mahabharata could be color coded. It's just to give an idea of one way this template could be used. I'm still not sure the template will work, because of the complexities of relationships, but if we work with it, it may be possible. ॐ Priyanath talk 17:25, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

There are a few examples of complicated families on Template_talk:Familytree and a list of more examples on Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Familytree. This should give us a rough guide. Gizza^{Chat ©} 23:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

On cursory browsing I found Family tree of the Greek gods to be one of the most complicated transclusions of the template. Here is an external link to a similar tree of Greek Gods, which IMO shows how useful it would be to have colored boxes, and colored and "curved" links. An ideal implementation would perhaps be something along the lines of a Thinkmap so that readers can zoom-in to the part of the family history they are interested in and many complex links (parent, sibling, Guru, avatar etc) can be shown ... but one can only dream :-)

That said, I think it is worth pursuing this task and see how far we can take it. Even if we don't come up witha single, comprehensive family tree it will be worth placing relevant snippets of the tree on pages like Krishna, Pandavas, Pandu, Raghuvamsa etc. Abecedare 00:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Gizza and Abecedare, Those are are some complicated family trees. The Greek Gods were, uh, complex characters. It makes the Pandu family tree seem pretty simple. I think your idea of at least having family tree snippets is a good one. We could start with this one, or another. I added some color and links just as an example of how to differentiate deities from humans. It's just a suggestion - there are probably more elegant ways to do it. ॐ Priyanath talk 00:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I have played around in the sandbox and added Gandhari, a few Kauravas and Shakuni, and color-coded the Pandavas and the Kauravas - mainly to get my hands wet and learn the template formatting. Please don't hesitate to reorganize/revert my changes. Maybe we should start placing this family tree or its subsets on the Mahabharata, Pandavas, Kauravas pages at least. Any suggestions ? Abecedare 01:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Great job on the additions and color-coding. My Gods and Goddesses coloring looks clunky - is there a way to color the entire box for one person without coloring the entire row of boxes? I think it's about ready for the Mahabharata, etc. article pages, too. If someone wants to move this over there, I'm all for it. ॐ Priyanath talk 16:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

One aspect of Greek Gods family tree on the external website that I liked was distinguishing males and females. People who are not familiar with the epics and/or Hindu names wouldn't know who is the father and who is the mother when they see the family tree. Gizza^{Chat ©} 04:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea. There are a few things that would be good to work on. I hope to have some time by the weekend, but if someone else wants to do these first I'm all for it, too:

• Distinguish males and females
• Better way to color code gods and goddesses (maybe that's not needed?)
• Add the 'god'fathers to the Pandavas (and Karna when he's added) - I can't figure out even conceptually the best way to do that much less how to code it. Are there any examples of this with the Greeks?
• What's the best title for the family tree? I just threw out 'Mahabharata Family Tree' as a working title, but should it be 'Kuru Dynasty Family Tree'?

Here's a good example of the Kuru Family Tree to crib from, and to see how they do the Pandavas parentage. ॐ Priyanath talk 16:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• I agree indicating male/female by color-coding would be useful - we need to figure out a way to color boxes in the same row differently through some HTML hack. Another possibility is to use italic fonts for, say, all the female characters.
• An idea to indicate the dual fathers of the Pandavas (as well as Pandu and Dhritrashtra) would be by adding footnotes. For example, "Pandu^a" with "a: Pandu was sired by Veda Vyasa after Vichitravirya's death" appearing in a Notes section. Not the most elegant solution perhaps, but easily implementable. Abecedare 16:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The creator of the template very kindly tweaked it to allow separate colors for different boxes in a row. You can see his instructions here. Thank you, Ilmari Karonen. So I've added a color for Gods and Goddesses as a test. Do we want to use colors for male/female, and then something else to identify Purus, Kauravas, Gods and Goddesses? ॐ Priyanath talk 02:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to change the box border colours? That can be another variable, maybe to distinugish male and female. 02:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I played around and found a way to change the box border color easily enough (see [1]). Don't know whether that is the "recommended" way to achieve the effect though ... :-) Abecedare 03:24, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I'll leave a note for the developer, since he might like to know how people are using his template. ॐ Priyanath talk 03:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That great. Now we can distinguish gods/avatars/human with the box colour and gender with the border colour or the other way around depending on what consensus agrees upon. Gizza^{Chat ©} 04:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that's the way to go, too. Red/female and blue/male, or something like that? ॐ Priyanath talk 04:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

<deindent>
By the way, are there any avatars in the Kuru lineage besides Vyasa, and is there any devata/devi aside from Ganga ? (simpler to ask than work out myself :-) ) Abecedare 04:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so - and even Vyasa is not generally one of the 'main' avatars, but I may be wrong on that. Gizza? But if Krishna is added at some point, that would make two. As far as devatas and devis, Ganga I think is the only one now. When I made that code, I was thinking of Indra, Vayu, Dharma, and the Ashvins - I still can't see how to add them easily, and your suggestion of footnotes may be the best. Maybe one or both of those codes aren't needed for now - or maybe we should keep them for future expansion? ॐ Priyanath talk 04:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Also Balarama and Radha who will be part of the "Krishna" tree are also avatars (at least according to some sects) + there is the Ramayana tree. I think it will be good to decide on a common code right now, which can then be used across all the future Hinduism related family trees. Here is a proposal:

• Box Color -> gender with Red = female and Blue = male
• Border -> human/divine with Black = human, Solid Red = devi/female avatar and Solid Blue = Devata/male avatar.

Do we need to differentiate between devas and avatars ? Note: I am laying the above proposal just to have something concrete as a starting point. feel free to suggest changes/alternatives. Abecedare 04:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good proposal. I suggest adding Asuras and Rakshasa with the human/divine. I don't mind not differentiating between avatars and devatas. Gizza^{Chat ©} 04:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point, Gizza. Maybe we should say "Border -> Earthlings/divine with Black = Earthlings(human/vanara/rakshasas), Solid Red = devi/female and Solid Blue = Devata/male avatar."

That way in the Kuru tree, Hidimbi will simply be in a red square with black border and we won't have to worry about Ghatotkacha being a half-rakshasa! Abecedare 05:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I would prefer separating the rakshasa with humans unless the complications are too much. What would we call Ravana? He was more powerful than nearly all of the devatas so it is a bit insulting to place him along mere mortals :) Gizza^{Chat ©} 05:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem, here is an (arbitrary) border-color assignment for the various categories. Lets just add/modify the list till some stable state is reached. Abecedare 05:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Humans: Black
• Devas/Devis: Red
• Avatars: Orange
• Vanaras: Green
• Rakshasa: Brown

Greetings to all. You may want to consider using some of the existing sources for "Who is Who in the MBH" to help settle some of the classifications. For example, there are quick reference genealogical tables on pp. 217-218 of The Mahābhārata by Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan (Columbia University Press: 1965), which gives an English version of selected verses with helpful index material that pertains to family relationships. For the various supernatural beings, humans, animals, etc., there is R. K. Sharma's book on poetic themes in the MBH (ISBN 81-208-0544-5), which has a fairly simple classification system. Both of these books are at hand so if needed they can be referred to. Regarding details, I hate to mention IAST, but I would encourage use of it for this, with simple English transliterations. Quick opinions on classifications would be to keep human beings as a clear category (Krishna, for example, while an avatar, was a human being in that incarnation, as opposed to a fish or boar. You may also want to consider a larger class of "supernatural beings" which would include devas, demons (of various types), etc. Buddhipriya 05:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at Sharma's system and among human beings he breaks down categories such as Sages and Kings to deal with some of the major non-family players in the work. And Narasimhan has a list of alternative names for the principal figures, many of whom are referred to by a variety of other names. What to do with the alternative names, which often include epithets? And in what sense is the word avatar being used here? Vyasa, for example, is generally classified as one of the sages, not an avatar.Buddhipriya 05:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I've always understood Vyasa to be a sage, and not an avatar, but apparently, according to his WP article "A number of Vaishnava traditions regard him as an avatar of Vishnu." I'm thinking that we may have too many categories and the ensuing color codes - it gets too confusing, and then there will be different opinions on some, such as Vyasa. I think that we don't need to identify each person according to deva, sage, avatar, human, (what about half human, half devata, as the Pandavas are?), and then Krishna is an Avatar, but not a 'deva' because he had a human body, ...... it's too complex to give a convenient color code to each one. Their articles can cover the complexities, and that's what they are for. (I'm arguing against this even though I'm the one who started it by creating a special color for Ganga). ॐ Priyanath talk 15:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The alternate name information etc will go in the articles on the individual characters. I think we should simply use the respective wikipedia article name to refer to the character in the family-tree, since the aim here is just to provide a simple (and rough) visual guide to the reader to see how all the main characters are related. The family-tree perforce will have to be rough, since the tools we have available don't seem to be rich enough even to represent the "god"-fathers of the Panadavas/Karna, "dual fathers" of Pandu and Dhritrastra or "dual mothers" of Balarama ...

Buddhipria, can you add to the list of "classes of characters" that appear in MBH and Ramayana so that we know how many border-colors we will need ? My guess is that we will be using only broad categories (so for example Jatayu (Ramayana), if he appears in one of the trees, will perhaps be classified as a deva) but it will be good to brainstorm a bit. Abecedare 06:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Color codes: What if we just have male/female, and Pandava/Kaurava? Too may different colors and codes may be too confusing, and give more information that we need to give with a simple family tree. Let the story tell the details. Just my opinion, thinking more of the user than my own inclination.... ॐ Priyanath talk 15:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I too would like to keep it simple, for the reasons listed by you and by Buddhipriya below, i.e (1) it may too hard to decipher for the reader and (2) there is always the problem of characters with mixed class. Perhaps for now, we can keep things simple and just color code the boxes (or borders) for male/female and leave the decision about classifying the characters for later. Abecedare 19:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

---

I agree that the system should be kept as simple as possible. Too many categories makes it harder to understand and subcategories within categories can be mentioned if needed. Question: Is this a family tree or a cast of characters? For example, would allies and miscellaneous kings be included (e.g., the Prabhdrakas, a clan that fought for the Pandavas; Śibi, a king renouned for his unselfishness), or must they be directly related to the main families? Another boundary issue is where the cutoff is for relevance. If a character is mentioned only in passing or for purposes of a comparison, would they be included? (I would think not.)

Regarding classifications, if this is the current list of classifications, I think adding a category for "Semidivine Beings" would cover a lot of ground, as that is a term that comes up in the literature to cover entities that are entirely or partially supernatural in character but not devas (e.g., the Guhyaka, who are classified as "a class of demigods" by Narasimhan; Urvaśī, a divine nymph) .

I seem to recall reading somewhere that any list that has more than seven items in it becomes more difficult for the reader to grasp (that is certainly true for me, and on some days I begin to stumble after five items). If this is the current proposal:

• Humans: Black
• Devas/Devis: Red
• Avatars: Orange
• Vanaras: Green
• Rakshasa: Brown

Ask yourself how many members each category will have. If it is not a large number, why is it ia category? Avatars in my opinion should be classified according to the species of that incarnation (generally here that will be a human being, e.g. Krishna). If you had a category for "Semidivine beings" you could put the sages into it as well as the various nymphs, demigods, etc. Vyasa and the other celestial sages (ŗşis) are of this type, generally viewed as having human form but also having divine attributes of some sort, but they are not devas. If you have a category for Devas/Devis, a general category for Demons (or more generally, supernatural beings with a negative valence), the Rākṣasa (male demons) and Rākṣasī (female demons) would fall under that, along with other demonic entities such as the Vinayakas, bhūtas, piśācas, etc.

Let us not overlook the statement in the MBH itself: "The names of all the kings fighting in the Mahabharata war cannot be enumerated even in ten thousands of years" (MBH 1.57.106)

In re-reading this I am convincing myself that the avatar category puts too much focus on that, and that such a category is not consistent with the models I see in the works I am looking at as models. There word "avatar" does not even appear in the Glossary for Narasimhan, while he does list common terms like ṛṣi. There is no category for it in Sharma either. Buddhipriya 18:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding treating Vyasa as an avatar, I do not think he is so described in the MBH. He is one of the sages. The term "sage" is used to describe him by Narasimhan. Is is quite possible that many of the characters are claimed as avatars by later sects that wanted to identify their divinity with various prominent figures, but that does not mean that they were considered as such within the MBH itself. Buddhipriya 19:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Apparently (i.e. according to wikipedia :-) ) Vyasa is mentioned as one of the 22/25 avatars in Bhagavata purana. More details are listed in Avatar#Avatars_of_Vishnu. Note that I have not verified whether this information is correct, but I am more inclined towards the position of not classifying the characters in the family tree and let the articles handle the complications and different versions. Abecedare 19:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I can confirm that Bhagavata 1.3.21 claims that Vyasa is an incarnation of Vishnu, so that claim is not in question. The issue is that this claim is not made in the MBH itself. It is a sectarian claim made much later. I agree with you that doing less classification is best, because endless complications will ensue. I seem to recall one of Bhaskararaya's commentaries as claiming that Arjuna was an incarnation of Ganesha. (I may be wrong on that, need to find the citation). Buddhipriya 22:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

To do

I've added color to the borders for male/female, and removed the gods/goddesses box color. I think we were in agreement on these things. I think this is nearly ready for adding to article pages, except for two things:

1. we need to get Karna in there somehow. He had no human 'father', so this is a dilemma. Maybe he derives directly from Kunti, with a footnote?
2. we then need to add footnotes mentioning the devas who were fathers to the Pandavas.
3. anything else? ॐ Priyanath talk 04:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I have made edits to address the points raised by Priyanath and as per his suggestions. Please look them over and feel free to tweak stuff around. I have also removed Subala from the family tree since he is not that important a character and does not belong to the Kuru lineage (Note that we have not included parents of Amba, Ambalika, Satyavati etc either). Currently the only "non-Kuru" on the list is Shakuni, who I have left in for now since he arguably plays a crucial role in the epic.

As for the remaining task: How do we add Draupadi ?! Abecedare 06:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Karṇa, Narasimhan's Glossary of Who's Who lists him as "Eldest son of Kunti, by Surya." Regarding Draupadi, I can't improve on Narasimhan's "wife of the Pandavas" and would not attempt to figure out how to deal with the coding. :) Another quick reference source for some of this is Dictionary of Bhagavad Gita by R. J. Venkateswaran (ISBN 81-207-1969-7) which for Karṇa says "half-brother of Arjuna. Karna was the son of Prithi or Kunti by Surya, the Sun, before she married Pandu. But this relationship was known to them only after his death." Has it been decided for sure not to just list devas in the tree as needed? In effect he was the first husband, and there must be some convention for how to list multiple husbands in trees. The current use of a footnote for Surya is what I am asking about. I am ignorant of conventions used for these things. Buddhipriya 09:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

-- I like the way Karna was added - I was trying to figure out if it was possible to do just what you did, Abecedare.

-- Regarding the deva parents of the Pandavas - if there were an elegant way to add them all, that would be fine - but I think the footnotes do the job quite well. If all the parents were shown, they would still require footnotes anyway, by way of explaining why there were not only multiple husbands to Kunti but multiple fathers for each of the Pandavas.

-- And then there's Shakuni, who does have a part in the story, and is brother to Gandhari. I added Subala originally because I felt that gap above Gandhari and Shakuni was begging a parent, even though he wasn't part of the story (and I even had to look up who their parents were). I'm ok either way with that.

-- I haven't figured out how to add Draupadi yet - I'll have some time later to think on this. Any ideas?

-- I think this is ready for certain article pages now, don't you think? The question is which ones, and should it have it's own page additionally, and what title? ॐ Priyanath talk 13:20, 17 April 2007 (UTC)