Reading Notes: Tibet, Part A

The Story of Drashup and the Goddesses by A.L. Shelton (1925)

• There was a man named Drashup who was very poor and alone. One day, he wandered around the mountain and just went to sleep. 
• In a small village around the mountain, a little girl was born, so all the goddesses nearby came and started to try to predict the girl's future.
• I want to describe more about the girl and the reason behind the goddesses' visit. 
• The goddess near the tree that Drashup was sleeping invited all the goddesses to her abode.
• Give them names.
• They predicated that this little girl would be middle-aged when she would die and that she would be married to the man under the tree, Drashup.
• Drashup heard what was going on and was furious at the goddesses' predictions.
• He tried to prevent this from happening by killing the new born baby. Yet, she survived and lived to adulthood. 
• The girl's parents eventually died and left her as an orphan. She then traveled to the city where Drashup lived, not knowing he lived there, of course. 
• Maybe add more details about how and why she decided to travel here. 
• They met unexpectedly and then fell in love. Drashup soon found out that this was the girl he had tried to kill when she was a baby due to a scar on her head. 
• What did Drashup tell the girl his name was? More on the love story. 
• He remembered the goddesses' words about how she were to die by eating the shoulder of a sheep, so he always prevented this from happening. 
• Why were they eating sheep? 
• They lived very happily together, but one day when was away, the girl was very curious about how the shoulder of a sheep tasted and so she took a bite. 
• Maybe change the curse to something more dramatic. 
• She fell violent ill and died. 

In birth and death there is no fear, and in fear there is no doubt.

(Tibetan Mountain Road: Flickr)