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Ancient indian society essay
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The Bhagavad-Gita or “The Song of the Lord” is a book explaining an eternal message of spiritual wisdom from ancient India created from 400 BCE - 400 CE. Throughout this book, there is a God named Krishna (the original creator) that is speaking to a man named Arjuna about his dilemma of dharma about a battle he is about to fight in. There is a family duty that says to not kill family and a caste duty that says to fight for the position of king. Krishna gives Arjuna advice saying that Arjuna is not acting like a man and he has to fight. It’s all about the castes and where Arjuna is placed. Arjuna is in the warrior caste with traits of heroism, fiery energy, resolve, skill, and refusal to retreat in battle. It is essential to the action of a warrior and becoming an intrinsic being. …show more content…
Lord Krishna states in the sixth verse of the sixteenth teaching, “All creatures in the world are either divine or demonic.” People that are divine have traits of specific castes such as action of a priest and action of a warrior. Those who have action of a priest have purity, patience, penance, knowledge and honesty. Those who have action of a warrior have resolve and charity. Demonic people have traits of hypocrisy, arrogance, vanity, anger, harshness, and ignorance. Lord Krishna continued to tell Arjuna that he was born with the divine, as said in verse five of the sixteenth teaching. Krishna also explains to Arjuna that if one has desire, anger, and greed, they will never be able to reach perfection or happiness or the highest way. Reaching perfection, happiness or the highest way is a normal traditional standard. All of this explanation from Krishna corresponds to the action of the castes and dharma. “Each one achieves success by focusing on his own action; hear how one finds success by focusing on his own action”, as said in verse forty-five of the eighteenth
From the beginning of humankind, people have constantly had to deal with inner battles. Many of these issues cease to exist as time goes on, while new ones arise to take their place. There is one issue, however, that has remained consistent throughout time – morality. For centuries, humans have fought against the outside world and themselves to keep their morals properly aligned. The issue of morality is so dominant that it is still plays a vital role in today’s society. This can be seen in wars, law systems, codes of conduct, and religious texts. An example of a religious text where this can be seen is in pages 185 - 188 of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna, also referred to as “The Blessed One”, guides Arjuna through his inner struggles between
In India, the religion of Hinduism in particular, provides two sources of support in regards to the social structure of the era. These sources are the Vedas and the Upanishads. According to The Rig Veda when Purusha’s body was divided “his mouth became the brāhman; his two arms were made into the rajanya; his two thighs the vaishyas; from his two feet the shūdra was born (Reilly, 92).” By splitting up the body in this way, there was a justification for the creation of the varna or caste system. The highest class or Brahmin’s were the priest class, who were also known as the most pure. In this role, they were the connecting figures between Purusha and his people, which is reflective of them being his mouth. The next upper division class was the Ksatriya or warrior/leader class. In the class, the role was to do the fighting which was reflective of them being Purusha’s arms. The artisan/farmer or middle class was known as the vaisyas. In this class, members represented the role of the thighs of Purusha, who were responsible for doing the brunt or tougher jobs in society. The nethermost social class was the sudra, who were serfs and servants. They represented the feet of Pursha, which is reflective of their status as the lowest class. Along with the Vedas, the Upanishads served as a written guideline for the varna. These works urged the concept of doin...
On the other hand, Arjuna is the main character of “The Bhagavad-Gita”, the 63rd minor book of the Mahabharata. The story follows Ajuana’s spiritual tutoring from his good friend Lord Krsha, whom is god in the form of a human. Ajuana displays a few characteristics of an epic hero, and The Bhagavad-Gita does show a trait or two of an epic poem. However, there is more evidence working contradicting it “The Bhagavad-Gita” not being an epic poem and Ajuana being an epic hero. The Bhagavad does not have an epic hero, nor does it take place in a series of different settings, albeit it did have a have one God within the story. Ajuana is not from noble birth, he does not battle any superhuman foes, nor does he embark on an epic journey.
Hinduism is a broad and encompassing religion. Due to such, the study and answer of any specific question in this religion is difficult. In order to adjust for this, I am going to look at the gunas, the various life goals, life stages, and social castes and see the specific impact that each of these have on morality and ethics in Hinduism.
There are many similarities between The Hymn to the Sun and Genesis. They are both insights of how the world was created, however there are many ways the two stories can be interpreted. The Hymn to the Sun focuses on the people of the land worshiping the sun because of its benefits. Light was the main symbol because it was a representation of life and positivity. The comparison of Genesis and The hymn to the Sun ranges from how light was created to how humans were created.
The spirit within one is eternal, indestructible, and never changes. Because death is inevitable to all creatures, humans have been perplexed with the concept of death and an afterlife for centuries. Once we are deceased, does our soul become confined underground, or does it transcend to a divine world? According to different religious texts, there are different steps one must take in order to reach salvation and the afterlife. Although Genesis text and the Bhagavad Gita originate from two different religions that do not directly address an afterlife, they both speak of the soul and higher entities, which imply a final resting place for the soul that can be achieved through sacrifice, prayer, and devotion; this in return provides
The Bhagavad Gita is perhaps the most famous, and definitely the most widely-read, ethical text of ancient India. As an episode in India's great epic, the Mahabharata, The Bhagavad Gita now ranks as one of the three principal texts that define and capture the essence of Hinduism; the other two being the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras. Though this work contains much theology, its kernel is ethical and its teaching is set in the context of an ethical problem. The teaching of The Bhagavad Gita is summed up in the maxim "your business is with the deed and not with the result." When Arjuna, the third son of king Pandu (dynasty name: Pandavas) is about to begin a war that became inevitable once his one hundred cousins belonging to the Kaurava dynasty refused to return even a few villages to the five Pandava brothers after their return from enforced exile, he looks at his cousins, uncles and friends standing on the other side of the battlefield and wonders whether he is morally prepared and justified in killing his blood relations even though it was he, along with his brother Bhima, who had courageously prepared for this war. Arjuna is certain that he would be victorious in this war since he has Lord Krishna (one of the ten incarnations of Vishnu) on his side. He is able to visualize the scene at the end of the battle; the dead bodies of his cousins lying on the battlefield, motionless and incapable of vengeance. It is then that he looses his nerve to fight.
... divine law and letting reason govern one’s actions, they can achieve complete happiness. One must not totally disregard temporal goods, but their actions should be based on their goods of the will, not temporal goods.
Every caste had a standard of what they were supposed to do. In the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita, there was a war going on where both opponents had members of the same family in their army. Arjuna was one of those members. When he arrived at the battlefield he realized that his family would be killing each other, he did not believe this to be right. Since Arjuna was born into “kshaktriya rajput” (caste of warriors), he was told by Kṛṣṇa to “not yield to this degrading impotence” (2.3). Because Arjuna was a warrior, it looked weak of him to allow himself to be attached to family ties over doing his warrior responsibilities. He was expected to “give up such petty weakness of heart and rise” as he was called the “chastiser of the enemy” (2.4). Arjuna disagreed with fighting against his family but according to his caste, he had to do what he was born to do; which was fight any enemy put in front of him. It was all based on
“Dharma is the knowledge prominently directed towards the achievement of desired happiness here (i.e., in this life) and hereafter by means of appropriate actions” (Khan, Benjamin. The Concept of Dharma in Valmiki). Rama and Krishna have been set as perfect exemplars of Dharma in the texts of Ramayana and Mahabharata, respectively. They are considered to be the reincarnations of God Vishnu, a Supreme Being, and supposedly lived their lives according to the Dharmic (or right) way of life. However, the stories of Rama and Krishna in the texts include some of their actions, which are questionable in terms of Dharma.
...th intense compassion and love for the enemy and wait for the enemy to shoot him down. My contention is that war is impossible when every one follows the principle of “Love they neighbor…” and “service before self”. However, my ethical system does not propagate relinquishing one’s duty. It is possible to imagine a soldier fighting a war as a part of his duty, slaying his enemies even as he continues to love them. This was what Krishna preached in Bhagwadgita to his disciple Arjuna who was horrified at the sight of his kinsmen fighting on the enemy’s side.
of evil, and Hell’s Satan as a creature seemingly capable of good. At every moment, good
The four main stages of life in Hinduism also take the caste system into account. The first stage is that of a student, being led by a teacher. T...
The Bhagavad-Gita teaches many things, and amongst these, morality and moral law are developed for the Hindu religion. What Krishna, the primary Hindu god, declares in this somewhat epic poem to be the "basis of good in this world" (stanza 3, pg. 620 of text) is for people to take action. Action, as he goes on to state, is within the very nature of our beings to do. Krishna even states that "without action you even fail to sustain your own body" (stanza 8, pg. 620 of text). Thus, Krishna feels that action is very important and key. To take this concept as a relation to ethics, Krishna tells Arjuna, the warrior he is talking to in this poem, that "Action imprisons the world unless it is done as sacrifice; freed from attachment, Arjuna, perform action as sacrifice!" (stanza 9, pg. 620 of text). Thus, Krishna is prescribing that, in order for an action to be considered good, the good that he already declared to be the basis of all good in the world, one must detach himself from the action being performed and perform the action sacrificially. The detachment aspect is incredibly important to Krishna, for he proclaims that in "performing action with detachment, one achieves supreme good" (stanza 19, pg 620 of text). By doing this, Krishna believes that the world is preserved, for other people will follow the warrior's actions and imitate them in their own lives. A leader, such as a warrior or king, "sets the standard for the world to follow" (stanza 21, pg. 621 of text), as Krishna says and thus must take whatever action is necessary for the world to not be destroyed, to set examples of goodness and right in his own actions. By separating himself from these actions, thus becoming detached, he can achieve this. Another main reason that Krishna feels detachment is necessary is this: "You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty." (Bhagavad-Gita 2.47). Thus, so long as one does not profit from his own actions, the action itself is good. And, this is Krishna's prescription for leading a life of morality and duty is the moral law to follow in order to achieve this.
The story “The Road to Salvation” by Premchand revolves around Jhingur, the farmer and Buddhu, the shepherd who were very full of pride and such pride ruined themselves. Dhanpat Rai Shrivastava who wrote under the pen name “Premchand” was born into the Hindu Kayastha caste. The caste system in India is a system of social classification. In history, it divided communities into hundreds of traditional groups. The Kayastha class is right below the highest class, Brahmana. In the Indian caste system, you are born into your caste and there is no way you can change your caste in your life time. It is believed that if you live a good life, you can be reincarnated into a higher caste. The major religion in India is Hinduism. Hinduism promotes harmony and love for everyone but Jhingur and Buddhu are trapped in the law of Karma. Although the story revolves around Jhingur and Buddhu and the pride they have for themselves, it causes them to manipulate each other constantly causing them to be entrapped in envy.