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Kunti’s life is beset with sadness because of the curse that her husband has to live with, and then his death. Even though she gives birth to the Pandavas as a result of the boon of Sage Durvasa, the same boon causes the birth of Karna as well which brings her immense grief. Caste and social values were balanced in Ram-Rajya. Nishadraj, Kevat, Shabari and other persons of lower caste have beenreferred in the Ramayana in a decent manner, but in the Mahabharata, the caste issue became very serious. The most famous examples are Ekalavya and Karna. Being a lower caste was a kind of curse for lifetime. A curse is a destroyer of a life. To prove this point, we can take the classic example of Karna’s life. Karna was a Kshatriya, a great donor, one of the greatest warriors, scholar, and a truly divine soul. However, all his life he had to face lots of insults, injustice, humiliations, deceits, …show more content…
Valmiki’s epic represents certain classic examples of the conflicting notions of boons and curses. Blessings to Hanuman – one was given to him by Lord Brahma that no weapon could harm him. Another was given to him by Lord Surya that he would be able to attain the smallest or the biggest form. Dasharatha granted couple of boons to Kaikeyi during Dev-Asur Sangram (the war of gods and demons) when Kaikeyi had nursed the badly and deeply wounded Dasharatha. Out of gratitude, Dasharatha granted two boons to Kaikeyi, but she said that she would claim the same at an appropriate time. This resulted in Lord Rama’s exile (vanvaas). The boon of Bali – Bali was famous for the boon from lord Shiva, according to which anyone who came before him lost half his strength to Bali, thereby, making Bali invulnerable to any enemy. Once, Ravana called Bali for a fight when Bali was doing his regular evening prayers (Sandhyavandanam). He took Ravana by his tail and took him around the
There are four main castes and one in which they consider to be the outcastes. The four main castes are the Brahmin, the next is the Kshatriya, the third is the Vaishya, and the fourth is the Shudra. The outcastes are in the group called Dalits. Each caste has a purpose in life, the Brahmin are considered to be the priestly caste in which they are teach the Veda, and are to “sacrifice for others and receive alms” (Institutes of Vishnu 5-10, pg. 44). The Kshatriya is considered the warriors or the ruler caste, they have constant practice in battles, and they are to protect the world from harm. The Vaishya are to be the merchants and the farmers, they tend to the cattle, they, “engage in farming, keeps cows, trades, lends money at interest, and grows seeds” (Institutes of Vishnu 5-10, pg. 44). The Shudra are the manual laborers who according to the Institutes of Vishnu under the Four Castes, are to serve the twice born men who are to sacrifice and to study the Veda, the Shudra also engage in all the different duties of craftsmanship (5-10, pg.44). In case of a crisis, each caste is allowed to follow the occupation of the caste that is below them in rank. The duties in which all four of these castes, whatever gender or stage of life, are to follow and hav...
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...
The first contradiction of the Caste System arose when Siddhartha left the priestly class of Brahmins to join the shramanas. As a Brahmin, Siddhartha would not have even wanted, much less be permitted, to join the lower ascetics. Siddhartha’s father granted permission for his son to join a lower class, an unlikely scenario in the strict norms established by the Indian Caste System. The father told Siddhartha, “‘you will go off into the forest and become a shramana. If you find happiness in the forest, come back and teach me happiness. If it’s disappointment you find, then come back and we shall again make sacrifices to the gods together. Now go and kiss your mother, and tell her where you’re going’” (Hesse 10). A man who had spent hundreds of lifetimes building up good karma did not want to throw it away by joining the ranks of those who were now paying for their previous lives of sin and corruption. When Siddhartha began his life as a shramana, “he wore only a loincloth and an unstitched, earth-colored shawl. He ate only once a day and never cooked food…t...
Roy asserts that people’s fears of upsetting the power balance based in the caste system often leads to a blind acceptance of the status quo and a continuous sense of self-deprecation by individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy. When Velutha’s father fears that his son’s affair with a Touchable will have potentially disastrous consequences for him, he serves his own self-interest and is willing to endanger is son. He exposes the affair to the grandmother of the woman his son is having an affair with, revealing the extreme degree to which caste and conforming to societal norms drive the behaviors of individuals in Indian society; “So Vellya Paapen had come to tell Mamamachi himself. As a Paravan and a man with mortgaged body parts he considered it his duty…they had made the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible really happen…Offering to kill his son. To tear him limb from limb” (242). His fear of disrupting the status quo (i.e. the Indian social hierarchy) is so great that he is willing to sacrifice his own son’s life to protect his own. Rather than considering the genuine...
One of the major Hindu beliefs that Buddhism rejects is the Caste System, or “jati” in Sanskrit (Esposito, Fasching, and Lewis 317). The caste system is the social structure of Hinduism. It starts with the Brahmins, who are the priests and scholars, followed by the Kshatriya or warrior class. Next is the Vaishya, merchant class, and lastly the Shudras, the lowest caste designated to perform the impure and foul jobs the upper castes would never do. (Esposito, Fasching, and Lewis 317) The rules of the caste system are specific. Inter-marriages between castes are heavily discouraged and one can never change their caste during their current lifetime. Each caste has its own cosmic duties to fulfill, and not doing so could be detrimental to the world or an individuals karma. These distinct duties are referred to as one’s Dharma. (Esposito, Fasching, and Lewis 317) The Laws of Manu state “Better to do one’s own dharma badly than another caste’s dharma well” (Esposito, Fasching, and Lewis 317). Through saṃsāra, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, hopefully every soul will eventua...
The caste system of India made a clear social structure, and in most cases they did jobs they were born doing. For example, if a farmer's child was born, the child must do what their father did. Hammurabi's code focused on giving equality to women, children, and even slaves. Normally, people were not punished for hitting a slave, but in Hammurabi's code, they had to pay two folds of gold in comparison to paying ten folds of gold for hitting a
Throughout ‘To the Welsh Critic Who Doesn’t Find Me Identifiably Indian’, Arundhati Subramaniam argues that the “the business of language”, or the language that one speaks, should not dictate one’s identity. This becomes crucial in her poem as she uses this argument in response to a Welsh Critic, who does not identify her as being Indian. The poem substantiates her perspective of language through various techniques. For instance: Subramaniam reinforces the critic’s cultural assumptions in a defiant tone; she questions him, repeatedly, about language and eventually she challenges him, insisting he should explain to her how he would receive her as “Identifiably Indian”.
Social class was the foundation of everyday life during the Middle Ages. Social class played a significant role in the lives of medieval people. The aristocracy class and the immoral lower class were often viewed by society as practically different races. In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer shows the wide variance among the classes in every aspect of their daily lives. The zeitgeist of the Middle Ages can be seen through his illustration of differences between classes in moral behavior, economic power, the autonomy and education of women during the Middle Ages.
When the king Dasaratha claimed Rama his favorite son to be his heir, Queen Kaikeyi’s servant Manthata said that the queen’s son Bharata should be the next king. Dasaratha owes the queen his life so she only sees it fitting to have her son as the next king. From a Kantian moral ethics point of view, Manthata does not have a good moral worth. She is make her decisions based on a negative motivation, which is desire. Her actions are not morally motivated. This could also symbolize how forces in life can put pressure on the way people make their decisions. The queen had no problem with Rama becoming king until her servant had something to say about it. Rama is a character that has known his dharma and what kind of person he is throughout the myth. It seems that nothing changes the way he makes his decisions. When he was basically exiled to the forest for fourteen years, he went without a fight. “ Rama was not a bit perturbed and replied that he was only too happy to carry out his father’s promises to her”(246). Rama’s wife, Sita, and his brother are very loyal characters who also appear to know what their role is in society. They go with Rama to live out in the forest willingly because they feel it is their duty, especially for Sita
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...
Why did Rama exile into the forest for fourteen years? When Dasaratha became very old, he wanted Rama to be the new king. However, everything did not go in the way that Dasaratha wanted it to be. His youngest wife Kaikeyi wanted her son Bharata to be the new king. Kaikeyi was a very gentle woman that she looked at Rama like her own son. However, the evil servant Manthara successfully provoked her jealousy to demand for the exile of Rama. Another lesson that we should learn from this story, do not judge a person based on his story told by others; do not listen to one side and decide who is wrong. If not we may end up like Kaikeyi who mistakenly sent Rama into the forest using one of her two wishes that Dasaratha granted to her long ago. According
The caste system in India is elaborately structured to have an Indian touch to it, clearly distinguishing it from social structures worldwide. Caste is a word often used to describe a cluster of people who have a specific rank in the society. Each caste system is elaborately crafted to suit the needs of the society and they vary from group to group; each has its own rules and customs. Different chaste systems are planned in a hierarchical manner to become part of any of the four basic colors; varnas (a Sanskrit word for color). These include; the varna of Brahmans, identified with the learned class and priests; varna of Kshatriyas, which is encompasses warriors, rulers and property owners, the varna of Vaishyas, which attracts traders ; and lastly the varna of Shudras, who are servile laborers (Bayly, 1999).
The Ramayana is one of the Hindu religions’ most revered religious writings. In it one learns about one of the Hindu religions’ gods Vishnu who is reincarnated as Prince Rama, son of Dasaratha. The reason that Rama is considered to be such a great religious, ethical and moral example is that he shows throughout the work that he is an individual of upstanding moral and ethical character. Rama’s role changes from one of unquestioning servility, to student, to pardoner, to enforcer, and finally to being a just ruler as he interacts with other key figures throughout the work.
In R.K. Narayan’s version of The Ramayana, Rama used dharma to represent the ideal qualities of kingship by adhering to the social conventions of constructs like caste, class, gender, and race, and set an example for all as to how to form a cohesive society.
Imagine a land with lush jungles blooming fruit, flowers, and weeds providing a cool shade from the scolding sun and calming breeze flowing from the turbulent Ganges River. The Ganges River you say? Your mind start churning like a rusted bicycle belonging to adult who long ago stop greasing the gears as he transitioned out of a child, trying to remember your countless spoonfuls of geography from K-12 you realize I am talking about northern India and henceforth this is where our epic The Mahabharata unfolds. Dating 400 B.C. to A.D. 400 this epic like many epics evolved over many hundreds of years starting from a oral tradition told over an starry night around a warm communal fire transcribed into being written down in Sanskrit, the native and most popular language in India at that time. It is one of the longest epic ever written narrated from our book stating: