Arjuna
Arjuna’s Dilemma the Importance of Dharma and Kharma
Samuel Stefani
RLST 375 001 Religions of India Term Paper: Understanding Dharmic and Karmic action. The understanding of Dharmic and Kharmic action is important for people who are seeking to understand Hinduism. A good way to explain this importance is through the Bhagavad-Gita. The Bhagavad-Gita explains in detail a tale of two ruling families in India and their struggles with an internal war. I will be looking specifically at the character Arjuna. Arjuna is given a dilemma in his life that forces him to question his Dharma. India was split in power between two related cousin family groups the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Even though the Pandava king was the younger of the two brothers he was given the right to rule over the land because he was not blind and his brother leader of the Kauravas was blind. The king of the Pandava was unable to have children and called apon gods to impregnate his wives, doing this creating five children of his own Arjuna being one of them. Arjuna was the son of the god Indra and was a great archer, the best in the land. The father of the Kaurava side was able to have children but something went wrong with his wife during the pregnancy and instead gave birth to a large lump of flesh. A Rsi told the Kaurava king that if he put bits of the lump of flesh in a jar with olive oil they would grow into babies and be his children. Doing so brought him 100 sons. Once the children grow old enough a dispute over the land happens as the Pandava king dies the new king has to divide the land and seeing as he favors his kids, he gives them the richer half of the kingdom and the Pandava sons the less rich half. This really upsets the Pandava and creates a lot of tention between the two groups. The Kauravas invite the Pandava over for a game of dice and they join them. At stake for the dice game rests the kingdom which seeing as the dice game is fixed the evil
Samuel Stefani
RLST 375 001 Religions of India Term Paper: Understanding Dharmic and Karmic action. The understanding of Dharmic and Kharmic action is important for people who are seeking to understand Hinduism. A good way to explain this importance is through the Bhagavad-Gita. The Bhagavad-Gita explains in detail a tale of two ruling families in India and their struggles with an internal war. I will be looking specifically at the character Arjuna. Arjuna is given a dilemma in his life that forces him to question his Dharma. India was split in power between two related cousin family groups the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Even though the Pandava king was the younger of the two brothers he was given the right to rule over the land because he was not blind and his brother leader of the Kauravas was blind. The king of the Pandava was unable to have children and called apon gods to impregnate his wives, doing this creating five children of his own Arjuna being one of them. Arjuna was the son of the god Indra and was a great archer, the best in the land. The father of the Kaurava side was able to have children but something went wrong with his wife during the pregnancy and instead gave birth to a large lump of flesh. A Rsi told the Kaurava king that if he put bits of the lump of flesh in a jar with olive oil they would grow into babies and be his children. Doing so brought him 100 sons. Once the children grow old enough a dispute over the land happens as the Pandava king dies the new king has to divide the land and seeing as he favors his kids, he gives them the richer half of the kingdom and the Pandava sons the less rich half. This really upsets the Pandava and creates a lot of tention between the two groups. The Kauravas invite the Pandava over for a game of dice and they join them. At stake for the dice game rests the kingdom which seeing as the dice game is fixed the evil