Story Planning: Dharma

• Reading the Bhagavad Gita made me very intrigued about Hindu value systems and what they regard as a "good person"
• I really want to write a story somehow examining this?  I'm having a very hard time trying to put this into a story context though.  I feel like I'm thinking of it more as an essay describing my thoughts rather than a story, but I'm not sure how to make it more into a story.
• Some possibilities I was thinking of was examining Arjuna's actions through this and seeing how and when he violates or follows the principles of dharma, but that also seems kind of boring.  I want something a little more creative.
• Another idea I had was moving these principles into a more modern environment and examining people's actions through there, but this is also rather difficult because I'm not sure whose actions I should examine.  Arjuna's again but just modern?  Not sure how that would work.
• Really I just want to write a story about what a good person according to these principles is but I don't know how to do that.
• I want to maybe talk something about the caste system as well because Krishna says that somebody who does his duty poorly is better than someone who does an exceptional job that isn't his duty.  Kind of plays into Ekalavya and why he's beaten back down rather than praised, but I don't really want to write another story about Ekalavya.
• I could move that principle into a modern context and maybe talk about somebody who wants to do something else but his parents want him to keep up the family business?  So this conflict between what he wants and what he should do?
• Basically I have lots of half formed ideas but no concrete thing I want to write about :( if anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear it.

Arjuna and Krishna.  Web Source.

Bibliography:  Bhagavad Gita:  The Song Celestial translated by Edwin Arnold.  Reading Guide.

Reading Notes: Arnold's Bhagavad Gita Part B

• Thanks to Dr. Gibbs pointing it out I found Arnold's version of J. Robert Oppenheimer's famous quote!  It is much more different in this version, but I like how poetic it is.  Would have been much harder for him to quote though.
• This half of the Bhagavad Gita intrigued me a lot more than the first half.  I liked how it delved deeper into the differences between a good person and a bad person and the different types of qualities.
• I was especially interested in the difference between sattva, rajas, and tamas.  I think it's rather interesting that Hinduism regards doing things for pleasure and passion to be worse than doing things without attachment or emotion.  In Christian and Western culture, people typically prefer doing things with passion and for their happiness.  Tamas seems to be more similar to the Christian idea of a "bad person."
• I also think it's interesting that Hindus regard people trying to get material wealth to be one of the worst kinds of people while most Americans and Westerners wholeheartedly believe in this path; it's even the American Dream.
• The justification for the caste system was very interesting.  Krishna says that it's better to do the job that you were assigned poorly than to do something that you shouldn't do well.  That is very against most Western ideals, and my own opinions too, but it's a very interesting viewpoint either way.
• I kind of just flipped through most of the pictures when I was reading, but at the end I discovered that they had an appendix that went through each of the pictures in detail and described the symbolism in each one.  It was so helpful!  I had no idea of all of the nuances present in the positioning of the people or the borders and it helped me understand the Bhagavad Gita a lot more.

First frontispiece in the book.  It is Dhritarashtra asking Sanjaya to tell him what happens in the battle.  Web Source.

Bibliography:  Bhagavad Gita:  The Song Celestial translated by Edwin Arnold.  Reading Guide.

Reading Notes: Arnold's Bhagavad Gita Part A

• I love how the book is presented!  I checked out the copy from the Bizzell library and it is gorgeous!  It comes in a cute red box and it has very pretty illustrations in it!  It also has Sanskrit next to the English, which is cool to look at even though I don't understand a word.
• The style of this is so different from Narayan's version.  Obviously, Narayan's was a narrative so he didn't really have a lot of room for the preaching (for lack of a better term) that is in Arnold's version, but besides that the poetry of this version is so nice.  It's a really good translation!  I don't know what it sounded like in the original Sanskrit, but if it's anything like the translation, it must have been beautiful.
• This style of back-and-forth conversation helping to demonstrate the principles of the religion really reminds me of the Bible.  Some of the Bible verses are similar to this with the apostles questioning Jesus, so it's really interesting to see how the same idea holds in Hinduism.
• I was really intrigued by Krishna's argument that life is life and cannot be destroyed.  It is kind of an interesting view, but it makes some sense, I guess, since even with the death of one person, there is still life in general.
• I keep waiting for the infamous line quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer about "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" but it looks like I'll be waiting a little longer!  Either that or it's not in this translation.

Arjuna questioning Krishna.  Web Source.

Bibliography:  Bhagavad Gita:  The Song Celestial translated by Edwin Arnold.  Reading Guide.