Comparing Mahabharata And The Palace Of Illusions By C. Rajagopalachari

Man’s hunger for power and status is not new. In his race for power and fame he sacrifices even his blood relations. Present paper highlights the same fact by preseting a review on Vijay Tendulkar’s play Ghashiram Kotwal, where Ghashiram sacrifices his own daughter and makes a deal with Nana Phadnavis and becomes the kotwal of Pune just to get power and to take revenge of his insult. This results into victimization of people which in turn leads to his destruction as well as his own daughter’s life also gets sacrificed in this power game.

For instance, "The Ramayan," the story of Ram and Sita, and "The Mahabharat," the story of the Kauravs and the Pandavs, are epic tales that teach people about the way of life a person should lead.

In Siddhartha, Harp of Burma and The Guide, Hesse, Takeyama and Narayan, respectively, convey pivotal values to readers when the three protagonists of their stories fulfill their quests. In each story, the existence of opposing forces against the heroes’ core values causes the protagonists to struggle and prolong the quests. However, such forces or opposite values are also beneficial and indispensable to the ultimate success of each quest. [non-obvious,arguable thesis]

Mahabharata, experience life exiled in the forest for 12 years. In this time they lost all of

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a Sumerian epic of the great king Gilgamesh and his deeds on Earth in ancient mesopotamia and in the city of Uruk. It is an important historical text because it is one of the oldest western epics and because it explains much about how the ancient Sumerians viewed the Gods (Mark). The epic contains the tells of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, Utnapishtim, and many Gods and Goddesses of ancient Sumeria specifically Ishtar, the Goddess of love.

Urvashi and Pururavas is a quasi myth that depicts a story of love and passion, containing elements displaying societal perceptions of women. Quasi myths are stories with elements of a myth within them, and within the 10th Book of the Rig Veda the myth of Urvashi and Pururavas has greatly intrigued me (Sen, Aditi). The first half of this paper will present my analysis for deciding to use the story of Urvashi and Pururavas, while the second half of this paper will outline my rational for my story book interpretation of the story. Most myths, especially those of religious standing, in my perception, present an outlook into the lives and society of those creating a myth. Myths can be a representation of social hierarchies and an explanation for societal rules and biases.

“Kochinnenako in Academe” by Paula Gunn Allen exposes the problems not only with the distortion of traditions/texts through interpretation, but the distortion of the purpose of life in general when perspective is limited. I strongly agreed with Allen’s statement regarding the translation of the harmonious, balanced tribal story into a very linear and shallow western story. Allen accurately states “Soon there appear to be heroes, point of view, conflicts, crisis, and resolution…the result is a western story with Indian characters”(Allen 31). After reading through the essay I drew the conclusion that prevalent forces such as western society, tend to obscure the “backgrounds” (other aspects of life), leading to the promotion of a unidimensional, unbalanced lifestyle that is heavily dictated by material gain and loss.

The Mahabharata is a famous Indian epic consist of more than 100,000 verses and 18 parvas (books) written by Ved Vyasa and is the longest Sanskrit epic ever written. Mahabharata, older of the two, is conveyed from composition of the Rig Veda, ancient Indian compilation of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. You also see Mahabharata mention few names of monarchs, mentors and priests that occurs in the late Vedic period sources. However, with passing centuries its historical root cannot now be established because new characters and incidents have developed and

Since the beginning of war among settled civilizations, the question of whether war is right or wrong has been somewhat ambiguous. Some say war is wrong in totality and should not be an option because there are no moral, justifiable grounds for the damage caused during war. Others say that war can be just. The idea of having a justifiable war is called the “just war theory” or “just war doctrine”. As early as 400BCE, within the Indian book “Mahabharata”, the notion of having a just war has been debated. The discussion of this idea, within the Mahabharata, laid the groundwork for future influential philosophers to expand on this topic. In this essay we will discuss what meets the standard of being considered a just cause for declaring war, how the just war theory contributes to today’s decisions made before and during a war, and examples of just and unjust causes of war. The main focus we will be addressing is the first and second, of the three proponents of what the Just War Doctrine. The first proponent is “Jus ad bellum” (Justice before war), the second, “Jus in bello” (Justice during war), and the third, “Jus post bellum” (Justice after war).

Cultural value is an integral factor in the Ramayana that significantly contributed to the Indian civilization hegemony. This is because the Ramayana has traveled through civilizations within the Indian culture as well as origin. Moreover, its influence has been felt by everyone, not only those living in India, but also those living in all of South-East Asia. Precisely, the Ramayana has passionately carved out its building structures in accordance with the Hindu religion, in addition to its diverse culture. For example, the existence of Ramayana Valmiki’s epic story is because of the Great Indian heritage and values. Furthermore, even in today’s Indian society, the fundamental

This sort of intermingling led to the Indian warrior epic “Bhagavad-Gita” expanding the warrior ethos to a loftier plane - from the war against one’s neighbor to an internal struggle to reach one’s better nature as Arunja, the Gita’s hero, battles against enemies whose names can be translated as greed, sloth, and selfishness – all moral weaknesses that must be overcome.

In an imperfect world torn apart by religious wars, cultural differences, and a more recent social disconnect, perpetuated by the rise of technology which has helped to isolated individuals rather than globally unite them, it becomes apparent that evil is prevailing. It appears as though the modern individual has reason to fear the “other”, rejecting those different from their selves. Such demonization and aggression towards one another has allowed the evils of the world or “Ravana” to arise. Never before have people needed a reason to believe in a figure who could help rid the world of corruption, greed, desire, and ego created by Ravana, more than they do now. In William Buck’s version of the Ramayana, he retells the ancient epic of

Many historians of religion identify the difference between a myth from a legend, by a myth dealings with gods and demons, while legends deal with humans. In India however, the same rule cannot be applied. Gods and demons are brought into the most common legends. (Williams 1) In Hindu mythology there has been a constant battle between good and evil almost since the dawn of time. The Devas (gods) representing the powers of good against the powers of evil the asuras demons), the conflict between good and the evil power of destruction, starvation, and death. (Doniger 58 )

The film about Ashoka’s life uses both historical and legendary aspects to tell a story. As a loosely biographical story, the Ashoka film’s ability to depart from a sketchy factual record actually puts us more in touch with the important thoughts and feelings of people from other times, people who lived “legendary” lives. For example, we don’t know for sure why Ashoka became so cruel, and this movie gives us an honest attempt to show us what might have caused Ashoka to feel so angry. Next, the movie depicts the battle of Kalinga as the turning point in which Ashoka starts on the path seeking redemption. Although we don’t know what exactly made him realize what he had done, the movie gives us an idea and once again puts us more in touch with

It is truth and universally acknowledged that when ‘Word’ is compared to ‘Sword’, ‘Word’ is more ‘powerful’. Words are the most powerful ‘weapons’ in the world. Scars given by sword will only harm our ‘flesh’ and will fade away with time but scars given by words will rip our ‘souls’ and will remain till the end of your life. Words are so powerful that it can make us closer and unite us and also at the same time can corrupt and separate us. Words that we speak also incarnate our image. If there had been no existence of words in this world, none of us would have made any relation, none of us would have exchanged culture, none of us would have ever understood each other’s feelings and expressions or none of us would had ever read literature. However, without words there is no existence of literature and we might have not read about ‘Indian Freedom Struggle’. Literary work of Indian Poets during the contemporary period was so marvelous that it deeply affected and influenced people and also it resulted in their participation in the movement of independence. Indian poets used words in such a beautiful manner that it moved people to happily sacrifice their lives, wealth and family for the sake of their country. Britishers feared that certain kind of literature was being distributed among people of India. Because of the patriotic songs and poems like “The desire to make a Sacrifice is in our hearts”