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Draupadi had fi...
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Prativindhya, Sutasoma, Shrutakarma, Shatanika...
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Kaurava side in the first chapter, we have Dronacharya, Bhishma, Karna, Kripa, Ashvatthama, V...
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Kripacharya was Dronacharya’s brother-in-law. His sister, Kripi, was married to Dronacharya. Ashvatthama was Dronacharya’s son. Vikarna was Duryodhana’s brother. Somadatta’s son...
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Maharatha is a great charioteer, superior to a ratha, and is a warrior who can take on 10,000 enemy soldiers simultaneously.
Karna refused to fight as long as Bhishma was the commander because Bhishma described him as half a ratha.
The Upanishads are ancient Sanskrit texts and there are more than 200 of these. The Chandogya Upanishad is a major Upanishad and is dated to between eighth and sixth century BCE.
Krishna’s father was Vasudeva and Vasudeva’s father was Shurasena. There is no need to explain Mathura and Yamuna. The Heracles in Greek might well be a phonetic equivalent of Hari Krishna. Therefore, by the time of Megasthenes, between 302 and 288 BCE, Krishna was worshipped.
Panini’s Ashtadhyayi,
Patanjali’s work is known as Mahabhashya.
Sanskrit playwright named Bhasa. He pre-dated Kalidasa and is dated third or fourth century CE.
Krishna was a contemporary of Arishtanemi or Neminatha, the twenty-second Tirthankara.
date around 1400 BCE for the Kurukshetra War,
The Mahabharata tells us Krishna died thirty-six years after the Kurukshetra War.
Puranas (not the Mahabharata) tell us Krishna was eighty-nine years old when the Kurukshetra War was fought.
The longest chapters are the second and the eighteenth.
There is a famous stotram by Adi Shankaracharya known as Bhaja Govindam.
C. Rajagopalachari wrote a commentary on Bhaja Govindam. It was called Bhaja Govindam: A Song of Sri Sankara.18 In that, Rajaji wrote:
The way of devotion, is not different from the way of knowledge or Jnana. When intelligence matures and lodges securely in the mind, it becomes wisdom. When wisdom is integrated with life and issues out in action, it becomes Bhakti. Knowledge, when it becomes fully mature is Bhakti. If it does not get transformed into Bhakti, such knowledge is useless tinsel. To believe that Jnana and Bhakti, knowledge and devotion are different from each other, is ignorance.
each finds in the Gita its own system of metaphysics and trend of religious thought.
There were six systems of darshana (loosely, philosophical schools of thought). These were Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta.
Patanjali and the Yoga Sutra he compiled, around 400 CE.
There are 196 sutras or aphorisms in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra.
Patanjali spoke of ashtanga (eight-limbed) yoga. These eight limbs of yoga are yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi.
Yama includes rules for self-control, like non-violence and truthfulness. Niyama has norms for behaviour like purity, contentment, persistence and study. What’s the difference between yama and niyama? They sound very similar. Yama is about what you do individually. Niyama is about what has been collectively decided to be good behaviour. Asana is posture, while pranayama is control of the breath of life. Pratyahara is withdrawal from the external world, while dharana is concentration. Dhyana is meditation and samadhi is achieving union with the supreme.
The Mahabharata is divided into eighteen sections, known as Parvas. The longest of these is known as Shanti Parva and talks about what happens once the Kurukshetra War is over. As a subsection of Shanti Parva, there is a section known as Moksha Dharma Parva.
Prana is a general expression for the breath of life, as well as a specific term for the act of exhalation.
Ayama means control or restraint, so pranayama is control of the breath of life.
Pranayama has three components: puraka, rechaka and kumbhaka. Puraka is when the inhaled apana air fills up the exhaled prana air and temporarily stops its exit. Rechaka is when the exhaled prana air stops the entry of the inhaled apana air. Kumbhaka is when prana a...
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The word has multiple meanings, but broadly, this school of darshana is about rational determination.
The sage Kapila is believed to have been the first to expound samkhya.
Samkhyakarika, composed between 320 and 540 CE, or a little earlier.
Samkhya has notions of the three gunas (qualities) of sattva (purity), rajas (passion) and tamas (ignorance); and Purusha (the passive principle) and Prakriti (the active principle).
samkhya talks of tattvas (principles) involved in evolution. There are the five gross elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether/space, known as mahabhutas. Next come five subtle elements. These are form, sound, smell, taste and touch, known as tanmatras. There are the five organs of perception—eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin, known as jnanendriyas.
five organs of action—mouth, feet, hands, genital organs and anus, known as karmendriyas.
mind (manas), intellect (buddhi) and ego (ahamkara).
The ashvattha is the holy fig tree.
‘It is said that the senses are superior. The mind is superior to the senses. Intellect is superior to the mind. That [the atman] is superior to intellect.’
After yoga and samkhya, the third element in the Bhagavad Gita’s synthesis is Vedanta, also known as Uttara Mimamsa.
Upanishads, Brahmasutra (composed by Badarayana between 400 and 450 CE) and the Bhagavad Gita,
In its core, Vedanta believes the following: (1) Every living being has a soul, known as jivatman
(2) There is the universal soul, brahman or paramatman (3) Vedanta is knowledge or awareness (jnana, about the relationship between the jivatman and the paramatman. (4) There is the cycle of worldly existence, samsara and the goal is to become free of this cycle, attaining emancipation (moksha, (5) But until one has attained emancipation, one is bound by karman
Within that core of Vedanta, there are different schools of thought—Adi Shankaracharya’s Advaita; Ramanucharya’s (1017–1137 CE) Vishishtadvaita; Madhvacharya’s (1017–1137 CE) Dvaita; Nimbarkacharya’s (seventh century CE) Dvaitadvaita; Vallabhacharya’s (1479–1531 CE) Shuddhadvaita; Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s (1486–1534 CE) Achintyabhedabheda and many more.
The Bhagavad Gita is permeated with notions of Vedanta.
That supreme brahman, without origin, is said to be neither existent, nor non-existent.’
Though there is much more to the Mimamsa texts, they are primarily about the mantras and ritual of the Vedas, often known as karma kanda. In contrast, Vedanta is about jnana kanda.
‘Sacrifices, donations and austerities are not to be relinquished.
Bhagavad Gita says that the best yajna is one that is performed with jnana, knowledge.
Through this [the sacrifice], cherish the gods and those gods will cherish you.
As intended in the Bhagavad Gita, a yajna is a sacrifice that is done for the Supreme Lord. Everything else leads to bondage.
