Research paper: The Bhagavad Gita

Studying a single work of World Literature, judiciously selected and thoroughly researched, can provide the student with a methodology for approaching any future work.

Skills exercised in the process, in other words, become "portable," allowing the researcher to approach any other work with essentially identical strategies. With that pedagogical principle in mind, each student is required to produce a research-based paper of six (6) pages on the Bhagavad Gita that explores the following subtopics: (1) literary context, (2) religious context, (3) characters, (4) teaching, and (5) subsequent influence. Each of these subtopics is discussed below.

1. Literary context: The Gita is an episode contained within a larger, epic-length work, the Mahabharata, though its organic placement within that encompassing text is debated by scholars. Some feel it was an integral part of the epic as originally composed, while others feel it may have been inserted in that larger work in order to derive authority and prestige, perhaps, from the host text. Explain this debate, in a succinct manner, noting evidence from both sides of the debate and offering your opinion on the relative significance of the issue. Why (or why not) might this issue be important to our understanding of the Gita?

2. Religious context: The Gita draws on a Hindu religious context and deploys concepts, such as avatara, dharma, bhakti, maya , karma, and yoga, that may appear quite foreign to Western readers or, worse, may have been distorted by Western usage in popular culture.

Explain in their original religious context these concepts (and any others you feel relevant) for your readers, offering an example of the way in which each surfaces within the Gita and influences its primary theme.

3. Characters; Central to the Gita, of course, are its two main characters,Kristina and Arjuna. Explain the role of each, commenting on the representative status of the two. Whom or what does Krishna represent within the narrative? What or whom,in turn, does Arjuna represent? What is the nature of the personal dynamic between the two characters?

 Priority should be assigned to this segment of your paper.