RELI 185 - The Bhagavad Gita: Conversation and Revelation

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as ASIA 185) Since its emergence some two thousand years ago, the Bhagavad Gītā (“the song of the blessed one”) has become a cornerstone of Hindu traditions all over the world. The Gita’s life begins as series of chapters in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, when the great warrior Arjuna refuses to fight in a battle that is unfolding before him—a battle that would require him to kill his own relatives, teachers, and loved ones. In response, Krishna—who is Arjuna’s charioteer and closest friend, and who also reveals himself to be God—persuades Arjuna to fight by offering an extraordinary account of divinity, devotion, action, detachment, concentration, ritual, ethics, and social theory. The primary aims of our course are to read closely and interpret the Gita itself. We pay special attention to context, whether that means placing Krishna’s complex discourse in the context of early South Asian religious currents—Hindu, Buddhist, Jain—or making sense of the Gita as a work of literature within the larger narrative of the Mahābhārata. Indeed we may wonder what genre, or genres, the Gita belongs to: Where is it a song or a poem? Where is it a discourse or an instruction? Where is it a story? Where is it descriptive, and where is it prescriptive? We pay special attention to places where the Gita creates intellectual and emotional currents that can seem to run against one another: Is detachment the thing, or is it devotion? Dualism or nondualism? Nonviolence or violence? Finally, in the latter part of the course, we discuss how the Gita has come to be the globally popular text that is is today. Nell Hawley.

Two 75-minute periods.

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Course Format: CLS