Sons of Gods: The Mahabharata Retold

 Warning: Identical post to today's Sadhana Day by Day! I haven't posted for a long time. I do have a new post in mind; a continuation of the last one. In a few days I'll get down to it, but in the meantime, you can read a gallery feature I wrote for Beliefnet: The Russian Doll of Hinduism in Ten Sanskrit Terms  And while you're on the Beliefnet website, please read the following article entitled Microsoft's Encarta: Biased Against Hinduism? A point-by-point examination of the popular encyclopedia's treatment of Hindu beliefs. It's excellent, and echoes a syndrome I've long been aware of: the denigrating way Hinduism is often portayed in the West. I did try to correct some of that portrayal in my own Russian Doll article, simply by showing "the other side" of Hinduism; but the Beliefnet article above takes the bull by the horns and address the subject point by point. I've commented on the article on its page, so do take a l...

The Gita really begins with Arjuna's despair as he sees the great army of the Kauravas before him on the battlefireld of Kurukshetra. Krishna, seeing all these kinsmen arrayed here to fight, my mind reels; I can hardly stand, for my limbs grow limp. My mouth is as parched dry as desert sand; my body quivers. The mighty Gandiva bow slips from my fingers wet with sweat; my skin is on fire. What greater crime is there than killing one's own friends and relatives? What gain is victory, what use sovereignty, what joy in wealth and pleasures, what value life itself, if gained by killing one's loved ones? It  is a great sin, Krishna. I cannot do it. How can we ever live happily hereafter, if we kill our own people? I cannot do it, Krishna. I prefer to be poor, and live as a beggar, or a pauper. Krishna, I cannot fight. He casts away his bow and arrows and sinks down in his chariot in utter dejection. And who cannot sympathise with him? After all the tribulations of the yea...

As promised, I've published Chapter 58: The Song of God as a blog page above. To understand what is happening here one really needs to have read the Mahabharata, but the Gita is important  that it has taken on a life as its own: 18 chapters of sublime wisdom, known  as a major world scripture in its own right. For Hindus it's the equivalent of the Bible. There are many translations, of course, and I certainly have not read them all in order to make a choice as to which is the best. The version I own is a translation by W. J. Johnson published by the Oxford University Press. The chapter 58 of Sons of Gods is a much condensed version of the Gita, and not a translation of a selection of verses: it's what I believe to be the essence of Krishna's message to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Much as I would have loved to include the entire Gita, doing so would have broken the word limit I had set for myself and held...

There's an interview with me today on Hindu Blog about the Mahabharata.  And last week this interview was published on Diane Dooley's writers' blog: Interview and Giveaway with Aruna Sharan.  My thanks to those blog owners.  Meanwhile, on my new blog Sadhana Day by Day the ideas for future posts are simply overflowing -- I'm very excited about putting all of this to paper!  And right here on Sons of Gods I'll be keeping my promise to highlight the Bhagavad Gita over the next few days.