Consider the questions regarding the Gita in the second writing assignment.

Prepare an initial response to these questions - especially after reviewing the following stress points and notes.

Stress Points:

1. The chaos that results from evil - 33

• We know what fate falls
  On families broken:
  The rites are fogotten,
  Vice rots the remnant
  Defiling the women,
  And from their corruption
  Comes mixing of castes:
  The curse of confusion
  Degrades the victims
  and damns the destroyers.
  The rice and the water
  No longer are offered;
  The ancestors also
  Must fall dishonoured
  From home in heaven.
  

2. The yoga of knowledge

a) "indifference" - supported by the Parmenidean argument (36)

• That which is non-existent can never come into being,
  and that which is can never cease to be.
  Those who have known the inmost Reality know also the nature of is and is not.
  

b) Perspectives: from the standpoint of the enlightened; from the standpoint of the caste (38-39)

c) Doctrine of "actionless action" - non-attachment (40f.) (Also note critique of late Vedic ritual.)

d) how to become enlightened - vs. attachment (42f.)

Additional notes - Fenton, ch. 4: Classical Hinduism: the Way of Devotion

Worship of Siva, Vishnu - probably the most popular, and the most similar to Western traditions.

Also a product of the stress period that emerged in (a) the development of Buddhism, Jainism and (b) Way of Action + Way of Knowledge (Vedanta) -

but: the Way of Devotion resolves still another crisis - this one emerging from a further conflict between:

• (b) the renewed emphasis on caste duty (Way of Action) and
  
  the alternative stress on moksa, mukti - liberation through unity with Brahman (Way of Knowledge - Vedanta)
  
  i.e., "Crisis III": how to resolve the apparent conflict between the social/political need to reinforce the caste system (apparent in the institution of the Dharmasutras, the doctrine of karma, etc., as constituting the Way of Action) with
  
  the interest in individual release from karma and the unending round of rebirth in the caste system - an interest fueling the growth of the Way of Knowledge (Vedanta) [as well as the growth of Buddhism, Jainism, as alternatives to "Hinduism" as Aryan, Vedic in origin]?
  

Worship of Shiva:

Shiva as creator/destroyer; hermaphrodite:

lingam/yoni emblems (cf. Western dualism, esp. re. body, sexuality)

Note also how the religious goal in this tradition

a) differs from that sought in Vedanta (Way of Knowledge):

• The union with God of which these Shaivas speak is not like the mystical union with Brahman of the Advaita because it entails neither a loss of individuality nor any sense that the worshipper has become divine. Shaiva teachers agree with Muslims and Christians in saying that it would be blasphemous for human beings to identify themselves with God. (68)

b) on the way to resolving the crisis: salvation can be achieved - but without losing the self.

--> Saktism (worship of Shiva's active feminine reproductive power - sakti - identified with Durga, Kali and other manifestations.)

The goddess is likewise bivalent, complementary: both destructive and creative - the mother who beats the child, who only clings more tightly (70).

Also note: Saktism stands as

• ..the modern world's most highly developed worship of a supreme female deity. The worship of Durga has most of the characteristics of monotheism. Her power alone is understood to create, control, and destroy all phenomenal things, and thus no Sakta worship is directed to any being who is not one of her forms or appearances. But Durga is not understood to be the whole of the divine nature; the realm of the transcendent and changeless is Shiva's, and those who seek liberation from the world (moksha) must seek it by meditation on Siva in yoga. Saktas, however, express little desire for moksha. As people concerned about the world, they seek from the goddess health, wealth, and general well-being. (70).

Tantric yoga, finally, is an explicitly sexual form of goddess worship/yoga (70).

[This means that Saktism both preserves an original goddess tradition apparently operating in India well before the arrival of the Aryans - while it also affirms the Vedic interest in good things in this life.

--> salvation does not require our giving up "this world" - as we must in Vedanta (Way of Knowledge) as we seek precisely to escape self/world and the infinite round of rebirth as defined by karma.]

Vishnu (Vaishnava tradition)

While the worship of Shiva and Durga apparently appeal to persons with a starkly "realistic" appreciation of the difficulties of life -

worship of Visnu begins in the Vedic age among persons "concerned about the problem of immortality and also those who had at heart the welfare of society. Visnu worship appealed to those who saw the universe as friendly and good." (71)

The Bhagavadgita emerges here - first of all, as Fenton notes, to resolve the central crisis we have examined: the conflict between the social/political need to sustain the caste system (through the doctrine of karma, insistence on caste duty in the Dharmasutras, etc.) - and the apparently widespread interest in escaping the caste system through dissolution of self with Brahman (Vedanta). Hence, as we have discussed - the opening book describes precisely this crisis as faced by Arjuna, a warrior.

The resolution: non-attachment, "desireless action":

• the duties of life need not be abandoned (and thus we can sustain the caste system)
  
  IF we perform our caste duties
  
  not because of the self-interest at work in the doctrine of karma (I do good to achieve karmic reward - a better caste role in my next life - and to avoid karmic punishment - a worse caste role in my next life)
  
  but
  
  "...simply because the scriptures require us to perform them or simply as a service to God, with no desire to make any personal gains, then those acts will have no real connection with us in the operation of the processes of retribution. No karma will be created by those acts, no ties with the world will be deepened by them, and no future births will ensue. After a life lived in the selfless performance of one's social role, the dispassionate soul, unfettered still despite a fully active life, is forever freed." (72)
  
  which means:
  
  we also achieve release from the round of karmically-determined birth and rebirth (the goal of Buddhism, Jainism, and Vedanta (Way of Knowledge) -
  
  but without threatening our adherence to caste duty (the consequence of turning from the Way of Action to Vedanta, Buddhism, etc. and their shared goal of release from the karmic cycle)
  
  and without having to pay the price of loss of individual self (the goald of Vedanta, Buddhism, etc.), turning from the the goods of this world (an original Vedic affirmation), etc.
  

This also means: the effort to resolve this problem in the Gita leads to the discovery/invention of a new moral/religious insight:

• "duty for its own sake," love of God for its own sake -
  rather than fulfillment of one's duties, love of God for the sake of achieving reward/avoiding punishment,
  --> because such motivation remains essentially self-centered.
  (Cf. the book of Job, Satan's challenge to Deuteronomistic theology, and the resolution in Job's recognition of God's transcending human comprehension -- cf. in turn ch. 11 of the Gita.)