Note: while less "formal" than previous writing assignments, the normal requirements remain for your responses, including scrupulous documentation of any references to outside resources.

I. Identification and Definitions -- describe and/or define the following terms as precisely as possible

Vedas

dharma

moksha

Srauta ritual

varnas

Samsara

rta

puja

maya

karma

atman

Sutras

Vedanta

Essay questions

A. Contrast the two notions of order we have examined -- i.e., rita and dharma.

Then describe the caste system as a structure of social roles, including the "outcasts" or dasyus-- and explain the central importance of the concepts of dharma and karma in the caste system.

Finally, how does the shift from the focus on rta to the focus on dharma, karma, and the emergence of the caste system represent the introduction of "morality" into Hindu thought? Be sure to include discussion of:

i) what sorts of political conditions are at work in this shift -- conditions hinted at, for example, by the emergence of Buddhism and Jainism (as "returns" to older styles of religious orientation); and


ii) what political functions are accomplished by the doctrine of dharma.

B. What is the theological crisis which results from the introduction of the doctrine of karma ?

C. What does Brahman come to mean in the age of classical hinduism? How, in particular, does the new conception of Brahman provide an escape from the theological crisis you describe in "B"?

As well, what political function does the doctrine of Brahman fulfill? Compare this briefly to the political functions of dharma and karma.

D. The Bhagavad-Gita is written in part to respond to a two-fold crisis issuing from the doctrine of karma. (As you have already described), one the one hand, accumulating finite amounts of karma cannot ever justify the ultimate reward (of infinite worth) -- i.e., release from rebirth and absorption into the Brahman. This means that the religious doctrine now has a problem with enforcing or motivating adherence to the caste duties: why follow the dharma if it will never get you to the ultimate reward?

On the other hand, the notion of absorption into Brahman as a religious goal -- while serving, as Fenton notes, as an "escape valve" for especially lower caste members -- is also problematic insofar as the "mystical" effort to focus on the Brahman likewise leads to the neglect of caste duties: if I engage solely in the meditative and other yogic techniques in order to achieve unity with the Brahman, I will ignore my caste duties.

How does the Bhagavad-Gita resolve this dilemma?

To take up this question, be sure to explain:

1. the character of evil or chaos, especially as described in ch. 1 (i.e., the threat of disorder; how is this threat a reflection of the two-fold crisis described above?

2. the source of this evil or chaos, especially as described in ch. 2 -- i.e., the ultimately illusory sense of being a self apart from Others, a sense dependent on limiting one's view of the world to what the senses reveal;

3. the non-dualistic character of this evil or chaos -- i.e., the sense that the world revealed by the senses is not somehow totally false, as opposed to a somehow totally true world of awareness -- but rather that the sense-world is part of the ordered whole, and our mistake comes from taking the world revealed to us by the senses alone as "the truth."

4. Krishna's teaching on practicing non-attachment to the success or failure of one's actions. Explain here:

i) how non-attachment fits in with (indeed, logically follows from) the conception of evil or chaos as stemming from human misunderstanding of the nature of the self (i.e., based on sense-experience, the self thought to be apart from rather than a part of the ordered whole); and

ii) how the doctrine of non-attachment resolves the two-fold dilemma described above. That is, explain how the doctrine of non-attachment works to:

a) retain the "new" goal of achieving Brahman (because one is not working for finite karmic reward, but only duty for its own sake), and

b) encourages the individual to follow caste duties (because duty is duty), and

c) thus avoid the problem with karma (the "karmic crisis" you described above, i.e., that no ultimate salvation is possible -- and thus no motivation for observing caste duties follows).

E. What is the significance of the lingam and yoni emblems in the worship of Siva? How does this use of sexual imagery contrast with the understanding of sexuality in the West, especially in Christianity? In particular, what kind of logic is at work with these emblems? (Be sure to not only identify the logic, but also to explain it, and describe how the use of sexual emblems "fits" this logic.)

F. Describe Saktism, including the pantheon of goddesses it encompasses. Compare the worship of the feminine -- as both creator and destroyer -- with, say, the worship of the village godlings (as resting on the insight that sacrifice is a necessary part of the order of things) or the worship of Siva (in which Siva's power of destruction is also seen as part of the larger order of things). Again, what kind of logic is at work here? (Be sure to not only identify the logic, but also to explain it, and describe how the complementarity of creation/destruction "fits" this logic.)

G. Describe the worship of one or two of the other Hindu gods (Visnu, Krisna, etc.). Then compare and contrast these as examples of "the way of devotion" with one of the patterns of worship we explored as an example of "the way of knowledge."

The fact that "Hinduism" includes these two ways of religious practice (along with the third, "the way of action") can be described as a religious pluralism. That is, the fact that each of these ways is differentfrom the other does not mean that one must dominate as the "one true religion," attempting to keep the others subordinate (as evil, wicked, mean, and nasty). Rather, a diversity of religious paths are recognized as legitimate; those who follow one path tolerate and accept those who follow another path.

How does this religious pluralism compare with Western religions? Again, what kind of logic is at work here? (Be sure to not only identify the logic, but also to explain it, and describe how the plurality of paths to God "fits" this logic.)