Frigga’s Day, February 15: Comparative Religion

EQ: Do Hindu texts suggest links between religions?

Welcome! Gather paper, pen/pencil, wits!

Bhagavad-Gita: Art

Krishna, Christ?

WE GO TO 2ND LUNCH!

Reading Journals Must have total of 3 from

Ramayana, Bhagavad-Gita (quotation & 100 word ref.)

ELACC12RL-RI1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis

ELACC12RL-RI2: Analyze two or more themes or central ideas of text

ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop ELACC12RL6: Distinguish what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant ELACC12RI8: Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal International texts ELACC12RL-RI9: Analyze for theme, purpose rhetoric, and how texts treat similar themes or topics ELACC12RL10: Read and comprehend complex literature independently and proficiently. ELACC12W9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions ELACC12L2: Use standard English capitalization, punctuation, spelling in writing. ELACC12L3: Demonstrate understanding of how language functions in different contexts ELACC12L4: Determine/clarify meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases ELACC12L5: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, nuances ELACC12L6: Acquire and use general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

TURN IN TODAY: 3 Freewrites: Hindu Art

3 Reading Journal entries

http://krishna.org/christ-and-krishna-the-name-is-the-same/

www.etymonline.com

World Literature and Composition: Bhagavad-GitaExcerpts adapted from a translation by Barbara Stoler Miller

Bhagavad-Gita (“Song of the Fortunate One”) is about 2000 years old, slightly younger than Ramayana, and like it one of the most sacred Hindu texts. It features a dialogue between Arjuna, a mighty warrior and general, and Krishna, his charioteer – who happens also to be an avatar of Vishnu. As the poem begins, Arjuna is afraid to go to war against his cousins:

I see omens of chaos,Krishna; I see no goodin killing my kinsmenin battle….

They are teachers, fathers, sons,and grandfathers, uncles, grandsons,fathers and brothers of wives,and other men of our family….

What joy is there for us, Krishna,In killing my cousin’s sons? Evil will haunt us if we kill them, Though their bows are drawn to kill us.

The sins of men who violatethe family create disorder in society;This undermines the constant lawsof caste and family duty.

Krishna, I have heardthat a place in hellis reserved for menwho undermine family duties.

In short, Arjuna fears that by killing many family members and other good men, he will violate the dharma and create bad karma. But as avatar of Vishnu, Krishna has insight into dharma. He says that Arjuna is wise to consider these things, but that the dharma requires its followers to know what is necessary to fulfill the dharma, and to do it even if it causes pain. The dharma has put Arjuna in this position, so now he must:

Look to your own duty;do not tremble before it;nothing is better for a warriorthan a battle of sacred duty….

If you fail to wage this warof sacred dharma,you will abandon your own dutyonly to gain evil….

Be intent on action,not on the fruits of action; avoid attraction to the fruitsand attachment to inaction!....

Krishna continues to counsel Arjuna:

A man cannot escape the resultsof action by abstaining from actions;he does not achieve successjust by renunciation.

No one exists for even an instantwithout performing action; however unwilling, every being is forcedto act by the qualities of nature.

When one’s senses are controlledbut one keeps recalling sense objects to the mind,one is a deluded hypocrite.

When one controls the senseswith the mind, and engages in the disciplineof action with his faculties of action,detachment sets him apart.

Perform necessary action;it is more powerful than inaction; without action you even failto sustain your own body.

Action imprisons the worldunless it is done as sacrifice;freed from attachment, Arjuna,perform action as sacrifice!....

Action comes from the spirit of prayer,whose source is OM, sound of the imperishable; so the pervading infinite spiritis ever present in rites of sacrifice.

He who fails to keep turningthe wheel here set in motionwastes his life in sin, addicted to his senses, Arjuna.

But when a man finds delightwithin himself and feels inner joyand pure contentment in himself,there is nothing more to be done….

Always perform with detachmentany action you must do;by performing action with detachment,one achieves supreme good.

Reading Guide: Bhagavad-Gita1. What is the Bhagavad-Gita, and how old is it?

2. Who is Arjuna?

3. Who is Krishna?

4. Whom is Arjuna about to fight?

5. Arjuna says he sees “______________ of ________________” if he kills his kinsmen.

6. “_________ will haunt us if we kill them,” says Arjuna, even “though their ________ be ___________.”

7. According to Arjuna, “the sins of men who violate the family create” what?

8. According to Arjuna, what is “reserved” for men who “undermine family duties”?

9. Summarize Arjuna’s worry in terms of karma and dharma:

10. Krishna is just a chariot driver, so why does Arjuna ask his advice about karma and dharma?

11. Krishna tells Arjuna that dharma requires that its followers know and do what?

12. Krishna tells Arjuna, “If you fail to wage this war … you will abandon your own ___________.”

13. “Be intent on ____________, not on _____________________________,” says Krishna.

Freewrite 20 words: Explain the difference between these two things.

14. Krishna says we “cannot escape the ___________ of action by ________________ from action.”

15. According to Krishna, one is a “deluded hypocrite” if one “controls the ______________ but …

keeps recalling ______________________________ to the _____________.”

16. Krishna says that “necessary ________________ … is more powerful than ________________.”

17. Krishna says that “_________________ imprisons the world / Unless it is done as ___________.”

18. According to Krishna, what must action come from?

19. “Always perform with ____________________ any _____________ you must do,” says Krishna. Freewrite 20 words: What does this mean?

TURN IN TODAY:

Reading Guide: Bhagavad-Gita At least ONE Reading Journal Entry

o Quotation from B-Go 100 words’ commentary

Students begin Reading Journal with quotations from Ramayana Reading Journals

You will be reading much this term, both inside and outside of class, even when you don’t realize it. Keeping a record of words and thoughts is something writers and scholars have done forever; it helps to grab information and ideas as they pass through your ears and eyes, and to file them into your mind. Your journal will take the form of a double-entry journal:

On the left side, quote from works we read and works you read on your own. Quote word-for-word; cite according to MLA Rules. Number each entry. Unit Journal needs at least 20 quoted passages – at least 10 from class reading.

On the right side, write a reflection, at least 100 words, on that quoted passage. Explain what the passage is “about,” and why that passage matters, and apply it outside the work. This is graded for thinking, not grammar; don’t just fill up 100 words’ worth of space.

# Examples: Quotation/Citation Examples: 100 word reflection

1 She should have died hereafter;There would have been time for such a word Tomorrow ….

Here Macbeth has just found out that his wife is dead, and he doesn’t seem to care. Basically he is saying that she was going to die anyway, so why should he care? And it also says she

– William Shakespeare, Macbeth V v 20-23 should have died later because he doesn’t

have time to deal with it right now. This is especially sad since the couple started out so happy, sharing everything, and now Macbeth has no feeling at all. It reminds me of one time when my little brother wanted to play and I was too busy and told him to go away and he asked me why I didn’t love him anymore.. That was a sad day.

2 Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength.

– Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From The Underground. New York: Dover Thrift Editions, 1992, p. 8.

Like Dostoyevsky’s narrator I have a hard time accepting limits. This guy is in prison and will not accept the reasons for it. In the same way I have a hard time accepting the reasons for anything that stands between me and what I wish were true, even when I realize that the wishes are impossible. When I was a teenager I could dunk a volleyball, but I was never quite able to dunk a basketball. I know now that that is unlikely, but I haven’t given up, though realism says I should do so and find a more attainable goal.

Unit Reading Journals are due on Test Days.