Arjuna in the Mahabharata: Where Krishna is, There is Victory

This book is a thorough study of the great Indian,hero, the Achilles of India, Arjuna, as portrayed in the epic poem Mahabharata, including its world famous subsection, the Bhagavadgiti. Attempting to portray Arjuna as ‘a Hindu, involved in Hindu culture, might see or have seen him on the basis of the epic as passed down through the centuries more or less in its current form’, the discussion focuses in turn on three ‘levels’ of Arjunk’s character, tracing their ebb and flow throughout the text : Arjuna’s semi-divine heroism; his humanization in the face of debilitating dilemmas; and his transcendence of the human condition by way of devotion to the god Krishna. In consideration of earlier and contemporary scholarship regarding the Indian epic tradition, in particular the respective works of Georges Dumezil and Madeleine Biardeau, this study locates the Mahabharata, and Arjuna with it, in the context of two thousand years of Indian religious texts, from the Vedas to the Puranas. More broadly, Arjuna is compared with Indo-European/Semitic heroes from outside the Indian tradition, such as Achilles himself, Gilgamesh, Rustam, Cuchulainn and, finally, Jesus. The complete Mahabharata story is retold for the reader’s convenience as the discussion proceeds.