Exam 2 Flashcards
Who is Yudhishthira speaking of in the following passage?
“…a woman of such kindliness and of such perfect beauty, /of such consummate virtue, as ever man could wish… the sweat upon whose face smells of jasmine flowers;/long haired, narrow-waisted, smooth-skinned, loving-eyed…with [her] I wager you.”
Draupadi
Whose name belongs in the blank in the following lines:
“The gambler heard the words; he used deceit in dealing./’I have won,’ said ________ to King Yudhishthira.
Sakuni
This king contributes to the destruction of his kingdom by his blindness to the effects of his oldest son’s greed, a son whose desire for power consumes him and will destroy the kingdom.
Dhritarashtra
True or False:
Duryodhana tries to further insult the Pandavas by humiliating their common wife Draupadi.
True
True or False:
In The Mahabharata, the wise counselor Vidura takes the oral invitation for the dice game to Yudhishthira, but is one of the most vocal at the game itself in trying to persuade the blind king to stop Duryodhana from destroying the kingdom by his greed.
True
This great warrior faces a moral dilemma when he realizes that although it is his duty to fight, he does not want to kill the friends and family members who are his opponents; but his confusion clears when he allows himself to be guided by the philosophy of his friend/chariot driver whose advice forms the Bhagavad Gita.
Arjuna
Who gives the following philosophical advice to the great Pandava warrior whose pity for those who will die makes him reluctant to begin the battle between the forces of the Pandavas and the Kauravas? “Never have I not existed, / Nor you, nor these kings; / and never in the future / shall we cease to exist.”
Krishna
This mighty bow, used by Krishna’s brother-in-law, has a “whip-crack…like a thunderbolt.”
Gandiva
True or False:
A central belief in the “second teaching” of Krishna is captured in the following lines “…when a man knows the self/to be indestructible, enduring, unborn,/ unchanging, … As a man discards / worn-out clothes / to put on new / and different ones, / so the embodied self discards / its worn-out bodies / to take on other new ones, / … It is called unmanifest, /inconceivable, / and immutable…”
True
True or False:
Although, in Book 5, Krishna goes to Karna before the battle to inform him that Kunti is his mother, the Pandavas are his brothers, and they will make Karna king if he joins them, Karna refuses to change sides because he has dreamed that the Kauravas will be victorious.
False
Everything is part of an all-encompassing God.
God and the Universe are the same thing.
“All is one.”
Pantheism
The entire created world is God, but God is also “bigger” than the created world (ie. Transcends it).
Panentheism
A story or stories told within a “frame” that is a different but completed narrative.
Often takes the form of a story about someone telling a story.
Frame Tale
Mahabharata and Forrest Gump are examples.
Language used for holy writing. Language in which the Mahabharata is written,
Sanskrit
Less formal language than Sanskrit, but still appropriate for literature. Common spoken form.
Prakrit
Holy Scriptures
Vedas
