Thursday, October 13, 2011

Comparing and Contrasting Caste Duties from the Bhagavad Gita to views of Confucius and Zarathustra

Throughout the Bhagavad Gita a few key points are stressed pertaining to the caste system that compare and contrast with the views of Zarathustra and Confucius. One of them is believing in an afterlife. According to the Bhagavad Gita this afterlife was the reincarnation in many things over and over again and gave people a reason not to fear death, especially when going into battle. This belief is somewhat similar to Zoroastrianism because they believed in a final judgement after you died, deciding your ultimate destination(heaven or hell). While Zoroastrianism contained life after death, Confucianism believed in no afterlife, and in the words of Joey from Friends, "when you're dead, you're worm food." another belief stressed in the Bhagavad Gita is that people's actions should be done from the good inside of them rather than for the reward. This related to Confucianism because Confucius believed being a good person to benefit the whole world rather than one person. In Zoroastrianism, they believed in being a good person, but they also committed good deeds to benefit themselves when it came to the final judgement.

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