Arjuna’s Dharma

Here I depict one of the central stories in the Bhagavad Gita, which is told as follows:

Poised between two great armies at Kurukshetra, Arjuna is overcome by despair at the prospect of slaying his kinsmen. He renounces the battle, but his charioteer, Krishna—an avatar of the divine—intervenes. Krishna reveals that the soul (Atman) is eternal, rendering the fear of death an illusion. He explains that it is Arjuna’s sacred duty to partake in the battle, for this path is one of dharma; Arjuna must fight with detachment in order to fulfil his dharma as one who restores morality and justice in a corrupted world. As such, the Gita presents life as a righteous war, where one must act with total detachment from the results, surrendering the ego to a higher divine purpose.

I have represented this story symbolically, rather than literally. Arjuna is turned away from his dharma, represented by the light in the top right. He is turned towards his own outstretched hand, symbolic of the earthly concerns that plague him in the face of this battle. The council given by Krishna is shown as a looming and ominous hand, which will gently yet overwhelmingly persuade Arjuna to change his conviction towards the sacred duty that he must face head on.