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One on One: Religion’s New Attitude In the Bhagavad-Gita, the relationship between Arjuna, the story’s hero and Krishna, the avatar, or incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, is indeed a very personal one. It even seems to resemble a friendship at times, despit ....

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.... with gods). Its evolution was completed sometime around the fourth century CE, although the actual transformation is largely unknown to us. It was also influenced by the Dravidian cultures of the South, which emphasized “intense devotion to the deity” (Bulliet et al. 198). This shaping of Hinduism occurred in response to changing political and religious conditions in India, including the emergence of Buddhism and the unification of its northern territory under the singular rule of the Guptas. The Bhagavad-Gita, regarded as one of the most important Hindu texts and as the essence of its belief, is said to have been composed over the ....