My paper provides an analysis of the characters Draupadi and Krishna in the Indian epic the Mahabharata. This ancient text chronicles the great struggle between the Pandavas and their evil cousins, the Kauravas, as they struggle for the throne in Hastinapura. This legendary story is a keystone element in contemporary Indian culture. Delving into this important epic broadened my perspective of the ancient world. Having only been introduced to Western epics such as The Odyssey and The Iliad, I found it refreshing to learn about this beautiful text. While a superficial understanding of this story can be understood by even a child, the Mahabharata provides incredible and poetic lessons that can only be found through close reading and relentless investigation. 

In my paper I explore how the characters Krishna and Draupadi are doubles, or mirror images of one another. I closely went through the text to identify the characters’ similarities and differences, as well as their actions to see if the author was trying to communicate a message through their doubling. This required a slow and detail-based examination of hundreds of pages of the massive text. I engaged the following Principles of Close Reading (PoCR): archetype, repetition, and symbolism to prove my thesis by means of textual confirmation. Through this process I have argued in my paper that the deeper, symbolic significance of this doubling illuminates the role of human beings as co-creators of the universe in alignment with kairos time.