The Priest Walchelin And The Hellequin s Hunt - 2000 Words

While Phaedrus, the Bhagavad Gita, Epicurus’ Letters to Menoeceus, and the story of â€Å"The Priest Walchelin and the Hellequin’s Hunt† all offer slightly different theories on what happens after death, they all agree that the death of the body is inevitable. However, the texts fail to give explicit instruction on how mortals should best live their life so as to be best situated for existence after death. Identifying how the texts instruct people to live life in a way that’s meaningful despite its temporary nature will help identify methods for benefitting humanity and thus retroactively reveal our shortcomings. According to these texts, the only way to live a meaningful life is to focus on the betterment of the soul. Because the soul will†¦show more content†¦Given that the soul outlives its host body, it must have somewhere to go once the body dies. The uncertainty of where the soul goes after death is the greatest source of fear for mortals. W hether the soul goes to a new body or to a place of divine reward or punishment, these texts reveal a change of scenery for souls. While many would like to believe that if they follow a generally moral path they’ll be rewarded after they die, â€Å"The Priest Walchelin and the Hellequin’s Hunt† challenges that idea. In this story, a member of the living is shocked to see â€Å"many highly regarded figures who†¦ should have gone straight to join the saints in heaven† (Joynes 50) roaming the earth as punishment for sins of which the public was unaware. Through this story it becomes apparent that previous modes of judging whether one will be rewarded after death aren’t reliable. This unexpected outcome is a source of terror and apprehension for many other seemingly qualified men, such as Prince Arjuna in â€Å"The Bhagavad Gita†. In the Gita, Arjuna vehemently protests killing any of his kin because â€Å"hell is waiting for those whose familiar rituals of righteousness are no more† (The Bhagavad Gita 47). Prior to his moment of weakness at the beginning of the text, Arjuna had been a â€Å"heroic warrior† (The Bhagavad Gita 43) and loyal follower of Krishna, but