The third of the five Pandava brothers, and the Mahabharata's central warrior — the disciple to whom Krishna delivers the Bhagavad Gita's teaching at Kurukshetra's edge.
महाभारत · Mahabharata
Renowned as the era's finest archer, Arjuna wins Draupadi's hand at her swayamvara, spends a year in disguise as a dance teacher during the Pandavas' final year of exile, and leads the Pandava forces through much of the Kurukshetra war, guided throughout by Krishna as his charioteer.
The Mahabharata opens its most philosophically dense passage, the Bhagavad Gita, at the moment Arjuna's resolve fails him on the battlefield, seeing kinsmen and teachers arrayed against him — a crisis of conscience Krishna's teaching is addressed directly to resolving.