India too has its share of Guru Shishya stories. Similar to the Buddhist and Zen stories, these narrate how a student is initiated into an esoteric tradition or how he is enlightened about the essential truth of existence by his preceptor. The Upanishads which deals with the nature of the supreme consciousness, the non dual reality and its realization by the initiate are embedded with such stories. Famous Guru-Shishya pairs in the epics include – Arjuna and Krishna, Aruna and Dronacharya, Eklavya and Dronacharya, Rama and Vashista, Rama and Vishwamitra & Rama and Agastya – Agastya teaches Rama the sloka Aditya Hridayam which empowers him to kill the ten headed beast Ravana.
- Geeta Ramanujam and Swetha Prakash