While the other components of religion divide people on religion, ethics has the powerful potential to unite them on a common footing. But their substance is really the same across religions. Since each religion tries to relate different components with each other, ethics may have a distinct flavour in each religion. But they more or less agree on the basic ethical principles like commitment to truth, compassion for the weak, and self-control. Religions may differ from each other significantly in the first four components. Hinduism is not unique in this respect, since other religions also have shown the same feature.Įvery religion has the following components: (a) metaphysics and concept of God, (b) ways to salvation or liberation, (c) mythology, (d) rules or customs governing social institutions and rituals, (e) basic ethics. Just as ethics was advocated as requisite for taking religious or spiritual path, religion also served as the means and occasion for moral instruction. Between religion and ethics, it is difficult to tell which serves as a means and which as an end. Religious texts served as a very useful vehicle to convey moral values. Even in Tirukkural, there are several religious aphorisms, though the bulk of them is on ethics as such. The latter two are not regarded as religious texts, but the epics have always had a religious flavour.
Atharva veda caste and duties how to#
Collections of stories, like Panchatantra and Hitopadesha had the main purpose of giving moral instructions and hints on how to make one’s life meaningful and successful, but they did it through stories. Even Upanishads have quite a few stories to tell with ethical and spiritual implications. In the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata and in Puraanas, it is not easy to separate the didactic from the narrative (Matilal 2002: 42).
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Apart from directly imparting moral instructions in didactic passages or verses, Hinduism also widely adopted the method of combining narratives with the didactic, as Matilal points out. Bhartrihari’s Neeti-shataka and the ancient Tamil classic, The Kural, by Tiruvalluvar were entirely didactic, but such texts on moral instruction alone were rare. Even in the ancient times and during the classical period of Hinduism, preceding the medieval, almost every religious leader and scripture has shown due concern for moral values. For medieval sants and certainly for Gandhi in modern times, ethics was the essence of religion, neither metaphysics nor rituals. Hinduism may have shown a strong inclination to metaphysics and to some extent even to rituals, but its ethical concern has never been diluted. Religion has always inspired ethics in Hinduism right from the Vedic times. Tirukkural (The Kural), an ancient Tamil text of aphorisms on ethics by Tiruvalluvar (dated anywhere between second century BC to eighth century AD) also begins with the praise of God, pure intelligence or pure awareness ( vaalarivan). Interestingly, the composition begins with a religious prayer to the infinite, the pure consciousness or awareness ( chinmaatra-moorthi). The verse quoted above is from his Neeti-shataka. He is famous for composing three shatakas (sets of hundred-actually 108-verses) each on neeti (ethics), shringaara (romance), and vairaagya (renunciation). 1īhartrihari is an eminent poet in Sanskrit who belonged to the first century before Christ. We know not what to call those who harm others’ welfare for no purpose at all. Those who harm the welfare of others for their own selfish interest, are demons in human form. Those that undertake a business for the sake of others, not inconsistent with their own good, are the common lot.
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Those are the noblest persons who, giving up self-interest, bring about the good of others.