The Ethics of The Hindus (An Old and Rare Book)

Preface There is no addition in the Third edition excepting a fuller and more detailed statement of the contents which will be useful both to teachers and students. The author's approach is analytical and not historical.

The main ethical ideas of the Hindus are stated and explained with texts from authoritative Sanskrit works.

Jaina and Buddhist ethics have only' been occasionally referred to more by way of contrast than as an explication of the Hindu point of view.

The author expresses his thanks to Sri Gopinath Bhattacharyya, his old student and the present Acharya Brojendranath Seal Professor of Philosophy, Calcutta University for going through the proofs of the book.

Introduction The Ethics of the Hindus is based on a three-fold scheme of the spiritual life comprising the stages of sociality, subjective morality and the life absolute and transcendental. Hindu Ethics is thus social ethics and psychological ethics and culminates in the philosophy of the Absolute which is the consummation of the Spiritual life.

The social Ethics of the, Hindus is represented in a scheme of varnasramadharmas, i.e., duties relative to one's. varna or social class and one's asrama or specific stage in spiritual discipline. The duties of varna and asrama· together constitute the code of relative duties. the duties of station in life, the duties obligatory on the individual in consequence of social status, temperament, specific powers and capacities. They are to be distinguished from the sadharanadharmas, the common duties of man, the duties that are obligatory on all men equally, irrespective of individual capacity, social status, nationality, or creed.

The varnasramadharmas thus represent a code of relative duties and constitute the relativistic ethics of the Hindus.

It comprises the ethics of sociality as well as the ethics of individual capacity and is thus fuller and more comprehensive than the Platonic scheme which is the ethics of sociality only. The basis of the classification according to asrama, it will be seen, is the genetic view of the moral life, and' the importance, psychological as well as ethical, of R1Joh A. view cannot be too much emphasized.

The varnasramadharmas, as will be seen, constitute the sphere of the hypothetical imperative, but this does not imply that they are conditional on a subjective choice of though individual. On the contrary, they are all obligatory without condition in their respective spheres. Thus the duties of the Brahmin are obligatory without condition on whoever is a Brahman, and the duties of the married life on whoever has married and has a family. Only the . duties of one class or of one stage of life have no authority over another class or over another stage. Some however think that there is rule here for individual freedom, especially in regard to the order of the several asramas.

Thus it is urged that though the order from Brahmacarya through Garhasthya to the later stages is true for the majority yet there may be exceptional cases, men with special powers and capacities, who may attain to the later stages without going through the earlier.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages