Bilimoria - Indian Ethics volume 1

Purushottama Bilimoria, Joseph Prabhu and Renuka Sharma 2007

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Purushottama Bilimoria, Joesph Prabhu and Renuku Sharma asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the eidtors of this work.

First published 2007 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Indian ethics: classical traditions and contemporary challenges: An anthology
1. Ethics India 2. Hindu ethics 3. Buddhist ethics I.Bilimoria, Purushottama II.Prabhu, Joseph, III. Sharma, Renuka
170.9'54

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Indian ethics: classical traditions and contemporary challenges: An anthology / edited by Purushottama Bilimoria, Joseph Prabhu, and Renuka Sharma.
p.cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7546-3301-2 (hardback)
1. EthicsIndia 2. Social ethicsIndia. I. Bilimoria, Purushottama II. Prabhu, Joseph. III. Sharma, Renuka M.
BJ122.163 2004
70954dc21

2003063853

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

ISBN-13: 978-0-754-63301-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 9-781-3519-2806-9 (ebk)

J.N. Mohanty

Bimal Krishna Matilal

Daya Krishna

Laurie L. Patton

Roy W. Perrett

Ian Whicher

Purushottama Bilimoria

Maria Heim

Christopher Key Chapple

Padmasiri de Silva

Damien Keown

Jay L. Garfield

Mark Siderits

M.K. Sridhar and Purushottama Bilimoria

Bhikhu Parekh

Christopher Key Chapple

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Rajendra Prasad

Joseph Prabhu

Stephen Phillips

This is a remarkable achievement both in scope and organization and in the outstanding quality of some essays. The editors have earned the gratitude of all Western students of Hindu and Buddhist thought and of comparative ethics. New possibilities of dialogue have been opened up.

Alasdair MacIntyre.

Indian ethics is one of the great traditions of ethics in world-historical philosophy. Indian ethical insights have influenced a wide spectrum of thinkers ranging from the early Greeks and Goethe to Emerson and Thoreau. Yet there have been few systematic studies of the broad range of Indian ethical reflections in contemporary philosophical idiom.

This comprehensive compendium explores the scope and limits of Indian ethical thinking. Thirty distinguished writers engage orthodox and heterodox schools of thought from the Vedas, Upanishads, the Mahbhrata and Bhagavad-Gt to Buddhist, Jaina, and Skhya-Yoga philosophies, and reflect on the interpretation of their teachings and practices in contemporary contexts and modern secular sensibilities.

The General Introduction examines the distinctive nature of moral philosophy in India as compared to the West. Part A analyzes classic texts dealing with such themes as: Hindu values, virtues and statecraft, the ends of living, rites and gifting, acts and duties, the implications of karma and dharma, caste issues, law, the ethic of yoga and discipline, and the reality of evil and suffering. Part B focuses on Buddhist and Jaina ethics through such topics as emotions, action, consequences, virtue-ethics, renunciation, enlightenment, human rights and ecology. Part C extends and adapts these traditional moral thinking and praxis to modern and postmodern worlds, encountering contemporary thinkers such as Gandhi and Aurobindo, and tests them against present-day issues such as rights, citizenship and democracy, religious tolerance, environmental and animal ethics, and the challenges posed by the imperatives of peace and nonviolence, justice and freedom. Finally, Volume II will pay special attention to post-colonial developments and feminist and applied ethics on such questions as the gendered self, gender equity, sat and abortion, health care and biomedical ethics.

Given the range of topics covered and the eminence of the featured authors, this volume offers an invaluable resource to a wide variety of readers in the fields of philosophy, religion, sociology and cultural studies, and to lay seekers and activists in pursuit of Indian ethical wisdom and South Asian responses to contemporary moral dilemmas.

This volume has been dedicated to the memories of
the late Bimal K. Matilal, Renuka Sharma, Ninian Smart, Bernard Williams

for inspirations and contributions of each in their own way to the genesis and completion of this project.

Kuryd vidvs tath sakta cikrurlokasagraham

The disinterestedly wise ought to desire for the holding together of all being
(Bhagavadgt III 25)

Our aim in undertaking this compendium is to provide an account of Indian ethical traditions from early antiquity to the present and to do so in contemporary philosophical idiom. Scholars of comparative philosophy who resist the temptation of an easy relativism, acknowledge that there are three great traditions of world philosophy, those of India, China, and the West. Likewise, studets of comparative civilizations have documented the vast influence of the Indian tradition on figures and groups as diverse as the early Greeks starting with the Orphics and the Pythagoreans the German Idealists, and Emerson and Thoreau in the Americas. And yet academic philosophy, at least in the West, has not registered either the intrinsic importance or the influence of Indian ethics. From a philosophical standpoint this curious omission has had baleful effects insofar as it has severely narrowed the scope and range of ethical discussion. At a time when there is much talk of pluralism, cross-cultural sensibilities, multiculturalism, and globalization such a gap is doubly unfortunate because it hinders the conversation between cultures that is much needed in a complex contemporary environment.

Given this lacuna, it is strange that there have not been more efforts made by scholars of Indian philosophy to fill this gap. There have indeed been fine and significant books on Indian metaphysics, epistemology, and logic, but sadly very few systematic and wide-ranging studies of Indian ethics. These volumes, we hope, go some way towards meeting this need.

Anyone who has worked within a classical philosophical tradition of such longevity and complexity knows that it demands a number of skills. One needs not only linguistic, philological, and historical knowledge, but also philosophical competence and the ability to interpret ancient wisdom in contemporary contexts. When we conceived of this project we had three purposes in mind: first, to provide a faithful account of the great texts and major schools of both the orthodox and heterodox traditions; second, to relate such an account to present-day concerns and contexts; and third, to highlight what we felt might be distinctive about the Indian ethical traditions in terms of both content and style, text and context. We have expanded more fully on these aims in our general introduction.