Harold G. Coward - Hindu ethics: purity, abortion, and euthanasia
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Hindu Ethics : Purity, Abortion, and Euthanasia McGill Studies in the History of Religions
author
:
Coward, Harold G.; Lipner, Julius.; Young, Katherine K.
publisher
:
State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin
:
0887067646
print isbn13
:
9780887067648
ebook isbn13
:
9780585077888
language
:
English
subject
Hindu ethics, Body, Human--Religious aspects--Hinduism, Abortion--Religious aspects--Hinduism, Euthanasia--Religious aspects--Hinduism.
publication date
:
1989
lcc
:
BJ122.C7 1989eb
ddc
:
294.5/48697
subject
:
Hindu ethics, Body, Human--Religious aspects--Hinduism, Abortion--Religious aspects--Hinduism, Euthanasia--Religious aspects--Hinduism.
Hindu Ethics
McGill Studies in the History of Religions: A Series Devoted to International Scholarship Katherine K. Young, Editor
Hindu Ethics
Purity, Abortion, and Euthanasia
Harold G. Coward Julius J. Lipner Katherine K. Young
State University, of New York Press
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
1989 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coward, Harold G. Hindu ethics.
(McGill studies in the history of religions) Includes index. 1. Hindu ethics. 2. Body, HumanReligious aspectsHinduism. 3. AbortionReligious aspects Hinduism. 4. EuthanasiaReligious aspects Hinduism. I. Lipner, Julius. II. Young, Katherine K., 1944- III. Title. IV. Series. BJ122.C7 1988 294.5'48697 87-18075 ISBN 0-88706-763-8 ISBN 0-88706-764-6 (pbk.)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Contents
Introduction
1
Chapter 1. Purity in Hinduism: With Particular Reference to Patajali's Yoga Sutras*.
Harold G. Coward
9
Chapter 2. The Classical Hindu View on Abortion and the Moral Status of the Unborn
Julius J. Lipner
41
Chapter 3. Euthanasia: Traditional Hindu Views and the Contemporary Debate
Katherine K. Young
71
About the Authors
131
Index
133
Page 1
Introduction
HAROLD G. COWARD
Modern Western approaches to India, and in particular to Hinduism, have focused on metaphysics at the expense of ethics. As a result, Westerners have often tended to see Hinduism as concerned with the esoteric, the otherwordly, the mystical, and thus as having a blind eye when it comes to the ethical issues of daily life. Western religions like Judaism and Christianity were thought to offer something lacking in Hinduism, namely, the moral vitality of the Hebrew prophets and the New Testament. It was this moral vitality that many Christian missionaries saw themselves as bringing to India to challenge an ethically lax Hinduism. Sati* or widow burning and the making of caste distinctions were typical of the so-called heathen practices singled out by the missionaries for attack.1
Is Hinduism a religion which is weak or lacking in ethics? The authors of this book examine this question by analyzing Hindu teaching on three problems of significance for the modern world: purity, abortion, and euthanasia. This approach enables the reader to see what Hinduism has to say about ethical problems which are posing a serious challenge to modern scholars. In this way, the strengths and weaknesses of Hindu ethics will be immediately apparent to the Western Christian, Jew, humanist, or secularist who wrestles with how abortion, euthanasia, and purity are to be dealt with in our modern world. In this sense, these essays have importance for today's study of medical ethics, social ethics, and human rights, in that they provide a systematic analysis of these problems from the perspective of a quite different Eastern world view.
Page 2
For the student of Eastern religions, these chapters are important for their exploration in depth of the ethical foundations present within Hinduismfoundations which some would say are more basic than the metaphysics of Sankara* and Ramanuja about which so much has been written in English. Recent scholarship has begun to draw attention to the fundamental position of ethics in Hindu thought. In his Structural Depths of Indian Thought,2 P. T. Raju charts a new approach for Western graduate students studying Hinduism. Raju begins with ethics (Mimamsa* and the Dharmasastras*) and moves from that basis to a consideration of metaphysics, such as the ontology of Sankara's* Vedanta*. Raju justifies this approach by noting that past presentations of Indian Philosophy in English (e.g., S. Radhakrishnan's two-volume indian philosophy) have subsumed and equated ethics with the theories of salvation offered by the various schools. "But," says Raju, "such an equation gives rise, and has given rise to the impression that Indian thought has no idea of moral and ethical law."3 Raju makes clear the importance of the distinction for which he is arguing:
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