Comparative Ethics in Hindu and Buddhist Traditions

Comparative Ethics in Hindu and Buddhist Traditions

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Author: Roderick Hindery
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 326
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8120808665

Description

The exploratory volume in the new field of comparative ethics serves the diverse goals of groups variously interested in International law and morality, in comparative religious ethical ideals, or simply in cross-cultural literature and drama.

Ethically minded person confirm the age-old premise that human wisdom about cultural and moral growth is not the prerogative of religious, philosophical or other elites. While popular traditions tend to be drowned out by elitist, discriminatory models for just human relationships, they have better upheld the freedom and beauty of diversity.

The author draws moral ideals from primary Hindu sources-popular and formal, literary and spiritual. The same method is applied for Buddhist moral texts. Introducing method in comparative ethics with a synopsis of Hindu mystical tradition, the author discusses in detail ethics in the Rgveda, Upanisads, Laws of Manu, Ramayana, Gita, other popular classics, poetry, drama, philosophers, and reformers. After summarizing pluralism in Hindu ethics, the author sketches ethical thought in Mahayana Buddhist texts. The book contains elaborate notes, two appendices, critical textual matter, a diagram of topical parallels, a bibliography, and an index.

REVIEWS

A major resource in which to explore the moral traditions of some major human civilizations. Professor Hindery has given readers a sometimes startling, but always informative antidote what which to oppose conventional assumptions about Asian forms of moral imagination and judgement.
-Prof James Smurl
Indiana-Purdue University at Indianapolis

The chapter on Mahayana Buddhism is right on course without the usual presumptions and presumptuous attitude. Buddhism is not a finished system of thought; it is a growing, dynamic phenomenon. Thus, Buddhist ethics flourishes only in its dynamic application. In this Professor Hindery’s understanding of the roots of the ethical nature as exemplified in the bodhisattva ideal shows all the promise of significant and sensitive contact, dialogue, growth, and dissemination. It should be read by moralists of universal persuation.
-Prof Kenneth K Inada
State University of New York at Buffalo

In this impressive, scholarly wok Roderick Hindery analyzes at length both the formal canonical and popular canonical literature of Hinduism, and very briefly, some Mahayana Buddhist texts, to determine whether these two religious traditions exhibit any concern to move people from contemplation to action, from mysticism to morality …. It should be in all religious studies and libraries, since it should be read in its entirety by all serious scholars of Eastern thought, even persons without a special concentration in ethics.

An antidote to simplistic assumptions about Eastern thought and ethics. In contemporary Western theology, horizon against which to view Eastern and Western thought.
-Marjorie Reiley Maguire
Horizons

Contents

FOREWORD PROF JAMES F SMURL

PERMISSIONS

ABBREVIATIONS

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

PREFACE

CHAPTER

Method in Comparative Ethics: Synopsis of A Hindu Mystical Tradition; A Systematic, Introductory Glossary to External Structures and Terms in Hindu Morality
Ethics in the Rigveda
Ethics in the Upanishads
Ethics in the Laws of Manu
Ethics in the Ramayana
Ethics in the Bhagavad Gita
Ethics in other Popular Classics, Poetry and Drama
Ethics in the Philosophers and Reformers: Sankara ad Gandhi as Types
Summary of Pluralism in Hindu Ethics; Epilogue on Ethical Relativism and Motivation in Comparative Ethical Judgments
An Introduction to Ethical Thought in Mahayana Buddhist Texts

Appendix I

Critical Textual Matters:
The Ramayana
The Mahabharata

Appendix II

Diagram of Topical Parallels
Selected Bibliography

Index