Hindu Philosophy- A Rational Life

    “ As men learned more about the world they found themselves ever less capable of expressing to their educated fellowmen what it was that they had learned. The gap between life and knowledge grew wider and wider’ those who governed could not understand, those who thought and those who wanted to know could not understand them, those who knew ” realized Will Durant in the preface of the Story of Philosophy. The topic is borrowed from Max Muller who was the first to work on the concept of pessimism in Hindus. Max Muller in Six system of Indian philosophy found that, “ All Indian philosophies have been charged with pessimism and in some case such a charge may seem well founded, but not all. ” He again added further, “ Indian philosophers are by no means dwelling for ever on the miseries of life. They are not always whining and protesting that life is not worth living.” Certainly, taking that world as unreal and only liberation is real, means that philosophy is indicating...

  No Satan for wrong deeds   Interestingly comparing the philosophy of Hindu race with other parts of the world, we found no trace of the concept of good and evil struggling to overpower. The Hindus had never maintained the work of evil for wrong deeds. There is no evil for original Hindu religion that lures the Adam and Eve to do something wrong and against the divine because good or bad is the outcome of one’s own action. In Christianity and also in Islam and even in other religions, fight between divine and devil still continues and the main work of devil is to work against the divinity and the divine power works to bring the man again on right path. The fight between these two positive and negative powers remained working since the episode of Satan.   But for Hindus there is no evil, even the Ravana- the villain in the  Ramayana epic was not an evil power. The Ravana was praised as the wise man and a pundit who knows even more than any other seer. Even th...

  Theory of Ashrams and Karmas   The concept of Sanskara was the major reason of moral life in which Hindus lead their life according to such codes. The Sanskaras define duties of every individual as per their age group. The four parts of Ashrams was the main reason that made people behave accordingly.   The Brahmacharya, the age of a child and adolescence, the purity and learning and getting education was the main duty of a person. The Dharma was the major essence of this life age.   The Grahsata was the family life and the duty was to support the family and respect the elders and earning the living, the dharma, kama artha was the main subject of this life age in which it was the duty of the person to support his family, respect and service his parents, grow children and earn the living as prescribed.   The Vanprasth is the age which is retiring from the responsibility and wonder for religious places in which Dharma was important.   The...

  Bhakti and ethics   And the Bhakti cult emerged that preached equality of all religions and the unity of godhead. There were saints like Ramananda, Vallabhacharya and Chaitanya made the gods as beloved of mass and the Bhakti system of religion spread in Hindu land. This period is quoted by historians as a reforming in religion.   During Mughul period the Hindu religion exist in supremacy and they also adopted the rectification influenced by Islam. These two religions were parallel formation of society and history shows that education was the priority both for Hindus and Muguls,    “ Female education of some sort existed during the Mugul period. The daughters of the imperial household, and of rich nobles, were given tuitions in their houses and we may assume that the daughters of the middle class people among the Hindus received primary education along with the boys in the schools and that some of them were conversant with religious literature. The Auxi...

  Moral of non-violence & conduct   The Jainism brought new type of ethics which influenced the greater part of Hindus. The system of worship as well as way of life was totally different from the Vedic system of living. Jainism emphasize on purity and non-violence. These two streams had a clergy system to support and encourage their philosophies and therefore there were five vows of these clergy including non-violence, truth, not to steal, abstention, renunciation by thought, speech and action and renunciation by word and deeds.   Historians believe that the then prevailing violence against animals and against castes was diluted by these new streams of thoughts. Importantly these two streams provided the right to worship to common man-   “ The merciful Buddha who is true friend of all, has taught the right doctrine to everybody without making any distinction of any kind” Tattva Sangraha 3512.   And most important was that these streams were based o...