Ranganathan, Shyam, Ed. 2017. The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics. London - Bloomsbury

i
THE BLOOMSBURY RESEARCH

HANDBOOK OF
INDIAN ETHICS
ii
BLOOMSBURY RESEARCH HANDBOOKS

IN ASIAN PHILOSOPHY
Series Editors:
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Lancaster University, UK.

Sor-hoon Tan, National University of Singapore.
Editorial Advisory Board:
Roger Ames, University of Hawai’i; Doug Berger, Southern Illinois University; Carine
Defoort, KU-Leuven; Owen Flanagan, Duke University; Jessica Frazier, University of
Kent; Chenyang Li, Nanyang Technological University; Ronnie Littlejohn, Belmont
University; Evan Thompson, University of British Columbia.
Series description:
Bringing together established academics and rising stars, Bloomsbury Research
Handbooks in Asian Philosophy survey philosophical topics across all the main
schools of Asian thought. Each volume focuses on the history and development of
a core subject in a single tradition, asking how the field has changed, highlighting
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for understanding Asian thought.
From knowledge, being, gender, and ethics, to methodology, language, and art,
these research handbooks provide up-to-date and authoritative overviews of Asian
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Other titles in the series:

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy and Gender,
edited by Ann A. Pang-White
The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies,
edited by Sor-hoon Tan
The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art,
edited by Arindam Chakrabarti
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THE BLOOMSBURY RESEARCH

HANDBOOK OF
INDIAN
ETHIC S
Edited by Shyam Ranganathan
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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v
CONTENTS
Preface vii
P art I: W estern I mperialism , I ndology , and E thics 1
1 Moral Philosophy: THE RIGHT and THE GOOD 5

Shyam Ranganathan
2 Philosophy, Religion, and Scholarship 35

Shyam Ranganathan
3 The West, the Primacy of Linguistics, and Indology 59

Shyam Ranganathan
4 Beyond Moral Twin Earth: Beyond Indology 85

Shyam Ranganathan
5 Interpretation, Explication, and Secondary Sources 103

Shyam Ranganathan
P art II: M oral T heory (M etaethics and N ormative E thics ) 123
6 The Scope for Wisdom: Early Buddhism on Reasons and Persons 127
Jake H. Davis
7 Jaina Virtue Ethics: Action and Nonaction 155

Jayandra Soni
8 Patañjali’s Yoga: Universal Ethics as the Formal Cause of Autonomy 177

Shyam Ranganathan
9 Nyāya Consequentialism 203

Kisor K. Chakrabarti
10 Mindfulness and Moral Transformation: Awakening to Others

in Śāntideva’s Ethics 225
William Edelglass
11 Three Vedāntas: Three Accounts of Character, Freedom,

and Responsibility 249
Shyam Ranganathan
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vi CONTENTS
P art III: A pplied E thics 275
12 Medical Ethics in the Sanskrit Medical Tradition 277

Dagmar Wujastyk
13 Toward a Complete and Integral Mīmāṃsā Ethics: Learning

with Mādhava’s Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons 299
Francis X. Clooney, S. J.
P art IV: E thics and P olitics 319
14 A Study in the Narrative Ethics of the Mahābhārata 321

Edeltraud Harzer
15 Ethics of M. K. Gandhi: Nonviolence and Truth 341

A. Raghuramaraju
16 The Ethics of Radical Equality: Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan’s

Neo-Hinduism as a Form of Spiritual Liberalism 357
Ashwani Peetush
Glossary 383
Index 385
vii
PREFACE
The purpose of this book is to bring together the best of contemporary research into
Indian ethics—“cutting edge” was how it was described to me. I hope it approximates
this ideal.
This topic was initially a curiosity for me—one that had to do with philosophical
interests in metaethics, the philosophy of thought and translation. My South Asian
background made more sense to me in my moral philosophy classes as a North
American, nineteen-year-old undergraduate (where we read Kant, Mill, and Aristotle)
than in my philosophy of religion classes, where the topics of conversation (the
problem of evil, divine foreknowledge, the compatibility of science and scripture)
were far from what was familiar to me given my family’s background. My family God,
Vishnu, was prone to giving moral philosophy lectures on battlefields and elsewhere
and the topics of my moral philosophy classes (of practical rationality, the principles
of choice, whether we should take consequences or rules seriously) were the very
substance of what was our religion. And yet, I found it amazing that the common
view among scholars is (and hopefully now merely was) that Indian philosophers
were not interested in ethics, but were they ever religious! Over time my interest
in Indian ethics evolved from mere metaethical concern to a substantive interest.
Indian philosophy has some interesting contributions to make to moral philosophy,
but we have to be open to philosophy in the Indian tradition to appreciate them.
This book is the result of several scholars’ work. But as the editor, it was my task
to see it to completion, and there are several sources of inspiration and guidance that
I wish to acknowledge.
My teachers in the study of Indian philosophy are overwhelmingly my philosophy
professors, who, without exception, had no specialized knowledge of Indian
philosophy and were by and large immersed in projects connected with Western
figures. They were philosophers trained in the analytic or continental traditions.
They taught me about Indian philosophy because they taught me about philosophy.
When one gets over the fact that Indian philosophy is written in Indian languages
like Sanskrit, it is just philosophy. If one does not understand what philosophy is, no
amount of attention to the details of Sanskrit grammar, provenance of manuscripts,
or anthropological insight will help the study of Indian thought. And if one does
not know what philosophy is, one will confuse this with the study of Sanskrit,
manuscripts, and Indian culture (as is often the case in Indology). I am hence quite
grateful to their generosity in sharing their disciplinary knowledge of philosophy
with me.
I want to thank my colleagues at York’s Philosophy Department who have
supported and encouraged my teaching and research interests— all of them.
viii
viii PREFACE
A special thanks is owed to Alice MacLachlan who encouraged me to include some

Indian philosophy in my survey courses, such as Introduction to Philosophy, or
Introduction to Ethics. Even in my third year Ethical Theory course, I now reserve
the last week for Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra, after having reviewed the spread of issues
from analytic moral theory starting with Moore and Ayer, through normative theory
and some applied issues.
Eric Scarffe, my research assistant, patiently read over drafts of my work and
provided feedback, which was useful at a time when many of my arguments had not
seen the light of day.
To the hundreds of students that I have taught each year at York I am most grateful.
In teaching them and responding to their questions and quizzical expressions, many
of the issues that bear upon the study of Indian ethics have become clear to me.
My students have shown me that philosophy is the most tolerant and inclusive of
disciplines: when we focus on the argument and immerse ourselves in the task of
explication, our own background stops being a barrier to understanding what was
alien to us.
I would like to thank the Philosophy Graduate Student Association at York for
inviting me (at the last minute) to deliver a paper at their graduate conference in
2012. The occasion forced me to come up with a paper in a week, and the result was
the kernel of my Planet Ethics thought experiment. I similarly owe Colleen Coalter,
my editor at Bloomsbury, a debt of gratitude. Toward the very end, she asked me
to rewrite my introduction into smaller parts. That forced me to be more explicit
than I expected to be, and hence was born my analysis of explication, which features
prominently in my introduction.
I am especially grateful for the friendship, encouragement, guidance, or (virtual)
support (via the Internet), of the following scholars whose contact and feedback
helped me along my way with this project: Ajay Rao, Amod Lele, Ashwani Peetush,
Brian Black, Brian Huss, Chad Meister, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Chandan Narayan,
Claudine Verheggen, Clinton Debogorski, David Slakter, Dermot Killingley, Elisa
Freschi, Evan Thompson, Gordon Davis, Ian Whicher, Ithamar Theodor, (the late)
Joseph O’Connell, Joshua Moufawad-Paul, Jyotirmaya Sharma, Karen Wendling,
Kristen Andrews, Matthew Dasti, Muhammad Ali Khalidi, Nathaniel Roberts, Nell
S. Hawley, Purushottama Bilimoria, Richard Gombrich, Robert Myers, Tom Angier,
Vasudha Narayanan, and Vishwa Adluri. The “or” here is inclusive.
The contributors to this book were a pleasure to work with: I am grateful to them
for their wonderful contributions.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to my family who have supported me as I explored
the unglamorous research projects of a philosopher. I am especially grateful to my
wife Andrea, who supported and encouraged my research and writing.
Finally, I am most grateful to our readers for taking an interest in Indian Ethics.
1
PART ONE
Western Imperialism,
Indology, and Ethics
Indian moral philosophy, Indian ethics, is moral philosophy or ethics written by
Indians. Insofar as it is philosophy, studying Indian ethics should be a function of
applying best disciplinary practices to it. This requires being clear about what such
practices amount to. Yet, very little has been written on the topic. There are few
factors that explain this lacuna.
One factor is that philosophers transmit this disciplinary knowledge to their
students via practice, and not by theory. It is a disciplinary know-how, not a know-
that, which structures the possibilities of research in philosophy and one that will
be unapparent in interdisciplinary contexts such as Indology—without special effort
to make it apparent. It, the discipline of philosophy, is logically prior to what we
discover via philosophical research and is rarely treated as the object of inquiry itself.
Unlike most research findings that depend upon our research interests, the basic
disciplinary knowledge is something we can practice from multiple perspectives and
tends not to be reported in the findings of philosophers. It constitutes pedagogy in
philosophy.
A second factor is that as it is logically prior to philosophical research, it is
easy for philosophers to believe they are writing about it, while they are in fact
confabulating. We confabulate when we endorse false memories. This occurs when
we identify the consequences (such as our favored philosophical theory, or the
scenery) of the implementation of a practice that we can undertake from multiple
perspectives (such as philosophy or driving) with the practice that generates these
impressions. Confabulation is most tempting as the consequences of one’s own
practice will seem most reasonable and compelling. The error can be avoided by
affirming the importance of third party perspectives in corroborating first party
findings. The distinction between first-and third-party perspectives is essential to any
discipline, such as driving or philosophy. The third factor is that the contemporary
continental and analytic traditions with their roots in ancient Greek philosophy
2
2 WESTERN IMPERIALISM, INDOLOGY, AND ETHICS
assumes (without critical awareness) the interpretive model of thought: accordingly,

the thinkable is one’s perspective especially as encoded in one’s idiolect (what seems
true to oneself), not a discipline (such as philosophy, mathematics or science) that
coordinates multiple perspectives. In practice, this model of thought collapses the
distinction between first-and third-party perspectives.
The Eurocentric starting point of this tradition of understanding on the model
of interpretation is the West: it not only understands thought as a perspective, but
also treats the European experience as the universal frame as a result of its European
heritage. Interpretation is imperialistic as it depicts autonomous third- party
perspectives as incompatible with thought and as something to be appropriated.
Scholars with only a passing understanding of philosophy derived from the West
will hence be misled about what philosophy is by the West. The West’s imperialism
is hence at play in the obfuscation of Indian ethics, as it relies upon a model of
thought that does not tolerate third-party perspectives. In the first chapter, “Moral
Philosophy: THE RIGHT and THE GOOD,” I draw a distinction between best practices in
philosophy—explication—and compare this with interpretation. Explication draws a
clear boundary between first-and third-party reasons. This opens up an appreciation
of the basic concept of “ethics”—THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD—as also the basic concept of
the Indic term “dharma.” Interpretation, given Eurocentric assumptions about ethics,
generates the familiar distinction between secular moral philosophy and religion,
while explication does not. Explication depicts the rationality of an ethical theory as
internal to a perspective, and the differences across ethical theories as the objectivity
of the disagreement. This is the concept ETHICS itself. Interpretation identifies the
rationality of ethics with a Eurocentric perspective, and problematizes everything
else as mysterious and confused. In “Philosophy, Religion, and Scholarship,”
I respond to a host of objections but I also address the common myths about the
lack of ethics in Indian thought and the correlative view that India is the land of
religion. Interpretation attempts to treat the reasons of the interpreter as beyond
reproach, and the religification of what cannot be derived from first-party reasons
is a strategy employed to preserve the incontrovertible status of the first party’s
reasons. The usual associations with religion—that it is a faith, tradition bound and
non-philosophical—is the projection of the failure of interpretation to understand
a dissenting perspective onto the dissenting perspective. Religion is merely moral
theory (or moral theories) that disagrees with Eurocentric ethics.
In “The West, the Primacy of Linguistics, and Indology,” I explicate the history
of philosophy and argue that interpretation derives from, and constitutes, the basic
model of thought in the Western tradition of philosophy stretching back to the
Greeks. This model of thought identifies a perspective with a thought, and thereby
attempts to explain everything (including alien perspectives) in terms of first-party
reasons. It is immortalized in the thematic Western theory of thought: thought is
linguistic meaning. The primary importance given to linguistics in Indology is not
only motivated by this dominant Western account of thought, but also applies the
account of thought to India that is responsible for Western imperialism.
3
WESTERN IMPERIALISM, INDOLOGY, AND ETHICS 3
In “Beyond Moral Twin Earth: Beyond Indology,” I take the standard thought
experiment in the literature to explain moral communication across cultures a step
further and assume a context of radical moral diversity. I call this world “Planet
Ethics.” Against this backdrop I test models of thought from the Western tradition
against models of thought based on explication. The standard Western models result
in tyranny and imperialism, while the explicatory account allows for free discussions
on morals across languages. I consider responses to this argument based on Donald
Davidson’s interpretive recommendations. I note that the strategies that Davidson
recommends accord with what is common practice in Indology, but this includes
treating Indians like Archie Bunker—a loveable bigot who does not know how to
speak language. None of these interventions bring us any closer to appreciating
moral disagreement on Planet Ethics.
In “Interpretation, Explication, and Secondary Sources,” I summarize the
findings, draw attention to the differences between the explicator and interpreter,
and summarize the contributions of the authors to this book as it helps us understand
Indian moral philosophy. Understanding the role of ethics in Indian philosophy
is very much like the challenge of understanding the movement of stars in the
heavens. No new data is required: we need to give up the idea that our perspective
is privileged. The rejection of the privilege of our perspective results in a yogic
approach to thought that fulfills the requirement of inquiry and cross- cultural
communication. The basic systems of Indian philosophy are moral philosophical,
and the failure to appreciate this is akin to Geocentrism: the undue importance
given to our own perspective in knowledge.
4
5
CHAPTER ONE
Moral Philosophy:
THE RIGHT and THE GOOD
SHYAM RANGANATHAN
1. INTRODUCTION
Moral philosophy is an important part of philosophical research but is poorly
understood, in part because philosophy as a discipline is popularly misrepresented
as an objectless inquiry of speculation. Ethics, concerned with our values and
expectations, seems especially troubling as a form of philosophical inquiry, for what
we want and expect out of life seem emblematic of subjectivity. Ethics would hence
have little to do with what is objective, but intrinsically with what is subjective or
intersubjective. In the effort to give ethics some content, it is often misrepresented
as the study of shared values or customs. Ethics is thus confused with social-scientific
and ethnographic concerns, just as philosophy is popularly confused with the
psychological project of studying and exploring one’s own thoughts.
In this chapter, I account for philosophy as a discipline that determines the
content of moral philosophy. Philosophy in general, and ethics in particular, is
objective. The idea of objectivity is commonplace. Objects are not only what we
converge on from differing perspectives, but also what explain our disagreements.
When you and I look at a mirror from differing perspectives, we know it is an object
because its asymmetry relative to our perspectives explains why we disagree about its
appearance to us. Objectivity contrasts with illusions, such as reflections in mirrors
or perhaps pictures of mirrors taken from differing angles. We cannot converge
on illusion from differing perspectives, because the asymmetry of the observer
explains what is experienced in the case of illusion. Truth is often conflated with
objectivity, but if truth is not to be a redundant notion, no different than objectivity,
then it is not what explains our disagreements. Rather truth is the property of a
representation that corresponds or fits what it represents. In explanation we have a
choice: to prioritize objectivity or truth.
My plan in this chapter is to contrast the methodology that prioritizes truth—
interpretation—with the prioritization of objectivity—explication. Explication—a
concern for objectivity—is the cornerstone of philosophy. Explication allows us to
identify the basic concept ETHICS and DHARMA as what theories of ethics and dharma
6
6 SHYAM RANGANATHAN
disagree about: THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. This is the concept expressed by not only the
English terms “moral” and “ethics,” but also “dharma” in Indian philosophy. This
sets the stage for a very general explication of four moral theories: Virtue Ethics,
Consequentialism, Deontology, and Yoga/Bhakti. I draw examples from the Indian
and Western traditions. In the penultimate section, I reflect on the findings. A careful
explication of moral philosophy provides no grounds for distinguishing between
secular European ethics and non-European religion: Indian theories of dharma are as
much theories of ethics as theories of ethics from the Western tradition are theories
of dharma. Interpretation creates the distinction between ethics and religion via
the imposition of one’s own values on an alien perspective. Via interpretation, the
difference between the two perspectives is reified as the religious component of the
alien perspective. Explication only reveals moral theory in the case of dharma.
2. WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
Here is a crude approximation: philosophy is to ideas and thoughts what mathematics
is to numbers. This might be a crude way of putting it as mathematics moves beyond
numbers, but it is a useful starting point as it approximates how philosophers
view their own discipline and their own work. The ordinary way of classifying
philosophy as a discipline within the Humanities is misleading. Philosophy is not
about our humanness. We could be Martians and engage in philosophy. Moreover,
the study of human beings is anthropology—philosophy is a distinct discipline from
anthropology. Philosophy is often popularly conceived as the effort to describe or
grasp how we think. That is not philosophy either—that is psychology or perhaps
sociology. Anthropology, sociology, and psychology are social sciences. The social
sciences are empirical sciences. Philosophy is not an empirical science—neither is
mathematics. However, both are relevant to life in ways that go beyond what can be
empirically studied.
Today it is not uncommon to apologize for philosophy’s lack of empirical support.
Some believe it is a problem that philosophical claims are not empirically grounded
(cf. Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich 2001). But this is a confusion (cf. Cappelen 2012).
The value of mathematics cannot be reduced to its empirical content: 2+2=4 is
not true because of our experiences in counting—nor is it the kind of thing that is
subject to empirical testing, as though if we do the experiment and find out that 2+2
turns out to be 5, then we have to revise arithmetic. In the case of arithmetic, we are
largely concerned with how we should think about quantities, and if our practice
departs from the advice of arithmetic, so much the worse for actual practice (Frege
1980; Husserl 2001).
Insofar as philosophy is concerned with thought it is related to how we should
think about various topics—not necessarily and not usually with how we do think—
and in this respect it is similar to mathematics and departs from social scientific
inquiry. Its value is not reducible to its conformity to sociological and cultural
expectations. Rather, the value of philosophy consists in rendering philosophical
7
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 7
commitments—widely or narrowly shared—transparent so that we can objectively

judge and compare them on their merits. A package so judged is often called a
“philosophy.” The most plausible of philosophies are formulated to a high degree of
abstraction and generality such that the abstractions are general and the generalities
are abstract. Such philosophies have a higher degree of relevance across contexts,
and are not bound to the contexts that they were initially developed for and in.
How does philosophy help us render our precritical ideas transparent so that we
may judge them on their merits? Philosophical research breaks down this challenge
into two parts. The first necessary activity of philosophy is the explication of a
perspective. (The perspective might be of a historical figure or a fictional character
in a dialogue, or one of many perspectives of a character or figure over time. It may
even be what is articulated in an anonymous text or it may be a fictional interlocutor
invoked by a real author.) The second activity of philosophy is to contribute to the
diversity of philosophical options. This can either take the form of assessing the
merits of an explicated perspective, or it can take the form of a new philosophical
package that excels where alternatives fail. The second activity begins the moment
we have succeeded in explication, for then we are in an objective position to compare
alternatives that can explain the disagreements. The line between the two activities
is logical, not temporal.
2.1. Explication versus Interpretation

To explicate a perspective P—augustly called a “philosophy”—about topic t, is to E:
• discern the reasons rP that constitute P, which explain P’s use of “t” and
to arrive at a systematization of rP that explains the uses of “t.” The
systematization of rP that entails P’s t-claims is P’s theory of t. The reasons rP
may be what P explicitly says, or what is entailed by P.
Note, the result of E is a theory of t, but the theory of t does not entail E. The
reasons that explain the use of P’s t-claims are (usually) everything that constitute P
aside from its t-claims, for these ancillary reasons function as premises or theoretical
explanations of P’s t-claims. To read texts as philosophy is to read them as articulating
perspectives P that provide arguments for their various t-claims. The goal of the
explication is to provide the simplest (abstract and general) account of t-claims,
entailed by the set of reasons r constituting a particular perspective P: this is to arrive
at P’s theory of t. If I follow this procedure, I can converge on your perspective P, its
constituent reasons rP, and your theory of t with you—though I may not agree with
your P or your reasons rP.
For instance, if you are a philosopher concerned with morality, then when
I explicate your perspective P, I identify your reasons rP (explicit or entailed by what
you say) that explain your use of the term “morality.” In this case, the systematic
explanation of your use of the term “morality” would simply be your theory of
morality. This is what it is to understand your perspective on morality. But as I relied
on your reasons to explain your use of the term “morality” in my explication, I do
8
8 SHYAM RANGANATHAN
not have to agree with you about morality to converge with you on your theory of
morality. I can hold a completely differing theory of morality, and yet accurately
converge on your theory of morality with you.
Explication is the gold standard of philosophical research and also the primary
skill in philosophy as it allows us to determine the possibilities of philosophical
debate, which we can converge on from all possible perspectives in the debate.
Explication is hence theory neutral, and can thereby be used to study all philosophy.
But it can also be employed to arrive at the same results regardless of the substantive
commitments of the explicator because these do not figure in the evidence that goes
toward an explication. Explication is hence theory neutral with respect to both what
it explains and the substantive commitments of explicators.
What we explicate plays a pivotal role in explaining our philosophical
disagreements. We can converge on them from differing disagreeing perspectives.
Hence, what we arrive at in philosophy via explication is objective, as objects
are what we can converge on from differing disagreeing perspectives. The reason
that what we arrive at are objects, and not illusions, is that their asymmetries
relative to our vantage explain our disagreements. In the case of philosophy,
the peculiar features of perspectives, their reasons, and the resulting theories
that explain their t-claims relative to our substantive vantages explain whether
we agree or disagree with each other. Explication is an objective research
methodology that transcends our mind— our perspective, reasons, opinions,
and experiences—for it leads us to objects of philosophical inspection that we
can converge on from differing perspectives. If we want our perspectives to be
accurate about objectivity regardless of our orientation, we need them to be
abstract and general. Hence, candidate philosophical theories are expected to
be formulated to a high degree of generality and abstraction.
We can explicate any term usage relative to a perspective. But certainly the
interesting terms that invite explication are those whose usage differs significantly
across perspectives. This difference in usage is evidence of a theoretical disagreement.
The reason that explication seems so interesting in these cases is that simple social
scientific explanations about what is meant do not work. The social scientific
approach treats such interesting terms as having their meaning filled out by
something social and observable. In this interesting case, the descriptive expectation
proliferates meanings (usually relative to each context of use) and cannot provide a
unified explanation for why one word is used in so many ways. In philosophy, these
are the central terms: “reality,” “knowledge,” “good,” “right,” “ethics”—the terms
that first-year philosophy students want to understand by dictionary definitions to
the chagrin of their philosophy professors.
The alternative to explication is subjective: interpretation. Interpretation
is often confused with translation. The two concepts are often treated
interchangeably— particularly in the hermeneutic (“interpretive”) tradition
(Heidegger, for instance, was reputed to have held that every translation is itself
an interpretation, cf. Lilly 1991: vii; Gadamer 1996: 384, 387)—but there are
important differences between the two. Translations and interpretations are
9
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 9
easy to confuse, for both function as proxies for original texts. However, an
interpretation is an explanation: it seeks to explicitly shed light on a distinct
corpus. It is an intermediary. A translation, in contrast, takes on the literary
identity of the original (Ranganathan 2007, 2011).
To interpret some package P is for the interpreting subject S to I:
• use S’s reasons (or if you prefer, “premises,” “assumptions,” “beliefs,”

“truths,” and even “tradition”) rS in the explanation of P (cf. Gadamer 1996;
Davidson2001a, 2001b).
Note that the result of I is I: the result of an explanation of P in terms of rS is rS.

The results of an interpretation are nothing logically different from the conditions
of interpretation. If it turns out that in explaining P in terms of rS one arrives at
something else, rNot-S, then something has gone amiss in interpretation: one has
transcended the bounds of one’s explanatory resources. I would have to either revise
my original reasons used in explanation to accommodate the discovery, or reapply
the original stock of reasons. If I revise my reasons, I bring my perspective closer to
what I am explaining. If I reimpose my reasons, I would have to reify what cannot
be explained by my reasons as inexplicable as the definition of the differentia. This
would render the findings consistent with and entailed by my reasons. The former
is the strategy of domestication, and the latter the strategy of religification. Both
ensure that the results of interpretation are logically equivalent to the conditions
of interpretation. The two strategies are often concurrent. If I interpret your
perspective on morality, then I am committed to understanding your views on the
topic by my reasons. But insofar as our perspectives are different, this differentia
forces me to revise my views to accommodate your views, or to decide that some of
your views on the topic are inexplicable. But I can domesticate these inexplicable
views by correlating them to my conceptual scheme. So some of your views that
you articulate on “morality”—the inexplicable ones—will be redescribed by me as
“legal,” or perhaps “ritual” insofar as they correlate with what I am inclined to call
legal or ritual. Your one term “morality” will then correspond to several concepts in
my scheme. Your term “morality” will seem religious (mysterious yet traditional) to
me as it corresponds to many things, some of which are ethical, and the logic that
connects these various ideas are under the surface of my domestication, inexplicable
by my reasons.
2.2. Why We Should Reject Interpretation

Interpretation is deeply troubled as a procedure for understanding. First, it is often
presented as the default approach for understanding because knowledge requires
truth, and interpretation is a criticism of method without any concern for truth. This
is often taken to be a lesson of Gadamer’s famous Truth and Method: “The idea of a
formal method is indeed convincingly criticized by Gadamer” (Ramberg and Gjesdal
Winter 2014). But interpretation, and the prioritization of truth in explanation, is
a formal method. It is not the truth plus a method. So interpretation cannot take
10
10 SHYAM RANGANATHAN
credit for being correct because it is true. It is in no sense the default methodology
of understanding.
Second, it trades on a conflation between two different senses of reason. We often
define reasons as our own opinions. But the reasons that lead us to a conclusion may
be someone else’s opinions—and we can disagree with the reasons. Failing to clearly
distinguish the two senses of a reason leads to believing that any reason that you
have for a conclusion—even if it is someone else’s—has to be your reason.
A third problem is that interpretations are always subjective. An interpretation is
the explanation of some perspective P by virtue of the interpreter’s reasons—not in
terms of what is objective. Change the perspective of the subject who is interpreting,
and one derives a different interpretation. Explanation of a perspective in terms of
what is objective is explication—this does not make use of the subject’s reasons in the
explanation. Hence, the explicator can change their mind about what they believe is
reasonable and arrive at the same explication of a perspective P. Indeed, people with
differing substantive positions on a common controversy can converge in explication,
though they disagree with each other and what they are explicating. Interpretation
renders this impossible. The associated problem here is that interpretation conflates
truth and objectivity: because interpreters fancy themselves as relying on true beliefs
in explanation, they think that their explanations are objective. But this is not the
case: even if one’s reasons are true, interpretation is subjective for the outcome of
interpretation depends on the beliefs of the interpreter—not on what is being explained.
The fourth problem with interpretation is that it is the structure of begging questions.
The question begging nature of interpretation has long been affirmed poetically in the
hermeneutic tradition in Western philosophy as the hermeneutic circle. The standard
description of the circle is the mutual informing of the understanding of the part and
whole of a text (Ramberg and Gjesdal Winter 2014).
Interpreters use the term “valid” loosely to mean correct or right (cf. Ramberg
and Gjesdal Winter 2014). In logic, we distinguish between valid arguments and
sound ones. Valid arguments are those whose conclusions follow from the premises.
We identify these conclusions as what must be true if the premises are true. We can
identify valid arguments without needing to agree with the premises or without
the premises being true. Valid arguments are objective: we can converge on them
without agreeing and the premises of a valid argument need not be true. At times,
we have to disagree with them: P and Not-P, therefore P and Not-P. This is valid,
but you would be foolish to agree with the argument as its premise and conclusion
are contradictions. The argument also begs the question: it is viciously circular and
hence fallacious—the premises entail the conclusion and the conclusion entails the
premises. Yet the contradiction that is the premise is the reason that takes me to
the conclusion, and the conclusion in turn depends on this reason. If you do not
distinguish between a reason for a conclusion and taking this reason to be true, you
confuse reasons with what you take to be your reasons. You would have to believe
this argument if you did not draw the appropriate distinction.
Sound arguments are the valid arguments with true premises, and while we
might converge on the validity of an argument, we often do so while disagreeing
11
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 11
about the truth of the premises. This is very easy in philosophy where the premises
are themselves controversial. The argument is objective— what we identify in
explication— and it explains our philosophical disagreements. This means that
understanding someone else’s argument is not the same as trying to understand how
they are right or how they could be right—a matter that fans of interpretation get
confused about (Gadamer 1996: 292; compare also Davidson’s various conflations
of understanding others as understanding them as believing truly or reasonably as
you see it: Davidson 1996: 66–67; 2000: 23–24; 2001b: 136, n. 16; 2001c: 27).
Whether an argument is right has to do with the truth of the premises. Understanding
is accomplished when we appreciate whether someone’s argument is valid, whether
we agree or disagree. This is enough for us to understand their reasons for their
conclusion.
Yet, in interpretation, the result of I is just I: employing rS in explanation results
in rS. Here, the conclusion and the premises entail each other.
Begging the question is a fallacy. The problem here is not that question-begging
arguments are invalid. They are all valid. The problem with it is that we can use
this trick of begging questions to change invalid arguments with true premises, into
sound arguments by rendering the inferential relationship between the premises
and conclusion bidirectional. If you do not know how, just repeat your reason as
your conclusion. This is begging the question. If your reason is true, you have a
sound argument all of a sudden. That is easy, when all you are doing is describing
what you believe—these descriptions will be true of you. The problem is that
you have established nothing objective by begging questions. This is the problem
with interpretations: they do not actually contribute to knowledge. They merely
repackage what we already believe as the explanation. It is the illusion of reason and
objectivity.
This sounds strange, as though interpretation is a kind of prejudice or bigotry
uninterested in what transcends our minds. But indeed, this is what defenders of
interpretation claim (Gadamer 1996: 270). It is to understand others in terms of
what one believes is true as determined in advance of the facts (Davidson 1986: 316).
Prejudice on this account is unavoidable and an essential part of understanding. This
view is the philosophical version of original sin. The sin of prejudice is the coefficient
of knowledge, and at best we can be aware of it but we cannot get rid of it. Of course
we can get rid of it if we allow for the conclusions of our reasoning to not count
as evidence for our reasons. Valid, non-question-begging arguments show that the
reasons that we employ even when they lead to a conclusion are inessential to the
conclusion of research as the conclusion does not entail the reasons. Interpretation is
the effort to avoid this risk of criticizing our reasons as part of the project of research
by rendering the reasons essential to the conclusion.
The fifth problem with interpretation is that it is imperialistic, and its efforts
to accommodate secondary perspectives is colonialist. When we think about
imperialism, we think about political arrangements where policy and the right
opinion are determined by a center of power that has authority over other distal
perspectives. Insofar as all explanation has to be in terms of rS, and the result is just
12
rS, interpretation imperializes what it attempts to understand. Any perspective P at

all has to be explained in terms of rS, on the interpreter’s account, which means that
there can be no autonomous perspective from the interpreter’s subjectivity.
There are several reasons why these errors are not obvious to interpreters.
First, as they can see an issue only from their perspective, they are never aware of
imposing their views on autonomous perspectives—this requires some appreciation
of the autonomy of the secondary perspective, which interpretation denies.
Second, interpreters can interpret by deference to third parties, and this seems
complimentary.
Interpretation can present in two ways. In the primary case the interpreting
subject S defers to her own reasons rS in explaining perspective P. In the secondary
case, the subject S differs to an authority A to interpret a philosophy P: the reasons rA
of the authority A are called on to explain P. Those who are alarmed by the apparent
narcissism of interpretation might opt for the second variety of interpretation, for
it seems to downplay the importance of the interpreter’s opinions. But because
the primary interpreter S has reason to defer to authority A, rA become a subset
of the primary interpreting subjects S’s reasons rS The difference between the two
versions of interpretation is superficial for, ultimately, it is the primary interpreting
subject S’s reasons rS that make for an interpretation. On this score, others are
allowed to have opinions about what you are interested in interpreting, so long
as they are also your opinions. Colonialism is the imperial practice of acquiring
control over alien perspectives (countries, peoples, for instance). In this case, the
secondary approach to interpretation is not merely imperialistic (like the first
case), but is also colonialist, as the authority’s perspective is subsumed under the
imperial subject. The sixth problem with interpretation is that it is solipsistic. If
all perspectives P have to be explained and subsumed by the reasons of S, then the
mental content of S (which consists in part of the reasons of S) have to subsume
and explain every other perspective. In the end, no one can have an opinion that is
not the opinion of the interpreter—their mental independence is denied. But more
strikingly, there is nothing outside of the subject on the interpretive account—
nothing objective. Anything intelligible has to be explained by the subjectivity of
the interpreter.
If interpretation is so irrational, why does it persist? Interpreters like explanations
by virtue of truth. The truths in question may be actual truths, or propositions
that interpreters believe are true. This is why interpreters take their reasons rS so
seriously: these are the claims they take to be true, and hope are true. They want
these to figure prominently in explanation. This is a mistake, as truth is neither
necessary nor sufficient for good reasoning: witness valid arguments, which are
valid independently of the truth of their conclusions or premises. But one reason for
wishing for truth to figure prominently in explanation is a confusion about inquiry.
The goal of inquiry is certainly truth. Interpreters are apparently so excited about
this goal, that they want truth to be the means too. This is wrong, for if truth is the
means of inquiry, we will fail to identify new truths, while conservatively sticking
to our old ones. This defeats inquiry, ironically, by getting our ends and the means
13
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 13
mixed up. Yet, this psychologically explains the peculiar tendency of interpreters to
value what they take to be true as the primary evidence in inquiry.
One other explanation for the persistence of interpretation is that a certain
portion of the population are narcissists. Narcissists have an elevated sense of the
importance of their own opinions. Explication does not give methodological or
epistemic priority to our opinions—if the reasons we are explicating turn out to
be ours because we are explicating our own philosophy, this is an accident and not
a necessary part of explication. Interpretation licenses this elevated sense of the
importance of one’s own opinions by giving epistemic priority to the interpreter’s
opinions in explanation—even when what is being explained is someone else’s
philosophy. Those with narcissistic tendencies will hence prefer interpretation and
find explication offensive to their sense of priority—as though the world needs their
opinions for anyone to have an opinion. These folks have a very difficult time with
philosophy. They admit not being able to understand alien philosophy (Gadamer
1990) and will deny that others can have a radically different opinion from them
(Davidson 2001a).
Interpreters often deflect attention from these unpleasant features of interpretation
by suggesting that we have to always revise our background stock of reasons in
the face of failed attempts at interpretation: interpreters can invoke the image of
Neurath’s Boat, which has to be fixed and rearranged while staying afloat. This
looks like learning, yet on this account, ironically, learning only happens when we
fail at interpretation. When we succeed, we beg questions.
The seventh problem with interpretation is that it violates Ockham’s Razor: it
multiplies meanings of terms beyond their means, and complicates matters,
because of its narcissism. As an interpreter I treat my conceptual frame and
perspective as the very content of the thinkable and correlate meanings of
your usage of a term such as “morality” (or “dharma”) in accordance with my
conceptual scheme. I hence identify a meaning of “morality” (or “dharma”) in
correlation with my conceptual distinctions as I see them. Your term “morality”
(or “dharma”) hence grows to have many meanings—one for each correlation
with concepts in my outlook. The more your outlook diverges from mine, the
more meanings of “morality” (or “dharma”) I will find in your account as your
theory drifts from mine and your usage of “morality” (or “dharma”) correlates
with many conceptual distinctions from my perspective. (This is the standard
approach to the topic of “dharma” in Indology.)
As explication is concerned with the objective and what is objective is what we
can disagree about, explication allows us to identify the common concept T as what
theories of t have in common while they disagree. Hence, the common concept
MORALITY is what competing theories of morality have in common while they disagree.
In the next chapter I will respond to objections from interpreters to this line of
argument. For now I note that my criticisms of interpretation are not discernible
from the perspective of the interpreter. Interpreters are like Geocentrists who view
their experience of the stars from their perspective as evidence of their place of
privilege in the universe. They fail to see the irrational partiality of their position
14
from their perspective. But this is immaterial for there is an important difference
between understanding a perspective and understanding from a perspective. If we can
draw this distinction, we can be objective about perspectives. Interpretation involves
conflating the distinction between understanding a perspective and understanding
from a perspective as it undermines the distinction between third-and first-party
reasons: all reasons are reasons of the interpreter. As a result, interpreters are
incapable of being objective about their own perspective and hence their responses
to criticisms will be equally unobjective. Explicators—Heliocentrists—in contrast,
do not have to worry about being unobjective for they distinguish between first-and
third-party perspectives and reasons. This allows them to be objective about the
limitations of their explanations. The limitations of their explanations is objectivity—
how things seem from our perspective is not the same as our perspective, which
means our disagreements about what we see are objective. This is where inquiry
should start.
2.3. Why We Should Explicate

Interpretation is the wrong account of understanding because it is not understanding
at all. The trap of the interpreter is just interpretation: the idea that anything
intelligible has to be intelligible by deference to the interpreter’s reasons. Once you
believe this you are committed to explaining everything from your perspective,
and it is difficult for you to even imagine an alternative, let alone acknowledge
that interpretation is just one model of understanding. You will tend to accept the
various failures of interpretation (that it is narcissistic and question-begging) as
inescapable. Stranger still, you will be like a salesperson who buys their own sales
pitch. But the negative outcomes of interpretation are only inescapable if you buy
into interpretation. This is a choice that rests on conflating the distinction between
first-and third-party reasons.
Explication takes us in a differing direction. (If you find detailed analysis difficult,
you may jump to the next section—2.4 The Evidence: Disciplinary Relativity of
Objectivity. If that also is too analytical for you, you may skip again to the next
section—3. Philosophical Concepts and the Right to Disagree.)
First, the explication of a philosophy P’s theory of t is generated by explicating
P’s reasons for t-claims and for the theory of t—the reasons from the start are
understood not in terms of what we assent to, but objectively as what we can disagree
about as constitutive of third-party reasons. At no point is begging the question
required to insulate the explicator from the prospects of dissent. The theory t that
explains the usage of “t” will entail t usage, but individual and collective t usage need
not entail the theory t—especially in the case of reasonable, non-question-begging
philosophers. (P’s theory of morality for instance will explain P’s uses of “morality”
but in the case of reasonable philosophers, the uses of “morality” on the whole will
not entail the theory of morality.) Reasons rP that entail or go toward the theory
of t might collectively entail the theory of t, but the theory of t need not entail the
entirety of the reasons of P—especially in the case of reasonable philosophers. The
explicator in turn is not required to rely on her rS in order to arrive at a theory of t,
15
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 15
and moreover as the result does not entail any of the previous steps, the explicator
does not have to beg questions. Indeed, as rS does not play a role in determining
the theory of t, the explicating subject is free to criticize the resulting theory of t in
accordance with rS. The case of the interpreter who defers to an authority cannot
be critical of the authority’s reasons, as these are a subset of her own reasons.
The usual stumbling block here is to assume that the explicator’s commitment to
explication is one such rS that plays a role in explication. This is interpretation. But
to characterize explication this way is to conflate the distinction between first-and
third-party reasons: the first-party commitments of the explicator plays no role in
the determination of the theory of t: the only reasons that matter for this are those
that constitute P or are entailed by P.
So, in other words, the explicator is neither deferring to another person to
interpret for them nor are they relying on their beliefs including their beliefs about
explication to entail a perspective’s theory of t. Put in yet another way, the explicator
does not have a reason to defer to P or its author, for the explicator is not endorsing
P or its reasons as her reasons. Similarly, the explicator has no reason to defer to her
own reasons to figure out P: P is not the object of inquiry. Rather, the theory of t is
the object of inquiry. This is not a problem, for the procedure of explication is not
evidence in favor of the theory of t of P. Explication is a practice, not a perspective.
The evidence is rather the reasons of P. This is why explication is a form of research.
To succeed is to learn something new: P’s theory of t.
Second, explication allows us to determine the philosophical commitments
of a perspective without confusing that with what an author intends. Authorial
intentions are superfluous in the explanation of a text: to invoke the idea is to
have some prior grasp of what a text is about and hence talk about intentions is
downstream (not prior to) a grasp of what a text is about. Moreover, intentions
are not objective: authors might intend to write or say something but commit
themselves to something else. When we explicate, we look to the propositional
commitments of a text—especially its reasons that explain or entail its use of
terms “t” such as “morality.” What this leaves unexplained are mentions of “t.”
A mention of “t” is a metalinguistic depiction of “t” as something we can talk
about. It might be possible that philosophers mention their views about morality
and use the term “morality” in a manner that are at odds with each other, and
explication allows us to discern this tension by discerning the theory that explains
uses of “t”—not mentions of “t.” Interpretation, in contrast, has no principled
reason for distinguishing between such claims, for the standard is explanation
from the interpreter’s perspective.
I can also explicate my own P as my interest is objective: my usage of “t,” not
my mentions of “t.” This activity of self-explication allows me to not only converge
on my perspective with others, but also entertain my perspective as a third-party
prospect, which I am free to affirm or deny. I might, for instance, come to revise
my philosophy P if I believe that my uses of “t” should be brought in line with my
mentions of “t.” I can disagree with myself too as my propositional commitments
are objective.
16
Interpreters will try to understand explication as an elusive version of

interpretation because they have difficulty understanding anything that they do not
believe—that is after all their picture of understanding and also a serious intellectual
defect. They will mistakenly reason that when the explicator defers to the rp of P,
she is really deferring to her own rS, which includes claims such as “I think that P
holds rP”. But “P holds rP” is a different proposition than “I think that P holds rP” and
hence there are logical differences between the two claims. The explicator’s claim,
if true at all, is true of P. The interpreter’s claim is true of herself. One is objective,
the other subjective.
Evidence that explication is not a version of interpretation is that it is not question-
begging: you cannot recover E from the resulting theory of t as you can recover
an interpretation from the resulting interpretation. Another important difference
is that an explicator is under no obligation or pressure to endorse the strategy of
domestication: to revise her reasons rS in light of the findings of an explication.
Neither is the explicator pressured to endorse the strategy of religification: to define
the results of explication as what cannot be derived from her reasons.
Third, explication does not rely on truth. This allows the explicator to be critical
and even agnostic, as truth is neither necessary nor sufficient for reason.
What accounts for this asymmetry that allows interpretation to be question-
begging and fallacious, but explication to avoid prejudice and bigotry? Interpretation
gives explanatory priority to truth (the representational value of descriptions) and it
thereby loses a grip on objectivity—what we can converge on while disagreeing. In
contrast, explication gives priority to objectivity. The catch is that we seem to give
up a grasp on truth: if objectivity is what we can converge on while we disagree, who
is right? Once we voice the question, we are in a position to distinguish between
subjective and objective truth, and to uncover the objective truth via inquiry.
There are some questions that unrepentant interpreters tend to ask: which of the
rP do we defer to in the explanation of t-claims? Clearly, all of them—the urge to
divide up reasons rP into those that are relevant and those that are not is informed by
rS. Do we not need to know what claims of rP are true in order to identify the theory
of t? No. They merely need to be objective. Do we not need to know what is true
in order to identify an example of rP? No. We need to merely (and nothing more)
identify what is objective.
2.4. The Evidence: Disciplinary Relativity of Objectivity

Explication is the cornerstone of the discipline of philosophy. Once we have
mastered explication, we as philosophers are in a position to make a contribution to
philosophy. Our first contribution is explication itself. But this allows us to be critical
of what we explicate. If we can show that the philosophy that we have accurately
explicated suffers internal defects or tensions—inconsistencies—or that it fails in
some way to explain what is at stake in a philosophical debate or to live up to its
own stated goals by its own standards—something that we can also converge on from
varying perspectives—we have discovered objective problems with the philosophy
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MORAL PHILOSOPHY 17
in question, and any alternative that avoids these flaws would be thereby shown to
be preferable on objective grounds insofar as it avoids objective shortcomings. My
argument is a case in point. Interpretation so far has been shown to be a retreat into
solipsism and subjectivity, and far from providing an account of understanding that
we can apply to objects such as perspectives, reasons, and theories, it reveals to us
something about the interpreting subject only. The alternative—explication—avoids
these problems. Skeptics, relativists, and philosophers of all stripes can only hope
to make a case for their position via this very general philosophical methodology
of explication, for this allows the putative advance to be grounded on the evidence.
Philosophical research, as the two steps of explication and critical appraisal, is in
lockstep with philosophical education: to learn philosophy is to cut one’s teeth on
these practices of explication and critical appraisal. Standard education in philosophy
consists in giving students philosophy to read, and their job is to explicate it and
critically respond, in conversation or in writing. We do this not once, but repeatedly.
What changes is the philosophy we explicate and perhaps its difficulty. What stays
the same is the discipline of explication and critical response. This is something
apparent if you take a lot of philosophy courses, and if you pursue philosophy
to the doctoral level. The less philosophical perspectives one studies, the less this
will be apparent. Philosophical writing has, in many cases, taken on this format
of explicating alternatives as a condition of the philosopher making a case for her
view. Doctoral research in philosophy involves, invariably, explicating alternatives
and making a case for an alternative that is an objective advance—where the latter
is something that we can converge on from differing perspectives and explains our
disagreements. In the case of an objective advance, we converge on an explanation
of the disagreement that casts the explanation positively, and this is something we
can converge on even when we disagree. PhD candidates in philosophy do not
hence succeed in doctoral defenses because they convinced all parties, but because
they have shown that their contribution is an advance that is knowable while we
disagree. Failures at philosophical research are completely subjective, dependent
only on the opinion of the candidate and nothing that we can identify as an objective
contribution that increases our appreciation of the disagreements of philosophy.
The methodology of philosophical research is invariable across topics or the period
of the philosophers whom one is interested in. A historian of philosophy, for instance,
is not a historian with an interest in philosophy. She is rather a philosopher who takes
an interest in explicating philosophies of historical interest, and her research thereby
casts the philosophy so explicated as a contribution to philosophical research—one
that can allow her to critically advance a sympathetic or critical alternative. She might
require knowledge of historical languages to read the philosophy in question, and
some knowledge of the wider literature and history of a philosopher’s context to
make sense of allusions and references. But her primary goal is explication, and this
allows her to assess whether the texts of the philosopher in question matches with
the philosopher’s often secondary claims about such texts. It will also allow us to
assess whether commentators on a primary work within a tradition are correct in
their assessment of the primary text or mistaken. Explicate each and compare: if they
18
endorse differing theories of t, then the secondary material is mistaken. If you prefer
truth over objectivity, you might believe that we need to ground our account of a
historical philosopher in truths determined by disciplines such as history. But this is
to depart from philosophy, and to retreat into the subjectivity of interpretation that
prioritizes truth over objectivity.
We find the two steps of explication and criticism going back to the very beginning
of philosophy in Plato’s depiction of Socrates’s interaction with philosophical
interlocutors. Socrates is depicted in the dialogues of Plato as explicating the views
of his interlocutors, as a first step toward providing his critical response. In Indian
philosophy, for instance, many philosophers would begin their philosophical works
by identifying the view of the pūrvapakṣa— the opponent’s— which would be
critically appraised, and consequently abandoned with a putative better alternative—
that of the author. Good philosophy will invariably make reference to dissenting
perspectives, and make a case for itself on the basis of the disagreement—even if the
alternative is anonymous or fictional.
One possible objection against philosophy, which is very common among novices
and amateur philosophers with little commitment to philosophical research, is that
the so-called advances of philosophical research are all subjective. This would be
true if philosophy depended on interpretation. If philosophers rely on interpretation
as a substitute for explication, their research can be criticized for being subjective.
But this would be a failure of adhering to best practices in philosophy—not an
inevitable outcome of philosophy.
The anxiety that in philosophy everything is just a matter of perspective and
there is no such thing as objectivity points to a deeper confusion: a conflation
between objectivity—what explains our disagreements while we converge on
it—and agreement on what we take to be true. These are different ideas, and
while it seems to be the case that we disagree about what is true in philosophy,
this is objective. Research in philosophy is objective, because there is room for
disagreement about what is true. This is as it should be: if objectivity transcends our
mind—our perspective, constituted by its reasons, ambitions, and desires—then the
objectivity of philosophy is compatible with differences of opinion. Indeed, in cases
where no disagreement is even possible, we should seriously doubt the objectivity of
the inquiry or discourse. For if a subjective perspective defines the discourse then,
indeed, disagreement would be impossible: everything would have to agree with the
subject to be admissible into the discourse. But if the topic is objective, it lies outside
of our minds and hence differing minds can disagree about the same topic from their
differing perspectives.
A final anxiety that students often have is that objectivity as what explains our
disagreements is apparently consistent with a kind of nihilism where truth at best
describes our perspective, but there is nothing like objective truth. This is unfounded,
if truth is the property of fitting representations. For then the possibility of objective
truth is made possible by objectivity, which accounts for meaning. But this will be
discipline relative, as objectivity—the room for disagreement—is discipline relative.
In mathematics, objectivity—what explains mathematical disagreements—is proof
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MORAL PHILOSOPHY 19
and derivability (this is the meaningfulness of mathematical claims), and objective

truth represents these matters. Hence, mathematical claims are objectively true
insofar as they represent what can be derived from mathematical systems (“2+2=4,”
“π”) and objectively false when they fail to represent what can be derived from these
considerations (“2+2=5,” “Not π”).
It is a worthy question whether there can be mathematical claims that are both
derivable and hence objectively meaningful, but representatively inaccurate. Such
examples would be reductio ad absurdums, and would spell trouble for the system
in question. In logic there are many such examples. Sentences such as “this sentence
is underivable” derived from a conjunction of this sentence and a second sentence
would be an example of a claim that is derivable but fails to represent what can be
derived. On some telling of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, it appears that the
problem with Gödel sentences is that they are derivable from a suitably complex
mathematical system but contradict their derivability (Tieszen 2011).
The possibility of a divergence between objectivity as derivability and truth as
representation means that we can do away with paradoxes in a similar manner.
Sentences like the liar (“this sentence is false”) seem to be a veritable saṃsāra
(whirlpool) of difficulty: its objectivity that is its meaning (treated as its truth) seems
to undermine its truth, which in turn seems to undermine its objectivity. To do
away with the paradox, we have to first identify the discipline relative to which a
proposition appears paradoxical: the discipline will allow us to assess the conditions
of its objectivity (which is its meaningfulness). Then we can distinguish its truth from
its mere objectivity: its truth is its representative value. This puts an end to the saṃsāra
of paradoxes. If it represents what is objective in the discipline, it is objectively true,
and if it fails to do so, it is objectively false. Paradoxes seem like intractable mysteries
for the two reasons that their objectivity (their meaningfulness) is not relativized to a
discipline, and the truth of the proposition is treated as equivalent to its objectivity.
Empirical disagreement in the sciences centers around the question of how
to characterize experience from all perspectives. Scientific objectivity (what we
can converge on while we disagree on empirical matters) is the characterization
of experience from all perspectives: natural law. Objective truth in the sciences
represents how to characterize experience from all perspectives. Hence testability
is an important criterion of empirical truth, as it serves to weed out descriptions
of experience that are not fitting in every context. This is a herculean task that
is made simpler by dividing the discipline into subdisciplines that tract differing
kinds of hypotheses. Natural hypotheses of natural sciences are distinguished from
social hypotheses of the social sciences, and these kinds of hypotheses are further
distinguished according to subdisciplinary concerns.
In each disciplinary case, what is objective has to be understood by research, and
hence the possibilities for determining what is true depends on discipline-relative
exploration. Answers and truths in one discipline do not entail findings in another.
Answers to empirical or mathematical questions do not directly entail the right
answer to philosophical questions. (This means that we cannot answer philosophical
questions about what a perspective P claims by historical or philological findings.)
20
This is as things should be if the truth is objective, and the objective is our room
to disagree. This room to disagree will always be discipline relative. A discipline is
the same practice from different perspectives, which means that the possibilities
for converging on a common point from differing perspectives (the possibilities of
disagreeing) are constrained by the discipline. Change what counts as the discipline
and one changes the objects that arise. Yoga—the discipline—is the common axis
from which different perspectives can be understood as converging on a common
object.
3. PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS AND

THE RIGHT TO DISAGREE
To recap, what renders philosophical research objective is twofold. First, the
philosophies, their theories and reasons, that we explicate are objective. The
methodology of explication is also objective, as we can converge on the objects of
philosophical research from diverse substantive perspectives. Further objects that we
discover via philosophical research are philosophical concepts. The concept is what
stands at the heart of philosophical disagreements. To discover the philosophical
concept at play in a debate, compare varying theories of t that define differing
philosophies P: what the theories of t have in common but disagree about is the
concept T. The concept T will not necessarily be the same as the various theories of
t. It explains the disagreement across theories of t.
As a very simple example, consider the debate between me, who claims P, and
you who claims Not-P. The term that we want to theorize about is “P”—our theories
about P are opposite. What our theories of P have in common is the contradiction: P
and Not-P. The theories do not agree to this claim. Indeed, it cannot be true as it is
a contradiction. Yet, the commonality explains our disagreement and in this respect
is what the theories of P and Not-P have in common. This is the concept that we are
haggling about: we each make use of it, but to different ends. What would certainly
be objectively true in this case is that our debate is about this concept. This would
be a representation that conforms to the relevant concept. This example is useful
because it is simple. Philosophical disagreements are rarely simple.
The basic philosophical concepts of debates are like objects in general: what we
can converge on but disagree about. South Asian philosophical traditions present us
with excellent analogies for objectivity so understood. The Jain parable of the blind
men groping an elephant—each describing it differently owing to his particular
perspective—is a vivid and famous example.1
In determining what the concept morality is, there is no substitute for extensive
philosophical research. To learn about moral philosophy and the concept of
“morality” or “ethics” is not to have a passing interest in one’s ethical intuitions
or the values shared in your community. It is to explicate many moral theories, and
to discern their common object as the concept that the various theories disagree
about. In the case of ethics or moral philosophy, when we line up varying dissenting
21
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 21
positions, we find that what they triangulate and converge on is the concepts of
the RIGHT (procedure) or GOOD (outcome). This disjunctive concept is what moral
philosophers grapple with when they talk about “ethics,” or “morality,” or perhaps
more directly when they talk about the right thing to do or the good outcome. They
can similarly address this concept by thicker terms of the vices and virtues—“cruelty,”
“kindness,” and “courage,” for instance. The disjunction of THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD
is the substance of the concept of “ethics” or “morality.” As John Rawls notes, “The
two main concepts of ethics are those of THE RIGHT and THE GOOD . . . The structure
of an ethical theory is . . . largely determined by how it defines and connects these
two basic notions” (1971: 24). Every position in moral philosophical debate takes a
differing view about what the relationship of THE RIGHT and the good is, and hence
the concept THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD is nothing that the various positions agree about.
The concept seems different in appearance owing to one’s philosophical perspective.
Yet, like the contradiction in our debate of P versus Not-P, it is something that we
have in common and characterizes the bone of our contention in ethics. Each party
to the disagreement employs this disagreement differently.
Once we have discovered the concept ETHICS via philosophy, we are in a position
to discover it in any philosophical tradition, where debates converge on the topic
THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. In Indian philosophy, the famous term that tracks this
same concept ETHICS or MORALITY is “dharma.” This is what can be discovered by
explicating Indian philosophy—as opposed to interpreting it. To explicate Indian
dharma-philosophy is to treat a philosophical perspective P as specifying its own
reasons rP that explain its uses of the term “dharma.” The systematization of the
explication is the philosophy P’s theory of dharma. Each such theory provides a
unified explanation of all of the philosophy’s employment of “dharma.” If we line
up contrasting theories of dharma in the Indian tradition we will discover as a matter
of philosophical research that what they have in common is the concept THE RIGHT
OR THE GOOD—the concept explains the disagreements across the various theories of
dharma.
If we reject explication, we reject the distinction between having a reason for
a conclusion and it being your (or my) reason. We hence embrace the interpretive
conflation of having a reason and it being our reason. We then would understand
everything from our own perspective, for we have no other perspective to
rely on. We could treat our reasons as laboratory criteria to categorize uses of
“dharma” according to our perspective. Like Geocentrists in astronomy who
believe that everything that is real revolves around our perspective, we would
hence try to understand everything including “dharma” from our perspective.
This is a mistake in astronomy and in scholarship in general. The heavens, from
our perspective, display constellations that appeal to our sense of familiarity, but
also innumerable phenomena that are inexplicable given our biases. Smartly, uses
of “dharma” will seem to fall into familiar constellations, but the mass of uses
will seem difficult to reconcile. It is noteworthy that such interpreted data can be
objectively explained in exactly the way Geocentric descriptions of the heavens
can be explained by a Heliocentric account, which treats our perspective as
22
unprivileged and a contributing factor to our experiences by reintroducing the idea

of disagreeing perspectives. With respect to the heavens, this allows us to correct for
our egocentrism by understanding that we are contributing to our experience of
what we see by our movement with the earth. The result is a simplification of data
from epicycles and apparent retrograde motion of heavenly bodies, to autonomous
orbits that we experience from our dynamic perspective. If we introduce the idea
of there being many competing theories of “dharma” at work, then the various
uses seem to fall into two categories. Some of the uses pertain to ontological items
or principles, things, or states of minds. These are outcomes. The other usages
are procedural, pertaining to what we should do or think (cf. Monier-Williams
1995: 510). The only difference between the concepts the RIGHT and the GOOD, and
procedures and outcomes is the positive sheen the right and the good have—and
this is something gained by procedures and outcomes when they are endorsed by
a philosophical theory. Here by reintroducing the idea of differing perspectives, we
arrive at the simplification of the various uses of “dharma” to moral philosophy.
All Indian thinkers were ever doing when they were talking about “dharma” was
disagreeing about the concept of “ethics”— THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD— from their
varying perspectives, and its seeming endless uses and meanings is how things look
like when we assume that our perspective is privileged. So by explicating Indian
uses of “dharma” across perspectives, what we unlock are the reasons that Indian
thinkers recommended their account of the RIGHT and the GOOD when they were
talking about procedures and outcomes. Just as the heavens seem unordered and
capricious when we try to understand them from our perspective only, so too do
uses of “dharma” seem disorderly when we interpret it.
4. MORAL THEORY
“Dharma,” “morality,” and “ethics” allow us to invoke the same concept and are hence
interchangeable. We should feel comfortable talking about moral philosophy when we
see “dharma” being used, just as we should feel comfortable discussing Plato’s and
Aristotle’s views on dharma. The methodology that blocks this simplifying insight is
interpretation, which typically leads thinkers to both religify and domesticate alien
uses of terminology by privileging one’s own perspective. This process of religification
and domestication results in the multiplication of concepts relative to a term such as
“dharma” beyond their means. Explication simplifies the matter by leading us to an
appreciation of the common concept of “ethics/dharma” philosophy: this is the concept
THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. Philosophers need not agree about what this concept amounts
to and they do not insofar as it is objective. Indeed, there are at least four ways to
resolve the apparent ambiguity of the concept. One might hold that (1) the good is the
condition of the right, (2) the good justifies the right, (3) the right justifies the good, and
(4) the right is the condition (causes) the good. Call the first two options teleological
as they prioritize the good over the right. Call the second two options procedural as
they prioritize the right over the good. Here I quickly and generally explain these four
moral theories.
23
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 23
4.1. Four Moral Theories
4.1.1. Virtue Ethics: The good (state of mind, or character, organization of society)
is a condition of right action. Virtue Ethics is a view about the priority of the
good over the right in bringing about the right. In one formulation, the virtues
determine the right action (Nussbaum 1988; Hursthouse 1996, 2013). In a weaker
but more popular form, the virtues play a role in inculcating right action but this
might be mediated by the role that the virtues play in moral education (Annas 2004).
In the Western tradition, we find this theory at the very start, defended by Plato
and Aristotle. Both authors hold that the good character of the individual is the
proper source of justice and judicious choice, and that ordering of the character is a
condition of wise action. A common version of this approach to ethics is to treat the
virtuous person as someone to be consulted or emulated, and the right thing to do
would be what they counsel. Western Theistic ethics often are versions of this kind of
Virtue Ethics. Indeed, Theism is the view that at the very least, God is good (usually,
all good, all knowledgeable, and all powerful). This goodness gives God a privileged
place in moral practice. If this is the view, then right action should be determined by
God. This is Divine Command Theory. But it is also a version of Virtue Ethics. The
unique virtue of God places Him or Her in the unrivalled position of determining
what to do. This view is so entrenched in some circles that talk of ethics without
God seems incomprehensible. In the Chinese tradition, we find it also occupying a
primary position in Confucius’s Analects, where the virtue of humanity (jen) and
the superior person supports propriety or right action (li). In the Indian tradition,
the clearest defenders are the Jains, who argue that virtue (vīrya) is an essential trait
of the individual, and action (karma) is mistakenly depicted as primary or essential
to who we are—a depiction that constitutes our own failure to live the good life.
Dharma, or morality, is the motion (disposition) that arises from giving primacy to
our inherent strengths—a disposition that takes us away from a life characterized
by activity and one grounded in our inherit virtue. Right activity is quite literally a
function of virtue on this account. On the Jain account, this prioritization and return
to inherent virtue cuts short the pathology of identifying with action. This in turn
minimizes harm to ourselves and others.
4.1.2. Consequentialism: The right (action) is justified by the good

(outcome). Consequentialism, like Virtue Ethics, endorses the primacy of the good
over the right. Whereas Virtue Ethics is concerned with providing an account of
how right action comes to be and how we can do what is right, Consequentialism
concerns the epistemic question of how we can figure out what the right thing to
do is. The right thing to do is whatever respects or maximizes some account of
the good. The right thing to do is purely instrumental on this account. But the
instrumentality is not necessarily productive. If my job is to maximize an outcome,
say, your happiness, the right thing to do might be to leave you alone. In this case,
I will not do anything to cause you to be happy or to produce your happiness,
though my action is justified insofar as it maximizes your happiness. This point is
24
worth emphasizing: Consequentialism is not the ethics of endorsing what produces

the most good outcomes. This description is popularly endorsed but mistaken.
Consequentialists are famous for arguing that commissions and omissions that amount
to the same outcome (such as killing and letting die) have the same moral status. This
has been called the moral symmetry principle. It is widely regarded as an objective
feature of Consequentialism. Productions are a kind of commission: to produce
something is to do something. But if an omission can be equivalent to a commission,
then the right thing to do can be to produce nothing on Consequentialist grounds.
The formulation recommended here avoids this problem: Consequentialism is
the idea that the outcomes play the role of justifying procedure: the good justifies
the right. An omission can hence be justified by the same end as a corresponding
commission.
Consequentialism so described underdetermines what could count as the
good. When the good is understood in an agent-neutral fashion (such that the
good in question is the good for all) then we call the version of Consequentialism
“Utilitarianism.” When the good is thought to be agent relative (that is peculiar
to the specific agent in question) we are in the realm of a host of theories that
are often merely described as theories of practical rationality. We find this type of
theory defended in Hobbes’s account of the State of Nature, where everyone is
free to pursue whatever they determine to be good, and to some extent in Hume’s
discussion of the instrumental theory of rationality.
The agent-neutral version of Consequentialism by far has had more proponents.
In the Western tradition, we find it defended explicitly by not only Bentham and
Mill, but also Marx. In the Indian tradition, the famous defenders of agent-neutral
Consequentialism are Buddhists. In his Consequences of Compassion (2009),
Charles Goodman identifies Theravāda Buddhism with Rule- Consequentialism,
and later Mahāyāna Buddhism that moves toward the idea of transcending moral
rules with Act-Consequentialism. As the Four Noble Truths formalize, duḥkha, or
suffering, is an end to be minimized, and in minimizing this end, we maximize a
good outcome: our own nirvāṇa or freedom from this suffering. Yet, the end is not
agent relative, but frequently depicted as agent neutral—something we all have an
interest in, regardless of our perspective. Indeed, desire, or the possibility of agent-
relative evaluation, is the cause of suffering (which is the same as agent-neutral
disvalue), and ridding ourselves of the root of agent relativity allows us to be free of
problems. Hence Buddhists argue against the permanence of the self. Right action
is hence instrumental to rooting out the cause of suffering, and its justification
lies in this good. The various prescriptions of the Eight-Fold Path, including rules
pertaining to our social and mental life, are justified insofar as they lead us away
from the possibility of suffering.
One of the remarkable features of Buddhist Consequentialism is its identification
of the components of our mental life, and in later traditions, reality itself, with
dharma, or ethics. Each such outcome that constitutes our reality is an agent-neutral
ethical outcome that justifies the abandonment of agent relativity. Those who are
not careful in distinguishing between the right and the good land in trouble for
25
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 25
some such outcomes are good, but not right. They have a bad reputation. They
are unwholesome (akusalā), blameworthy (sāvajjā), and criticized by the wise
(viññugarahitā). When we adopt them, they lead to harm and suffering (ahitāya
dukhāya). They should be abandoned (pajaheyyātha). They include forces such as
greed.2 How can these be ethical? Well, if the ethical outcomes justify an appropriate
response, then these too are ethical. What would be unethical is for us to treat them
as means to some end, for then we would act in a manner that was unwholesome,
blameworthy, and criticized by the wise. To treat these dharmas as means to an
end and not as merely ends would be to grasp them. The proper response to these
ethical outcomes is mindfulness. So far from being a counterexample to the idea that
Buddhist discussions of dharmas are not all ethical, we see that these unusual cases of
dharmas that we should be mindful of are evidence of Buddhist Consequentialism.
On its account, we do not need to and should not emulate certain kinds of dharmas—
those, such as anger or jealousy, that seem to be about us. We should treat them as
ends that justify the appropriate response of mindfulness.
Before continuing, it is worth noting that some philosophers and theorists object
to the formulation of Virtue Ethics above. Their view is that Virtue Ethics is better
thought of as the interdefinability of the virtuous agent and the right thing to do, and
the connecting factor is moral education and development (Annas 2004). Theorists
are free to employ they term “Virtue Ethics” as they please. I note, however, that
this latter option is really more complex than the simpler idea that the right action
is determined by the goodness of virtue. Indeed, insofar as it recommends that we
should choose by deference to virtue and not merely because of virtue, it is a hybrid
position that mixes elements of both teleological theories: the good justifies the right
and the good causes the right. Nothing in the account of the four basic options in
moral theory assumes that philosophers cannot make a case for hybrid theories, and
hence nothing said so far eliminates their contributions to the discipline.
4.1.3. Deontology: The good is justified by the right. Deontology is commonly

misconstrued as inconsistent. This is in part due to the rhetoric that Deontologists
employ. Deontologists often object to justifying duty, or right action, by the good.
But closer inspection reveals that virtually all Deontologists define duty, or right
procedure, in terms of some good outcome or state of affairs. This has led some, even
famous philosophers, to mistakenly claim that Deontologists are Consequentialists
too (Hare 2000: 8.9). In efforts to understand Indian ethics, some have attempted
to resolve this tension by claiming that Deontologists cannot discuss ends in their
justifications (Sreekumar 2012: 282). But this seems troubled, for if Deontologists
define duties in terms of ends, then anytime they justify duties, they are talking
about ends. The contradiction disappears when we allow that defining duty is not
the same as justifying duty. For if duty, or the right thing to do, is defined by some
good outcome, then to justify it by appeal to this good state of affairs would be
question-begging. (To beg the question is to appeal to your conclusion as your
reason.) This is viciously circular. As noted by the Indian Deontologist Kumārila
Bhaṭṭa, this collapsing of the justification and definition of ethics such that defining
26
the ethical in terms of good states is to justify it thus is to invent a problem of

explanatory priority in ethical theory (Ślokavārttika II.242–247). To avoid begging
questions, duties defined by some good outcome must be justified procedurally. This
is Deontology. It is, in some respect, the inverse of Consequentialism. Deontologists
regard the good primarily as duty itself, and the justification of duty defers to
procedural considerations of how to act.
The most famous Deontologist in the Western tradition is Kant, who objects to
appealing to empirical considerations in justifying duty (Groundwork 4: 394), and
yet defines duty in terms of states of affairs—outcomes, goods—that we are willing
to endorse on reflection. Indeed, Kant’s Principle of Humanity formulation of the
categorical imperative (that we should treat others not merely as a means but also
as an end—Groundwork 4: 429; cf. 4: 436), and the Kingdom of Ends formulation
of the categorical imperative (that we should choose rules that connect us as
citizens of a kingdom of such ends—Groundwork 4: 439) appeal to outcomes as
defining duty and therefore as part of the justification for duty. Deontology is a
popular option in the Indian tradition too. In the Bhagavad Gītā it corresponds to
the position that Krishna identifies as karma yoga, or the action of discipline. Such
actions are depicted as good, but the justification for these actions cannot rest
on outcomes (Gītā 2.38, 47, 18.47). Rather, they rest on appeals to procedural
considerations of successful practice in the face of opposition. Philosophers
who treat the Bhagavad Gītā as a basic contribution to moral philosophy, such
as Vedānta authors, take this Deontology on board. Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, a sister
school of philosophy that attempts to understand dharma on the basis of Vedic,
ritual practice, is also famously Deontological in all the ways discussed: dharma,
or ethics, is distinguished as a command that is bound with welfare (Mīmāṃsā
Sūtra I.2). Yet, the justification for practicing ethics appeal to intuition (śruti) and
derivatively to tradition (smṛti), which are cashed out procedurally (Mīmāṃsā
Sūtra I.i.5, I.iii.1).
4.1.4. Bhakti/Yoga: The right (procedure) causes the good. This last theory of the
four noted so far is peculiar to the Indian tradition. According to this moral theory,
we bring about a good end via adherence to a procedure. The challenge for this
account is to identify the right procedure independently of the good, so that the
right procedure can be conceptually and practically prior to the good. What solves
this problem is to identify or define right procedure by a regulative ideal. Devotion
or adherence to this ideal constitutes right action, and the perfection of this practice
results in the good. For this to really work, the regulative ideal cannot be a virtuous
person or good—that would merely be Virtue Ethics. Rather the regulative ideal has
to be definable by purely procedural considerations. The definition of right action
in terms of adherence to such procedural considerations would allow one to identify
the right thing to do as truly prior and productive of the good. The term “bhakti,”
commonly used in the Indian tradition as meaning DEVOTION, is a fitting description
of this theory as theories of Bhakti often describe devotion to a regulative ideal
as productive of good—freedom from trouble, or the attainment of some positive
27
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 27
benefic state (mokṣa). For Bhakti philosophies, the regulative ideal is depicted as
something active—a deity (such as Krishna or Vishnu), which is further cashed out
in terms of His or Her function (for example, preservation and maintenance of the
world). So this idea BHAKTI is commonplace in Indian thought. We find it not only in
the epics, but also in academic philosophies of Vedānta. When the perfection of the
practice is depicted as the instantiation of the regulative ideal by the practitioner, we
have Yoga as set out in the Yoga Sūtra. In Yoga, devotion to the Lord results in our
own Lordliness: the perfection of the practice as defined by the regulative ideal is
just the good. I am not sure if there could really be a version of Bhakti that was not
also a version of Yoga. It would have to claim that devotion to the regulative ideal
produces a good, but this is not the same as the perfection of the practice. But then
you would have difficulty explaining how the practice causes the good. The Yoga
connection solves this problem: the practice causes the good because the good is just
the perfection of the practice.
Bhakti often gets confused with Rule- Consequentialism (Theodor 2010;
Sreekumar 2012). The Rule-Consequentialist takes the right course of action to be
a rule that we have reason to believe is justified by good outcomes over time. This
looks superficially like Bhakti, as Bhakti recommends an action that brings about the
good. But Consequentialism is a view about what justifies action, whereas Bhakti is a
view about what causes outcomes. There is important reason to distinguish the two.
Superlative ends on reflection may be unlikely given our knowledge of the world,
and hence attempting to justify our actions by deference to these unlikely outcomes
would be discouraged on a Consequentialist account. This is as though Arjuna’s
worry at the start of the Bhagavad Gītā: that the prospects of a good outcome in
the war he is about to fight are low and hence they do not justify engaging in the
struggle. Krishna’s argument in response is that the practitioner of yoga, in contrast,
does not worry about outcomes and focuses on perfecting the practice, and this
perfection of the practice becomes the good outcome. The yogi can bring about a
superlative outcome that the Consequentialist will be discouraged to pursue.
In the recent history of India’s political independence, Bhakti/Yoga has played a
vital role. Gandhi wrote: “They say, ‘means are, after all, means.’ I would say, ‘means
are, after all, everything.’ As the means so the end” (Gandhi and Prabhu 1959: 67).
This is astounding for what it shows is that a theory of morality peculiar to the
Indian tradition has had an important role in India’s struggle against imperialism.
But this is not so surprising for those aware of the Yoga Sūtra: the goal is after all
kaivalya—autonomy or isolation, which is the instantiation of our own Lordliness.
Yoga is freedom from imperialism. As Bindu Puri has noted, the Yoga Sūtra was
widely cited by Gandhi in his writings and instrumental to the development of his
moral theory (2015).
4.2. Observations of Indian Moral Theory

In this section I intend to map out certain general observations about Indian
Moral Theory. First, it is diverse. The standard options in the Western
28
philosophical tradition are often exhausted by the big three: Consequentialism,

Deontology, and Virtue Ethics. What these three theories have in common is
that they require the good to make sense of right action: the good justifies right
action, or it defines right action, or it produces right action. But what about
scenarios of the privation of the good? Cases of tyranny or evil? Here none of
these three accounts can tell us what we should do, for the right is inextricably
connected with the good on these accounts. But the Indian tradition witnesses
not only these three options but also a fourth: Bhakti/Yoga. The differentia of
this account of morality is the right that is not defined, justified, or a result of
the good: it is rather defined by a regulative ideal of the right. The regulative
ideal is not good. It is not an outcome. Rather, it is a procedure itself, cashed out
in terms of the defining function of the regulative ideal. The Lord could be the
inner controller, the preserver of all, or the destroyer of sin, and antagonistic to
all evil (a few descriptions borrowed from the Bhakti philosopher Rāmānuja).
So this account provides us a way to think about what we should do in times of
evil. The advantage is that on its account we can do the right thing and be bad
at it—which means there is room for improvement. Doing what is right is not
inconsistent with evil. But perfecting what is right is a mere species of doing
what is right, and this is consistent with evil. But in perfecting what is right, we
bring about the good. There is no doubt some tension here, but this tension is
dynamic: we restore goodness by doing what is right on this account, and this
edges out evil, which is tolerant of the practice of the right as it is consistent with
the right. So the fourth moral theory, Bhakti/Yoga, not only fills a theoretical
void in the common account of moral theory that we learn about in the West,
and is certainly of relevance to those who regard overcoming the suboptimal
status quo an appropriate end of moral action, but also is a unique option worth
explicating.
Second, our usual attempt to distinguish between philosophy and religion
is implausible. All of the so- called religions of India are theories of Dharma
themselves—Buddhism and Jainism—or in the case of something like Hinduism,
a wide, open arena for anything that is South Asian with no common founder to
make its case. The idea that Hindus are united by a common dharma is a creation of
interpretation, which religifies employments of terminology from alien perspectives
that it cannot tolerate according to its reasons. The alien uses of “dharma” or “moral”
become defined as what cannot be justified by the ethical theory of the interpreter.
Given a Eurocentric stock of initial assumptions, Indian accounts of morality will be
religified when they depart from European ethical values. The idea that the common
point of these departures is the religion of Indians is a way to entrench the definition
of Indian uses of dharma as inexplicable by Eurocentric considerations. “Hinduism”
is the paramount religification of Indian accounts of dharma as it is a class term that
includes any Indian account of dharma that is not obviously traceable to a common
founder or text (Ranganathan 2016).
Here the usual stereotypes about religion are exposed. Crack open a standard
textbook on the philosophy of religion by leading academic publishers, and one
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MORAL PHILOSOPHY 29
finds discussions of the philosophy of religion restricted to (or mainly on) problems
relating to Theism. But not all “religions” are Theistic. South Asia is filled with
examples of Atheistic moral theories called “religion”; Buddhism and Jainism
are obvious examples. Even within Hinduism, there are many Atheistic moral
theories: Sāṅkhya and Pūrva Mīmāṃsā (the latter the preeminent defender of
“Hindu” rituals) come to mind as examples.
The problem with the idea that South Asian moral theories are religions is that
there is no principled means of distinguishing the religious moral theories from the
secular ones—no principled philosophical means. Certainly there are geographical
means: moral theories of non-European provenance are called religions, while the
European theories, whether they are Theistic or not, are secular and explicated by
philosophers. In point of fact, the vast majority of Western moral theorists up until
Marx are Theistic. God plays an important role in Plato’s and Aristotle’s visions of
teleology and in the Divine Command theories of the Medievals. We find almost all
the Contractarians who rely on some basic idea of Deontological rights are Theists
(Hobbes and Locke come to mind); Kant certainly is and explicitly affirms Jesus
as the moral exemplar that is evidence of the practicality and livability of the ideal
(Groundwork 4: 409).
Third, Theism is unusual in the South Asian tradition. Usually moral theories
of Bhakti are equated with Theistic theories. But Theism is a form of Virtue Ethics
as the goodness of God is primary in moral explanation for Theists. Bhakti is the
opposite: it is the rightness of the Lord that is primary in moral explanation. The
question for the bhakta is not who made me (hence, devotion to Brahma is theoretical
but not actual), but, rather, what ideal should I worship? This is a question not about
an outcome of the world (a virtue-laden God), but a question of what function
I should adopt as primary. An important difference is that for the Theist, the problem
of evil looms: how can a good God, especially one in the know and powerful, allow
so much evil? This is a logical problem that pits the goodness of God as an outcome
of reality against the evil of creation. It seems that both cannot be the case. This
question is poorly formulated given Bhakti, for the regulative ideal (the Lord), is not
good. Rather, it is right. Hence, the right thing to do—in its essence, the Lord—is
logically compatible with a lot of evil (bad outcomes), and hence there is no logical
problem of evil here. The point of Bhakti is to create goodness from scratch! This is
analogous to the logical compatibility of the existence of a cleaner and the existence
of dirt. There is no logical problem of dirt given the reality of a cleaner. But the
perfection of the practice of cleaning gets rid of dirt. Hence, the Lord is antagonistic
to all evil.
What is usually called sectarian, in the way of difference among schools of
Bhakti, ends up being philosophical disagreements about the relationship of various
regulative ideals. The question whether Vishnu (preservation) and Lakṣmī (wealth
and benefit) are coequals or unequals is a philosophical difference about how to
understand the regulative ideals of moral theory. Similarly, the disagreements between
Vaiṣṇavas, Śaivas, and Śāktas are equally disagreements of competing and contrary
regulative ideals. The disagreements are frequently nuanced. To endorse Shiva, the
30
Lord of destruction, over Vishnu, the Lord of preservation, for instance, is a moral
choice of a regulative ideal. These procedural entities play a vital theoretical role in
the moral philosophy of the bhakta: they structure the practice to be perfected and
the ideal or ideals to be realized.
The final observation of note is that Indian ethics is predominantly realist.
Moral Realism is the idea that moral claims are objective. In the West, this is
the standard view. In the Indian tradition, this is also the standard view. Claims
about “dharma” are, except in rare cases, regarded as tracking something that we
could be mistaken about. The common employment of “dharma” for seemingly
ontological matters is a consequence of the moral realism of Indian ethics. This
is obvious when we explicate Indian dharma theories for then every employment
of “dharma” relative to a perspective has to be accounted for by the theory
of “dharma” and these ontological uses are thereby given a moral elucidation.
If we interpret Indian theories of “dharma,” we remove uses of “dharma”
from the theoretical perspective that entails them and they seem irrational and
disconnected from what we call ethics.
5. CONCLUSION
Objectivity is what we can converge on from disagreeing perspectives. Truth is
fitting representation. Objective truth is the representation of objectivity. The
essence of objectivity depends on the discipline, for the discipline makes possible
the convergence on common points from differing perspectives. In philosophy, the
discipline tracks differing theories that characterize differing perspectives, and their
common point of convergence is the concept that underlies their disagreement.
In the case of moral theory, it is the concept THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. This is the
same concept at the heart of disagreements about “dharma.” The identity of this
concept means that we can interchange talk of dharma and talk of ethics. Hence,
we can talk about Aristotle’s view about dharma, just as we can talk about Śaṅkara’s
view about ethics.
One of the benefits of the disciplinary approach to objectivity and truth is that it
deflates paradoxes. An apparent paradox arises when the objectivity of a claim belies
its truth. If truth and objectivity are the same, this is a problem for what results is
a contradiction or tension. The distinction of truth and objectivity at the heart of a
disciplined approach to knowledge shows that this is a mistake. We get seduced into
paradoxes by treating the objectivity of what is said as its truth. But if the truth is its
representational fit with what is objective, then an objective claim may fail to be true.
What motivates the conflation of truth and objectivity? Interpretation. If we have to
make sense of everything from our perspective, then the very act of understanding
an object that belies its truth introduces into our beliefs a contradiction. This is
interpretation. Interpretation creates mysteries and paradoxes because it tries to
understand everything from the egocentric perspective of the interpreter. The stars
mysteriously rotate around the Earth and Polaris is its center of rotation. The sun
31
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 31
inexplicably revolves around the Earth. Geocentrists project what they see from
their narrow vantage back on to reality, and the result is bad, armchair science.
Those who lobby for a more open-minded interpretive strategy (Adluri and Bagchee
2014: 420), because all understanding is historical (Adluri and Bagchee 2014: 428),
are contributing to the confusion. We need to criticize interpretation because it makes
understanding historical by confusing the objectivity of research with the historical
contingency of the observer’s position. When I understand objectivity as something
knowable from differing perspectives, the historicity of what is true about me—my
perspective—stops being the topic of investigation or relevant to what is objective.
This is the move to Heliocentrism. In moral philosophy and theory this is an
important finding: moral theory is objective, and efforts to understand it historically
as a question of specific cultural expectations and social arrangements are naive. It
is about THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD, which we can disagree on from differing theoretical
perspectives.
NOTES
1. Another useful model is the conch, prominently displayed in the hand of Vishnu
while he reclines on the cosmic serpent with many perspectives and understands his
egocentrism as a mutual imposition of triangulations from differing perspectives
(his representation as the disk). Self-representation so depicted would be true from
all perspectives. What is interesting about a conch is that it is asymmetrical—it
looks different depending on one’s perspective. Yet, the appearance of a conch is
not explained by the asymmetry of the observer, but the asymmetry of the object
itself—an asymmetry that we converge on. It is hence symbolic of objectivity.
The later Buddhist idea that ultimately everything is empty for any determinate
description lacks own being and autonomy (svabhāva) is also a way to capture
this idea of objectivity, as it relates to truth. If truth is the property of fitting
representations, then determinate truth claims can only be perspective dependent.
There can be no canonical description of what is objective (like a conch) that is
true from all perspectives. The ultimate truth is empty (like a conch). If truth is
representation, and if objectivity is what explains our disagreements, then the later
Buddhist account about ultimate truth is mistaken: objective truth represents our
disagreements.
2. A description of this can be found in the Aṅguttara Nikāya (I.189–190). My
understanding of the passage has benefitted from Jake Davis’s contribution to
this book.
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Meaning. Farnham: Ashgate.
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35
CHAPTER TWO
Philosophy, Religion,
and Scholarship
SHYAM RANGANATHAN
1. INTRODUCTION
In the last chapter, I argued that:
1. We can choose either interpretation or explication.
2. If we choose interpretation, we Xbad and misunderstand alien theories as
strange approximations to our subjectivity (like geocentric explanations of
the heavens where everything is judged by our perspective).
3. If we choose explication, we do not Xbad, and we can understand alien
theories objectively as contributions to philosophical debate (much like
heliocentric explanations of astronomical phenomena depict what we
perceive as a function of differing dynamic perspectives in a public universe).
Therefore, we should choose explication.
Xbad sounds like street talk, but it is a variable filled in by a set of errors that
interpretation mires us in. These errors include the assumption that interpretation
is not a formal method, the conflation of having a reason and it being my reason,
subjective thinking, begging questions, imperialism, colonialism, narcissism, and
the prioritization of truth as a means of inquiry. The last error explains the error
of interpretation: it confuses what should really be the end of inquiry (truth) as
the means, and hence creates a methodology of prejudice, conservatisms, and
insularity, threatened by an outside objective world, which it can only contend with
destructively by imperializing, colonizing, and narcissistically begging questions.
I am impressed with the ubiquity of interpreters in academia, but especially
outside formal disciplinary bounds. Disciplines function as the common axis from
which diverse perspectives can converge on objects of research. Within a discipline,
serious research abounds as scholars focus on the objects that their disciplines
bring into focus. These are the objects that we can disagree about from differing
perspectives that share a discipline as the common axis. Discipline-relative truth
represents these objects, while discipline- relative error fails to represent these
objects. For some peculiar reason, the study of non-Western philosophy, especially
36
Indian philosophy, is treated as a topic for interdisciplinary investigation as though

the Indianness of Indian philosophy renders it more than just philosophy. Indian
philosophy is typically talked about outside of philosophy departments in the West,
and studied by scholars formally trained in social sciences, such as philology, Sanskrit,
or the history of religions. Indology is not a discipline (it is an interdiscipline) and
hence it provides no common axis for researchers to disagree about their research
and hence no common axis to converge on objects of inquiry. In this disciplinary
void, interpretation abounds. The interpreter treats what they take to be true as
relevant to figuring out what Indian philosophers said. The problem is not that what
scholars think is true is actually false, and that they must somehow discern what is
objectively true in order to engage in scholarship. The problem is that the accuracy
of our first-party reasons are irrelevant to determining third-party reasons—unless
we want to deny the capacity of third parties to radically dissent from what we take
to be true, which is imperialistic. To deny this freedom to have an autonomous
perspective complicates our understanding of the data, like a Geocentrist’s readings
of the heavens. It is also Xbad.
I have often criticized this approach by pointing out what seems obvious to a
philosopher: that basic terms of philosophy are controversial, and you have to
understand them as functioning to articulate competing theories relative to different
perspectives to find the order in their behavior (Ranganathan 2011). This applies to
“dharma” too—India’s favorite moral term. I fault myself for not clearly distinguishing
explication from interpretation in this argument. This failure makes possible the
foggy response that any argument, or intellectual endeavor of understanding, is
itself a form of interpretation; and any criticism of interpretation is something that
everyone has to live with. Interpretation depends on the conflation of first-and
third-party reasons. Any argument or intellectual endeavor that clearly draws a
line between these varieties of reasons—which allows for a distinction between our
perspective and how things are—is a rejection of interpretation that itself is not
an interpretation. Indeed, the very possibility of criticizing interpretation on the
basis of explication shows that the explicator is committed to distinguishing between
first-party reasons (their reasons) and third-party reasons (those of the interpreter).
Any methodology that rejects a central contention of interpretation would be an
alternative, and interpreters who fail to appreciate this are like salespeople who buy
their own pitch. Interpretation is the dogma of humanists in an undisciplined world.
Explication rejects the central claim of interpretation that third-party perspectives have
to be explained by first-party reasons. Explicators understand third-party perspectives in
the way that we assess valid arguments that might not be sound. To explicate perspective
P is to treat its reasons rP as explaining its use of the term “t.” The simplified explanation
is P’s theory of t. The perspectives entail the reasons that explain their use of the term
“t” and hence the t-claims are the conclusions that follow from the relevant theory of
t. The truth of t-claims and the truth of the reasons rP never come into the picture, and
hence we are free to disagree with the theory of t and P’s t-claims by understanding it
as a valid argument. In other words, a perspective P’s reasons that explain its use of
“dharma” or “ethics” are like the premises and its claims about dharma or ethics are the
37
PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, AND SCHOLARSHIP 37
conclusions. To understand a theory of dharma or ethics does not involve our assent to
the reasons, or conclusions, and hence we are always free to disagree with an explicated
theory of dharma or ethics. At no point do we have to rely on our own idea about what
ethics or dharma amounts to in order to understand the alien perspective’s view on
dharma or ethics. Indeed, the entire approach allows us to define the concepts at play
in theoretical differences in terms of our controversies. All the reasons at play are also
those we understand in terms of controversies. At no point does explication rely on
some background agreement or set of uncontroverted assumptions. It is controversy all
the way down.
The disjunction of the first premise (in the argument above) is really exclusive,
for the choice is between failing to distinguish between having a reason and it being
my reason (interpretation), and drawing such a distinction (explication). We cannot
have it both ways. As explication is essential to philosophy, any time we draw such
a distinction between first-and third-party reasons we are philosophical. Being
philosophical is consistent with research in any academic discipline. Interpretation
is not. The second premise excludes interpretation, and the third confirms that the
reasons for excluding interpretation do not apply to explication.
With explication in hand, we find that the basic concept of “ethics” is THE RIGHT OR
THE GOOD: this is what ethical theories have in common but disagree about. Further,
with explication in hand, we find that there is no principled means of distinguishing
between secular European moral theory, and non-European religion. All are equally
perspectives with theories about THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD, and explicating the theories
uncovers the moral philosophy of the theories. Further, we find that there is no
principled way to distinguish between differing meanings of “dharma” in the Indian
tradition: each perspective is treated as providing reasons for its use of the term
“dharma” and the simplified explanation of the perspective’s use of “dharma” is
the perspective’s theory of dharma. When we compare these theories, we find that
they converge on the concept ETHICS: THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. This is what they have
in common and disagree about. In short, treating objectivity as the foundation of
inquiry allows us to discover the truth about the rich participation of Indian thinkers
in moral philosophy, and that the usual (unparsimonious) distinctions drawn between
differing meanings of “dharma” or even between ethics and religion (“dharma” itself
often being cast as the Indian word for “religion”) are a function of interpretation.
1.1. Looking Ahead

In this chapter I respond to objections to my argument that we should shift our
focus from truth to objectivity, from prejudice to research, and from doctrine to
disciplinarity.
First I will respond to the following:
• The argument that dharma and ethics are the same concept is too quick.
• Interpretation is required for the distinction between truth and objectivity.
• The preceding account of moral theory is unscholarly.
• Your writing is inelegant, imprecise.
38
• The idea that “dharma” means ethics is forced.

• You failed to convince me (and you have to convince me in order for your
argument to be taken seriously).
This first group arises from a failure to appreciate that there is an alternative to
interpretation. The second variety of objection concerns the interpreter’s idea of
religion as a social kind. The objections are of two sorts:
• The criticism of religion is not universally applicable.
• Religion is more than ethics.
Next follows objections to my characterization of interpretation:
• Interpreters can countenance dissent.
The fourth group of objections are the “dig in your heals” variety of objections,
which try to argue that Indology is doing fine without philosophy (explication):
• Philology is the fitting approach to the study of Indian philosophy.
• Indologists are in a position to interpret Indian philosophy for they have
experience of what they speak of.
The fifth kind of objection sums up the bruised feelings of Orthodox Indology (OI)
as objections:
• You and your criticism are mean.
• Explication is a bias.
• Your argument is a bias in favor of philosophy.
In almost every case, the objection Q is generated by relying or assuming
interpretation P as the methodology of understanding. This is the conditional: if
P then Q. The problem is that you cannot respond to the objections Q by denying
interpretation P: that would be to engage in the fallacy of denying the antecedent.
However, one can respond to the objections by showing that Q has no independent
ground, aside from interpretation P. Hence, as a matter of fact, the objections Q are
not objectively true: they correspond to nothing and are merely the implication of
interpretation P. But then we have shown that not only is the complaint Q false, but
also interpretation P is by the inference of modus tollens.
Obvious examples of this kind of objection include the following:
• Explication needs truth, and so it requires interpretation.
• Interpretation is necessary for understanding as such.
Of course, one might argue that if interpretation P is true, then its material implications
should be taken seriously too. The trouble, however, is that interpretation P yields
itself as an implication, and the resulting implication has no independent grounding.
It is a restatement of the conditions of interpretation. This is enough to show that
interpretation is objectively false: it corresponds to no thing, just the attitude of the
interpreter. This is to note than an interpretation is merely a subjective account of
39
how things seem from the subject’s perspective and nothing more. This also applies
to objections against explication generated from interpretation.
Explication, in contrast, corresponds to what is objective (for the reasons
discussed in the last chapter) and hence has a very different status. When we
explicate philosophy, for instance, we arrive at an account of a philosophy P that
we can arrive at from any other perspective S, as the perspective S plays no role in
justifying P. Our independent perspective S is incidental to our appreciation of P.
For any explication of P there is always independent evidence for P: its explication
from any S. This is not to say that everyone who attempts to explicate P will be
successful, but it is to note why they err: they err insofar as they interpret P when
they should be explicating P.
Having responded to the objections generated by interpretation, and having
familiarized ourselves with explication, we are in a position to be objective about
the usual criticisms of Indian Ethics. The usual criticisms operate in a foggy world
of interpretation.
2. OBJECTIONS OF MISUNDERSTANDING
A family of objections to explication arise because of a confusion about reason. According
to this confusion, truth is central to reason. But really, truth is neither necessary nor
sufficient for valid reasoning. Valid reasoning is objective, and its conclusions and
considerations may not be true. Failure to distinguish between objectivity and truth,
validity and soundness, leads to conflating research with churning out conclusions
based on what commentators take to be true. Even when these claims are true, they
are irrelevant to research about reasoning—philosophy—but in the warped world of
the interpreter, truth eclipses objectivity. The result is that the subjective truths of the
interpreter make it difficult for him to understand alternatives. Sadly, interpretation
makes one less intelligent. Interpretation conflates the derivability of ideas from what
one takes to be true with knowledge, research, and logic.
2.1. The Argument That Dharma and Ethics Are Philosophical

Synonyms Is Too Quick
Here is an argument:
(1) If we interpret “dharma,” we define its meanings in accordance with our
subjective criteria, which we might share with others. Dharma will have as
many meanings as uses of “dharma” meet with our criteria.
(2) Explication leads us to independently identify theories of “dharma” relative
to perspectives that explain uses of “dharma” by the perspective, and to do
the same with “ethics.”
(3) When we compare what theories of dharma and of ethics disagree about, they
both disagree about procedures and outcomes. In other words, the disagreement
about dharma and about ethics is the concept THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD.
40
(4) Interpretation, which multiplies the meaning of “dharma” in accordance

with subjective criteria, begs questions as a matter of methodology.
(5) Explication is non-question-begging, and also objective.
Therefore, “dharma” and “ethics” are terms used to talk about the same
concept.
This argument is valid, but not question-begging: the conclusion does not entail the
premises, but the premises, if true, entail the truth of the conclusion. The interpreter
is likely to object that this is too quick.
As objectivity is what we converge on from differing perspectives, then each
premise is objective. If truth represents the objective, each premise is objectively
true. Validity plus truth equals a sound argument.
The only reason that I can discern for believing that this is too quick is if you
expect the plausibility of each premise to be borne out interpretively, for then it takes
time to get accustomed to each premise as something you believe. You will attempt
to domesticate these reasons if they are foreign to you, or religify them as a way of
resisting their force, which is to define them as un-derivable from your specific reasons.
All this requires some work on the part of the interpreter. Moreover, interpreters will
feel that they need the conclusion of an argument to support the premises, otherwise
their reasons seem insufficient. Begging questions allows the conclusion to be part of
the interpreter’s batch of reasons, which are thereby rendered sufficiently robust to
deductively entail the conclusion. Fulfilling this desire to beg questions takes an extra
bit of work to reverse the direction of inference. Understanding valid, non-question-
begging arguments takes half the time as question-begging arguments, but no more
time than required. Any leftover sense of difficulty in grasping such arguments is the
effort of the interpreter to domesticate or religify the argument.
2.2. Interpretation Is Required for the Distinction of Truth and Objectivity

There are several accounts of truth (Wright 1992; Glanzberg 2014 Fall Edition;
Dowden and Swartz Accessed 2015), and truth as correspondence is just one, but
it is correspondence that one requires in order to explain objective truth as what
represents what is controversial—the objective. This is an assumption that shows that
the argument for objective truth provided on disciplinary grounds is an interpretation
as it relies on the first-party reasons of the explicator to explicate third-party reasons.
My response to this criticism has two parts. The first part notes that this criticism
conflates two different reasons: first-and third-party reasons. It might be the case
that explicators have many first-party reasons and beliefs (we do), but the explicator
denies that these reasons determine or inferentially support their account of third-party
reasons. They deny this because they do not understand third-party reasons in terms
of what they (the explicators) think is true. They rather explain third-party reasons
(and all reasons) in terms of what we can disagree about. This relieves pressure to
have to understand third-party reasons as consistent with or derivable from first-party
reasons. Noting that explicators have beliefs, even philosophical beliefs, that aid in their
practice of explication does not constitute a refutation explication. To think that it does
41
constitute such a refutation is to presume interpretation. This objection is hence not

objectively true, but then we should jettison interpretation for giving rise to it.
Second, if a philosophical commitment can be shown to be entailed or required in
order to distinguish between first-and third-party reasons, then explicators should
endorse them out of respect for objectivity—what we can disagree about. But such
reasons would thereby be true in one sense: they correspond to what is objective.
Truth as correspondence falls naturally out of a respect for objectivity.
There are alternatives, such as truth as disquotation (where truth is treated as
a metalinguistic device of assertion) and the Peircean idea of truth, as what we
converge on at the end of inquiry. My response is that truth as correspondence is
based on the idea of objectivity as something different than truth, and to the extent
that this distinction is important for appreciating disagreements, we should embrace
the former. Insofar as objectivity is what we can discover by abandoning explanation
from one perspective only, objectivity is discovered (not assumed) and objective
truth is dependent on our discoveries. Alternative accounts arise because of a failure
to respect truth and objectivity. As a test, consider a valid argument: if we assert
it, it does not become sound. However, if disquotationalism were right, it should.
Likewise, if we converge on a valid argument at the end of inquiry (P and Not-P,
therefore P and Not-P) it does not become sound, though the Peircean account
would appear to make it so as convergence at the end of inquiry is truth—and the
only difference between validity and soundness is truth.
Similarly, if one wanted to object that the very distinction between valid and
sound arguments is also based on assumption and interpretation, we can respond
that this is a mistake. Objectivity in reasoning—what we can converge on while we
disagree about truth—is inferential support for a conclusion. This is validity. We
discover this by abandoning just one perspective and considering an argument from
all perspectives. Sound arguments are to valid arguments what truth is to objectivity.
In the case of sound arguments and true premises, what we have is something that
corresponds to what is objective.
2.3. The Preceding Account of Moral Theory Is Unscholarly

The account of moral theory in the previous chapter was high-level and general. It
lacked copious references, and in general my writing has been less documented than
what is customary in Indology.
Explication is the procedure that directs us to discern reasons rP of a perspective
P (stated or entailed) that explain the perspective’s uses of its term “t.” The logically
simplified explanation is P’s theory of t. References, citations, and quotations of the
original text may be used to support an explication. We can cite textual sources for
specific reasons rP, but perhaps not all—not those that are entailed.
As for the resulting theory t, if the theory really does inferentially explain uses of
“t” and if the inferences are non-question-begging, the uses of “t” as the conclusions
of the theory t will not entail the theory t. So citing uses of “t” can at best confirm
the theory, but does not prove it, and uses of “t” cannot be brought in as evidence
for the explication that results in a theory of t. All of this undermines the urgency
42
and motivation for pointing to isolated bits of a text as evidence of an explication.

As for evidence of theory t, we have to look to everything else that constitutes rP.
This is objective, as it treats rP as evidence of a theory t that explains all uses of
“t,” and not rS, which is the reason of the subject explicating a text. So short of
reproducing an original text, quoting bits of a text and citing isolated usages are
rather post hoc. The real work in determining whether an explication is right is to
read philosophy oneself, just as the real evidence of mathematical proof is to do the
proof oneself, and just as the real evidence of a scientific test is to reproduce the
experiment oneself.
Contrast this with interpretation, where the text is to be made intelligible in
light of the assumptions and reasons of the subject interpreting the text. Can the
interpreter provide scholarly documentation? If the expectation is that scholarly
documentation has to refer to the text being discussed, interpreters will never
clearly defend or argue for the interpreting criteria for these are not verbatim in the
text. (Indeed, if they had to defend these criteria they would notice that they are
philosophically controversial and cannot be assumed as the basis of understanding
third-party reasons. “Focusing on the text” is the way that interpreters avoid dealing
with the philosophy they assume.) So pressed with having to make a case for their
scholarship on the basis of the text, interpreters cannot provide you references for
their reasons rS. However, they can certainly quote and refer to small parts of the
texts, thoroughly, as they roll out their interpretation. Each quotation, citation, and
presentation of the original text can be brought in as proof of the interpretation for
the commentator is the one who casts the quotation in light of their interpretation.
So interpreters will act as though philological details of a text are central to making
a case for a reading. But this is a sham for it is the interpretation that renders the
quotations and citations dispositive. But interpretation is not objective. It depends
on the first-party reasons of the interpreters and not the objective perspective
expressed in texts. The obfuscating element in this that keeps this sham alive is the
idea that the truth of the interpreter’s assumptions legitimizes their readings. The
truth of first-party reasons are not relevant to determining third-party reasons if
third parties can disagree.
As interpretations are plausible only if you buy the interpreter’s substantive
commitments, the seemingly meticulous documentation of interpreters is published
and is taken seriously insofar as reviewers and readers share the subjectivity of the
interpreter. But from this shared vantage, we have an illusion for the findings of
interpretation can be seen from no other perspective.
2.4. Your Writing Is Inelegant, Imprecise

Interpreters complain about style when the issue is substance, for reason is the same
as their subjectivity. What this excludes is talk of objects and objectivity. Interpreters
feel inconvenienced when you talk about things, objects, and items in philosophy,
as though their very mention ruins the flow of erudition and abstraction. Is this a
serious objection: your writing is inelegant? Since this is an objection that is generated
43
by interpretation, it has no independent ground. It is hence not true (it represents

nothing independently of its antecedent) and it shows us how interpretation is
mistaken: modus tollens. But as for the imprecision of writing that is also something
only an interpreter will believe is relevant for accuracy is something that interpretation
cannot fathom. Our interpretations (the explanation of a perspective in terms of our
first-party reasons) are not accurate, for there is no thing for them to correspond
to. They are at best precise, which means that we can repeat them. Real research
tracks objects, and measurements of dynamic objects relative to the status of the
dynamic observer will not be repeatable. Hence objectivity is an important factor
of research: it allows us to distinguish between mere imprecision and accuracy. In
the case of what we can disagree about, our measurements can be accurate though
perhaps imprecise if the objects are dynamic relative to our moods. It is the mark of
uncareful thinking to confuse precision and accuracy. As researchers assess objects
from different vantages, the measurements will appear unrepeatable though what
they get at is accuracy. Only interpreters confuse precision with accuracy: for them,
precision is as good as it gets.
2.5. The Idea That “Dharma” Means Ethics Is Forced

Several authors have made the claim that the identification of “ethics” and “dharma”
is forced. (White 2011; Burley July 2012; 2014: 226; Taylor-Rugman 2012). The
only way to generate this conclusion is via interpretation: if one’s definition of
“ethics” is out of step with Indian uses of “dharma” then the application of one’s
definition to “dharma” will appear forced. There is no independent grounding
for this assessment. Hence, this objection is not objectively true, though it is an
implication of interpretation. Modus tollens: interpretation is false. It corresponds
to no objective thing.
2.6. You Failed to Convince Me

So what if I did not convince you? This would be a problem if you thought that you
have to be convinced in order to take an argument seriously and worthy of scholarly
consideration. Explicators certainly do not believe this. Explicators are open to
arguments that they disagree with: this is what it is to engage in philosophical
research.
Only interpreters confuse being persuaded with being presented with an
objectively sound argument because they confuse having a reason that leads to further
conclusions (validity) with it being their reason that they take to be true (question-
begging soundness). This is what leads interpreters to deny the reality of Indian
ethics: arguments for Indian accounts of dharma are not persuasive to them, so they
deny they exist at all. But if the only reason not to buy an argument for explication is a
prior commitment to interpretation, then this lack of persuasion has no independent
grounds. It is objectively false, and shows interpretation to be mistaken!
Could we not make an analogous argument that any criticism of interpretation
based on explication is not objective for it is based merely on explication? There
44
are two worthy responses to this concern. First, if there are no independent reasons
for rejecting interpretation apart from its failure to conform to explication, then
objections against interpretation would be apparently objectively false and based
only on a prior commitment to explication. But the many problems noted at
the start of this chapter, and in the previous chapter, with interpretation, are
independent reasons to reject it. Second, unlike interpretation that conflates
first-and third-party reasons and is thereby subjective, explication is based
on objectivity: it represents understanding what is objective and is hence
objectively true. Any implication of an objective truth would be a case of Modus
Ponens: affirming the antecedent. The implication should be taken seriously in
this case.
3. RELIGION
Interpreters tend to take religion very seriously for obvious reasons: in our world
it is true that some practices and systems count as religions, while others do not.
Religion is a social kind on their account. Explication, in contrast, provides us no
reason to take religion seriously as anything distinct from moral theory. Theistic
religions along with Jainism, for instance, are versions of Virtue Ethics, Bhakti in
the Indian tradition is the explanatorily opposite moral theory, and most other
views associated with Indian religions (such as other Hindu views and Buddhism)
are versions of Deontology and Consequentialism. There are two objections that
defenders of religion-as-distinct-from-moral-theory might claim to entrench taking
religion seriously as distinct from moral theory.
3.1. The Criticism of Religion Is Not Universally Applicable

The first objection notes that there are facts (true propositions) about religious
differences in our world. These differences are legally entrenched: in many
jurisdictions one earns rights and privileges and accommodations by deference to
religious identity that are not available to mere philosophical allegiance. This shows
that religion is more than more moral theory.
The explicator’s response is to note that there is no way to make sense of the
idea of a religion without deferring to what we or anyone believes is true or what
is true. This is interpretation. Explanation by deference to truth is not objective—
even when the truths in question represent what we can disagree about. The reason
that such explanations by way of truth are not objective is that so long as we can
disagree with such explanations, they are at best partial. In philosophy we know
this as the reality of philosophical disagreement. I realize that this argument will
seem Buddhist—echoes of Nāgārjuna. The argument for objectivity as primary and
truth as derivative is South Asian, but it is also at the root of disciplined research.
Disciplinarity bypasses the partiality of truth by investigating research topics as
what we disagree about. This is synoptic. Truth is at best the explicandum, not the
explicans.
45
If it is objectively true that there are religious differences in our world, then it
follows that we should take those differences seriously. Modus Ponens. But the way
to take such differences seriously is to investigate them objectively and all we find
when we explicate the options is moral theory. The conventional truth of religious
identity is empty—empty like a conch. When we examine it closely all we find is
what we can disagree about from differing perspectives. The questions that arise
from this investigating are questions of procedure and outcome.
3.2. Religion Is More Than Ethics

One might further object that if explication can draw no distinction between moral
theory and religion—it is all moral theory on its account—then religion is reduced
to ethics. But religion is more than ethics.
The problem with this objection is that it relies on some account of what ethics
is, and what religion is, which are interpretive. There is no way to make sense of the
distinction between ethical theory and religion without some limiting assumption
about what ethics is, as though ethical theory cannot include views about God
or devotion. But Theistic theories are versions of Virtue Theories. God as the
supreme virtuous agent is logically prior to questions of right action on this account.
Devotees endorse the logically opposite view: questions of the paradigmatically
right agent—the regulative ideal—are prior to questions of good outcomes. The
limiting assumptions that attempt to draw a distinction between religion and ethics
represent a perspective only. It is subjective. A disciplinary approach to the question
of moral theory, in contrast, provides us no grounds for limiting ethical theory to
postulates friendly to a specific perspective. An account of the objectivity of ethics
allows for disagreement, and this undermines limiting perspectives as definitive of
the topic of ethics.
4. OBJECTION TO THE CHARACTERIZATION

OF INTERPRETATION
One might claim on behalf of interpretation that interpreters can countenance
dissent. For instance, as an interpreter I has the belief about a third person that “she
disagrees with me.” Every time the interpreter I sees the person in question, she
would interpret that individual as disagreeing with her. This seems to be a case of
countenancing dissent that is also interpretation.
The problem here is that the proposition P—“she disagrees with me”—is in a
propositional attitude context, which removes the proposition from the realm of
inquiry and places it within the realm of the subject. The advantage of treating a
proposition within a propositional attitude context is that a description of the belief
state—which is subjectively true—can replace the imbedded proposition. So, in one
move, we go from the uncertain and possibly false claim “she disagrees with me” to
the subjectively true and certain claim “I believe that she disagrees with me.” This is
the conflation of the distinction between having a reason and it being my reason, but
46
one motivated by a desire for one’s reasons to be true. Now that we are in the realm
of subjectively true claims, no one else can dissent, and the interpreter has seen to
this. Even if P is false, “I believe that P” continues to be true and incontrovertible.
Interpretation, as this conflation of having a reason and it being my reason, protects
against the possibility of dissent.
The logical property of coextensive propositions embedded in attitude contexts
of belief is Frege’s puzzle: “X believes that the morning star is on the horizon
but not the evening star.” These are the same planet and not a star: Venus. How
do we account for this? We remove the propositions from attitude contexts and
investigate. What they converge on, if anything at all, is the common object: Venus.
So inquiry takes us away from embedding propositions within attitude contexts.
Interpretation takes us toward imbedding propositions in attitude contexts to
avoid research.
Discipline, yoga, is about removing propositions from propositional attitude
contexts: this is our epistemic freedom. Once removed, the propositions are under
our control, and we are in a position to investigate their objectivity. We are hence
isolated from the content of thought as free. The reward is objectivity: we can know
impartially what there is, without confusing this with a description of us.
5. IN DEFENSE OF ORTHODOX INDOLOGY

OI is Indology with Eurocentric interpretation. For the Eurocentrist, the truths of
interpretation are culled in large measure from the European experience, and alien
moral theory is interpreted bringing about the religification of the differentia. This
means that European ethical theories—especially the theories from Plato on—are
treated as secular moral philosophy and everything else becomes religion—including
the polytheistic theories of its philosophical prehistory to be found in Homer and
other sources. I can imagine an Indocentric Indology: Indology with Indocentric
interpretation. Accordingly, Indian moral theory would be secular, and everything
else would be religion. I am not sure that anyone endorses this. Even critics, such
as Right-Wing Hindus, who object to anything Western, endorse religious identities
defined along Eurocentric lines. In response to what often seems to be Indian close-
mindedness, scholars double down as Orthodox Indologists, determined to unearth
the reality of Indian history that runs afoul of Hindutva narratives. My argument for
explication implies that Orthodox Indologists and Right-Wing Hindus have more
in common than they care to celebrate: their views about India are a product of
Eurocentric Interpretation. Moreover, my argument for the disciplinary foundations
of objectivity rejects interpretation. If we follow my recommendations, we should
ensure that the discipline that facilitates research is the one that characterizes the
object of research. So philosophy, not philology, should be our means of discerning
the objects of Indian philosophy. Asking Sanskritists to weigh in on the topic of
Indian philosophy makes as much sense as asking PhDs in English or German to
weigh in because the topic of conversation is analytic philosophy.
47
5.1. The Philology Project

But surely we could imagine the objection that philology plays an important role
in philosophical research. I doubt it. If the content of thought is discipline relative,
then we would be mistaken in thinking that philology will lead us to anything but
thought about philology, or that linguistics will lead us to anything but thought
about linguistics. If the objects of research are discipline relative, then so too the
thoughts that represent the disciplinary objects. But the case is often made that
in the case of texts that are very difficult to understand and very cryptic, we need
linguistics and social scientists to intervene.
Let us take a look at the case of the Yoga Sūtra, by all accounts a difficult text
to read. It is the basic text of the philosophical school of yoga. It forms the basis
of subsequent commentaries. Commentaries in the Indian tradition were treated as
opportunities for commentators to make a case for their own philosophy. We find
this obviously in the case of the commentators on the Vedānta Sūtra. The tradition of
interpreting the Yoga Sūtra is old. The first main commentary on the text attributed
to Vyāsa (Patañjali 1971 [circa 300 CE]) appears highly influenced by a sister school
of thought: Sāṅkhya. But there have been famous commentaries informed by Advaita
Vedānta (Śaṅkara 2001 [circa 1400 CE]), yet another school of thought. Given the
cultural practices of Indian philosophers to treat commentaries as an opportunity
to explicate their own philosophies, we should look at the practice of differing to
commentaries to elucidate primary texts dimly.
When we look at the work of recent philologists working on the Yoga Sūtra,
we find the inexplicable: authors seek to base their account of the Yoga Sūtra on
commentaries. One philologist recommends that P: we read the Yoga Sūtra in
accordance with Vyāsa because he was the most influential commentator (Bryant
2009: xxxviii). Another argues that P: Vyāsa is the author of the Yoga Sūtra and
that we should hence read it according to his commentary, otherwise we cannot
“interpret it convincingly” (Maas 2013: 68).
Recently, David White Gordon wrote an entire academic tract on the Yoga Sūtra
that depicts the diversity of interpretations of the text through the ages and across
continents. Yet, White believes that this is all there is to studying the Yoga Sūtra. In
his view, P: a “critical scholar” is someone who reads the Yoga Sūtra in light of the
commentaries (White 2014: 5), and moreover is apparently of the view that there
is no right reading (cf. Ranganathan 2016): it all depends on your premises (White
2014: 234). This is the view of the interpreter.
One general observation is that these arguments are invalid: Vyāsa was
influential therefore he is right about the Yoga Sūtra. That is not a valid argument.
Vyāsa wrote the Yoga Sūtra so we can read his commentary as equivalent to the
meaning of the Yoga Sūtra: that is also not a valid inference—if the content of
the Yoga Sūtra is objective. Moreover, if it is the case that all there is to the Yoga
Sūtra is interpretation and assumptions, then there is no reason to believe that
a critical scholar is one who studies the text on the basis of the commentaries—
any set of assumptions will do as well as any other set if reading the Yoga Sūtra
48
is interpretation. These arguments seem valid only if we rewrite them purely in

terms of propositional attitudes: “I think that P therefore P” is valid if we embrace
the conclusion as the object of belief. To anyone who does not share the conviction
P, the argument falls flat.
One more specific observation is that each of these philological interventions
involve not reading the Yoga Sūtra, and substituting commentaries instead. It is as
though the more difficult a philosophical text is to read, the more our esteemed
philologists will want us to find a commentary to replace the original text. Part
of what sustains this foggy enterprise is a confusion about what the history of
philosophy is interested in. Historians of philosophy are concerned with what we can
disagree about in the history of philosophy: these are the conceptual commitments
of philosophers. What we are not concerned about are beliefs— subjective
propositional attitude contexts. These no one can disagree with. What philological
interpreters are concerned with, in contrast, is a depiction of what Indians believed
and to this end, studying commentaries becomes important in establishing some
type of tradition-wide consensus (Burley 2007: 48). But how this is brought about
is by interpretation: it confuses thought with belief (having a reason and it being
my or someone’s reason) and it engineers this conversion by differing to truth as
the explicans and the truths are often descriptions of Western philosophy (Burley
2007: 56–71; White 2014: 94–95).
As a follow-up objection, one might argue that important discoveries are gained by
philological research that are relevant to philosophy. For instance, the discovery that
terms in the Yoga Sūtra have apparently Buddhist origins suggest that the text might
be Buddhist (White 2014: 203). These are not “discoveries”—they are interpretations.
The only reason to believe that words come to texts with theoretical funds that
determine the meaning of a text is interpretation. If we explicate, we have to treat the
theoretical weight of a philosophically important word in light of the reasons provided
by perspectives described in the text, and hence words that bear a certain theory in
one text can present a contrary theory in another. This is classically the case of terms
such as “morality,” or “dharma”—the theories they express are perspective relative.
The Yoga Sūtra is easy to read if we allow that it provides the reasons that
enlighten its uses of its terms, where the reasons and the concepts associated with
the terms are objective. The only reason that the Yoga Sūtra is difficult to interpret
is that the philosophy of Yoga is as far from interpretation as one can get. Yoga is the
prioritization of ahiṃsā (non-harm of what is real) over satya (truth). The politics of
Yoga leads us away from imperialism, to a respect for boundaries, for other people’s
property, and away from acquisition (colonialism) as a means of understanding. The
goal is our own freedom, autonomy, kaivalya. This vitiates against the prioritization
of truth over all else, which is the imperialism of interpretation.
5.2. Indologists Know Better: Mill’s Liberal Imperialism

Against the claim that research in philosophy is discipline bound, surely we can
make a case that we have something to gain by the wide experience and knowledge
of Indologists, who through their broad exposure to Indian and Western thought are
49
in a position to tell us what Indians believed about various topics, such as philosophy.
What we gain here is the breadth of experience, which matters—something denied
to us by narrow disciplinary research.
The idea that this breadth of experience counts in favor of expertise is mistaken.
It understands the perspective of the experience as privileged, and this undermines
the objectivity of the topic of inquiry. We can think of a political example that makes
clear the trouble with this proposal. Consider the case of John Stuart Mill.
Mill is famous for an impassioned defense of free speech and the right to disagree,
as well as a defense of free life experiments and secularism in general (like our
Orthodox Indologists) and the strange claim that such freedoms are only for the
mature and not for races that are in their “non age” such as those who are lucky
enough to find an Akbar to rule them (On Liberty I.10). Mill bases his moral theory
on an empirical test:
Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience
of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation
to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure (Utilitarianism ch. 2).
This test is supposed to fill out the gradation of utility, which is the ultimate value
to be maximized on Mill’s account. Hence, only those who are in a position to
experience two options are in a position to determine which is better, and whatever
they prefer or enjoy is the superior. Of the colonized and the imperialist, clearly the
imperialist is the more experienced of the two having an experience of their home
and the world of the colonized, whereas the colonized, lacking imperial ambitions,
never cared to experience the culture of their colonizers. They rather stay home.
Whatever the imperialist prefers is just the superior pleasure to be maximized. Mill
does not talk of his imperialism when he speaks of the test, but it follows nonetheless.
Mill uses this same test to defend the idea that intellectual pleasures are superior to
sensual pleasures, that humans are more important than nonhumans and that it is
better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied (Mill’s words).
The open secret of course is that Mill was an officer of the British India company,
in charge of writing “dispatches” (propaganda; Zastoupil 1994; Lal Accessed October
2014). His day job, his source of income, consisted in colonizing India. Mill was not
embarrassed about his job as an imperialist, but thought of it as an important function
for liberals such as himself (1861 [Accessed Fall 2014]: 573–579).Well, all us brown
colonized folks are clearly on the side of the satisfied fool, and Mill apparently is the
dissatisfied Socrates in all of this, stuck with the white man’s burden.
After all these years, Mill continues to interest me as a study in contrast, but
one that is all too familiar. He is the face of a very Western imperialism: Liberal at
home, and paternalist afar. Far from being at tension, both his liberalism and his
imperialism have a common source: his experiential criterion of knowledge. It is
because we need to experience different alternatives that he argues in On Liberty for
freedom at home. But by parity of reasoning, the brown folks who are stuck in their
home country do not have experience of Western and Indic options, so they really
are not in a position to know better.
50
In the case of the study of Indian philosophy, we have the case of authors who are
gone. They are like the colonized Indians who are not in a position to experience
European options. But this seems to leave the modern Westernized individual with
knowledge of both. Does not that make them the authorities of what counts as the
right definition of ethics?
Mill, in On Liberty, says at least one credible thing: even if we are right in our
opinion, we would not be justified in silencing dissent. Aside from the usual fallibility
of humanity that gives us pause to consider our own veracity, we are in a position
to gain something from reviewing false opinions. So, it would seem that Mill would
be open to allowing Indians the freedom to talk about the good in a free and open
society. But this was not his view at all: he thought that the historical brown folks
should keep their mouths shut, and obey Akbar Where is the error? Mill confuses
two issues. One is the question of being in a position to discern what the right option
is: certainly having access to alternative is required to judge between alternatives.
But this is not the same as the right answer being whatever one prefers when one
has access to more than one option. The imperialist confuses these two issues. Why
does he do so? The imperialist does not draw a distinction between having a reason
and it being their reason.
Indologists might very well prefer their Eurocentric ideas of ethics to Indian
accounts of dharma. But this does not make their preference the right. Moreover,
even if the Indologist is correct about what ethics is, it does not follow that others
agree. Even if you are the philosopher king, with a clearest view of THE GOOD alighting
the objects of reason, it does not follow that your perspective defines what others
can think about ethics. If the point is to study Indian philosophy, then clearly we as
researchers are not studying our own opinions. Yet, imperialism confuses the two.
What happens if we distinguish between having a reason and it being my
reason? I cannot confuse what I prefer with what is right. But also, I would be an
explicator as I reject the conflation of having a reason with it being my reason.
The imperialism of Mill is the imperialism of Indologists who are interpreters of
Indian thought.
What if we give up interpretation, which is the prioritization of truth over
objectivity in explanation? We have to base research on disciplinary considerations,
and the idea of expertise that comes from amassing truth from many overlapping
disciplines in an area such as Indology has to take a backseat. It is the discipline,
not the interdiscipline, that drives research. The first step toward studying Indian
philosophy is not studies in Sanskrit or history, but clarity about the discipline of
philosophy. You only learn about that from philosophers.
6. INTERPRETER’S CRITICISM
I can imagine that some scholars who buy into Eurocentric interpretation will find
my criticism of interpretation objectionable. Here I consider two versions of this
objection.
51
6.1. You Are Mean and Uncharitable

I have called attention to the imperialism of interpretation and it would seem that,
by extension, I am implying that interpreters are imperialists. Moreover, I can
imagine that they would fault me for failing to be charitable. My response to the
latter charge is that the principle of charity, the idea that I should understand others
in terms of what I think is true or reasonable, is nothing but interpretation so my
failure to be charitable in my account of interpretation means that I did not interpret
interpretation. That is not criticism. In fact, that is praise, for it shows that I was able
to deliver a criticism of interpretation that was not itself an interpretation. As for the
imperialism of interpreters, I see no reason why they have to adopt interpretation as
a proxy for disciplined-based research and hence I have in no way essentialized them
as individuals who are incapable of anything else. These criticisms are not personal
attacks on people capable of good research. The criticism is of interpretation the
methodology.
6.2. Explication Is Bias

Interpretation is explanation in terms of bias, and criticizing this would be a bias
too! In order for explication to be a bias, it has to be a perspective as bias is the
promotion of one’s own perspective. Explication, however, is philosophy—its basic
practice—and philosophy as a discipline is not a perspective. A discipline is what
we can practice from differing perspectives. Philosophy is not a bias, and neither is
mathematics or empirical science. These are disciplines that allow us to coordinate
disagreements across perspectives. It is by virtue of the discipline that there is
anything like objectivity—what we can converge on from differing perspectives. The
conflation of disciplinarity with a mere perspective is not only a category mistake,
but also symptomatic of bad reasoning: interpretation. The irrationality that pits
science against religion, or philosophy against tradition, is interpretation: it confuses
all possible explanations with a perspective, and reduces the great—discipline—to
the small and partial—perspective.
As for the general advice that we should always be aware of our biases, this is
confused. If I remove a thought from my attitudinal context via the practice of yoga,
the thought is no longer my bias because I no longer believe it. But if I leave it there,
in my attitudinal context, it is a bias, but I thereby do not know it objectively but
subjectively. Its truth becomes about me, and no longer about something objective.
Interpreters believe they need to be aware of their biases because they employ these
in explanation of third-party perspectives. But no one needs to be aware of a bias
that they can be free of.
The reason that much of these issues get confused is the interpreter’s fallacy: this
is to confuse the proposition P (such as “Plato says that THE GOOD is the Form of the
Forms”) with “I believe that P.” These are not the same thought, but if you confuse
them, you will count every finding of disciplined research as a belief. Then it will
seem that the fruits of explication are a bias. Enter Post Modernism. The cure to this
is yoga. Philosophy is the yoga in which we control our reasons and concepts—our
52
citta—so that we can be autonomous from thoughts and perspectives. Explication is

how we make this happen.
7. STANDARD OBJECTIONS TO INDIAN ETHICS: OI

Having reviewed the distinction between interpretation and explication in the
previous chapter, and having reviewed objections to the very attempt to draw such
a distinction, we are in a position to discern the methodology that gives rise to the
standard objections to Indian Ethics in the literature.
Here is a clear example of the standard objection from Bimal Matilal:
Professional philosophers of India over the last two thousand years have been
consistently concerned with the problems of logic and epistemology, metaphysics
and soteriology, and sometimes they have made very important contributions
to the global heritage of philosophy. But, except some cursory comments and
some insightful observations, the professional philosophers of India have very
seldom discussed what we call “moral philosophy” today. It is true that the
Dharmaśāstra texts were there to supplement the Hindu discussion of ethics;
classification of virtues and vices, and enumeration of duties related to the social
status of the individual. But morality was never discussed as such in these texts.
(Matilal 1989: 5)
Claims like this are more common than one thinks. A similar gem:
[My] remarks about Indian philosophy are not intended to belittle its achievements
in the spheres of logic, epistemology and aesthetics. While these compare well
enough with cognate achievements in the European philosophical tradition, . . . it
must be admitted that the contributions of Indian thinkers in the fields of ethics
and socio-political philosophy seem to be very poor indeed when viewed against
those of the European philosophers, e.g. Plato and Aristotle, Kant and Hegel . . .
(Devaraja 1962: v–vi)
Yet another gem:
The criticism is often raised against Indian philosophy in general, and Advaita
Vedanta in particular, that it turns its back on all theoretical and practical
considerations of morality and, if not unethical, is at least “a-ethical” in character.
If by “ethics” one means a rigorous, independent inquiry into problems of, and
questions concerning, the meaning of value, the justification of judgments, and
the analysis of moral concepts and concrete existential modes of behavior, then
this criticism is justified.(Deutsch 1969: 62)
Even among submissions for consideration for this book on Indian Ethics,
I encountered such claims. It constitutes OI. What is alarming is that this is an
expression of the myth of India: Indian thinkers were not so interested in ethics,
that they had no word to discuss such issues, and even if they did, it is something we
find in Indian literature (such as the epics or law books) and not formal philosophy.
53
The essential idea here is that the most erudite of Indians show the least interest in
the practical rationality of ethics: sheer Orientalism (cf. Said 1978; Inden 1990).
How do you generate the first views that Indian philosophy has no ethics
but is religious? Via interpretation. For given any background set of Eurocentric
assumptions about what ethics is, the differentia between these assumptions and
Indian perspectives of dharma will be religified— defined as underivable from
European moral theory. It is important to note that this is the reification of the
failure of interpretation on to what it cannot tolerate. But on this model, European
moral theory is the only kind of moral theory: everything else is measured against
this and will fail in its departure.
What is astounding to me is that even those sympathetic to the Indian tradition
as misunderstood by Eurocentrism do not criticize Eurocentric interpretation. They
rather rely on it to valorize the difference:
The term “Dharma”, like many other Sanskrit words, has no exact equivalent in
English, so its exact translation is rather difficult. It has been variously translated
as “religion” (which strictly is incorrect, as described earlier in this section),
“law,” “duty,” “religious rite,” “code of conduct”, etc. It can mean one or more
or all of the latter, depending upon the context. The reason seems to be that the
word itself has been used in various senses throughout the ages, and its meaning,
as well as scope, has been expanded. (DANAM Accessed 2016)
This statement is from the Dharma Academy of North America, an association

of scholars interested in dharma traditions. Remarkably, this account also makes
do with Eurocentric interpretation as it reserves “ethics” for European moral
theory. By virtue of this identification of ethics with European moral theory, uses
of “dharma” are religified, and consequently domesticated. And this domestication
by a Western perspective results in the multiplication of meanings of “dharma.”
This is worth repeating: the only way you get this multiplication of meanings
that reserves “ethics” for European theories and not for Indian dharma theories
is by assuming a Eurocentric frame for interpretation. If scholars assumed an
Indocentric approach to interpretation they would assume dharma as the basic
concept and attempt to understand “ethics” and other terms by their theoretical
associations with dharma: this would multiply meanings of “ethics” via a process
of religification and domestication, ultimately correlating “ethics” with many
Sanskrit terms. No one does this.
You would not be able to arrive at such a gloss via explication, where we would have
to treat uses of “dharma” or “ethics” relative to a perspective P as explainable by the rP;
the simplified explanation is P’s theory of dharma or ethics and the concept of “dharma”
or “ethics” as what theories of dharma or ethics converge on while they disagree.
But we find the trend throughout the literature. Here is just one relatively recent
example from a special volume of the Journal of Indian Philosophy dedicated to the
topic of dharma called “The Concept of Dharma in the Rāmāyaṇa”:
The concept of DHARMA is an extremely broad one and it has often, therefore, been
subject to a degree of misunderstanding, or at least inadequate understanding . . .
54
While the majority of the occurrences of “dharma” [in the Rāmāyaṇa] denote
broadly morality or propriety, there is a significant emphasis also on caste, family
or personal duties and on an element of necessity, as well as on the duties of a
king (rājadharma). Particularly interesting are the passages where the term is used
in what we might regard as two different senses. (Brockington 2004: 655)
What stands out to me in this passage is the assumed definition of morality as
propriety, which is then contrasted with normative considerations of a more specific
class of events or roles with an Indian flavor (caste, rājadharma). I am not sure
what the basis for this distinction is (it is not defended by the author), but it is used
as a way to talk about the interesting case of overlap between the moral uses of
dharma and those of a more specific kind. This is typical of OI. We could pick almost
anything on the topic of “dharma” in the literature—including other contributions
to the same volume of the Indian Journal of Philosophy—and we would find the
following two moves present here that are two sides of the same coin.
First, there is the perfunctory conclusion or assumption that “dharma” does not
straightforwardly mean “ethics” or “morality”—it is broad, not easily defined, and
has several meanings. This shows up in the banal claim that “dharma” does not
always mean “ethics” or “morality” ’ In case you think I am making this up, here are
some further examples:
• We cannot reduce the meanings of DHARMA to one general principle; nor
is there one single translation which would cover all its usages. (Halbfass
1988: 333)
• “Dharma” is one of those Sanskrit words that defy all attempts at an exact
rendering in English or any other tongue. (Kane 1990: vol. 1, p. 1)
• DHARMA is a concept difficult to define because it disowns or transcends
distinctions that seem essential to us, and because it is based upon beliefs that
are . . . strange to us. (Lingat 1973: 3)
• It is difficult to define DHARMA in terms of Western thought. (Buitenen
1957: 36)
• Dharma is used in so many senses that it eludes definition. It stands for
nature, intrinsic quality, civil and moral law, justice, virtue, merit, duty and
morality. (Rangaswami Aiyangar 1952: 63)
• The word “dharma” . . . is used in very different senses in the different
schools and religious traditions of Indian thought. (Dasgupta 1975: vol.
4, p. 2)
• The term “dharma” seems to be one impossible to reduce even to a few basic
definitions. It is ubiquitous throughout the texts of the Indian tradition,
ancient and modern, and has been used in a bewildering variety of ways.
(Larson 1972: 146)
• One must avoid identification of “dharma” as directly equivalent to any of
the various components of its meaning, such as law, duty, morality, justice,
virtue, or religion. All of these are involved, but we should cease looking
for an equivalent for translation, inasmuch as premature identification with
55
Western concepts tends to blind one to the particular multifaceted structure

of meanings in the Hindu dharma. (Creel 1977: 2)
• Because the term [“dharma”] has been used in a bewildering variety of ways,
it has no single semantic equivalent in English. In various contexts the word
may mean law, justice, custom, morality, ethics, religion, duty, nature, or
virtue. (Hudson 2013: 36)
These comments are guilty of a basic error that philosophy of language should get
rid of: it relies on confusing use with meaning (senses, definitions): so many uses of
dharma is grounds for concluding so many meanings (senses, definitions), it seems.
This is a mistake. Whatever the meaning of an expression, it can be used in a number
of ways, if meaning is different than use (Davidson 1996). Even if meaning is defined
by use (a view mistakenly attributed to Wittgenstein, who is more careful), we can use
the said meaning ironically, which is to say in opposition to its meaning. Just as I can
use the same note in a number of ways in music, so too can I use the same term with a
fixed meaning in a number of ways (Donnellan 1966; Davidson 1996; Austin 2000).
The diversity of uses does not entail a diversity of notes, or concepts, as use is not a
semantic concept but a pragmatic concept. Any and all uses of “dharma” are consistent
with a single meaning. A little study in philosophy would save a lot of confusion here.
Second, there is the bait and switch. The Orthodox Indologist claims to be
studying Indian thought. But what happens instead is that the commentator assumes
a definition of morality or ethics against which a text and tradition is judged. Even
in the case of the most sympathetic of authors on the tradition,1 we find this move to
prioritize a Eurocentric worldview in the account of dharma. It is important to note
that the bait and switch would be a problem no matter what perspective is invoked.
The bait and switch is interpretation.
In short, there are two features of accounts of dharma in the literature—the claim
that it has many meanings and the bait and switch—are related. By substituting their
own conception of the ethical for what Indian philosophers talk about, Indologists
interpret Indian literature, and the result of this interpretation is the multiplication
of meanings of “dharma” relative to their conceptual scheme.
8. CONCLUSION
The purpose of this investigation was to field objections to the argument that
was presented in the first chapter, which draws an objective distinction between
interpretation and explication, which allows us to be objective about standard
criticisms of Indian ethics. Interpretation is irrational for a number of reasons.
But it is the dominant approach to thinking about non- Western philosophy.
This approach is simply not part of standard scholarship in philosophy and the
fact that it is employed ubiquitously in the study of Indian philosophy should
raise larger questions about why the study of non-Western philosophy has been
abandoned by philosophy. Western imperialism is no doubt a minimal part of
this explanation. If interpretation is imperialistic, as noted in the first chapter,
56
Eurocentric interpretation, responsible for standard treatments of Indian ethics

and “dharma,” is Western imperialism. The expectation that you have to agree
with this diagnosis for it to be taken seriously is itself a function of interpretation.
The idea that we have to prove to satisfaction of the westerner that Indian
philosophers engaged in moral philosophy is Eurocentric interpretation, which is
to say, Western imperialism.
NOTE
1. Alf Hiltebeitel’s historical survey of dharma, while more exhaustive than previous
investigations, might be an unusual contribution (2011). On the topic of dharma
(the title of his book), he writes: “I hope it will be fruitful for readers to further
open up this South Asian model, which, to put it most simply, is not only about
ethics and law but also about inner wisdom concerning unseen things” (Hiltebeitel
2010: 10). While interesting, this study keeps the conceptual framework of
Hiltebeitel and the sympathetic reader as the criteria against which Indian uses
of “dharma” are measured. An explicatory approach to dharma would treat each
perspective as providing the reasons that explain its use of “dharma” and the
concept DHARMA as the consilience of varying theories and perspectives on dharma.
This would undermotivate the idea that there is anything but a single concept at
play in the various uses of “dharma.”
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59
CHAPTER THREE
The West, the Primacy of

Linguistics, and Indology
SHYAM RANGANATHAN
1. INTRODUCTION
Interpretation gets us to religion but for the wrong reasons. Interpretation will allow
the intelligibility of a perspective P that agrees with the subjectivity of the interpreter
constituted by the reasons of the subject (rS). The farther a perspective is from the
subjectivity of an interpreter, the more mysterious and difficult will perspective
P appear to rS. Two strategies are available to the interpreter. One strategy is
domestication: bringing the interpreter’s reasons in line with the perspective that
is being interpreted. The second strategy is religification: defining the differentia
between one’s own subjectivity and the alien perspective as inexplicable relative to
your reasons rS. This depicts the differentia as a faith, and not a moral philosophy.
Sometimes religified alien theories are also domesticated: this occurs when uses of
“dharma” that diverge from the standard European ethical theories are correlated
with European distinctions. At other times, the religified differentia is left to stand
on its own, and, moreover, political rights are accorded to the religified differentia,
which provides an inducement by the colonial context of interpretation, for natives
whose moral theories are religified to identify with those theories. The imperial
context in which this occurs is nothing but interpretation itself as interpretation
is imperialistic. The peculiarity of our practice of distinguishing between religions
and moral theory in our world is that it is Eurocentric: moral theory of a European
provenance is cast as secular moral theory, and anything alien to Europe in origin
becomes religion. As for native European religions that diverge from Europe’s classical
consciousness (formalized by post-Socratic Greek and Western philosophers), those
are absorbed into European culture as part of its prehistory, alien even to its classical
moments. So, in short, add interpretation to Eurocentrism and one can generate the
distinction between religion and ethics that animates the world we live in.
Hinduism is a primary example of the process of religification. It is commonly
noted by scholars that the minting of “Hindu” as a name for a religion is an artifact
of colonialism (Hawley 1991; Frykenberg 1993; King 1999; Lorenzen 1999). The
minted religion is the rich diversity of Indian intellectual life, stuffed into the mold
60
of a single label. The fact that people identify with a religious identity is hardly
evidence against it being a function of imperialism: by tying political rights to
religious identity, imperialism coerces identification by religion. As Victoria Harrison
argues in her excellent “The Pragmatics of Defining Religion in a Multi-Cultural
World,” the one commonality of religions in a multicultural world is the that they
are afforded political rights not available to other kinds of affiliation (Harrison
2006). Substantively, she notes, they have nothing in common.
Religification also answers why “western” theistic religions are also religions.
They are religions in proportion to their divergence from what counts as ethics,
defined by the European tradition. If this is true, then all religions are deviations
from the West. This is remarkable for Theism is an example of Virtue Ethics in
which the virtue of a primary agent (God) and derivative agents (God’s prophets, for
instance) play a role in driving an account of right action. Their religification ensures
that we have to understand these theories as faiths and not moral philosophies.
Explication, in contrast, cannot generate a distinction between secular moral
theory and religion. Indeed, it shows us that the distinctions we often draw between
religion and ethics is unprincipled and that the distinction between church and
state is cooked up by a process of understanding that is unsecular: interpretation.
Interpretation treats the backdrop of explanatory resources as beyond reproach
and expects anything intelligible to conform to these resources. This backdrop is
then wrongly identified as the batch of “secular reasons” that are uncontroversial
(that everyone can endorse) and everything that deviates from it is religion. The
strategies of domestication and religification are the twin means of ensuring that
one’s own explanatory resources are never the bone of contention and have the
illusory sheen of secularity. Explanation is dogmatic if we interpret, and dogma is
the antithesis to the freedom of secularism (cf. Holyoake 1896). If we explicate
philosophy, we find that theories of ethics or dharma are theories of THE RIGHT
OR THE GOOD: none are any more mysterious or faith bound than any other. In
each case, the reasons are internal to the perspectives that motivate the particular
view on THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD, and the clarity of these theories come to life as
contributions to moral philosophy. To understand a perspective—including one’s
own—is to understand it as the bone of contention. The only reason for regarding
some theories of dharma as nonmoral-philosophical is the expectation that their
rationality should be apparent by your reasons. This is to collapse the distinction
between first-and third- party reasons: interpretation. Yoga— disciplinarity—
in contrast, is secular all the way down. Yoga—disciplined research and higher
learning—is an essential part of a vibrant secular society. It is secular all the way
down for it is based not on what we take to be true, but on objectivity: what
we disagree about. This allows for the compatibility of alternate perspectives in
inquiry and public discourse.
What sustains the confusion of interpretation is a conflation of claims like “I
think/believe that P” or “P is true” with “P.” These are not the same proposition.
The idea that “truth” is just a metalinguistic device of assertion is part of this mess.
If that really is what truth is, merely asserting a valid argument would make it sound.
61
THE WEST, THE PRIMACY OF LINGUISTICS, AND INDOLOGY 61
But it does not. These conflations, however, undermine the ability to contemplate a
proposition that you do not believe or take to be true, and the result is interpretation.
The question I want to ask and answer in this chapter is why the whole world
is saddled with Eurocentric interpretation? As interpretation is imperialistic, and
Europe is the heart of the West, we can ask the same question differently: why does
the whole world have to contend with Western Imperialism? Remarkably, the West
has been uniquely successful in its imperialistic exploits. English, a western language,
is now the lingua franca—a phrase that literally means “the French language” but
figuratively expresses the idea of a common language—the world over. That English
can be the French language (cf. Seidlhofer 2011) says something absurd about the
role of Western culture as an imperializing force. Answering these questions allows
us to draw a distinction between the mere geographical contingency of being small
“w” western, and the theoretically capital “W” West (a “West” that leans towards the
“est”). I am western but I choose not to be Western. Orthodox Indology is Western,
as is most work in contemporary philosophy written in western languages.
(1) The argument in this chapter will first trace very broad generalizations about
the Western tradition as a backdrop to distinguishing between an interpretive account
of thought and an explicatory account of thought. (2) The interpretive account of
thought is shown to be the standard model in the Western tradition. This account of
thought identifies a perspective as the content of thought. The interpretive account
of thought effects this identification by identifying thought with language. The
perspective encoded in a language as its literal meaning is treated as the content of
thought on this account. It is encapsulated by the Greek idea of logos: the marriage
of language, opinion, thought, and reason. This logocentric account of thought is
definitive of the Western tradition: historical Indian philosophers simply do not buy
the account. (3) The logocentric account generates the impression of a tradition of
philosophy that is diverse, but the resulting diversity obfuscates the commonality
of the West—its single model of thought. This interpretive approach to thought
generates the standard Eurocentric and interpretive approach to non- European
theory that leads to the diagnosis that India is the land of no ethics but lots of
religion. (4) Before I close, I respond to objections to this account of philosophical
history. (5) I summarize the account of the West’s imperialism and close with the
observation that Western imperialism constitutes what we have become accustomed
to in Indology—the Indology where the study of language is treated as the means of
uncovering what Indians think regardless of the disciplinary topic.
2. TWO MODELS OF THOUGHT

Some clarity about the depth to which Western philosophical theories are tied to
interpretation can be gained by turning our attention to the question of thought.
What is it? Minimally, thought, or a proposition, is what can be true or false. But
there is more than one way to think about the structure of thought. We can think
about it in terms of explication, or interpretation.
62
2.1. Thought as Explication

Thought on the model of explication depicts thought as what we converge on from
differing perspectives, made possible by the common axis of the discipline. Thought
so understood is more than just the presentation of objects of inquiry: it is the
representation of objects of inquiry from differing perspectives. Because it represents
such objects, it can either succeed or fail to represent its objects. Successful thoughts
are true, and unsuccessful thoughts are false.
I call this account of thought perspective externalism, semiotic externalism, or
more simply linguistic externalism. Thought has an intension and extension on
this account. The intension of a proposition (something like its definition) is the
disciplinary commonality of the various perspectives that comprise a thought. The
extension is the set of common perspectives that share a disciplinary purpose. If
we were to simplify the discussion by talking about language, and if we further
acknowledge that differing languages encode differing perspectives, then the set of
sentences from different languages that share a disciplinary purpose express the
same thought and constitute the extension of the thought. Hence, if “dharma” and
“ethics” have differing linguistic meanings corresponding to differing linguistically
encoded theories, sentences about dharma and about ethics can express the same
thought so long as they share a disciplinary purpose. Analogously, if a technical term
in the vocabulary of a scientist has the same disciplinary usefulness as a term from a
folk language, then such sentences can express the same thought—even though the
scientific and folk terms may have differing meanings.
As an example, consider the case of a culture L that makes its coffee mugs out of
depleted uranium, but has no word for “depleted uranium.” The sentence “depleted
uranium is radioactive” in our English and the sentence “coffee cups are radioactive”
in the language of L are the same thought given their common disciplinary usage.
Both sentences would comprise the extension of the common proposition: the
intension is the disciplinary commonality relative to empirical science. Nothing
in this account entails that the disciplinary employment of sentences has to be
something understood within a linguistic community, or that it has to be part of
the semantics of the sentence in order for it to express a discipline-relative thought.
A discipline is external to the language or perspective on this account.
This account of thought is not to be found in the Western tradition. I discovered
this account of thought as a doctoral student in philosophy while trying to figure
out solutions to standard problems in translation in the philosophy of language.
The standard problems depict thought as linguistic meaning, which problematizes
the case of cross-cultural communication where the languages are very different.
The easy solution to this was to re-understand thought in terms of disciplinary
considerations and the same thought as expressed by diverse semiotic resources
employed in accordance with the same disciplinary purposes. The upshot from
the perspective of translation theory is that this shows why words and sentences
with differing meanings can be translational equivalents— they are equivalent
relative to disciplinary considerations. It shows also why we tolerate such functional
synonyms: Plato’s ideas and forms are the same thing, though “idea” and “form”
63
have different meanings in English. Their synonymy here is functional: relative to

philosophy only and this synonymy will not arise or be discernible if we change
disciplinary considerations.
It solves a host of philosophical problems generated by the account of thought
to be reviewed next. Most obviously, it provides grounds for criticizing amateurish
speculation about translation, as though successful translation is about matching
words and sentences on linguistic grounds. That is implausible, merely because
languages differ syntactically and hence semantically and the idea of linguistic
commonality across languages is inversely correlated with our need for translation.
It shows us that thoughts are not culturally relative, nor are they relative to theories.
Rather, they are relative to disciplines, which means that each discipline holds
the key for not only properly analyzing its propositions, but also determining the
grounds for their representational success, which is discipline-relative objectivity.
When I originally made these arguments, I was surprised that people often
responded that it was an insignificant finding, unrelated to substantive philosophical
questions. However, this was because the standard approach to thinking about
theoretical problems in the Western tradition depicts them as what is represented
by sentences of specific languages. The disciplinary approach simply dissolves the
linguistic foundations of philosophical problems by pointing out that thinking about
philosophical problems in terms of language confuses the objectivity of what is meant
with a perspective. I also woke up one day and realized that thought on the model of
linguistic externalism is yoga as citta-vṛtti-nirodha—the stilling or control of mental
representation. The representations that are stilled are the semiotically encoded
perspectives that comprise the extension of a thought. At no point did I infer this
account of thought from the Yoga Sūtra—indeed, I would have never discovered
why it was worth taking seriously if it was merely a theorem of the philosophy
of Yoga. However, we should not be entirely surprised with the confluence: the
commonality is the idea of disciplinarity at the basis of thinking.
This account of thought was a discovery because it is objective. It is objective
for two reasons. First, it depicts the extension of a thought as looking for an object
from differing perspectives. Second, it allows us to disagree about the truth or falsity
of a thought because truth and falsity do not define a thought. Rather, the common
disciplinary purpose of dissenting perspectives defines a thought. A full appreciation
of the essence of the thought does not preclude a disagreement about the truth or
falsity of the thought. Thought hence plays a role in explaining our disagreements—
it is the object of our disagreements. We can understand it and continue to disagree
about its truth. It is objective, which is to say, it explains our disagreements.
2.2. Thought as Interpretation

If thought were structured by interpretation, then we would have to prioritize truth
in our account of thought. This is the standard approach to thought in the Western
tradition. There are at least two different approaches to this project of defining
thought in terms of truth. One is to treat a thought as a function of objects and
64
concepts to truth-values. This is Frege’s approach (Frege 1988). Then there is the
extensional approach that defines the content of thought in terms of what a thought
is true of. This is the Millian approach (cf. Putnam 1975; Kripke 1980). These two
approaches represent the limits of the possibilities that are seriously considered in
the Western tradition.1 The two approaches have much in common.
First, on both accounts we can draw a logical distinction between the extension of
a thought and its intension. Intensionalists like Frege hold that the intension does the
computational work. On Frege’s account, the intensions of concepts and thoughts
are their cognitive significance. It is the mode of presentation—a way of thinking
about the substance of a thought. When we put them together (concepts and objects)
we drive a truth value that is the extension of the proposition. Extensionalists deny
any prominent role to cognitive significance. For instance, an Intensionalist such as
Frege distinguishes between a thought about the Evening Star and a thought about
the Morning Star on cognitive grounds, though truth functionally such statements
are alike. For Extensionalists, the substance of the proposition is the same in both
cases, while our psychological associations differ. The psychological associations on
this account are not meanings of a proposition.
Second, on both accounts, the thought is the meaning of a declarative sentence.
Third, on both accounts, truth defines thought. For Fregeans, the extension of a
thought is its truth-value. For the Extensionalist, the meaning of what we say is its
truth. Intensionalists identify thought with the room, and Extensionalists with the
view. This raises a problem: the problem of accounting for disagreement in the case
of full disclosure about the meaning of a thought. If to understand a thought is to
understand its truth, as both Frege and Millians hold, then we cannot understand a
thought and disagree about it. But then a thought would play no role in explaining
our disagreements. Thought so depicted is not objective, as an object is what explains
our disagreement.
Certain further mysteries remain on this account. One problem for Extensionalists
noted by Russell, and widely ignored, is that in accounting for thought in terms of
its truth, we have the problem of accounting for false propositions: what are they
(1938, §54)? This has been retold as a basic puzzle about belief (Kripke 1988).
Intensionalists have a similar problem: how do we account for error when our belief
takes a proposition defined by its truth as its object. For instance, if Lane has a belief
about Superman’s powers, and Kent’s weakness, how can she reasonably maintain
both? This is Frege’s Puzzle. What is strange is that the Intensionalist’s account is
as though created to explain how beliefs about the Morning Star and those about
the Evening Star can be coextensive though their significance differs. Yet, this does
not apparently solve the problem of how we can have differing perspectives on the
same thoughts, but entrenches perspective as an irreducible feature of thought. On
the account that I argue for, these puzzles of beliefs are merely misdescriptions of
differing perspectives we can take on the same thought. Beliefs about the Morning
Star and the Evening Star are differing sentential attitudes, but the perspectives of
the sentences constitute the extension of the thought. So when our disagreements
rely on the sentences, we have not fully appreciated the thought at stake—we cannot
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see the forest for the trees. The puzzle of belief disappears on my account into a
general account of ignorance as a confusion of one’s perspective with thought. The
interpretive account creates these problems as it identifies thought with a perspective
encoded in a language. My suggestion also depicts thought as objective: even when
we fully understand the structure of a thought there is room for disagreement as
truth does not define a thought. For interpretive accounts of thought, there is no
room for disagreement when we understand.
2.3. The Historical Roots of Logocentric Accounts of Thought

The contemporary version of the linguistic account of thought holds that
“propositions are . . . meanings or, to use the more standard terminology, the semantic
contents of sentences” (McGrath 2012). Earlier versions were grammatically
less demanding: they tended to identify thought with language as such, without
restricting them to declarative sentences.
The linguistic account of thought is something that one can endorse no matter
where one lives or hails from. Confucius (Analects XIII. iii. 4–7), for instance, seems
to endorse this in his famous doctrine of the rectification of names (cf. Hansen 1987;
Ames and Rosemont Jr. 2010). On this account, linguistic meaning of a nominal
expression is the content of thought. Rectifying names is about living in accordance
with reality, but also speaking truthfully. Hence, a son should be a son, as a father
should be a father: these claims are not only analytically true on this account, but
also normatively instructive.
But Chinese philosophers and culture also had Taoism, and more importantly,
Lao Tzu, who famously heaped scorn on language and stated (quite rightly at Tao Te
Ching 78) that “straight words appear to mean their opposite” (translation by Chan
1963). If languages are our artifacts, they are fictions. To believe linguistic meaning
as thought is to take a fiction too seriously. We should rather discourage the political
ambitions of citizens to wage war on others (Tao Te Ching 80), empty the mind and
feed the belly (Tao Te Ching 3). This is the lesson of the Tao Te Ching. The Confucian
and Taoist approaches are philosophical currents that constitute counterweights
to each other in Chinese and Asian philosophy. Neither on their own defines the
philosophical tradition, and both contribute to its richness.2
If the West is the family of cultural traditions that intellectually hail from the
ancient Greeks, then the West is a wide net. It includes not only European traditions,
but also Arabic and Islamic traditions, which looked to the philosophy of Plato,
Aristotle, and Neoplatonism as philosophical guides and interlocutors (Leaman
2009). If literal meaning is the systematic and basic role of an expression in a
language, then linguistic meaning tells us something about the dominant theories and
belief systems of the formative culture. Here, the Greek term “logos” is interesting.
Greek is unusual for having only one word to range over thought, opinion, reason,
and word: logos. The linguistic meaning of “logos” is not only an artifact of a culture
that equates language with thought, but also the conflation of “I believe that P” with
“P” as it equates opinion and thought. When the Greeks claimed that human beings
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are rational animals, they also meant that human beings are the animals that speak!
It comes to the same thing in the ancient Greek worldview. It is not the only western
language that conflates language, thought, and reason. We find, for instance, the
connection between language and thought continuing on in Arabic. The Arabic verb
nataqa means to speak or utter, mantiq is the word for logic, and natiq is often
the word used for RATIONAL. (For instance, in Arabic discussions of Plato’s tripartite
division of the soul, the rational soul is often referred to as: al-nafs al-natiqah).3
In Greek philosophy itself, especially in Plato and Aristotle, we find explicit
confirmation of the conflation of thought and language. Plato as the first systematic
philosopher of the Greek tradition (regarded as having tried to reconcile the
competing tensions of Pre-Socratic philosophy) was committed to making sense of
logos. His argument (in The Republic) is that as language and reason amount to
the same thing—that is, if logos—then it should be the philosopher who discerns
what should be thought and said: logos. Little wonder that censorship figured so
prominently in his account: reason, thought, and speech amount to the same thing
so controlling thought so that it is reasonable amounts to controlling speech and
what is read and said. This is in large measure justice, which has to do with making
society mirror logos supreme on Plato’s account. When, for instance, Plato said that
knowledge is a true belief with a logos in the Theaetetus—the famous position that
forms the backdrop for the contemporary view that knowledge is justified, true,
belief (cf. Gettier 1963)—his idea is that the logos is a verbal account in support of
the belief behind a knowledge claim. Aristotle (in the Ethics) after Plato naturalized
the approach: we are raised first in a human social context and then we are in a
position to appreciate the logos behind the good that everything tends to. Either
way, reason and anthropological matters like language and culture amount to the
same thing.
This connection between language and thought is a mainstay in Western
philosophy. As Jacques Derrida notes, “the history of (the only) metaphysics, . . .
has, in spite of all differences, not only from Plato to Hegel (even including Leibniz)
but also beyond these apparent limits, from the pre-Socratics to Heidegger, always
assigned the origin of truth in general to the logos” (1974, 3). Derrida is over-the-
top here: we can talk about metaphysics without the linguistic account of thought.
This tendency to overgeneralize a conceptual point from a narrow cultural vantage
is a product of the linguistic account of thought. Yet, as a depiction of the history
of Western philosophy, Derrida is correct in noting the pride of place it gives to
logos as the locus of truth: analyticity. His own deconstructive project is not an
exception to the rule: it is the awkward awareness of the linguistic account of
thought while endorsing it (cf. Derrida 1974, 1981). Indeed, Postmodernism is a
grudging acceptance of the problems that arise from this model.
The connection between language and thought is significant if we endorse
interpretation for then the reasonable is conflated with how things seem from a
perspective—the perspective in turn is just the content of linguistic meaning. From
the earliest times, Western philosophers from Plato on have idealized reason as
something we engage in from a privileged place, and from this place, we are privy
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to the objects of reason. There is no possible distinction between having a reason

and it being my reason as reason is unitary: it is the room with a view, whereas
everywhere else is illusion. This theme has two forms: nonnatural and natural. The
nonnatural version is Platonic: reason is something that takes us away from empirical
reality, including society, toward the objects of reason. The naturalistic version is
Aristotelian: the privileged position of reason is membership in a society, which we
gain by socialization. The idea that the objective is what we would agree to from
a special perspective is a mainstay in the history of Western philosophy: it travels
through Plato and Aristotle, the medieval—both in Europe and in the Muslim world
that traces its philosophical heritage back to the Greeks, and especially Plato and
Aristotle—through moderns such as Kant who identifies the Categorical Imperative
as what we could ideally agree to in a Kingdom of Ends, Hegel’s notion that truth is
the dialectical resolution of discord, Mill’s experimental version that claims that we
know what is true and superior when we have experience of the alternatives, Peirce’s
end of inquiry, Husserl’s phenomenological reduction, Wittgenstein’s forms of life,
Quine’s and Davidson’s principle of charity according to which we must understand
others as believing what we do, and the Heidegger of Being and Time who believes we
need to share a new conceptual scheme that is inclusive of our social peers to think
clearly. Gadamer’s Truth and Method is a variant of this approach. Mill’s preferential
account of truth (discussed in the previous chapter) is emblematic of the Western
tradition: even when more than one alternative is at stake, the reasonable choice is
nothing more than what seems preferable in the privileged position of having many
experiences. This is the imperialist’s prerogative. In the privileged position, there is
no room for disagreement: what is preferable from here is the right choice.
This conflation of perspective and thought is characteristic of the interpretive
tradition of thought, which marries the ideas of thought, opinion, and reason with
language: logos. As language always encodes a historically and culturally contingent
perspective as its semantics, accounting for thought in terms of language means
that we have to account for the thinkable by a historically contingent perspective.
Accounting for the thinkable in terms of a perspective is interpretation.
One might be surprised at the idea that logos is the mainstay of Western
thought—the key thesis that connects the contemporary Western scene to its
ancient Greek roots. The common story that one hears, especially when being
trained in the analytic tradition, is that the “linguistic turn” (the linguistic
account of thought) is a recent phenomenon—something associated with Frege
(Dummett 1973: 667–669). If you dig a little deeper, the same claim is made of
the continental tradition (Lafont 1999). The overwhelming sense that one gets
from the study of contemporary Western philosophy is that this movement to
language as the grounds of thought and reason is a recent thing—a conceptual
innovation. But this is a case of philosophical amnesia created by the linguistic
account of thought itself. The linguistic account of thought blocks an insight into
how a thought comes about, as it presents our perspective—the meaning of what
we say—as the sui generis content of thought—as though it has no history or
politics. This identification of thought and language makes it possible that some
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thoughts are true by virtue of what we say—analyticity—and are hence truths of

reason, and not mere artifacts of the prevailing values of the formative culture
that created the language in question. The idea that what our words mean might
be a social construct borne from political considerations is blocked. What we have
in the place of historical insight is the idea that linguistic meaning—the substance
of thought and reason itself—is a wall that we cannot penetrate. So it seems: in
the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God
(John 1:1). There is no going behind it or before it, if you buy the linguistic
(or interpretive) account of thought. If you take the theory seriously, you might
follow Derrida in calling this occlusion “presence” (Derrida 1974, 12). This is the
conflation of truth (representational success) and objectivity (what lies outside
our perspective). This is the conflation of first-party perspectives with third-party
reasons: interpretation.
2.4. How the Linguistic Account of Thought Hides Itself

It is very easy to be skeptical about the fundamental role that the linguistic account
of thought plays in Western philosophy. In one respect, it is unbelievable because
the linguistic account of thought is patently immature and silly as it conflates an
artifact of natural and social selection—language—for the very content of thought
itself. As the forces that naturally and socially select our artifacts are not necessarily
intelligent, there is little reason for us to take the contents of our language very
seriously. Yet, this is the basic idea behind the logocentric account of thought. Part
of its success is its stealth: the interpretive account of thought, which is the linguistic
account of thought, hides itself in two ways.
First, the linguistic account of thought identifies thought with a perspective or
model of the world—the semantics of a language. In short, thought is conflated
with a theory that underwrites a symbolic system. This makes it seem as though
what we have in the Western tradition are many accounts of thought: each outlook
that constitutes the semantics of a theory-laden language is a distinctive account of
thought it seems. An idiolect that encodes an atheistic worldview appears to be a
different account of thought from a theistic worldview. We might even talk about
the difference in their thought! But this is an illusion that arises from conflating the
specifics of the perspective with thought, which the linguistic account of thought
encourages. The linguistic account of thought claims that whatever the meaning x of
a sentence or bit of language L is just thought. It does not matter what the x is on this
account. So it matters little whether the x is filled out by sense data or experiences
(Husserl 2001, V, §20, p. 589; cf. Hopp 2009) or objects of the world (Putnam
1975; Kripke 1980; Burge 2010). Yet, when we talk about our experiences as the
content of thought it seems as though we are transcending language, but this is not
the case (Derrida 1973).
In short, the linguistic account of thought hides behind what it depicts as the
content of thought, and hence the diversity of contents of thought seems like a
diversity of accounts of thought. But this is an illusion: it is because of a singular
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account of thought in the West that its various accounts of the content of thought
seems like a diversity of accounts of thought.
Second, on the basis of an interpretive, linguistic account of thought that identifies
thought with a perspective, it is possible to generate the idea of mystical thought—
thought that transcends language. This is accomplished by trying to interpret an
alien perspective by one’s own perspective: the more different the alien perspective,
the more the interpretation from our perspective will depict the alien perspective as
a mystical perspective. This is religification. This account of thought as mysticism is
impossible to generate on a yogic, linguistic externalist account of thought that I am
advocating, for it rejects the idea that interpretation has anything to do with thought.
Without interpretation, we cannot designate alien perspectives as mysterious.
2.5. Linguistic Account of Thought Is Not Ubiquitous

I have argued that the linguistic account of thought shows up in the Chinese tradition
in the philosophy of Confucius, but it is not the default account of thought there and
it meets with serious criticism within the same tradition from Taoism. In the Western
tradition, in contrast, the linguistic account of thought—the interpretive account of
thought—is the standard and the only account of thought because it is stealthy and
hides behind the contents of thought.
What of Indian thinkers? Do they buy the linguistic or interpretive account of
thought? No. Jñāna is a term that serves the philosophical function of “thought”
or “proposition” in the Western context: like the idea of thought, if we understand
jñāna truth conditionally we understand comprehensively. (If you do not like jñāna
as the equivalent, consider others such as citta or vicāra.) If Indian philosophers
took the linguistic account of thought seriously, we would find that they identified
linguistic meaning with jñāna (citta or vicāra). Of course, no Indian philosopher
takes this position. There are many Sanskrit correlates for significances of logos but
none that captures all of them. While Indians did take thinking and thought seriously
(indeed, traditions of meditation seem to be geared toward propositional analysis),
they did not regard linguistic meaning as the content of thought. If one interpreted
Indian philosophy by assuming a logocentric account of thought, it would seem as
though Indians did not believe in thought!
Many Indian philosophers (cf. Siderits 1991: 65; Bronkhorst 1999) seemed to
hold a position that we often call semantic externalism today (Putnam 1975; Kripke
1980; Burge 2010). This is the view that meaning is just the stuff of the public
world. Indeed, in some cases, the claim is made that the meaning of the word is
eternal (Śabara, on MS I.i.12–19: pp. 33–38). Yet, no one seems to have held the
position that this meaning is jñāna.
There are, in short, two reasons to doubt that Indian thinkers took the
linguistic account of thought seriously. First, there is the observation that Indian
thinkers did not understand linguistic meaning truth functionally: “Sanskrit
grammarians [early formal philosophers of language] are . . . not concerned with
ontological or truth functional values of linguistic expressions. For them the truth
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of an expression and its meaningfulness are not to be equated” (Deshpande Fall

2014 Edition). This is the rejection of analyticity—the idea that some things we
say are true by virtue of the meaning of what is said. This is the trend in Indian
philosophy.4 Mark Siderits notes, similarly, that generally Indian philosophers did
not recognize anything like analyticity (Siderits 1991: 65)—the idea that some
claims are true by definition. If linguistic meaning is thought, then some claims
would have to be true by virtue of the meaning of what is said. No one in the
Western tradition seems to reject this claim. Even Quine, popularly known for
rejecting the analytic–synthetic distinction (Quine 1990), does not reject that
some claims are true by definition. He denies the sharp cleavage between those
and claims of empirical fact (Putnam 2002: 9–10). Confucius too, in his doctrine
of the rectification of names, relies on this intuition that with respect to some
linguistic claims, they are true by definition. Analyticity is a core feature of the
linguistic account of thought.
Second, from the earliest times, Indian philosophers entertained the idea of there
being two truths: one for conventional/worldly claims, and one for the real thing.
Worldly truths by convention are made up, but the truth of the real thing is not.
Linguistic truths (truths about what our words mean) are of the conventional, or
at least, arbitrary variety. They are introduced by stipulation it seems, whereas the
ultimate truth is genuine and not mere fancy. This view has acquired the reputation
of being peculiar to the Buddhist tradition (Thakchoe Summer 2011 Edition), but
it is common in Indian philosophy. We can find this distinction in the Upaniṣads,
Jainism, and many Indian philosophical schools insofar as they distinguish the
real account of truth from ordinary practice and belief supported by the ordinary
form of life. What this distinction entails is that thought is not merely the same as
literal linguistic meaning, for if it were, there would be only one kind of truth: the
conventional kind.
So there is no evidence that Indian philosophers took language seriously as
presenting thought. But Indian accounts of thought, jñāna, are not interpretative
for the following reason: they are accounts of thought as a synoptic understanding.
Here, South Asian models of objectivity as multidimensional, such as the Jain blind
men and the elephant, Vishnu’s conch, or Nāgārjuna’s idea of ultimate truth as what
lacks autonomy (that is, because everything is perspectival), exemplify the Indian
philosophical imagination about what clear thinking amounts to. Clear thinking is
multi-perspectival as thought tracks objectivity—what we can know from multiple
disagreeing perspectives. This is an anti-interpretive account of thought. We do not
have to conclude that Indian philosophers were of one mind on this issue—indeed,
if they were concerned about the objectivity of thought they might have had many
ideas about thought. But for sure, interpretation was far from how Indians thought
about thought.
If interpretation is imperialist, and Indian thinkers were anti-interpretive, then
imperialism would have been difficult for them to maintain. This complements
what is widely known about India—that it is a geography of incredible diversity,
which has had a place for peoples of varying outlooks and practices who often
71
were persecuted elsewhere. If we want to know why South Asia was this land of
incredible diversity we have an answer: Indians did not buy into interpretation
as thought.
The contemporary context of India presents a philosophical departure from its
past, and bears the stamp of models of thought so familiar in the West—models were
a perspective and thought are conflated, such that thinking with one’s compatriots is
depicted as sharing a perspective that defines ethnicity and language (cf. King 1994).
The India that most scholars find frustrating—where India is presented as having a
unified insider perspective—would be difficult to explain without Westernization.
3. IMPLICATIONS OF THE LINGUISTIC

ACCOUNT OF THOUGHT
The idea that we cannot straightforwardly translate “dharma” and “ethics” is not part
of the explicatory account of thought. Indeed, this account of thought encourages
us to translate Buddhist talk of dharmas as constituents of reality as “ethicals” or
“ethical constituents of reality”—an outlook friendly to their Consequentialism.
What this exercise allows is for our prejudices and beliefs about ethics to pop out.
Instead of religifying the alien perspective, we remove our propositions about ethics
from our attitudinal contexts and hence thinking about alien ethics provides us a
reason to inspect our own conceptual commitments. Understanding alien philosophy
is simultaneously understanding our own domestic philosophy: this is the reflexivity
of philosophy. The interpretive model of thought tries to shield us from philosophy
by disallowing translating “dharma” and “ethics” for fear of a disagreement. The
analytic connection between thought and language on the interpretive account of
thought introduces peculiar political themes in the thought of those who buy the
linguistic account of thought.
3.1. Anthropocentric Communitarianism

First, thought is communitarian on this account, because language defines community
membership. To think is not only to think with others, but also to think with those
whom one shares a language with. Second, thought is anthropocentric, if thought
is the same as the meaning of language and language is a predominantly human
capacity. If we put these two elements together, we find that those committed to the
linguistic account of thought will tend to be communitarian anthropocentrists. In
other words, they will believe not only that humans are really the primary thinking
beings, but also that the humans to whom we owe communicative and special
consideration are fellow citizens of a common community.
As the linguistic account of thought is the basic philosophical doctrine of the
West, we find Western ethical theory to be both anthropocentric and communitarian.
We see this from the start with Plato and Aristotle, and through subsequent
influential moral philosophers such as Kant and Mill who identify moral law with
community membership. These thinkers span the major ethical theories of the
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West—Virtue Ethics (Plato and Aristotle), Deontology (Kant), and Utilitarianism

(Mill), and yet despite their theoretical disagreement, they agree to communitarian
anthropocentrism.
The exceptions to this dominant theme of anthropocentric communitarianism in
the West are rare. Bentham was famous for arguing for a hedonic account of moral
standing, which puts all animals on equal footing. But this is a very rare and unusual
position in the West. Even in this case, Bentham felt compelled to make a case for
the inclusion of all sentient beings in moral consideration by appealing to the idea of
the community (Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. 1: IX).
The yogic ideal of isolation or autonomy (kaivalya) as a basic end of moral practice
is far from the Western tradition.
There are obvious problems with this approach, which the West ignores at its
peril. First, it problematizes our relationship with the nonhuman world, such as
other animal species, the Earth, and the environment. As we are part of the wider
environment, adopting a narrow, anthropocentric perspective undermines the
interests that we share with other animals. This is epitomized in Spinoza’s mistaken
view that our natures as humans pit us competitively against other animals, and
we must therefore use them at our pleasure (cf. Grey 2013). This is extremely
uninsightful, but arises naturally from confusing our perspective as humans with
the very content of the thinkable. Second, the communitarianism of the Western
tradition problematizes our relationship with humans who are not part of our
community. If ethics is just about the rules that relate me to my community, I have
no guidance or ability to understand the rights or duties of aliens, except perhaps as
an extension of my community. I have to colonize others in order to ethically relate
to them, on this approach.
My own country is only now digging itself out of its national shame that is its
efforts to relate to its indigenous population the only way the West allows—by
imperialism and colonization. The Residential School program of Canada exemplifies
the Western attitude toward thought. On the premise that thought is linguistic, we
have to share a language in order to think and communicate with natives. Hence the
Canadian government initiated a program of removing First Nations children from
their homes and raising them in residential schools—administered by churches of all
denominations. The goal was to school the aboriginal out of First Nations peoples,
and render them brown versions of colonialists of European descent. Children were
punished for speaking their native languages, and were forced to learn English or
French. They suffered horrific abuse in these schools—sexual and physical. This is an
unmitigated disaster, which continues to have effects on the indigenous population
of Canada and wider Canadian society (Indigenous Foundations Accessed Spring
2015). But it is a very natural outcome of the West’s approach to thought. It is so
natural that we find philosophers claiming that the very challenge of translation—
communicating with others from very different linguistic cultures—is the challenge
to “form a single community where previously there were two” (Lance and O’Leary-
Hawthorne 1997: 20), or implausibly claim that any time we can translate sentences
that we have before us is really a single language at base. These errors are different in
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degree, but not in kind, from the more basic idea that sameness of thought depends
on linguistic synonymy—a very common assumption.
3.2. Uncritical Naturalism

In tying its fortunes to the linguistic account of thought, the West has also had to
accept that our natural abilities, including language, are constraints that cannot be
transcended. From the Western perspective, it is a hubris to imagine that people at
large could be gods. This is because language is a natural ability, which separates
us in the natural world, and hence natural limitations constrain what kinds of
things can think, and hence what kinds of things should be taken seriously by
ethics as thoughtful entities capable of deliberating on THE RIGHT and THE GOOD.
Moral discourse, according to the West, does not take natural facts as objects of
criticism but as matters to be accommodated. Martha Nussbaum, for instance,
notes this in her comment that for the Greeks, and Aristotle, there is always
a trade-off to be accommodated, which demarcates the limited possibilities of
human life as opposed to the life of God. On her account, we run up against
tragedy if we try to transcend these bounds (Nussbaum 1988). This view is quite
common (Williams 1985: 119; Putnam and Conant 1990). It is the corollary of
the idea that moral philosophies that dare us to transcend the bounds of natural
restrictions are religious.
This approach to endorsing natural limitations as normative undermines our
interests. There are many natural elements and limitations in life, and many of them
are not in our interest. The human immunodeficiency virus, cancer, and ultraviolet
rays are all natural, but not good for you. If we were to assume that whatever is
natural is normative, we undermine our prospects for a better life. But embracing
prospects for a better life means adopting perspectives that are not natural to us.
Inquiry allows us this opportunity, and with this opportunity we transcend our
natural bounds. This is wholly intelligible given an anti- interpretive model of
thought, but completely inexplicable if our perspective, informed as it is by natural
limitations, is the content of thought.
3.3. Anti-Philosophy
A tragic implication of the interpretive account of thought is that it is anti-
philosophical. Philosophy depends on explication, which rejects the conflation
of having a reason and it being my reason. However, the conflation of having a
reason and it being my reason is interpretation. So we have to choose: either we
can endorse philosophy or we have to be interpreters. The interpretive account of
thought hence depicts philosophy as a threat to thought itself. Cultures that adopt
the linguistic account of thought will hence nurture a dim view of philosophy, and
will generally regard intellectuals who have original or different ideas from the
status quo as a threat to the public order. In the Indian tradition there are cases of
philosophers being persecuted, but these are few and they apparently occur later in
the tradition—when India’s process of Westernization had commenced.5
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Early in the tradition in the West, in contrast, we have a tradition that begins—
inauspiciously— with the execution of prominent intellectuals. Socrates and
Jesus are examples. Ironically, after being killed these figures are appropriated by
imperial powers as legitimizing authorities. In an ironically Christianized Europe,
Socrates’s student Plato and his student Aristotle acquire the status of pagan Gods,
defining the scope of what could be entertained in universities, while Jesus himself
becomes a figure invoked in the explanation of the divine right of Christian kings—
a right that Jesus apparently provided in his response to Pontius Pilate (John
19: 10–11)—but also imperial campaigns of colonization. In order to make sure
that philosophy does not ruin the power structure, we find successive doctrines
invented to keep philosophy in its place. In the medieval times, philosophy was
to be the “handmaiden to theology” (Henrichs 1968). More recently, we find
philosophers arguing that philosophy has nothing to add to knowledge: as a kind
of proto linguistic activity, it, at best, just tells us what we already mean by our
language, or is like poetry—an aesthetic diversion (cf. Ayer 1946). The talented
philosopher, John Austin, wonders:
Is it not possible that the next century may see the birth . . . of a true and
comprehensive science of language? Then we shall have rid ourselves of one
more part of philosophy (there will be plenty left) in the only way we can ever
get rid of philosophy, by kicking it upstairs. (Austin 1979, 232)
Austin’s very Western comment is hardly out of place in a tradition that has from
the start viewed philosophy as a threat. This impatience with philosophy among
philosophers continues not only in the likes of “experimental” philosophers (cf.
Cappelen 2012), but also among famous physicists who in recent years (in a
notable departure from the groundbreaking physicists and mathematicians of
the twentieth century) have taken to heaping scorn on philosophy—as though
it is a threat or in competition with natural science (cf. Stenger, Lindsay, and
Boghossian 2015).
Part of how the West obfuscates its pathological aversion to philosophy is
by depicting itself as the tradition of philosophy: everyone else has religion
(Cabezón 2006)! A true interest in philosophy would lead to the critical study of
objective differences across perspectives, with a view to isolating basic concepts
of debate regardless of cultural origin. This project would treat each perspective
worthy of explication in its own right. But what we find in the West is the rather
unphilosophical attitude that philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato (Whitehead
1978: 39)—difficult to deny when the options in the literature focus on solutions
to problems he formulated. The corollary of this is that thinkers outside, such as
Indian ācāryas, are not philosophers: they are religious teachers. But, as noted, one
cannot generate the view that what we have in India is religion without interpreting
Indian thought: interpretation creates the appearance of the religiosity of aliens in
proportion to their philosophical divergence from the reasons of the interpreter.
Explicate Indian thought and all we find is philosophy.
75
4. OBJECTIONS
One might reject Western imperialism by arguing that the West is biased, and that
as an antidote, we should adopt interpretations that are open-minded (cf. Bilimoria,
Prabhu, and Sharma 2007: 20; Adluri and Bagchee 2014). I have argued that the
characteristically Western account of thought, responsible for its imperialism,
is interpretation. We can only criticize Western imperialism by abandoning the
cause: the conflation of first-party reasons with third-party reasons.
In the previous chapter, I considered many general criticisms to explication based
on interpretation. The argument delivered in this chapter is based on the practice
of explication—a practice that treats the artifacts of philosophers as providing the
reasons for the use of controversial terms like “thought” or “proposition.” It is
on this basis that we can discern that there is a common theory guiding Western
accounts of thought that connect contemporary Western philosophy with its ancient
roots. Criticisms of this explication on the basis of interpretation can be rejected
insofar as arguments against explication via interpretation are unsound.
4.1. Disciplinary Criticism of the West Is Essentializing

I have argued that there is a dominant philosophical tradition of the West that is
responsible for Western imperialism. This is the tradition of interpretation, which
identifies thought and opinion with linguistic meaning. In one stroke we have the
marriage of ethnicity (insofar as language is the marker of ethnicity) with thought,
and the further conflation of the thought “P” with the opinion “I think that P.”
Western imperialism is hence doubly imperialistic as it encourages an ethnic and
geographic identification with thought. As interpretation grows by subsuming
everything under its stock of reasons, Eurocentric beliefs about philosophical
matters continue with the spread of this Western tradition. Western imperialism as
a political reality is nothing but the growth of an imperialistic intellectual tradition
with Western origins. As it grows, it changes its religified theories, but what remains
constant are European accounts of ethics.
One objection is that this account of the West essentializes westerners. Anyone
who is European, or hailing from a Western tradition that finds its roots in the
Greeks, would apparently be an imperialist.
The response to this objection is to note that this would be true if the interpretive
account of thought is true of thought, for then insofar as anyone had a thought
in this tradition, they would have to buy as basic premises the imperialism of
the West. But the interpretive account of thought is false: it does not represent
what thinking is. Hence, it is not true that westerners have to buy the premises of
Western imperialism. Moreover, in acknowledging that thought is the confluence
of perspectives relative to disciplinary matters, we note that we can use whatever
language we have at our disposal to engage in disciplinary research and thought so
long as we are willing to use our semiotic resources for research. We do not have
76
to believe the propaganda that is written into our language if what I have called
linguistic externalism is the right account of thought. But if the interpretive account
of thought is true, the perspective written into our language is the content of our
thought. Hence, a language developed in an imperialistic context would thereby be
imperialistic. Essentializing individuals on the basis of ethnic considerations, such as
language, is part of the interpretive paradigm: it has no support otherwise.
4.2. Generalizations Admit of Exceptions

The argument against Western imperialism is a generalization of Western theory.
We know that generalizations of large traditions cannot be true as there are always
exceptions given a large enough sample. So this generalization about the West cannot
be true. This kind of argument is what is generated by defenders of orthodoxy who
want to shield orthodoxy from criticism. We can use this same argument to shield
populations and countries from political criticism for all we need, it would seem, is
a counterexample to disprove the generalization. Alarmingly we can use it to stifle
news of oppression. Claims about the lives of racialized individuals, women, or
caste-discriminated people are general and there are exceptions. The idea that the
only generalizations worth talking about are those without exceptions is politically
motivated to keep dissent out of the picture. But it is also fallacious. Generalizations
are compatible with exceptions—that is why we call them “generalizations,” and not
(logically) “universal claims.” To confuse a generalization with a universal claim is a
logical mistake, with political dimensions.
It is worth noting that generalizations produced by interpretation result in universal
claims, which simply cannot be true. For instance, India interpreted along Eurocentric
lines results in the declaration that Indian philosophers were not interested in moral
philosophy: this is a universal claim. The reason we know it is a universal claim is that
it creates a model of the world with no exceptions: the only people who do ethics
on this account are the westerners, not Asians (cf. Danto 1972). When interpreters
are asked to back up such claims, they produce a definition or criteria of ethics that
everyone has to agree to in order to have a view about ethics. The most silly example
of this is Albert Schweitzer’s famous claim that in order for anyone to have a view
on ethics they have to endorse what he calls “world and life affirmation” (Schweitzer
1936). The universality of the resulting “generalization” is bought by the universal
definition of ethics. This is silly because any such criterion is not a basic option in
moral theory, which concerns THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. Indeed, the concept ETHICS,
which we learn about from explication, is open to differing opinions and there are at
least four options that resolve the tension between THE RIGHT and THE GOOD. There is
no common agreement between them: only a disagreement.
Explication, in contrast, allows us to treat a philosophy or tradition as something
we can disagree about and hence understanding its place in the world is to understand
it among alternatives. To explicate the Western account of thought as interpretation
is to be open to alternative accounts of thought, such as linguistic externalism. If
we were to interpret thought, we could come up with no alternatives aside from
thought as interpretation. We could be assured that interpretation cannot measure
77
alternatives for it has to understand all third-party options in terms of first-party

reasons.
Explication also allows an appreciation of how the world is far more complicated
than merely the dominance of the West. In contrast to the capital “W” West of
Western imperialism, there is a small “w” west that is the world of higher learning
and research: disciplinarity, which distinguishes between first-and third- party
reasons because it tracks objects of research. Indeed, the cultural and philosophical
reality of the small “w” west that is multicultural, diverse, and interested in higher
learning is characterizable by philosophical ideas that are not capital “W” Western.
Sometimes it seems as though the philosophical ideas of India and the Western
world have collided and the result is an uneasy sharing: India has become Western,
embracing religious identities based on Eurocentric interpretation, and thereby
creating problems for making sense of its pre-Western dharmic diversity, and the
west has become yogic, by embracing diversity, downplaying the importance of
traditional beliefs and being open to objectivity before truth –ahiṃsā before satya.
But our Western world is not without its philosophical tension either. The tension
between the yogic west and the ancient West rears its head in politics in questions of
the role of culture and diversity and how we can relate to others who do not share
our values. The interpretive model of thought is bankrupt on this question: the
only solution it has is imperialism and the epistemic question on its account is
always about who has the right perspective. The yogic options of disciplinarity are
always open to new information, new perspectives, and new findings. As it tracks
objects, perspectives are a tool of research: not the end. So generalizations based on
explication are generalizations among alternatives—never universal claims without
exceptions.
As for the West as a philosophical tradition of interpretation there is a salient
exception to the generalization. This is the reality of Western philosophers
who explicate philosophy as a way to understand the options. Indeed, what is
stunning about the West is that its tradition of the practice of philosophy has
created a parallel theory, which does not take the practice of philosophy as its
object, but rather truth as its object. The result is that we learn from philosophers
how to participate in the discipline only by becoming philosophers ourselves,
for the literary output of philosophers in the west is typically a continuation
and contribution to the West as the tradition of Eurocentric interpretation. This,
no doubt, contributes to the very poor quality of research into non-Western
philosophy: if we look to Western philosophers to teach us about philosophy,
what they say in their writings is not at all what we need to practice in order to
understand philosophy. What they practice is explication. What they defend is a
confabulation: interpretation.
4.3. The West Is Not the Only Intellectual Tradition with

Commitments to the Linguistic Account of Thought
The argument noted is that the West is the only philosophical tradition where the
linguistic account of thought is the account of thought, with no obvious alternatives.
78
Yet, the Chinese tradition has a long line of philosophers stretching back to
Confucius who endorse this approach to thought. So Western imperialism is not
the only variety of imperialism explainable by the linguistic account of thought.
Chinese imperialism is also explainable by the same philosophical orientation. But
Chinese imperialism has not traversed the world, though Western imperialism has.
This shows that the linguistic account of thought cannot be the explanation of why
everyone has to contend with Western imperialism, for if it was then the world
would have been interpreted on Sinocentrically, and we would have to contend with
religification along Sinocentric lines.
A virtue of the account, not a fault, is it does explain Chinese imperialism by the
same philosophical factor that explains Western imperialism: the linguistic account
of thought. (It is also applicable to recent versions of the same phenomena in South
Asia, which seek to consolidate political power on the basis of linguistic identity.)
The difference between the two cases is that the Chinese have a long tradition
of criticizing the linguistic account of thought in the form of Taoism and related
schools. There is no formidable alternative to the logocentric tradition in the West.
But as imperialism is a lack of political restraint, and a voracious disregard for first-
and third-person boundaries, this lack of philosophical alternatives in the Western
tradition speaks to the depth to which the West is the tradition of conflating first-
and third-person boundaries.
The reality of the West is that as it expanded out from Europe, it religified and then
appropriated non-Eurocentric moral theories as its official religions (often blending
its own Greek philosophy with the religified theories) and consequently spread this
appropriation. Western imperialism convinces everyone else that all they have is
religion and no moral philosophy where ethics is defined by European traditions.
This allows the West to fill the moral void left by this story with the anthropocentric
and communitarian moral values of Western imperialism. In polite circles, this is
called “humanism.” What is insidious about the tradition is not its European starting
point— it is interpretation itself. Interpretation collapses the distinction between
third-and first-party reasons and thereby renders aliens a threat to the very cannons
of reason. The politics of what it is to be a Hindu today, created by the West, makes
non-Hindu perspectives seem threatening to religified Hindus, when the traditional
Indian approach would have been quite unfazed and unthreatened by intellectual
diversity.
5. ORTHODOX INDOLOGY AS THE CREATURE OF

WESTERN THEORY AND WESTERN IMPERIALISM
I have been invoking the idea of Orthodox Indology in my introductory chapters
to Indian Ethics. This is the study of India tied to Eurocentric interpretation.
Eurocentric interpretation, in turn, is a traditional approach to philosophical
questions in the West. It begins with the Greeks who identified thought, opinion,
79
and language together in the unifying idea of reason as logos. Here we have not
only the characteristic conflation of first-party opinion (I think that P) with third-
party objectivity of thought (P), but also the idea of language, which codifies a
perspective that is historically contingent. But once this contingency is identified
as thought, the world has to be subsumed under the narrow cultural perspective of
the westerner. Western imperialism is the output of this approach to thought. As the
West is unique in identifying thought with language, unlike the Chinese tradition
that constitutes a debate on the topic, and the Indian tradition that simply does not
identify thought with language, the West is the ancient philosophical tradition with
no internal criticism of imperialism. The Eurocentrism of this approach survives
because it is born and raised in Europe and because as a version of the interpretive
account of thought, it keeps the batch of truths in place that characterize the
subjectivity of the interpreter. Truths about what Europeans think about ethics
become part of the subjectivity passed along as the logocentric tradition continues,
and alien ethical theories have to be domesticated but typically religified in order
to be marginalized. The process is sealed by affording political rights to those who
are religified.
It is probably worth noting that insofar as the Chinese tradition takes the linguistic
and interpretive account of thought seriously, it has clear and ancient imperialist
tendencies. The move to conceive Chinese as the universal language of China (if
only in terms of an orthography) is part of the logic of imperialism that arises from
the linguistic account of thought.
Whereas Chinese philosophy has an internal criticism of the linguistic account
of thought, we find nothing of the sort in the West. In the West, there is room to
disagree in this tradition about what the right perspective amounts to, but the ones
that are reasonable are somehow derivable from the truths that characterize the
European experience. Everything else is religion, faith, and mysterious. What we
know of as Indology typically buys not only into the reality of religions defined along
Eurocentric lines, but also the linguistic account of thought. Hence, the standard
approach to research in Indology is to assume that research in Indian languages and
philology holds the key to understanding Indian thought. But this is to apply the
model of thought that is characteristically Western to the study of India, and also
to apply the model of thought responsible for Western imperialism to the study of
India. In the next chapter, I review how the standard Western models of thought as
linguistic meaning lead us astray in a world of radical moral philosophical diversity,
and how linguistic externalism saves the day. But for now we have an answer to why
the whole world has to contend with Western imperialism: it is the tradition with the
inauspicious distinction of being anti-philosophical and pro-interpretive from the
start, with no internal check. It can be summed up in the conflation of “I think that
P” and “P” and the concomitant idea that P is what I say in my language. This is the
idea of logos. The representation of India as the land with no moral philosophy but
plenty of religion is its outcome. The reality of contemporary India as a place where
philosophical disagreements on ethics is eclipsed by religious identity is its legacy.
80
NOTES
1. While outdated in some respects, Salmon and Soames’s anthology (1988) is still a
useful collection of diverse options within the Western tradition. For a more recent
account, see McGrath (2012).
2. Vincent Shen, in more than one article, speaks about the contrasts between these
two philosophies as philosophically important aspects of Chinese culture: “In
general, Chinese culture cherishes the Life-world, which is partly constructed
by human beings, partly unfolding itself spontaneously in the rhythm of nature.
Confucianism puts its emphasis more on the human construction of a meaningful
existence; in contrast to it, Taoism emphasizes the spontaneous unfolding of natural
rhythm” (Shen 2003: 365; cf. Shen 1996).
3. I have this on the good authority of Muhammad Ali Khalidi. He is the translator
and editor of Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings (2005).
4. This is not to say that some Indian philosophers did not come close to adopting the
linguistic account of thought. Jonardon Ganeri argues that Nyāya can make sense
of Fregean semantics (Ganeri 1999: 153–165). Mark Siderits, for instance, uses the
Fregean backdrop to explicate much Indian philosophy of language (Siderits 1991).
The problem for us, however, is to distinguish the semantics from the philosophical
account of thought. Frege explicitly argues for this identity (Frege 1988) when he
states that the extension of a declarative sentence is a truth-value. If you accept
this, then you accept that some claims are true merely by what is meant. These are
analyticity claims. If, as Siderits notes, Indian philosophers did not accept the idea
of analyticity, then they could not accept Frege’s account of thought.
5. It is difficult to think of examples of the persecution of intellectuals in the early
South Asian tradition. There is the ninth-century case of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa who
was imprisoned (Potter 2015: 342). I am grateful to Purushottama Bilimoria for
reminding me of this. Then there is the case of the eleventh-century persecution
of Śrī Vaiṣṇavas by a Chola King (Narasimhacharya and Akademi 2004: 25). In
the stories of the Mahāvastu we find passing accounts of kings killing off ascetics
for having the wrong views (Mahāvastu, 354–372). Thanks to Justin Fifield for
bringing this to my attention. Of course, if we count literature there are many cases
of evil kings whose sin is an intolerance to Brahmins and sages. These discussions
often seem like foils or literary devices to display the just king as one who is open to
intellectuals. This seems like the more credible thing to do in historical South Asia.
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CHAPTER FOUR
Beyond Moral Twin

Earth: Beyond Indology
SHYAM RANGANATHAN
1. INTRODUCTION
I have argued that the standard account of India as a land of religion and no ethics
is the outcome of Eurocentric interpretation, which I call the “West.” My argument
has not been to make a case for an alternative interpretation of Indian thought
from an Indian perspective. I have rather argued that the problem is interpretation
itself: it is imperial in outlook and it contends with diversity via colonialism—that is,
by treating alien perspectives as though they have no independence. This is because
interpretation collapses the distinction between first-and third-party reasons. In
the face of alien perspectives, interpreters have two strategies: domestication and
religification. Religification grants alien perspectives the status of being mysterious
and unjustified by the canons of reason of the interpreter. Domestication brings
the reasons of the interpreter in line with the interpreted. Both strategies serve to
protect the interpreter’s reasons as incontrovertible.
Explication treats objectivity, what we can disagree about, as primary in
explanation. This allows us to understand diverse perspectives as competing
explanations of objects that they converge on from a common disciplinary axis.
When the objects in question are philosophical concepts, the competing perspectives
are locked in a philosophical disagreement. As the objects are defined as what
perspectives can disagree about, explication requires no background consensus or
truths to get off the ground: it is disagreement—objectivity—all the way down. This
is the gift of disciplinarity: it allows us to practice the same endeavor from differing
perspectives, which means that we do not have to share a perspective to be engaged
in a common discipline.
On the interpretive model, thought is the same as a perspective. Philosophers who
endorse the interpretive model of thought typically identify thought with language as
language encodes a perspective. For the interpreter, the question that philosophy has
to contend with is determining what counts as the right perspective. This approach
to thought dominates Western philosophy. It is the meta-perspective of Western
philosophy, which connects ancient and modern philosophical speculation in the
86
West (to be distinguished from the mere geographical contingency of being western).
On the explicatory model, thought is the confluence of perspectives relative to a
disciplinary concern. We could call this a perspective if we like, but this would
be false as its description of what is involved in understanding a thought is about
transcending our perspectives in discipline. As we can practice the same discipline
from differing perspectives, transcending our perspective is as easy as distinguishing
first-and third-party reasons.
I have already argued that interpretation as a formal model of understanding
is fraught with logical problems. It confuses perspective with thought and thereby
conflates distinct propositions such as “I think that P” with “P.” If understanding
is about one’s perspective, then whatever we explain becomes swallowed by our
perspective, and hence conclusions of explanations entail the explanation. This is
saṃsāra—vicious circularity—that threatens our autonomy and independence.
In this chapter I compare and contrast the two approaches to thought—the
interpretive and the explicatory—in light of contemporary discussions of moral
semantics. The interpretive identifies thought with a perspective. The explicatory
understands thought by way of a confluence of perspectives—the basic concept
at play in thoughts themselves are definable by the disagreements of perspectives.
To identify thought with a perspective is to conceive of thought as destructive to
alternative perspectives. Even elevated perspectives (like the one on Mount Kailash)
are destructive to diversity. The alternative grasps objectivity (like a conch) while
resting on a bed of alternate perspectives. It preserves. Whereas the destructive
variety, like Geocentrism, treats the Earth as a privileged perspective, the preserving
model of thought allows us to appreciate that the Earth has her own perspective in a
world of multiple perspectives. I noted earlier in chapter two that this transformation
from interpretation to explication in astronomy is the move from Geocentrism
to what is often called Heliocentrism. We need a similar change in philosophy to
appreciate and preserve diversity while respecting the prospects for objective truth.
I compare these two models of thought by considering Planet Ethics: a world of
radical moral diversity. The standard approach in Indology is to apply the standard
Western account of thought in research. Accordingly, thought is the meaning of what
we say in our language. This results in colonialism and imperialism on Planet Ethics.
In response, I will show that strategies open to interpreters, championed by the
philosopher Donald Davidson, are of no help. The strategy Davidson invokes to
contend with America’s favorite lovable bigot—Archie Bunker—is the Orthodox
approach in Indology to understanding Indian ethical discourse. In both cases, the
target’s linguistic behavior is treated as mistaken. If we want to understand and
respect Indian thinkers, we need to take their moral philosophy seriously—this will
allow us to take them seriously. This means giving up on treating Indian thinkers
charitably, in favor of treating them philosophically. Put another way, we have to
give up treating our own theoretical frames as constraints on what Indians can and
did think. The expectation that Indians have to conform to our theoretical frame
in order to be intelligible is just Western imperialism. Giving up on this imperialism
means giving up on the idea that what you think is true—and what might even be
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BEYOND MORAL TWIN EARTH 87
true—is relevant to research in disciplines such as philosophy. We have to determine

the objectivity of propositions before we can determine their truth, and our objective
thoughts may be false. Living like this entails treating others who do not share our
perspective with the respectful freedom to disagree.
2. BEYOND MORAL TWIN EARTH: WILL THE

REAL BHŪMI STEP FORWARD?
There are at least two versions of the linguistic account of thought. The accounts are
Linguistic Particularism and Linguistic Internalism.
If you are a Linguistic Particularist, you deny that “it is a good day” in English
shares the same meaning as “c’est une bonne journée” in French (cf. Wittgenstein
1958, I, §241; Derrida 1981; Gadamer 1990, 1996; cf. Lance and O’Leary-
Hawthorne 1997: 20; cf. McDowell 1998a: 128; 1998b: 61–63) and you thus
deny that they express the same thought. If you are a Linguistic Internalist, you
are inclined to see “it is a good day” and “c’est une bonne journée” as expressing
the same thought because you take them to share a sentential meaning. Linguistic
Internalists are hence open to the possibility that speakers of English and French
can, via their own languages, engage in a crosslinguistic agreement or disagreement
on the goodness of the day (cf. Hare 1952: 146–149; cf. Boyd 1988: 210; cf. Dreier
1990: 8; cf. Horgan and Timmons 1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1996, 2000; cf. van Roojen
2006; cf. Wedgwood 2006; Henning 2011).
My proposal, to add to this mix, is Linguistic Externalism.1 Linguistic Externalism
relies on two uncontroversial theses. The first is the idea that there is a distinction
to be drawn between the meaning of an expression and its use—a basic idea in
the philosophy of language (Donnellan 1966; Davidson 1996b; Austin 2000). The
second is the idea that there are distinct disciplines or inquiries, such as mathematics,
empirical science, and philosophy. I take it that this is trivially uncontroversial
though objective in so far as disciplines allow for disagreements. These disciplines
might overlap but yet they have their own epistemic identity. According to Linguistic
Externalism, a thought is the use of a semiotic device, such as a sentence, in service
of a disciplined inquiry, such as the empirical sciences, history, mathematics, or
philosophy. What counts as a use in service of the discipline is discipline relative,
and not reducible to cultural or linguistic considerations.
Thoughts have an intension–extension structure. The intension of a thought is
often depicted as its definition or meaning. The extension is the collection of things
that it is true of or corresponds to. The intension of a proposition on my account
is the common disciplinary use of diverse semiotic resources, while the extension is
the collection of semiotic resources that share the use. There may be no linguistic
device that encodes the intension of a proposition as its linguistic meaning and none
is required, as it is the common disciplinary use that is the intension of the thought.
On the linguistic account of thought, a sentence with the meaning “coffee cups
are radioactive” is the content of thought. Call this sentence P. Let us contrast this
88
with a sentence “depleted uranium is radioactive” in our language. Call this sentence
U. We can imagine a language L where the people make their coffee cups out of
depleted uranium, and their neighbors with an interintelligible language M who do
not. The sentence form P, “coffee cups are radioactive” in L and M express differing
thoughts according to the Linguistic Particularists, and the same thought according to
Linguistic Internalists. Both will reject that “coffee cups are radioactive” has the same
propositional content as “depleted uranium is radioactive.” Linguistic Externalists
will, however, identify a thought according to a confluence of disciplinary purposes,
or rather the confluence of perspectives relative to a disciplinary purpose. For the
Linguistic Externalist, PL and U express the same thought on disciplinary grounds,
while PL, PM, and U do not. The former is true, while the latter is false. The
difference is that the confluence of perspectives in the former case converges on the
disciplinary concern of the physicist, while in the latter case it does not.
For the Linguistic Externalists, though PL and PM share a linguistic meaning, they
are not translational equivalents given the discipline of physics, but U and PL are.
Translation is the preservation of semantic content across semiotic resources and
the meaning that is preserved in translation is discipline relative. This approach to
translation upsets those with commitments to Linguistic Internalism, but those with
a commitment to Linguistic Internalism have a problem. Call this the you can’t have
your cake and eat it too problem. The less interintelligible languages, and the more
different, the more will be our need for translation. But the less interintelligible
different languages are, the greater their semantic divergence—if nothing else for
reasons of syntax that have semantic implications, but often because our words are
cultural artifacts and cultures vary. The cases where we need translation are exactly
the cases where languages diverge along semantic lines. So success in translation
is less likely the more we need it on this account. The point here is not that
translation is impossible. It is rather that it is implausible if we buy the Linguistic
Internalist’s story. Translation theorists have wrestled with this for some time and
most of their recommendations involve compromising their own linguistic standards
of semantic accuracy. Linguistic Externalism provides a solution: treat translation
as recreating texts with differing semantic resources along disciplinary lines—the
discipline provides the common axis to evaluate the objectivity of the translation. If
the source and target texts are the same along disciplinary lines, then translation is
successful. This does not compromise accuracy for thought itself is the confluence
of perspectives relative to a disciplinary concern. Hence, sentences that encode
differing perspectives can express the same thought for disciplinary purposes. (I used
to call this “text-type semantics”; cf. Ranganathan 2007a, 2011; for a response to
translation studies and Western philosophers of language, see Ranganathan 2007b).
2.1. Moral Twin Earth

Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons’s now famous Moral Twin Earth experiments
(1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1996, 2000) are loosely based on Hilary Putnam’s Twin
Earth (1975). Horgan and Timmons ask the question of what moral semantics can
account for ethical agreement and disagreement across two languages spoken on two
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differing planets: English (spoken on Earth) and an identical sounding language they
call “Twin Moral English” (spoken on Twin Moral Earth). They stipulate that like
Putnam’s Twin Earth, different causal mechanisms abound across the two worlds.
If we choose an account of moral semantics that identifies the meaning of moral
vocabulary with causal mechanisms, then the meaning of what is said via identical
sounding moral sentences on the two worlds would not be the same. They interpret
this as inconsistent with accounting for moral agreement and disagreement across
the two worlds. They rather hold that an assignment of the same meaning to moral
vocabulary across the two worlds is required to account for crosslinguistic moral
agreement and disagreement (Horgan and Timmons 1991: 460). Their sympathies
lie with Expressivism, which holds that the meaning of moral vocabulary consists
in its ability to express the speaker’s mind (Timmons and Horgan 2006a, 2006b;
Schroeder 2008). Expressivism would fit the facts of Earth and Moral Twin Earth,
but so would other possible internalist (attitudinal) semantics (Henning 2011).
The Moral Twin Earth thought experiment in its heyday was the gold standard
test for moral semantics. Anything that claims to be an account of our moral concepts
would have to pass this test. The problem with this thought experiment is that it
only works if one assumes Linguistic Internalism. But Linguistic Internalism and the
linguistic account of thought on the whole is not put to the test by those who assume
it. We shall not assume these accounts of thought, but subject the competing three
accounts of thought to the same test of diversity. Our goal will be to discern which
accounts of thought allow for successful cross-cultural communication on ethical
matters in cases of radical moral diversity.
2.2. A World of Diversity

In our version of Planet Ethics, the world is divided into the west, and South Asia, for
simplicity’s sake. In the west, we find that one culture, Nation Negative Utilitarians,
has a word “ethical” that is causally regulated by pain-reducing properties: this is a
known scientific fact. The Negative Utilitarians not only are cognizant of this, but
also see no reason to change the linguistic meaning of “ethical.” It is linguistically
false to claim that something pain provoking but gratifying is “ethical” in this
language. The Positive Utilitarians, their distant cultural cousins, have a word
“ethical” that is causally regulated by happy making properties. It is linguistically
false in this language to claim that pain reduction without an associated increase
of happiness is ethical. Nation Expressivism Utilitarianism neighbors the Positive
Utilitarians. Their tendency is to talk like their Utilitarian neighbors except that on
their account “ethical” does not have the same literal meaning as “ethical” for the
Positive Utilitarians. Rather, for them, it is a device whose systematic and basic role is
to allow the speaker to express their mind. They boarder Nation Expressivism Kant.
Nation Expressivism Kantians speak the same language as their Nation Expressivism
Utilitarianism neighbors except that the former citizens talk like the Kantians next
door to them.
Nation Kant has a word “ethical,” but in their language “ethical” names a will
determined by the categorical imperative regardless of its efficacy. In this language
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it is linguistically false that happiness, or pain reduction, is ethical. Then there

are the Republic of Platonists run by a Philosopher King. For them, “ethical” is
a second-order ideal object—the Form of the forms—it is beyond being. For the
Platonists, something can be ethical insofar as it participates in this ideal object. It is
linguistically false in the language of the Platonists to identify any natural property
or cluster of properties as the paradigm or defining case of ethicalness. It is also
linguistically false for the Platonists that talking about ethicalness does not commit
one to sui generis content.
In South Asia, we find Nation Early Intellectuals. They are of the view that
“ethical” (dhamma) has a meaning that includes outcomes of our mind that we
must leave be by cultivating a non- desiring (non- grasping) psychology called
“mindfulness.” In their view, this opens the individual to a compassionate approach
to suffering. Nation Great Vehicle Intellectuals, their neighbors, agree with much
of this, but identify the Awakened Intellectual as an ideal to emulate in the practice
of ethics. One who follows this path is awakened to the requirement of alleviating
the suffering of others and thereby overcomes their own failures to properly relate
to ethics. The practice defined by this ideal takes one to an appreciation of the
interdependence and radical lack of autonomy of all things: emptiness. This further
undermines selfishness and cruelty. “Ethics” means all of this, for them. Nation
Heroic Conquerors regard virtue (vīrya) as the objective property of the self that
gives rise to actions that conform to the unintrusivity of virtue. For them, Ethics is
the Movement away from states of the unethical prioritization of action (karma) in
self-understanding—a prioritization that leads to practical paralysis and unvirtuous
(harmful) behavior. Nation Elaboraters of the Former are ritualists who define
“ethical” as what results in welfare, but its justification has to do with its conformity
to expectations set out in a text they call “Knowledge,” which they say is heard but
not remembered. Nation Elaboraters of the Latter, their neighbors, are fractioned.
They can agree that “ethical” means following the rules, as set out in this text
Knowledge, but they disagree as to its importance for personal freedom.
For fun we could add more groups. Somewhere on Planet Ethics, we find the
Nation De Sadeans, who idealize Marquis De Sade. For them, “ethical” means
shocking their neighbors. Then there are Nation Whither the State— Marxists.
According to them, “ethical “means the free development of the human individual,
and this justifies the right of the worker to control the fruits of their labor. On
their account, “religion” is the opiate of the masses. Maybe somewhere in between
the west and South Asia we find Nation Jesus, where “ethical” means “what Jesus
taught.” Next to them, we find Nation Mohammad: the same kind of thing, but
for the them “ethical” means what Mohammad said. Finally, interspersed among
these many nations will be descendants of a long-gone Nation Them. The Thems
have their own linguistic identity defined by their own ten commandments, but for
centuries they were happy to live in the various other nations, participating in two
linguistic cultures: their home culture and their historical culture. They speak the
local language of their native Nation, but also retain an extralinguistic affiliation
that ties them to the historical Nation Them.
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2.3. Outcomes
The linguistic account of thought specifies minimally that two sentences can express
the same thought if and only if they share a sentential meaning. The linguistic
account of thought does not recognize sentences about ethics across languages on
Planet Ethics as articulating the same thought. There are six outcomes on Planet
Ethics if we adopt a linguistic account of thought.
First, the linguistic accounts of thought cannot account for how people across
linguistic lines on Planet Ethics can agree or disagree on ethical issues as their
various sentences about ethics express different thoughts on the linguistic account.
But to agree or disagree on ethical matters, they must share a common thought that
they may assent or dissent to. Linguistic differences on Planet Ethics render cross-
linguistic communication on the assumption of the linguistic account of thought
impossible. When each group talks about ethics, they mean something different.
Second, given a linguistic account of thought, one’s culture’s values are analytically
true, and their rejection is a contradiction in terms. Conscientious objection to one’s
own culture’s values will be impossible, for the values simply are the meaning of the
Nation’s moral vocabulary. Here we find that the national views on ethics are true
as a matter of analyticity. So to attempt to engage in intra-cultural criticism would
be to say something absurd.
Third, the linguistic accounts of thought entail a chauvinism about one’s moral
concepts: moral relativism is out of the question. Moral relativism relies on the same
moral proposition taking on different truth conditions depending on the cultural
context. But assuming a linguistic account of thought, we have across languages not
the same proposition but different propositions that seem superficially the same
because they use the term “ethical.” But as each person will only have their own
language’s moral concepts at their disposal to think about ethics, and since they
have no recourse to moral relativism or to understand cross-cultural disagreements
on morals, they will have no choice but to impose their views on morality on others.
The inability to even make sense of someone dissenting from the ethical theory of
their moral vocabulary all but ensures this chauvinism.
Fourth, in order to have a conversation with people in other cultures, someone
who buys the linguistic account of thought on Planet Ethics would have to impose
their language on others—or give up theirs for another. But this conversion would
be to either impose their own values on others or endorse the values of others.
As chauvinism is an outcome of the linguistic account of thought, citizens on
Planet Ethics would not think about giving up their moral theory for the sake of
communicating with others. Imperialism is hence the likely outcome.
Fifth, given a linguistic account of thought, historical disagreements between
peoples can be erased if they merely form their own languages and communities.
Each community would define their moral vocabulary according to their values,
and there would be no way to meaningfully access the substance of the historical
controversy.
Sixth, any and all national cultures that adopt the linguistic account will have
difficulty accepting the Thems as one of them. The Thems, in identifying with an
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alien linguistic culture, underwritten by its own moral theory, will seem like double
agents, who are not completely loyal to the home national identity that they live
in. On Planet Ethics, language is defined by moral theory, so the Them allegiance
to the Them language constitutes their allegiance to a moral theory that is contrary
to the national moral character of their adopted homes. The problem here not
only is political, but also has to do with the interpretive account of thought. If the
Thems employ two differing languages with competing values, then their neighbors
could never be clear what linguistic frame they are loyal to. This will create the
phenomena of Anti-Thematism. At the first sign of stress, the Thems will be blamed
for undermining the national interests.
All of these problems disappear given Linguistic Externalism. According
to Linguistic Externalism, the thought is the disciplinary commonality of the
various sentences of various languages. The sentence “it is ethical to persecute
the Thems” will have a different linguistic meaning in each national language as
“ethical” is defined by opposing theories. Yet the common disciplinary purpose
of these sentences is to make a claim that the persecution of the Thems falls into
the ideal theory of THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD, or more simply that it is right or good
to persecute the Thems. So people on Planet Ethics can agree or disagree about
this proposition.
If thought is the confluence of perspectives relative to a disciplinary purpose, a
true thought converges on some common object of inquiry from diverse perspectives
while the false ones do not. In this case, as each society forms its own paranoia about
the Thems relative to their own cultural identity, the confluence of perspectives
about the Thems tracks no common object. Diversity appears like a threat when we
judge those who are different from our own perspective only. Dharma only seems
like an alien perspective at odds with ethics when we attempt to understand it from
our theory-laden perspective.
If we add the language of the Thems to the mix, it would be false linguistically
for them to endorse this sentence, but the reason that the Thems are just fine and
deserve no extra concern is not because they are somehow friendly or open to the
values of their host culture: it is because the dominant perspective in a social context
is not thought: it is merely a contribution to a thought, and the unity of the thought
is disciplinary. It is the unity of thought on the whole that is either true or false, and
cultural revolutions, and changes in language, cannot manufacture truth.
Could some languages not fake tolerance? Or, more generously, are there no
cultural values that are more open than others? Of course, many cultures that adopt
the linguistic account of thought can fake tolerance. The Expressivist cultures, for
instance, will seem to be very open-minded. Millian liberalism of the sort defended
in On Liberty seems like the culture of Nation Expressivism Utilitarianism: an
Expressivist semantics but with Utilitarian sympathies. Anyone who is a member of
this society can say pretty much what they want, but they have to buy the underlying
Expressivist semantics—they could merely talk like a Them, but not really buy the
Them values as basic to a cultural orientation. Moreover, with respect to the outside,
the Utilitarian Expressivist would be as ruthless as any other cultural orientation
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if the linguistic account of thought is their account of thought. Like Mill, they
would have to be chauvinistic and impose their values on others merely to have a
conversation with outsiders. Other cultures will be viewed as lucky enough to find
an Akbar to rule them (On Liberty I.10). Like Mill, they might try to earn a living
by imperialism: from their perspective, they are doing everyone a favor by imposing
themselves on others.
The only cultures that will be tolerant are those who reject the linguistic account
of thought and with it the interpretive approach to thought. There is no linguistic
limitation or constraint on such a culture. Any culture can keep their moral
vocabulary, defined by their history and national character, but reject the idea that
what is encoded in their language is just the content of thought. These cultures will
be open to inquiry and disciplinarity as the foundation of thought. They will reject
anti-Thematism because it is silly, and they will be open to criticizing the values that
underwrite their culture and language. But this elevates such cultures. They are no
longer mere functions of their culture or history. They are free.
3. FAILED SOLUTIONS
Those loyal to interpretation as a model of thought might be upset with our findings
on Planet Ethics. It seems that interpretive accounts of thought—the two linguistic
accounts of thought—stymie our capacity to understand others and even ourselves.
In this section I consider two responses from the work of Davidson, the other from
what we might think of as a political Hinduism.
3.1. Davidsonian “Solutions”

I have noted that interpreters have two strategies open to them in the face of alien
perspectives. They can domesticate the alien perspective, or they can religify it. To
domesticate the alien perspective is for the subjectivity of the interpreter to change
in some way to accommodate the alien so that it is no longer alien.
One version of domestication is conversion where the interpreting subject changes
their mind. The other version is internalization where the external view enriches the
domestic view. Davidson defends domestication in his famous “On the Very Idea of
a Conceptual Scheme” (2001). The trouble with domestication is that it does not
allow us to understand how and when we disagree with others. If I convert to the
alien perspective, I share its view, so I no longer disagree, but I do not understand
what my disagreement was with the alien perspective either. If I absorb the language
of other cultures into my own, now I have several words that sound like “ethical”
in my language. This is unparsimonious, but worse, if all I have done is internalized
the diverse languages on Planet Ethics into my own language, I am no closer to
understanding cross-cultural moral disagreement.
Religification arises in Davidson’s discussion of malapropisms. Consider Archie
Bunker who claims, “We need a few laughs to break up the monogamy” (Davidson
1996a: 465). This is funny. It constitutes a violation of our linguistic expectations.
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What we do not consider in this case is that Bunker has a different theory of
monogamy from us. We rather treat Bunker’s use of “monogamy” as underivable
from our canons of reason. This is religification. How do we communicate here?
According to Davidson, in these cases, we have our own prior theory of what our
words mean, and in light of a speaker who resorts to a malapropism, we construct
a passing theory that will allow us to define the speakers’ strange linguistic behavior
to our prior theory. So in this case, the passing theory will allow us to match Archie
Bunker’s utterance with our sentence, “We need a few laughs to break up the
monotony” and further allows us to correlate Bunker’s “monogamy” in this and only
this context with our prior theory of “monotony.” Now it seems that “monogamy”
has two meanings in our passing theory of Archie Bunker’s language: one that
correlates to our term and one that corresponds to “monotony.” This is, of course,
interpretation where we use our prior theory to explain utterances of Archie Bunker.
The passing theory is the conclusion. This is to effectively domesticate Bunker’s
religified claims about monogamy.
On Planet Ethics if I adopt this approach, I first appreciate the religified essence
of all alien talk of “ethics,” and then domesticate these uses relative to distinctions
that are meaningful to me in my language. The result is that for any alien language
with a distinct moral theory underwriting their vocabulary, I will multiply meanings
of “ethics” relative to my scheme. Hence, the alien will appear to say many different
things when they talk about ethics. The problem here is that this strategy provides
no insight into the moral disagreement across cultures on Planet Ethics. It treats
the frame of the interpreter as sacrosanct and expects everyone else’s claims to be
apparently rational by this frame. But this frame is just one of many perspectives on
morality on Planet Ethics.
This should be all too familiar to those who have been paying notice to the
strategy of Orthodox Indologists in the study of Indian ethics, which was reviewed
in “Philosophy, Religion, and Scholarship” in this book. These Indologist takes
their own idiolect as setting out the content of morality and ethics, and on this
basis religifies uses of “dharma” relative their idiolect by depicting it as underivable
from their reasons. Next, the religified uses are relativized to distinctions that are
meaningful to Indologist in their scheme. What is appalling is that this is the strategy
that is apparently appropriate to correct malapropisms. So for Orthodox Indologists
to treat Indian thinkers as Davidson suggests we should treat Archie Bunker—
America’s loveable bigot—is to treat Indians who talk about “dharma” as a bunch
of malapropers. In other words, Indian philosophers apparently cannot even speak
their own language properly when they use “dharma” in all those ways correlated
by distinctions in our western scheme. If treating Indian philosophers like a bunch of
malapropers helped us understand our moral disagreements with them then perhaps
this would be useful. But it does not.
In the case of Archie Bunker, is it appropriate to call him a malaproper? If it is
the case that he has no reasons for his strange use of “monogamy” then it seems
appropriate. What if he continues to speak like this? What do we say of him? We
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say that he has this tradition and custom of using “monogamy” for “monotony.” We
continue to religify.
In the case of Indian thinkers we can certainly construct a picture of them as
lovable bigots, beholden to custom and tradition, but lacking reason for their
strange use of “dharma.” This is the dominant depiction of Indians in Indological
sources. On the basis of this depiction it seems appropriate to study Indian thinkers’
views about dharma not philosophically but social-scientifically—as religion, not as
moral theory. But this is to treat South Asians as a bunch of Archie Bunkers: they
do not know how to speak their own language. After all, they use “dharma” in a
bewildering variety of ways not reducible to the interpreter’s theory. But here we
find that this will be natural for the interpreter. But it would quite obviously be a
result of the methodology of interpretation.
3.2. Right-Wing Solutions

Here is quite a reasonable and accurate criticism. The Orthodox Indologist who
interprets Indian thought employs the moral values encoded in his or her idiolect to
interpret Indian thought. The result is the depiction of Indians as irrational malapropers
who cannot even speak their own language. Moreover, on the basis of this methodology,
they disallow identifying “dharma” with “ethics” because that would be to impose
our western concepts on Indians as though they are endorsing a scholarly scruple of
integrity that prevents a confusion between the researcher and what they study. Of
course the opposite is true: as interpreters they have collapsed the distinction between
first-and third-party reasons and they are the ones imposing their perspectives on
Indians. But the Orthodox Indologist’s qualm is a creature of their decision to define
morality in terms of their values. As imperialists they have appropriated a concept (THE
RIGHT OR THE GOOD) that we can all employ to articulate our moral theory and defined
it as proprietary. This is the hubris of the Orthodox Indologist who pretends to be an
academic but is an arm of Western imperialism. Moreover, on the basis of this hubris,
they construct an Orientalist picture of India filled with malaproping traditionalists
who have nothing to contribute to contemporary moral philosophy.
Ok, so far, I agree. But the Right-Wing critic decides the following in response. We
should interpret Indian thought from an Indian perspective, to avoid this problem,
and we will find that Indians have reasons for their use of “dharma” that constitutes
the insider’s perspective. From this insider perspective we find a unity of Indian
philosophical thought, which might sometimes be called the sanātana dharma—
eternal ethics. My response is threefold.
First, interpretation confuses two issues: understanding a perspective and
understanding from a perspective. It treats the perspective that you occupy
as exhausting your explanatory resources and hence elevates the interpreter’s
perspective, and alienates others. This is imperialism, and it is an essential part of
the Western tradition. As a Hindu nationalist response to Western imperialism, it is
confused for it buys a very deep premise of the Western tradition.
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Second, interpretation via its conflation of understanding from a perspective

and understanding a perspective undermines the objectivity of research, for if I can
only ever understand from where I am, my findings are subjective. Objectivity is
the possibility of disagreement from differing perspectives and an objective account
of Indian thought should facilitate disagreement. But then we should be able to
understand Indian moral philosophy from any perspective. The idea that you have
to be an insider to understand something is the West.
Third, as an anticolonialist response, endorsing interpretation is a mistake, as it
makes disagreement unintelligible. To explain everything by virtue of my perspective
is to render dissenting perspectives beyond my understanding because I am committed
to understanding everything in terms of what I regard as reasonable. But those of
us who are critical of imperialism object to the values that are being imposed on us
and others. This criticism of imperialism is only possible if we are free to disagree.
Freedom to disagree is kaivalya—isolation. This arises from the control of mental
representations (perspectives) so that we can be free from perspective itself.
Fourth, a political response of interpreting from an Indian perspective does not
criticize the Eurocentric interpretation of Indian thought. Often it endorses religious
identities drawn on Eurocentric lines and merely valorizes what the West religifies.
A South Asian Nationalism that does not criticize the religified identity bestowed to
South Asia by the West fails to assert its independence.
The argument for Linguistic Externalism and for explication is a repudiation of
nationalistic politics as a version of imperialism. We can and should be happy with
our culture and language as providing us resources to engage in inquiry, but none
of this supports interpretation. Indeed, it provides the foundations for criticizing
interpretation as the problem. The more Indic thing to do would be to criticize the
importance of a right perspective to research and thought. To think that there is a
right perspective to study India is to buy the project of Western philosophy. But it is
also to buy the project of Orthodox Indology as a repository of truths about India,
on the basis of which India is depicted. Indology so understood is the interpretation
of India.
4. OBJECTION
I have been elucidating the distinction between interpretation and explication in
these introductory chapters as it constitutes a fault line in scholarship that is ignored,
in part because of the influence of the West, which is interpretation. The Eurocentric
starting point is a historical accident, but one that interpretation preserves as it
grows. It is like a virus: nothing intelligent, but nevertheless something that spreads
and propagates itself by colonization. Those who come within the ambit of Western
imperialism find themselves at once religified and domesticated relative to Western
perspectives, and if they become sensitive to this threat they typically respond by
endorsing interpretation as the strategy of power, while valorizing their religified
identities. Hindu Nationalism is an example of this.
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I have argued that the response to these forces of imperialism is yogic: it treats
discipline as coordinating perspectives relative to a thought, and allows us to
engage in research where we discover via disciplinary means the truth or falsity of
the thought. If the thought is true, the confluence of perspectives tracks discipline-
relative objects. If it is false, there is no common objectivity that looks different
from differing perspectives. On the basis of this criticism, we can affirm the freedom
of people to transcend their language and culture via disciplined inquiry. Nothing
about a person’s cultural background or language they speak determines their
thought: rather, clear thinking is always about critically employing cultural resources
for disciplinary purposes.
I shall consider two objections to my argument. The first objection is that my
alternative seems like an alternative, but is nothing other than its own perspective
or conceptual scheme. According to this criticism, Linguistic Externalism is not a
solution to communication across moral communities on Planet Ethics. It is just
another such community—another such language.
In response, let us consider Planet Disagree. Here there are three nations that
differ in their theories of disagreement. Here we have Nation Linguistic Internalism,
Nation Linguistic Particularism, and Nation Linguistic Externalism. They can all
say “I disagree with Linguistic Externalism,” but this means something different in
each language; “disagreement” is defined by the national theory of propositional
content. Can we have a disagreement about disagreement across these communities
distinguished by their account of disagreement? Can speakers across these languages
say, “I disagree with the other two culture’s views about disagreement?” In order to
have such a disagreement across languages, speakers of the various languages have
to have a common thought that they disagree on. Linguistic Particularism denies the
possibility of sharing a thought with people who do not share a language so on their
account, this sentence cannot be true, no matter what language we are speaking. “I
disagree with the other two cultures’ views about disagreement” will be false on the
Linguistic Internalist’s view, no matter what language we are speaking for a similar
reason: for Linguistic Internalism, for this sentence to be true, it has to be the case
that there is a disagreement across languages. But then there must be sentences with
the same meaning across languages for speakers to disagree about, according to
Linguistic Internalism. Yet, on Planet Disagree, there are no such sentences about
disagreement that have the same meaning across the three languages, as “disagree”
means something different in each language. According to Linguistic Externalism,
the common thought is not the sameness of linguistic meaning, but the commonality
of disciplinary purpose. The sentence “I disagree with the other two cultures’ views
about disagreement” will be understood as a philosophical claim about the ideal
theory of disagreement: no matter what sentence we use, we are making a claim about
a disagreement about the ideal theory of disagreement. The common disciplinary
purpose will be to voice one’s dissent from the other two cultures’ proposal for
what disagreement can consist of. The extension of the thought will contain the
three semantically distinct but functionally identical sentences—each with the form
“I disagree with the other two cultures’ views about disagreement”—and the truth
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of the thought on the whole arises if the three proposals in the extension of the
thought converge on something in common. What they converge on is their mutual
difference about what dissent amounts to. So yes, this proposition when sincerely
endorsed is true by all concerned, no matter what language is spoken. But this shows
that Linguistic Externalism is not merely a language. It is the possibility of thought
across perspectives.
Linguistic Externalism and explication are not truths. They are rather objective,
which means that we have to converge on them if we want to disagree. The right way
to read the outcome of Planet Ethics and Planet Disagree is not that there is some
type of meta-perspective that we all have to occupy in order to think reasonably
about cross-cultural communication in a world of diversity. Rather, the right way
to understand their success is that they are procedures to allow for transcending
our first-party perspective by treating all perspectives as the confluence of thought.
All perspectives are in some sense third-party perspectives: knowing this is our
autonomy.
The second closely related objection is that Linguistic Externalism cannot account
for philosophical disagreements, for it will have to presume some picture of what
philosophy is on the basis of which it depicts a proposition. My response is that
this is mistaken as the discipline of philosophy is not a picture, but a method of
coordinating contrary perspectives within a debate. To make sense of a disagreement
about philosophy is to line up the differing perspectives on philosophy as disagreeing.
Philosophy is what allows us to understand this disagreement. No right answer to
what philosophy is has to be assumed, and any right answer that we do assume will
be undefinitive of our appreciation of the debate about what the right perspective is.
5. CONCLUSION
The standard approach to understanding Indian ethics in the literature follows an
interpretive model, where the “researcher” assumes that their linguistic frame is an
absolute conceptual frame that all others must agree to in order to say something
intelligible. As we have seen, no good comes of this. On Planet Ethics, this results
in not only imperialism, but also internal intolerance to diversity and critical
thinking. The solution to cross-cultural communication does not rest in linguistic
interpretation. It rather arises from philosophy. When we treat our theory-laden
claims about THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD as expressing a philosophical thought, we allow
ourselves to contemplate propositions that others can affirm or deny by way of their
language and culture. This is possible insofar as thought is treated as a creature of the
discipline of philosophy and diverse sentences with differing encoded moral theories
are identified as the same thought insofar as they share a disciplinary purpose. In
other words, people with diverse perspectives can entertain the same thought of
contention.
This approach to thought is a radical departure from standard theories in Western
philosophy. Western philosophy is the perspective of the West. The perspective
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of the West is Eurocentric, but also interpretive. The standard Western model of
thought idealizes thought as the right perspective. Disputes in moral semantics to
this day revolve around the question of what the right moral perspective is: the
right one will allow us to understand ethical debate—on the assumption that it
is universally accepted. Semantic externalists, who identify moral semantics with
natural properties, have been criticized by semantic internalists because given natural
differences across social contexts, semantic externalism is shown to be obviously
relativistic (Horgan and Timmons 1996). But what semantic internalists have not
appreciated is that their account of moral semantics is culturally particular: it too
relies on the assumption that the meanings of moral terms are invariant across
contexts. This is implausible in the case of radical cultural diversity. The entire
pretense of the interpretive model of thought that dominates the Western tradition
depends on an assumed commonality. This is to adopt a belligerent attitude toward
diversity as a premise of philosophical discussions on ethics.
In a world of cultural diversity, Linguistic Internalism and Linguistic Particularism
are implausible. Our moral perspectives are historical artifacts, and even if we are
convinced that our perspective is right, we have no reason to believe that others will
agree with us—unless we confuse thought with the right perspective.
So my complaint about the contemporary spread of options in moral semantics
is the same as my complaint about the Western tradition. It confuses the question
of the right perspective, or having a perspective, with thought itself. This confusion
shows up in the idea that thought is language itself. What I have called Orthodox
Indology is Indology of Western philosophy. Far from uncovering what Indians
have to say on various topics, Orthodox Indology is the application of the Western
tradition of philosophy to India itself. While Orthodox Indology is largely an area
studies grounded in human sciences, including linguistics and history, its operation
within the Western philosophical world leads it to endorse a theory of thought that
renders it historically uncritical about its own assumptions. Against the background
of assuming that one’s perspective is thought, Orthodox Indologists employ
Eurocentric assumptions as a frame to study Indian thought, and Indian philosophers
are counted as having ethical views only insofar as they agree with Eurocentric
assumptions. Chief among such assumptions is the linguistic account of thought: a
common source of Western philosophy. It is the Eurocentric interpreter who objects
to the idea that Aristotle and Plato talked about dharma, for instance, for the word
“dharma” is not the same as the words that Plato and Aristotle employed in their
works, or because the theories associated with “dharma” are not those associated with
“ethics” or “morality” in the Western tradition. The basic error here is interpretation
that endorses the conflation of a perspective with thought. This approach shows no
historical awareness to the conditions that lead to the formation of these Eurocentric
assumptions—assumptions of communitarian anthropocentrism. Mokṣa from this
oppression comes about by transcending language, and area studies. It involves
adhering to disciplinarity as the foundation of thought. In the case of ethics, the
discipline that allows us to understand cross-cultural agreement and disagreement
on values is philosophy.
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Is Indology possible at all if research is grounded in disciplines? Certainly a variety

of Indology would be possible: this is a version of the study of India that results
from sharing discipline-based findings. It would prevent the idea that language is
our route to Indian thought—an approach to thought that makes sense only if we
embrace the West, and its interpretive approach to thought that identifies linguistic
meaning as the content of thought itself. The study of Indian moral philosophy
on the approach that is non- imperialistic, and discipline based, would render
philosophy, and explication, not only the end of research, but also to an important
degree the means.
Sanskritists and Orthodox Indologists on the whole might object. Clearly it is
basic disciplinary knowledge of language made possible by linguistics and philology
that is a condition of knowledge of Indian philosophy, which means that there must
be some room for interpretation, or explanation by way of what we think is true
or is true about Sanskrit. Planet Ethics shows us the problem with this approach.
It assumes that linguistic meaning determines what we think. But the way to
understand cross-cultural communication on ethical matters—what we might loosely
call interreligious dialogue—is made possible only in conditions of radical cultural
differences by treating the philosophical use of diverse sentences as the content of
thought. But this is to disallow the identity of linguistic meaning with thought. We
can indeed be agnostic about what our words mean so long as we understand the
philosophical purpose to which they are conscripted. To make linguistic meaning
a condition of philosophical research is to put the cart before the horse. What our
words mean is a result of a historical process, and this process is the outcome of
our philosophical disagreements, which is to say, our differences of perspectives. It
is not merely that linguistic knowledge is not sufficient but necessary to understand
philosophy. We only come to understand the cultural contingencies of our theory-
laden terms when we put philosophy first. Knowledge of what words mean in a
language is downstream from the more basic critical disagreement of perspectives
that gives rise to linguistic and cultural change. What “ethics” means in English
is not a conceptual constraint on ETHICS: it is the product of a tradition of moral
theorizing and the concept is what we discern when we compare differing theories
of the ethical. We can only do this if we explicate moral theory. Explication is the
rejection of the primacy of any particular perspective in philosophical explanation.
We travel past Moral Twin Earth back to Earth by accepting the reality of radical
moral disagreement across cultures. We go beyond Indology the same way. Studying
Indian ethics is not about studying India: it is about studying our philosophical
disagreements. This is to embrace the position of preservation that lies on a bed of
innumerable perspectives. Here we have the good fortune of seeing the Earth for
the Goddess she is—someone with her own perspective. Otherwise, we are like
Geocentrists who eclipse the autonomy of the Earth, assume her perspective, and
try to take over the world by interpreting everything from our perspective. If we
accept a diversity of moral perspectives, we have a chance at peace. By giving each
other the room to philosophically disagree, we have to learn to get along with others
who do not share our values. This is easy if the way we mediate our disagreements
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is philosophical as an exercise in moral philosophy. Indeed, there is no other way.

This is the Heliocentric option. If we insist on understanding everything from our
perspective—even if it is elevated on the highest peaks—we destroy what we try to
understand.
NOTE
1. The position could also be called semiotic externalism. The leading idea is that the
semantics of thought is outside the semantics of the devices used to articulate a
thought. Thought is accordingly meta-semiotic. This contrasts with the idea that
thought is semiotic: the linguistic account of thought is this.
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CHAPTER FIVE
Interpretation, Explication,
and Secondary Sources
SHYAM RANGANATHAN
1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter serves as a conclusion to the opening part of this book. The topics covered
in this opening part traverse the issues involved in the study of philosophy: these
pertain to the philosophy of thought, language, translation theory, moral semantics,
culture, imperialism, and proper procedure for research. Without addressing these
deep and challenging questions, philosophers have very little reason to believe that
their approach to studying philosophy is credible. It so happens that philosophers
have settled practices of research—explication—but oddly, the dominant tradition
of philosophy in the West has put its stock for the most part in an alternative
methodology—interpretation. This has an insidious influence on how non-Western
philosophy is studied as it constitutes a philosophical paradigm of imperialism and
anti-philosophy. As interpretation is imperialist, and as its Western origins ensure
Eurocentrism, what we have in the dominant philosophical tradition in the West
is Western imperialism. The secondary literature on non- Western philosophy,
especially the philosophy of cultures that have been colonized by the West, is
especially compromised by Western imperialism, for it is here that best practices in
philosophical research are not historically applied and we find the methodology of
imperialism (interpretation) unbridled. The result is secondary literature on Indian
philosophy that perpetuates myths about the lack of ethics and marked religiosity of
India. The failures of Indian moral theory to meet expectations set out by Western
moral theories depicts the Indian theories as religion. It is no part of philosophy to
understand one moral theory in terms of another.
In this chapter I draw some general observations about the difference between
interpretation and explication. This is followed by a more detailed review of contrasts
between interpretation and explication. The point here is to make clear how these
two methods diverge so that we can avoid the epistemically suboptimal imperialism
of interpretation. While the secondary literature on Indian philosophy on the whole
is disappointing insofar as it perpetuates the two-sided myth of India (India as
extremely religious but uninterested in ethics), the purpose of this book is to bring
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together secondary material on Indian ethics and further our appreciation of the
diversity and depth of Indian ethics. Such a collection would track the objectivity of
morality as something Indian thinkers addressed variously. Such a collection would
depict Indian philosophy as a contribution to debates within moral philosophy—
debates about moral theory, within applied ethics, and at the intersection of morality
and politics. In the penultimate section, I provide an overview of the articles in this
book. Explication is a way to think about the substance of philosophy, which respects
the objectivity of philosophical topics. The chapters in this book engage in this project
insofar as they eschew reducing the concept MORALITY to any perspective and insofar
as they leave room for dissenting perspectives on the topic of ethics. This appears
like a trivial achievement, yet the vast majority of research into Indian philosophy
assumes interpretive criteria about what ethical beliefs look like. Moreover, many
of the chapters relate Indian moral theories to debates of contemporary interest,
furthering an appreciation of their contribution to philosophical research. Finally
I conclude by reflecting on the importance of research into Indian ethics for wider
research into ethics. If thoughts— propositions— are confluences of perspectives
relative to a disciplinary purpose, studying Indian ethics is part of propositional
analysis where ethics is concerned.
2. QUACKERY VS. RESEARCH

I have argued that we have a choice, a philosophical choice, at the heart of explanation.
Either we can prioritize truth or we can prioritize objectivity in explanation. To
prioritize truth in explanation is to engage in interpretation, where we explain
everything—including other people’s perspectives—in terms of what we believe is
true—whether it is true or not. This is a subjective enterprise because it depends on
what the interpreter takes to be true. To prioritize objectivity in explanation is to
endorse a discipline-bound approach to research where the contents of research are
what we converge on from differing perspectives relative to a discipline. Objective
truth represents what we can disagree about from these differing discipline-
relative perspectives. Explication is the disciplinary answer to interpretation where
understanding differences in perspectives is of concern: explication treats the
perspectives themselves as objective insofar as they entail explanations that account
for the perspective’s t-claims. The simplified explanation is the perspective’s theory
of t, and what theories of t have in common is the concept T.
Explication as the basic practice of philosophy allows us to understand a
perspective as entailing an explanation of its use of controversial terms such as
“dharma” or “ethics,” and the basic concept of a debate as what competing theories
of dharma or ethics converge on. The simplified explanation is the perspective’s
theory of dharma or ethics. Explication allows us to discover concepts by way of
disagreement, and what we find is that “dharma” and “ethics” are terms that express
the same concept: THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. Explication allows us to differentiate
perspectives according to their explanations of concepts. When the explanations are
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INTERPRETATION, EXPLICATION, AND SECONDARY SOURCES 105
parsimonious and simple, we call them theories: they entail P’s usage of “t.” With
perspectives clearly distinguished, we can understand thought as the confluence of
perspectives relative to disciplinary concerns. Philosophy is the discipline that allows
us to understand the objectivity of our perspective’s explanations of concepts. But
other disciplines are possible, and actual, such as mathematics or science. The true
thoughts are those that represent what is objective: in this case, the confluence of
perspectives converges on a common object relative to the discipline. The false ones
do not converge on anything. Objects of research are discipline relative, and what
is true about such objects is something we discover by tracking discipline-relative
objects.
Interpretation confuses an explanation of a common concept across theories with
the perspective’s explanation of the concept. It thereby swallows what is a common
coin and a common resource for participation in research and presses the appropriated
object to the service of a perspective. It engages in this act of appropriation by
conflating beliefs—an attitude toward a proposition that can be true or false—with
the thought itself. The proposition “the world is flat” and the proposition “I believe
the world is flat” are not distinguished according to the interpreter: they will use
“belief ” and “thought” interchangeably. This is a confusion for while the proposition
that the world is flat is false, the sincerely held claim “I believe that the world is flat”
is not false. Failing to distinguish between first-and third-person reasons—between
beliefs and propositions—is the basic fallacy of interpretation and it is informed
by a concern for truth: for while the truth of propositions may not be known, the
truth of descriptions of our beliefs is incontrovertible. If we think that truth has to
form the basis of explanation, then we will retreat to our first-person reasons as the
foundation of knowledge to ensure that we have a stock of truths to rely on. But this
is silly, and contrary to research. The reason that the proposition about the world
being flat is false is that it does not represent anything that we can converge on from
differing perspectives. The flatness of the earth is how things seem if we take our
vantage close to the Earth too seriously. Quackery is of this variety: it attempts to
depict a topic from one perspective only as though there is a right perspective from
which research is conducted. The reason that good research is good is not because
what it says is true can never be revised in light of new evidence that comes from
new perspectives. The credibility of research has to do with its objectivity—that it
is based on what we can know from differing perspectives. Quacks who think that
truth (in their case, the truth of their beliefs) trumps objectivity will often complain
that the revisability of expert research shows that it is not credible. That is because
they take truth to be more important than objectivity.
The standard view that Indian thinkers were too busy being religious to care
about moral philosophy is quackery. In order to generate this claim you have to
take your perspective on what ethics amounts to very seriously and interpret Indian
thinkers accordingly. As they diverge from what you take to be ethics, you would
interpret them religiously as engaging in an activity that is not derivable from
your canons of reasons. The objective approach would require that we explicate
Indian moral philosophy. Here we have to look to a perspective on dharma or
106
other normative terms to provide an explanation of its use of “dharma.” At no

point could we rely on our perspective on ethics to adjourn Indian contributions
to debate, and at no point would we be at a loss to explain the philosophical
rationality of the theories of dharma in question: explication leads us to these
reasons that are constitutive of and entailed by the perspectives we are explicating.
Their reasons might not be our reasons but explication shows us that Indians had
reasons for their views on dharma. To call this religion is under-motivated for
what we have manifest via explication are contributions to philosophy. We would
not be able to call this anything but research as Indian theories of dharma are
contributions to the question of the objectivity of THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. The point
generalizes, however. To interpret an alien normative perspective is to religify
it because one counts one’s own beliefs as the canon of reason, and these alien
perspectives are not derivable from these beliefs. But that does not mean that
viewed objectively, the alien perspective does not have reasons for its claims.
There is a political history to treating interpretation as the foundation of thought.
I have argued that while this was a controversial idea in China, and not taken
seriously in India, it forms the basis for the logocentric tradition of philosophy in
the West, which identifies thought with linguistic meaning. As linguistic meaning
is cultural and an artifact of formative generations that records their perspective
as the meaning of words in a language, the identification of thought with language
entrenches interpretation as a requirement of thought. All thought is from a
perspective and to understand alien thought on this model is to subsume the alien
perspective under the perspective that underwrites one’s own language. Western
imperialism is a mere function of a bad account of thought but it is bad nevertheless.
3. CONTRASTS
Interpretation is the methodology of squashing disagreement and attempting to pass
off one option as the only option. It is helpful to pair failures of interpretation with
the success of an alternative so that we can be free of its grip. The contrasts of note
are not only between explication and interpretation as methods of understanding,
but also how explicators and interpreters will approach challenges given their prior
commitment to explication or interpretation.
First, interpretation leads to the proliferation of alien concepts relative to your
perspective as your perspective diverges from the alien perspective. Interpretation
religifies uses of “dharma” as it diverges from the interpreter’s reasons, and then
domesticates these uses relative to the interpreter’s scheme. The result is that
“dharma” has many meanings. This is unparsimonious. Explication, in contrast,
simplifies meanings of dharma as the concept that theories of dharma disagree on. It
further allows the discovery that ETHICS, MORALITY, and DHARMA are the same concept
because they constitute the same disagreement.
Second, interpretation encourages a lack of historical insight into the political
origins of the theories that are laden in a language as it treats the theories encoded
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in a language as the very sui generis content of thought. Explication, in contrast,

renders theories laden in our language transparent as one among many perspectives
on common concepts that define a debate. This allows us to criticize a perspective
if it fails to be synoptic.
Third, explication prioritizes objectivity and thereby makes truth something that
has to be discovered via research. By accepting controversy and disagreement as a
starting point, explication allows for the discovery of this objectivity from differing
perspectives. Representations of objectivity that are synoptic are objectively true.
Interpretation prioritizes truth, and makes objectivity out to be something that
has to be recovered from our convictions. But then the search for objectivity is
indistinguishable from an exploration of what we already believe to be true, but yet
what is objective does not follow from what is true. The flatness of the world does
not follow from my belief that the world is flat but the claim “I believe the world is
flat” is true of my belief.
Fourth, as the explicator treats each perspective as entailing its own theory on a
controversial topic, she will treat traditions of philosophy as presenting individual
perspectives each worthy of their own explication. Generalizations might arise but
they will be discovered and not assumed. So explicators will reject the idea that
we should read a primary text such as the Yoga Sūtra in light of its commentary
because the commentary was influential. Each is to be read separately and we
compare notes after the fact. Interpreters read by deference to what they believe,
and hence no matter what they study, the result is an account of a text or a topic that
is in conformity to their commitments. The result of interpretation is invariably a
homogenization of the alien perspectives as consistent with the interpreter’s beliefs.
Interpretation wielded at India creates the view of India as traditional, and of one
mind on major axiological questions as this is the only position that is consistent
with the values of the interpreter.
Fifth, a corollary of the fourth difference is that explicators will insist on studying
primary texts on their own. To read a primary text on its own is to treat it as providing
the reasons that explain its use of controversial terms. This is consistent with
consulting secondary sources—so long as the secondary source is not a substitute
for reading the primary text for its own reasons. Interpreters will feel compelled to
read commentaries instead of primary texts while claiming to be a “critical scholar.”
Indeed, they will be led to this because they will be unable to interpret dense texts
of philosophy by their own beliefs. Differing to commentarial authorities is a way to
enrich their beliefs and thereby subsume a primary text in their perspective by way
of commentary.
Sixth, explication begins with objectivity and arrives at representations of
objects. Research is hence controversial on the explicator’s account—as objectivity
is just what we disagree about—and even the truths that are discovered via research
are about controversial matters. Quality research into Indian ethics on this account
uncovers controversial claims that clash with our expectations—the more objective,
the more the diversity of perspectives, the more the disagreement. When the
research is good, there is no reason to expect it to be compelling. But this is basic
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logic: the validity of an argument is not the same as its soundness, and while validity
is objective, we may not buy a valid argument because we dispute the truth of the
premises. What is uncovered in objective research in philosophy—the validity of
arguments, or at least attempts at providing valid arguments that might fail—may
not play well to our beliefs. Interpreters, in contrast, begin with what they take
to be true, and will assume that publications that are credible are consistent with
what they think to be true. As a result they will suppress objective research as they
will expect good research to compel them into belief or at least be consistent with
what they believe. If they disagree with the philosophy that is explicated, they
will take this as evidence that the research is bad. Interpreters cast in the role of
peer reviewers will suppress the publication of fresh research because they do not
find it interesting. Explicators, in contrast, will appraise research for its objectivity,
which may not be compelling. Interpreters will try to shut down research because
they disagree with it. Explicators will try to bring to light our disagreements as the
cynosure of truth.
A further observation is notable. If objective truth is a representation about what
we can disagree about, objective truth is compatible with exceptions. Such truths will
tend to be generalizations that include perspectives that are in some way incompatible
with their truth if we treat the perspective on par with the truth. For instance, the
truth of the roundness of the world seems to be contradicted by the apparent flatness
of the perceived world, but this incompatibility arises by treating a perspective on
the world as on par with the proposition of the roundness of the world (constituted
by various perspectives on the world) that is objectively true. Explicators will be fine
with endorsing objective truths that appear to have counterexamples for this reason.
The apparent contradiction arises from conflating perspectives with the thought that
contain them. They will also be careful to distinguish logically universal claims from
general truths: the two might diverge. Interpreters, in contrast, treat thought and
belief on par, and will hence reject an objective truth because it is not the content
of a competing belief that represents a perspective. (They will for instance reject
that all Buddhist uses of “dharma” are ethical for some of these uses clash with
their perspective on ethics.) Interpreters will tend to draw no important distinction
between universal and general claims, and they will object to a generalization because
it does not conform to the universality of a belief. Indeed, the truth of “I believe that
P” is without exception so long as you believe it, and the adaptation of all thought to
belief makes thinking about truth in an objective world with exceptions impossible.
Interpretation conflates the precision of one’s beliefs (that is, their repeatability)
with their accuracy for, in the case of belief, these amount to the same thing. When
objectivity is at stake, they diverge.
Seventh, explicators will insist on the freedom of thought as a confluence of
perspectives relative to a discipline, but distinguish this from a freedom of belief.
They will be secularists open to all manner of perspectives on propositions of
interest to research—they will be open to perspectives that have been cast as
religious—but they will reject the idea that we should be free to believe. A belief
takes a proposition as the object of its affirmation and is beyond reproach insofar
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as descriptions of these states are psychologistically true. “I believe that P” is

true if I believe P. P, in contrast, could be false. A freedom of thought allows
us to exchange error for truth by research: a freedom to believe does not, and
rather replaces what is objective (a proposition) with what is subjective (a belief).
Interpreters will confuse the two issues of freedom of thought and freedom of
belief. On the basis of this confusion, they will misconstrue a dissenting view
as a threat to their belief, and will hence work to oppress it for this reason.
Worse, they will erroneously believe that their beliefs are relevant to scholarship,
as though alien thinkers have to share their beliefs about ethics in order to have
opinions on the topic.
Eighth, explicators will be open to a diversity of perspectives and hence they will
adopt a politics of inclusion that makes room for a diversity of perspectives. They will
be committed to an account of thought that renders the perspective of all concerned
as the very content of thought. To formulate a thought that affects other perspectives
is to include those perspectives in the thought. Interpreters will endorse their own
perspective as the content of thought and hence deny that anyone who does not
share their perspective has opinions of relevance. If the interpreter is a Westerner,
they will deny that non-Westerners can have views on ethics that depart from them.
If the interpreter is a humanist, they will be anthropocentrists. They will hence deny
that nonhumans can think, and they will insist that they have no perspectives on
how they should be treated, for instance. If they define their perspective in terms
of sex, gender, sexual orientation, or race, they will deny that members of contrary
sexes, genders, sexual orientations, or races can have an opinion on how they should
be treated, and they will categorically deny that the perspective of the marginalized
is relevant to propositions about how they are to be marginalized. Interpretation is
tyranny as it conflates a perspective with the content of the thinkable.
Ninth, interpreters will believe that their perspective is portable: it travels
with them. This is because they conflate their attitude to a proposition with the
proposition, so wherever they can contemplate a proposition they will also believe
it. But there is a certain tension between the belief that P and P and reflection on
this tension can result in relativism: the idea that P and belief that P are the same,
but whether we can and should believe P has to do with our social context. This
manner of resolving the tension is philosophical relativism, which includes moral
relativism. According to this conflation of I believe that P and P, the truth of P
changes in accordance with the believability conditions of P and these are social
and geographic. Explicators will not believe that their perspective is portable: it is
a contingent feature of where they are. So they will not be forced to reconcile the
tension between P and I believe that P. The only relativism that they acknowledge is
the relativism of propositions to disciplines. What is certainly worth noting about
this split is that explicators will be very open to diversity and never construe it
as reason to doubt objectivity or truth. Rather, diversity will be part of how we
explain culture transcendent, objective truth for the explicator. Interpreters will find
a diversity of perspectives disturbing as it appears to them like a diversity of beliefs,
which they confuse with a proposition, or the thinkable.
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Tenth, explicators who endorse the centrality of a discipline to research expect

that there is parity between object and discipline. To study philosophy is to engage
in philosophy. One cannot study philosophy by doing philology. But interpreters
guided by truth will be compelled to rely on truths no matter what their disciplinary
origins. So truths in one discipline (say a historical or philological truth about who
wrote a text) is brought in to substitute reading philosophy as philosophers do.
In this manner the interpreter historian with no interest in philosophy will pass
themselves off as an expert on intellectual history. This is as silly as philosophers
calling themselves dentists because they thought philosophically about dentistry. But
this is normal in Orthodox Indology.
Eleventh, interpreters collapse the distinction between first-and third- party
reasons, between beliefs and thoughts, and then infuse texts that they study with
their perspective. Any text, insofar as it is intelligible to them, accords with their
beliefs. But then they take what they read as proof of their readings. In other words,
they will have a very naive idea about the weight of textual evidence and expect
that any credible reading has to be “supported by the text”—which means for them
whatever they believe. Hence interpreters will feign a pretentious concern for textual
scholarship, but this is only because they interpret texts in light of their beliefs. If a
text is interpreted then the text will always say whatever the interpreter believes but
a text will also seem to them to be inconsistent with alternative interpretations—
which is nonsense because the grounds of the interpretation are subjective. In
contrast, explicators will downplay the weight of the text because it is evidence
and not proof. Texts provide evidence in the form of reasons that entail theories
that explain their controversial term usage. The explicator’s reading of a text is the
entailed theory, but this may not be the same as the evidence—what is inscribed in
a text—and it need not be if we allow for logic. But this is why reading philosophy
is an exercise in philosophy. Philosophy so respectfully read is not compatible with
innumerable readings. The explication is not entailed by the reader’s beliefs: it is
what is entailed by the text as its own explanation of controversial term usage.
Twelfth, explicators will categorically reject the usefulness of prejudices, bigotry,
and preconceptions in research. They will rather promote the freedom of thought
as a disciplinary exercise that shows that our beliefs do not entail objectivity or the
essence of truth as such. Interpreters will feign a modesty—that as epistemic agents,
they are unable to understand anything without relying on their beliefs. But this
modesty is an arrogance for they will thereby insist on judging the whole world
by their beliefs, which are psychologically true though perhaps nothing more. At
times they will even declare that all thinking is prejudice and that implicit bias is
impossible to alleviate. This is a creature of interpretation and a convenient myth in
support of imperialism.
Finally, and last on this list but not least, explicators will look for diversity of
perspectives to account for objectivity. Objective truth is not the same as popular
opinion: it represents our disagreements. Interpreters will feign a concern for
objectivity by confusing the numerosity of perspectives with the numerosity of
believers relative to perspective. They will confuse popular opinion for objective
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truth. They will hence confuse the intersubjective consensus of Indologists on

the topic of ‘dharma’ for what is objective about dharma, or they might confuse
‘traditional opinion’ about a research topic (say Yoga) with credible research in the
history of philosophy that focuses on specific texts and exemplary philosophers via
explication. They will hence criticize serious research concerned with objectivity on
the grounds of its divergence from intersubjective opinion. They will hence confuse
the social-scientific review of India (constructed by interpretation) for objective
research into philosophy. An explicator’s views might be contingently idiosyncratic
in a world of interpreters but nevertheless objective. Interpreters in contrast will
tend to regard idiosyncrasy as a failure to get behind what is true, which means what
they believe.
This last failure of interpretation is notable in publications on Indian philosophy.
It turns the discovery of similarities and divergences between Indian philosophy
with familiar Western theorists into a belief that has to be treated as the premise of
a credible account of Indian thought. This reinforces the idea that the intelligibility
of Indian thought depends on its similarity or departure from Western theorists.
Historical Indian philosophy is never appreciated in light of its own reasons, but
always as a kind of sidekick to Western philosophy—a cute divergence when we
want a break from serious inquiry in (Western) philosophy that is popularly believed.
To study Indian ethics on the popular model is to figure out how Indians say things
like Westerners, and to discount what they say when it diverges. That “dharma”
only sometimes means ETHICS is an outcome of this patronizing imperialism of
interpretation.
4. SUMMARY OF CONTRIBUTIONS
In this section I describe the further chapters to our understanding of Indian ethics
by the many authors who have contributed to this book. The hope is that they,
on the whole, contribute to our appreciation of the controversies that are already
seriously discussed in philosophy.
In standard presentations of moral philosophy, the inquiry is divided into
theoretical and applied ethics. Theoretical ethics divides into normative ethics and
metaethics. Normative ethics is a theoretical perspective on THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD.
Metaethics is an account of the constraints of such theories. Applied ethics accounts
for THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD in terms of cases and case types. There are further
boundaries to the investigation. We might note that the overlap of politics and ethics
is also an important topic, especially because the conflation between community
membership and ethics is not a basic commitment in the Indian tradition.
Politics and morality are deeply connected in the Western tradition where thought
and language are identified. If thought is linguistic, then thought is what I share
not only with other humans, but also with those who share my language in my
community. This explains why from Plato on, the lines between politics and ethics
are difficult to draw in the West. Aristotle, in his Ethics (1094a20), calls knowledge
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of ethics “political science.” The line between the two issues starts to split with the
moderns. Hobbes was one of the first to draw a distinction between the ethics of
good and bad in the State of Nature and what we gain from civil society, but here
too, justice or the right is identified with the sovereign. The distinctions between
questions of power and questions of value in recent feminist philosophy help to
further separate out questions of morality from politics.
One of the upshots of this fusion of the ethical and the political is that the
dominant trend in Western philosophy is toward exclusion: those who are not part
of our community or species are presumed not to be individuals with standing—
and a case for their inclusion has to be made if we are to take such individuals
seriously. This applies to not only foreign humans, but also nonhuman animals.
Very few philosophers in the West take up the cause of foreigners and nonhuman
animals, but insofar as the cause is something worth fighting for, it is worth fighting
for because the background assumption is that foreigners and nonhuman animals
do not count: they are not part of our community. The burden of proof is on the
sympathizer with the outsider. Moreover, if ethical interaction is about community
membership it seems that the only way that we can relate to others is by imperialism
that renders separate communities as one community.
Indian thinkers, in contrast, did not operate with a logocentric account of thought,
and hence they were not beholden to the same pressures to account for practical
questions in terms of community membership or linguistic ability. Moral theory in
the Indian context is typically non-communal and non-speciesist in more than one
way. First, it depicts dharma as something that transcends not only communities,
but also species. Against this inclusive backdrop, one has to motivate excluding or
treating people differently. The smṛti tradition of dharmaśāstras, as well as Pūrva
Mīmāṃsā criticism geared to justifying differential treatment, is an outcome of this
backdrop. If we think about ethics as anthropocentric and communitarian, this smṛti
tradition seems like the only Indian ethics around. However, this is a very skewed
view: the smṛti tradition is a phenomenon at the boundaries of mainline Indian moral
theory articulated and debated by Indian philosophers. What is exemplary about this
effort at rationalizing exclusion and differential treatment is that it speaks to the
idea that the burden of proof is not on the case of inclusion but rather exclusion.
No doubt, the confusion of ethics with communitarian and anthropocentric matters
has led to the elevation of the case for exclusion from being a boundary phenomena
to its representation as the dominant activity of Indian ethics. The native liberating
philosophical tendency of Indian ethics founded on its inclusivity is confused with
the burden it places on the case for exclusion. Casteism and other discriminatory
tendencies in Indian theorizing have their origins in this strange inversion.
Another way that the distinction between politics and ethics in the Indian tradition
expresses itself is in the identification of political theory as a separate branch of
normative theorizing from dharma. This branch of normative theorizing includes
discussions of dharma as dharma itself is wide enough in the Indian imagination to
include answers to all practical questions, including those pertaining to statecraft. We
find this not only in the tradition of nītiśāstra, starting with the realpolitik theory of
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the Arthaśāstra, but also in the idea that politics comes into the picture when moral
stability breaks down. Here political philosophy enters into moral discussions of war
and strife in the Indian tradition: the epics exemplify this confluence of political and
moral reflection. More recently, the confluence of politics and moral theory comes
into the Indian consciousness as a result of colonialism.
4.1. Moral Theory (Metaethics and Normative Ethics)

As noted, Indian moral theory is largely what differentiates schools and traditions
of Indian philosophy. The contributions on Indian moral theory hence take specific
schools or major traditions within schools of thought, as their focus.
Jake Davis’s chapter on early Buddhist ethics, “The Scope for Wisdom: Early
Buddhism on Reasons and Persons,” addresses a central thesis of the usual
presentation of Buddhism: the no-self or an-ātman view. The title of his chapter
alludes to Derik Parfit’s work (the influential analytic philosopher who argues for a
view on personal identity that he also finds in early Buddhist thought) but indirectly
to Charles Goodman’s account (in Consequences of Compassion) of the move from
no-self to Utilitarianism that is closely aligned with Parfit’s Reasons and Persons.
Davis rejects this characterization of early Buddhist thought. However, he also finds
the other dominant interpretation, along the lines of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics,
to miss the features of early Buddhist ethics most promising as contributions to
contemporary discussions of ethical theory. Davis maintains that the conjunction
of the early Buddhist texts’ focus on emotional motivations as the primary unit of
ethical evaluation, and their focus on mindfulness as a central means of developing
wisdom, offers a principled approach to ethical theory distinct from standard
Western ones. On Davis’s gloss, the early Buddhist approach does not ground
ethics in terms of what Thomas Nagel calls a “view from nowhere.” To abstract
away from our first-personal experience in the way required by Utilitarian ethical
theories, among others, is to go beyond the “scope of wisdom” (paññāvacaraṃ).
Davis suggests instead that the early Buddhist proposal is that ethics is to be
grounded in the judgments that any of us would come to, to the degree we inhabit
more fully our own “world of experience.” It is by feeling more fully what it is
like to be motivated by greed, aversion, or delusion that we can come to discern
for ourselves which sorts of motivations are “to be cultivated” (bhavitabbaṃ) and
which are “to be abandoned” (pahātabbaṃ). The reader might note that Davis’s
approach to this topic is different from mine. His account is an interpretation based
in large measure on what he thinks is true, and not what we can disagree about. It
is insightful however as it focuses relatively closely on the philosophical problems
of early Buddhist texts: it approximates very closely an explication of this tradition.
I think if we understand that by “Consequentialism,” Davis means “agent-neutral
Consequentialism”—Utilitarianism—then much of what he says is accurate.
Jayandra Soni’s “Jaina Virtue Ethics: Action and Nonaction” provides a moral
theoretical explanation of Jainism’s challenging distinction between action and
nonaction. Some moral theories are deontic, concerned with right action, and
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prioritize action and right choice in moral theorizing. While Jain moral theorists
recommend many practices and side constraints on actions, they also recommend
and valorize nonaction. This apparently goes against the grain of a concern for
responsible action. This impression is gained by assuming a deontic approach
to moral theory against which inactivity is criticized. However, Jain ethics is
based on the metaphysics and ontology of the self, defined by virtue (vīrya).
Nonaction is the moral value of our virtues themselves as distinct from our actions
(karma), while obligatory actions are those that arise from virtue. Movement as
what follows from the dispositions of virtue takes on a theoretical role as the
essence of morality in the Jain view: ethics cannot be reduced to action, but it is
dispositional. The common point of contact is progress, transition, which it calls
Dharma: it is what happens to us when we are ethical. The opposite of Dharma is
the status quo and the failure to make progress. Practices that appear to embody
virtue are those that are nonactive. The bridge between action and nonaction in
Jain moral theory is kāyotsarga—literally “the abandonment of the body” (for
various periods of time).
My chapter “Patañjali’s Yoga: Universal Ethics as the Formal Cause of Autonomy”
tries to set the record straight about the moral philosophy of the Yoga Sūtra. This
chapter begins with a discussion of the foibles of interpretation and the virtues of
explication. On the basis of this procedure, which is standard practice in philosophy,
I argue that Patañjali’s Yoga is a thoroughgoing version of proceduralism, which
identifies the good as the perfection of the practice, and the practice as devotion
to an abstract (universal) ideal, which brings about freedom from external factors,
understood as nature (prakṛti). This theory of Bhakti is a version of Compatibilism
(as opposed to Libertarianism or Hard Determinism). Accordingly, freedom is the
result of moral practice, which on the Yoga account removes us from a world of
nature and places us in a world of persons. Yoga so understood is a non-biased
ethical theory that identifies moral standing with the needs of those individuals who
can benefit from their own freedom. The goal is our own lordliness, which involves
the transformation of public space into a world safe for people to claim their own
autonomy. This is possible only if we understand our interests as nonproprietary yet
personal: this is the Lord. I also note that Yoga avoids common problems associated
with standard moral theories in the literature, including Kantianism and Mill’s
confliction between his conservativism and his radical politics. I argue that Yoga
holds the key to problems of collective action and that it has been influential in M.K.
Gandhi’s struggle against imperialism.
Kisor Chakrabarti’s chapter, simply called “Nyāya Consequentialism,” sets
out the Consequentialist and teleological theory of ethics in the Nyāya tradition,
with some mention also of the like-minded Vaiśeṣika school. The chapter is in
three parts. The first part is a short survey of Nyāya ethics based on the original
Sanskrit sources. It explains what kind of true awareness is the means to liberation
as the highest good. It also explains the crucial role of building a good character
through restraint and observances and control of our failings. Further, it explains
why liberation is conceived as the state of absolute end of suffering and why it is
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devoid not only of bliss but also of consciousness. Nyāya ethics is Consequentialist
and teleological on this account. It is not merely the claim that ethical action leads
to good outcomes (widely affirmed by most in the Indian tradition) but also the
stronger claim that good outcomes justify ethical choices. The second part is a brief
account of the debate over the meaning of injunctions between the Nyāya and the
Prabhākara Mīmāṃsā school of Indian philosophy. The third part seeks to bring out
the relevance of Nyāya ethics for selected problems in three classical western ethical
theories as well as the hotly debated topic of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide
in current medical ethics. Chakrabarti argues that an implication of Nyāya ethics is
that physician-assisted suicide would be morally acceptable, as the minimization of
suffering is given a premium in the teleology of Nyāya—though this would have
to be voluntary to avoid being murder. He responds to the objection that ethics
(dharma) leads to freedom (mokṣa) is an empty characterization of Nyāya, true of
all Indian philosophy. Nyāya Consequentialists are committed to the stronger claim,
that the ends justify the means. This is not a view shared by all Indian moralists.
William Edelglass’s chapter “Mindfulness and Moral Transformation: Awakening
to Others in Śāntideva’s Ethics” touches upon many themes in Buddhist ethics.
It begins with a brief historical introduction to the interdependence of morality,
concentration, and insight in Indian Buddhist traditions that is the basis of the
bodhisattva ideal. It then turns to Śāntideva’s discussion of the perfections. Each
of these perfections, it is argued, involves the cultivation of moral virtues through
the development of a stable, attentive, and compassionate mind. This leads to a
more explicit discussion of the fundamental role of mindfulness as the condition
for morality in Śāntideva’s ethics. What is perhaps unsurprising for those who are
familiar with this material is the centrality of the bodhisattva ideal to Śāntideva’s
project. This is the ideal of one who is awakened to insight and compassion, and
works to alleviate the suffering of others and thereby alleviates their own trouble.
And while a concern for acting from the virtues and justifying choices in terms of
minimizing suffering play a role in Śāntideva’s account, his account at turns takes
on the form of a procedural, Bhakti account of ethics, where the bodhisattva ideal
is the regulative ideal of practice that causes the good outcome of liberation. In
one respect, we might think this is unsurprising for what seems to characterize
meditation—yoga—is that it is a practice defined by a regulative ideal. The reason
that Edelglass does not go so far as to claim that this is the best characterization of
Śāntideva’s ethics is that what motivates things is the suffering of others that leads
one to aspire to become a bodhisattva. So while the ideal of the bodhisattva does
define the meditative practice of the Buddhist who follows Śāntideva’s advice, it is
also true that what gets things going, and keeps them going, on the path, is attention
to the suffering other, the other who is best served by becoming a bodhisattva. The
argument from Śāntideva is teleological.
My chapter “Three Vedāntas: Three Accounts of Character, Freedom, and
Responsibility” traces the development of ethics in the Vedānta tradition, starting
with the early Mantra and Brāhmaṇa texts, through the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads.
The standard accounts that dismiss Vedic ethics as mere ritualism are crude. The
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problem is that later Mīmāṃsā authors also recommend dharma as ritual, but
they are Deontologists. Yet, when we look at the argument of the early Vedic texts
themselves, they are not at all Deontological but Consequentialist. The shift is from
teleology to a procedural account of ethics. As related in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, the
reason for this shift is to protect our freedom from the vicissitudes of luck. The
Bhagavad Gītā is a recapping and representation of this trend in dialectical form.
Central to the Vedānta tradition is the Moral Transition Argument (MTA) that takes
us from teleology to proceduralism. It sets the ground for identifying Brahman—
DEVELOPMENT—as the central concept of Vedānta ethics. The premise of this transition
is that we need to wrest the goodness of freedom from luck and place it in the hands
of responsibility. This does not change the rules of Vedic ethics so much as their
foundation. But this gives rise to what I call the Paradox of Development: it seems
that we require development in order to secure our own freedom as something not
left to chance, yet we require freedom to develop ourselves. At least three options are
open: affirm the Deontological foundations of ethics but deny that anything more
needs to be done for freedom (a kind of moral nihilism), affirm the Deontological
foundations of ethics but affirm the Virtue Theoretic requirement for actualizing
freedom, or affirm that we have to be devoted to the freedom we wish to secure as
the means of actualizing it in which case we transition past Deontology to Bhakti.
The arguments here are largely metaethical. They are three positions on character,
freedom, and responsibility and they correspond to Śaṅkara’s, Madhva’s, and
Rāmānuja’s positions. They are also solutions to the logical problem of the Paradox
of Development. One sees this by understanding these figures as philosophers
responding to a philosophical problem set before them by the MTA. One misses
this by philological research that treats these figures as philologists interpreting the
Vedānta Sūtra.
In summary, the views on moral theory in the Indian tradition are diverse, and
span important differences in metaethics and normative ethics. Indeed, it is wider
than the basic Western options as it includes Bhakti/Yoga, in addition to Deontology,
Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics. Everything from questions of freedom and
determinism to the basic relationship of THE GOOD and THE RIGHT are addressed
in formal Indian philosophy, and the differences on these options in philosophy
characterize the unique contributions of Indian moral philosophers.
4.2. Applied Ethics

Applied ethics concerns the case-based resolution of questions of THE RIGHT OR THE
GOOD. Indian philosophy is not without its contributions to this avenue of moral
philosophical research.
Dagmar Wujastyk’s chapter, “Medical Ethics in the Sanskrit Medical Tradition,”
explores the ethical guidelines and moral discourses on the practice of medicine
as described in the foundational texts of the classical Indian medical tradition of
Ayurveda. The classical Indian medical compendia contain many guidelines on the
ethics and etiquette for the practice of medicine. Their advice on right professional
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conduct is two-tiered. At one level, physicians were supposed to conform to social

norms that maintain a public image acceptable to society. At another, physicians’
professional success was based on their ability to treat their patients successfully,
and this meant that several public ethical values had to be broken or circumvented.
This led to the formulation of a secondary set of practical guidelines, which are
in tension with the more formalized public presentation of professional, medical
ethics. Translating and discussing a selection of Sanskrit texts of the core Ayurvedic
treatises, Wujastyk surveys the tension between these two levels of Ayurvedic,
medical ethics.
Francis X. Clooney’s chapter “Toward a Complete and Integral Mīmāṃsā
Ethics: Learning with Mādhava’s Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons” tracks a little-
studied contribution to Mīmāṃsā Ethics—Mādhava’s Garland. In this text, we find
a legalistic account of Hindu ethics, and of the 900 ritual cases comprising Jaimini’s
earlier, second-century BCE Sūtras. Through these cases, we attain a ritually
distinguished ethics rich in schemes, evaluations, and judgments, both like and
unlike seeming Western counterparts. In turn, comprehending Mīmāṃsā is made
possible by Mādhavācārya’s Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā. This mālā (garland) of nyāyas
(reasons) shows us in manageable form the practices of Mīmāṃsā reasoning, and
thus a point of entrance into distinctive features of a Hindu ethics. What I found
interesting in Clooney’s depiction of this tradition is that moral reasoning takes
on the form of context-sensitive identification of reasons for duties. The duties are
themselves outcomes or goods of the scenario. The justification is procedural and
distinct from the identified good. This is classic Deontology: duty defined by a good,
but justified procedurally. But on Clooney’s account, nothing like a moral principle
emerges. I poked Clooney to note that this account resembles Jonathan Dancy’s
account of Moral Particularism (2004), and the idea of the holism of reasons, where
the reasons hang together within a context, and what counts as a reason is itself
contextual. (I even came to wonder whether the “Garland of Reasons” in the title
of the text was a way for the author to talk about the holism of reasons!) This is a
discovery of explication—not an interpretation that guides the presentation of the
material. Including this chapter within the applied ethics section is fitting, as applied
ethics attempts to sort out answers to the right and the good by way of cases. But
here we have a system of ethical reasoning that seems to be case based itself. It is
hence doubly applied.
4.3. Ethics and Politics

Politics has to do with the legitimate use of force, and hence political questions are
continuous with moral questions. In the Western tradition, from the start, political
affiliation in a community is the account of moral standing. As noted, this is a function
of the Western account of thought, which identifies thought with language—what
we share with other humans in a community. This was not endorsed in the Indian
tradition and hence Indian thinkers did not feel the pressure to understand ethics as a
communal matter. It is real, cosmic, and transcendent of class membership. Morality
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can address and subsume questions of politics on this account, but then our politics
has to be geared toward defending the moral fabric of reality. Traditional sources
for the exploration of politics in relationship to the deterioration of the moral fabric
are the epics, such as the Mahābhārata, where protagonists have to mediate the
requirements of personal liberty, protected in large measure by Indian ideas of ethics
as connected with yoga and devotion, and associated values of personal rights and
freedoms, with political questions of the just use of force. The contrast between the
values of personal morality—the kinds that we need to mediate our relationships
between persons—and the values and responsibility of those in charge of power—
such as leaders—presents unusual dilemmas, and these dilemmas are what the epics
in their ways explore. More recently, the Indian effort to free itself from foreign
colonial and imperial pressures leads to a reevaluation of these themes. In some
cases, we find thinkers, such as Gandhi, going back to the philosophical roots of
the values associated with Yoga—values of freedom, austerities, self-governance,
and isolation from external influence. In other cases, we find a reinvention of old
monistic philosophies that, in their classical forms, were critical of the role of ethics
in personal freedom.
Edeltraud Harzer’s chapter “A Study in the Narrative Ethics of the
Mahābhārata” brings together many of the ethical themes that we find in the
theoretical chapters, as they play out in the Mahābhārata—the famous Indian
epic charting the fratricidal war between the Pāṇḍavas and Kauravas. We find
here, for instance, an exploration of the themes of the conflict of teleological
ethical concerns, with Deontology. But, more importantly, we find that the plot,
as it pertains to the Pāṇḍavas and Kauravas, turns into a dramatic exploration of
devotion to a regulative ideal, as a means of dealing with the politics of injustice.
Krishna, the mutual cousin of the warring cousins, turns out to counsel the
Pāṇḍavas to forget about dharma in their epic battle with the unjust Kauravas.
His reason? In times of injustice, the virtuous respect of ethics, understood in
terms of the Golden Rule, only serves the interest of tyranny, which seeks to
undermine self-governance and autonomy. Krishna hence makes good on the
promise of being the God who defines and restores dharma age after age. Arjuna
and the Pāṇḍavas devotion to the moral ideal comes at the cost of the status
quo, and the ethical rules that support it. Perhaps what is most engaging about
Harzer’s account, is that the characters of the Pāṇḍavas seem as characters (or
perhaps caricatures) of Virtue Ethics itself, in need of guidance from the teacher
of Bhakti, when virtuous action, and Virtue Ethics itself, appears to be complicit
in injustice. The chapter ends with the transformation of Yudhiṣṭhira, one of the
Pāṇḍavas, who finally learns how to be a leader, by embracing the ethics of Bhakti
and rejecting conventional moral wisdom. It is easy to regard the main lesson
of these investigations that bhakti is transgressive. While the ethics of Bhakti
does transgress moral norms in times of injustice—moral norms that appear to
entrench the power of the cruel—it is also depicted as restoring moral norms,
and hence it cannot be reduced to a mere transgression of accepted norms. The
devotee of the regulative ideal participates in the restoration of the moral order.
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This book was meant to have a separate chapter on the Rāmāyaṇa—the other
major epic from the Indian tradition. The first author who agreed to contribute, an
expert on the topic, stopped responding to my emails when I started corresponding
about due dates. The second author, who seemed to save the day, submitted an
excellent draft. That author agreed that I should edit the paper, which I did. I sent it
back for review and once again, received a kind word of thanks, and I never heard
back despite my efforts to contact the author. It is as though I was exiled to the forest
for 14 years. One of the claims made by the second author was that Vālmīki, the
author of the Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa, does not present us with an ethical system. I found
this to be incorrect. The various characters of the Rāmāyaṇa (like the characters of
the Mahābhārata) appear to personify moral theories (that is, the draft that I edited
convinced me of this), and the valorization of Rāma in the Rāmāyaṇa was a dramatic
vindication of Rāma’s ethical orientation. With Rāma, the protagonist of the epic,
there are timeless, context-transcendent ethical rules about duties and rights defined
by occupation and station but these being general and prima facie in conflict must
be applied in context with due diligence to the virtues that are instantiated. Rāma
is a kind of Generalist (cf. McKeever and Ridge 2006). Rāma’s Generalism appears,
however, to be devotional: it is by understanding the right action, in context, as
defined by the ideal, that Rāma proceeds. On the devotional approach, goods, and
their desirability, are secondary considerations that are caused only by acting in
deference to the ideal. The good outcome can hence be deferred and is not the same
as the performance of the duty. At no point does the mere desirability or goodness
of the outcome count as its sole or crucial justification for Rāma. Yet, by identifying
right action via the ideal (whether truth or compassion), Rāma acts so as to bring
about the good, not of specific contexts, but larger frames. Daśaratha, his father, too
is a devotee, but of Kaikeyī, which causes an undesirable outcome. This, along with
his privileged position, generates a dilemma that he cannot extricate himself from.
He seems to be proof that we should be careful who and what we commit ourselves
to. Lakṣmaṇa (Rāma’s brother and shadow) is a devotee of Rāma, but is always one
step removed from the ideal. Bharata (Rāma’s other brother), in turn, while ever
loyal, and well conversant with customs, seems to be devoted to avoiding suffering
and sad outcomes. This renders him a kind of Negative Utilitarian, attempting to
minimize the harm caused by bad decisions by marshaling customary considerations.
Eventually he can be persuaded by Rāma, suggesting perhaps that this negative
Consequentialism is a dialectical sibling of Rāma’s idealism, but one that requires
criticism to be amended. Kaikeyī, like her son, appears to be a Consequentialist. For
her, like her son, the ends justify the means. But Kaikeyī’s ends are selfish and agent
relative, while Bharata’s are not. Daśaratha, in being devoted to Kaikeyī, imports
her selfish goals into his moral paradigm causing a toxic mix with his loving and
filial commitments to Rāma.
Sītā (Rāma’s wife) is the silent or perhaps salient moral element in much of this.
As the victim (kidnapped by a demonic king while Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa, and Sītā live
in exile due to Kaikeyī’s machinations and Daśaratha’s foolish commitments to
Kaikeyī), she is deprived of the opportunity to be responsible for her own fate.
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In this respect, she is innocent. But as she is deprived of responsibility, she strikes
a strange contrast to Rāma, ever concerned with responsibility. This tension plays
out in the conflicts that arise between Rāma and Sītā. Vālmīki’s inclusion of these
elements speak to a philosophical puzzle of responsibility’s (Rāma’s) shortcomings
in the face of victimhood (Sītā). Our dissatisfaction with Rāma’s response to Sītā is
our dissatisfaction with ideals and responsibility in the face of the victim. The ideals
and responsibility seem to be at fault, as victims certainly are not (as when Rāma
sends Sītā to the forest in the end for no fault of hers). Our sympathy for Rāma, in
turn, is our sympathy for one who maintains responsibility, with dignity but perhaps,
at all or terrible costs, in cases where others (such as Kaikeyī or the rumormongers)
try to take it away.
These observations of mine, along with those we find in Harzer’s chapter, suggest
to me that there was a practice of literature-as-moral-philosophy in the Indian
tradition, where the characters were themselves the moral theories and motifs at
stake. Further research along these lines would be beneficial.
Raghuramaraju’s chapter “Ethics of M. K. Gandhi: Nonviolence and Truth”
tracks Gandhi’s place in the Indian philosophical field. He notes that while Gandhi
is not a systematic academic author like Śaṅkara or Nāgārjuna but an activist,
he made use of philosophy for political purposes. This political employment of
philosophy shows four distinct traits: (a) roots in premodern Indian philosophy;
(b) some influence from western authors who he encountered; (c) a popular
connection; and (d) the accommodation of the coexistence of the modern and the
premodern, which characterizes India and sets it apart from the West, which has
and had left the premodern behind. Thus, the tradition, West, common people, and
the unique relationship between the premodern and modern surround and form the
context of Gandhi. Within these broad parameters, Gandhi effectively articulated
philosophical ideas of nonviolence and truth to a diverse crowd. Gandhi’s role as a
leader hence is cast against the backdrop of largely traditional philosophies that he
does not refashion so much as represent for the independence movement.
Ashwani Peetush’s “The Ethics of Radical Equality: Vivekananda and
Radhakrishnan’s Neo-Hinduism as a Form of Spiritual Liberalism” defends Neo-
Vedānta from recent criticisms as part of a post-Rawlsian project of liberalism founded
on a comprehensive doctrine. He argues that Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan both
conceive of the “spirit” of Neo-Hinduism as a radical form of equality that lies at
the heart of an Advaitic interpretation of the Upaniṣads. This metaphysical monism
of consciousness of self and other in Advaita paves a conceptual road to an ethic of
radical equality in both the personal and the political spheres. He argues that Advaita
for Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan grounds a profound critique of caste hierarchy.
Furthermore, he contends that Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan conceive of what
they understand to be the spirit of Hinduism as a form of what he calls “Spiritual
Liberalism.” This view of Hinduism is based on the equal individual freedom and
opportunity for each member of a community to pursue whichever conception of
the spiritual good she chooses and with which she most resonates, thus grounding
a strong form of recognition of diversity, pluralism, and tolerance. What I find
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valuable in this contribution is that Peetush has managed to philosophically discuss

the philosophy of Neo-Hindus. It has become increasingly tolerable to depict the
Neo-Hindus as intellectual hacks, who fudge facts of the history of ideas in order to
get their projects going. Peetush shows that if we are open to Neo-Hindus making
a contribution to philosophy, we leave aside the expectation that their views are
traditional, and allow ourselves to evaluate their arguments as they stand.
5. CONCLUSION: WHY MORE INDIAN ETHICS

IS A GOOD THING
I want to close this chapter by reflecting on the case for studying Indian ethics. There
are three prominent reasons that make the case for studying Indian ethics.
First, on the interpretive model of thought, the content of thought is merely
one’s perspective. The study of the thought of alien perspectives is a chore, and at
best a diversion. This is the standard attitude to the study of non-Western ethics in
the academy, and part of the explanation for why its study is off-loaded to scholars
outside of philosophy—scholars in linguistics and history. However, if thought is the
confluence of perspectives relative to a disciplinary concern, we cannot engage in
disciplinary research without taking diverse perspectives into account. The study of
Indian ethics is hence part of what it is to study moral propositions, and this is the
fitting topic of philosophical investigation. The Aristotelian idea that ethics is what
we learn about by being socialized in our society is mistaken. What we learn about
at most by socialization is just one perspective on the moral life, and this is far from
even a grasp on the propositions at play in moral discourse.
Second, if we see the destruction and mindless suffering of Western imperialism
as something to be criticized, then the values of a colonized and imperialized culture
are worthy of philosophical inquiry, for these values play no role in a Westernized
world. The values of the colonized and imperialized—especially what sets them apart
from the common Western values—are worthy of explication for these values hold
the key to a world that looks different from the troubled world that we live in. It is
certainly possible for colonized and imperialized societies to become Westernized.
I think this is the best explanation for the phenomenon of political Hinduism that
tries to explain India from some mythical insider perspective of a sanātana dharma.
This is Western for it buys not only interpretation but also the communitarianism of
the Western tradition. But the values that are interesting from India are those that
give us grounds for criticizing the anthropocentrism and communitarianism of the
West. These Western values arise from logocentrism that identifies and conflates
thought, opinion, reason, and language. If all of these amount to the same thing,
then we can only have reasonable relationships with those we share a community
and language with: this not only narrows down our moral relationships to average
humans with language, but also further narrows it to our ethnic group with whom
we can speak. This is how the Western tradition of ethics begins with Plato and
Aristotle and the model of community is frequently invoked through this tradition
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by all the major moral philosophers of the West to make sense of our duty. But what
is marginalized here is autonomy—kaivalya—that we arrive at via discipline. The
interests that distinguish me as a person are those I share with persons on the whole,
and language and community membership are not necessary for me to be a person: if
it was, I would stop being a person when I spent time with myself in silence.
Third, the mythology of India propagated by the cherry-picking ways of Orthodox
Indology is largely a creation of interpretation. It is by virtue of interpretation that
India is depicted as a land of religion, and no ethics. It is by virtue of interpretation
that the intellectual contributions of Indian philosophers are marginalized in a world
constructed by interpretation. By prioritizing truth in the explanation of India,
Indology has depicted India according to what it takes to be true. This makes India
out to be a land of tradition and inexplicable linguistic behavior where terms such as
“dharma” have no common meaning. Explicating India takes us away from a unified
picture of India to the contributions that Indian philosophers and others have made
to inquiry, and this variegated and controversial interaction with India is what we
need to correct the propaganda. “Traditional” India is radical, diverse and critical by
contemporary standards, but we would not know that if we had to interpret India,
for then India could be nothing but what is consistent with what we think is true.
That says volumes about us, and nothing about India.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dancy, Jonathan. 2004. Ethics Without Principles. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press.
McKeever, Sean D., and Michael R. Ridge. 2006. Principled Ethics: Generalism as a
Regulative Ideal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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PART TWO
Moral Theory (Metaethics

and Normative Ethics)
Philosophy proceeds in the first instance by explication. Explicating moral
philosophies leads to theories of ethics, morality, or dharma that explain the
philosophy’s use of terms such as “ethics,” “morality,” and “dharma.” If we compare
these theories we find that they are competing theories of THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD.
The philosophical inquiry into the concepts of moral philosophy as what we can
disagree about is normative ethics. The standard moral theories (Virtue Ethics,
Consequentialism, Deontology and Bhakti/ Yoga) are normative moral theories.
Each provides a perspective on the concept ETHICS. The question of (the concept)
ETHICS as what constrains the possibility of truth (and moral theory) in ethics is
metaethics. Metaphysical and epistemic questions relating to ethics are entailed
by this exploration. It is supposed to be a second order account of ethics that is
normatively neutral, but in recent years, this view has fallen out of favor as it is
generally observed that metaethical and normative questions are interrelated.
The better part of Indian philosophy is a sustained inquiry into moral theory. The
emphasis is often on metaethical issues, though normative ethics is also front and
center and is often depicted as the “religious” differences of Indian thought. There
are at least four normative options. (1) We could prioritize the good in an account
of how to bring about right action. (2) We could justify right action by deference
to some good end. Accordingly, the ends justify the means. (3) We could define
right action by a good state of affairs, and justify right action without reference to
the good. Accordingly, the means justify the ends. (4) We could prioritize the right
(by deference to an ideal) in an explanation of how to bring about good outcomes.
These options are often known as (1) Virtue Ethics, (2) Consequentialism (when the
ends are agent neutral, we call this Utilitarianism), (3) Deontology, and (4) Bhakti/
Yoga.
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124 MORAL THEORY
The first two options are teleological, and standard versions of theories in
this camp often blend Virtue Theoretic and Consequentialist considerations. The
received view in the literature is that Buddhist ethics is an Indian presentation of
Consequentialism and Utilitarianism. Both authors contributing to Buddhist ethics
in this book, Jake Davis and William Edelglass, emphasize the role of meditation in
Buddhist ethics, within a teleology that allows for the “common tension between
other-oriented and self-interested motivations [to be] dissolved” (Edelglass) and
for personal awareness of psychological motivations via meditation to discern
which attitudes are “to be cultivated” and which are “to be abandoned” (Davis).
Consequentialism is not restricted to the Buddhist tradition. Kisor Chakrabarti
argues that the Nyāya tradition of “Hindu” philosophy, known for its emphasis
on logic, realism, and Theism, is also squarely in the Consequentialist camp—not
because it claims ambiguously that ethics (dharma) leads to freedom (mokṣa), but
because it justifies right action by ends. Jain ethical theory, as Jayandra Soni’s chapter
shows, is teleological too, but decidedly Virtue Theoretic. If ever there was a theory
that claims that virtue causes or produces right action, it is Jainism. Like all Virtue
Ethics, it places the virtuous agent—in this case the Heroic figures of Jainism, the
Jinas—at the center: right action is what they show and teach. They are hence Ford
makers. Action on such an account is to be encouraged insofar as it flows from our
intrinsic virtue, and our intrinsic virtue that is logically prior to action, is benign.
Dharma is movement from the status quo characterized by past choices and actions,
made possible by virtue. Ethical nonaction, as a characterization of virtue, has a
logical priority in the explanation of ethical action on the Jain account.
The latter two options are procedural. I explore these options in my two
chapters. Deontology in the Indian tradition is clearly defended in the smṛti texts,
including the epics and the Bhagavad Gītā in its account of karma yoga, the
Mīmāṃsā Sūtra (the founding text of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā tradition), and earlier in
the Upaniṣads in a dialectical transition from an old Vedic, Hedonic Utilitarianism.
What is interesting in the Indian move toward Deontology is that it largely keeps
the edifice of a rule-based Consequentialism geared toward maximizing hedonic
ends—the early rituals and customs of a Vedic world—but switches the theoretical
justification. In the end, the rules stop being justified by the ends, and become
the ends, and the justification becomes procedural. This historical dialectic that
moves from teleology to procedural theories constitutes the substance of Vedānta
Ethics. This dialectic moves past Deontology to Bhakti. Whereas Deontology
identifies right action by good states of affairs (generically described as doing
one’s duty), Bhakti defines right action as the approximation or worship of a
regulative ideal. Of the four theories noted, Bhakti alone does not elucidate right
action by the good. Via the perfection of this practice of approximating the ideal,
we bring about goodness and change the moral landscape. Vedānta philosophers
do not agree about the metaethical status of ethics—that is, they disagree about
the conceptual foundations of morality relative to other values, such as freedom—
but they accept this dialectic as accounting for the substance of moral theory and
it constitutes the reality of the existential condition that they call “Brahman,”
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MORAL THEORY 125
or “development,” “growth,” or “expansion.” Their competing theories about

Brahman are competing accounts of how to resolve the remaining tension in this
dialectic, a tension that pits the requirements of freedom (mokṣa) to explain our
moral responsibility (dharma), with the need of moral responsibility (dharma) to
protect freedom (mokṣa) from luck. While it is common to identify this tradition
of thought and its devotional elements with Theism, this is uncareful. Theism,
which treats goodness as a defining trait of God, is Virtue Ethical. Devotion is
procedural and the very opposite of Virtue Ethics. The Lord on this account is not
essentially good, though the Lord is essentially right.
The clearest and most sophisticated development of Bhakti as a moral theory is
to be found in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra, which identifies the moral ideal as the Lord
characterizable as unconservative and self-governing. Approximating the Lord is
about realizing our own lordliness in a personal world. The essential rightness of
the Lord is required to explain how we can bootstrap morality from scratch, and
how we can bring about the good even in contexts of tyranny and oppression when
virtues, duties, and good ends are punished.
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CHAPTER SIX
The Scope for

Wisdom: Early Buddhism
on Reasons and Persons
JAKE H. DAVIS
To this extent, Ānanda, one is born and ages and dies and passes away and
takes birth again. To this extent there is a path for designations, a path for
expressions, a path for concepts. To this extent there is scope for wisdom.
To this extent the cycle continues for being here to be conceived. That is, to
the extent that name-and-form together with consciousness continue through
dependence on one another. (Mahānidāna Sutta, DN II 63–64)1
1. INTRODUCTION
The denial that persons exist, in some ultimate sense, is widely understood to be
a central Buddhist doctrine. In Consequences of Compassion, Charles Goodman
(2009) suggests that in a range of classical Buddhist sources some version of this
metaphysical thesis about persons helps to underwrite an ethical thesis, that we
ought to minimize the total amount of suffering there is in the world. There is a
compelling connection between these two ideas: since we all agree that our own
suffering is to be avoided, if there are ultimately no distinctions between persons,
then perhaps one ought to act or live in whatever way will most effectively reduce
all of the suffering there is in the world, regardless of whose it is. Nonetheless, as
a characterization of early Buddhist thought this proposal is doubly mistaken. The
Buddha, as he is portrayed in the early Buddhist discourses, endorses neither the
metaphysical claim, that persons on some ultimate level do not exist, nor the ethical
claim, that we ought to live in whatever way will minimize the total amount of
suffering there is in the world. Instead, early Buddhism has a different, and more
novel, contribution to make to contemporary ethical thought. Or so I will argue.2
Damien Keown, in his seminal work The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (1992),
argues that Buddhist ethics cannot be understood within a Consequentialist
framework, one that bases ethical claims about how we ought to live on
considerations about the consequences for aggregate happiness or suffering in the
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128 JAKE H. DAVIS
world. Keown suggests instead that Buddhist ethics has more in common with the
teleological approach to Virtue Ethics characteristic of Aristotle’s ethical thought.
While I will also point out in passing some problems with Keown’s Aristotelian
interpretation, Goodman offers a much more extensive argument against Keown’s
reading. It is difficult to find decisive evidence either for a teleological or for a
Consequentialist reading, however, for at least two reasons. First, the structural
similarities between the two approaches can make them seem indistinguishable in
practice; Goodman highlights the especially close similarities between Aristotelian
versions of Virtue Ethics and a theory that focuses on the consequences for
aggregate welfare of having certain character traits (2009: 41ff.). Second, in part
because the Buddhist sources are mainly focused on practical ethical questions
rather than on ethical theory, they are relatively amenable to multiple different
lines of theoretical interpretation.
One strategy Goodman employs to tip the balance in favor of his Consequentialist
reading is to appeal to a connection between reductionism about persons and
Consequentialism in ethics that has been brought to light by Derek Parfit in his
influential Reasons and Persons. Goodman suggests that just such a connection is
present, at least implicitly, in a range of classical Buddhist sources. Parfit, in turn,
explicitly claims that “Buddha would have agreed” with his reductionist view about
persons (1984: 273, emphasis in original).
Both Parfit and Goodman suggest that the reductionist view about persons
helps to lend credence to ethically demanding Welfare- Consequentialist ethical
theories, approaches that determine whether an action is right by appealing to its
consequences for total happiness or suffering in the world. This approach suggests
an important connection between two central aspects of Buddhist thought: the
universal characteristic of nonself (Pāli anattā) and the nature of what is ethically
wholesome (Pāli kusala). And this, in turn, suggests one way in which Buddhist
meditation could lead to ethical insight. A common theme across contemporary
Buddhist traditions is the suggestion that meditation practices offer a means for
individuals to realize the metaphysical truth that there is no self. Perhaps Buddhist
meditation offers access, of a kind that has been relatively absent from Western
thought, to the grounds for believing that we ought to act so as to minimize suffering
for all beings. If so, this would be an important contribution to contemporary ethical
thought and practice.
While there is a kernel of truth in this suggestion, I think that the distinctive
contribution of Buddhist approaches to ethics lies elsewhere. In a discourse in the
Saṃyutta Nikāya (SN), the Buddha says, “It is in just this fathom-long carcass with
perception and mind that I make known the world, the cause of the world, the
cessation of the world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world” (SN
I 144). Commenting on this discourse, Bhikkhu Bodhi explains:
The world with which the Buddha’s teaching is principally concerned is “the
world of experience,” and even the objective world is of interest only to the
extent that it serves as the necessary external condition for experience. (Bodhi
2000: 394)
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EARLY BUDDHISM ON REASONS AND PERSONS 129
This is not to say that the Buddha’s ethical teachings are not concerned with the
effects of one’s actions on other persons in the external world; as we will see, they
are. However, I will suggest that early Buddhist ethics is concerned with the external
consequences of one’s actions in virtue of the fact that one ought to have the sort of
motivations that would make us concerned about such things. And this is a fact that
each of us can experience for ourselves. It is something that one can know and see
from within, and only from within, one’s world of experience.
The line of thought that I draw out from the early Buddhist discourses does not
ground its claims, metaphysical or ethical, in a perspective that abstracts away from
one’s particular experience of the world in order to adopt the sort of objectivity
that Thomas Nagel (1986) calls “the view from nowhere.” On the contrary, the
suggestion is instead to inhabit more fully one’s own subjective experience of the
world. The point is to watch how experience comes to be and how it ceases to be,
so as to see and know the nature of experience and the conditions under which one
comes to have experience of the world at all. Indeed, this is an ethical claim: the
characterization of the world of experience, its cause, its cessation, and the path to
its cessation that is given in the Saṃyutta passage above is a variant of the four noble
truths; thus the unsatisfactoriness (dukkha) inherent in the world of experience
is to be comprehended (pariññeyya), its cause is to be abandoned (pahātabbaṃ),
its cessation is to be directly experienced (sacchikātabbaṃ), and the path to that
cessation is to be cultivated (bhāvetabbaṃ) (as at SN V 422).
Two recent evaluations of the early Buddhist doctrine of anattā (nonself) by Sue
Hamilton (2000) and Alexander Wynne (2010) appeal centrally to this emphasis
on understanding the conditional nature of the world of experience. Both authors
argue that the kind of reductionism about persons appealed to by Goodman, while
very much present in later developments of Buddhist thought, nonetheless stands
in opposition to a more subtle and profound approach to persons and subjectivity
found in earlier layers of Buddhist thought. These historical claims, and the
methodologies employed by Hamilton and Wynne, are not without controversy. For
one, the arguments of both Hamilton and Wynne are based primarily on the Pāli
Nikāyas. This body of texts has been preserved in the Theravāda Buddhist traditions
of Southeast Asia, with only minor variations between different recensions. Though
the Nikāyas have often been assumed by Western scholars to be the earliest and
most authoritative record available of what the historical Buddha taught, this is
problematic as a general assumption. For one, research into parallel versions of the
early Buddhist discourses translated in the Chinese Āgamas as well as in Tibetan
versions and some Sanskrit fragments has suggested a means of identifying earlier
and later elements of crucial discourses. This approach is important because it offers
a means for historical analysis that specifically does not privilege the Theravāda
tradition as having preserved in all cases the earliest or most authoritative version
of a teaching (Anālayo 2011, 2012a). Nonetheless, the emphasis on the world
of experience that Bodhi, Hamilton, Wynne, and others find evident in the Pāli
Nikāyas, as an independent philosophical proposal, has novel and important
contributions to make to contemporary ethical theory (Davis 2014). Moreover,
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130 JAKE H. DAVIS
the implications of this emphasis on subjective experience for understanding the

structure of ethical thought within the Pāli Nikāyas are largely yet to be drawn out.
Finally, these implications may well apply to understanding the structure of early
Buddhist ethics more generally, if further comparative research offers evidence from
other recensions of the early Buddhist discourses for a similar approach to the world
of experience and to the doctrine of nonself in particular.
I cannot attempt here a comprehensive survey of scholarship on Buddhist ethics,
or even that focused on the early Buddhist discourses.3 Instead, my aim here is to
bring out one distinctive and philosophically promising aspect of the approach to
ethics found in these texts. In Section Two I survey some evidence for the nature
of ethical reasoning in early Buddhist thought. Section Three turns to the nature
of persons, developing an approach to understanding nonself as a characteristic of
one’s subjective experience of the world. Section Four extends this same approach
to understand the nature of objectivity in early Buddhist ethics. Briefly sketching
an account that I have defended in more detail elsewhere (Davis 2014), I propose
that the connection drawn between mindfulness and wisdom in the early Buddhist
discourses offers a distinctive and promising approach to grounding ethical claims.
2. ETHICAL REASONING IN EARLY BUDDHISM

In the well- known discourse to the Kālāmas, the Buddha rejects certain kinds
of epistemic principles in ethics. He advises the Kālāmas not to rely only on the
authority of a tradition or hearsay or texts or a teacher, and also not to rely only on
the basis of logical reasoning or inference or probability or acceptance of a view. The
Buddha’s positive advice begins as follows:
When you know for yourselves “these qualities (dhammā) are unwholesome
(akusalā), these qualities are blameworthy (sāvajjā), these qualities are criticized by
the wise (viññugarahitā), these qualities when taken on and adopted lead to harm
and suffering (ahitāya dukhāya), then you should abandon them (pajaheyyātha)
. . .” When you know for yourselves “these qualities are wholesome (kusalā),
these qualities are blameless (anavajjā), these qualities are praised by the wise
(viññuppasatthā), these qualities when taken on and adopted lead to welfare
and happiness (hitāya sukhāya), then you should enter and remain in them
(upasampajja vihareyyātha).” (AN I 189–190)
Both in the case of the unwholesome and in the case of the qualities (dhammā)
he characterizes as ethically unwholesome, and also in the case of the qualities
that he characterizes as ethically wholesome, immediately after giving this advice,
the Buddha runs through some examples. The Kālāmas agree that when greed
(lobha), hatred (dosa), or delusion (moha) arise inside a person, they lead to harm
and suffering. The Buddha points out that someone overcome by such qualities
violates the ethical principles known in Buddhism as the five precepts, that is,
he kills, steals, commits adultery, lies, and encourages others to do those things,
131
all of which is for long-term harm and suffering. When the opposites of these
qualities arise in a person, he does not kill, steal, commit adultery, lie, or encourage
others to do those things, all of which is for long-term welfare and happiness.4
Having thought through such consequences for suffering and happiness, the
Kālāmas become clear as to which of these qualities of heart are unwholesome,
blameworthy, criticized by the wise, leading to harm and suffering, and which of
these qualities of heart are wholesome, praiseworthy, praised by the wise, leading
to welfare and happiness.
For our purposes here there are two especially notable features of this passage.
For Western philosophers, it will be notable that the focus in this discussion about
what is praiseworthy and what blameworthy is not focused in the first case on
the evaluation of actions, nor the evaluation of long-term character traits. It does
take motivational states, including what might be called a goodwill, as the central
focus for the purpose of evaluating praise-and blame-worthiness. But the early
Buddhist approach is not then to evaluate the goodness of a goodwill in terms of
its conformance with rational principles such as universalizability. In short, the
proposal offered here for how to go about evaluating praise-and blame-worthiness
is distinct from any of the major theories of Western ethics, a point that makes it
worthy of notice by philosophers used to operating mainly with those paradigms.
As Goodman notes, “The Buddhist technical terms we might be inclined to translate
as ‘virtuous’ (such as Pāli kusala, Skt. kuśala, Tib. dge ba) are, in the first instance,
applied to occurrent mental states” (2009: 195). The foundational focus, in this
discourse with the Kālāmas, and more generally in the early Buddhist discourses, is
on greed (lobha), hatred (dosa), delusion (moha), and their opposites. Elsewhere,
I have called such states “qualities of heart” (Davis 2014). Among all the possible
states (dhammā) a person might experience, it is these occurrent emotional, conative,
and cognitive states that the early Buddhist texts take as the foundational focus of
ethical discussion.5
In one well-known line from the Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN), the Buddha says, “It
is cetanā (intention or motivation) that I call kamma” (AN III 415). Scholars such
as Richard Gombrich (2006: 51) have argued that in the broader Indian context
this suggestion was revolutionary, turning the notion of morally valenced action
inward, focusing ethics on one’s psychological states rather than the consequences
of one’s outer actions. This emphasis on internal motivations suggests to Keown that
Buddhist ethics cannot be Consequentialist:
It is the preceding motivation (cetanā) that determines the moral quality of the
act and not its consequences. In Buddhism acts have bad consequences because
they are bad acts—they are not bad acts because they have bad consequences.
(Keown 1992: 178)
Keown offers an extended comparison of cetanā with Aristotle’s conception of
prohairesis, and sees a broader parallel as well between the structure of Buddhist and
Aristotelian approaches to ethics. He points, for instance, to another passage from
the Aṅguttara Nikāya where wholesome conduct (kusala sīla) is said ultimately to
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have knowledge and vision of release as its purpose (attha) and benefit (ānisaṃsa)
(AN V 2). The discourse immediately following describes this as a natural process,
saying that for someone with wholesome conduct there is no need to form the
intention (cetanā) for freedom from regret to arise. Likewise for each progressive
stage in the series,
For one with freedom from regret . . . joy . . . tranquility . . . ease . . . concentration
. . . knowledge and vision of things as they are . . . disenchantment . . . dispassion
. . . there is no need to form the intention “may I realize knowledge and vision
of release.” It is just the nature of things (dhammatā) that one disenchanted and
dispassionate will realize knowledge and vision of release . . . Thus, bhikkhus, one
state flows into the next state, one state fills up the next state for the sake of going
from the near shore to the far shore. (AN V 2–4)
Just as Aristotelian ethics is grounded in a particular notion of flourishing
(eudaimonia), Keown argues, so too Buddhist thought grounds ethical valence in
the goal of nibbāna. He takes both these systems to be teleological in the sense of
providing a “framework for personal cultivation and accomplishment . . . structured
in accordance with a specific connection of human nature and its telos” (Keown
1992: 203). Since in this Aṅguttara discourse wholesome conduct is said to have
nibbāna as its ultimate purpose and benefit, one might take Keown’s (1992) proposal
to be that the reason intentions motivated by states such as compassion are worthy
of cultivation is just that such states (and not others) are conducive to realizing
nibbāna. If this is the reading that Keown is proposing, however, it goes beyond
what is found in the discourses themselves.
Recall that in the discourse to the Kālāmas, having made wholesome and
unwholesome qualities of heart the focus of ethical evaluation, the Buddha does not
appeal to considerations about which of these qualities are conducive to nibbāna,
but rather gives examples that distinguish between wholesome and unwholesome
qualities by appealing to their consequences for welfare. In the approach to ethical
reasoning on display in the discourse to the Kālamās it is not clear precisely whose
welfare is to be taken into account. However, in a discourse in the Majjhima Nikāya,
it is made explicit that one should consider both one’s own welfare and that of
others. In that discourse, the Buddha starts up a conversation with his young son
Rāhula on the subject of telling lies in jest; it seems that according to multiple
commentarial traditions Rāhula was prone to just this vice (Anālayo 2011: 342).
“For one who feels no shame in telling a deliberate lie,” the Buddha says, “there is
no evil he would not do. Therefore, one should train oneself thus: I will not lie even
in jest” (MN I 415). Presumably as a way of elaborating and generalizing the point,
the Buddha suggests that one ought to reflect before, during, and after actions of
body, speech, and mind:
Did this action of body . . . speech . . . mind lead to my own affliction, to the
affliction of others, to the affliction of both, was it an unwholesome action
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of body . . . speech . . . mind, resulting in suffering, bearing fruit in suffering?

(MN I 415)
When a monastic knows on reflection that his action was unwholesome, with
unhappy results, he ought to confess it and refrain in the future. When he knows
that his action was wholesome with happy results, he ought to joyously continue to
train himself in wholesome qualities.
It is interesting philosophically that the appeal to consequences here comes
as an elaboration on the point that one ought never to lie. Act-Consequentialist
approaches will typically deliver the result that one ought to lie under circumstances
where that act of lying would lead to overall benefit. However, this is not the case
for Consequentialist approaches that take rules as the primary focus of ethical
evaluation. Although Keown ultimately rejects the hypothesis that Buddhist ethics
is Consequentialist, he concedes that among Consequentialist theories a form of
negative rule Consequentialism would be the “closest approximation” (1992: 230).
The general idea of such an approach would be that Buddhist ethics applies the
precepts against killing, stealing, lying, and so on inflexibly, and that these rules are,
in turn, justified in virtue of the fact that these are the rules that, when followed
inflexibly, result in an overall reduction in suffering (Keown 1992: 177). Goodman
takes up the proposal that Keown ultimately rejects, and argues for a Rule-
Consequentialist interpretation of early Buddhism and/or the modern Theravāda—
it is not quite clear which, since neither Keown nor Goodman distinguishes carefully
between the two.
I doubt that Rule-Consequentialism is the correct characterization either of early
Buddhist ethics or of how modern Theravāda Buddhists reason. In both cases, my
suggestion is that the central thrust of these approaches is instead to take occurrent
states of mind as the primary unit of ethical evaluation. The analysis of mercy
killings offered in the Theravāda Abhidhamma and commentaries makes clear that
the reason such killings are wrong is that even in such cases it is not psychologically
possible for a person to intentionally take life unless the state of dosa (hatred or
aversion) has arisen in the agent’s mind (Gethin 2004). Rupert Gethin notes here the
commentary’s suggestion that the painful, unwholesome states that actually motivate
intentional killing are not easy for those who are not wise to notice (dujjānam etaṃ
puthujjanehī), because these states are fleeting and occur close in time to wholesome
states such as compassion; this traditional analysis is repeated by modern Theravāda
teachers both in Thailand and in Burma.6
We have seen that the Buddha’s advice to the Kālāmas similarly focuses on
qualities (dhammā) such as greed (loba), hatred (dosa), and delusion (moha), as well
as their opposites. On an approach that takes qualities of heart as the central focus
of ethical evaluation in this way, conclusions about which actions are wholesome
and unwholesome that follow from this may well vary widely depending on
particular circumstances. Certain kinds of actions, those that cannot be performed
without involving unwholesome states, may never be wholesome. However, since
the ethically charged situations we find ourselves in are complex, it is not always
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clear ahead of time what a person motivated by wholesome qualities of heart would
do. This helps to accommodate the sense that Buddhist ethics is “Particularist,” as
Charles Hallisey (1996) puts it.7 The idea here, echoed by other recent interpreters
(Heim 2014; Garfield in press) is that Buddhist ethical texts are not in the business
of offering a general system from which to derive decision procedures for how to act
or how to be. Rather, the right thing to do will vary in ways that are not codifiable—
in some cases even breaking the precepts may be the virtuous thing to do—and
Buddhist ethical texts are instead in the business of inculcating the right sorts of
emotional responses to the complex situations that human beings have to navigate.
One might wish to insist that even about emotional responses, the Buddhist
ethical texts offer no principled general means of determining which are to be to
be cultivated and which are to be abandoned. One aim of this chapter is to argue
that such a wholesale Particularist reading would be mistaken. The kind of context
sensitivity about right action that is rightly recognized by interpreters such as
Hallisey can follow even from an ethical theory that offers a different, principled
foundation. By generalizing the structure of the Kālāma Sutta, for instance, a
Welfare-Consequentialist theory could take emotional responses as the primary focus
of ethical evaluation, rather than acts or rules or character traits.8 On this approach,
if greed or hatred or delusion as a type of occurrent mental state leads in general
to maximizing the total suffering in the world, then when it arises internally in us,
we ought to abandon it and not act out of it. Likewise, if their opposites typically
lead to minimizing the total suffering in the world, then when such qualities of
heart arises internally in us, we ought to cultivate them in our thoughts, speech, and
actions. This “Quality-Consequentialism” can, I think, offer a close approximation
of early Buddhist ethical conclusions. Though I suggest in Section Four how it fails
to get right the structure of early Buddhist ethics at a more foundational level, it
nonetheless would offer justification for many of the same ethical claims to which
early Buddhist thought is committed.
Perhaps the strongest evidence for thinking the foundational structure of early
Buddhist ethics is Consequentialist comes from the Bāhitika Sutta and its parallel in
the Chinese Madhyama-āgama. In this discourse, the Venerable Ānanda answers a
series of questions asked by King Pesanadi:
Now, Venerable Ānanda, what kind of bodily behaviour is censured by wise
recluses and Brahmins? Any bodily behaviour that is unwholesome, great king
. . . what kind of bodily behaviour is unwholesome? Any bodily behaviour
that is blameworthy . . . what kind of bodily behaviour is blameworthy? Any
bodily behaviour that brings affliction . . . what kind of bodily behaviour brings
affliction? Any bodily behaviour that brings that has painful results . . . Now,
Venerable Ānanda, what kind of bodily behaviour has painful results? Any bodily
behaviour, great king, that leads to one’s own affliction, or to the affliction of
others, or to the affliction of both, and on account of which unwholesome states
increase and wholesome states diminish. Such bodily behaviour is censured by
wise recluses and Brahmins, great king. (MN II 114)
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In the parallel to this discourse preserved in the Chinese Madhyama-āgama,

Ānanda describes the behavior that “the wise detest” as actions that harm oneself
and others and both, that “destroy wisdom and foster evil,” and that does not lead
to awakening and nibbāna (Anālayo 2007: 159ff.). He goes on to say that those
who undertake such conduct “do not know according to reality” what things should
and should not be eliminated, what things should and should not be accomplished.
He concludes that because of this ignorance, “wholesome things decrease and
unwholesome things increase.”
The discussions with the Kālāmas and with Rāhula above point to consequences
for welfare as ethically relevant. Not only do both the Pāli and Chinese versions
of the Bāhitika Sutta repeat this point, but the structure of the discourse also lends
further support to a Consequentialist interpretation. Quoting the Pāli version,
Goodman (2009: 62) points out that “it is natural to interpret the passage as
defining the earlier expressions successively in terms of the later ones,” as
giving successively more foundational accounts of what it is for a behavior to be
something one ought not to do.9 On this reading of the Pāli version, Ānanda is
saying that what makes it the case that certain bodily behaviors are unwholesome
is the fact that those behaviors are blameworthy; what makes it the case those
bodily behaviors are blameworthy is that they bring affliction; what makes it the
case that those bodily behaviors bring affliction is that they have painful results.
The final stage of this series of definitions proposes that what makes it the case
those bodily behaviors have painful results is the fact they that have negative
consequences for the agent’s welfare and the welfare of others, but also the fact
that such behaviors increase unwholesome states and diminish wholesome states,
and (in the Madhyama-āgama version) that such behaviors are not conducive to
realizing nibbāna.
Maximizing Consequentialist theories define what is right as what maximizes
the good. The good can then be defined in various ways, yielding different forms
of Consequentialism. An objective list theory of the good simply gives a list of the
goods there are, denying that further noncircular explanation can be offered for
why these are the goods to maximize. Goodman suggests that the Pāli version of the
Bāhitika Sutta might articulate just this sort of structure:
The series of definitions terminates with reference to two aspects of the
consequences of the action: its tendency to promote “affliction”, that is, painful
feelings, and its tendency to cause bad states of character to increase and good
ones to diminish. If this final formulation represents the most fundamental
account of what makes an action wrong, then the moral theory of the Bāhitika
Sutta is a consequentialist theory with a two-part objective list theory of the
good. (Goodman 2009: 62)
Earlier in his book, Goodman (2009: 41) describes a “universalist consequentialism
based on an objective list theory, such that the list of intrinsic goods includes
character traits,” and identifies this with what Thomas Hurka calls “Perfectionist
Consequentialism.” Goodman argues that despite their similarities, perfectionist
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Consequentialism can be distinguished from Aristotelian Virtue Ethics. His central

suggestion is that whereas Virtue Theories are agent- relative, Consequentialist
theories are agent-neutral.
This agent-neutrality leads Consequentialist theories to be radically revisionary
and make ethical demands on us far beyond the demands made by most conventional
moral systems. According to a Virtue Theoretic approach, an agent ought to
do what cultivates her own virtuous character traits. In contrast, perfectionist
Consequentialism will hold that an agent ought to do whatever maximizes virtue for
all beings, even if it were to decrease her own virtuous character traits. “That means
that a character Consequentialist would be willing to make himself worse in order to
make others better, so long as the total amount of virtue in the universe increased”
(Goodman 2009: 43). Likewise, a Welfare-Consequentialist approach that focused
on actions, instead of character traits, may suggest that those of us living in wealthy
countries ought to be willing to reduce our wealth and well-being dramatically in
order to save the lives of people we have never met. Peter Singer (1972) famously
argues that if it would be wrong to let a child drown in front of us to save our
expensive shoes from getting ruined, it is equally wrong to allow a child to die from
preventable diseases when we could save her by giving up an amount of wealth
comparable to (or less than) the costs of an expensive pair of shoes. And there are
many such children. The crux this argument turns on an agent-neutral conception
of value: the lives of those distant from us have no less value than the lives of those
we come into contact with.
Goodman refers to Parfit in tying the high ethical demands required by
Consequentialist approaches directly to a reductionist metaphysics of persons:
Because of its commitment to agent- neutrality, consequentialism regards the

divisions between the lives of different individuals as no more significant than
the differences between different periods of a particular individual’s life. Actions
that benefit the agent, or the agent’s family and friends, at the expense of beings
in general are just as irrational as actions that benefit me in the short run but do
much greater harm to my long-term interests. (Goodman 2009: 44)
Goodman suggests that in order to test whether a Virtue Theoretic or a

Consequentialist framework can be attributed to a particular school of Buddhist
thought we can look for “characteristics that are distinctive to, or at least indicative
of, Consequentialism, such as agent-neutrality, extreme demands, injunctions to
promote the welfare of others, and the ability to draw support from critiques of
personal identity” (2009: 45). The last of these would seem low-hanging fruit.
After all, the Buddhist tradition is full of metaphysical critiques of personal identity.
Moreover, the other considerations may be more equivocal.
We have seen that the ethical reasoning evident in the early Buddhist texts does
emphasize consequences as an important factor. And I have suggested that one
can construct a Consequentialist account focused on the evaluation of types of
occurrent mental states that would approximate many of the ethical claims made
in the early Buddhist discourses. However, many of the instances that we have seen
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so far of early Buddhist ethical reasoning could also be interpreted along virtue-
theoretical lines. This is so in part because the formal feature of Consequentialism,
the maximization of the total good in the external world as determining what is
right, is not evident in the texts. Even if a maximizing procedure were evident,
moreover, we might agree that one ought to do what one thinks will maximize
welfare for oneself and for others, but suggest that one ought to act in this way
just in virtue of the fact that that is what a compassionate person would do. For
instance, the Vinaya texts portray the Buddha as laying down rules not only in
order to decrease unwholesome mental states and increase wholesome ones in
individual monastics, but also for the good of the whole monastic community, for
the sake of nurturing the public’s faith in the teachings, and for the sustaining of
the teachings and the discipline (as at Vin. III 21). Since these texts are arguably
one of the primary sources for understanding early Buddhist ethics, one might
take this as evidence that early Buddhist ethics does not evaluate acts solely on
the basis of the qualities of heart they involve. However, we can equally wonder
why it is the case that one ought to be motivated to lay down rules that serve the
welfare of the many in this way. And here, a plausible answer is that one ought to
be motivated in such a way because that is just what a compassionate person would
do. On such an approach, claims about which character traits or mental states are
wholesome would again serve as the foundational justification for which acts and
rules are wholesome. One could offer a similar Virtue Theoretic basis for some
extreme ethical demands. Thus it might be that someone who has the trait of being
contented with little, or the state of non-greed, would be motivated naturally to
give up much of their wealth so as to better serve others; we might see Buddhist
monasticism as one example of this.
I return to these points below. For now, it is enough to note that it is not easy
to distinguish a Virtue Theoretic approach from a perfectionist Consequentialist
approach on grounds such as extreme demands and injunctions to promote welfare.
However, Goodman suggests that the different “metaphysical bases” supporting the
two theories can help here. It is possible to combine reductionism about persons
with a Virtue Ethics. Nonetheless, Parfit’s reductionism about persons offers
argumentative support for Consequentialism. And, on the other hand, Aristotle’s
ethics is grounded in his philosophical biology, in particular its conception of human
beings as having a natural function. Goodman suggests, then, that if we find in
Buddhism a claim that persons can be reduced to psychophysical processes and
do not have an essential nature that can be appealed to as the ground of ethics,
this should be taken as indirect evidence in favor of a Consequentialist reading of
Buddhist ethics.
3. THE CHARACTERISTIC OF NONSELF

The Discourse on the Characteristic of Nonself, the Anatta-lakkhaṇa Sutta, presents
the Buddha telling his audience in no uncertain terms that physical form, feeling,
perception, conditioned volitions, and consciousness itself are not to be regarded as
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self. These five are the khandhas, often interpreted as “aggregates” (but see note 9).
The discourse presents the same injunction in regard to each of the five, beginning
with physical form. “Any physical form whatever, past, present or future, internal
or external, gross or subtle, base or refined, far or near, is to be viewed as it is with
right understanding, ‘this is not mine, I am not this, this is not myself ’’’ (SN III
66). The discourse goes on to say that viewing physical form, feeling, perception,
conditioned volitions, and consciousness in this way leads to the goal of release
from suffering.
Many later Buddhist expositions have understood this central teaching as a
claim that in some ultimate sense persons do not exist. Thus in the Questions of
Milinda, the Elder Buddhist monk Nāgasena explains that although he is known
as “Nāgasena,” this is just a concept, “In the ultimate sense there is no person to
be found here” (Miln. 28). Parfit (1984: 273, 502) cites this line from Nāgasena as
evidence that the Buddha would agree with the reductionist view. Nāgasena, in turn,
cites as support a poem attributed to the nun Vajirā, found in the Saṃyutta Nikāya:
Just as, with an assemblage of parts, The word “chariot” is used, So, when the
aggregates are present, There’s the convention “a being.”
It’s only suffering that comes to be, Suffering that stands and falls away.
Nothing but suffering comes to be, Nothing but suffering ceases. (SN I 135 in
Bodhi 2000: 230)
Nāgasena explicates Vajirā’s chariot analogy by distinguishing between the concept

(paññatti) of a person and what is “found” in the ultimate sense (paramattho). There
are various parts of a chariot: the pole, the axle, the wheels, the body, and so on.
Dependent on the pole, and the axle, and the wheels, and the body and so on,
there is the concept CHARIOT. In the same way, dependent on hair, nails, blood, and
other aspects of material form, dependent on feeling, and on perception, and on
conditioned volitions, and on consciousness, there is the concept NĀGASENA, “but in
the ultimate sense there is no person to be found here” (Miln. 28).
Nāgasena holds that the concept of a person arises in a certain kind of dependence
on mental and physical events, but it is not clear exactly how he conceives of this
relation, since he denies that a person is (just) these mental and physical events.
Thus it is not clear that Nāgasena and Parfit are advancing exactly the same position.
There are, nonetheless, important similarities between the two. For Parfit, to hold a
reductionist thesis about nations or persons is not to deny that either exist, but rather
to deny that they are “separately, or independently, real.” To hold a reductionist thesis
about nations is to hold that the existence of nations “just involves the existence of
citizens, living together in certain ways”; correspondingly, to hold a reductionist
thesis about persons is to hold that existence of persons involves “nothing more
than the occurrence of interrelated mental and physical events” (Parfit 1984: 340–
341). Nāgasena explicitly agrees with Parfit that a person is not something other
than these mental and physical events. This is, of course, what makes both of them
opposed to the metaphysical claim that the self is some substantial thing over and
above interrelated mental and physical events; this far Nāgasena and Parfit are in
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agreement with the early Buddhist texts. For my purposes here, however, it is also
important to notice a further parallel between these two theorists, in the perspective
implicit in the analogies that they each adopt.
We look at a chariot and its parts from outside. There is no such thing as taking
the chariot’s perspective, imagining what it must be like for the chariot to ride
over a rough surface or to be the king’s own favorite vehicle. We do not perceive
chariots as having an experiential perspective on the world. Similarly, when Parfit
imagines a nation as constituted by its citizens and their relations, he seems to adopt
a viewpoint that regards its citizens and their relations from above, as it were. The
situation with persons is quite different. We can and do (if not always enough) relate
to other people by imaginatively taking their perspective, imagining what it must be
like to inhabit their experience of the world. Nāgasena and Parfit invite us to take up
not the perspective of persons from the inside, but rather a perspective on persons
from outside. By employing the analogies they offer, we regard pleasure and pain,
perceptions and consciousness as objects in the world in the way that the parts of a
chariot are objects in the world.
On my reading, the early Buddhist approach doctrine of nonself is not based on
taking up such a perspective on experience from outside the world of experience. We
can see this by turning back to the Anatta-lakkhaṇa Sutta. The Buddha offers here
an abridged argument for the conclusion that physical form, feeling, perception,
conditioned volitions, and consciousness are not self:
If the body were self, bhikkhus, it would not bring affliction, and we would get
[our wish] that the body be like this and not like that. But because the body is
non-self, bhikkhus, it does bring affliction, and we don’t get [our wish] that the
body be like this and not like that. (SN III 66)
Martin Adam’s (2010) presentation of the formal structure of the Buddha’s
argument here is instructive:
If there were a Self, he asserts, it would be that aspect of the person over which
one has control. We do not have control over any of the five aggregates. The five
aggregates are all that a person is. The implication is clear: there is no self. (Adam
2010: 246–247)
As Adam notes, the third premise in this argument—that the five aggregates are
all that a person is—is both necessary for the argument to go through and is also not
evident in the text. He assures us nonetheless that “this is a safe enough assumption
from the Buddhist perspective” (Adam 2010: 247, n. 14). However, this is not a safe
assumption. Gethin puts it well:
The five khandhas, as treated in the nikāyas and early abhidhamma, do not exactly
take on the character of a formal theory of the nature of man. The concern is
not so much the presentation of an analysis of man as object, but rather the
understanding of the nature of conditioned existence from the point of view of
the experiencing subject. Thus at the most general level rūpa, vedanā, saññā,
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saṃkhāras, and viññāṇa are presented as five aspects of an individual being’s

experience of the world. (Gethin 1986: 49)
Here, the point is not that early Buddhist sources see there being something to
a person in addition to or apart from the khandhas. Rather the point is that the
khandha analysis is not an analysis of what a person is, it does not take the person
as its object nor as an object. It is instead an analysis of the lived experience of
a subject, from within. For this reason it could not, in principle, tell us whether
or not there is something to a person in addition to or apart from the khandhas.
In order to determine that a chariot is nothing more than its parts in a certain
kind of functional relation, we adopt a perspective on these parts from outside of
them. Similarly, in order to determine that the khandhas are all that a person is, we
would have to examine physical form, feeling, perception, conditioned volitions,
and consciousness from outside of the person’s subjective perspective.
However, the Anatta-lakkhaṇa Sutta is not committed to adopting this external,
objective perspective on a world of experience because it does not assert the idea that
the five khandhas are all that a person is. Moreover, that premise is not necessary
because the conclusion that Adam draws from that premise, that there is no self, is
also not drawn in the discourse. Of course, Adam’s reconstructed argument merely
recapitulates a dominant understanding of the argument in the Anatta-lakkhaṇa
Sutta. Nonetheless, the fact that the final two out of the four steps in this dominant
interpretation are not evident in the text should give us pause. Perhaps a better
reading is available.
Recent work by Hamilton and Wynne goes a long way in this direction. Some
scholars have argued that the Buddhist discourses fail to explicitly deny the existence
of a self because these texts are instead implicitly committed to the existence of some
subtle kind of self (for a recent example, see Albahari 2011). It is important to note,
however, that denial and assertion are not the only two possible responses to the
metaphysical question of whether there is a self. Neither asserting nor denying that
there is a self, one can also reject the question, as the Buddha of the early discourses
does with the set of metaphysical questions left unexplained (avyākata).10 Indeed, the
Sabbāsava Sutta characterizes both the view that there is a self and also the view that
there is no self as “a thicket of views” (MN I 8). Hamilton and Wynne each in effect
offer a textual rationale for why, within an early Buddhist framework, the question
of whether there is a self ought to be rejected. Both build on the insight noted
above from Gethin, that the khandhas are offered as a kind of phenomenological
analysis of human experience from within. And both come to the conclusion that the
dominant understanding of early Buddhism as taking a reductionist stance toward
the self misses the point of at least some central Nikāya discourses.
For Hamilton (2000: 129), “selfhood is neither the question nor in question.”
Instead, the essential project for the early Buddhist texts is to understand the
cognitive processes that make possible the experience of objects in the external
world. By understanding how we come to experience things in the world, we
understand also the limits of what we can know through experience. In particular,
“understanding dependent origination, in the sense that subjectivity and objectivity
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are mutually conditioned, one will no longer ask questions about existence”
(Hamilton 2000: 184, emphasis in the original). The structures we perceive in the
world, the parts of a chariot or the parts of human body, appear to us as objects
existing in space and time independent of us because of the constructive nature
of cognitive processes. But precisely because objects are constructed in this way
through our subjective processes, it is not appropriate to ask about what reality
these objects have independent of these subjective processes; that is beyond the
limits of experience. For this reason, it is not appropriate to ask whether the self
exists or not, as an object in the world; Hamilton points especially to the kinds of
questions about existence of the self that are dismissed in the Paccaya Sutta (SN II
27), such as “am I?” and “am I not?” Here, and also more generally in the Pāli and
other recensions of the early Buddhist discourses, personal insight into dependent
co-arising is related to going beyond speculation about the self in the past and future
(cf. Anālayo 2011: 253).
Wynne (2010) arrives at an interpretation very close to Hamilton’s, referring to the
approach he sees in the early Buddhist texts as doctrine of “epistemic conditioning.”
Although Wynne’s textual argument draws on an array of sources from the Nikāyas,
as well the larger Indic historical context, he says that “the most crucial evidence is
provided by” the Mahānidāna Sutta, a portion of which is quoted in the epilogue above
(Wynne 2010: 138). The central points of the Mahānidāna’s critique are threefold,
on Wynne’s reading. First, it is possible to conceive of one’s own existence when
conditioned experiences arise; however, it is not appropriate to identify oneself with
conditioned experiences, since these are changing. But, second, it is not appropriate
to identify oneself as something apart from these experiences. It might be suggested
that one can identify not with changing experiences, but with just the subjective
sense of experiencing. Wynne shows convincingly the Mahānidāna targets just such a
suggestion from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. The Buddha rejects this suggestion on the
grounds that when experience ceases entirely, it is not possible to conceive of one’s
own existence as an experiencing subject. For the same reason, however, it is not
appropriate to identify with something apart from experiences and apart from the
subjective sense of experiencing itself; it is not possible to have the notion “I am” (asmī
ti) when there is no experience whatsoever (sabbaso vedayitaṃ n’ atthi). In brief, only
within a world of experience are there the conditions “for being here to be conceived”
at all, and every aspect within this conditioned world of experience is fleeting, and
therefore inappropriate to identify with as self. If the argument goes through, there is
no legitimate basis from which to assert the existence of a self.
On my reading, this line of early Buddhist thought is committed to rejecting
any claim for the existence of a self. However, it is not committed to the assertion
that there is no self. The move is instead to reject the question of whether there is
a self, and therefore also all answers to that question, negative as well as positive.
The central reason for this, brought out nicely by Hamilton and Wynne, is that on
this early Buddhist approach one cannot assume that any objects exist independent
of our experience of them. For this reason, the early Buddhist approach cannot be
reconciled with reductive realism, the idea that persons do not ultimately exist, but
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are conditioned by, or constructed of, mental and physical processes that themselves
do ultimately exist. By the same token, however, the approach equally cannot be
reconciled with an (empirical) idealism that claims that the existence of objects
consists only in their being experienced; the point is rather that to ask questions of
what exists (or not) beyond our experience of them is to go beyond the conditions
under which anything at all can be known.11
Early Buddhism does, of course, assume the sort of mundane knowledge of things
and persons in the external world that we all have. However, the idea there could be
some more ultimate perspective that sees how things in the external world are really
constituted, while clearly present in some later Buddhist developments, seems much
less evident in the early Buddhist discourses. Indeed, the early discourses do not use
the term paramatthato to distinguish a class of things that exist in the external world
(e.g., mental and physical processes) in a more ultimate sense than other things (e.g.,
persons).12 The Mahānidāna claims that as long as there are the conditions for a
world of experience, to this same extent there is also a path for concepts (paññatti),
a path for terms (vohāra), and scope for wisdom (paññā). In contrast, Nāgasena
seems to appeal to an ideal perspective that goes beyond concepts and yet still could
give us knowledge of things in the world, and how they are constituted. Thus he
claims that his name is merely a name (nāmamattaṃ), a designation (saṅkhā), a
convention (samaññā), a concept (paññatti), a term (vohāro), for in the ultimate
sense (paramatthato) there is no person to be found here.
We saw in the introduction to this chapter some evidence that the early discourses
are committed to the notion of a type of wisdom that sees not only the arising of the
world of experience, but also its cessation. Nothing about this, however, suggests
that the discourses are committed a type of ideal perspective that sees how things
in the external world are constituted on some ultimate level. I see little, if any,
evidence that the early Buddhist discourses take such an ultimate perspective on
things in the external world to be possible, much less that these discourses take such
a perspective to be necessary in order to justify metaphysical claims. Even if they
did, the discourses do not seem to draw inferences from the metaphysical claim that
there is ultimately no self to ethical claims. And yet, clearly these same discourses
are shot through and through with ethical claims, about how one ought to live, how
one ought to act, and how one ought to cultivate one’s mind. How are these claims
to be justified?
4. MINDFULNESS AND WISDOM

It has been observed that despite the sophisticated developments of metaphysical
and epistemological theory in various traditions of Buddhist philosophy, there is
comparatively little in the way of the kind of ethical theorizing found in the Western
tradition. Damein Keown has more recently argued that “although Buddhism has
normative teachings, it does not have normative ethics” (2006: 50). He notes:
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The Five Precepts and the rules of the Vinaya . . . are typically presented as
injunctions, rather than as conclusions logically deduced from explicitly stated
values and principles. In other words, the Precepts are simply announced, and
one is left to figure out the invisible superstructure from which they are derived.
(Keown 2006: 50)
In response, Anālayo suggests that there is an identifiable principle underlying the
Vinaya rules for monastics and more generally the ethical injunctions found in early
Buddhist discourses. Based on a survey of sources from the Chinese Āgamas as well
as from the Pāli Nikāyas, Anālayo suggests that “the early Buddhist counterpart to
normative ethics—as distinct from applied ethics on the one hand and meta-ethics
on the other—could be found precisely in the notion of purification of the mind
from the influxes” (Anālayo 2012a: 83).
“Influx” here is a translation of the Pāli āsava, which Anālayo notes (2012b: 81–
12) is used in the sense of dangers, disturbances, and hardships that can “flow in”
to the mind. By guarding the sense doors, eating and living moderately, as well as
by purifying body, speech, and mind, more generally, one prevents unwholesome
dhammas from flowing into the mind. In the pursuit of sense pleasures, the pleasures
gained are mixed with the hardship and disturbances in the mind due to states such
as lust. By purifying the mind through sense-restraint, in contrast, one “experiences
internally an unmixed ease (sukha)” (as at MN I 181).
Anālayo’s identification of the principle underlying early Buddhist ethical
thought is, to my mind, precisely correct, so far as it goes. Nonetheless, a further
question can be asked. Why is it that one ought to purify oneself of those states
identified as āsavas by the early Buddhist teachings? Put another way, why is it that
the wise purify their minds of these states and not other states? I think the answer is
implicit already in the identification of āsavas as dangers and disturbances. We can
experience for ourselves, internally, both the disturbance of unwholesome states and
the unmixed ease of wholesome ones.
Here, the tight connection between the establishment of mindfulness
(satipaṭṭhāna) and the development of wisdom (paññā) is crucial. I can only briefly
summarize here an approach to this connection that I develop and defend in detail
elsewhere (Davis 2014). According to the Vipallāsa Sutta, perceptions, thoughts,
and views can be distorted (vipallāsa) (AN II 52). In the Māgandiya Sutta (MN
I 501ff) and its parallel version in the Madhyama-āgama, the Buddha illustrates this
with an analogy: one with distorted perceptions due to leprosy might want to burn
his flesh over hot coals, but on being cured he could not be induced to touch the
coals by any means (Anālayo 2011: 410). In the same way, to those with perceptions
distorted by craving, aversion, and delusion, the pursuit of sensual pleasure will
appear enjoyable. But such distortions can be corrected. My suggestion, in brief,
is that we establish mindfulness so as to gain a full and balanced awareness of all
aspects of our experience of the world (cf. Anālayo 2014: 243), we purify ourselves
of distorted perceptions (saññā-vipallāsa), and thereby know and see our world of
experience as it is. Feeling fully the holistic bodily, affective, mental, and perceptual
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aspects of being in states such as greed, hatred, or delusion, we just could not bear to
encourage ourselves or others to cultivate such states—they simply involve too much
internal agitation, disturbance, and hardship. Conversely, feeling fully the relative
internal ease of states such as generosity, compassion, and clear seeing itself, we
will naturally be moved to encourage others and ourselves to cultivate these states.
In this way, I suggest, to the degree human beings from any cultural background
develop a full and balanced awareness, their ethical judgments will tend to converge.
In particular, to the degree individuals come to know and see as it is the experience
of being motivated by various qualities of heart, they will converge in judging that
we all ought to cultivate certain of these qualities and to purify ourselves of other
qualities. On my reading, whatever degree of objectivity early Buddhist ethics aspires
to, this objectivity is to be grounded in these judgments of the wise.
It will be noticed that this approach features a strongly Virtue Theoretic appeal to
the judgments of the wise; nonetheless, two important points distinguish this early
Buddhist approach from the approaches articulated by Aristotle and other Western
virtue theorists. Aristotle’s approach in the Nicomachean Ethics is sometimes
charged with circularity, in that it simply appeals to the virtues generally accepted
in his social environment without offering a justification for taking these character
traits as the virtues. Philippa Foot (2003) attempts to adapt Aristotle’s approach
so as to underwrite a “species-wide notion of human good,” by appealing to an
objective, empirical conception of what counts as flourishing for a particular form
of life. Suggesting that Foot’s variety of naturalism is not Aristotle’s, on the other
hand, John McDowell (1998: 167ff.) instead seems to embrace an interpretation of
Aristotle and an independent philosophical position on which there is no position
from outside a cultural perspective from which to evaluate the relative merits of
any picture of flourishing or of virtue. The early Buddhist approach helps to chart
a path between these extremes, agreeing with McDowell that there is no view from
nowhere from which to objectively determine flourishing or virtue, and yet insisting
that a sufficient level of convergence in ethical judgment would emerge across
human cultures, from the first-personal perspective, among individuals who develop
mindfulness of their own emotional motivations for action.
One might challenge this contention by arguing that the perceptual experience
of some states as internally disturbing and others as internally pleasurable will
be culturally shaped, such that no amount of developing a full and balanced
awareness would lead all human beings to agree on which states are wholesome
and unwholesome. Indeed, one version of this worry can be developed in Buddhist
terms, by pointing out that all the factors of the Eightfold Noble Path are required
to develop the kind of full and balanced awareness that knows and sees the world
of experience as it is. If so, perhaps, these eight factors form a holistic evaluative
framework such that there is no way to specify independent of these other factors
what it is to know and see the world of experience as it is, and so no reason to expect
that individuals from different cultures, even to the degree they were knowing and
seeing the world of experience as it is, would converge in their judgments of which
qualities of heart are wholesome and unwholesome. And if so, then early Buddhism
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might be able to offer techniques (including the Eightfold Noble Path) to cultivate
qualities of heart that some of us already agree ought to be cultivated, but it offers
no novel reason for individuals from very different human cultures to agree that
certain qualities of heart ought to be cultivated. Perhaps.
While we have seen above that some of the best evidence for reading the early
Buddhist texts as Consequentialist comes from the Bāhitika Sutta, the structure
that Goodman finds in that discourse may be subject to a similar charge of
circularity. We noted above that ethically normative terms, such as kusala, appear
in the Bāhitika Sutta (and its Chinese parallel) both as one of the terms being
defined and in the final definition.13 Keown takes such points as counting against
reading early Buddhist ethics as a form of Welfare-Consequentialism such as
utilitarianism:
Unlike utilitarian theories Buddhism does not define the right independently
from the good. There exists a clear conceptual relationship between the two, and
they cannot be defined independently. (Keown 1992: 177)
Unfortunately, to the degree Keown is right in his reading of early Buddhist
ethics, the framework may cease to be of interest to those who do not antecedently
have faith in the Buddhist value framework as a whole.
A Consequentialist reading of Buddhist ethics might do better at providing an
objective means for justifying a Buddhist framework of values over an Aristotelian
one, say. This is precisely because a Consequentialist framework, if it is cogent,
delivers an objective view of ethical reasons from outside any particular subjective
or evaluative perspective on the world. In order to conceive of the amount of
aggregate suffering in the world, and also in order to reduce persons to streams
of mental and physical process, one abstracts away from any particular experience
of the world, in order to adopt an objective perspective on experience itself.
Nagel (1986: 162) describes this appeal to agent-neutral reasons as “the essence
of traditional consequentialism.” Consequentialism needs to appeal to reasons for
action that are agent-neutral in the sense that they do not depend on occupying any
particular experience of the world. In this sense, modern Consequentialist theories
depend implicitly on a God’s-eye perspective, what Nagel call’s “the view from
nowhere.” And this is perhaps not surprising given that, as Julia Driver (2009) notes,
Consequentialist theories of ethics arose in the West against the background of an
explicitly theistic and monotheistic metaphysical framework. But this is not the
background assumed in the early Buddhist texts.
Recall Goodman’s suggestion above, that if we can locate in a system of thought
a reductionist approach to persons, of the sort that would underwrite an agent-
neutral conception of ethical reasons, this can serve as evidence in favor of reading
that system of thought as adopting a Consequentialist ethical framework. There is
evidence for a reductionist approach to persons in later Theravāda texts such as the
Milindapañha. However, the line of thought that Hamilton and Wynne reconstruct in
the early Buddhist discourses is philosophically opposed to the sort of reductionism
that Goodman appeals to, and so cannot offer support for a Consequentialist
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interpretation of early Buddhist ethics. But the implications for the Consequentialist
reading of early Buddhist ethics are worse than just that.
The early Buddhist discourses reject and leave “unexplained” (avyākata) a set
of metaphysical questions concerning whether the world is eternal or not, finite or
not, whether the soul or life-faculty is different from the body or not, and whether
a Buddha exists or not after death (cf. at MN I. 431 and its parallels, see Anālayo
2011: 353ff). As Hamilton points out, these questions presuppose that one can
adopt a perspective on the world as an object independent of one’s experience of it,
and the existence of lives and bodies as objects in such a mind-independent world.
On her reading, early Buddhism rejects this presupposition. According to Hamilton,
if it is the case that
space and time are part of the structural characteristics of the experiential world,
and that that is cognitively dependent, then one can see that the presupposition
of the transcendental reality of time and space is false, and that the fundamental
premises on which the questions rest are therefore also false. (Hamilton
2000: 174)
Note that in order to have a conception of what will maximize happiness or
minimize suffering in the world, one must have a conception of the external world
as finite. We have seen, for instance, that Goodman suggests how a Consequentialist
theory focused on virtues will base its ethical judgments on the question of what
increases “the total amount of virtue in the universe” (2009: 43). I suggested above
that a Consequentialist theory taking occurrent states of mind as its primary focus
of ethical evaluation would deliver many of the same ethical judgments that are
found in the early Buddhist discourses; however, at a more fundamental level such
an interpretation will need to appeal to some conception of the total good in the
external world. Hamilton’s analysis offers one principled explanation for why it is
that the early Buddhist discourses do not make such an appeal.
There is a plausible alternative explanation that would appeal to pragmatic
concerns rather than epistemic ones, arguing that the reason questions such as the
whether the world is finite are not relevant to suffering and the end of suffering.
But if so, then by implication a position in ethics that relies on the principle of
there being a finite amount of suffering in a finite universe must also be rejected.
In any case, whether for epistemic or pragmatic reasons, nowhere in the early
Buddhist texts do we find formal procedure for weighing the total consequences
in the external world of one action or one type of mental state against another, as
finite and definite quantities, in order to make difficult ethical choices between, say,
benefiting one set of individuals and benefiting another set of individuals. We noted
above a number of discourses that do characterize unwholesome behavior as that
leading to one’s own affliction, to the affliction of others, or to the affliction of both.
However, neither in these formulations nor elsewhere in these texts is a calculus
proposed for deciding hard cases where we must weigh the suffering of one against
the suffering of another, no suggestion that we ought to maximize total happiness
or minimize total suffering conceived as a finite quantity in the universe. In short,
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there is abundant evidence in the early Buddhist texts of suggestions that we ought
to take consequences seriously, but vanishingly little evidence for Consequentialism
as a principled approach to ethical decision-making.
The Consequentialist approach aims at a kind of objectivity that goes beyond
what the early Buddhist discourses are committed to. On the other hand, I think it is
clear that the early Buddhist approach is not simply aimed at offering a set of applied
ethical principles for those who already endorse the Buddhist value framework.
I cannot offer a comprehensive defense of this interpretive claim here (for a brief
attempt, see Davis 2015). However, as a first pass, recall the passages from Kālāma
Sutta and the Bāhitika Sutta quoted in Section Two. These texts make ethical claims,
about which actions and qualities of heart are wholesome and unwholesome, which
are praiseworthy and blameworthy. These texts do not qualify their ethical claims
as holding only within the circumscribed set of values held by some particular (sub)
culture. The Buddha, as he is portrayed in the early discourses, is concerned to
engage with individuals of many different convictions, for the purposes of changing
their convictions such that they come to value cultivating certain qualities of heart
and not others. There is no suggestion that he advocates his view about which
qualities of heart others ought to cultivate just because it is his view, no better or
worse than the views of others. The suggestion is instead, I take it, that individuals
and whole cultures can be mistaken about what is praiseworthy and blameworthy,
and indeed are mistaken just to the degree that the qualities of heart they praise and
blame differ from what is praised and blamed by the wise ones, the Buddha first and
foremost. Early Buddhism is, in this sense, committed at least to this minimal kind of
objectivity. Whether the approach that it offers for achieving this minimal objectivity
can deliver on that promise is a different question. I am optimistic about this, but for
reasons I cannot defend in detail here (cf. Davis 2014).
Whereas Aristotle and some modern value frameworks might suggest that
righteous anger is appropriate as a response to injustice; early Buddhism disagrees.
On its own, this is not especially interesting; it is common that different individuals
and different cultural groups hold opposing fundamental values. What is interesting
is that the connection drawn between mindfulness and wisdom suggests a way in
which the early Buddhist approach may offer a means that is independent of the
Buddhist ethical framework to decide when it is that we as an individual or as a
whole cultural group are wrong about which qualities of heart are wholesome. In
a debate between Aristotelians and Buddhists, for instance, both sides can assess
whether anger is, in fact, wholesome or unwholesome by appealing to the judgments
that they themselves would make if they were aware in a full and balanced way of
their own world of experience. If there is indeed some one judgment that both would
converge on under such conditions, then this opens the possibility of a middle way
in ethical justification. It avoids both the extreme insistence on absolute objectivity
based on a “view from nowhere” and the insistence of the cultural relativist that
there can be no justification of ethical claims outside a particular culture-bound
evaluative framework. I see early Buddhist ethics as navigating a way between these
extremes.
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5. CONCLUSION
The line of thought that I have brought out from the early Buddhist discourses
emphasizes that in order to understand reasons and persons, one need not abstract
away from one’s experience of the world to regard experience objectively, as an
object in the world in the way that we regard chariots and other dead matter. Rather,
to the degree that one inhabits one’s world of experience more fully, one knows and
sees the nature of nonself and also the nature of what is wholesome.
Even if this line of thought is implicit in the early Buddhist discourses, it is not
to be preferred to later Buddhist doctrines because it dates to an earlier period
in Buddhist history. Wynne’s historical argument that the Buddhist doctrine of
epistemic conditioning predates Buddhist reductionism, for instance, is useful
for my purposes here insofar as it suggests that the philosophical merits of these
two different strands of thought can be considered separately. When we do that,
we can see how grounding claims in ethics and metaphysics from within a world
of experience proves a promising approach for moving forward contemporary
philosophical debates.
This point has methodological implications for the study of non- Western
philosophical sources. The approach to grounding ethical claims that I sketched
in Section Four includes aspects that parallel a number of prominent theorists in
Western moral philosophy, Kant as well as Hume, and Aristotle as well as Mill.14
However, the project of looking in Buddhist approaches for parallels within the
familiar Western categories of philosophical theorizing downplays what is most
radical, and therefore potentially most instructive, from a Western perspective. More
fruitful, I think, is to investigate the ways in which the philosophical questions and
the approaches to these questions that were developed in ancient India or China, for
instance, might make their own distinctive contributions to contemporary debates
that are already shaped by the important contributions of philosophers such as
Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and Mill.15
Structuring our investigations in this way puts the burden on studies of ancient
and foreign systems of thought to show that they have something important to teach
us. This chapter has largely been focused on showing that what early Buddhist ethical
thought has to teach is not (just) what Aristotle or Parfit have already taught us. There
is much more to be said about how the early Buddhist line of thought emphasizing
epistemic conditions on the world of experience can move forward contemporary
debates on the nature of persons and the nature of reasons. Nonetheless, the general
shape of the novel contribution that early Buddhist ethics can make should be clear.
From within a world of experience, we see particular beings as suffering. If we
are in wholesome states rather than unwholesome ones, we respond appropriately
to their suffering. But this is not because we regard suffering as existing on its own
as an object in the external world, in the way that we regard parts of chariots and
other dead matter. We can express compassion as a concern for all beings, and
even cultivate that state by employing such a notion. Nonetheless, this does not
suggest that one must employ a conception of the limits of the universe and the total
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aggregate consequences of each action in order to decide how to act, live, or be.
Rather, one ought to care about how her actions affect her own and others’ welfare
in virtue of the fact that the qualities of heart that would lead her to care in this way,
such as compassion, are qualities of heart that ought to be cultivated. And this is a
fact that one can discover within, and only within, one’s own world of experience.
Throughout the Nikāyas, the Buddha’s teachings are characterized as experiential,
timeless, a come-and-see kind of thing, progressive, to be experienced by the wise
for themselves (paccattaṃ veditabbo viññūhi). On my reading, this last phrase offers
a particularly helpful key to a better understanding of the ways in which early
Buddhist thought on reasons and persons aspires to objectivity, and the ways in
which it does not. The distinctive contribution of early Buddhist ethics is to suggest
that we each can become wise, coming in this way to know and see for ourselves,
from within our own experience of the world, which qualities of heart are praised
and criticized by the wise.
NOTES
1. References to the Pāli are to Dīgha (DN), Majjhima (MN), Saṃyutta (SN), or
Aṅguttara Nikāyas (AN), Milindapañha (Miln.), and Vinaya (Vin.), followed by
volume and page numbers of the Pali Text Society edition. Translations are my
own except where otherwise noted.
2. This chapter has benefitted greatly from conversations with Martin Adam,
Bhikkhu Anālayo, Georges Dreyfus, Laura Guerrero, Stephen Harris, and
Alexander Wynne. I am very grateful for their suggestions and critiques; the
remaining errors are, of course, my own.
3. For reasons of space, I focus here on Keown’s and Goodman’s influential analyses
of Buddhist ethics. In the course of his insightful book on Buddhist reductionism
and Buddhist anti-realism, Siderits (2003) also offers a Consequentialist
reconstruction of Buddhist ethics.
4. These qualities of heart are referred to in the Kālāma Sutta negatively, as non-
greed (alobha), non-aversion (adosa), and non-delusion (amoha). Maria Heim
refers to this feature of early Buddhist thought as “the presence of absences” and
argues convincingly that this is “an important feature of this moral psychology that
identifies experience of absence as the conditions for other experience that cannot
otherwise occur” (Heim 2014: 79).
5. Ranganathan in “Moral Philosophy: The Right and the Good” (chapter 1 of this
book) argues that all instances of dharma/dhamma be translated with ethical terms.
In the case of a use of dhammā as a plural noun, as here in the discourse with
Kālāmas, this approach would gloss something like “ethicals” or “ethical states,”
to be cashed out as elements (states, traits, acts, etc.) “that would fall within the
ideal ethical theory” or “within the ideal theory of the right and the good”. And
dhammatā, which I translate below as “the nature of things” (as in the case of a
certain causal progression of psychological states), would instead be translated as
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“the virtue of things.” I take it that this approach of Ranganathan’s is intended as

a corrective measure, in the face of allegations that Indian philosophy has lacked
ethical theorizing (in contrast to metaphysical and epistemological varieties).
Indian philosophers certainly have plenty of theories about dharma and about
dharmas, so if we do take “dharma” as connoting the subjects of debates about
the ideal ethical theory, then it is clear that India has not lacked in ethical theory!
A central point of my chapter is that we could render my point as being that
certain of the elements that would figure in the ideal philosophical theory, namely,
occurrent states such as greed and compassion, are claimed by the early Buddhist
discourses to be the elements that would figure in the ideal ethical theory. On
this approach, we might better translate all instances of dharma/dhamma with
instances of “philosophy.” Adopting Wilfrid Sellar’s (1962) characterization or
philosophy, we could then say that dharma is concerned with “how things in the
broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense
of the term.” On this approach, dharmas (in the plural) are the things that hang
together, being the elements that fall within the realm of philosophical debate (and
not just the subset of that which is ethical). Of course, Sellar’s is but one stance
within a debate about the nature of dharma/philosophy, and the early Buddhist
take might well be another.
6. Gethin (2004: 185) quotes a recollection from Ajahn Buddhadassa’s attitude
toward death; for a closely parallel account in the Burmese tradition, see Mahasi
Sayadaw (1992: 80–81).
7. This being a philosophical term of art, it is worth noting that Hallisey’s use
of “particularism” (borrowed from Chisholm) has affinities to, if also some
differences from, Dancy’s use of the term “particularism” within philosophical
ethics. Dancy uses “particularism” to name the conclusion that “there is nothing
for . . . moral principles to do” (this following from his “holistic” view of practical
as well as theoretical reasons), and that “people are quite capable of judging
how to behave case by case, in a way . . . which shows no need of the sort of
explicit guidance that a set of principles (of a certain sort) would provide” (Dancy
2004: 82–83).
8. Adams’s (1976) “motive utilitarianism” offers an example of a similar approach in
the Western literature, though not an influential one.
9. I take it Goodman reads Ānanda as giving intensional definitions, as making a
claim about what it is in virtue of which a state is blameworthy, e.g., rather than
merely claiming that those states that are blameworthy and those states that bring
affliction are coextensive. The phrasing of the dialogue, if not the structure, is
ambiguous between the two.
10. I discuss these briefly below.
11. Hamilton rightly identifies this approach she sees in early Buddhism as a kind of
“transcendental idealism” akin to Kant’s. I cannot take up in any detail here the
interesting question of to what degree this approach also resembles that adopted
by the Pudgalavādins. While they do seem to have reached some of the same
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conclusions (viz., that the Buddha’s claim is not that there is no self), the reading
of the Nikāyas espoused by Hamilton and Wynne depends on the idea that we
should reject the question of whether there is a self because to ask questions of
what exists (or not) beyond our experience of them is to go beyond the conditions
under which anything at all can be known. It is not clear that this same reasoning
lay behind the Pudgalavādin interpretation.
12. The poem by the nun Vajirā does speak of there being the convention (sammuti)
of “a being” (satto), when the aggregates are present (khandesu santesu). But it
is less clear that this underwrites the sort of distinction between ultimate and
conventional that Nāgasena appeals to. Wynne (2010) argues, controversially, that
this poem represents a significant stage in the historical progression toward the
reductive realism evident in Nāgasena’s formulation, for it speaks of the khandhas
as existing things, among which “no being is found” (nayidha sattūpalabbhati).
If the poem does depend on the notion of an ultimate perspective on how things
are constituted in the world, as opposed to how they appear conventionally, then
perhaps Wynne is correct about the philosophical point. However, according to
the argument noted above from Anālayo (2012a), if there is an answer to the
historical question of whether the poem is to count as belonging to early Buddhist
thought, this would be best to assess from a comparative perspective.
13. Moreover, the actions initially identified as unwholesome, for which later
definitions are offered, are just those actions that would be criticized by people
who are wise; this is a point brought out with special force in the Chinese parallel
to the Bāhitika Sutta, and in the Burmese and Ceylonese versions of the Pāli
discourse (Anālayo 2007: 173, n. 15).
14. I have not addressed the former two in this chapter; for more on similarities to
and differences from Kant, Hume, Aristotle, and Mill, as well as contemporary
theorists of ethics and metaethics, see Davis (2014).
15. In this I echo a number of recent scholars of Buddhist ethics (Hallisey 1996;
Heim 2014; Garfield in press) including Keown himself (2006), and in a recent
conference presentation talk (Contemporary Perspectives on Buddhist Ethics,
Columbia University, October 6, 2011).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adam, M. “No Self, No Free Will, No Problem: Implications of the Anattalakkhaṇa
Sutta for a Perennial Philosophical Issue.” Journal of the International Association of
Buddhist Studies 33, no. 1–2 (2010): 239–265.
Adams, R. M. “Motive Utilitarianism.” The Journal of Philosophy 73, no. 14
(1976): 467–481.
Albahari, M. 2011. “Nirvana and Ownerless Consciousness.” In Self, No Self?, edited
by M. Siderits, E. Thompson, and D. Zahavi, 79–114, Vol. 1. New York: Oxford
University Press.
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Anālayo, Bhikkhu. “What the Buddha Would Not Do, According to the Bāhitika-sutta and
Its Madhyama-āgama Parallel.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 14 (2007): 153–179.
Anālayo, Bhikkhu. 2011. A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya. Taipei,
Taiwan: Dharma Drum.
Anālayo, Bhikkhu. “The Historical Value of the Pāli Discourses.” Indo-Iranian Journal 55
(2012a): 223–253.
Anālayo, Bhikkhu. “Purification in Early Buddhist Discourse and Buddhist Ethics.”
Buddhist Studies (Bukkyō Kenkyū) XL (2012b): 67–97.
Anālayo, Bhikkhu. 2014. Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna. Cambridge: Windhorse.
Bodhi, B. 2000. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Saṃyutta
Nikāya. Translated by B. Bodhi. Boston, MA: Wisdom.
Dancy, Jonathan. 2004. Ethics without Principles. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Davis, J. H. 2014. Acting Wide Awake: Attention and the Ethics of Emotion.
New York: City University of New York Graduate Center.
Davis, J. H. “Review of The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention,
and Agency by Maria Heim.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 77, no. 3
(2015): 261–266.
Driver, J. 2009. The History of Utilitarianism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/utilitarianism-history/; accessed
Winter 2015.
Foot, P. 2003. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA.
Garfield, J. L. (In press). “Buddhist Ethics.” http://www.smith.edu/philosophy/docs/
garfield_buddhist_ethics.pdf; accessed Winter 2015.
Gethin, R. “The Five Khandas: Their Treatment in the Nikāyas and Early Abhidhamma.”
Journal of Indian Philosophy 14 (1986): 35–53.
Gethin, R. “Can Killing a Living Being Ever Be an Act of Compassion? The Analysis of
the Act of Killing in the Abhidhamma and Pali Commentaries.” Journal of Buddhist
Ethics (2004): 167–202.
Gombrich, R. F. 2006. How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early
Teachings. New York: Routledge.
Hallisey, C. “Ethical Particularism in Theravāda Buddhism.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 3
(1996): 32–43.
Hamilton, S. 2000. Early Buddhism: A New Approach—The I of the Beholder. Richmond,
Surrey: Curzon Press.
Heim, M. 2014. The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and
Agency. New York: Oxford University Press.
Keown, D. 1992. The Nature of Buddhist Ethics. New York: Palgrave.
Keown, D. 2006. “Buddhism: Morality without Ethics?” In Buddhist Studies from India
to America: Essays in Honor of Charles S. Prebish, edited by D. Keown, 45–55.
London: Routledge.
McDowell, J. H. 1998. Mind, Value, and Reality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Nagel, Thomas. 1986. The View From Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press.
Sayadaw, Mahasi. 1992. Questions about Life [In Burmese] (Bhava Pyathana). Yangon,
Myanmar: Buddha Sasana Nuggaha Organization.
Sellars, Wilfrid. 1962. Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man: Frontiers of Science and
Philosophy, edited by Robert Colodny. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Siderits, M. 2003. Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons. Burlington,
VT: Ashgate.
Singer, Peter. “Famine, Affluence and Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 3
(1972): 229–243.
Wynne, A. “The Ātman and Its Negation: A Conceptual and Chronological Analysis of
Early Buddhist Thought.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies
33 (2010): 103–171.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
Jaina Virtue Ethics:

Action and Nonaction
JAYANDRA SONI
1. INTRODUCTION
The goal in this chapter is to make clear the moral theory of the Jain (Jaina) tradition.
In moral theory a distinction is drawn between deontic ethical theories and aretaic
ethical theories. Aretaic ethical theories concern the dispositions of an individual,
often identified with their character. Morality on the aretaic account does not have
to do with action, but with character. Aretaic theories are Virtue Theories of ethics.
Deontic ethical theories give pride of place to action. Morality on the deontic
account has to do with right action. Examples of deontic theories of ethics include
Deontology and Consequentialism.
If the character or constitution of an individual is primarily important for moral
theory, then responsibility is to be found not in what we do, but who and what we
are. Moreover, identifying responsibility with what we do—with action—would be
a moral error. To try to understand the responsible self in terms of its actions would
be a mistake on this account. Rather, the responsible individual is someone who
appreciates that their center of responsibility is their constitution as an agent. In this
case, what is not action—literally, what is nonaction—would be the ground of moral
responsibility: the constitution of the agent. Action would be mistakenly treated as
the ground of responsibility and as the constitution of the agent.
Morality on the Virtue Theoretic account sketched so far would hence not
be characterizable by action, but by nonaction— in the first instance. Actions
can derivatively acquire moral significance if they are in accordance with our
responsibility, which is to say our moral constitution. Any action in accordance
with our responsibility would freely flow from our constitution. Activity in this
case would be not only moral, but also the free movement of the individual. In
cases where we act in a manner that is contrary to our character, we frustrate and
immobilize ourselves. Here, action would constitute an impediment to the self.
Jain ethical theory is this variety of Virtue Ethics. The self (jīva) on its account
is the center of moral responsibility: virtue (vīrya) is its essential trait. When we act
in accordance with ourselves, we are free and we instantiate Motion itself: morality
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(dharma). When we locate our center of responsibility with action (karma), we

frustrate our center of responsibility, and act in a manner that is contrary to our
moral freedom. Moral action in contrast, sets us free as it is in accordance with
what is nonaction: our moral constitution. The perfection of this action is the
identification of our center of responsibility with our intrinsic constitution.
The connection between movement and morality is a common theme in Virtue
Ethics. Confucian Virtue Ethics, for instance, emphasizes the significance of being
morally moved (Wang 2010). In the Jain account, however, morality is the principle
of Motion itself, an element in the ontology of the universe. There is no real
movement to speak about apart from moral movement. This moral realism—which
identifies morality with the basic elements of reality—is characteristic of Indian
ethics, but it speaks to an outlook on reality where the only kind of freedom there
is, is personal freedom. Nothing else counts as movement. However, this is a kind of
nonaction: something determined by our intrinsic, agential constitution, and not by
the action that flows downstream from character.
In this chapter I intend to explore the moral realism of Jain Virtue Ethics. Virtue
Ethics often holds that the right thing to do is what the virtuous individual would
do. At the center of the Jain theory of ethics (Jain dharma) is the importance given
to the early Jinas (Conquerors) or Tīrthaṅkaras (Ford makers), whose example we
are to follow. Their nonviolent, benign action shows how action can conform to
the virtue of an individual—a non-active center of responsibility that is benign to
all. However, their teachings and the memory of their example are couched in a
moral realist framework that motivates the Jain approach to moral questions. In
this framework, (1) action, divorced from our center of responsibility, constitutes a
casing and embodiment of suffering. From this we can differentiate the (2) intrinsic
nature of the jīva—the dynamic self. The right (3) metaethical commitments lead to
a (4) code of conduct constituting its moral principles. In the fifth section, we will
consider the objection that Jain moral theory is not up to the task of moral guidance
in reality and the contemporary world.
2. THE EMBODIED SITUATION ACCORDING

TO JAINISM
The Jainas are known for the vast stock of stories that they composed or collected
in order to illustrate their teachings and doctrines. They were, and are still, used in
Jaina circles and on specific occasions like pilgrimages and festivals. They are easily
understandable to laypeople who might have difficulty reading technical philosophy.1
One illustration representing mundane life as fraught with difficulty and hardship
is the story of the “man in the well.” The story represents an individual in the world
who, through his own action, finds himself stuck, frustrated, and unable to move.2 Let
us review the story first, before considering the lessons that the Jainas draw from it:
A man in a huge forest was threatened by a wild elephant. He fled towards a
fig tree but was unable to quickly climb it. He therefore sprang into an old,
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abandoned well that was nearby and which was overgrown with grass. He
managed to catch a bunch of bamboo grass which grew out from the side
of the well, just in time to save himself from the elephant which was trying
to grab him with its trunk. The elephant could touch him but was unable
to get a firm hold of him. As he looked around in great panic he saw at the
bottom of the well a large snake that threatened to swallow him and four
other smaller snakes which hissed at him with their puffed up hoods. In great
fear he held fast onto the bamboo bunch hoping not to fall down into the
bottom of the well. As he looked up wondering what to do, he was shocked
to see a white and a dark mouse gnawing at the roots of the bamboo bunch
and that the enraged elephant was pounding at the fig tree with all its might.
Shaken violently by these powerful blows of the elephant, hundreds of bees
in a branch of the tree became alarmed and threatened to sting the man.
Tormented and tortured like this from all sides the poor man noticed that
a drop of honey fell from the tree, landed on his forehead, dripped down
his nose and flowed into his mouth. He sucked the drop of honey greedily,
tasted its sweetness with great delight, forgetting completely the calamity and
disaster in which he was!3
Symbolism saturates the story. We learn from these sources that the elephant that
threatens the man stands for death, the tree for life, and the water-well for the
human condition. The large snake stands for hell, the four other smaller snakes are
the four passions or kaṣāyas (anger or krodha, pride or māna, deceit or māyā, and
greed or lobha), and the white and dark mice are the bright and dark phases of the
moon. The bees are the diseases that human beings have and, finally, the drop of
honey represents the passing sweetness and happiness that the world has to offer.
Just like this man in the well, each jīva forgets the terrible situation in which it is
because of the transient joys the world has to offer. When, however, it realizes the
disaster and calamity of the situation then the jīva strives to come out, that is, it
strives for liberation from suffering (my English translation based on the German by
Glasenapp 1984: 189–190).
What is centrally important to the story is the role of the man’s own action
in delivering him into a circumstance where he is apparently stuck. Worldly life
as we know it is this scenario of being stuck, and this stasis is nothing other than
action that is contrary to freedom of our constitution. In light of the story of the
man in the well it is perhaps better understandable why Umāsvāti’s Tattvārtha-
sūtra (TS) 7, 12/7 recommends disinterest in worldly life: “The observer of vows
[mentioned below] should reflect upon the nature of the world outside and inside
his own body in order to quicken [the] fear of, and disinterest in, worldly life.”4
Disinterest with the world is disinterest with the status quo, constituted by our
self-frustrating action.
In Jainism it is the jīva that is in this unhappy situation of becoming involved in
actions through thoughts, words, and deeds, and the point of the story is to recall
the “calamity and disaster” of the jīva’s plight in the world and, by implication, the
need for a disciplined life to avoid them. The jīva is the intrinsic nature of persons
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and is the basic source of all action; without the jīva, we cannot speak of a living
being, but a corpse.
3. JAINA METAETHICS: VIRTUE AS INTRINSIC

PERSONAL REALITY
It would have been better had the person not responded to the threat of the
elephant—another jīva. One could imagine many responses to such a perceived
threat that involved taking the appropriate precaution and shelter and none of
which involved acting precipitously to bring about a state of self-imprisonment. The
more prudent responses would involve controlling action to lean on the importance
of nonaction: the intrinsic responsibility of the self. Superficially, the importance of
nonaction seems to conflict with the apparent pressure to act in all circumstances.
Here, Jain ethics provides us with deontic guides that accommodate our center of
responsibility as virtue.
Against this background of all-inclusive action—in thought, word, and deed—the
idea of VIRTUE becomes crucial as the factor that enables all our actions. In Jainism this
virtue is said to be intrinsic to the jīva, the “substance” and defining characteristic
of embodied beings and something, as just said, which allows us to speak of a living
being in contrast to the lifeless corpse, which remains after death. Indeed the term
jīva in Jainism is one of the two basic ontological substances that make up reality
as such, the other being the non-jīva (ajīva), which is a generic name for the five
substances that constitute it.
Virtue or strength (vīrya) is not the only feature that is intrinsic to the jīva
and for our purposes here it can be noted that: “A jīva is said to have three main
qualities (guṇa) or functional aspects: consciousness (caitanya), bliss (sukha), and
virtue (vīrya)’ (Jaini 1998: 104; see also 102–106 for the other innate qualities).
The implications of the jīva innately possessing virtue are far reaching when it
comes to embodied conduct insofar as this virtue is expected to operate without
any hindrance, namely, in accordance with the intrinsic nature of the jīva itself to
act “naturally.” When this virtue is hindered, limited, or trammeled then action is
correspondingly influenced and the aim of ethics would be not only to guide and
control our actions, but also to remove the hindrance, which in the final analysis
means the obliteration of karma as its root cause.5
Recall that on the Jain Virtue Theoretic account, the self is the center of virtue,
but it is also not an action. It is rather what disposes us to appropriate action. Action,
or karma, on its own, apart from our center of responsibility, is an impediment to
our freedom to act responsibly. It is depicted in Jain philosophy as fine, invisible
material particles that adhere to the jīva and thereby limit the jīva’s intrinsic faculties
of proper faith, proper knowledge, and proper conduct.
Indeed, Indian schools face the problem of explaining when and how karma
began. There are two ways to understand the question. One is cosmological and
agent neutral, the other ethical and agent relative. The euphemistic answer given
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by the Jainas is that the role of karma has been active since “beginning-less time”
(anādi) and to ask about when it all started would lead to an infinite regress,
similar to asking about whether the seed or the plant came first. This is the agent-
neutral, cosmological response. Ethically, the Jain view that karma is matter that
really obstructs the functions of the jīva provides an agent-relative response: in the
cases that karma is an impediment to the virtue of the self, it prevents the free flow
and function of the disposition of virtue. When we are responsible, we are free,
and action does not constitute an impediment that we must cleanse and contend
with. To understand oneself in terms of what one has done is an impediment to
one’s potential as an intrinsically virtuous being. The overlap of the agent-relative
and agent-neutral answer to the origins of karma arise because of our inclusion
in a realistic universe. The Jain method of resolving this tension is to depict the
cosmological aspect of action from the agent-relative, first-personal perspective as
an influx into the pristine virtue of the self.
The entire theoretical background against which the story of the jīva begins is
contained in Jaina metaphysics, on which Jaina ethics rests in theory and practice. We
already noted that the jīva and the non-jīva (ajīva) are the two ontological categories
in Jainism and that they are the only protagonists for the (inter)play between them.
Jaina metaphysics begins with these two substances, relating them together as the
only aspects that make up the story of the jīva in the world. Their association together
is couched in what is called the Seven Basic Truths in Jainism: jīva, ajīva, āsrava,
bandha, saṃvara, nirjarā, and mokṣa, namely: jīva, non-jīva, inflow or influx, the
consequential bondage that is caused by this inflow, stoppage of influx, elimination
of what had already flowed in, leading to a liberation from its influence.6 Each of
these are worth exploring before reviewing the significance of an ascetic code of
conduct unique to Jaina ethics.
The first two categories are the jīva and the non- jīva (constituted of five
categories). They are eternal and indestructible, have always existed, and will always
exist naturally, without requiring any additional categories, like the notion of a
creator god, for example, to account for their existence or creation. It is through the
influence of the non-jīva categories that the jīva’s innate nature becomes affected,
negatively. Intrinsically and by nature, however, the individual jīva, the sentience of
a living being, possesses proper belief (samyag-darśana), proper knowledge (samyag-
jñāna), and proper conduct (samyak-cāritra)—which will be the main focus here as
it concerns ethics—and it has unlimited bliss (sukha) and power (vīrya), as already
mentioned. However, these innate characteristics of the jīva can manifest themselves
properly only without any foreign influence on it, or when it is removed if present.
The optimism that the jīva will achieve independence is an optimism shared with
other Indian philosophers. Moreover, for the Jainas the conditions of the possibility
of such liberation has been mapped out by the lives of Jinas like Mahāvīra and the
23 other Jinas of our epoch, and is said to be achievable by anyone who follows
their examples.7
The reason why the intrinsic nature of the jīva cannot manifest itself fully in us
ordinary embodied beings is that a foreign element partly or completely obstructs
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it. This is ajīva, the non-jīva, the non-sentient category, made up of five categories,
namely, material atoms, element-clusters, or simply matter (pudgala) that exists in
space and time and that can move or be static, namely, pudgala, ākāśa (space), kāla
(time), dharma (ethical movement), and adharma (inertia).8 Matter or pudgala is
given a special function here; it is something that, as fine, invisible atoms or clusters
of the elements, can become attached to the jīva and, thereby, significantly alters
the manifestation of its innate abilities, namely, negatively. This means that matter is
responsible for the fact that the jīva’s nature becomes altered and that it can manifest
its abilities only in a restricted way. The association between the jīva and the non-jīva
(i.e., matter as such) is technically referred to as “yoga,” which in turn is regarded
as “activity” (karma, as will be seen further below in the context of action).9 It is
an old view that dharma and adharma, the principles of motion and rest, seem to
be particularly Jaina technical concepts and connote the mediums through which
movement and rest can occur—dharma in the sense of “law” and “righteousness” is
found in other contexts (cf. Jaini 1979: 97–102). Yet given that the ethical problem
on the Jain account is characterized by inertia brought about by an excess of karma
that inhibits the jīva’s innate virtue, these uses of “dharma” and “adharma” to
describe movement express the moral theory of the Jains. Specifically, they specify
what Jains take to be the extension of the concept MORALITY. The extension of ethics
is free movement, and the extension of immorality is the karmic corpuscularity that
inhibits virtue. Motion is a way to cash out the dispositionality of virtue, which
moves us, as something distinct from action, especially when we act in accordance
with virtue. Adharma, or immorality, is the stasis and lack of progress that comes
from treating our actions as the center of our responsibility.
When pudgala or the fine, invisible matter-element of ajīva flows into the jīva,
through actions in thoughts, words, and deeds, it becomes attached to the jīva.
Jainism says that this matter turns into our action (karma) and is responsible for
consequences, such as good or bad outcomes, joy or pain, happiness or unhappiness.
Karma manifests itself through its effects in various ways, just as medicine is
responsible for significant changes in the body, even over longer periods. In a
picturesque way, Jaina teachers say that matter (pudgala), namely, karma, is like
dust particles that accumulate on a surface smeared with oil. The influence of these
karma-particles on the jīva is that its knowledge is veiled, its virtue restricted or
reduced, negative impulses arise in it, and many qualities that are foreign to it
become attached to it. Hence, the jīva has to be cleansed of limitations and Jaina
ethics can then be described as the “Jaina path of purification,” to use the title of
Jaini’s (1979) book.
The obvious question is: how does the jīva come in contact with matter in
the first place? How does matter enter the jīva? Jainism gives a mechanical
and ethical answer for this, as already hinted at above: the actions of the jīva
through thought, word, and deed attract fine, invisible material particles that
comprise action and this is the third basic truth mentioned above, the influx or
inflow (āsrava) of these particles.10 The jīva thereby becomes restricted, bound,
and disturbed by this foreign element and this bondage (bandha) is the fourth
161
truth. The fifth truth expresses the condition of the possibility of (immediately)
stopping (saṃvara) the influx of fine material particles into the jīva, and this
truth is associated with the sixth of eliminating (nirjarā) the karma particles that
have already been accumulated by the jīva. The seventh truth, then, is that of a
complete liberation (mokṣa) on the part of the jīva from any hindrance in the
manifestation of its innate abilities.
The key to the significance of Jaina ethics against the background of the ontology
and metaphysics briefly dealt with above, is the acknowledgment of the truth that we
are bound beings and that this bondage restricts, limits, and hinders our knowledge
of reality, including that of our intrinsic nature, and seriously affects our conduct.
Bondage is highlighted especially to show that it is possible to overcome it, to
become liberated through the stoppage and elimination of the factor of hindrance,
namely, of the fine matter that adheres to the jīva. A cleansing and purification of
the jīva is called for, namely, a removal of matter that has become associated with it.
This makes right conduct possible.
So much of this can seem very mysterious. What we have in this discussion of
Jain metaethics is a depiction of various elements of reality, which are not personal
(ajīva) as something that becomes personal by its contact with the center of
moral responsibility—the jīva. How do the various elements of our life, our body
and mind, become ours? They become our action, which is to say what we are
responsible for, via their proximity to our center of responsibility. But this mass
that we are responsible for is not the same as our center of responsibility, which
grants a derivative, personal significance to the impersonal things of life. Failing
to distinguish between the two results in moral confusion. Properly distinguishing
between the two allows us to grant priority to a responsibly lived life, which is under
this description nonaction.
4. JAINA NORMATIVE ETHICS: RECOVERING

VIRTUE FROM ACTION
Jain metaethics sheds light from the concept MORALITY: on its account, morality or
dharma is the dynamism of a life lived from virtue. Jain normative ethics elucidates
and justifies this concept, especially from a practical perspective.
Jain normative ethics provides the following considerations to identify morality.
What is in conformity with virtue—the intrinsic feature of the jīva—is morality.
This allows us to identify some actions as duties, and not mere actions. These
would include the Great Vows (Mahāvratas), ascribed to Mahāvīra, which are
abstinence from harm, truthfulness, abstinence from theft, sexual restraint, and
unacquisitiveness. How these great vows are to play out in life will depend, in part,
on one’s concrete commitments and relations. Sexual restraint in the case of the
celibate monk is a different phenomenon from sexual restraint in a householder in
a committed relationship. The commonality in both cases is that this vow is action
brought into conformity with virtue. But the differences in concrete relations with
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other intrinsically virtuous agents entail that the vow has to be deployed differentially.
The duties so understood are context sensitive. So while historically it seems that
many of these rules were originally developed around the lives of the Ford makers,
they are also adaptable to the lives of nonascetics.
Monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen constitute the Jaina community, with a
clear demarcation of the rules for both the ascetic and the laity. For our purposes it
might be best to begin with the Great Vows for the ascetics and then to deal with the
so-called lesser vows (aṇu-vratas) that are drawn from them for the laity, based once
again on Umāsvāti’s Tattvārtha-sūtra (henceforth TS; see also note 10).
The direct link between ethics and metaphysics is the first-person resolution of
the agent neutrality of karma. This is evident through the word āsrava, the influx
or inflow of fine matter, which then becomes karma, seen above under Jaina
metaphysics as the third of the seven basic truths. We saw that the association
between the jīva and the non-jīva categories is technically referred to as “yoga,” a
term that now brings us to our actions as embodied beings, from which is developed
the idea of “meritorious” and “unmeritorious” action. According to TS 6, 1–2, yoga
is defined as a threefold activity or karma, namely, of the body, of speech, and of the
mind, which altogether are āsrava, leading, namely, to an inflow or influx of matter
(which then turns into fine karma particles).11 Here the words “karma,” “yoga,” and
“āsrava” are used by and large synonymously in the sense of action and/or activity,
with āsrava also retaining its specific meaning of influx or inflow. We unavoidably
indulge in activities of the body, speech, and mind. However, when we are made
aware of the fact that these can be either meritorious or unmeritorious, then we
enter into the gamut of the basic issues of ethics when it comes to the question of
what actions can be “ethically or morally” accepted. Is there “moral” action, action
that is meritorious?
Since merit and demerit have now become key issues, let us see what an early
commentary to TS 6, 1 says about the kinds of body, speech, and mind activities to
help us proceed:
Action performed with the body, action consisting in words and action
performed in the mind, this is the threefold yoga. Each is twofold: meritorious
and unmeritorious. Here unmeritorious [action] performed with the body are
violence, stealing, unchaste [conduct], etc.; [unmeritorious action] consisting in
words are [what is] objectionable, not true, harsh, malignant, etc.; [unmeritorious]
action performed in the mind are a desire for [something], the ruin [of someone],
envy [at another’s success], displeasure (asūyā) [especially at the merits or the
happiness of another, as also in envy and jealousy], etc. The opposite of [each of]
this is meritorious [action].12
Since all impersonal matters require virtue to turn them into action (what the
individual is responsible for) and since this virtue, as we saw, is inherent to the jīva,
then it means that the jīva is the source of all animated activity, for both meritorious
and unmeritorious ones. Obviously, unmeritorious behavior implies the influence
of passions (see the four passions mentioned in the story of the man in the well
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above: anger or krodha, pride or māna, deceit or māyā, and greed or lobha).
Depending on whether the jīva is influenced by these passions or not, the effect
of the influx caused through action is accordingly restrictive or not (see TS 6, 4/5
quoted below). If the manifestation or implementation of the jīvas’s innate virtue is
a natural and inherent function of the jīva, in other words, if the activity through
the body, speech, and mind—which require the use of this virtue—is “natural”
embodied action, then the question is whether embodied beings are in a position
to “control” the manifestation and implementation of this natural, inherent virtue.
This is where Jainism calls upon embodied beings to channel their innate virtue in
such a way that it leads rather to meritorious than unmeritorious effects.13 In other
words, in dealing with Jaina yoga we are concerned with Jaina ethics, exemplified by
Jaina virtues and norms of proper conduct or behavior (samyak-cāritra).
With regard to the point just made about the influence of passions in actions, TS
6, 4/5 says: “There are two kinds of influx, namely that of persons with passions,
which extends transmigration (sāmparāyika), and that of persons free from passions,
which prevents or shortens it.”14 The two types of persons are, in fact, embodied
beings who largely act with passions (sakaṣāya) and those who act without passions
(akaṣāya), like the Jinas (Conquerors) and the Siddhas (Perfected Ones) of the Jaina
tradition. We will pay attention here only to the former for whom the ethical code
primarily applies.
According to the karma theory in Jainism, as we have already seen, every
embodied activity (of the body, speech, and mind), without exception, leads to an
influx of karma. The more the amount of karma is accumulated by such activity,
the more is the jīva under its pressure and influence. That is, the inherent power
of the jīva to manifest its natural and inherent functions is restricted to the extent
of the amount of karma “covering” it and thereby limiting, restricting, and veiling
it, negatively.15 The point is that embodied beings cannot avoid the influx (āsrava)
of karma, but that this influx can be “regulated” in terms of the “intensity” of the
action, if one can learn how to control the attitude behind an act.16 TS 6, 6/7 hints
at this point: “Influx is differentiated on the basis of intensity or feebleness of
thought-activity, intentional or unintentional nature of action, the substratum and
its peculiar potency.”17 The vows of ascetic and ascetic-like behavior for the laity are
the regulative factors.
The word “vow” (vrata) has a special significance in Jainism for both ascetics and
laypersons keen on leading an ethical life as the tradition sees it. It is especially the
first of the five so-called Great Vows, nonviolence, that has become the hallmark of
Jainism as a whole and, in particular, as the guiding principle of basic Jaina ethics.
If there is any single teaching that forms the fundament of the teaching of all Jinas,
including Mahāvīra, then this would be the uncompromisable rule of nonviolence.
These five vows are the ascetic vows that the laypersons should try to emulate as
far as is possible, in addition to their own special vows. The way in which the text
mentions these five vows is interesting: the five together make up a single vow
(of virtuous activity). TS 7, 1 says: “The vow is abstinence from: violence, lying,
stealing, promiscuity and attachment.”18 As we proceed with further aspects of
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this fivefold ascetic vow, for example, with reference to the vows being partial or
complete and the observances related to them, it will be seen that with the allowed
conjugal relationship, the laity can easily follow them if it desires to imitate the
ascetic vows in a way suitable to the lay context. This is what TS 7. 2 says: “Partially
(observed, the fivefold vow is) small, completely (observed it is) great.”19 In his
commentary to TS 7, 2 explaining the import of the rule, Pūjyapāda says that each
of the five vows can be observed partially or completely. The laity can observe the
vow of chastity to a lesser degree and therefore the laity observe the so-called lesser
or smaller vows (aṇu-vrata), as will be seen below in detail. More significantly, for
the efficacy of the vows, Pūjyapāda adds: “The practice of these vows with vigilance
dispels suffering, just as an excellent specific medicine removes a disease.”20
Whereas in general these five vows may be understandable as simply striving
to be nonviolent, to speak the truth, etc., each is elaborated further as an aid to
show the scope within which each applies. Each of these five has five meditations
(bhāvanā), understood as observances, to help the adept in practicing each of the
Great Vows, thereby furnishing 25 correlated vows in all. They may be seen as the
basic code of conduct for all Jainas, with the one major exception for householders
allowing conjugal relationships. These are as follows:21
1. The vow of nonviolence can be strengthened by controlling one’s speech,
one’s thought, regulating one’s movement, carefully taking and placing
objects so as not to injure small insects, etc., and examining the food
one eats.
2. The vow of not-lying or truthfulness requires giving up anger, greed,
cowardice, or fearfulness, jest, and using words that are not harmful.
3. The text for the vow of abstaining from stealing applies specifically to the
ascetics: residing in solitary or deserted places, not hindering anyone else,
accepting clean food, and not quarrelling with fellow ascetics.
4. The aids to observing the vow of chastity specifically for monks and nuns
involves not listening to stories that lead to lust, not looking at beautiful
bodies, not recalling previous sexual pleasure, not eating desire stimulating
delicacies, and not adorning the body.
5. Steadiness in observing the vow of nonattachment can be obtained by giving
up both an attachment to agreeable objects and an aversion to disagreeable
objects with regard to each of the five sense organs.
TS 7, 20/15 is the source of the point that the observer of the lesser vows (aṇu-
vrata) is the householder, namely, female and male lay followers. With the exception
of conjugal relationships, the laity observes the ascetic vows to a lesser extent,
according to their abilities and occupation. They can also observe supplementary
vows, for example, fasting, which would underpin the vow of nonattachment. In
this way, the supplementary vows “enhance” or “enrich” the impact of the five vows,
as the text says, by
refraining from movement beyond a limited area, restricting movement to an
even more limited area, refraining from wanton destruction of the environment
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by thought, word or deed, keeping aloof from sinful conduct for a period of time,
fasting on sacred days, observing special restrictions at secluded places, limiting
the use of consumable and non-consumable goods, offering alms to wandering
ascetics. (TS 7, 21/16).22
Note the restriction of action in the first two vows here and the care for the
environment (which we shall see further below).
An ethical rule unique to Jainism, which applies to ascetics as well, is given
under those for householders and immediately follows the above rules. TS 7, 22/
17 says: “[And] Sallekhanā is courted at the approach of death [i.e., expected to
approach sooner or later]” (māraṇāntikīṃ sallekhanā joṣitā).23 The word sallekhanā
as a feminine word is specifically Jaina and its meaning is connected with the
neuter form of the word that, among other things, literally means “scratching or
scraping” and, in the Jaina context, with meanings associated with making thin,
attenuating, or reducing corpulence (of the passions).24 It is the reduction of karma
as the practice involves abandoning action. Sallekhanā is fasting in preparation of
the expected death and is an ascetic-like exercise for the layperson to accelerate the
death process. In his commentary to TS 7, 22/17 Pūjyapāda precisely gives the Jaina
view of this unique vow. He says: “Sallekhanā is making the physical body and the
internal passions emaciated by abandoning their sources gradually [through fasting]
at the approach of death. The householder observers sallekhanā at the end of his
life” (Pūjyapāda 1992: 205).
Accepting the corrigibility of embodied action, ordinary embodied beings are
called upon to struggle and to do everything in their power to implement the vows
as best as they can. In view of the difficulty entailed, the possibility of transgressions
of right belief as the Jainas see it (like the desire for worldly enjoyment, TS 7, 23/
18) is also noted with atonements (like confession and repentance, TS 9, 22) for
the transgressions.25 These transgressions and atonements would also fall under the
rubric of Jaina ethics. However, they relate to the specific rules of conduct with
which we are mainly concerned here and hence are simply alluded to without
going into any details. Chapter nine of the TS is specifically concerned with the
stoppage and shedding of karma and hence related to the point here. TS 9, 2 says
that stoppage of the influx of karma is possible through “control, carefulness,
virtue, contemplation, conquest by endurance and conduct,” and shedding them off
through penance (TS 9, 3).
If one would like to reduce all these rules to a single one, then, in keeping
with the main teachings of all the Jinas, this would be abstinence from violence,
ahiṃsā, as already hinted at earlier. Ahiṃsā, in turn, is the basic value and duty, as
it is what action looks like when it mimics the nonaction of the self. As the self is
not action, action that is brought in line with the self would be benign, just as the
jīva is benign. Non-harm is the master duty, for it is the form of action brought in
line with the intrinsic virtue of the self as benign. The ramifications of the attempt
to live a violent-free life are vast, and since early times canonical texts evince
various aspects of nonviolent actions that have been an important theme in Jaina
literature.
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We have seen that all kinds of actions we perform in thought, word, and deed
influence our jīva. In the Jaina canon 13 kinds of acts are described, of which 12 are
violent and, in fact, should be avoided. It is also emphasized that these violent acts
should not only not be instigated or supported, but also not approved of. These ideas
are drawn from Mahāvīra’s teachings in the fifth century BCE and canonized at the
latest by the fifth century CE. Let us merely mention these 13 kinds of action here,
without details, in order to show how comprehensive the Jaina view of violence is
and how these ideas occupied the Jainas from very early times. Twelve of these are
violent and only the last is the recommended action:26
1. Purposeful violent deed (for his own benefit someone causes violence on his
relatives, friends, etc.); 2. purposeless violent deed like cruel killing of animals
and meaningless destruction; 3. militant violent deed as in protecting oneself
or others with a weapon; 4. accidental violent deed as in accidentally killing
something while doing another specific task: collateral effects; 5. violent deed
through an optical illusion as in harming by falsely assuming that someone has ill
intents; 6. a violent act that occurs in untrue speech; 7. in un-allowed acquisition;
8. in a [bad] mood as when depressed; 9. violent deed in pride; 10. in doing
wrong to friends like punishing someone severely for a small error; 11. violence
in deception; 12. in greed; and finally 13. the recommended deed in following
prescribed action, e.g. for the welfare of his jīva by being careful in speech,
thinking, walking, standing and eating.
For Jains, the moral import of these observations continues today as our moral
predicament has not changed. We are centers of virtues in a public world, and we
have to find a way to traverse the world by virtue of virtue. This is nonviolent.
The justification for nonviolence follows from our reality as dispositions and not
activities that can harm. The more virtuous our encounter with the world, the less
we are confused with our surroundings, and the less the public aspect of the world
characterizes us. This is the outflow of karma. The less virtuous the more the public
character of the world characterizes us, the more we are defined by the status quo.
This is the influx of karma from the perspective of the agent.
A commonly used parable is that of six travelers and the mango tree. It relates the
rule of nonviolence to the satisfaction of embodied needs and describes how various
types of people satisfy their desires in various ways and depicts the six types of jīvas
and their colors (leśyā) according to Jainism. One of the purposes of this story is to
call upon us to weigh our words and thoughts for the amount of violence in them,
to become aware of them, and thereby to strive not to commit violence. The story
about the six travelers and mango tree simply teaches this:27
Six travelers were walking together through a forest. After some hours they began
to feel hungry and so looked around for a fruit tree. After some time they came
across a mango tree and the following suggestions were made by each of the
travelers: 1. One traveler who had an axe with him suggested chopping down the
whole tree in order to get at the delicious ripe mangoes. 2. The second traveler
held him back and suggested chopping only the main branch for the mangoes.
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3. The third said that even this was not necessary, “why don’t we chop just one
branch which has enough fruits.” 4. The fourth traveler had an even better idea
and said: not even this would be necessary, “why don’t we just break a small branch
with mangoes that we can reach?” 5. The fifth traveler said yes, it is a good idea
but we should be very careful. “We should make sure that we take only the ripe
mangoes and leave the green ones on the tree.” 6. Finally, the sixth traveler said: “I
have a better idea: look here, below the tree. There are sufficient ripe mangoes for
all of us. Why don’t we take them without having to harm the tree in any way?”
This is a typical Jaina story that illustrates how nonviolence can be implemented
together with how we can conduct ourselves in our environment carefully and
protectively. If we recall the primacy of the rule of nonviolence then we can see how
it applies not only in this individual case to satisfy our needs, but also in a broad
context of the care that needs to be exercised with regard to our environment.28
This consideration, that intrinsic virtue is preferable to the action that constitutes
our embodied state, is summarized in the value of kāyotsarga, literally “the
abandonment of the body (for various periods of time).” It is a penance and also
serves as an atonement (prāyaścitta).29 In the light of the influx of action caused by
agitation (characteristic of cruelty), the abandonment of body for whatever period of
time clearly reduces the influx of matter into the jīva. Bahubali is famous in Jainism for
having taken up this upright, equipoise position for such a long time that plants began
to grow on his feet, and his famous statue in Sravana Belgola in Karnataka, shows
him standing there permanently. Bahubali’s austere penance serves as an example for
the significance of the point emphasized here, namely, that bodily abandonment as a
penance implies also a corresponding abandonment in thought and word.
The abandonment of body required of a pious Jaina with regard to actions in
thought, word, and deed through nonviolence as the regulatory principle can be said
to be carried to its limits in kāyotsarga. This exercise highlights a constant awareness
of the need to be careful of all our actions. Lest we forget, abandoning the body is
important because the center of responsibility is the self, and our embodiment is our
actions not our virtue, which is falsely identified as the center of our agency. To free
our intrinsic virtue is apparently to abandon that which introduces stasis.
5. THE RELEVANCE OF VIRTUE

One might argue that Jain ethics is really from and for another time:
Larger questions facing modern society, such as national defense, weaponry of
mass destruction, limiting populations of wild animals and insect pests, the use of
toxic chemicals, the morality of capital punishment, the use of animals in medical
research, and other social concerns that perforce entail violence, were beyond the
pale of Jaina thought. (Jaini 2000: 5)
Certainly, the challenges of a balanced life today appear to involve the implementation
of violence as a means to maintain order. But if we are our intrinsic virtue as living
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beings, then changes in the contexts we find ourselves in are not counterexamples
to our strength, but more of the same. In the face of the violence we find today, Jain
philosophers respond with the following:
I renounce every kind of harm to a life form, be it fine or gross, animal or plant,
by neither wanting to inflict harm on it personally nor to approve of it that in
my interest a life form be harmed by others, nor allow another person to harm a
life form, as long as I live, in a threefold way, with my internal sense, my speech
and my body.
The challenge of morality on the Jain account is to approach problems as a function
of past choices that do not characterize our potential as set out by virtue. Seeing our
potential clearly makes room for change: dharma. But this seeing clearly is a matter
of attention to all details of our life:
The ascetic then asks himself if he has neglected the five “attentions” (samiti)
and thereby whether he could have harmed this rule. The first attention is about
walking. The monk should walk looking down at the ground, sweeping aside
[gently] the small life forms he could step on, with a small broom he carries with
him. The second attention concerns speech. The monk should ask himself whether
he could have harmed a life form through a rashly spoken word. Thirdly, has he
overlooked anything while collecting alms? Fourthly, has he overlooked anything
while taking and putting down his utensils? Fifthly, while removing filth?30
The critic will, no doubt, respond that this extreme nonviolence is ineffectual as a
response to practical challenges today. For Jain ethics to be able to respond, it has
to show that there is a continued role for nonaction in the resolution of ethical
challenges. Many times the problems that we are faced with are framed in terms
of a need for a response and this response takes the form of an action. But we
could just as easily, and more insightfully, acknowledge that the moral challenge is
actually a function of our past actions, which are now coming to haunt us. If we
understand our moral challenges historically, then the appropriate response would
be to simply stop contributing to the problem. The environment is only polluted and
in crisis so long as we pollute it. The ecosystem is off balance only because of our
disproportionate intervention and activity. States are at war and in conflict only so
long as we fight and conflict with others. The idea that we require further actions to
solve our conflicts fails to address the cause of our challenges. If the cause is action,
then the virtue of nonaction is the obvious solution.
6. CONCLUSION
Jain ethics is committed to explaining our moral challenges in terms of failed policies,
and the solution as the abandonment of such policies. This is because morality is
conformity to virtue, and virtue is in essence nonaction. Solving problems is hence
a matter of acting in accordance with virtue. This is free movement. This is dharma.
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Morality hence plays a decisive role in our freedom, because our freedom is a state
where action is not an impediment.
The essential form of all duty—action in accordance with virtue—is ahiṃsā, or
nonviolence. All action that conforms to virtue exemplifies virtue. Virtue is itself
benign, and hence action in accordance with virtue is benign too.
Jain dharma, as a quintessential form of Virtue Ethics, accomplishes what many
forms of Virtue Ethics do not. Many stipulate the importance of the virtues, but
require some extra consideration to generate moral content. It is not sufficient to
be told that the virtues are primary. The question that arises next is: what are the
virtues, what counts as a virtue? In the context of Jain ethical theory, this question is
circumvented, via the distinction between action and virtue. Virtue is nonaction, and
dutiful action is action that emulates nonaction: ahiṃsā, or nonviolence.
Let us conclude finally with Mahāvīra’s words pleading for nonviolence in an
ethical and practical way. It is recorded in the Jaina canon that Mahāvīra proclaimed
the following golden rule:
Exactly as it is not nice to me if with a stick, a bone, fist, clod of earth or potsherd
I am wounded, struck, threatened, beaten hurt, hit hard or killed—yes, even
if just a hair of mine is pulled out, I feel vividly the injury which causes me
suffering and fear of it—so too, know this, that all higher beings, all plants, all
lower animals, all other living beings if wounded or killed with a stick, bone,
etc., indeed even if just a hair of theirs is pulled out, [they] feel vividly the injury
which causes them suffering and fear of it. If one has recognized this, then it is
certain that no higher being, no plant, no lower animal, no other living being may
be beaten, commanded, subdued, strained or killed . . . This is the pure, constant,
Dharma proclaimed by those who know.31
NOTES
1. For a collection of some stories from the Jaina treasure house of narratives, see
Granoff (1990), Mette (1991), and Granoff (1998).
2. The story appears in the Vasudevahiṇḍi by the fifth-century Jaina author
Saṅghadāsa. See Mette (2010: 319–323) and the reference to this story as
now belonging to “world literature” (2010: 319). See also the second-century
illustration 13 in the unpaginated section (2010: 240) and Mette’s explanation to
it (2010: 402).
3. My English translation based on the German by Glasenapp (1984: 189–190).
4. Tattvārtha-sūtra (TS) 7. 12/7, Tatia’s translation in Umāsvāti (1994: 172). The text
is: jagat-kāya-svabhāvau vā saṃvega-vairāgyatam. References to the TS like 7, 12/
7 refer respectively to the Digambara/Śvetāmbara versions of the TS wherever
applicable. In his translation Tatia gives the Śvetāmbara version first. See also note 10.
5. It will be seen that ethics is but one-third of what constitutes the “path to
liberation” from the influence of karma, the other two parts being faith and
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knowledge as stated in TS 1, 1, namely, each one in its “proper or right” (samyak

or samyag) sense, samyag-darśana, samyag-jñāna, and what concerns us here
especially, samyak-cāritra.
6. Tattvārtha-sūtra (TS) 1, 4. The actual text runs: jīvājīvāsrava-bandha-saṃvara-
nirjarā-mokṣās tattvam. The TS by Umāsvāti, also called Umāsvāmī, who lived
certainly before the fifth century, is the first work written in Sanskrit in the form
of sūtra works, which constitute the basic texts of the philosophical schools in
India, like the Nyāya Sūtra and the Vedānta Sūtra. The TS is recognized by both
the Digambaras and Śvetāmbaras as the authoritative basics of Jaina philosophy.
There is an ongoing debate about who wrote the first commentary to it, whether
it was Umāsvāti himself as the Śvetāmbaras say (the Svopajñyabhāṣya or simply
Bhāṣya) or Pūjyapāda as the Digambaras say (with his commentary called the
Sarvārthasiddhi). See the study by Ōhira (1982) on this and the question of
authorship and date.
Kundakunda, whose dates vary between the second and eighth centuries CE is
another well-respected exponent of Jaina philosophy. To quote him here as well is
not necessary since the philosophical points are essentially the same. See especially
his four masterpieces, all bearing the same suffix “Essence” (sāra) mentioned in
the references under Kundakunda (Samayasāra or the Essence of the Doctrine,
Niyamasāra or the Essence of Rules, Pañcāstikāyasāra or the Essence of the Five
Entities, and Pravacanasāra or the Essence of Scripture).
7. According to Jainism, 24 Jinas, literally “conquerors,” are born in the world in
each time cycle, who conquer the human passions, obtain enlightenment, and
“teach the true doctrine of non-violence and subsequently obtain the freedom
from rebirth which constitutes spiritual deliverance” (Dundas 1992: 3). In our era
Mahāvīra, a contemporary of Buddha, was the last Jina. See also Jaini (1998: 3–
15). The word “Jaina” itself is derived from “Jina,” and means one who follows
the teachings of the Jinas.
8. The last four categories have a special status. In addition to the twofold
ontological jīva/non-jīva (jīva and ajīva) structure mentioned in the seven basic
truths, a third category is formed by these four because they are neither sentient
(as only the jīvas are) nor matter (pudgala) and therefore have a unique status.
Among these again time has a special status as an “independent category.”
9. It is in this context that Jainism mentions six types or classes of jīvas, depending
on how matter affects them. We shall come across these six types in the story
about the six travelers and the mango tree narrated later.
10. The actions of the jīva through thought, word, and deed, attract fine, invisible
material particles that then become karma (karman). Just as after eating food
the essences are transformed into blood and the other body fluids, so too the
matter that is attached to the jīva becomes transformed into the 8 main kinds of
karma and its 148 subdivisions. And just as different kinds of medicine manifest
their effects at different times, so too karma exercises its effect at different times.
The Jainas do not doubt that the jīva can become free of the influence of karma.
Like the Buddhists and the Hindus, the Jainas also accept the condition of the
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possibility of liberation, and one of the main teachings of the Jinas is to show the
way in which to achieve this. This truth about the possibility of liberation is the
seventh basic truth.
11. The exact wording of the two is: kāya-vāṅ-manaḥ-karma yogaḥ (TS 6, 1) and sa
[yogaḥ] āsravaḥ (TS 6, 2).
12. The actual text of Umāsvāti’s commentary called the Svopajñabhāṣya on TS 6, 1
is: kāyikaṃ karma vācikaṃ karma mānasaṃ karma ity eṣa trividho yogo bhavati
| sa ekaśo dvividhaḥ | śubhaś cāśubhahaś ca | tatrāśubho hiṃsāsteyābrahmādīni
kāyikaḥ, sāvadyānṛta-paruṣa-piśunādīni vācikaḥ, abhidhyāvyāpāderṣyāsūyādīni
mānasaḥ | ato viparītaḥ śubha iti |
13. It is to be remembered that both meritorious and unmeritorious actions are, in
fact, limiting factors because of the karma they cause, albeit for human conduct
the former is more “beneficial.” The aim, of course, is through the support of
meritorious actions to lead finally to absolute dispassion (vairāgya) by following
“the Jaina path of purification” of all karmas. In the final analysis, as we shall see,
it is equanimity that plays a crucial role.
14. TS 6, 4/5: sakaṣāyākaṣāyayoḥ sāmparāyikeryāpathayoḥ. Literally this
means: [activity, yoga] with passions are favorable for future existences and those
without passions would be proper religious behavior (īryāpatha) in terms of Jaina
virtues. On passion or kaṣāya see, for example, Jaini (1998: 118–120 and various
places), for the types of passions, and Wiley (2000).
15. The impression should not be given that the jīva is in any way “weaker” than
ajīva. Both jīva and ajīva are substances (dravya) and in terms of Jaina ontology
have an equal status. The point about the purification of all karmas is to realize the
need to “return” to the “natural“state of the jīva, where its existence is innately
without any attachment to anything non-jīva (ajīva). How the elements of the
non-jīva “originally” got attached to jīva is a question we have to leave as an
unanswered or unanswerable problem.
16. Jaini (1998: 113): “The precise amount (pradeśa) of karma that engulfs the jīva
after a given activity is said to depend upon the degree of volition with which that
activity was carried out” (emphasis in the original). In the footnote to this, Jaini
quotes TS 6, 6/7, which is being discussed here.
17. This is Jain’s translation of TS 6, 6/7 in Pūjyapāda (1992). The text itself
runs: tīvra-manda-jñātājñāta-bhāvādhikaraṇa-vīrya-viśeṣebhyas tadviśeṣaḥ.
The word vīrya is omitted in the Śvetāmbara version of the sūtra, although it is
mentioned in the commentary to it.
18. TS 7, 1 runs: hiṃsā-nṛta-steya-abrahma-parigrahebyo viratir vratam.
19. TS 7, 2 reads: deśa-sarvato ‘ṇu-mahatī.
20. See also Jain’s translation of TS 7, 2 under Pūjyapāda (1992).
21. These are in TS 7, 4–8. The list is based on Jain’s translation under Pūjyapāda
(1992: 191–193), which also has the Sanskrit and the commentary to each in
English only. Indeed there are specific works on the conduct of the laity, the
śrāvakācāras, evident, for example, in Williams (1991). We are concerned
here especially with the philosophical background provided by Umāsvāti’s
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Tattvārtha-sūtra and accepted as authoritative by both Digambaras and

Śvetāmbaras (see also note 10).
22. Umāsvāti (1994: 177). The Sanskrit is also given there. For a slightly different
translation compare Pūjyapāda (1992: 202).
23. In his commentary Pūjyapāda says that the “and” (ca) at the end of TS 7, 21/16 is
intended to include the next TS 7, 22/17, and is therefore inserted there in square
brackets.
24. The word “sallekhanā” is a compound derived from sat + lekhanā to form sal-
lekhanā. It is derived from lekhana, m., n., f. lekhanī. The Buddhists use the word
as well, but in a different context. The literature on sallekhanā is vast and includes
the various types of death based on the thoughts of the person at the moment of
dying. See, for example, Oetjens (1976), Settar (1986) and (1990). Soni (2014)
briefly discuses cases of permitted suicide, which otherwise is generally eschewed
in the Indian tradition. It is to be emphasized that sallekhanā for the Jainas is not a
case of suicide.
25. Although these penances apply for the ascetics, laypersons are also included,
for which see Williams (1991: especially 42–43 on remorse and repentance)
elaborating the rules to regulate the daily life of a layperson.
26. Schubring (1926: 42–48/51–58), the chapter goes on till p. 65/76, Sūyagaḍa II,
2. The numbers after the slash refer to the pages in the English translation: Bollée
and Soni (2004).
27. This is a free rendering of the story, of which there are many versions slightly
varying in detail, for example, Vinayavijaya’s Lokaprakāśa, translated into German
in Mette (2010: 58).
28. See Singhvi (2006). See also section II “Challenges to the Possibility of a Jain
Environmental Ethic” in Chapple (2006: 63–156).
29. See Williams (1991: 213–215). Here he supplies Hemacandra’s etymological
meaning: that which in general (prāyas) purifies the mind (citta). Equanimity
belongs to the so-called necessary duties (āvaśyakas) of a pious Jaina, about which
there is a vast literature. See, for example, Williams (1991: 184) for the basic list
of these duties, Balbir (1993), and Oberlies (1993). See also cf. Qvarnström and
Birch (2011: 372).
30. Mette (2010: 212f), my translation from the German: “Ich entsage jeder
Schädigung von Lebewesen, sei es fein oder grob, tierisch oder pflanzlich, in
dem ich weder in eigener Person Lebewesen schädigen noch zulassen will, daß
durch andere in meinem Interesse ein Lebewesen geschädigt wird, noch erlauben
will, daß ein anderer ein Lebewesen schädigt, so lange ich lebe, dreifach, auf
dreierlei Weise, mit meinem inneren Sinn, meiner Rede und meinem Leib.”
Er befragt sich dann selber, ob er eine der fünf <<Achtsamkeiten>> (samiti)
vernachlässigt und dadurch eine Verletzung dieses Gebots bewirkt haben könnte.
Die erste Achtsamkeit betrifft das Gehen. Der Mönch soll mit auf dem Boden
gesenktem Blick gehen, indem er mit einem kleinen Besen, den er mit sich führt,
kleine Wesen, die er zertreten könnte, zur Seite fegt. Die zweite Achtsamkeit
betrifft die Rede: Er muß sich fragen, ob er durch ein unbedacht gesprochenes
173
Wort die Verletzung eines Wesens bewirkt haben könnte. Drittens: Hat er bei
der Almosensuche etwas übersehen? Viertens: Beim Aufheben und Niedersetzen
der Gerätschaften? Fünftens: Beim Beseitigen von Unrat?’ The five samitis or
attentions are listed in TS 9, 5.
31. Sūyagaḍa II 1, 48, text adapted from Bollée and Soni (2004: 47).
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177
CHAPTER EIGHT
Patañjali’s Yoga: Universal

Ethics as the Formal Cause
of Autonomy
SHYAM RANGANATHAN
1. INTRODUCTION
My aim in this chapter is to set out Yoga’s moral philosophy according to the Yoga
Sūtra (YS). My approach to reading the YS is to apply standard practices in reading
philosophy to it. This was the point of my translation of the text (Patañjali 2008).
The YS, read as a text of philosophy, is among the most sophisticated contributions
to moral theory. In this chapter, I speak to its merits. Here are some highlights.
First, it is a consistent and important articulation of Yoga as an ethical alternative
to Deontology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics. Yoga is hence a missing ethical
theory from the usual spread we learn about in the Western tradition.
Second, its account of moral psychology provides a unitary account of moral
well-being and worldly well-being, such that it is not possible for us to excuse illness
(mental or physical) as irrelevant to the assessment of moral virtue. The upshot
is that the solutions to vice are also the solutions to illness. (If this is true, then
universal health care is a moral right if not being vicious is a moral right.)
Third, it provides a nonarbitrary account of moral standing—as I shall show.
Arbitrary accounts of moral standing define moral standing not in terms of who
could make good ethical use of it, but in terms of the natural attributes of a
privileged group. On the Yoga account, you count if it is in your interest to be
counted. Put another way, you have moral standing if you would thrive given your
freedom. Unlike Kantian understandings, on the Yoga account, moral standing is
not reserved for a privileged group or species (namely, human beings), but is true
of most animals, and the Earth. Only people thrive when they are free. Personhood
cannot be reduced to natural categories, such as race, gender, species, age, or ability.
Personhood is the potential to be free. Some kinds of life, such as parasites, free
riders, or pathogens, do not thrive on their own. Force them to be free, and they
either die or go dormant. They thrive only when they take advantage of persons and
178
this is short-lived as this is really a posture of weakness and not of independence.

Persons, in contrast, thrive when they are isolated, which is to say, nonparasitic. To
be nonparasitic is to abandon selfishness—the depiction of personhood in terms of
one’s historical idiosyncrasies or particular needs. This is the absorption in ethical
cleansing (YS IV.29). Here, we do not need others, but are rather a benefit to others.
When we are unselfish we give each other the room we need to be free.
Fourth, Yoga constitutes a resolution of the seeming antinomy of freedom and
determinism via the ethical life. Free Will is not the condition of moral action: it
is the outcome. In this case, we are isolated from the deterministic world of nature
(prakṛti), as free persons (puruṣa). Whereas Kant provides a similar account, his
account has long been thought to fail. Yoga avoids Kant’s problems with a non-
speciesist account of moral standing. The upshot is that fans of Yoga can claim, with
good reason, that devotion to the Lord is the means to freedom.
Fifth, while John Stuart Mill, the awkward Utilitarian, is often regarded as a
trailblazer for feminism and minority rights, Mill’s philosophy in large measure
supports the ugly side of Western culture: speciesism, paternalism, and imperialism.
The progressive and ugly sides to Mill’s thought are in tension with each other.
Yoga is a coherent philosophy that is truly liberal, without speciesism, paternalism,
or imperialism. We can get rid of the tension in Mill with a little Yoga. But this
means abandoning naturalism and empiricism in favor of nonnaturalism and yoga
rationalism (jñāna-ism).
2. EXPLICATION, AND INTERPRETING

THE YOGA SŪTRA
I decided to translate the YS (Patañjali 2008) because I found the usual attempts
insufferable because they are interpretations and not explications. Here I will briefly
state the case against interpretation and for explication that informs my translation
of the YS.
Interpretation holds that to interpret some package, perspective or philosophy P
is for the interpreting subject S to I:
• use S’s reasons (or if you prefer, “premises,” “assumptions,” “beliefs,”
“truths,” and even “tradition”) rS in the explanation of P (cf. Gadamer 1996;
Davidson 2001b, 2001a).
Interpretation makes the explanation of third-party perspectives contingent on first-
party reasons such that the former are subsumed under the latter. Those who make a
case for interpretation have to collapse a distinction between a belief that P and P, but
“I believe P,” and “P” have different truth conditions and while the latter is true insofar
as it corresponds to what is objective, the former is true if I simply believe P. Because
interpretation collapses the distinction between perspectives, interpretation needlessly
problematizes understanding perspectives that are not yours. The problems with this
approach are many. One serious problem is that it is irrational. Valid inferences are
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PATAÑJALI’S UNIVERSAL ETHICS OF AUTONOMY 179
not the same as what you believe is true, and hence interpreters who rely upon their
beliefs will confuse what is reasonable with what is compelling. Whereas an account
of P should be reasonable, the interpreter will want it to be compelling. This renders
the acknowledgment of deep and serious disagreement impossible: all opinions are
intelligible by virtue of one’s own beliefs on this account and hence there can be no
serious alternative to what one believes as an interpreter. (An interpreter who assumes
a Western backdrop, for instance, might conclude that Indian discussions of mokṣa
cannot be contributions to philosophical discussions on freedom, for Indian beliefs
about mokṣa do not correspond or match Western conceptions of freedom.) There
are numerous other problems with interpretation, but this is fatal. When the goal is to
read and study other people’s perspective, a methodology that draws no boundaries
between first-and third-person perspectives is a failure. It does no good to interpret
by proxy (via a commentary, for instance) for the same error persists.
What we need is a methodology that pries apart first-person reasons—what
is believed—from third-person reasons so that we are free to disagree with third
party reasons, and this method would have to discern the proposition of third-party
interest on its own apart from their or our attitude of assent or dissent. This would
allow us to discern the content that we are free to agree or disagree with. Such a
method would ensure that our first-party reasons are not employed as justification
for third-party reasons. This method rests on treating objectivity, and not merely
truth, as what guides inquiry. Truth is the property of successful representations
and objective truth represents what is objective. What is objective, in contrast, is
what we can disagree about from differing perspectives as we can disagree about
the appearance of objects in public space from differing perspectives. So objective
truth about third-party reasons will be truths about what we can disagree about.
The method that allows us to pull this feat off asks us to understand a third-party
perspective as explaining its own opinions—the kind we can disagree about. I call
this method explication. It is basic to academic pedagogy and research in philosophy.
To explicate a perspective P—augustly called a “philosophy”—about a topic t,
is to E:
• discern the reasons rP that constitute P, which explain P’s use of “t” and
to arrive at a systematization of rP that explains the uses of “t.” The
systematization of rP that entails P’s t-claims is P’s theory of t. The reasons rP
may be what P explicitly says, or what is entailed by P.
So, for instance, if I explicate your perspective P on morality, I look to your P
to provide reasons that explain your use of the word “morality.” The simplified
explanation is your theory of morality that entails your use of “morality.” When
I line up theories of morality I can further identify what is objective about these
theories: this is what they disagree about. This disagreement is the concept MORALITY.
I can apply the same line of reasoning to Indian texts and attempt to understand
each perspective as providing reasons for its terms “dharma” or “mokṣa” and
what theories of dharma and mokṣa converge on (respectively) while disagreeing
are the concepts of DHARMA and MOKṢA. It turns out that if I follow these threads
180
I will discover that “dharma” and “ethics” articulate competing theories about the
same concept: THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. Similarly, I will discover that “freedom” and
“mokṣa” articulate competing theories about the same concept: the ABSENCE OF
COERCION.
Explications of texts are objective because it does not matter what one believes: if
one follows this procedure one can converge on the same reading with another
explicator for the evidence in favor of a reading is internal to the text. Interpretation
makes the reasons and evidence about the subject doing the interpreting. Good
explications render a text’s philosophy transparent, but the transparency has to do
with the reasons of a perspective that account for itself. But the reasons so understood
explain the perspectives’ take on a controversy, such as ethics. In the case of good
philosophy we will arrive at a theory of t that entails the perspective’s uses of “t.”
Explication also has the added advantage of allowing us to be critical of
philosophers. As explication tracks explanations of the uses of “t” we are free to
compare these uses of “t” with mentions of “t” by the author, and if they do not
match up, then something is amiss. For instance, if we notice that a certain theory
explains your uses of “morality” but this theory does not accord with your opinion
about what you mean by “morality,” we have thereby provided evidence that you are
mistaken about your own theory of morality. Moreover, we can use this to criticize
secondary sources. If it turns out that the explication of the YS reveals a moral
theory M but we find that commentators believe that the YS holds another moral
theory, we have grounds for prying the commentary apart from the primary text.
As for the YS, it was elucidated by at least two differing and influential figures—
Vyāsa (Patañjali 1971 [circa 300 CE]) and Śaṅkara (2001 [circa 1400 CE]). The
former articulated a commentary in terms of the school of philosophy called Sāṅkhya,
while the latter articulated a commentary according to a monistic Vedānta. When
the YS is interpreted by proxy, the modern academic cites the authority of an author
(usually Vyāsa) as inferential support for their reading (Bryant 2009: 5). In one case,
the argument is that Patañjali (the author of the YS) is the author of the commentary
attributed to Vyāsa and hence whatever is in that commentary sheds light on what
the YS means (Maas 2013). The YS is one of the most widely translated works of
Indian philosophy and it has been variously interpreted, and it is not uncommon to
find scholars claiming that all there is to YS scholarship is a matter of reading it by
commentaries (White 2014; cf. Ranganathan 2016).
One of the problems with the proliferation of interpretations is that it gives
the impression that there is nothing objective about the YS—it is interpretation all
the way down. But the reason for the proliferation of interpretations of the YS
is ironic. The philosophy of Yoga is as far as one can get from the idea that we
should take our own beliefs and interpretations seriously. The main theme of the
philosophy is that we should still our attitudes (vṛttis) about thoughts (citta) and that
we should criticize identifying with our beliefs. We do this by removing our thoughts
from attitudes so that we can analyze their content away—the content itself are
perspectives that we can take on objects of inspection. Thought so understood is
the antithesis of what you believe, and any attempt to understand this philosophy
181
by interpretation is to understand the perspective that lies outside the explanatory

resources of interpretation. Attempts to interpret such a philosophy will come up
against the wall of anti-interpretive philosophy and the output is pure subjective
fancy: the noise of interpretation itself.
Translation on the model of explication has a clear mandate where philosophy
is concerned: to reproduce the flow of considerations and reasons that constitute
the evidential basis of a text’s explanation of its own controversial term usage. As
explication allows us to understand these terms by concepts that are at the heart
of disagreements, then we can and should use terms that express and contend with
the same disagreement across languages. We should hence feel free to translate
“dharma” as “morality” or “ethics.” The equivalence of these terms has to do with
their role in articulating disagreements. This approach to translation is motivated
by a wider insight— almost inaccessible to the interpreter— that translation is
accurate when it reconstructs a text with differing resources along a disciplinary
line, so that the resulting text is equivalent to the original for disciplinary reasons.
Translations of mathematics would hence operate according to different disciplinary
considerations from translations in philosophy or science. Accurate translations on
this approach will have to sacrifice precision insofar as precision is the repeatability
of a measurement, and a translation is not a repetition of the original measurement
of thoughts and a text in the original language. It is the measurement of these objects
with differing resources. When a translation is accurate, it measures the original
thoughts encoded in a text by differing resources: it is imprecise yet accurate. But
philosophy is challenging no matter what language it is in, and a good translation of
philosophy will not save the reader from having to work through the logic of a text.
This is always a challenge if we decide to interpret a philosophical text. Trying to
understand others in terms of yourself is usually a bad idea. The same holds true for
understanding other people’s philosophy.
These ideas have motivated my translation of the YS. What follows is my
explication of the philosophy of Yoga, which I derived by working through the
logic of the text as it explains its own controversial views on philosophical topics
such as ethics. I believe it is both accurate and reasonable, though whether it is
compelling has to do with your beliefs, which are irrelevant to research in the
history of philosophy.
3. YOGA’S PLACE IN MORAL THEORY

The concept of ETHICS/MORALITY is about the good (outcome) or the right (procedure)—
this is objective as we can converge on this within the debate of ethics. Ethical theory is
about THE GOOD OR THE RIGHT (objective likewise). “Dharma” instantiates the concept
of ETHICS in the Indian tradition—objective again, as we can converge on dharma
being about THE GOOD OR THE RIGHT from different positions in the disagreement of
how to use “dharma” in Indian philosophy. I am sure that some might want to claim
that this diagnosis requires some type of interpretation about dharma—we have
182
to assume that some type of disagreement is going on here. This is a mistake. We

discover that by studying Indian philosophy: from differing perspectives, the term
is used differently. In the practice of philosophy, that constitutes a disagreement,
which is to say, a lack of agreement about what “dharma” amounts to. Yet, from this
disagreement, we can converge on its basic conceptual content: it is about outcomes
or procedures. “Dharma” is not alone in having the conceptual content of MORAL or
ETHICAL. “Ṛta” and “vṛtti” are known to have the same objective content (Monier-
Williams 1995: 223, 1010). That the moral implications of these terms are not
always affirmed is largely a function of interpretation.
What differentiates dharma theories is how they account for the relationship
of the good (end or outcome) or the right (means or procedure). Here are two
examples:
1. Consequentialism: the good (ends) justifies the right (procedures).
2. Virtue Ethics: the good (state) conditions the right (action).
Both theories are remarkably alike, so much so that they are often grouped together
as teleological. Then there are two more possibilities:
3. Deontology: the right (procedure) justifies the good (actions).
4. Bhakti (Yoga) Theory: the right causes the good.
Standard textbook accounts of ethics usually include the first three ethical theories,
but to my knowledge, the fourth is absent from the canon of Western philosophy.
The relationship between the two pairs is symmetrical: whereas Consequentialism
and Deontology are accounts of moral justification, Virtue Ethics and Bhakti theory
are accounts of causality. Virtue Ethics is to Consequentialism what Bhakti is to
Deontology: the causal variant. As accounts of the relationship between THE GOOD
and THE RIGHT, they are competitive, and not practically consistent with each other
for they do not all entail each other.
Dharma for the Virtue Theorist is the idea that right (wise choice and action) is
conditioned by the good—a view found in Plato, Aristotle, and Jainism—and this
goodness expresses itself in the character of the exemplary agent. For Virtue Ethics,
if there are a plurality of virtues, then two people acting on differing virtues in the
same context can come to differing practical decisions, and both would be right
(Hursthouse 1996).
Dharma for the Consequentialist is the idea that right is justified by its outcomes.
We find this view in Cārvāka Hedonism, and much of Buddhist ethics according
to Charles Goodman (Fall 2014 Edition, 2009), as well as Bentham, and J. S. Mill.
Two right actions with differing identities can be justified by the same good (such as
happiness) on this account. This is sometimes called the moral symmetry principle
that shows up in classic Consequentialist claims, such as the idea that killing and
letting die have the same moral status.
Dharma for Deontologists is the idea that the right is justified independently of
the good. Famous examples include three Ks: Krishna on Karma Yoga in the Gītā,
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Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, and, of course, Kant. This position is easily misunderstood as the
view that dharma has nothing to do with good outcomes. This is not true. In fact,
Deontologists often define duty in terms of the good (such as Kant’s identification
of duty with the goodwill, Groundwork 3), which leads Deontologists to justify duty
by some other means—such as, respect for the law.
Dharma according to Bhakti is the idea that the right causes the good, where
the good has no independent identity from the right. The good in question is the
perfection of the right. The right, in turn, is defined by an ideal. I call this theory
“Bhakti” because it identifies the right as devotion to an ideal.
“Bhakti” is a term associated with devotional movements of South Asia. Those who
embrace Bhakti embrace devotion to a deity as an ideal, and regard the deity itself as
the proper outcome of this devotion. This outcome is often characterized as mokṣa
(freedom). No doubt, this phenomena has been studied by social scientific means.
Here we are concerned with the logical point, which generalizes. If I am devoted to the
ideal of kindness, I work on behaving kindly. Kindness is an outcome of my devotion.
I instantiate it. If I am devoted to music, I work on behaving musically. Music is the
outcome of my devotion. I instantiate it. In each case, the good outcome is nothing
but the perfection of the practice, understood as devotion to an ideal. It is hence
characterizable as a freedom from a disorder (saṃsāra). There is no extra thing that is
the outcome via devotion: it is the realization of the ideal as real and objective. This is
the difference between the musician and the mere music appreciator: the musician is
devoted to music as the regulative ideal of their practice. The appreciator is not.
The moral theory of the YS is Bhakti. Or, Yoga, the philosophy of the YS, is an
account of how devotion relates to practice: devotion to an ideal defines a normative
practice, and the perfection of this practice is the good. For Patañjali as a principle
theorist of this ethical theory, we talk about ethics ETHICS—“dharma” (III.13-4,46,
IV.29), “ṛta” (I.48), “vṛtti” (I.2)—when practice instantiates ideals.
An important feature of devotion is its radical anti- teleology. For the yogi,
thinking about ends as defining one’s practice puts the cart before the horse. Ends
are not a condition of practice: they are the outcomes of the right practice. We
should hence focus on practice relative to our ideals of practice. Before we know it,
we will be good at our practice, but this is nothing that we can aim for as a matter
of practice. To make goodness a condition of practice or what justifies practice is to
expect the impossible to function as the guide to practice. Goodness (the perfection
of the practice) becomes possible only after we succeed in bringing about the ideal.
It can hence play no role in the characterization of proper practice as something
prior to the good.
4. THE GOOD AS THE OUTPUT OF

THE REGULATIVE IDEAL
The term that Patañjali uses to talk about the right is “sādhana” (practice), which
he understands as a kind of action (kriyā). This is further analyzed into three
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practices of penance/austerities: (tapas), self-study (svādhyāya), and sitting close to

(approximating) the Lord (Īśvara praṇidhāna). These three together are yoga as the
right (YS II.2). The central practice is Īśvara praṇidhāna —sitting close to the Lord
(YS II.45). It is depicted in the YS as the single most efficacious means to succeed in
Yoga and is the only one of the three practices mentioned more than the others. This
superficially puts Patañjali in the Bhakti camp. But it also puts him deeply in this
camp, as lordliness is the regulative ideal of the right on Yoga’s account, which we
bring about by Yoga, which is devotion to the Lord. In being devoted to the Lord,
I act in a manner that is lordly. The Lord is the outcome. I instantiate it.
The Lord is a special person, untouched not only by afflictions, but also by karma
(YS I.24, cf. IV.34). Linguistically, “karma” means ACTION. Philosophically, it is the
concept of the consequences of our choices. This is to depict action as intentional
and goal oriented—the twentieth-century notion of ACTION is this (cf. Anscombe
1963). To be untouched by karma is to be unconstrained by past choices. This is
to be unconservative. To be devoted to the Lord is to conform to this moral ideal
of being anti-conservative (untouched by karma) and untroubled (untouched by
affliction). My practice of yoga is the effort to approximate the Lord. My lordliness
is the outcome. I thereby instantiate the Lord. And yet, just like any regulative ideal,
the Lord retains a distinct identity, allowing me always to push the boundaries of my
freedom, and not rest on my past successes. This makes the Lord one’s savior from
imperfection.
This seems like a theistic idea, but Theism, which depicts God as good, depicts
God as the primary virtuous agent. Here, the Lord is depicted as right. Whereas
the goodness of God renders God at odds with the reality of evil, the rightness of
the Lord is consistent with evil. However, as it is the regulative ideal of practice,
emulating the Lord brings about a change in us and our lives: this change becomes
good as we perfect our practice. Hence, in conditions in which goodness is in short
supply, Yoga’s devotionalism provides a way to do the right thing, which brings about
positive results. In comparison to the other three moral theories, Bhakti or Yoga is
the only theory that does not define (Deontology), justify (Consequentialism), or
explain (Virtue Ethics) the right in terms of the good; hence among the four options
it would be the only live option if goodness was suppressed.
Could there be versions of Bhakti (devotionalism) to the Lord that is not also
yoga? Such a theory would have to claim that being devoted to a regulative ideal
results in good outcomes, but this goodness is not the perfection of the practice
defined by the ideal. This would be a paradoxical position. I am not sure that anyone
in the Indian tradition really holds this view. At any rate, for the purposes of the
YS and discussing Indian moral theory, we can identify the two terms of devotion
and yoga.
As you approximate this ideal we find Patañjali describing proper procedure
in Yoga in terms of self-control, self-governance, and self-mastery (metaphorically
described as svarūpevasthānam/“abiding in one’s form” (YS I.3), svarūpa-pratiṣṭhā/
“standing on one’s form” (YS IV.34), and more literally sva-svāmī/“own mastery”
(YS II.22)—essential features of lordliness. The Lord is the one who is master of their
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own destiny, and this links the Lord analytically to self-governance. The term that
the YS uses to talk about perfected practice as the outcome of practice is the term
for independence or autonomy: kaivalya (YS II.25, IV.34). This is literally translated
as “Isolation.” As someone who instantiates lordliness in a state of kaivalya, I am set
off from not only external influence, but also my past, which no longer defines me.
Patañjali also talks about the good of yoga (the perfection of the practice) as a
kind of virtue called samādhi (absorption). Samādhi is the fruit of yogic practice: a
state where one has an experience of trouble abating. The chief of such states of
absorption is the state characterized by a lack of selfishness (akusīdasya—literally
“without usury” or a return on investment): the ethical state of absorption (YS IV.29).
The idea of selfishness is a theme in the YS. Selfishness is the identification of
the self with contingencies—not with devotion to the ideal. Patañjali speaks of such
selfishness as asmita—egotism: “Egotism consists in conflating the power of the seer
(that is, the puruṣa) with the natural powers of perception into a single (conception
of a) self ” (YS II.6). When we are selfish we understand the world via contingencies
of life that we treat as mental representations. The reason this undermines us is that
it limits us to a perspective (YS II.17). Yet, insofar as we do not untie ourselves from
our perspective, we create mental-representation that blocks our engagement with
reality (YS IV.4).
4.1. The Three Parts of the Right

There are three components of the Right (sādhana) according to Patañjali and they
are uncovered via an analysis of devotion to the Lord.
The Lord is our teacher because it is “unbounded by time” (kālenānavacchedāt;
YS I.26). It is the first teacher of teachers (YS I.24–5). The Lord is an abstraction,
universal—an ideal. Being devoted to the Lord means taking responsibility for the
Lord. In being devoted to the Lord as a regulative ideal, we become our own Lord.
Aside from Īśvara praṇidhāna (being proximate to the Lord), the practice of yoga
consists of self-study (svādhyāya) and penance (tapas). Together they are an analysis
of the Right. To study the self is to meditate on the self. This hence relies on the
analysis of meditation—yoga—at the start of the YS:
• Yoga—meditation—is the normative control (vṛtti-nirodha) of what we are

aware of (citta). Or, it is the criticism (nirodha) of our beliefs (citta vṛtti)
(YS I.2).
Accordingly, to learn is to control what one learns. To control is to protect, and

keep unmolested. When we employ this methodology in research, the seer can abide
in its essence (YS I.3). The reason that control is important is that in failing to
control what we contemplate, we are bound to it (YS I.5), and cannot appreciate its
objectivity from a number of perspectives. Against the YS’s account of knowing and
learning, self-study is self-control or self-governance.
The linguistic meaning of tapas has to do with the production of heat. To produce
heat is to work against resistance: tapas is friction. To push against boundaries is to
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buck against status quo. Tapas is hence the practice of anti-conservativism. When we
perform penance, we display our own autonomy in contrast to mere objects that do
not. Penance (tapas) is closely related to self-governance (svādhyāya): indeed, the
latter seems to be a condition of penance.
Now we are in a position to observe the following:
• When we practice penance (tapas), we remove ourselves from the influence
of past choices by being anti-conservative.
• When we practice self-control (svādhyāya), we are not afflicted by outside
influences.
The Lord is the person free of consequences of past choices and afflictions, and so
in practicing penance and self-control, we bring about our own lordliness. Īśvara
praṇidhāna, devotion or proximity to the Lord, would appear to take these two
practices as its objects. Hence, the description of the right as the three practices of
devotion to the Lord, self-control, and penance (YS II.1) is a kind of analysis of what
it is to be devoted to lordliness—one that if we practice, we succeed in our own
freedom. Our lordliness (sva-svāmi; YS II.23) comes down to an unconservative,
self-mastery.
4.2. Freedom vs. Determinism: The Metaphysics of Morals

Conservativism ties us to a perspective and thereby manufactures the status quo.
Yoga as unconservatism and self-governance deconstructs the status quo. One way
to stifle the radical implications of the YS is to interpret it via alternate philosophies
that deny moral freedom, or the value of ethics. Another way to stifle its radical
implications is to treat it as a book about tradition. Combine the two, and one
can lean on traditional interpretations via competing philosophical schools (that
deny pride of place to ethics) such as Vyāsa’s Sāṅkhya gloss or and Advaita Vedānta
(Śaṅkara 2001) as a surefire means to reassert conservativism.
Whereas the basic text of Yoga is the YS, the basic text of the Sāṅkhya tradition
is the Sāṅkhya Kārikā (SK). Both texts understand reality as explainable by two
principles: nature, causality, determinism (prakṛti); and persons, freedom, the
non-natural, and normative (puruṣa). Both agree that nature, in turn, has three
capacities: the inert or tamas, the active or rajas, and the cognitive or sattva (SK
12–13, cf. 21, YS II.18). Both apparently take a pluralist approach to the question
of the numerosity of persons. This is explicitly affirmed in the SK (18) and implicit
in the YS (I.24) discussions of the Lord as a distinct person (puruṣaviśeṣa). But the
similarities end here.
The difference between the texts is found when we follow their respective views
on ethics (dharma). The YS, as noted, expresses the idea that yoga is only successful
when it is ethical. The absorption in ethics is the perfection of practice that yields
our independence (YS IV.29–34). In other words, it is not any kind of practice that
gains our independence, but ethical practice in particular. The Sāṅkhya Kārikā, in
contrast, has a very different account of independence and ethics. On its view, ethics
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only leads to meritorious outcomes, but not to freedom (SK 44–45). Freedom is
not anything that people can bring about. Rather, it is nature (prakṛti) that is not
only bound, on this account, but also liberated. Freedom is rather an insight into
the distinction between nature and personhood, made possible by nature’s own
transformation—not one’s effort (SK 62).
The Sāṅkhya Kārikā rejects the relevance of ethics to freedom. It even rejects
the idea that freedom is a practical consequence that you can bring about. It is all
causality or nature at play. The Sāṅkhya system is hence a kind of hard determinism,
critical of the idea that personal freedom makes a positive change. All the happenings
of reality are fully a function of the causes, and have nothing to do with personal
freedom.
What is an alternative to hard determinism? Compatibilism. According to a
Compatibilism, moral freedom is metaphysically consistent with determinism.
In Yoga, persons (freedom) are consistent with nature (determinism), but this
compatibility can go either well or poorly. When it goes poorly, nature rides
roughshod over persons. When it goes well, persons treat the challenge of the life
well-lived as the challenge of controlling nature (including their mind and body) so
that their freedom is paramount. The Compatibilism of the YS sheds light on why
freedom is conceptualized as autonomy, or “isolation” (kaivalya). For Compatibilism,
freedom consists in the absence of external impediments (cf. Hobbes, Leviathan
XXI). Isolation from nature, the goal of Yoga, is a description of what it is like to
lack external impediments. Yoga is the normative theory of Compatibilism insofar
as its goal of isolation is just the goal of freedom on a Compatibilist model. But this
renders it a version of moral nonnaturalism.
Moral nonnaturalism identifies morality apart from states of nature. Isolation is
not a state of nature, but a nonnatural state of unconservative, self-governance cut
off from a person’s own past and external impediments. This is the ideal state of
personhood, rendered consistent with, and not limited by, nature. This ideal state
shows us the following:
• A person is their normative or ethical interests, not their natural
contingencies.
If this is true, my appearance, species, and sexuality do not define me, but they
present features of my life that I must bring under my own unconservative control.
From this follows:
• Disease, or an injury of any kind, is not merely a natural evil but also a moral
evil, for limiting our isolation from nature.
On this score, we have the same explanation of illness and vice: they impede the
virtue of freedom, which is isolation from determinism. Anything that ties us down
is such a hindrance. Here we see that it can be characterized morally too: illness,
like vice, is conservative. It retains and holds on to contents of experience (such
as pathogens, and toxins) bundled up with us, in a manner that undermines our
freedom.
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Patañjali elaborates on this theme at length. In ordinary parlance, memory

is treated as a virtue, and to be able to remember is far better than losing one’s
memory. But the idea of memory or tradition (smṛti) is identified by Patañjali with
saṃskāra (YS. IV.9)—tendency impression, pre-judgment. The only difference
between the two is that one is conscious (memory), and the other is dispositional
and often subconscious (saṃskāra). It is hence accurate to think of the latter
as prejudice, but memory is virtually the same thing (though its phenomenal
character may differ). Both have their roots in past choices (karma) to identify
with experiences. This is the root cause of affliction (kleśa; YS II.12). Memory—
tradition, and our cognitive tendencies—so understood is not true of the present,
and it may not even be true of the past. Moreover, memory/pathological tendencies
are egotistical: they identify a person with their means of sensing the world. They
tie us to a kind of portable perspective—a virtual prison we run by past choice,
effaced by the representational content of memory. Ethics, dharma, our freedom
from external influence, is freedom from this portable prison. It is the perfection
of the right: kaivalya.
There are many commentators of the YS who read its claims about isolation, and
proceed to draw implausible conclusions. On one account, when we are interested
in isolation, we are interested in a selfish end (Bharadwaja 1984). This reading
involves ignoring the text itself, where Patañjali states that isolation comes about
when we get rid of selfishness (YS IV.29–34). Patañjali is critical of egocentrism,
and he has nothing good to say about violence and antisocial behavior. Indeed, the
very condition of bringing about one’s own freedom is a list of moral ideals—the
Great Vows—which are about respecting other people’s interests (YS II.30).
For instance, Yohanan Grinshpon claims that “Yoga requires that the person
disintegrate; it seeks separation of the subject from object, and consequent dissolution”
(2002: 1). The YS constitutes a criticism of nature, not persons. While nature must
disintegrate as a defining factor of our lives, it must disintegrate in the face of our
nonnatural essence! The idea that it is the person that must somehow disintegrate is
an interpretation of the YS. It has no grounding in an explication of the text.
Objectivity, according to the YS, is the property of being observable from more
than one perspective and the disagreement in descriptions of an object are a function
of the differing perspectives from which they are true (YS IV.15). This is objectivity
symbolized as a conch. This is a respectable notion of objectivity: it accounts for
what distinguishes objects in public space from illusions.
ISOLATION is the idea of being separate from the wider environment. But whatever
is isolated from the wider environment sets up objective boundaries that allow us to
see it from all possible perspectives. Isolated people are objective people.
This is perhaps the key idea of the YS, and why it should be taken seriously as a
response to moral skepticism. Moral skepticism is motivated by the idea that moral
value is subjective, and that there is no objective evidence for it (Mackie 1977). In
the case of people there is objective evidence of value: our freedom. When we are
free from natural influence, we are observable from multiple (all) perspectives. This
is moral value made real, which comes about via devotion to the ideal.
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Disease, on the other hand, is a free rider that highjacks personal objectivity. The
result is that it deprives us and eventually others of a perspective on us: incapacitated,
fatigued, consciousness lost, we are deprived of a perspective on ourselves, and
when this is total, others no longer find us either and we are pronounced dead. At
the very least, disease binds us to a perspective (such as the one from our bed that
we cannot leave) and this undermines our reality as something that can be seen from
any other perspective than bedridden. So long as we can maintain our perspective
on ourselves, we, with others, ensure our own objectivity. Disease tries to take us
out of the picture. Yoga is the project of putting ourselves back into the picture via
unconservative, self-governance.
5. THE PUBLIC PRACTICE OF PERSONHOOD

According to Mikel Burley, there is nothing ethical about the YS (2014: 226).
He claims that while Sāṅkhya and Yoga are methodologically different, citing the
commentaries, there is little different about their metaphysics (Burley 2007: 48).
Against the mass of Sāṅkhya-inflected commentarial opinion (starting with Vyāsa),
reading the moral philosophy of the YS for its own reasons seems “idiosyncratic”
(Burley July 2012). He would hence rather depict both schools in light of
Phenomenology and Kant (Burley 2007: 56–71). This approach is dismissive of
the ethical differences of Yoga and other schools of philosophy. Moreover, it is
interpretation and not an explication: it depends on Burley’s opinions (and what he
believes is relevant), and not the YS text as constituting an explanation of its own
controversial term usage. But, and more importantly, it is mistaken: the difference
between Compatibilism and Hard Determinism is a major metaphysical difference,
but one that lines up with the methodological differences between Yoga as we find
it in the YS and Sāṅkhya of the SK that have practical consequences. Such practical
differences are differences of moral theory.
When we look to the YS, Patañjali not only analyzes Yoga as practice into three
central concerns (Īśvara praṇidhāna, svādhyāya, and tapas) geared toward the
perfection of the practice (kaivalya), but also describes in great detail the progress
as the Eight Limbs of Yoga.
When Patañjali sets out his Eight Limbs of Yoga for bringing about success in
Yoga, he starts not with the central practices of Yoga, but with five political ideals.
He calls these the “Great Vows” (mahāvrata), and also the “Yama” rules. It consists
of five goals: abstaining from harm, truthfulness, abstinence from theft, sexual
restraint, and unacquisitiveness (YS II.30). This is the first limb of yoga.
First Limb: The order is important. Before truth, and first among the goals, is
ahiṃsā—non-harmfulness. Why does this come before truth? Well, we have seen
what a substantive approach to research (interpretation) does: it introduces bias as
a condition of knowledge. It defines the world according to one’s perspective, and
on a Yogic account this is not good for you as it restricts your mobility and freedom
to take up diverse and divergent perspectives. But, more importantly, several truths
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are inconsistent with your autonomy. Illness and tyranny can be true, but they are
not good for you. A commitment to truth over non-harmfulness is conservative: it
protects the status quo. Putting non-harmfulness first is to privilege objectivity
over truth: when we do not harm, we allow for the objectivity of things in our
environment, including ourselves and other people, as self-determining objects in
the world. The truths of the world change, from one of tyranny to social freedom.
We are hence free to endorse the following ideals of respecting people’s property,
their sexual boundaries, and not being encumbered by stuff.
The primacy of ahiṃsā over truth involves a radical politics of transformation.
Patañjali notes that when we preempt antagonism and allow for peace, we are
in a position to perceive the moral character of all things, and understand their
transformations as part of a larger dynamic public context (YS III.12–14). This
clashes with a public perception of Yoga as a pastime of leisure.
As Bindu Puri notes in her Tagore-Gandhi Debate on Matters of Truth and Untruth
(2015: 36) there are over 200 references to the YS and “Bhagwan Patañjali” in the
Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. M. K. Gandhi gives credit to Patañjali for
coming up with the idea of ahiṃsā (1947: vol. 59, 494) that was central to his
ethics, but his politics of Satyagraha (direct action) is a page (or a few sūtras) out
of the YS. In response to the challenge and opposition posed by those who would
advocate tyranny and violence (the opposite of ahiṃsā), Patañjali argues that the
yogi should appreciate that the source of this antagonism is past suffering, and not
a well-reasoned argument. The way to get the tyrant to renounce their hostility is
to live in a contrary manner via ahiṃsā (YS II. 33–35)—this permits the mutual
objectivity of the antagonist and the yogi, and hence the mutual self-determination
of all parties. This was Gandhi’s strategy to gain India’s kaivalya (independence).
After ahiṃsā (a respect for objectivity) that constrains truth is a prohibition against
theft. Certainly, the idea seems to be that we should not take from others what they
have gained via ahiṃsā or truth. Next is sexual restraint: brahmacarya. This term is
often used in Indian settings to mean the sexual abstinence of students, and perhaps
this is all that is meant. When we are trying to get to know others, we should probably
keep our hands to ourselves as part of a respectful encounter that allows for the
other person to reveal who they are. I am not sure that one can deduce an absolute
prohibition against sex from this value. The idea that in pedagogical contexts it pays to
keep one’s libido in check is not the same as the claim that one should never have one.
The final value is non-acquisitiveness (aparigraha). If freedom of movement is
what we want, then it is clear why acquisitiveness is a bad thing: it limits our mobility.
Taken together with the prohibition against stealing, it seems that the YS provides
reason to protect personal property, and to be somewhat suspect of absolute rights
to private property (capital). At the very least, it would seem that these values dictate
that private property cannot be used to stifle the personal mobility of the wage
laborer or investor. Marxists would find some sympathy here, but would also find
opposition to humanism from the yogi. Ahiṃsā applies to people, not just humans.
Patañjali describes this first limb (Yama) as a Great Duty (Mahāvrata) “to be followed
throughout the world, irrespective of station at birth, country or place, time or custom”
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(YS II.31). What is remarkable about this limb is that it describes the condition of the
practice of Yoga in terms of public obligations. This sets the tone: yoga is something we
practice in a public world. Our isolation is our freedom from determinism in this public
world. Gandhi, for his part, calls these the “cardinal virtues” (1947).
Second Limb: The next limb consists in five observances (niyama; YS II.32). Of
these, three are the three central practices of Yoga (YS II.1), along with two extra
observances: purity and contentment. Purity is a commitment to the practice (YS
II.40), and contentment is being satisfied with the results (YS II.42).
Tapas (the practice of austerities) is the most famous and celebrated. Take a yoga
class, and this is what you will do. But tapas is more than just physical exercise. It is
pushing personal boundaries of the status quo past our natural limits (YS II.43). It is
the practice of anti-conservativism.
The second practice of Yoga is self-study (svā-dhyāya). If studying oneself is a
kind of meditation, and if meditation is controlling one’s relationship to objects
of meditation (YS I.2–4), then self-study is self-governance. Whereas tapas is
geared toward challenging the status quo, svā-dhyāya yields a bond with our
chosen deity or ideals (iṣṭa devatā; YS II.44). This is often understood theistically,
as though self-study results in a bond with a God other than oneself, but if
we take seriously the claim that self-study is self-governance, then we are our
own God and the bond to it is our self-governance (or at the very least, we are
responsible for the ideals we set). The third practice of Yoga is approximating
(sitting close to) Īśvara. This is the idea of rendering Īśvara (the Lord) one’s
regulative ideal. It is the cumulative result of pushing one’s natural boundaries
and self-governance. The other two observances that are included in the second
limb are purity and contentment. Purity is about being averse to what is contrary
to Yoga. Contentment is a satisfaction with the practice of Yoga. The former is
our commitment to yoga, and the latter is finding reward in the practice—both
important so that we stick with the practice.
Third Limb: The first limb is explicitly political and social: it is a public declaration
of yogic ideals that draws sharp personal boundaries that constitute personal rights. The
second limb focuses on the individual’s transformative practices. The third limb, āsana,
is identified by the term for sitting or posture. This too is something we do in a public
world. Patañjali identifies it as the state characterized by the twin accomplishments of
endless effort and continual relaxation. This is an active state of the practice of yoga,
where it becomes second nature. This state of occupying the zone of yoga would not be
possible without the first limb, which converts the world into a place friendly to people,
and the second limb, which converts the individual into a practitioner of yoga.
Fourth Limb: The fourth limb is prāṇāyāma, which is widely understood as
“breath control.” It is common for yoga teachers to impart techniques of breath
control when studying this limb. Breathing is also something we do in public spaces.
There is no such thing as private breath. If our breath were made fully private,
we would suffocate. Meditating on breathing—breath control—teaches us that we
are continuous with the public world. Hence, to appreciate breathing “discards the
subject matter of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ ” (YS II.51). For ethics, this implies that a
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selfish approach to life is self-defeating: the air that we breathe is a public resource,
and our personal interests are continuous with public resources.
Fifth Limb: The fifth limb of pratyāhāra is the idea of the withdrawal of the
senses from objects, but the correlative abstraction of objects from beliefs (citta).
This puts the senses under the control of the “ultimate” (YS II.54–55). This seems
to be a very mysterious process—until we recall philosophy and pure mathematics.
Ignoring empirical data is the first step of critical thought, as the data is often cooked
up by underlying assumptions and nefarious political motives. Hence, in philosophy
we do not conduct surveys, or ethnographies, to figure out what the good and the
right is. This sets the stage for the three further limbs, which Patañjali calls, together,
the perfect constraint (saṃyama)
Limbs Six through Eight: The last three limbs are dhāraṇā (concentration,
focus), dhyāna (moving continuity of experience), and samādhi (liberating states,
movement). Taken together, their purpose as a meditational continuity is to allow
the meditater to overcome their servitude to what they contemplate.
The main task of these last three is to overcome prejudices: saṃskāras—tendency
impressions (YS III.18). The trouble with these self-identified experiences is that
they constitute a filter through which we mediate future experiences. When
we come into contact with new experiences of the same kind as the saṃskāra,
the new experience is treated as confirmation of the veracity of the saṃskāra.
But the initial identification with the experience is frequently pathological, and
confirming its veracity is a means of retaining the initial pathology. Even if it is
not overtly painful, it constitutes a limitation on our self-understanding. What
we need to do hence is not believe the saṃskāra, but treat it as an object of
inquiry. We hence focus on it (dhāraṇā), discern what follows from it (dhyāna),
and become absorbed in analysis (samādhi). The case is very much like evaluating
the validity of an argument: we do not believe the premises; we rather focus
on them as a means of discerning whether the conclusion follows from them.
This is the foundation for the hypothetical deductive methodology in natural
science: by understanding what follows from a hypothesis, we are in a position
to confirm the outcome or falsify the hypothesis. This gives rise to natural
knowledge. Patañjali describes this methodology at length in his third book of
Powers. His idea seemed to be that natural powers too can be derived from this
critical methodology. This is all well and good, but it only liberates us if we can
transcend our own perspective in evaluation. Otherwise we are stuck (YS III.38,
52). To transcend one’s own perspective is to treat criticism as something that
does not rely on assumptions, tradition, or memory. We rather must awaken to
social reality, where individuals are not defined by their perspectives. This is our
perfection of critical practice. The only analysis (samādhi) that does this is the
dharma-megha-samādhi: the analysis of ethical cleansing (YS IV.29). Then we are
free and abide in our epistemic freedom for we are not defined by a perspective.
To ignore the thoroughgoing morality of this would be to ignore that the Eight
Limbs of Yoga from start to finish is an elaboration of the right, whose perfection is
the good. This ignorance is encouraged by interpretation.
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6. UNIVERSAL ETHICS
The title of this chapter brings attention to a theme in the YS: universal ethics is the
formal cause of autonomy. A universal is an abstraction, something not specifiable
in terms of particulars. The Lord is this universal. It is an abstraction from me,
an individual, but it thereby subsumes me. To the extent that it does, I instantiate
it. This is my freedom. To engage in the process of critical self-reflection where
I understand the ideal as something separate from me but worthy of my aspirations
makes possible a life that rearranges the status quo. This is the ethics of the YS. As
it is based on a universal, it is a universal ethic: something that is applicable not to
merely me, but to everyone. Given yoga, the status quo becomes deconstructed,
and analyzed, like so many arguments whose only force is to claim: because things
were like this before, they have to continue to be this way. This is not true, but poor
reasoning too. Yet, this is the force of prejudice (saṃskāra) when believed.
One objection that arises at this point is that Yoga so understood is completely
consistent with ethical egoism. This is a mistake: lordliness is unconservative, but
ethical egoism is conservative as it wants to rely on the status quo of one’s preferences.
Another objection is that this approach to ethics is not ethical because it makes no
room for altruism. This is a bit misleading insofar as the moral ideal—the Lord—is
nothing proprietary and is by definition unconservative. Someone who is motivated
to approximate the Lord may be very helpful, but they are likely not inclined to
think that charity is worth the ethical effort. The problem with thinking about ethics
as charitable action is that it leaves, untouched, the underlying structures of the
world that gives rise to poorly lived lives, and applies charity as a bandage. Worse,
ethical satisfaction with charity is to be happy with bandage treatments. The yogi
would rather deconstruct the structure of injustice as part of her own tapas that
permits her svā-dhyāya. Distributive justice should give way to generative justice,
where people are free to generate the requirements of their life in a personal world.
Another concern is that ethics, so understood, does not say anything about
humans. True. But that is because ethics is about people, and humans are just one
kind of person. If personhood were a category of zoology, species would be relevant.
Personhood is rather nonnatural. Whereas natural laws govern natural things,
personal laws of norms and obligations govern persons. The YS is an elaboration
of what personal laws look like. One might parlé this criticism into the claim
that Yoga makes no room for special obligations of kin, livelihood, or friendship.
But the yogi’s view is that the condition of these obligations are clear personal
boundaries: kaivalya. So until we can self-govern, or be isolated, we do not make
very useful or reliable friends, employees, or relations. Those who want to have
relations without kaivalya are parasites.
Another misgiving is that the kind of ethics set out by the YS is something that
only humans can engage in, and not other animals like dogs or cats. I find this kind
of objection question-begging. It assumes that capacities define people. That is part of
the problem according to Yoga. If that were true, my diseases—even those endowed
as matter of genetic constitution—would define me. What really defines me are
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my interests as a person to be self-determining and unconservative—interests that

determine my thriving—which I share with other animals, the Earth, and many other
species of persons. Second, if we give people the room to be people, we find that
they often start to live the virtuous life: nonharm, faithfulness to the uncoerced facts,
respecting property, not hoarding, and sexual restraint (the Great Vows) are constraints
we hope to and often do see in others—whatever their species. Successful relationships
usually involve one party exemplifying these virtues, and often it is the nonhuman
who does. Ethical theories that look to language as thought and hence humans as the
only thinking creatures, problematize our relationship with people, and confuse what
we have in common. According to the YS, thought is the control of representation for
the sake of inquiry. Successful people (dog, snake, or human) control representation
to navigate the world they live in and to gain new information. Thinking about
thought in terms of species or language detracts from thought’s usefulness as part of
an intelligent life. Thinking about thought along anthropocentric lines is motivated in
large measure by interpretation. As interpreters must explain everything given their
beliefs, they mistakenly believe that true thoughts about themselves (their humanity or
linguistic ability) are relevant to an explanation of everything.
6.1. Response to Competing Theories

Standard forms of Consequentialism are indifferent to the distribution of utility
(Rawls 1971: 26), and, in maximizing the good, there is no reason to expect that
I will be the beneficiary. But this undermines my own security and capacity to
fulfill my obligations. As well, Consequentialists are vulnerable to manipulation.
The Bad Man—Mara—who holds the gun to the Consequentialist and says, “If
you do not kill two I will kill three” can manipulate the Consequentialist into
doing his bidding, if the Consequentialist understands maximizing beneficence
as the proper outcome of ethics. Her own conscience would lead her to act at
the behest of the Bad Man. Rule-Consequentialists can similarly be manipulated
into formulating suboptimal rules, provided that the scenario is rigged so as to
discourage what goes against the system of tyranny. As Krishna notes in the Gītā,
you do not control the outcome, so justifying action by way of outcomes plays into
the hands of manipulative forces.
Yoga preempts manipulation: we are not trying to justify our action by way of
outcomes, so we are under no obligation to make the best of an externally bad
scenario.
Here too, Yoga has a certain advantage over Deontology. Deontologists typically
define duty in terms of a good, but provide procedural reasons for justifying the
performance of duty. Kant’s various formulations of the Categorical Imperative, for
instance, are examples of this identification of duty with some end, whether this is
Humanity, the Kingdom of Ends, or Natural Laws. The Bad Man has some power to
manipulate the identification of duty via changing the ends that we can realistically
expect from action. The restriction of duty to certain kinds of critters, say humans,
is a prime example of how the external reality of the world structured by the evil
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of anthropocentrism conditions what we can expect from action and what we can
identify as duty.
Virtue Ethicists treat the right as something that follows from the good. But
Virtue Ethicists have a problem: accounting for how imperfect folks like me become
good. We have to do something to inculcate the virtues. This would involve the
right bringing about the good. But this is Bhakti/Yoga: we choose in accordance
with a regulative ideal, and thereby become it. But this is where we are. We have
to work at being virtuous. This is true even for exemplars. Exemplary persons who
instantiate an ideal of their craft, whether it is music or some other ideal, always
hold themselves up for comparison with an ideal. This is not only how they got to
where they are, but also how they continually improve themselves. If this is true,
the practical challenge of a life well lived is not the Virtue Ethics story—where
we act in accordance with the virtues—but the Bhakti story: bringing about self-
improvement by the practical conformity to the regulative ideal. Virtue Ethics is life
lived backwards or perhaps upside down.
Virtue Ethicists have sometimes argued for the importance of moral improvement
by practice, like Yoga. And as the YS teaches ethics, moral education features as an
important part of the Virtue Ethics story of moral improvement. Virtue Ethics so
understood does not have to merely claim that right action follows from the virtuous
agent: they can recommend choices that increase virtues as the yogi does (Annas
2004). These similarities are superficial. Yoga is bootstrapping morality: it does
not assume a program of moral education or virtuous agents for us to model. The
regulative ideal—the Lord—is not a virtuous agent: it is an abstraction from ourselves.
But as an abstraction, it is instructive, and it teaches, but the lessons are generated
by our own practice of being a person. This is useful, for in times of tyranny when
moral guidance is lost, and virtuous agents are persecuted, Yoga provides a way out.
7. FIXING KANT
Kant works out systematically the relationship between moral law and the individual
as a means of resolving the antinomy of freedom and determinism (Groundwork,
97–105, Second Critique 5: 29–30, first Critique A554–556/B582–584). Here is the
argument in a nutshell:
(1) Either agents are free or they are determined (P OR Q), but (AND) they are
not both free and determined (Not (P And Q)).
This is the antinomy. Yet,
(2) Freedom or determinism is an inclusive disjunction, which means that an agent
can be both free, and determined.
This is the rejection of the antinomy by the rejection of the logical constraint: (Not
(P And Q)). But how?
(3) If one is determined by an external force, one is not thereby free.
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(4) To be determined by an internal force is to be free: it is to be self-determined.
Now, the question is: how can one be self-determined?

(5) To be self-determined is to be determined by one’s essence as a human being.
The essence of a human being for Kant is the Categorical Imperative—it is the lowest
common denominator of beings with moral standing. Beings more exalted than us
would be characterized by it, but not those less exalted. To have free will is to be
determined by one’s essential humanity.
Kant’s view is very popular in the Westernized corners of the world, but it is
cruel. On his account the only non-conditional reason we have for caring about
anyone is their humanity. There would be nothing wrong with torturing puppies, on
Kant’s account, if we can keep this from affecting our treatment of humans (Kant
1974: 5: 298–303; 1996: 6: 443; Wood 1998: 194–195). But this gets the account
backwards: humans count because they are people, and people have an interest in
self-determination and freedom from past choices. So do puppies. Humanity counts
only if people count.
What is worse is that, on Kant’s account, it is possible for an individual to choose
their humanity and fail to do the right thing:
Even if, by some special disfavor of destiny or by the niggardly endowment

of step-motherly nature, this will is entirely lacking in power to carry out its
intentions; if by its utmost effort it still accomplishes nothing, and only good will
is left (not, admittedly, as a mere wish, but as the straining of every means so far
as they are in our control); even then it would still shine like a jewel for its own
sake as something which has its full value in itself. (Groundwork 3)
Thomas Nagel notes the following—“[Kant] would presumably have said the same
about a bad will: whether it accomplishes its evil purposes is morally irrelevant”
(Nagel 2007: 355). The problem with this approach, according to Nagel, is that it
avoids responsibility. It allows for the formal moral success without accomplishing
what is right.
There are two problems with this approach according to Yoga. One strikes
at Deontology, the other at Kant. First, the identification of duty with the good
forces a Deontologist to justify duty by some other means. But this other means is
thereby cut off from the good. So for the Deontologist we can formally fulfill the
requirements of morality, without any guarantee of goodness. A Bhakti or Yoga
approach, in contrast, defines THE GOOD as the perfection of THE RIGHT, so it is not
possible to succeed at the right without bringing about the good.
Second, Kant relies on humanity to render us determined by our self and not by
nature. For humanity to fulfill this desiderata, it must be nonnatural (that is, not
part of the external causal nexus) but personal. But humanity is a natural constraint.
Humanity is defined by natural attributes and subject to all the vicissitudes of being
human, which means that, on this account, morality has to make room for our
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foibles as humans. This gets the point of morality backward, as though its job is to
pander to our zoological vices and quirks.
Devotion to the Lord, in contrast, does not accommodate vice, but takes the ideal
as what we have to approximate. What pays the price is our imperfection. But hence,
devotion to the Lord brings about freedom from the contingent limitations such as
the foibles of our species. Devotion (bhakti) to the Lord leads to freedom (mokṣa).
How could this be possible? This seems implausible if we think about the goal as
accommodating our natural commonalities. This panders to the lowest common
denominator. But if we treat the abstract, universal ideal as our moral compass,
then we engage in discipline. Just as musicians and athletes push the boundaries of
what is normal by their devotion to the ideal of music or athleticism, so too does
devotion to the Lord push the boundaries of what it is to be a person resulting in
autonomy—kaivalya.
8. WORKING OUT THE TENSION IN

MILL WITH A BIT OF YOGA
On one hand, Mill is known for the impassioned defense of individual rights, minority
rights, and the rights of women! His On the Subjection of Women is a masterpiece of
feminism and worth the read. In many ways, it is groundbreaking. Mill argues, for
instance, that the evidence we have for what women are like is socially constructed
out of the interests of men, and we cannot rely on empirical data to determine
what woman want or are capable of. We rather must make it possible for women
to participate in public life, so that they can discover their interests and talents for
themselves (Mill 1965). Similar arguments run through On Liberty. Yet Mill noted
that some peoples are too immature for freedom, and require a dictator (such as
Akbar or Charlemagne) to rule them imperiously until they attained a certain degree
of maturity (On Liberty I.10). The root of this imperialist tendency?
Mill has a blanket empirical test for moral questions:
Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience
of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation
to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.
Mill is inconsistent in applying this. He seems to discount the judgment of
people who tried math and prefer a backrub. His view is that anyone who tries
“intellectual” pleasures and sensual ones prefer the former. On the basis of this, he
further infers that the intellectual pleasures are better, and that creatures capable
of appreciating them are more important. Better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied (Utilitarianism ch. 2). The imperialist—someone who has knowledge of
their home culture and that of the colonized—would apparently be in a position
to choose which of the two is the superior pleasure; whereas the colonized—
restricted in their freedom—would not have this knowledge. It does not matter: the
imperialist knows better according to Mill’s test. Little wonder that Mill saw no
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problem earning a living as an officer of British imperialism (Zastoupil 1994; Lal

Accessed October 2014), and thought it a noble vocation (Mill 1861 [Accessed
Fall 2014]: 573–579).
Mill’s empiricism is based on his logic (1882: 1106). Accordingly, deduction,
epitomized by the syllogism, is indebted to induction to generate its major premises
(typically concerned with generalizations) and hence induction is foundational
to reasoning (Mill 1882: II.i, p. 126 and iii, p. 147). Superficially, logic relies
on the generalities of the empirical world. Deeply, this empirical focus leads us
to an “analysis of the mental processes concerned in reasoning” as logic (Mill
1882: 130, n. 51). This is the position of psychologism. If psychologism is correct,
what is reasonable is coextensive with widespread regularities. Psychologism is a
failure (Frege 1894; cf. Frege 1980; Husserl 2001): logic is not about widespread
regularities but normatively constrained thought. It is not identifying with our mind,
but controlling it so that we are free from the influence of prejudice: a point made
by Patañjali in his account of Yoga. However, the problem here for Mill is that his
account of logic and the empirical account of value are at odds with his liberal stand
on individual freedom. In his radical politics he rejects the idea that the widespread
regularities in human thinking are normative. In his logic and conservative politics
he endorses regularities of thinking as rational.
Yoga, with the value it places on kaivalya (freedom, isolation) and its criticism of
saṃskāra (prejudice) made possible by a political commitment to the Great Vows that
respect personal boundaries, provides us an alternative, nonempirical foundation
for the kinds of rights that Mill was interested in—but without the speciesism.
Indeed, the speciesism and the colonialism are based on Mill’s empirical test of
pleasure, which does nothing but confirm the biases of the tester. Critical thinking
is not about acquiescing to subconscious biases or being content with the status
quo. It is yoga: the control of prejudice (saṃskāra) and memory (smṛti)—mental
representation (citta)—for the sake of freedom. Yoga is not paternalism: it is care
properly understood, as what fosters independence. Of course, to think that this is
important in one’s own case only is to slip back into prejudice, conservativism, and
the selfishness that is incompatible with lordliness.
Mill and Utilitarians on the whole might object that for all their problems, at
least they are trying to make a difference. Their view is that we should choose with
ends in mind. So perhaps Mill is mistaken in his formulation of how we should
determine our ends—he is mistaken for reducing this to the preference of those
spoiled enough to have choices. But he is correct that we should choose so as to
bring about increased happiness for all concerned. A collective improvement is a
worthy goal; we should choose so as to bring about collective improvement.
A problem with this response is what might be called the problem of collective
harm: “In a wide variety of cases, people collectively cause harm, or fail to
prevent it, but no individual act seems to make a difference.”1 My choice to
abstain from meat has no impact on factory farming or the killing of animals
for food, and yet this is a collective evil. Similarly, decisions to buy fair-trade
products, or environmentally sustainable products, have no impact on worker
199
exploitation or environmental degradation as these are a matter of collective

harm. Consequentialists who choose by deference to ends should feel discouraged
by this—just as Arjuna at the start of the Bhagavad Gītā feels discouraged by the
prospects of a successful war against evil. The yogi, in contrast, does not define
right action by the end nor does she justify it by the end, nor does she regard it
as the output of the end. So she will engage in the right thing to do, and stick to
it long enough to see results. So perhaps single actions cannot make a difference,
but persistent effort in favor of a cause over the long run can do so. But one
might object that the problem of collective harm is deeper. One way that it is
deeper is that it brings into question any moral theory that relates THE RIGHT to
THE GOOD , for in such cases of the privation of good, we would have no way to
understand right action. But Yoga and Bhakti, in contrast, do not define right
action by the good, but by the regulative ideal, so it provides a way to think
about moral choice even in times of trouble. Moreover, it can galvanize collective
action. Virtue Ethicists need role models, Deontologists need to identify good
action. Yogis are role models of perseverance in the face of challenge, and their
activities are hardly objectionable and constitute what Deontologists can identify
as good behavior that is not justified by the ends. The yogi is a leader because she
does not take goodness as a criterion of her action, but takes the proximity to the
regulative ideal as the criterion of right action. The behaviors that the yogi models
fill a moral void in contexts of collective harm and the privation of goodness that
allows theorists of contrary moral theories to join the cause. Consequentialists—
the Johnny-come-latelies of moral theory—can join the party too, later, when
they feel like their choices will make a difference (because everyone else took
the lead). As far as these behaviors do not cause the evil in question, modeling
these behaviors allows for widespread change in choices, and the diminishment
of collective harm. As the yogi causes no threat to the prevailing practices that
cause evil but merely opts out, she will live peacefully with evil, long enough to
make a difference.
9. CONCLUSION
In understanding the philosophy of Yoga, we have to confront memory/tradition
(smṛti) and prejudice (saṃskāra) for two reasons. First, these factors bind us to a
perspective, and thus constitute an external impediment to our personal freedom.
Second, there has been an inclination to treat the YS as a document of tradition or
one to be interpreted, yet this is ironic. The opening lines of the YS (I.2–4) are an
explicit criticism of interpretation. Discipline, it claims, is about controlling mind—
representation or thought—so that we can abide in our freedom. Representation is
not to be believed, but checked. Failure to do this amounts to an identification with
thought: this is belief. “I believe that P” has a different set of truth conditions from P,
and the confusion between the two results in problems for my freedom to be critical
about P. This undermines our autonomy for it binds us to a perspective. Overcoming
interpretation is part of the challenge of our own freedom.
200
Yoga is India’s unique contribution to moral philosophy. To understand it is

to understand a radical criticism of prejudice, memory, tradition, interpretation,
speciesism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, . . . the list goes on. Each “ism” is created
out of the conflation of a natural category with personhood that we endorse because
we take our perspective too seriously. If we identify personhood with a certain ability,
we create ableism. If we identify personhood with a certain race, we create racism. If
we identify it with heteronormativity, we create heterosexism. Yoga can be critical of
the isms for it identifies personhood with our interests in being undefined by natural
constraints. If persons cannot be defined by natural attributes or constraints, I lose
the ability to privilege the experiences of one group over another. I have no grounds
for discriminating on the basis of natural factors and no reason to denigrate people
because of natural traits, such as sexual preference, age, or species. I rather have to
respect the perfection of personhood—the ideal—as something people have an interest
in, regardless of their natural attributes. Not everything will be a person on the Yoga
account: certainly, life forms that do not thrive when they are independent will not
count. But people thrive when their independence is fostered and protected. We do not
have to regard plants as persons, for instance, for it is unclear how they can be causally
independent of other persons (such as the Earth), and yet thrive. But with most animals,
that is how we are when we are treated with respect. Each one of us defined by our own
unconservative self-governance is the ideal explanation for thriving.
NOTE
1. I am grateful to Julia Nefsky for discussing her views on this topic at a talk at the
York University Philosophy Colloquium series on November 27, 2015. The wording
of collective harm is hers. For a paper on the topic, see Nefsky (2011).
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Russ Shafer-Landau, 355–362, of Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies. Malden,
MA: Blackwell.
Nefsky, Julia. “Consequentialism and the Problem of Collective Harm: A Reply to
Kagan.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 39, no. 4 (2011): 364–395.
Patañjali. 1971 (circa 300 CE). Patañjali’s Yogasūtra, with Vyāsa’s Bhāṣya, Vācaspati
Miśra’s Tattvavaiśāradī, and Vijñānabhikṣu’s Yogavārttika, edited by Ramashankar
Bhattacharya. Varanasi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakarana.
Patañjali. 2008. Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra: Translation, Commentary and Introduction by
Shyam Ranganathan. Black Classics. Delhi: Penguin Black Classics.
Puri, Bindu. 2015. Tagore-Gandhi Debate on Matters of Truth and Untruth.
London: Springer.
Ranganathan, Shyam. “Review of David White Gordon’s the Yoga Sutra of
Patanjali: A Biography.” Philosophy East and West 66, no. 3 (2016): 1043–1048.
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Śaṅkara. 2001. Yogasūtrabhāṣyavivaraṇa. Translated by Trichur Subramanium Rukmani,
2 vols. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
White, David Gordon. 2014. The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali: A Biography. Lives of Great
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Zastoupil, Lynn. 1994. John Stuart Mill and India. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press.
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CHAPTER NINE
Nyāya Consequentialism
KISOR K. CHAKRABARTI
1. INTRODUCTION
Nyāyadarśana or Nyāya (NY) philosophy is one of the six orthodox systems of
Hindu philosophy. Though the main focus of the Nyāya is on logic and epistemology
(and to a lesser extent on ontology), it also contains a theory of what we should do
or what for us is the right thing to do and a theory of why we should do it and what
is good: this is Nyāya ethics. Our brief account of NY ethics is based on the original
Sanskrit sources.
We first turn to the Nyāya Sūtra (NS), the founding work of the Nyāya school
and the oldest available commentary called the Nyāya Bhāṣya (NBH).1 According
to NS 1.1.1, true awareness of 16 topics like sources of knowing, the knowables,
doubt, purpose, the steps of demonstration, the pseudo-probantia, and so on leads
to the highest good. NS 1.1.9 gives a list of 12 knowables, viz., the self, the body, the
external sense organs, the objects (i.e., objects of voluntary action, mainly pleasure,
pain, and their causal conditions), cognitive states, the inner sense, volition, failings,
rebirth, fruits of voluntary actions, suffering, and liberation (NBH 1989: vol. 1, 197).
NBH 1.1.1 glosses that true awareness of the knowables beginning with the self leads
to the highest good (NBH 1989: vol. 1, 22). Thus though knowledge of all 16 topics
listed in NS 1.1.1 is useful for the highest good, knowledge of the knowables such
as the self, the body, volition, failings, and so on are directly relevant to the highest
good. Of the knowables, again, the self is the most important and it is knowledge
of the self that is the most directly relevant to the highest good (though knowledge
of all knowables and indirectly of all 16 topics is useful for that purpose). Although
the role of true awareness as the means to the highest good has wide support across
Indian philosophies, it is significant that for NY knowledge of specifically sources of
knowing, the method of proving, faulty reasons, and so on is critically relevant to the
highest good. As noted later, false beliefs about the self and so on are for NY among
the chief impediments to the highest good. Such false beliefs may be corrected by
reliable beliefs (especially about the knowables above) grounded in accepted sources
of knowing including inference. Accordingly, the study of the appropriate sources
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204 KISOR K. CHAKRABARTI
in which knowledge claims may be based, the fallacies to be avoided in making an

inference, and so on is crucially important for that goal.
What is liberation, the highest good? According to NS 1.1.22 liberation is the
absolute relief from that (NBH 1989: vol. 1, 133). Since the immediately previous
aphorism is devoted to suffering, NBH 1.1.22 takes “that” to stand for suffering
(NBH 1989: vol. 1, 134). Thus liberation is absolute relief from suffering and this
is the highest good.
1.1. Nyāya Ethics: Consequentialism

Similar ideas are voiced in what is often regarded as the sister philosophical school
called “Vaiśeṣika.” The Vaiśeṣika Sūtra (VS),2 the founding work of that school of
philosophy, begins by proclaiming that dharma will be explained (VS 1.1.1). The
word “dharma” (which means what holds or supports) is sometimes used in a
very general sense like the English word “good” and is also often used to mean
“righteousness.” Since the VS proceeds to develop an ontology of all that exists and
also gives an account of righteousness, both senses of dharma are intended in the
above aphorism. In particular, the next aphorism (VS 1.1.2) says that dharma is that
through which there is progress and accomplishment of the highest good (VS 1991: 5).
The commentary called Upaskāra (sixteenth century CE) on VS 1.1.2 explains that
awareness of the truth is progress, absolute cessation of suffering is the highest good,
and dharma is that through which both come; progress (or awareness of the truth) is
the gateway to the highest good (VS 1991: 5). The Padārtha-dharma-saṃgraha (PDS,
fifth century CE?), the second most influential work of this school, says that true
awareness of similarities and differences of the six categories of substance, quality
particular, motion, universal, ultimate differentiator, and inseparable inherence (on
the part of at least one of the two relata) is the causal condition of the highest good
(PDS 1997: 15). This early VS work (among others) mentions God in many places
and emphasizes the importance of generally binding (sāmānya) obligations like
nonviolence, care giving, truthfulness, etc. (and other observances and restraints) as
well as true awareness for achieving the absolute end of suffering as the highest good
(PDS: sṛṣṭisamhāraprakaraṇam, dharmaprakaraṇam, etc). Thus both the Nyāya and
the Vaiśeṣika (both of which are Theistic) agree that the absolute end of suffering
is the highest good and that knowledge is the means to that. This viewpoint is also
supported by the Sāṃkhya, another orthodox Hindu school (though the latter is
Atheistic and offers a different kind of ontology and understanding of knowledge;
Sāṃkhyakārikā with the Tattvakaumudī or TK: 65).3 That knowledge is the means
to the highest good is further the view of Advaita Vedānta (and others), though the
highest good is now conceived not only negatively as the end of all suffering, but
also positively as a state of eternal bliss (an issue to which we shall return). The
connection between knowledge and virtue is also central in Buddhism and Jainism
and that virtue is knowledge is famously discussed in Plato’s Meno (86–96) and that
the highest Form is the Form of THE GOOD that is the object of the highest knowledge
is mentioned in Plato’s Republic (508e2-3).
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NYĀYA CONSEQUENTIALISM 205
That liberation is the highest good is part of the widely held view in traditional
Hinduism that there are four basic goods or values or purposes (puruṣārtha), viz. (in
ascending order), wealth, pleasure, righteousness, and liberation (NBH vol. 1: 4, 30).
These are basic values in the sense that all our voluntary actions are taken to be aimed
directly or indirectly at some of these values, and other values like employment or
marriage are means to some of these values. Among the four basic values, liberation
is the highest value for the following reason. It is part of a person’s nature to seek
relief from suffering. The other three values do bring relief from suffering. Thus
wealth can bring relief from suffering due to starvation, lack of shelter, etc. Similarly,
pleasure provides relief from suffering and does take place in intervals of suffering,
as NS 4.1.55 explicitly says. In other words, although suffering is pervasive, pleasure
in intervals of suffering is directly experienced by us and cannot be denied, as NBH
4.1.55 clarifies (NBH 1989: vol. 4, 316–317). This is important, for it would be a
mistake to think that pleasure reduces to relief from suffering.
It is true that suffering and not pleasure is explicitly mentioned in the list of
12 knowables as noted earlier. But this does not take anything away from the
irreducibility of pleasure. It is natural to mention suffering and not pleasure
explicitly in the enunciation of knowables, for liberation (that is listed immediately
after suffering) is viewed as the absolute end of suffering and not as a state of
pleasure. Nevertheless, NS 1.1.10 mentions both pleasure and suffering explicitly as
inferential marks (among others) for the self. Were pleasure to be viewed as nothing
more than relief from suffering, it would not make sense to claim that pleasure is a
distinct inferential mark separate from suffering.
Further, NBH (1.1.10) explains that pleasure is an inferential mark for the self
in the following sense. When one finds pleasure from something, one may seek to
acquire that thing after encountering it: this shows that one recognizes something as
the same as what has been experienced before and such recognition is a ground for
inferring that the self is permanent. (The underlying issues are complex and cannot
be discussed in our limited space; see Chakrabarti 1999: ch. 6). What matters for
us is the following: pleasure is here accepted not only as real and different from
relief from suffering, but also as a good: one recognizes something as being a source
of pleasure in the past and seeks to have that thing again as the means to pleasure.
Again, NS 4.1.51 says that since pleasure belongs to the self, there can be no denial
of pleasure and implies that pleasure cannot be denied as a fruit or an end (phala)
of effort. NS 4.1.52 acknowledges that children, possessions, etc. too are commonly
spoken of as fruits or ends. NS 4.1.53 clarifies that these other things are fruits or
ends in an extended sense because of being related to pleasure. Thus pleasure is
accepted not only as an end but also as a basic end so that some other things that are
means to pleasure may also be called ends in a derivative sense. Still it goes without
saying that pleasure never lasts long enough and is inseparable from and replaced
by suffering and accordingly is not accepted as the highest good. (More on why
pleasure is not the highest good comes later.)
Next, there is righteousness. In the Nyāya view righteous action produces merit/
virtue (dharma) as distinguished from unrighteousness action that produces demerit/
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vice (adharma). Such merit/virtue and demerit/vice are quality particulars (guṇa)
located in a self and serve as causal conditions of pleasure and pain respectively. This
is an important use of the words “dharma” and “adharma.” These are, for the Nyāya,
imperceptible quality particulars of the self—merit/virtues and demerit/vices. The use
here is ambiguous. Good acts do not always lead to beneficial results in a foreseeable
future and bad acts too do not always lead to harmful results. Further, no such acts
are present immediately before rebirth. At birth some newborns are healthy and some
are sick. The Nyāya is Theistic and admits God as a causal condition of any effect.
Still God does not act independently and acts as a promoting agent for realization
of the fruits of the endeavor (puruṣakāra) of human and other living beings, as NBH
4.1.63 points out (NBH 1989: vol. 4, 53). If God acts independently, since God is all
knowing and all powerful, why some newborn babies are healthy and some are sick
becomes hard to explain without inviting the charges of discrimination and cruelty
against God (Vedāntadarśana, 2.1.34). The said merits and demerits are inferred to
offer a solution to this classical problem of evil that has been debated widely in both
Western and Indian philosophies. It is held that with God’s help babies are born
healthy or sick in accordance with the merits and demerits of voluntary actions in
a previous life. Merits and demerits survive until the fruits of actions are realized.
Accordingly, a good act can produce a beneficial result in a distant future with the
help of the residual merit, and similarly, a bad act, a harmful result with the help of
the residual demerit. Merits and demerits are also invoked to explain unpredictable
windfalls and hardships in a given life. Thus this is not an endorsement of fatalism.
Virtuous acts can improve the future just as bad acts can make it worse and we are
accountable for our choices.
But pleasures from the merits of good acts are not everlasting and are succeeded
by suffering from the demerits of bad acts; thus not only is the relief temporary, but
further the causal conditions of pleasure, such as the body, the sense organs, etc.,
are also causal conditions of suffering and under ordinary circumstances give rise to
suffering. Accordingly, liberation that involves absolute relief from suffering forever,
and in traditional Hinduism is claimed to be achievable, is superior to other values
(we take another look later).
While true awareness helps to set us free, false awareness traps us into bondage
and suffering. A basic kind of false awareness is wrongly identifying the self with
what is not the self, such as the body, the sense organs, etc. Statements like “I am
dark,” “I am blind,” and so on are common examples of such misidentification.
Mistaking what is not the self for the self is the root cause of egotism (ahaṃkāra);
true awareness of the body and so on is needed for eradication of such false
awareness and egotism. Here are some examples of false awareness given in NBH
1.1.2: mistaking what is not the self for the self, what is suffering for pleasure, the
non-eternal for the eternal, what does not save for what saves, what is to be feared
for what is not to be feared, and so on. False awareness leads to attachment to
those that appear to be favorable and detestation for what appears to be inimical
(NBH 1.1.2). Such attachment and detestation leads to failings (doṣa), such as
untruthfulness, jealousy, deception, and greed. Such failings lead to external and
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internal bad actions/dispositions. First, there are three kinds of external bad actions
by the body, viz., violence, stealing, and sexual promiscuity. Second, there are four
kinds of external bad actions by speech, viz., telling what is not true, speaking
harshly, harping on the faults of others, and speaking incoherently. Third, there are
three kinds of internal bad dispositions, viz., enmity toward others, coveting others’
property, and faithlessness. Side by side with these ten bad deeds/dispositions, there
are ten external and internal good deeds/dispositions. First, there are three kinds of
external good deeds by the body, viz., giving, saving someone, and serving others.
Second, there are four kinds of external good deeds by speech, viz., speaking the
truth, speaking what is beneficial, speaking what is pleasant, and speaking about the
(true) self or self-study (that includes reciting and studying the scriptures). Third,
there are three kinds of internal good dispositions, viz., compassion, ungreediness,
and faith (NBH 1989: 1.1.2, vol. 1, 68–79).
NBH 1.1.18 goes on to say that besides attachment (rāga) and detestation (dveṣa),
another third kind of failing is confusion (moha). All these three kinds of failings (and
all failings are included in these three) lead to activities that are causal conditions of
pleasure or suffering (NBH 1989: vol. 1, 127).4
Is one of these three kinds of failings more harmful than the other two? NS 4.1.6
answers the question in the affirmative and identifies confusion or false awareness as
the most harmful kind of failing. NBH 4.1.6 clarifies that attachment and detestation,
which are the two other kinds of failing, do not arise unless there is confusion; hence
the latter is more harmful than the other two (NBH 1989: vol. 4, 12–14). In other
words, confusion is the root of the other failings and is more fundamental.
How can one overcome the failings to pave the way for liberation that is
the end of all suffering? According to NS 4.2.46 the right step in that direction
is purification of the self (ātma-saṃskāra) with the help of restraint (yama) and
observance (niyama). What is restraint and observance? According to NBH 4.2.46
restraint is what is common to (the four) stages of life and is meritorious while
observance is what is specific (to a particular stage of life and is meritorious). For
example, nonpossession (aparigraha) and continence do not, in the strict sense,
apply to the householder stage and thus, on the face of it, do not fall under restraint
in this understanding. However, both nonpossession and continence are included
under restraint in the highly influential and widely known account of restraint
and observance in the Yoga Sūtra (2.30.32): there the restraints are nonviolence,
truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and nonpossession; while the observances
are cleanliness, contentment, penance, self-study, and devotion (surrendering) to
the Lord. The fact that NBH does not refer to the famous Yoga view may be due to
NBH being an earlier work. In the super-super-commentary called the Tātparya-tīkā
(TT, tenth century CE), which is a commentary on the Nyāyavārttika (NV) that is
a commentary on NBH that is a commentary on NS, the Yoga view of restraint and
observance is presented (TT: 636). In a sense, however, the NBH view of restraint is
not incompatible with the Yoga view. It is a common obligation in all stages of life to
avoid violence, falsehood, stealing, sexual promiscuity, and an overzealous pursuit
of material possession (thus the common saying “the sky is the limit” is a dangerous
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prescription from this viewpoint). Each one of these five kinds of activities to be
avoided causes demerit and due to accrual of demerit one engaging in any one of
these falls further behind in the road to liberation. That is, violence, falsehood, etc.,
instead of alleviating suffering, add to suffering from this point of view. Since NBH
speaks of restraint as what produces merit, by implication it excludes activities that
place further roadblocks to the goal of liberation. According to a very ancient view,
restraint is not doing what is forbidden. In the super-super-super-commentary called
the Pariśuddhi (PS, eleventh century CE) the great Nyāya philosopher Udayana
endorses this view of restraint (PS: 556). Since not doing what is forbidden is a
common obligation in all four stages of life and is meritorious (by way of not adding
more demerits to the burden of karma), the NBH account of restraint is consistent
with this very ancient view. The moot point is that building a virtuous or good
character through restraint, observances, and control of failings is essential for
moral and spiritual progress.
We have so far looked at some important first-order moral precepts of Nyāya
ethics, such as that one should not engage in (avoidable) violence, one should tell the
truth, and so on. (Since the original source literature of this school in Sanskrit runs
into over a thousand volumes most of which are not available in print, an exhaustive
list of all such moral precepts is beyond the scope of this chapter.) We have seen that
what is right, according to this ethics, is true awareness (that removes false awareness
that is a causal condition of attachment, detestation, and confusion) and purification
of the self through restraint and observance (that help to eradicate failings through
various acts of commission and omission, reduce the burden of demerit, and increase
the stock of merit). We have also seen that liberation as the end of all suffering is the
highest good or value in this ethics. Thus this ethics includes a theory of the right
and a theory of the good as the key ingredients of an ethical theory. What is right is
viewed and justified as being instrumental to achieving the goal of liberation as the
highest good. In other words, the case for true awareness as what is right is in this
ethics based on its being viewed as the means to liberation as the ultimate end and so
is also the case for purification of the self that involves eradication of failings. Not
only are these justified as the means to the accepted end, but also these different acts
of commission and omission are accorded high moral status because of being the
means to the same end. Since in this ethics what is right is justified as the means to
the end and different acts are given similar or the same (depending on how directly
or indirectly these are related to the end) moral values because of being the means
to the same end, this ethics is Consequentialist.
The main thrust of this ethics is on individual morality. Still consideration for
others is essential for individual moral progress. This is clear from the moral precepts
mentioned above. Thus the ten bad acts/dispositions that are causal conditions of
demerit include violence, stealing, sexual transgression, false speech, harsh speech,
harping on others’ faults, speaking incoherently, enmity toward others, and coveting
others’ possessions, which are not only detrimental to oneself, but also harmful to
others. While one has an obligation not to indulge in bad acts/dispositions, these
may also imply that others have rights to life, property, and so on (though the
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modern doctrine of rights is not explicitly found in these writings). That is, the
point of these admonitions may very well be that one has an obligation to safeguard
the rights of others and violation of these rights comes at a high moral cost. Such
rights are implied in much of Indian moral thought, including Hindu, Buddhist,
and Jain views, and it is useful to note that this applies to NY as well. Further, the
ten good acts/dispositions that are causal conditions of merit include giving, saving,
service, true speech, beneficial speech, pleasant speech, and kindness, which are not
only beneficial to oneself but also benefit others. Again, failings include infatuation
for the other sex (kāma), unwillingness to share with others what is not depleted by
use (matsara), greed for others’ possessions, and deception, which all have adverse
consequences for oneself as well as others (NV: 424–426). Mention is also made of
compassion (kāruṇya), understood as willingness to relieve the suffering of others
without regard to one’s own interest (PDS: 635).5 Now in this view the body, the
sense organs, and indeed, anything and everything in the mundane world, may
sometimes be causal conditions of pleasure; nevertheless, they are all invariably
also causal conditions of pain. Hence not only pain but also the body, and so on,
are considered to be suffering in the extended sense, for they are inseparable from
suffering (NBH 1989: 4.1.54, vol. 4, 314). Thus liberation as the end of all suffering
requires ultimately nothing short of putting a complete stop to the beginningless
process of birth and death. In this respect this ethics may sound quite otherworldly.
At the same time, this ethics is also an ethics of engagement. The engagement is for
relieving suffering not only for oneself but also for others, and one cannot reach
the ultimate goal without engaging in the service of others (we do not have the
space to go into this further and also into social issues our philosophers have taken
substantial interest in). If altruism means that everyone should give up one’s interest
for others, this ethics is not altruistic. However, if altruism involves that serving
others is beneficial to everyone including oneself, that in some situations one should
sacrifice one’s possessions, even life, etc. for others (and in a sense this benefits
oneself too), and that sometimes working as a group helps everyone including
oneself more than working individually alone (e.g., NS and NBH 4.2.47–48 speak
of the value of fellowship), this ethics has an altruistic dimension as well.
We have said that various moral precepts not only enjoin duties (kartavya,
dharma) and obligations (dāya, dharma), but may also imply rights in the modern
sense (though there is no exact Sanskrit equivalent to the modern word “right”
despite the fact that the widely used word adhikāra is often translated as “right” and
the translation is not inappropriate in certain contexts). Rights in the modern sense
may also be implied in a main reason for holding that God is a causal condition of
all effects not independently of karma. As noted earlier, if God were independent of
karma, the charge of discrimination against God would have been hard to resolve.
Irrespective of whether the said charge has merit, the underlying moral background
of the charge seems to imply a right of nondiscrimination. It would be morally wrong
for some babies to be born healthy and others to be born sick unless that happens to
be the consequence of their own actions (in previous lives). The logic of this implies
a right of the newborn to be treated equally in the same way except when there are
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overriding circumstances. The overriding circumstances are provided by the law

of karma. God supervises the process to make sure that each baby gets what he or
she deserves, based on past actions. This implies right in the sense of entitlement.
One who has lived a good life is entitled to a good birth and anyone has the right
to choose a good life and reap the reward (unless one has disqualified oneself by
choosing to do bad things). Such a Theistic platform is not available to many Indian
philosophical schools such as the Buddhist, the Jain, the Sāṅkhya, the Mīmāṃsā,
etc., but is available to NY and Vaiśeṣika.
We have seen that liberation as the highest good is conceived minimally as
the absolute end of suffering and not as a state of bliss or happiness or pleasure
(even in a sublime sense, though pleasure is often taken to be the highest good, as
NBH 4.1.57 acknowledges). This is so because pleasure (even in the most Platonic
sense) is inseparable from suffering (NBH 4.1.54). Pleasure and suffering are
inseparable in the sense that (1) wherever there is pleasure there is suffering and
wherever there is suffering there is pleasure; (2) they both arise from the same causal
conditions: whatever is a causal condition of pleasure is also a causal condition
of suffering and vice versa (this holds even though merit is a causal condition of
pleasure and demerit, of suffering); (3) both are colocated: both pleasure and
suffering are invariably located in the same person; and (4) both are experienced
together: whoever experiences pleasure also experiences suffering and vice versa
(successively or simultaneously despite nonsimultaneity of cognitive states) (NV
1.1.2.). NBH goes on to clarify that pleasure breeds hankering (paryeṣaṇā) that
can never be fulfilled. Sometimes pleasures come but are short-lived. Sometimes
pleasures do happen but fall short of the mark. Sometimes pleasures come at a
very high price of burdensome suffering. Further, and more importantly, pleasures
typically lead to the need for more pleasure and often for other pleasures; all these
eventually turn into an insatiable thirst (tṛṣṇā). NBH cites an old saying: “Even when
one who seeks pleasure finds it, one is quickly entrapped for another pleasure”
(4.1.56). NBH cites another old saying: “Even if one succeeds in acquiring the whole
earth all the way up to the ocean with all cows and horses, one is still not satisfied
(and thirsts for more). How can there be pleasure (or happiness or satisfaction) from
desire for possession?” (NBH 1989: 4.1.56, vol. 4, 316). The point is well taken.
If it is the very nature of pleasure to drive us for more, pleasure inevitably leads to
unfulfillment and dissatisfaction and thus suffering. The paradox of pleasure stares
at us with ominous certainty. The irony is that we often find pleasure when we
do not pursue pleasure but pursue other things, such as fishing, philanthropy, and
so on; but if we pursue pleasure itself, we end up empty-handed. Even if we find
pleasure, there is always thirst for more, which brings dissatisfaction and suffering.
Since pleasure is inseparable from suffering, pleasure must be discarded, just as
milk mixed with poison must be discarded (NBH 1989: 4.1.54, vol. 4, 314) to put
an absolute end to all suffering. Those who think that liberation as the highest good
is not only devoid of suffering, but also a state of pleasure or happiness suffer, in
this view, from a dangerous clinging for pleasure and a serious delusion. Pleasure or
happiness can only come with suffering and, therefore, is not the highest good. This
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is not to deny that pleasure is a fact of life and can be achieved. Our philosophers
readily admit that pleasure is common experience, is real, and the body, etc. do
serve as the causal conditions of pleasure. Nevertheless, the claim is that the causal
conditions of pleasure are also invariably the causal conditions of suffering. We
naturally abhor suffering and nothing that involves suffering can be accepted as
the ultimate good or goal. Thus a state without suffering is higher than a state that
includes pleasure and suffering.
Our philosophers are not here making a transition from “X is desired” to
“X is desirable” (and something is not desired to something is not desirable), as
John Stuart Mill did (Rosenstand 2005: 234). Our philosophers repeatedly point
out that pleasure, etc. are commonly desired, but deny that these are desirable.
Similarly, various things enjoined in moral and spiritual progress may not be
desired by many, but that does not make them undesirable. In fact, NBH grants as
an example of false belief that liberation as explained may very well appear to be
terrifying (for being shorn of things we commonly like, including consciousness)
and not desired by even some who are intelligent (NBH 1989: 1.1.2, vol. 1, 69).
Still there is a gap between what is desired and what should be desired as also
between what is not desired and what should not be desired, and one does not
follow from the other. Suffering is undesirable not because it is not desired. If
this were so, pleasure would have been desirable because it is desired (as Mill
supposed). For our philosophers both suffering and pleasure are undesirable,
though the former is not desired and the latter is (commonly) desired. Thus being
actually desired or not being desired is not the proper basis for being desirable
or undesirable for our philosophers. Rather the proper basis for both pleasure
and suffering being undesirable is that both are harmful (ahita) and our failings,
viz., attachment, detestation, and confusion, are causal conditions of both. Thus,
being rooted in our failings, neither suffering nor pleasure can be desirable in a
moral sense. Accordingly, for moral as well as logical reasons liberation or the
ultimate good not only cannot be a state of suffering, but also cannot be a state
of pleasure.
The above viewpoint is similar to negative Utilitarianism, sometimes attributed
to Karl Popper (2012: 548), that the moral standard is minimizing suffering and not
maximizing pleasure and that there is no symmetry between suffering and pleasure.
Clearly NY holds that the highest good is absolute end of suffering and rejects that
this is a state of pleasure. However, for NY pleasure is real and a good and even a
basic good, though not the highest good as we have seen. To a limited extent, the NY
moral standard of being beneficial without causing more harm than good (see below)
can accommodate pleasure. In other words, the NY standard excludes pleasure in the
ultimate analysis, but does not necessarily exclude pleasure in ordinary situations.
Although all pleasures are inseparable from suffering and fall short of the highest end,
one in the householder stage (gṛhastha), for example, is not disallowed from enjoying
good things in life, such as food, children, etc., if these do not cause greater suffering
(NS and NBH 4.1.44, 4.1.52, NBH vol. 4, 328, etc.). Accordingly, an objection against
negative Utilitarianism that a benevolent world exploder, if capable of achieving it
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with minimal pain, is duty bound to destroy all human life to eliminate suffering
altogether (Smart 1958) does not apply to the NY position. Further, generally
binding obligations, such as nonviolence and care giving (and other restraints and
observances), preclude the hypothesis of such a benevolent world exploder.
Some hold that liberation is a state of eternal pleasure or happiness.6 This should
be distinguished from ordinary pleasures that come and go and are subject to causal
conditions that also produce suffering. But this does not apply to pleasure that is
not subject to causal conditions. In the Nyāya view the individual self appears to be
limited to the confines of the body, but in its true nature is ubiquitous. Ubiquitousness
of the self is not originated in liberation but is revealed. Similarly, eternal happiness
is not originated in liberation but is revealed (NBH 1989: 1.22; vol. 1, 236).
NBH offers a bunch of objections to this view, some of which are briefly stated.
Such manifestation or revelation must involve awareness, for lack of awareness will
make liberation indistinguishable from the state of bondage. But what is the causal
condition of that awareness?
Suppose it is said that such awareness too is eternal like happiness so that no
causal condition is called for. But then again there is the same difficulty that bondage
becomes indistinguishable from liberation.
What if we suppose that though happiness in liberation is eternal, its awareness
is non-eternal? Then we have the old question about what is the causal condition of
that awareness.
What if it is said that the contact between the self and the inner sense (that
is accepted by our philosophers as a common causal condition of any state of
awareness) is that causal condition? But then at least another causal condition that
is not always available is needed. The problem is that the contact between the self
and the inner sense would have to be available always and then such awareness
should take place always and then we have the familiar problem of bondage being
indistinguishable from liberation.
What if merit from yogic meditative practice is that additional causal condition?
But then the difficulty is that such merit is not everlasting. When the merit is gone,
awareness of eternal happiness will be gone too and then we have the old issue of
bondage being indistinguishable from liberation.
Finally, pursuit of pleasure in all cases accepted by both sides in the debate
is invariably bound with attachment and suffering. Where is the rational basis
acceptable to both sides to claim that pursuit of eternal pleasure is not bound with
attachment and suffering? If there is no such basis and if attachment and suffering
are present, liberation would be impossible (NBH 1989: vol. 1, 238–249).
It is thus clear that our philosophers are opposed to accepting pleasure as the
highest good even if pleasure is taken in a trans-empirical sense as eternal happiness.
1.2. Liberation Without Consciousness

Now, our philosophers, in addition to denying that there is pleasure in liberation,
also deny that there is consciousness in liberation. While the rejection of pleasure
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or happiness in liberation has support outside the Nyāya and the Vaiśeṣika schools
in Indian philosophy, the rejection of consciousness in liberation has little support
outside these schools. A common criticism from other schools of Indian philosophy
is that for human beings/ persons a state devoid of consciousness is not worth
pursuing and certainly is not the highest good.
However, our philosophers have reached this conclusion not as an ad hoc
assumption, but as a corollary of other views accepted by them after careful,
deep, and persistent critical scrutiny. First, had liberation been a state of pleasure
or happiness, consciousness would have been required for that. But rejection of
pleasure for reasons explained above opens the door for rejection of consciousness.
That is, if liberation is negatively conceived as the end of all suffering, presence of
consciousness is dispensable. Why add something that is dispensable?
Second, rejection of consciousness is not rejection of existence. The Buddhist
ideal of nirvāṇa, rightly or wrongly, is often criticized as advocacy of extinction
that does not work. The Buddhists hold that everything is momentary and reject
the view of the self as an enduring substance and accept instead a flowing stream
of momentary internal states. When the stream is arrested in nirvāṇa by way of
eradication of thirst and clinging, nothing remains, it is argued by the critics. But
the objectors ask, “Why should one strive to be reduced to nothing?” Whatever
the merit of this objection against the Buddhist view, this surely does not apply to
the position of our philosophers. They hold that the self is not only enduring, but
also an eternal substance and in liberation continues to exist in its own true nature
forever, without the possibility of suffering.
Third, our philosophers have offered formidable arguments to prove that the self
is a nonphysical substance.7 Some philosophers who hold that the self is nonphysical
also hold that the self is essentially conscious (e.g., Descartes) or otherwise that the
self is the same as consciousness (e.g., Advaita Vedānta). Our philosophers have
argued at length for the ontological distinction between the substance and the quality
particulars and held that consciousness is a quality particular of the self (Chakrabarti
1999: ch. 6). There is no doubt that the self is conscious some of the time. But where
is the evidence, they ask, that the self is conscious all the time? On the contrary, so
far as ordinary experience goes, temporary loss of consciousness (in a coma, etc.) is
fairly common. All that common experience shows, our philosophers point out, is
that we are conscious only some of the time and not all the time. Thus consciousness
is an adventitious (āgantuka) quality particular of the self and arises only when the
conditions are favorable. These conditions include contact with the body.8 As long as
there is contact with the body, however, suffering is inevitable. To stop all suffering
and reach liberation, the contact with the body must be terminated; then, due to the
lack of a necessary condition, there can be no consciousness as well.
Finally, so far as common experience goes, wherever there is consciousness there
is suffering. Based on observations of conscious states (such as pleasure, anger, etc.)
that are necessarily linked with suffering and are confirming examples acceptable to
both sides, and due to the lack of any counterexample acceptable to both sides, it
may be prima facie generalized that all conscious states are states of suffering.9 Under
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the circumstances, unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary and none is
available in the view of our philosophers, cessation of consciousness is necessary for
cessation of suffering. It follows that liberation is devoid of consciousness.10
2. MOTIVATION AND OBLIGATION

NY Consequentialist ethics has faced challenges from the Prāvākara (PK) Mīmāṃsā
school of Indian philosophy based on the analysis of the meaning of injunctions, in
particular the meaning of the verbal suffixes and verbal noun endings that provide
the Sanskrit equivalent of English expressions like “should” or “ought to.” The
discussion is not limited to moral imperatives. Other imperatives like “one who
wishes to be cured from illness should take the medicine,” “one who wishes to cook
should procure the fuel,” and so on are considered as well as moral imperatives
like “one should tell the truth,” “one should treat the guest/the teacher/the father/
the mother as God.” Still, since moral imperatives are included, the discussion is
relevant to ethics.
Both NY and PK and others agree that injunctive suffixes and endings (injunctions
for short) induce one to act. The debate is over the exact nature of inducing
awareness and the precise meaning of an injunction (vidhi-artha). In the NY view,
such awareness is primarily that of the means of getting what is desired or beneficial.
That is, an injunction induces primarily through the state of awareness of the means
of achieving an end. For example, “one should tell the truth” as well as “one should
treat the guest as God” may be said to induce one to tell the truth or treat the
guest as God as the means of realizing the ends of social cohesion (loka-saṃgraha;
Bhāṣāpariccheda with the Siddhāntamuktāvalī and Saṃgraha or BSS: 462–463;
NBH 1989: vol. 5, 237–240), individual merit (dharma), and so on.
PK disagrees and holds that the inducement is primarily from the state of
awareness of what is to be done or should be done (Sanskrit expressions like kārya,
karaṇīya are ambiguous; PK also links what is to be done or should be done with
what can be done or is achievable (kṛti-sādhya that may remind one of Kant’s
linking “ought” with “can”).11 Thus an injunction primarily means and conveys
what is to be done or should be done and not what is the means to the end. The
inducement is not directly from the state of awareness of the means to the end,
but from that of what is to be or should be done and the right thing to do. For
example, “one should tell the truth” primarily means that telling the truth is what
is to be or should be done and the right thing to do and exhorts through the state
of awareness of that.
PK argues that when a state of awareness serves as the causal condition of
volition, what that state of awareness needs to produce is the desire to act or do or
make something. In such a desire what is or should be done or being achievable is
the qualifier and the achievable act is the qualificand. And for such a desire the state
of awareness of being achievable is the causal condition, for the qualifier in the state
of awareness that is the causal condition of a given desire is always the same as the
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qualifier of that desire. That is, a desire in which something is the qualifier is caused
by a state of awareness in which that same something is also the qualifier.12
The argument may be explained further as follows. When one has the desire
for a mango, a causal condition of that is the state of awareness of a mango. No
one has a desire for something unless one has experienced it (or something similar)
before and is aware of it. In NY terminology, in the desire for a mango, the latter
is the qualificand and mango-ness is the qualifier, that is, this is a desire for what
has or is qualified by mango-ness. In the same way, in the causally connected state
of awareness of a mango, mango-ness is the qualifier. Thus the qualifier is the same
in the state of awareness that is a causal condition and the desire that is the effect.
PK points out that when a state of awareness leads to volition, it first leads to a
desire to act or do or make in which what is to be done or should be done or being
achievable is the qualifier. What is to be done then should also be the qualifier in
the state of awareness that is the causal condition. It follows that what is to be done
is the primary meaning of an injunction, the state of awareness of which may lead
to volition.
PK argues further that the state of awareness of being the means to what is desired
or beneficial is not the causal condition as NY claims, for then the desire to act or
do or make could arise even for something that is not achievable. Indeed, this is why
one does not, for example, have the desire to make rain (even if there is drought);
though rain is then desired and beneficial, it is still beyond one’s means.
NY could reply that the state of awareness of being the means to what is desired
or beneficial is still the appropriate causal condition. Despite being so, in such cases
as rain above, it does not lead to the said desire because of an obstruction, viz., the
state of awareness of not being achievable.
However, if the above is accepted, absence of such an obstruction too would
have to be accepted as a causal condition and that is uneconomical. In the PK view
the state of awareness of what is to be done or should be done or achievable is the
causal condition. But in the NY view the state of awareness of being the means to
what is desired or beneficial as well as absence of the state of awareness of not being
achievable are then accepted as causal conditions. Clearly compared to the PK view
the NY view incorporates many more components and lacks economy. Thus the
reply is without merit (Tattvacintamani with the Māthurī [TCM]: 18).
The PK view is highly developed as presented in the TCM, which, remarkably,
happens to be a NY work and a philosophical masterpiece. Since, however, a fuller
treatment will take more time, we move on to how the NY position can be defended.
One main argument offered against the PK view and for the NY position is that
it is an undeniable fact that despite being aware of what is to be done or should
be done or achievable, one may not always have volition for that. For example,
one may not always have volition for telling the truth despite being aware that
telling the truth is what is to be done. This suggests that the state of awareness of
what is to be done or should be done or achievable is not the sufficient condition
for such volition. It may be granted that the state of awareness of what is to be or
should be done or achievable is a necessary condition for such volition to account
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for cases where there is lack of volition for things one desires or is beneficial, but
are unachievable (such as rain). It may also be granted that the state of awareness
of what is desired or beneficial is not the sufficient condition for such volition.
Thus the reasonable position is the following: both the state of awareness of what
is to be done or should be done or achievable and the state of awareness of the
means to what is desired or beneficial are necessary conditions for such volition.
As the common saying goes (TCM: 239), “Even a dull person does not make an
effort without a purpose” (prayojanam anuddiśya mandah api na pravarttate).
“Indeed, the mere awareness of what is to be done, even if derived from the
Vedas, does not suffice for motivation; without awareness of the means to what
is desired or beneficial to one’s own self a thousand such states of awareness
would fail to motivate” (BSS: 565–566). It should be noted, however, that one
does not always have volition for something that is achievable as well as desirable
or beneficial if that thing causes more harm than good. For example, one does
not (usually) strive to get food that is mixed with poison. Accordingly, the causal
condition of such volition should be amended as follows: the state of awareness
of what is to be done or should be done or achievable and the state of awareness
of the means to what is desired or beneficial that does not cause more harm than
good (BSS: 560).13 However, for a negative injunction (such as one should not eat
junk food, one should not have illicit sex, etc.), the causal condition should be
reformulated as: the state of awareness of what is to be done or should be done or
achievable and the state of awareness of the means to what is desired or beneficial
that causes more harm than good (TCM: 197ff.).
Further, what is desired or beneficial and achievable should be understood as
what appears to be so to someone at a given time. Thus though a kingdom may
be a big attraction an infant prince does not (usually) care for it: the kingdom is
neither what is desired or beneficial nor achievable to that infant prince at that time
(TCM: 172–173). Similarly, one who has had a full meal does not (usually) strive for
food although the latter may be achievable (such a case is problematic for the PK view
but not for the NY view), for food is not what is desired or beneficial to that person
at that time. Again, one who may be overpowered by emotion and unable to think
clearly may strive for what causes more harm than good (such as having poisoned
food, illicit sex, etc.) for to that person at that time that choice appears not to cause
more harm than good (TCM: 197).14 The above account also helps to show why one
is not held to be culpable if, for example, someone accidentally drowns and dies in a
well that one has dug up to relieve thirst, or if someone dies due to choking from the
food served, or if a bystander dies from injury from a spear thrown at an enemy. In
such cases no volition is caused by a state of awareness of digging the well, or serving
the food, or throwing the spear as the means to such death (TCM: 212–220).
Now in the Hindu tradition certain activities (such as offering daily prayers) are
viewed as constant (nitya) obligations, the fulfillment of which do not produce any
merit. Do such injunctions motivate merely from the state of awareness of what is to be
done (as PK holds) without necessarily requiring the state of awareness of these activities
as the means to a desired or beneficial end? No, says NY. Even for constant obligations
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nonfulfillment is viewed as a sin and demerit. Thus one is also motivated toward such
fulfillment as the means to the desired and beneficial end of avoiding sin and not adding
to the burden of demerit. Indeed, not adding and reducing the burden of demerit is
accepted as necessary for making spiritual and moral progress toward the ultimate goal
of the absolute end of all suffering. Thus fulfillment of constant obligation is a means
to the ultimate goal of liberation as well. But again, though some Vedic injunctions
mention a goal (such as one who seeks heaven should perform the sacrifice X), others
(such as those who merely say that one should perform the sacrifice X) do not. Should
the latter be held to motivate merely from the state of awareness of what is to be done
as PK says? Not so, says NY. Even in the latter case either heaven or liberation should
be taken to be understood as the implicit goal or purpose (TCM: 224–251).15
3. RESPONSE TO WESTERN MORAL THEORY

Before concluding this short survey we shall look at how some issues in major classical
Western ethical theories may be addressed from the perspective of NY ethics; this may
also throw more light on the latter. There are three influential ethical theories in the
West. First, there is Kant’s Deontological theory that promotes duty for the sake of
duty regardless of the consequences, claims that moral imperatives are categorical,
unconditional, universal, and absolute truths of reason independent of observation,
and holds further that each rational agent is an end in himself and never merely a means
to an end. One well-known objection to this theory is that sometimes exceptions to
such moral imperatives as that one should tell the truth should be allowed because not
making the exception would likely cause more harm. For example (adapted from Kant
himself who would argue that telling the truth is binding even in such a case), suppose
a Nazi officer asks one regarding the whereabouts of a Jewish family hiding in one’s
basement. Since telling the truth is more than likely to lead to the loss of innocent
lives, one should, many argue, make an exception and not tell the truth, though that
would be in violation of an absolute moral imperative as maintained by Kant.
However, for NY ethics moral imperatives are neither categorical nor independent
of experience. Further, not only human beings but also animals and even trees and
plants have “rights,” but not as ends in themselves but as the means to the common
good. Again, in the above situation of one being confronted by a Nazi officer not
telling the truth is morally right. The standard of what is enjoined (vaidha) is being
the means to what is desired or beneficial and does not cause more harm than good
and being achievable. Since telling the truth in that situation is likely to cause more
harm than good by way of loss of innocent lives (including possibly one’s own), it is
not enjoined in that case; at the same time, since not telling the truth is more likely
to be the means of what is desired or beneficial and is achievable, not telling the
truth is enjoined in such a case.
Second, there is the form of Consequentialism developed by Jeremy Bentham
and John Stuart Mill that is often called Utilitarianism. In this Utilitarian view we
naturally seek pleasure or happiness, which is the ultimate end. Pleasure should
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not be understood in the egoistic sense, for anyone’s pleasure counts as much as
anyone else’s pleasure. The moral standard is choosing an act or a policy that makes
life bearable or pleasant for as many people as possible and causes less harm to as
many people as possible. Mill claimed that some pleasures are of higher quality than
others, as testified by those who are experienced in both higher and lower pleasures,
and we should choose to maximize higher pleasures for the greatest number of
people. Morality is not based on a priori rational intuition that, according to some,
is mysterious and also not based on sentiment or feeling, which would make morality
subjective. Rather, moral choices proceed from empirical cost-benefit calculations
based on the best information we have and subject to revision as more information
becomes available. One powerful objection to Utilitarianism is that it may fail to
safeguard minority rights. Suppose enslaving a small fraction of the population
would ensure greater productivity and competitiveness and bring more prosperity
to the vast majority of a nation. It seems that from merely Utilitarian analyses it
would not be easy to rule out that such slavery would not be morally wrong, though
it would be in clear violation of the principles of equality, liberty, and justice for all.
Now Utilitarians have responded to the objection and a proper discussion will
take a lot of space. Irrespective of whether this objection is fatal to Utilitarianism,
it, however, has no force against NY ethics. First, such an institution of slavery
will create an irreparable division and undermine the goal of social cohesion (loka-
saṃgraha) and thus cause more harm than good. Second, such abuse of fellow human
beings is precluded by the rules of restraint (yama) and observance (niyama) as well
as the admonition of our failings (doṣa).
Third, there is Virtue Ethics that focuses not on right or wrong actions as the
Kantian and Utilitarian theories do but on the agent’s character. In Aristotle’s view
people can build a firm, virtuous character by following the lead of the wise and
repeatedly doing the right thing (and similarly a vicious character by repeatedly
doing the wrong thing) and one’s action should proceed from virtuous character.
A virtuous choice is a rational choice from the disposition to choose the golden
mean that can vary from person to person and avoids the extremes of excess or
deficiency (e.g., bravery is the mean between rashness and cowardice) by responding
in the right way, in the right amount, for the right reason, and not too much or too
little. In this way one can achieve the highest good where one can flourish and excel
in what one is meant to do and find happiness. One objection to this view is that
some choices that appear to be extreme may be morally right. Suppose a freedom
fighter is promised by a corrupt and oppressive ruler a life of luxury and fame in
return of his/her support, but the fighter turns that down and is executed. Has the
fighter failed to make a rational choice from the disposition to choose the mean,
made an extreme choice, and if so a morally wrong choice? Another objection is
that a clever and renowned lawyer, for example, who stays within the law and seems
to be happy with his life, but is not significantly concerned with helping others or
the common good may fulfill Aristotle’s definition of moral virtue. Such a lawyer
may embody the vision of success for some, but for many is not morally virtuous. If
Aristotle’s account does not exclude such a lawyer, for many, it is too wide.
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So far as NY is concerned, it shares with Aristotle the importance of building a

strong and virtuous character through practice. Much of the rules of restraint and
observances and eradication of failings bears precisely on that. However, when it
comes to some choices that may or may not be extreme for Aristotle’s theory, they
would not be excluded from the NY perspective. Thus the choice of the freedom
fighter in the above case would be consistent with the norms of nonviolence, non-
stealing, and self-discipline emphasized in NY ethics and would be an act of merit
(dharma). Had that freedom fighter compromised with the unjust ruler, that would
have been inconsistent with these norms and been an act of demerit (adharma).
Such acts of demerit are believed to lead to suffering in hell (naraka) in the afterlife.
Accordingly, they would cause more harm than good and fail to meet the standard of
the means to what is desired or beneficial without causing more harm than good. The
above norms of discipline would also exclude the lawyer in the given case from being
accepted as morally virtuous. Talk about hell, of course, is rare in contemporary ethics.
However, such talk may be, for the limited purpose of ease of communication with
the contemporary thinkers, interpreted, mutatis mutandis, to be about self-discipline.
It may now be seen that though NY ethics is Consequentialist, it may be labeled
as soft Consequentialism that is broad enough to incorporate aspects of both
Deontological ethics and Virtue Ethics. It recognizes a salient point of Deontological
ethics by accepting what is to be done or should be done as a necessary condition
for inducement. It also gives credit to an important feature of Virtue Ethics by
emphasizing the crucial role of building a good character through restraint and
observances and control of our failings.
Finally, we take a quick look at a debated issue in medical ethics today, viz.,
euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Though these are not discussed in
NY writings, we would like to examine the morality of these in the light of NY
ethics. Recent advances in medical technology have made it possible to prolong for
years the life of someone who is incurably ill or in extreme pain or in a permanent
vegetative state, and so on. This has led to the debate over the morality of euthanasia
and PAS in such cases. Since these medical technologies were not available earlier, it
is not surprising that there is no direct discussion of PAS or euthanasia in traditional
Hindu writings. Still the prohibition of suicide and exceptions to such prohibition
are discussed by traditional Hindu thinkers.16 If one is incurably ill and/ or in
horrible pain, should one be allowed to choose suicide or PAS if one so wishes
voluntarily? Given the principles of NY ethics, the answer to this question should
be in the affirmative. Putting an end to suffering is accepted as a high value in NY
ethics. Further, in the light of the admonitions about controlling our failings and
attachments (including attachment to the body in a particular life: the self is believed
to have different bodies in different lives, with the prospect of a new body in the
next life), one should not live uselessly and cling to a particular life at all cost. Hence
choosing euthanasia or PAS in the said cases will meet the standard of what is desired
or beneficial without causing more harm than good and is achievable. At the same
time, because of the necessary condition of achievability, euthanasia and PAS must
be voluntary. It would be wrong if vulnerable people living in the fringes of the
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society are abused to undergo euthanasia or PAS against their wishes. In fact, that
would amount to murder or aiding/abetting murder that is morally reprehensible
(TCM: 211ff.) and a ticket to hell in the afterlife.17
4. CONCLUSION
We have seen in this brief study of NY ethics in what sense liberation as the
absolute end of suffering is not a state of either bliss or consciousness and is still
the highest good and true awareness and purification of the self is the means to it.
We have also seen in outline how the kind of Consequentialism developed by our
philosophers has been defended against criticism and how such Consequentialism
may be useful for addressing some issues in modern moral philosophy. In NY
works ethical issues are intertwined with epistemological, ontological, ritual,
social, political, linguistic, and other issues. Nevertheless, if one carefully sifts
through the vast literature produced by great thinkers, the ethical theory that
would emerge is powerful and further exploration may yield new insight, clarity,
rigor, and depth in ethical studies.
NOTES
1. Different scholars have estimated the date of NS to be between the sixth century
BCE and the second century CE and that of NBH between the second century BCE
and the fourth century CE. Discussion of the evidence for estimating the dates
will take a lot of place and must be skipped. However, in our opinion, though the
evidence for either a relatively early or a relatively late date is not conclusive, the
best available evidence supports an early date for at least certain parts of NS. It is
also difficult to draw a clear line between what may appear to be older parts and
other parts, and the whole work, though extremely condensed, displays exemplary
richness and philosophical depth as well as uniform literary and linguistic style.
It may also be noted that our aim is not to provide an account of NY ethics as
presented in NS alone. We also make use of the commentaries within the limits of
the space available. Although the commentaries do make original contributions,
there is continuity between NS and the commentaries that do not contradict NS
and help to unpack the cryptically stated views. However, we can only provide a
brief account of NY ethics in the space available; a much larger book-length study
is needed for thorough coverage.
2. Scholarly estimates of the date of VS vary widely between the sixth century BCE
and the first century CE. Again, we do not have the space to discuss the evidence.
We think, however, that the best evidence favors an early date.
3. Here knowledge is understood as knowledge of difference (viveka) between
the two fundamental principles, viz., puruṣa, the essence of is which pure
consciousness, and prakṛti, or nature that evolves as the world of objects (TK
1940: 82).
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4. Uddyotakara in the super-commentary called the Nyāyavārttika (NV: 424–426,

sixth century CE) has thrown more light on NBH 4.1.3 and clarified how and
why different kinds of failings are included in the three kinds mentioned here.
In the PDS, we find an eightfold classification of desire including compassion
as the desire to relieve the suffering of others regardless of one’s own interest
(PDS: 635–636).
5. The word kāma is used also for other kinds of desire. Here NV interprets it as a
man’s desire for a woman. In the Vṛtti (VR, sixteenth century CE) it is interpreted
to include both a man’s desire for a woman and a woman’s desire for a man. PDS
interprets it as sexual desire that can include both a man’s desire for a woman and
a woman’s desire for a man (PDS: 635).
6. In the influential Advaita Vedānta view the very nature or essence of the self is
happiness or freedom (ānanda) that is non-different from being and consciousness,
and further the individual self is non-different from the universal self. Suffering
takes place due to ignorance of our true nature and is removed through self-
realization. Thus, paradoxically, since nothing is ever without the very nature or
essence, liberation is accomplishing what is already accomplished.
7. For a detailed study of these arguments, see Chakrabarti (1999: ch. 9).
8. The Cartesian view that the self is essentially conscious is hard to reconcile with
the progress in neuroscience that shows the critically important role of the brain
in the origin of consciousness. If the brain is necessary for consciousness, this
does not necessarily refute psychophysical dualism. But if the brain is necessary
for consciousness, it is hard to maintain that the self is essentially conscious and
conscious all the time particularly when the self is not associated with the body.
But the Nyāya view that the self is not essentially conscious and is conscious only
when it is associated with the body is not incompatible with the neuroscience
findings about the brain. In fact, the Nyāya accepts an inner sense or organ
(manas) without contact with which the external sense organs cannot transmit
information. The inner sense is held by some Nyāya philosophers to be a physical
substance of intermediate size (Chakrabarti 1999: ch. 8).
9. For the principle of general acceptability of inductive examples, see Chakrabarti
(1999: Introduction).
10. For materialists there is cessation of consciousness as well as suffering at bodily
death when the self ceases to exist. For our philosophers the self survives the
bodily death and goes through the process of rebirths until liberation. Thus our
philosophers do not embrace materialism and have, on the contrary, argued at
length for rejecting materialism, as already said. It may also be noted that the
theory of rebirth is supported by powerful arguments. For more, see Chakrabarti
(2006: ch. 5).
11. “Kāryatā-jñānam pravarttakam iti guravah” (TCM: 6–7).
12. “Tathā hi jñānasya kŗtau janyāyām cikīrşā-atiriktam na kartavyam asti . . .
Cikīrşā ca kŗti-sādhyatva-prakārikā kŗti-sādhya-kriyā-vişaya-icchā . . . sā ca sva-
kŗti-sādhyatā-jñāna-sādhyā icchāyāh sva-prakarāka-dhī-sādhyatva-niyamāt”
(TCM: 7–16).
222
13. J. N. Mohanty (2007: 63) has remarked that the PK theory is much simpler than
the NY theory. However, the issue here is to give an account of how an injunction
causes volition. For that, as explained, the state of awareness of what is to be done
alone falls short: there are cases where there is no volition despite the presence of
such a state of awareness unless there is also the state of awareness of the means to
what is desired or beneficial. Thus the NY view is in a sense more complex but is
still justified on the strength of evidence (phala-bala-kalpanā).
14. Some have suggested that achievability should be construed as follows. When
one observes that something is achievable by another person and one has the
relevant characteristics of that person, one is motivated. But the difficulty in this
suggestion is that there are situations where there is motivation, but reference to
such other persons is ruled out, e.g., when one has motivation for something that
is, so to speak, one’s own original thing or perhaps something that happens all too
suddenly (BSS: 563).
15. In the view of Udayana (eleventh century CE) the inducement of an injunction is
primarily due to its being the intention of a reliable person (in the context of a Vedic
injunction, such a person, for Udayana, is God). This account of inducement is more
economical, it is claimed, than that of being the means of what is desired or beneficial
without causing more harm than good and is achievable. The inducement is of the
nature of an inference as follows. X is the means of what is desired or beneficial
without causing more harm than good, for X is intended as what is to be or should
be done by a reliable person, like Y intended by one’s mother, etc. And for a negative
injunction the inference is that X is not the means of what is desired or beneficial
without causing more harm than good, for X is not intended as what is to be or should
be done by a reliable person, like Y not intended by one’s mother, etc. (BSS: 572–573;
NKV: 319–352). However, one difficulty in this view is that there are cases where
there is motivation, but reference to someone else including a reliable person is ruled
out as mentioned above, e.g., when one has motivation for something that is one’s
own originality or otherwise something that takes place all of a sudden. Second, it is
undeniable that what is desired or beneficial for oneself is substantially influenced by
one’s interactions with others, especially those who are trusted. Still that there is an
invariable link between what is desired or beneficial for oneself and what is intended
by someone else needs to be argued for and that is an additional burden in this view
over and above the difficulty of giving an account of a reliable person (explored in
detail by NY philosophers). Hence the claim about greater economy is questionable.
16. General prohibition of suicide in the ancient Hindu tradition and law may
be gathered from the following. According to the Vajasaneya Samhita (40.3),
“Whoever destroy their self reach after death the demonic world covered in
blinding darkness” (Kane 1990: 927). Parasara says that one who hangs oneself due
to excessive pride, anger, affection, or fear has to be in the hell for sixty thousand
years. Vasistha lays down that those who commit suicide are cursed and that
death rites for them should not be performed by their relatives (Kane 1990: 924).
Gautama too prescribes that if one commits suicide by fasting or cutting off a
limb or by burning or by hanging or by taking poison or by jumping off a hill,
223
no death rites should be done for such a person (Kane 1990: 926). Nevertheless,
exceptions to such general prohibition are also found. Atri holds that suicide is not
forbidden for those who are too old or too weak to carry out bodily cleansing or
too ill to respond to medicine or surgery. For such a person it will not be a sin to
end life by jumping off a cliff or into fire or water or by fasting. There should be
a mourning period of three days after the death of such a person and death rites
should also be done (Kane 1990: 925). The support of Brahmagarbha, Vivavsvat,
and Gargya is mentioned by Apararka for a similar view. If a householder is
seriously and terminally ill or too old or has no desire for any sensual pleasure and
has no unfulfilled obligations (to the family, teachers, ancestors, and so on), he/
she may commit suicide by embarking on the final journey (when one keeps on
walking until one drops dead), or by entering fire or water or by jumping off a hill.
Such death is not only not sinful, but also more meritorious than self-mortification
(tapas), for one should not want to live uselessly (Kane 1990: 927).
17. B. K. Matilal has observed that Indian philosophers very seldom discussed what
is called moral philosophy now and labels this as a lacuna (1989: 5). However,
judging something to be a lacuna when one looks at a philosophical tradition
that is as large, diversified, and great as Indian philosophy is problematic. Even
if it is true that moral philosophy in the contemporary sense is largely missing
in Indian philosophy, instead of being a lacuna what Indian philosophers have
offered while dealing with ethical issues may be a different way of doing moral
philosophy that may even help to move moral philosophy forward today and
reach new developments. At least much more serious study of Indian discussion
of ethical matters is needed before such a judgment can be reliably made. Further,
Virtue Ethics emphasizing the crucial role of character in ethics is a major player
in contemporary moral philosophy. Great Greek moral philosophers like Plato and
Aristotle, to whom Western moral philosophers of today owe a deep debt, also
had the same emphasis. Without any doubt, Indian philosophers have recognized
the importance of character for ethical concerns and made a lasting contribution
to the subject. Finally, we have tried to show that NY ethics that may be called
soft Consequentialism may help to address some of the problems in Kantian,
Utilitarian, and Aristotelian moral philosophies. Ethical philosophies of other
Indian schools, if seriously studied, will also for sure be relevant to modern
moral philosophy. What really matters is diving deep into the vast body of Indian
philosophy and discovering the treasures there (and Matilal, who devoted himself
wholeheartedly to this enterprise, would certainly agree to this).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BSS. 1969. Bhāṣāpariccheda with the Siddhāntamuktāvalī and Saṃgraha, edited by Pt.
Pancanan Sastri, 3rd ed. Kolkata: Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar.
Chakrabarti, Kisor K. 1999. Classical Indian Philosophy of Mind. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
224
Chakrabarti, Kisor K. 2006. Introduction to Hinduism and Buddhism, Rev. ed.

Kolkata: Oriental Publishing House.
Kane, Pandurang Vaman. 1990. History of Dharmasastra: Ancient and Mediæval Religious
and Civil Law in India. Government Oriental Series. Class B. No. 6, 2nd rev. and
enlarged ed. 5 vols. Vol. 2. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
Shimla, Delhi: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, in association with Motilal
Banarsidass, Delhi.
Mohanty, J. N. 2007. “Dharma, Imperatives, and Tradition: Towards an Indian Theory of
Moral Action.” In Indian Ethics, edited by J. Prabhu and R. Sharma P. Bilimoria, 57–
78. Vol. 1. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
NBH. 1989. Nyāya-Sūtra with Nyāya-Bhāṣya, edited by Pt. Phanibhushan Tarkavagish.
1–5 vols. Kolkata: Paschim Banga Rajya Pustak Parsat.
NKV. 1980. Nyāyakusumāñjali with Vistāra. In Tirupati, edited by U. T.
Viraraghavacharya. Tirupati: Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha.
NS. 1989. Nyāya-Sūtra with Nyāya-Bhāṣya, edited by Pt. Phanibhushan Tarkavagish. 1–
5 vols. Kolkata: Paschim Banga Rajya Pustak Parsat.
NV. 1997. Nyāyavārttika (by Uddyotakara), edited by A. Thakur. New Delhi: Indian
Council of Philosophical Research.PDS. 1997. Padārtha-Dharma-Saṃgraha with
the Nyayākandalī, edited by Pt. Durgadhar Jha. Varanasi: Sampurnanda Sanskrit
University.
Popper, Karl Raimund. 2012. The Open Society and Its Enemies, 5th ed.
London: Routledge.
PS. 1996. Pariśuddhi, edited by A. Thakur. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical
Research.
Rosenstand, Nina. 2005. The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Questions of Ethics
and Human Nature. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
Smart, R. N. “Negative Utilitarianism.” Mind 67 (1958): 242–243.
TCM. 1990. Tattvacintamani with the Māthurī, edited by K. Tarkavagish.
Delhi: Chowkhamba.
TK. 1940. Sāṃkhyakārikā with the Tattvakaumudī, edited by Sivanarayana Sastri.
Bombay: Pandurang Jawaji.
TT. 1996. Tātparya-Tīkā. In New Delhi, edited by A. Thakur. New Delhi: Indian Council
of Philosophical Research.
Vedāntadarśana. 1966. Edited by Swami Visvarupananda. Kolkata: Advaita Ashram.
VS. 1991. Vaiśeṣika-Sūtra with the Upaskāra, edited by Gangadhar Bakhre. Varanasi: Vyasa
Prakasan.
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CHAPTER TEN
Mindfulness and
Moral Transformation:
Awakening to Others in
Śāntideva’s Ethics
WILLIAM EDELGLASS
1. INTRODUCTION: A FLASH OF LIGHTNING IN

THE DARK OF NIGHT
In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the Elder Zossima tells a story about his
own moral and spiritual development that is recorded by the hero of the novel,
his young attendant, Alyosha Karamazov. Prior to becoming a monk, Zossima was
a military officer, living an unreflective life, seeking his own pleasure, often cruel
to others. Several years into his military service, fearful of losing the freedom and
adventure of his bachelor life, Zossima chose not to pursue the noble and intelligent
woman to whom he was attracted. When she married a local landowner, Zossima
felt humiliated, insulted his rival, and then challenged him to a duel. The night
before the duel, Zossima comes home to his room in an ugly mood. For no particular
reason, full of anger, he strikes his servant, Afanasy. The servant’s face is covered in
blood, even as Afanasy, with his hands by his sides, makes no attempt to retreat or
block Zossima’s blows.
The next day Zossima wakes up and perceives everything differently. Standing
at the open window he watches the sun rising, feels the late June warmth, hears the
birds singing. While sensing the wondrous beauty of the world, he feels mean and
shameful for hitting Afanasy. He falls on his bed, crying, overwhelmed by what he
has done, overwhelmed by the miserable life he has been living. Zossima goes to
Afanasy, falls on his knees and begs forgiveness. He then goes to the duel, stands
and accepts the first shot from his rival—which grazes his check—and throws his
weapon away. Full of joy, and a sense of love and responsibility for all, Zossima
resolves to leave his regiment and become a monk (Dostoevsky 1990: II.6.ii).
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226 WILLIAM EDELGLASS
There are numerous comparable narratives of awaking to an ethical responsiveness

to others in Buddhist literature. For example, in the story of King Maitribala and
the five ogres, after experiencing the king’s generosity, the ogres are transformed
and, according to tradition, become the first five disciples of the historical Buddha
in a later life. These are stories of the arising of a moral awareness, the arising of a
responsiveness to the needs, sufferings, and desires of others. In a more modest way,
we may feel something similar, with acquaintances and colleagues whose vulnerability
and experience we sometimes appreciate—pausing in our own projects—as if for the
first time.
Early in An Introduction to the Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicaryāvatāra), the
eighth-century Indian Buddhist author Śāntideva compares these moments to a flash
of lightning in the dark of night (Bodhicar. I.5), when we are suddenly disrupted
from our own preoccupations and become attentive to the needs of others.1
The compassionate attention to the other is illuminating, like the lightning that
momentarily discloses our surroundings. Zossima’s sense of shame following his
treatment of Afanasy, and for how he had been living, marks both an attention to
an other and the recognition of the ways in which he was ignorant about what is
truly of value and what is deeply nourishing. Zossima understands how his egoism
obscured his perception of the lives of others and darkened the perception of his
own life. In Zossima we see a compassionate attention to the other that is liberating;
it is the beginning of Zossima’s path to freedom from the fear, jealousy, and need for
approval and distraction that impelled his pursuit of pleasure, often in the form of
exerting his power over others. Zossima’s moral transformation, then, is the radical
transformation of his own experience from a constricted life of self-cherishing to an
expansive understanding and care for others.
The illuminating and liberating ethical acknowledgment of the other’s suffering
that sometimes arises, like a flash of lightning in the dark of night, shows that the
mind is not necessarily caught in the dissatisfaction and moral misperception of
self-cherishing. In Way of the Bodhisattva, as well as the other extent text attributed
to him, Compendium of Teachings (Śikṣāsamuccaya), Śāntideva invites his readers
on a path to nourish the spark of liberating attention to others, and to cultivate it.
These works are presented as guidebooks on the path from the darkened perception
and constricted life of self-cherishing to an awakened life, attentive to the needs
of others and at peace with oneself. In Śāntideva’s language, this is the path of
the bodhisattva, the awakened or awakening (bodhi) being (sattva) who, guided by
insight and compassion, works to alleviate the sufferings of others, and in doing so,
finds liberation from dissatisfaction and anguish.
This path to awakening, characterized by the cultivation of a caring responsiveness
to the needs and desires of others, is a path of moral transformation. Śāntideva’s
works—like many other Indian Buddhist texts—address the moral significance of our
actions and intentions, virtues and vices, feelings and thoughts, rules and character,
and our moral experience. Indeed, for Śāntideva, there is moral significance not
just in our speech and action, but also in our thinking and qualities of attention. For
Śāntideva, it is precisely because the moral so permeates our lives that it does not
227
AWAKENING TO OTHERS IN ŚĀNTIDEVA’S ETHICS 227
make sense to mark off one aspect of our lives and to term it ethics or morality, for
there is nothing outside of morality. This does not mean, however, that he does not
explicitly reason about the grounds and principles of morality. As Charles Goodman
writes:
Of all the productions of the Indian Buddhist tradition, the texts that come
closest to a worked-out ethical theory are the two works of Śāntideva: the
Bodhicaryāvatāra, or Introduction to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, and the
Śikṣā-samucaya, or Compendium of the Trainings. In many cases, Śāntideva
draws on earlier scriptural sources; but in synthesizing them, he creates a system
of substantially greater theoretical coherence. The sophistication, generality, and
power of Śāntideva’s arguments give him a legitimate claim to be the greatest of
all Buddhist ethicists. (2009: 89)
My purpose in this chapter is to present Śāntideva’s ethics as it is embedded in
his accounts of the bodhisattva path of moral transformation and mental discipline.
I will begin with a brief historical introduction to the interdependence of morality,
concentration, and insight in Indian Buddhist traditions that is the basis of the
bodhisattva ideal and bodhicitta, the awakened mind of wisdom and compassion.
I then turn to an explicit discussion of Śāntideva’s account of the perfections of
generosity, vigilant moral discipline, forbearance, and vigor. Each of these perfections,
I argue, involves the cultivation of moral virtues through the development of a stable,
attentive, and compassionate mind. This leads to a more explicit discussion of the
fundamental role of mindfulness and the perfection of meditative concentration in
Śāntideva’s ethics. For, according to Śāntideva, mindfulness is the very condition for
the possibility of pursuing the bodhisattva training. With a stable and attentive mind, it
is possible, then, to pursue the perfection of wisdom. Meditating deeply on the wisdom
of emptiness, dependent origination, and the distinction between the two truths enables
the embodied enacting of this insight in relation with others. Especially important
to Śāntideva, this embodied insight allows the aspiring bodhisattva to overcome the
fundamental delusion of a separate, substantial self that is at the root of our fearful
and confused existence. Śāntideva’s moral thought has elements of both Virtue Ethics
and Consequentialism. However, in the end, I argue, his texts are best understood as
meditation manuals that, through skillful means, help practitioners facing different
situations and with different challenges overcome obstacles to awakening. Because
awakening means cultivating particular embodied, skillful, affective, and cognitive
ways of being in the world that involve attending with compassionate care to the
needs and sufferings of others, the bodhisattva path is fundamentally about moral
transformation and the development of moral consciousness.
2. BODHICITTA: A GOOD BEYOND MEASURE

In emphasizing a deep relation between responding to suffering and awakening,
Śāntideva is situated in a long-standing tradition of Indian Buddhist thought. In
228
this tradition, the Buddha is understood as a doctor and his dharma regarded as
medicine. According to this therapeutic metaphor, the four noble truths presented
in what is said to be his first sermon, and often taken to be the foundation of
Buddhist doctrine, can be understood as a diagnosis of an illness, its etiology,
prognosis, and a prescription for healing. The first truth is diagnostic: that
dissatisfaction and suffering (duḥkha) characterize our lives. The second truth is
an etiology: that the origin (samudaya) of suffering results from craving, typically
understood as attachment that is grounded in a delusion of self. The third truth is
a prognosis: that the cessation (nirodha) of dissatisfaction and suffering is possible.
And the fourth truth is a prescription: a path (mārga) to the cessation of suffering
through practice.
Some Buddhist traditions have understood the path articulated in the last noble
truth as constituted by three kinds of practice: good conduct or moral discipline
(śīla); mental discipline, concentration, attention, and equanimity (samādhi);
and wisdom, understanding, and insight into the nature of reality (prajñā). But,
according to these traditions, the three practices are interrelated; indeed, each is
necessary for the others. Cultivating capacities for appropriate speech and action
requires the cultivation of mindfulness and concentration. We cannot respond to
others in caring ways if we react in anger or fear. At the same time, to cultivate
mindfulness and concentration requires attending to one’s comportment, the
ways we engage with others through speech and action, and not being oppressed
by remorse for one’s past actions, or fears of their consequences. And both
concentration and moral discipline are interdependent with wisdom: without
concentration there is no possibility for insight into the nature of reality. At the
same time, how we understand the world deeply impacts how we engage with
others. Most obviously, perhaps, it is ethically relevant whether or not we think
some people are by nature inferior to others, or not deserving of our respect.
But at a more subtle level, if we understand the ways in which all things arise
interdependently we are more likely to have a compassionate attention for others.
Thus, wisdom, mindfulness, and moral discipline ought to be understood as three
mutually conditioning aspects of a unified path to awakening. But because this
path is fundamentally concerned with how we relate to others, it is a path of
moral transformation, in which the practitioner becomes increasingly attuned to
the needs and pains of other sentient beings.
We see this interdependence between our relations with others and meditative
excellence in discussions of the four brahmavihāras in the early discourses of the
Buddha. The brahmavihāras are the measureless states of karuṇā (typically translated
as “compassion”), muditā (sympathetic joy), maitra (loving-kindness), and upekṣā
(equanimity). They are described as states of awareness that arise with advanced
meditative practice. Here, it is clear that progress on the path is marked by a
concerned responsiveness to the experience of others, taking joy in the joyfulness of
others, in a loving-kindness that is open and patient and understanding. Cultivating
excellence in meditation, then, leads to a cultivation of attention to others and other
oriented virtues.
229
The path in classical Indian Buddhism is most clearly presented as a way of ethical
transformation in the cultivation of bodhicitta, the awakening—or awakened—mind
of the bodhisattva. We see this in the narratives of the previous lives of the historical
Buddha, when, having taken a vow to achieve buddhahood, he cultivated generosity,
patience, and other moral qualities. These narratives were, in part, a result of the
transformation of the historical Buddha from a supreme human being to something
more akin to a deity. The bodhisattva served as a kind of transitional figure, the one
who is on the path from being an “ordinary person” (prithagjana) to the complete
awakening of a Buddha.
The Dīgha Nikāya, and other early Pāli texts, describe multiple buddhas. And with
the idea of multiple buddhas, then, there must be multiple bodhisattvas on their way
to buddhahood. Thus, the meaning of “bodhisattva” evolved from Gautama Buddha
in former lives to a general category, a universal ideal. This evolution starts already
in the early discourses, where scholars such as Jeffrey Samuels and Bhikku Anālayo,
for instance, have highlighted the characteristics of the bodhisattva ideal and the path
to its realization (Samuels 1997; Anālayo 2010). This ideal included making a vow
to achieve full awakening; over time this vow was understood to be motivated by
compassion for the sufferings of sentient beings. The bodhisattva, then, is motivated to
awaken in order to skillfully alleviate the pains of others. The idea of the bodhisattva
path to realize the vow came to include the development of perfections (pāramitās)—
such as generosity, moral discipline, patience, concentration, and wisdom— that
transform minds and bodies defiled by ignorance, aversion, and attachment, into
awakened beings. These perfections are presented in postcanonical Theravāda texts,
such as the Cariyāpiṭaka and the Buddhavaṃsa, as well as Madhyamaka and Yogācāra
works by Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, Śāntideva, and many others.
The bodhisattva ideal, then, as Anālayo notes, was “a pan-Buddhist phenomenon
that drew followers from most, if not all, of the Buddhist schools, including the
Theravāda tradition” (2010: 131). Thus, early texts on the bodhisattva path do not
indicate a rebellion against Nikāya Buddhism; they were a part of Nikāya Buddhism.
These texts, and the associated practices of the bodhisattva path, were composed
and copied in monasteries where, it seems, one could also choose to follow the path
of an arhat or a pratyekabuddha, and thus not aim to liberate all sentient beings from
suffering (Skilling 2004: 143). Peter Skilling suggests that it was not until later that
some Buddhists in their practice and rhetoric, valorized the path of the bodhisattva
above the others and claimed that everyone on the Buddhist path ought to pursue
Buddhahood (2004: 143). For these partisans of the bodhisattva path, it was the
great (mahā) vehicle (yāna) to liberation, the Mahāyāna.2 At the heart, then, of
what became known as “Mahāyāna” Buddhism, is the figure of the bodhisattva.
And the bodhisattva ideal is most fundamentally about a moral transformation, the
cultivation of bodhicitta, a mind that is insightful, stable, and deeply attentive to the
needs of others.
Śāntideva identified as a Mahāyānist when the Mahāyāna had been firmly
established as a school and no longer regarded by its adherents as only one of
several equally worthy Buddhist paths. Thus, he presents the bodhisattva path as
230
the Buddhist path that is necessary to achieve awakening. This path consists of the
cultivation of a mind that is stable, insightful, and compassionate. For Śāntideva,
and the tradition in which he is working, this mind is called bodhicitta.3
In the first chapter of the Compendium and in Way of the Bodhisattva, Śāntideva
follows the distinction in the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra between two kinds of bodhicitta
(Śikṣā 9/§8, Bodhicar. I.15). The first form is called aspirational bodhicitta
(bodhipraṇidhicitta), the mind that, motivated by a compassionate responsiveness
to the suffering of sentient beings, aspires to achieve awakening and alleviate
this suffering. That is, “the Mind resolved on Awakening” (Bodhicar. I.15). This
mind arises when one is moved by the sufferings of others. But this compassionate
attention is not merely a feeling of sympathy. Rather, one is motivated to respond
to others and has a sincere intention to cultivate moral virtues, a stable and
concentrated mind, and insight so that one can skillfully respond. For Śāntideva,
thoughts are important, and he is clear that while this intention alone is insufficient
for awakening, it does play a beneficial role, as it orients our comportment in the
world (Śikṣā 9–11/§8–10).
It is to inspire his readers to generate and deepen their intention to pursue the
bodhisattva path that Śāntideva devotes much of the first chapters of the Way of the
Bodhisattva to beautiful descriptions of bodhicitta. Bodhicitta, in Śāntideva’s words,
is a good beyond measure, the only path to enduring happiness (Bodhicar. I.26). It is,
he writes, drawing on an alchemical metaphor, an elixir that transforms an ordinary
person into a Buddha (Bodhicar. I.9). It is “a tree that constantly fruits” (Bodhicar.
I.12). These inspiring descriptions of bodhicitta at the beginning of his work reflect
Śāntideva’s commitment to the idea that the right intention and the right attitude
are necessary for making progress on the bodhisattva path. These descriptions, then,
are not a “mere preliminary” to the ethics that follows later in the book. Rather, they
motivate the aspiring bodhisattva and constitute a necessary condition for moral
practice.
Having made a resolution, and thereby already begun her radical transformation,
the aspiring bodhisattva begins to follow the path, and this results in engaged or
practical bodhicitta (bodhiprasthānacitta). This second form of bodhicitta is “the
Mind proceeding towards Awakening” (Bodhicar. I.15). Here the aspiring bodhisattva
is already cultivating the cognitive and affective orientation to others that enables
the skillful response to their suffering. According to most classical commentaries
on the Way of the Bodhisattva, aspirational and practical bodhicitta refer to relative
or conventional bodhicitta. Indian and Tibetan commentators typically recognize
a third form of bodhicitta in the text. This third form of bodhicitta, according to
Prajñākaramati, author of the earliest extant commentary, is “buddhahood: the full
comprehension of the fact that all things are without a self-nature, an understanding
that follows the complete abandonment of the veils [of mental affliction and
confusion]” (Pañjikā, p. 195). According to this interpretation, ultimately bodhicitta
is the wisdom consciousness of an enlightened being, the manifestation of a moral
transformation that abandons the aversion and attachment that make us insensible
to the sufferings of others.
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3. GUARDING AWARENESS: MORAL DEVELOPMENT

AND MENTAL DISCIPLINE
To make a vow, in Śāntideva’s intellectual and religious context, included a
commitment to following through on a collection of practices that actually enabled
the realization of the vow. The Introduction to the Way of the Bodhisattva, as its
title suggests, and the Compendium of Teachings, as its author makes clear in the
first chapter, are manuals, or guidebooks, that introduce the practices necessary for
the moral transformation that is the arising of bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is developed
through cultivating the perfections (pāramitās), trainings that transform the mind,
making it stable, non-clinging, compassionate, and insightful. Śāntideva presents a
path of six perfections: generosity (dāna), vigilant moral discipline (śīla), patience
(kṣanti), energy or vigor (vīrya), meditation (dhyāna), and wisdom or insight
(prajñā).4 Like the eightfold path, the six perfections can be divided into trainings
of actions (generosity, vigilant moral discipline, patience, and vigor), concentration
(meditative absorption), and wisdom. I will turn first to the perfections associated
with action, emphasizing, as Śāntideva does, the ways in which these perfections are
both about cultivating particular qualities of mind and about addressing the needs
of others.
Śāntideva orders the perfections according to tradition, starting with the
perfection of giving, or generosity (dānapāramitā). Quoting the Ratnamegha at the
end of the first chapter of the Compendium, he writes that “giving is the bodhisattva’s
awakening” (Śikṣā 36/§34). Why is generosity so significant? It is because giving is
both a form of renunciation from objects of attachment and an immediate addressing
of the needs and desires of others. Through practicing generosity we loosen our
attachment, first to things, but then to the more subtle objects of our clinging, such
as our opinions, status, and identities. This attachment is a cause of not only our
own suffering, but also our insensibility to the needs of others. Generosity liberates
us from this attachment, opening us to the needs of others, and freeing us from being
caught up in our things that need to be protected and defended.
As with the following perfections, Śāntideva discusses generosity first and
foremost as a quality of mind. Thus, “the perfection of generosity is said to result
from the mental attitude of relinquishing all that one has to all people, together with
the fruit of that act. Therefore the perfection is the mental attitude itself ” (Bodhicar.
V.10). According to this definition, generosity is primarily about renunciation.
Indeed, the perfection of generosity to which the practitioner aspires is a radical
renunciation. To give even “the fruit of the act,” in which the bodhisattva offers the
positive results that might follow in addition to the act of giving, is to give without
reserve, outside the economy of exchange.
The practice of giving, however, is not only about renunciation, but also, for
Śāntideva, about expressing devotion and respect to those who are worthy. For
example, in the ritual that constitutes some of the early chapters of the Way of the
Bodhisattva, Śāntideva visualizes giving everything imaginable to the buddhas and
bodhisattvas in whom he takes refuge. And, most importantly, feeling destitute of
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objects to give, he writes, “I give my entire self wholly to the Conquerors and to
their children” (Bodhicar. II.8). In this giving we give up attachment to self, enacting
our respect and esteem for buddhas and bodhisattvas, and thus embodying and
thereby strengthening our confidence in the training.
But Śāntideva is also interested in actually giving to those who are in need. This
is expressed most beautifully, perhaps, in his redirection, or dedication, of merit in
the final chapter of the Way of the Bodhisattva. Here he presents meditations of
redirecting merit so all those who are suffering may find solace: that the cold may
be warmed, the hungry fed, the fearful calmed. This act of giving, then, is not just
about renouncing that which we cherish, or showing appropriate respect, but also
about compassionately alleviating the sufferings of others. Indeed, in some of the
most moving passages of the text, Śāntideva explicitly offers himself to respond to
the needs of others (Bodhicar. III.6–21): to be “medicine for the sick” (Bodhicar.
III.7); nourishment for the hungry (Bodhicar. III.8); riches for the poor (Bodhicar.
III.9); a defender of the weak (Bodhicar. III.17); “the boat, the causeway, and the
bridge for those who long to reach the further shore” of buddhahood (Bodhicar.
III.17); illumination for those who are in darkness (Bodhicar. III.18); a servant for all
those who require service (Bodhicar. III.18); and sustenance for all beings who suffer
(Bodhicar. III.21). These lines express the ideals of the bodhisattva: the complete
offering of the self, and all one’s possessions and capacities without reserve, to
alleviate the sufferings of others.
The second perfection is vigilant moral discipline, or śīlapāramitā, a
notoriously difficult term to translate. It is often rendered in English as “ethics,”
“morality,” or “virtue,” but it also suggests appropriate habits or good conduct.
And, as with virtue, it can refer to the qualities of character that result in virtuous
practice. However, as Barbra Clayton points out, it would be strange to translate
śīla as virtue or morality, which would imply that generosity (dānapāramitā) or
patience (kṣāntipāramitā) were somehow not also virtues or did not belong to
morality (2006: 75). What then is śīla for Śāntideva? It is the disciplined, vigilant
observation of acts of body, speech, and mind, and mindfully acting in ways that
meet the needs of others.
In both the Compendium and Way of the Bodhisattva, Śāntideva suggests that
śīla is cultivated through mindfulness of one’s actions of body, speech, and mind.
Indeed, just as he defined generosity as a mental attitude, so Śāntideva defines śīla
as “the mental attitude to cease from worldly acts” (Bodhicar. V.11). Worldly acts are
those that are motivated by attachment and aversion to benefit the self. What, then,
is the mental attitude that ceases from worldly acts? It is a mental attitude cultivated
through a disciplining of actions that liberates the bodhisattva from attachment and
aversion and thus is not acting based on self-interest in tension with the interests
of others. To develop this mental attitude, then, is to practice mindfulness and
awareness (Bodhicar. V:108; Śikṣā 120/§121). This is what motivates Śāntideva’s
discussions of rules that give guidance on how to hold one’s eyes when walking
about (Bodhicar. V:35–38, 80); how to position the body (Bodhicar. V:39), even
in sleeping (Bodhicar. V:96); how to smile when engaging with others (Bodhicar.
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V:71); etc. Śāntideva’s prescriptions, many of which draw on the monastic code, are
not intrinsically important or morally obligatory by nature. Rather, they are helpful
because they call the mind to attend to even minor daily activities.
For Śāntideva, then, vigilant moral discipline is not primarily about following
rules and avoiding what is prohibited. Instead, moral discipline is manifest in our
mindful comportment in the world; it is expressed in affective, cognitive, and self-
aware dispositions. Because it is primarily about the development of mindfulness, it
can be cultivated in any circumstances. Indeed, Śāntideva recommends approaching
any situation with the motivation, “How may I practice the discipline of mindfulness
in these circumstances?” (Bodhicar. VII.73). It would be a mistake, however, to think
that Śāntideva is only interested in moral discipline for the cultivation of mindfulness
and awareness. He is also concerned with moral discipline that benefits others and is
motivated by compassion. Hence, he writes, “One should speak confident, measured
words, clear in meaning, delighting the mind, pleasing to the ear, soft and slow, and
stemming from compassion” (Bodhicar. V.79). Thus, the perfection of vigilant moral
discipline, as with the perfection of generosity, is simultaneously a cultivation of
mental discipline and moral discipline, a cultivation of mindfulness that is also a
caring attention to the needs of others.
Through the practice of generosity and moral discipline the aspiring bodhisattva
loosens attachment to self and cultivates mindfulness and awareness that enables
both a more stable mind and attention to the needs of others. However, Śāntideva
notes, the fruits of generosity and vigilant moral discipline are undermined through
aversion toward others (Bodhicar. VI.1). Aversion—as manifest in hatred (dveṣa),
anger (krodha), repugnance (pratigha), and malice (vyāpāda)—sets the bodhisattva
against precisely those she has vowed to help, namely, other sentient beings. Thus,
Śāntideva devotes chapter VI of the Way of the Bodhisattva and chapter IX of
the Compendium to the perfection of forbearance, or patience (kṣāntipāramitā).
Through the cultivation of forbearance, Śāntideva argues, one develops the
capacity to respond with benevolent awareness, equanimity, understanding, and
compassionate attention. For this reason, Śāntideva claims, “There is no spiritual
practice equal to forbearance” (Bodhicar. VI.102). Forbearance, he argues, is the
antidote to hatred and the key to mental discipline and equanimity required by the
aspiring bodhisattva.
In his meditations on cultivating forbearance, Śāntideva explicitly draws on
fundamental tenets of Buddhist philosophy. For example, he encourages the aspiring
bodhisattva to reflect on the selflessness of persons, a reflection that will deconstruct
the very object of our hatred or anger. If we meditate on the lack of substantial
persons, then we are less likely to get upset at someone. Similarly, Śāntideva argues,
one antidote to aversion is meditation on dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda).
Dependent origination refers to the way in which all phenomena are dependent on
multiple conditions for their existence. Our own anger, frustration, and malice arise,
in part, because of a lack of understanding of conditions. By employing the concept
of dependent origination, Śāntideva hopes to show that the other’s actions as well
as our own suffering are both dependent on a number of causes and conditions.
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If the other who appears at first to be the sole cause of our suffering is moved by
anger or hatred, then, Śāntideva claims, she is not freely choosing her actions. If we
understand how her actions are one element of an unlimited series of conditioned
events we are less likely to feel aversion (Bodhicar. VI.24, 33). Indeed, if we are to
feel resentment or anger we should focus it not on the other person, he argues, but
on the mental defilements that may be causing her to act in hurtful ways toward us
(Bodhicar. VI.41).
Śāntideva seeks to motivate his audience with the argument that hatred and anger
destroy our peace and pleasures, and alienate our friends (Bodhicar. VI.3–5). But
ultimately, he argues, forbearance as the patient enduring of suffering, the forgiveness
of those who harm us, and the mental discipline achieved through reflecting
on dependent origination and the lack of a substantial self, leads to mindfulness,
awareness, and equanimity, and is necessary for the achievement of bodhicitta.
Indeed, Śāntideva insists, the very obstacles that hinder us provide the necessary
opportunities to pursue our training as aspiring bodhisattvas (Bodhicar. VI.102).
“After all,” Śāntideva notes, “a person in need who turns up at a suitable time is not
a hindrance to generosity” (Bodhicar. VI.105). For this reason, “since he helps me on
the path to Awakening, I should long for an enemy like a treasure discovered in the
home, acquired without effort” (Bodhicar. VI.107). I ought to worship my enemy as
the “True Dharma,” for he is the condition for my spiritual development (Bodhicar.
VI.111). In certain respects, then, my enemies are the equals of enlightened teachers,
for they also are necessary conditions for progress along the path (Bodhicar. VI.114).
What we see here, as throughout the Compendium and the Way of the Bodhisattva,
is Śāntideva’s method of presenting arguments and meditations to help frame each
situation in the way that is most conducive to awakening. If we are suffering, it is
an opportunity for practice. And, according to Śāntideva, our own suffering, when
understood appropriately, motivates compassion for others who suffer: “The virtue
of suffering has no rival, since, from the shock it causes, intoxication falls away
and there arises compassion for those in cyclic existence” (Bodhicar. VI.21). For
Śāntideva, then, the various forms of suffering we encounter are not obstacles that
prevent us from speedily accomplishing the path to wisdom; sufferings occasioned
by others provide us with the necessary opportunities to realize liberation from
attachment and suffering in general motivates us to care about the needs and desires
of others. (Śāntideva does recognize that depending on what stage of the path we
might be on, some suffering might be beyond our capacity to work with; I address
this point in my conclusion.)
Śāntideva makes clear that cultivating the perfections of generosity, moral
discipline, patience, and meditative absorption and wisdom requires strength,
energetic commitment, and vigor (vīrya; Bodhicar. VII.1). Perhaps this is why,
according to tradition, in his final words the Buddha advised his disciples to practice
with energetic discipline, to “strive with vigilance” (apramāda). Indeed, vigor is
required as a supplement to all the perfections as it enables their actual practice.
Thus, Śāntideva’s discussion of forbearance is followed by his account of the
perfection of vigor (vīryapāramitā).
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Śāntideva defines vigor as “the endeavor to do what is skillful” (Bodhicar. VII.2).

He opposes vigor to four negative tendencies: laziness or sloth, clinging to what is
vile, despondency, and self-contempt or self-doubt (Bodhicar. VII.2). He proposes
two sorts of antidotes to these obstacles to progress on the path, cognitive and
affective. First, there are ideas to motivate the aspiring bodhisattva in her progress.
For example, to counteract sloth—the laziness of indulgence in pleasures, sleep,
dependence on others, and an apathetic response to the sufferings of dependent
existence (Bodhicar. VII.3)—Śāntideva recommends meditation on the sufferings of
cyclic existence, of the inevitability of death (Bodhicar. VII.4–13), and of a human
birth as a precious opportunity for practice (Bodhicar. VII.14). This emphasis on
the sufferings of conditioned existence is also employed to disengage the aspiring
bodhisattva from attachment to practices, habits, and objects that are not beneficial
to her development.
In addition to cognitive antidotes to overcome obstacles to vigor, Śāntideva
recommends particular affects to motivate the bodhisattva. One should, he argues,
cultivate desire (chanda) for liberating self and others from suffering, perseverance
(sthāma) in the practice of the perfections, delight (rati) in the pleasures of learning
and virtuous activity, and letting go (mukti) of the attachment to passing pleasures
and distractions (Bodhicar. VII.31). Moreover, to increase vigor, Śāntideva claims,
one must draw not only on renunciation, dedication, and self-mastery, but also
on desire, pride, and pleasure (Bodhicar. VII.32). Desire, pride, and pleasure are
often associated with defilements that lead one away from the bodhisattva path
and toward the sufferings of self and others. But Śāntideva’s discussion of vigor
emphasizes that particular ways of feeling are necessary conditions for bodhicitta,
especially delight in virtuous activity, pride—or confidence—in one’s capacities, and
desire for the good of others.
Pleasure and desire are often characterized by Indian Buddhists as afflictive; for
Śāntideva these feelings are to be transmuted, and employed in the service of others.
Indeed, Śāntideva writes, desire for the benefit of sentient beings, is “the root of all
skillful deeds” (Bodhicar. VII.40). Acting according to this desire leads to delight
as a karmic consequence and delight as the transformed mind that takes pleasure
in altruistic activity (Bodhicar. VII.42). There is, Śāntideva insists, a sweetness to
the fruit of skillful action (Bodhicar. VII.64), but perhaps even more importantly,
in the very activity itself there is delight and pleasure (Bodhicar. VII.63). While
thirst (tṛṣṇā) is almost exclusively employed to refer to attachment as a mental
defilement in Indian Buddhism, Śāntideva writes of the thirst the bodhisattva feels
for virtuous action (Bodhicar. VII.66).5 It is this pleasure that the bodhisattva takes
in caring responsiveness to others that, according to Śāntideva, overcomes the heavy
indolence of despondency and apathy.
Similarly, Śāntideva encourages meditations to cultivate pride in one’s abilities
to act compassionately, to overcome obstacles, and not to be dissuaded by others
(Bodhicar. VII.49). Śāntideva understands pride as the confidence that one can
actually awaken, a confidence he believes all sentient beings are justified in. This
belief is grounded in the argument that because there is no substantial existence,
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there is ultimately no difference between ordinary beings and awakening, between

saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. Thus, each of us should have confidence that we can act
compassionately, make progress along the path, and achieve awakening.6
4. MORAL DIMENSIONS OF MINDFULNESS

AND CONCENTRATION
What Śāntideva’s discussions of the perfections of generosity, vigilant moral
discipline, forbearance, and vigor show, is that to understand morality is to
recognize the way in which the qualities of our minds condition how we engage with
others. In this section I show how Śāntideva’s discussions of mind training similarly
lead to moral action. Indeed, Śāntideva begins his discussion of the bodhisattva’s
perfections in the Way of the Bodhisattva, claiming, “One who wishes to guard his
training must scrupulously guard his mind. It is impossible to guard one’s training
without guarding the wandering mind” (Bodhicar. V.1). Guarding the mind is the
very foundation of the practice of the bodhisattva. As Śāntideva says, “If I let go of
the vow to guard my mind, what will become of my many other vows?” (Bodhicar.
V.18). What does Śāntideva mean by “guarding the mind?” It is, Śāntideva writes, to
cultivate both mindfulness and awareness (Bodhicar. V.23).
“Mindfulness” (smṛti) and “awareness” (samprajanya) are technical terms
in Indian Buddhism that in different texts possess somewhat different meanings.
“Smṛti” is the Sanskrit word that in Pāli is sati, particularly well-known today
from the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, typically translated as the Sutta on the Foundations
of Mindfulness. The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta directs the practitioner to attend to four
foundations of mindfulness, namely, the body, feelings, mind, and objects of the
mind. Thus, a particular aspect of the body is chosen—for example, the breath,
or the posture of the body, or bodily actions, or specific parts of the body, or its
constituent elements—and the practitioner is encouraged to maintain attention on
the object of awareness. This attention then makes possible the insight that the body,
feelings, mind, and objects of mind possess the three marks of saṃsāric existence,
namely, they are impermanent, empty of substantial self-existence, and ultimately
cannot satisfy us. In chapter XIII of the Compendium, Śāntideva takes up these
same four foundations of mindfulness and exhorts his readers to analyze each and
understand its impermanence and ultimately that it is empty of inherent existence.
But, to hold the object of attention for analysis requires a capacity for both attention
and recollection. Thus, for Śāntideva, smṛti and samprajanya have slightly different
connotations. Smṛti, which is derived from the verbal root smṛ, to remember, refers
not only to an awareness of an object of attention, but also includes a sense of
recollecting the object. Samprajanya, on the other hand, has more of a cognitive
and evaluative quality of observation. Śāntideva defines “samprajanya” as “the
observation at every moment of the state of one’s body and one’s mind” (Bodhicar.
V.108). “Samprajanya” is a cognate of “samprajñā”—a kind of complete wisdom—
which suggests a form of understanding. Jay L. Garfield employs “mindfulness”
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to translate “smṛti” and “samprajanya” together, because, he writes, it “captures

the unification of these cognitive functions under the rubric of calling to mind and
vigilantly retaining in mind.” As Garfield notes, even though “mindfulness” works
as a translation for both terms, these two terms still have distinct meanings. “It
is one thing to attend, and another to guard that attention with vigilance, but,”
Garfield continues, “it is important to note that these functions are cooperative,
each enabling and reinforcing the other” (2012: 3).
Attention and awareness are necessary conditions for acting skillfully because they
enable us to not merely react to external conditions with fear or anxiety or desire.
Instead, we can step back and attend to the conditions that have made possible
whatever might otherwise disturb us. And we can attend to our own motivations,
and the feelings and past experiences that might be pushing us to react in one way or
another. In short, we can be aware of the attachments and aversions that might drive
us to act in unhelpful ways. When we are attentive, we can discern how to respond
most appropriately. Sometimes, a mindful response might lead us to transgress
prescriptions or proscriptions of particular actions. Indeed, on presenting 12 forms
of mindfulness to be maintained, at the beginning of chapter VI of the Compendium,
Śāntideva suggests the aspiring bodhisattva should “aim to maintain all these forms
of mindfulness . . . even at the cost of relinquishing other [recommended] actions”
(Śikṣā 118/§118). Ultimately, Śāntideva argues, it is mindfulness that enables the
practitioner to avoid unskillful actions that cause suffering. Mindless actions and
mindless speech result in our own pain as well as the pain of others. Thus, Garfield
points out, “Not only is there an important reciprocal relation in this tradition
between the cognitive and the moral, but mindfulness, per se, lies at the foundation
of everything” (2012: 2).
For Śāntideva, then, the way of the bodhisattva, fundamentally a path of
moral development, requires an attentive, stable mind. Mindfulness is the very
condition for the possibility of pursuing any of the perfections. As he writes in the
Compendium: “The doctrine of the bodhisattvas simply amounts to the preparation
of the mind: and this is a mind not unstable” (Śikṣā 123/§123). The mind, Śāntideva
argues, can be compared to an elephant. A rutting, wild elephant can cause great
suffering, but when tamed there is no danger and indeed, the elephant can benefit
others (Bodhicar. V.3). The pains of fear, anxiety, worry, embarrassment, etc. all arise
through an untamed mind. And they lead us away from attending to the experience
of others. Thus, he writes, “By these two, virtue and meditation, interacting one on
the other, comes the complete perfection of the action of the mind; the bodhisattva’s
doctrine amounts to this, the cultivation of the mind, because all things have their
root in the mind” (Śikṣā 121/§121).
It is through the cultivation of mindfulness, then, that Śāntideva suggests
we can find liberation from mental defilements. Thus, awakening requires
mindfulness: “One who desires to protect her person, must reach the root of
mindfulness and must ever have mindfulness at hand” (Śikṣā 119/§120). The path of
the bodhisattva is one of cultivating mindfulness. However, cultivating mindfulness,
while it leads to virtuous activity, also requires virtuous activity. As Śāntideva writes
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in the Compendium, commenting on the Candrapradīpa Sūtra, in order to achieve

meditative concentration it is necessary to develop awareness (samprajanya) and
mindfulness (smṛti) of our conduct. That is, it is necessary to be vigilant of our
actions of body, speech, and mind. And, at the same time, this vigilance requires the
cultivation of meditative concentration (Śikṣā 121/§121).
Indian Buddhist communities developed numerous fine distinctions and a
similarly refined vocabulary for a wide variety of mental states and the exercises
or activities to achieve such states, all of which are translated with the very general
English term “meditation.” The many Sanskrit technical terms for different stages
and practices of meditation, including dhyāna, samādhi, bhāvanā, samāpatti,
etc., do not have uniform translations. The term employed by Śāntideva to refer
to the perfection of stabilizing and calming the mind, dhyānapāramitā, has been
rendered as “meditation,” “meditative absorption,” “meditative concentration,”
“contemplation,” or simply left untranslated.
Śāntideva begins his discussion of meditative absorption in the Way of the
Bodhisattva by noting that without calming the mind one is inevitably caught
by mental defilements (Bodhicar. VIII.1). For it is the calming of distractions
and the overcoming of self-cherishing that leads to the equanimity necessary for
responsiveness to others. He recommends temporarily removing oneself from social
life in order to train the mind. Only after one has calmed the mind, Śāntideva writes,
is one prepared to generate bodhicitta through meditation (Bodhicar. VIII.89).
Generating bodhicitta requires the neutralization of attachment, particularly desire
and self-cherishing. For Śāntideva, and most of his commentators in Tibet, two of
the most important meditations for the achievement of bodhicitta are the equality
of self and others (par ātma samatā), and the exchange of self and others (par ātma
parivartana).7
The meditation on the equality of self and others is constituted by a deep attention
to the fact that all sentient beings experience happiness and suffering (Śikṣā 3/§2;
Bodhicar..VIII.90–91). For Śāntideva, we all take suffering and pain to be bad and
its alleviation good. Because despite their immense diversity, sentient beings are the
same in their desire for happiness and aversion toward suffering, Śāntideva argues,
there is no adequate reason to prioritize my own desire for happiness and my own
aversion from suffering over anyone else’s. Indeed, he argues, we should treat the
other’s suffering as no different from my own suffering, equally making demands
and appeals to me for alleviation and medication. There is no morally significant
difference, Śāntideva insists, between my suffering and the suffering of others;
I should relieve both kinds of suffering. To realize this care for the suffering of
others, Śāntideva suggests, I ought to regard others as myself.
Regarding others as myself is not simply a change in perspective, an understanding
of the needs, desires, aversions, and concerns of the other: regarding others as myself
is primarily the cherishing of the other as I would cherish myself. By exchanging
positions with the other I come to value the happiness and needs of the other over
my own. This meditation, then, seeks to reorient the mind from seeking to use
others as means to my ends, to offering myself as a means to the satisfaction of
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the desires of others (Bodhicar. VIII.138–139). This devotion to the needs of the
other, according to Śāntideva, is simultaneously the response to my own deepest
needs. For attachment to self is precisely what causes my own suffering as well as
the suffering that I cause others (Bodhicar. VIII.129, 134). Desiring the benefit and
working to achieve the happiness of others, on the other hand—that is, overcoming
self-cherishing—is what liberates me from suffering. Indeed, Śāntideva writes, the
very care for the other becomes a care for myself as the distinction between selfish
and selfless actions is dissolved (Bodhicar. VIII.173).
5. THE PERFECTION OF WISDOM

As we have seen, Śāntideva discusses each perfection as an antidote to a particular
mental affliction; generosity is an antidote to attachment, vigilant moral discipline
is an antidote to mindlessness, forbearance is an antidote to anger and hatred, vigor
is an antidote to apathy, and meditative absorption and concentration are antidotes
to a reactive and wandering mind. But for Śāntideva, as for other Indian Buddhist
intellectuals, the root cause of all other defilements, and thus the root cause of our
own suffering and our insensitivity to the suffering of others, is ignorance. Wisdom is
the highest perfection, then, because it acts as an antidote to the ignorance that is the
condition for all other mental afflictions. Indeed, according to Śāntideva, without
understanding the lack of inherent existence of phenomena, and most particularly,
the lack of substantial existence of the self, the aspiring bodhisattva cannot loosen
the fortress walls that we build around the self and that make us insensible to the
pains of others. Thus, Śāntideva writes, all the preceding trainings were preliminary
preparations for the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā; Bodhicar. IX.1).
Śāntideva’s presentation of wisdom is informed by his understanding of
Madhyamaka Buddhist metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, especially the
intertwined doctrines of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), emptiness
of inherent existence (śūnyatā), and the distinction between conventional truth
(saṁvṛti-satya) and ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya). This understanding is
grounded in an interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way
(Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, second-third century CE), perhaps the most significant
Indian philosophical work for later traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhism. While there
is no evidence that Nāgārjuna himself thought he was inaugurating a new school of
Buddhist philosophy, later doxographers in India, Tibet, and China characterize him
as the founder of the Madhyamaka, or Middle Way, School, and the Fundamental
Wisdom as its foundational text. Nāgārjuna’s purpose in this text is to argue that
all phenomena are dependently originated, and to the degree that they depend
on a multiplicity of conditions, they lack the substantial, enduring, essentializing,
autonomous nature we ascribe to them. Thus, not only trees and stones, tables and
books, but also the Buddha, the four noble truths, dependent origination, and other
fundamental Buddhist doctrines are empty (śūnya) of the inherent or self-nature
(svabhāva) that by linguistic and social convention we attribute to them. This does
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not mean that trees and stones, tables and books, dependent origination, etc. do not
exist. Rather, Nāgārjuna argues, they are not somehow ultimately natural kinds; they
exist otherwise than we take them to exist in the realm of language and conceptual
objectification. Our words and concepts do not ultimately have the traction with
the world that we take for granted. Things are not independent, but empty precisely
of the independent nature that they seem to possess. This emptiness, this lack of
substantial existence, this absence of an autonomous nature is ultimately the truth
about phenomena. However, this ultimate truth of emptiness is itself dependent on
the mental imputation of a conventional nature. Thus, Nāgārjuna argues, emptiness
is also dependently originated and therefore emptiness is also empty. Without
meditative insight into the emptiness of emptiness, one will still have a positive
opinion to which one is attached, and be unable to achieve liberation.
Śāntideva shares Nāgārjuna’s basic metaphysical framework. His commitment
to Buddhist ideas of dependent origination and the lack of substantial existence of
the self informs his approach to moral life. The self is a multiplicity of phenomena
of perception, feeling, intention, discriminating consciousness, and the body. There
is no autonomous moral agent, freely choosing how to act in the world, and thus
no locus of responsibility. Rather, the self is itself always dependent on the forces in
which we are embedded—in our own communities and in the natural world. Thus,
for example, he argues for patience when others who are angry treat us poorly, for
their actions are themselves dependently originated; they are not autonomously,
freely intending to harm us. And he argues for a recognition of the delusion of a
substantial self, and thus, to prioritize the relief of my own suffering and neglect
the sufferings of others is arbitrary. Moreover, as Garfield has argued, it does
not make sense for the kinds of beings we are and the world in which we find
ourselves (2015: 313). Ultimately, though, this irrationality that is the ground of
our motivations makes it harder to achieve the alleviation of our suffering. Insight
grounds the view that I should work to alleviate the sufferings of others just as I am
concerned with my own suffering.
While Śāntideva employs Buddhist insights in his reasoning throughout his texts,
like Nāgārjuna, he insists that it is particularly meditative insight into emptiness
that finally liberates bodhisattvas from attachment, even to opinions and identities.
“Without emptiness,” he argues, “a mind is fettered” (Bodhicar. IX.48). And, he
notes, if you are interested in becoming a bodhisattva, then you need to gain insight
into the emptiness of phenomena. Because when you have understood the emptiness
of all phenomena then you understand the emptiness of the self, and this insight
undermines defilements at their root (Śikṣā 225/§242). Wisdom of emptiness is
necessary, then, to be liberated from ignorance, aversion, and attachment, because
it enables a deep understanding of the emptiness of self. Thus, chapter XIV of the
Compendium, on “Self-Purification,” concerns arguments for the lack of existence of
the essential, substantive nature we attribute to phenomena. And, for Śāntideva, as
for Nāgārjuna, insight into emptiness is precisely an understanding of the emptiness
of emptiness: “When there is no perception of something falsely projected as
existent, there is no understanding of the non-existence of that entity. For it follows
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that, if an entity is not real, the negation of it is clearly not real” (Bodhicar. 139).
Śāntideva, then, recognizes a moral dimension to the self-subversion of conceptual
reification (Edelglass 2007).
To move beyond a merely rational understanding of Buddhist wisdom, the
practitioner needs to enact the overcoming of attachment through a compassionate
engagement with others. What Śāntideva shows with his considerable attention to
the distinction between the two truths, dependent origination, and the emptiness of
emptiness, is that the compassionate engagement with others is a way of being in
the world that conforms to the world as it actually is. Bodhicitta, then, is realized
with the arising of wisdom and the caring responsiveness to others. As Śāntideva
argues in both the Compendium and the Way of the Bodhisattva, wisdom needs to
be enacted intersubjectively, and morality can only be perfected when informed by
understanding.
6. VIRTUES AND CONSEQUENCES IN

ŚĀNTIDEVA’S ETHICS
The Compendium and the Way of the Bodhisattva, Śāntideva’s guidebooks to the
path of radical transformation, begin from the place of an ordinary person who
becomes attentive to the needs of others. This path of liberation from emotional
and cognitive obscurations is long, slow, and arduous. It is a path of the cultivation
of moral, intellectual, and meditative excellence through practices that transform
the mind from self- cherishing to radically compassionate. Śāntideva’s emphasis
on cultivating perfections that are dispositions to act, feel, think, and attend in
ways that cultivate bodhicitta, show some similarity between the morality of the
Compendium and Way of the Bodhisattva and Virtue Ethics. Thus, Damien Keown
draws on Śāntideva to make the claim that “Aristotelianism provides a useful
Western analogue . . . [for] . . . elucidating the foundations and conceptual structure
of Buddhist ethics” (2001: 196). According to this interpretation, bodhicitta is the
telos of moral development, analogous to the role of eudaimonia in Aristotle’s
ethics. For Śāntideva, just as with Aristotle, as one cultivates the perfections one
takes greater pleasure in virtuous action. And indeed, as with Virtue Ethicists,
Śāntideva possesses great confidence in the possibility of transforming character
through proper habituation. Thus, while actions of body, speech, and mind do have
a “ripened consequence” (vipākaphala)—the fruit of an action, such as the suffering
or happiness we experience in this life or a future birth—Śāntideva is much more
interested in the secondary consequence (niṣyandaphala) of our actions. This more
subtle fruit of our actions is manifest in the quality of our minds. For instance, if
I am angry and act with cruelty, the ripened consequence may be that I suffer some
specific harm in the future. But the secondary consequence is that my mind will
change and be more easily angered and overcome with cruelty. Every thought, every
word, every action, according to this view, makes us more likely to act, speak, and
think in a similar way. Cultivating the perfections, then, involves actions that are
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responsive to others—for example, giving to the needy or being patient with those
around us—but also, importantly, form who we are. They transform our minds
from the grasping, deluded, and suffering mind of an ordinary person, to the open,
responsive, calm mind of bodhicitta.
Śāntideva’s ethics is oriented toward a telos—bodhicitta—that is identified as the
perfection of our nature, and this perfection is realized through cultivating virtues by
making appropriate choices of attention, energy, and action.8 Nevertheless, it would
be misleading to interpret Śāntideva simply as a Virtue Theorist in any traditional
sense. For example, in contrast to the role of eudaimonia in Aristotle, bodhicitta
is not an end in itself; the aspiring bodhisattva cultivates bodhicitta motivated by
compassion to alleviate the suffering of other sentient beings. Moreover, Śāntideva
is not suggesting practices for the practitioner’s good, or the good of those who
are nearest and dearest. We need to prioritize the good of the other over one’s
own good. However, in prioritizing the good of the other, according to Śāntideva,
we are in fact acting for our own greater benefit. But the benefit to the self is a
secondary consequence; it is not the goal. And indeed, the goal of Śāntideva’s ethics
is universalist: to free all sentient beings from suffering.
Śāntideva, like Mill and other Consequentialists, takes suffering to be manifestly
bad and freedom from suffering to be a good for which no argument is necessary.
And Śāntideva seems to think the consequences of this fact are not just relevant to
oneself, but reason and morality demand a response to all suffering. Thus, he asks,
“When happiness is liked by me and others equally, what is so special about me that
I strive after happiness only for myself? When fear and suffering are disliked by me
and others equally, what is so special about me that I protect myself and not the
other?” (Bodhicar. VIII.95–96). And the very first verse of the Compendium asks,
“Since I and others abhor pain and fear alike, what distinction can I rightly make for
self, that I should preserve it and not another?” (Śikṣā 3/§2). When Śāntideva does
recognize a benefit to suffering, it is generally because this instance of suffering leads
to a greater alleviation of overall suffering. Indeed, he writes, “If the suffering of
one ends the suffering of many, then one who has compassion for others and himself
must cause that suffering to arise” (Bodhicar. VII.105). In contrast to Virtue Ethics,
then, Śāntideva is making a Consequentialist argument that the suffering of the self
is less significant than the overall reduction of suffering. And this Consequentialist
reasoning appears elsewhere in his texts. For example, he writes, we should sacrifice
ourselves for someone who is equally or more responsive to the sufferings of others;
we should not sacrifice ourselves for someone who is less compassionate. “That way,”
he argues, “there is no overall loss” (Bodhicar. V.87). Śāntideva’s Consequentialist
reasoning and his universalist commitment to the welfare of all sentient beings as the
goal of the path and the grounding of the perfections has led some scholars, such as
Goodman, to interpret him as an act Consequentialist (2009: 89–103).
Interpreting Śāntideva as an act Consequentialist helps make sense of his claim
that to alleviate suffering a bodhisattva, informed by wisdom and motivated by
compassion, can transgress any moral rules. This is the doctrine of skillful means
(upāya kauśalya).9 According to this doctrine, because diminishing suffering and
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increasing peace and happiness is the ground and justification of ethics, being
skillful (kauśalya) in the method, strategy, or means (upāya) for reducing suffering
overrides any moral rules. Thus, Śāntideva writes in the Way of the Bodhisattva,
“even what is proscribed is permitted for a compassionate person who sees it will
be of benefit” (Bodhicar. V.84). In the Compendium, Śāntideva makes clear that
motivated by compassion and informed by wisdom—two very important caveats—it
is appropriate to transgress not only monastic vows, but also the moral precepts,
such as those against killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and lying (Śikṣā 163–165/
§167–168). Indeed, he cites examples of all these from various Mahāyāna sūtras,
and the circumstances under which they are allowed.10 Often these transgressions
are attributed to the Buddha, who in previous births, motivated by compassion,
abandoned the precepts if it was efficacious in leading others to the dharma or
alleviating their suffering. Because they lead to a reduction of suffering, these
transgressions, if enacted with wisdom and compassion, are morally right. As
Goodman points out, this widely accepted view, which justifies acting in ways that
might be considered vicious if a bodhisattva sees that it will diminish suffering, does
not fit well with Virtue Ethics. But in a Consequentialist framework they can stand
as exemplary moral acts.11
It is unsurprising that Śāntideva has been interpreted through the hermeneutic
frameworks of Western ethical theories. Clearly, there are elements of Virtue Ethics
and Consequentialism in both the Compendium and the Way of the Bodhisattva. The
perfections are cognitive, affective, embodied dispositions that are cultivated to act
virtuously and transform the mind. And Śāntideva’s ethics is grounded in the premise
that suffering is bad, and universalized to maximize the alleviation of suffering for
all sentient beings. Clearly, drawing on Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism to
interpret Śāntideva can help disclose aspects of his moral theory and the practices he
recommends. But to understand Śāntideva’s ethics simply as a form of Virtue Ethics
or a kind of Consequentialism would obscure some of its distinctive features.12
These include the ways in which the common tension between other-oriented and
self-interested motivations is dissolved, the unique and necessary role of reason in
relations with others, the primary importance of meditation in ethics, and Śāntideva’s
appreciation for difference and diversity among practitioners even as he defends a
particular path of moral transformation. In conclusion I will elaborate briefly on
these last two points.
7. CONCLUSION: MORAL TREATISE AS

MEDITATION MANUAL
Śāntideva, as with other Indian Buddhists, conceives of the bodhisattva path as a set
of practices that function as antidotes to the “three poisons” that cause us suffering
and diminish our responsiveness to the sufferings of others. These three poisons are
attachment, aversion, and delusion, which are the source of all the other mental
defilements, such as jealousy, avarice, pride, sloth, hatred, and schadenfreude. The
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trainings that Śāntideva recommends, then, are intended to neutralize particular

defilements. Thus, meditating on the dependent origination of the anger and actions
of others can neutralize our resentment, frustration, anger, and hatred toward them.
Meditating on the preciousness and brevity of human life can neutralize our laziness
in moral development. Meditating on the actions of body, speech, and mind can
neutralize our lack of awareness that leads us to react in ways that produce more
suffering. Meditating on the equality of self and others can neutralize our insensitivity
to the sufferings of others. Meditating on the exchange of self and others can
neutralize our self-cherishing. Meditating on dependent origination, the distinction
between the two truths, and the emptiness of emptiness can neutralize the delusion
of inherent nature, especially the fundamental delusion of our own substantial self.
The Compendium and the Way of the Bodhisattva are meditation manuals that serve
as guidebooks to the bodhisattva path because they offer meditative antidotes to
mental afflictions.
To deeply cultivate the meditations that lead to bodhicitta requires that they be
embodied; they need to be enacted with others. Thus, Śāntideva’s texts consist of
arguments concerning moral theory and practice. Aversion to others, prioritizing
the self over others, insensibility to the suffering of others, all need to be overcome
through actual engagements. Thus, Śāntideva says, yes, one needs to spend some
time cultivating meditative concentration and mindfulness in solitude, without
the distractions of social life. And in solitude one ought to cultivate mindfulness
or pursue meditations that counteract self-cherishing or overcome the existential
delusion of a separate self that is the basis of attachment. But even while Śāntideva
describes the perfections as qualities of the mind, these qualities of mind can only
be fully cultivated through engaging with others. To cultivate the awakening mind
requires both wisdom and compassionate caring for others.
Because the path of the bodhisattva is a set of trainings to neutralize mental
defilements, depending on the situation or the practitioner there will be a different
emphasis on which meditative practices to pursue. In some situations, if one
finds one’s mind attracted or repelled in unhelpful ways, Śāntideva recommends
meditating on being “like a block of wood” (Bodhicar. V.48–53). In other situations,
however, it might be appropriate to increase desire, or zeal, for example, if one
is feeling lethargic (Bodhicar. VII.40). Throughout, Śāntideva is attentive to
such differences— differences of capacity, differences of temperament, different
challenges that require different responses. And he is sensitive to the vulnerability
of our bodies and minds, that being overwhelmed or pushing ourselves too far
is counterproductive. One needs to be sensitive to the appropriate difficulty of
a practice and not take on too much; at whatever level one is, one should find
suitable practices. Starting to practice with minor challenges will make them easy, he
suggests, and eventually make it possible to practice with major challenges without
being overwhelmed (Bodhicar. VI.14). Indeed, Śāntideva writes, “The Guide enjoins
giving only vegetables and the like at first” (Bodhicar. VII.25). That is, the Buddha
himself suggests that when starting out on the path one should only give away that
which is possible to give without resentment, such as vegetables, that can nourish
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the body of another and are beneficial. “Later,” he continues, “by degrees, one acts
in such a way that one is even able to give up one’s own flesh!” (Bodhicar. VII.25).
Thus, in contrast to moral theories that lead to one or another act that ought to
be done regardless of who the agent might be, Śāntideva argues that one should
carefully discern whether or not a given practice or act is beyond one’s abilities, and
then act accordingly (Bodhicar. VII. 47–48). And if a task is taken up that exhausts
one, it should be set aside until strength and energy and zeal are revived (Bodhicar.
VII.66). Thus, he is not suggesting that anyone can simply be mindful even in a
situation of immense physical suffering, such as forced labor, extreme heat or cold,
or the weakness of the body and mind that comes with starvation. Rather, Śāntideva
is making the more modest suggestion that we ought to try to make the most of the
situations we find ourselves in to cultivate mindfulness and a caring responsiveness
to others.
At the heart of Śāntideva’s ethics, then, is the skillful means of discerning what
is suitable at any given time, and recognizing that there will be differences in
practices for different practitioners. And his texts exhibit the skillful means of trying
to reach a multiplicity of readers where they are. This helps us understand why
sometimes Śāntideva inspires fear, sometimes desire, and sometimes equanimity.
And why he moves freely from evocative poetic language, to the very technical
discourse of scholastic Buddhist philosophy. It would be a mistake, however, to
interpret Śāntideva’s appreciation for difference and multiplicity together with his
commitment to the idea that language and thought cannot grasp ultimate reality
as an acknowledgment that all moral claims and practices are equal. While there
is no ultimate grounding of ethics in a transcendental Being or value, it is still the
case that we find ourselves embedded in a world of suffering and that some modes
of being can lead to awakening and others leave one entangled in the confusion,
aversion, and attachment of saṃsāra. Śāntideva’s meditations invite the reader to
experience the path from ordinary existence to awakened compassion. Meditating
on his vivid descriptions of a life of fear, loss, and clinging attachment can indeed
provoke a sober reflection on the reality of our lives. And meditating on his inspiring
expressions of the compassion and calm of one who has taken refuge and is pursuing
the bodhisattva path gives a taste of what we might imagine to be the wisdom and
compassionate caring for others that constitute the awakened mind.13 For Śāntideva,
the bodhisattva path, then, is about moral transformation through the cultivation of
mindfulness that is embodied and enacted as wisdom and a caring responsiveness
to others.
NOTES
1. Śāntideva’s dates are sometimes given as 685–763 ce. However, this specificity
is misleading. 685 was the year that the Chinese pilgrim, I-Tsing, left India. I-
Tsing visited the great Buddhist university, Nālandā, where Śāntideva was active,
and makes no mention of him in his writings, suggesting Śāntideva was not
246
widely known. In 763 Śāntarakṣita travelled to Tibet and quotes from the Way
of the Bodhisattva in his Tattvasiddhi. For a detailed discussion of Śāntideva’s
dates, see Pezzali (1968: 38–40). Also, see J. W. de Jong’s response to Pezzali
(1975: 179–181).
2. Because the early Mahāyāna was not in opposition to any particular institution or
organization, Jonathan Silk points out, it would be a mistake to conflate “Hīnayāna”
with a particular Buddhist tradition, such as one of the early sects, including
Theravāda. Silk interprets “Hīnayāna” as a “rhetorical fiction,” best translated as
“small-minded”: “The term embodies a criticism of certain types of thinking and of
certain views, but does not refer to institutional affiliations” (2002: 369).
3. In Indian Buddhist texts the verbal noun “bodhi” refers to the characteristic
quality of being a buddha, namely, awakened. Thus, contemporary translators
render it as “enlightenment” or “awakening.” Citta means “mind,” but may also
have a broader range of meanings. For a discussion of the term “bodhicitta,” and
its various translations, see Brassard (2000: 7–8).
4. Some presentations of the bodhisattva path have ten perfections, including skillful
means (upāya-kauśalya), vows (praṇidhāna), power (bala), and knowledge (jñāna).
In fact, Śāntideva addresses these as well in both his texts, but not as distinct
perfections.
5. Indeed, Śāntideva compares the delight and pleasure of virtuous activity along
the bodhisattva path to the pleasures of intoxicants and sexuality: “One should be
addicted solely to the task that one is undertaking. One should be intoxicated by
that task, insatiable, like someone hankering for the pleasure and the fruit of love-
play” (BCA VII.62).
6. According to Śāntideva’s accounts of the lack of substantial existence of
phenomena, the various mental defilements that are obstacles on the path are
empty of inherent existence. Thus, every sentient being is, in some sense, already
liberated, as this very world is just as much nirvāṇa as it is saṃsāra. For a detailed
discussion of Śāntideva’s approach to inherent liberation, and the diverse
interpretations of this approach in Tibetan traditions, see Williams (2000: 1–28).
7. While these meditations are often associated primarily with Śāntideva, they have
precedents in other Mahāyāna authors, at least as far back as Nāgārjuna’s Precious
Garland.
8. For an extended discussion of Buddhist ethics and Virtue Ethics that is significantly
grounded in Śāntideva, see Mrozik (2002).
9. The term “skillful means” (upāya kauśalya) has several other meanings, the
most important of which are concerned with teaching the dharma in ways that
are appropriate for a particular student, and with compassionate action (Harvey
2000: 134–135).
10. Śāntideva cites the Ratnamegha, which argues that when a man is intending to
commit one of the five deadly sins that lead to severe suffering for the agent—
patricide, matricide, killing an arhat, shedding the blood of a Buddha, and causing
disharmony in the Saṇgha—it is appropriate for a compassionate person to kill
him (Śikṣā 164/§168).
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11. For a discussion of skillful means in Śāntideva, see Clayton (2006: 102–109).
12. For a longer discussion of the relationship between Buddhist ethics and Western
moral philosophy that draws in part on Śāntideva, and why it would be a mistake
to interpret Śāntideva purely according to a particular Western moral theory, see
Edelglass (2013).
13. Thus, Garfield reads the Way of the Bodhisattva “as a treatise on the distinction
between the phenomenologies of benighted and of awakened moral consciousness”
(2015: 300).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anālayo, Bhikkhu. 2010. The Genesis of the Bodhisattva Ideal. Hamburg: Hamburg
University Press.
Brassard, Francis. 2000. The Concept of Bodhicitta in Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Clayton, B. 2006. Moral Theory in Śāntideva’s Śikṣāsamuccaya: Cultivating the Fruits of
Virtue. Abington, UK: Routledge.
de Jong, J.W. ‘‘La Légende De Śāntideva.” Indo-Iranian Journal 16 (1975): 161–182.
Dostoevsky, F. 1990. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by R. Pevear and
L. Volokhonsky. New York: Everyman’s Library.
Edelglass, William. 2007. “Ethics and the Subversion of Conceptual Reification in Levinas
and Śāntideva.” In Deconstruction and the Ethical in Asian Thought, edited by Y.
Wang, 151–161. New York: Routledge.
Edelglass, William. 2013. “Buddhist Ethics and Western Moral Philosophy.” In The
Blackwell Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, edited by S. Emmanuel, 476–490.
London: Blackwell.
Garfield, J. L. ‘‘Mindfulness and Ethics: Attention, Virtue and Perfection.” Thai
International Journal of Buddhist Studies 3 (2012): 1–24.
Garfield, J. L. 2015. Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Harvey, P. 2000. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues.
Keown, Damien. 2001. The Nature of Buddhist Ethics. New York: Palgrave.
Mrozik, S. “The Value of Human Differences: South Asian Buddhist Contributions
toward an Embodied Virtue Theory.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 9 (2002): 1–33.
Pezzali, A. 1968. Śāntideva: Mystique Bouddhiste Des Viie Et Viiie Siecles.
Florence: Vallecchi Editore.
Prajñākaramati. 1995. “Pañjikā, in a Mahāyāna Liturgy.” In Buddhism in Practice, edited
by D. Lopez Jr., translated by L. Gomez. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Samuels, J. “The Bodhisattva Ideal in Theravāda Buddhist Theory and
Practice: A Reevaluation of the Bodhisattva-Śrāvaka Opposition.” Philosophy East and
West 47 (1997): 399–415.
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Śāntideva. 1990. Śikṣāsamuccaya, edited by C. Bendall and W. H. D. Rouse.

Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Śāntideva. 1995. The Bodhicaryāvatāra. Translated by K. Crosby and A. Skilton.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Silk, J. “What, If Anything, Is Mahāyāna Buddhism? Problems of Definitions and
Classifications.” Numen 49 (2002): 355–405.
Skilling, P. 2004. “Mahāyāna and Bodhisattva: An Essay Towards Historical
Understanding.” In Photisatawa Barami Kap Sangkhom Thia Nai Sahatsawat Mai,
edited by P. Limpanusorn, 140–156. Bangkok: Thammasat University Press.
Williams, P. 2000. Studies in the Philosophy of the Bodhicaryāvatāra: Altruism and Reality.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Three Vedāntas: Three

Accounts of Character,
Freedom, and
Responsibility
SHYAM RANGANATHAN
1. INTRODUCTION
Moral philosophy is a philosophical investigation of the right procedure or good
outcome. A superficial depiction of Indian thought is that it is primarily concerned
with ethics (dharma) that leads to freedom (mokṣa). All Indian moral philosophers
believe this, some claim. The problem with this pithy generalization is the idea that
ethics leads to freedom has at least two distinct readings that are inconsistent with
each other. The first is the idea that (C), we should treat freedom as the end, and
ethics as the means to bring this about. Accordingly, the end, freedom, justifies the
means, ethics. This is teleological and Consequentialist: it prioritizes the end or
good in moral explanation. It is also a story about moral justification. Then there is
the thoroughly procedural idea that (P), ethics, in and of itself, causes a good end—
freedom. This is the moral theory that we could call Yoga or Bhakti. It stresses the
discipline of procedure, but it also defines right procedure by a regulative ideal: when
we are devoted to it, we approximate it and thereby instantiate it. The regulative
ideal here—the Lord—is right, though perhaps not good, but devotion to it brings
about our own good by changing our life so that we approximate lordliness. We
attain mokṣa in proportion to our approximation to the Lord. This is the opposite
from a Consequentialist and teleological account of ethics, as here the right takes
priority in explanation. It is also a story about moral causation.
Often, freedom is depicted as a condition of morality: it would seem that we have
to be free in order to be responsible for our actions so freedom has to come first.
We could call this freedom first. Yet this freedom first view is remarkably like the
Consequentialist and teleological account of the relationship of ethics to freedom, as
250
it prioritizes the good of freedom in the rationalization of the responsibility of ethics.

However, if freedom is a good in itself, then treating it as a condition of responsible
action would leave our freedom to luck. If we were free it would have nothing to do
with anything in our control. But if freedom is a good, we do not want to leave it to
luck: we want to ensure it. But then we have to treat responsibility as the condition
of freedom. This is Yoga, or Bhakti insofar as devotion to a regulative ideal accounts
for how sheer procedure can have a good outcome such as our freedom.
The history of Vedānta philosophy—philosophy of the latter part of the Vedas—
largely endorses the latter option. But this option is itself an argument: either (C) or
(P); (C) does not protect freedom but (P) does, therefore (P). We find this argument
implicit in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad and later restated explicitly in the Bhagavad Gītā.
I will call this the “moral transition argument” (MTA). The argument depicts a
dialectic that takes us from teleology to proceduralism. Making a case for MTA
involves undermining the idea that we are free—rather, we have to do something
to become free. But if we are not free, how or who is responsible for our choices?
An option is to treat our dispositions, our psychology, or character as responsible
for choice and action on the way to freedom. But character or disposition is itself
a state of restriction where choices are constrained by our psychology. To treat this
as the center of responsibility that has to protect freedom seems to lead to new
problems of accounting for how we can protect freedom without already being free
to do so—and if we do gain freedom by virtue of this restraint, is this not a new
kind of luck? What if we end up with a bad character: would not this undermine
our expansion, development, and personal growth? Here we bump up against the
paradox of development: we need to be responsible to bring about our own freedom
so that our freedom is not left to luck, but it seems that this requires freedom as a
condition, otherwise it is not clear how we could be responsible. This appears to
threaten the MTA and the very idea of development.
One option is to win freedom by denying the requirement that anything more
needs to be done for the sake of development. With this option we reject the reality
of our character along with ethical requirements. Another option is to affirm the
reality of character and moral requirements, but to recognize that the reality of
character is itself a limitation on potential, which means only some individuals with
good characters will be able to protect and safeguard their freedom—only some
will be in a position of development. Finally, we might affirm that a devotion to an
abstract, non-proprietary regulative ideal is sufficient to account for the protection
of freedom, in which case our character is a work in progress. But then we re-
understand ourselves as part of the project of Development that is oriented around
the regulative ideal.
These three options are the respective views of Śaṅkara (Monism), Madhva
(Dualism), and Rāmānuja (Qualified Monism)—the three famous commentators
on the Vedānta Sūtra, a purported summary of the import of the later Vedas.
It is not uncommon to reduce the importance of these three thinkers to that of
interpreters of a common Vedic corpus, including derivative smṛti literature such as
the Bhagavad Gītā and the Vedānta Sūtra. This is to treat them as mere philologists
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THREE VEDĀNTAS: CHARACTER, FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY 251
interpreting texts in accordance with their beliefs. The problem with this approach
is that it not only reduces the stature of these thinkers to that of hacks imposing
their views on texts, but also deprives us of an appreciation of the rationale and
justification for the approaches they take. Śaṅkara’s, Madhva’s, and Rāmānuja’s
differences are not especially normative, as they do not largely differ on the content
of ethics, but their projects are metaethical as they disagree about what DHARMA has
to offer. The tradition of philosophy they endorse and explicate is characterized
by the MTA. The term that the Vedānta philosophers all want to explicate in light
of the MTA is “Brahman,” which means “growth,” “expansion,” “evolution,” or
“development” (Monier-Williams 1995: 737). This term figures prominently in the
literature that Vedānta authors look to—such as the Upaniṣads—and it arises in this
tradition exactly when there is a move away from the teleology of the old Vedas,
which motivates dharma by good outcomes granted by the virtuous Gods toward
Deontology and Bhakti.
The usual gloss on Brahman identifies it with “God” and further identifies this
God with some version of Theism. Certainly, the Lord is an important element
in the moral theory of Yoga and Bhakti as the regulative ideal of procedure—
Development. But Vedānta is not Virtue Ethics, and the quick identification of
Brahman with Theistic ideas of God obscures the logic of the underlying moral
orientation. In Virtue Ethics, the ideal moral agent is good and right action flows
from the character of the agent. Theism is the version of Virtue Ethics where God
is the ideal moral agent, who sets the conditions for right action. In Bhakti, right
action sets the conditions for the good, and the Lord defines right action. Goodness,
such as freedom, not rightness, flows from the Lord. Whereas the theist’s God is
good, the bhakta’s Lord is right. What is basic for Vedanta is Development: it is
a further question whether Development is the Lord—most agree on this in some
form or another.
In this chapter I propose to review the basic distinctions of moral theory that
give rise to the MTA. I will trace the development of this argument in the Vedic
and derivative literature. I next review the three Vedāntins’ attempts to resolve the
paradox of development and respond to the objection that all they were doing was
commenting on tradition and engaging in a theological project.
2. MORAL THEORY
First I want to review the permutations of THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD that constitute four
basic moral theories, distinguished along two axes: (1) justification vs. causation,
and (2) the prioritization of the good vs. the prioritization of the right. This sets the
stage for the explication.
Teleology prioritizes the good (outcome) over the right (procedure).
Consequentialism justifies action by deference to the consequences— that is, the
good outcome is the reason to do something that respects this outcome, on the
Consequentialist account—and Virtue Ethics claims that the right action is caused
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or produced by the virtues—a state of goodness. Proceduralism prioritizes the right

(procedure) over the good (outcome). Deontologists can, and often do define the
right procedure in terms of a good outcome. We see this clearly, for instance, in the
Mīmāṃsā Sūtra (MS; I.i.2) where dharma is defined as an injunction that produces
welfare. But the reasons that Mīmāṃsā authors endorse the right action is not the
consequence, but because it is legitimate on procedural grounds—namely, that it is
specified by śruti (what is intuited). Memory or tradition must be legitimated by this
(MS I.i.5, I.iii.1). We find the same kind of move in Kant, for instance: the right action
is defined by an end, whether it is the Kingdom of Ends, or the Principle of Humanity
that counsels us to treat humans as the end, and not merely the means. Yet, Kant
as a Deontologist gives us a parallel reason for endorsing the right thing to do: we
do duty out of conformity to the law, which has to do with our self-determination.
Deontologists do not have to deny that our duties produce good results by definition.
They merely deny that the good results are the reason for doing our duty. Indeed,
if the desirable results define our duty, we need some other justification, to avoid
begging questions. The claim that Deontologists cannot talk about the good in their
justification of duties (Sreekumar 2012) is a confusion: duties are defined by THE
GOOD for them and hence to talk about justifying duty is to talk about THE GOOD.
Bhakti is the Indian contribution to all of this. It mirrors Virtue Ethics, in
providing a causal story. Whereas Virtue Ethics claims that the good (virtue) causes
the right action, Bhakti claims that the right action causes the good outcome. The
bridge between the right action and good outcome is devotion to the regulative
ideal—the Lord. The outcome of this devotion—its good—is the perfection of the
practice. The practice, in turn, is defined by the ideal—the Lord. A most interesting
feature of Bhakti is that it is the most procedural of options. Whereas Deontologists
can and often must define ethics in terms of good outcomes, Bhakti reverses the
direction of explanation: the good outcome is caused by the right practice. There
is no independent good that we can define. What makes for a right practice is that
it constitutes devotion to a regulative ideal. The devotee is one who worships and
emulates the regulative ideal, and the good is merely the perfection of this practice.
While one could try to justify this practice by the end, or the regulative ideal, the
bhakta does not. Devotion is its own reward. The perfection of the practice is our
freedom from evil (Gītā 18:66).
3. THE VEDAS
The early Vedas are primarily concerned with sacrifice. This is exemplified in the
chants (Mantras) and manuals (Brāhmaṇas). The latter portion of the Vedas, Forest
Books (Āraṇyakas), and Dialogues (Upaniṣads) introduce the idea of Brahman and
ātman (self). If we look at the linguistics of a term such as “Brahman,” we find that
it has many referents—all worth taking seriously. The first of the significances listed
in the Monier-Williams Sanskrit–English Dictionary for this term are “growth,”
“expansion,” “evolution,” and “development” (1995: 737).
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If the Upaniṣads are chronologically later than the part of the Vedas we
understand as ritualistic (the usual view), then, at some point, questions of the self
and development were not central to Vedic thinking, but later they became central
(for chronology and breakdown of the Vedas, see Santucci 1976).
In the earlier Vedic worldview, we find Vedic gods, and the sacrifice. According
to these parts of the Vedas, nature is explained by a diversity of forces, all identified
as gods, and our goal in life is to appease these forces of nature. This is naturalistic
in two senses. First, the basic explanations of life on this account are natural
explanations. As Quine notes, the role of a god and a theoretical particle are on equal
footing when we look at things naturalistically: they both play a role in empirical
explanation (Quine 1990). But here we find that many kinds of gods that the Vedic
people identified—the heavenly bodies, as well as forces such as the wind (Vayu) and
fire (Agni)—are natural forces that account for life in nature. Second, the goods that
the early Vedas identified are the beneficence of nature. When the forces of nature
are good to me, I reap benefit.
The benefit comes at a cost: the sacrifice, where a victim and other possessions
are given to the Gods. This is a strange scenario where I try to direct an evil that
I myself wish to avoid to something innocent. Stranger still, I understand practical
rationality as seeking to avoid an evil while gaining a blessing. Evils include those
brought about by demons (rākṣasa; Ṛg Veda 1.21, 6.28, 10.87, 10.88) and humans
who break contracts and friendships (Ṛg Veda 10.88). Finally, it seems that the evils
have to be given their due. Not only must I put off my death and demise by offering
up a victim to the gods, but also during the course of a sacrifice, the blood of the
victim should be offered to evil demons (rākṣasas). By offering blood to the demons,
we keep the nourishing portion of the sacrifice for ourselves (Aitareya Brāhmaṇa
2.1.7: 59–60). The entire system is characterized by ressentiment—the definition of
goods in terms of evils. Evil is nothing that can be eliminated from our worldview: it
has to have its due respect and place to justify the entire system.
The pressure to sacrifice to the gods and to give demons their due appears to be
nothing but the natural pressures of metabolism. According to the Aitareya Āraṇyaka,
it is Agni (fire) that is the consumer of food (I.1.2.ii). The sacrificial offering is just
food (I.1.4,vii). If it is ultimately fire that is hungry, and the sacrifice is how we enact
feeding our debt to fire, then the sacrifice is the ritualization of metabolism: the
burning of calories. The sacrifice hence functions as a model for our animal biology.
It is also the uneasy legitimization of the appropriation of some other living body
for our ends.
But why must there be a sacrificial animal that is nonhuman? We humans arguably
make just as good a meal as a goat. The Vedic texts answer that in the first instance,
humans are the sacrificial objects for gods. Yet things change once gods dissect a
human. They find that part of the human that is fit for being the object of sacrifice
is converted into a horse (quick moving). But the same is true of the horse: having
killed the horse, the gods discover that the part worthy of being sacrificed is now an
ox (slower moving). Each time a new convention is set up for who is to be sacrificed,
until a strange turn of events occurred: the part worthy of sacrifice turns into rice,
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and that is where it ends (Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 2.1.8: 61–62). What is not worthy of
sacrifice is self-directed.
Philosophically, this is an insight into the irreducibility of evil on a teleological
front. It is because there is such a thing as a bad outcome that I strive for a good
one, on a teleological approach, but then I cannot get rid of evil from my moral
explanations. It remains an irreducible feature of my worldview. Blood of sacrifice
is its due.
4. MTA PART 1: DEATH AND DEONTOLOGY

How do we get rid of evil? I take it that the move to a procedural approach to ethical
questions is one way to reject evil as an explanation of moral action. If I think about
the right in a manner that does not appeal to evil, I think about the right as a way to
conduct my life without having to give the demons their blood.
The worst of the evils that we seek to avoid via natural means is death. It is
our final and ultimate lack of autonomy and freedom to determine ourselves.
But how do we overcome this seeming inevitability? One way is to try to put off
dying, but that does not get rid of it so much as stalls it. The other is to embrace
the lack of control as part of the well-lived life. We do this by losing control to
ourselves: self-control, self-governance. Death, hence, is something that we can
transform from an event that happens to us to something we employ as a matter
of self-understanding. Death ceases to be an evil when we die to ourselves. It is
part of our own self-development.
The movement to thinking about basic philosophical questions in terms of self
(ātman) and development (Brahman) is part of the switch. So we find throughout
the Upaniṣads a movement away from thinking about practical questions in terms of
sacrifices to the Gods, and toward understanding the self in terms of development.
While the term “Brahman,” development, does not figure prominently in the
famous Kaṭha Upaniṣad, it is in many ways an analysis of what this development of
the self looks like—a development that embraces the loss of control that is Death.
In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, we find that the young boy Nachiketa is condemned to
death by his father (conducting a solemn sacrifice to the gods) in response to the
boy’s pestering question, “To whom will you sacrifice me?” “To death” is uttered by
his father—in irritation. As it is said in a solemn sacrifice, the boy is duly sacrificed,
and travels to the abode of the God of Death, Yama—who happens not to be there.
On returning after three days, Yama offers the young boy three boons to make up
for his lack of hospitality. Two boons are readily granted: the first is returning to
his father and the second is knowledge of a sacrifice that leads to the high-life. Last,
Nachiketa wants to know: what happens to a person after they die—do they cease
to exist, or do they exist? Yama tries to avoid answering this question by offering
wealth—money, progeny, and the diversions of privilege. Nachiketa rejects this, on
the grounds that “no one can be made happy in the long run by wealth,” and “no
one can take it with them when they come to you [i.e., Death].” He objects that such
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gifts are short-lived. Death is inevitable, so he wants the answer. The boy is persistent
and Yama relents. He begins his response by praising the boy for understanding the
difference between the śreya (control) and preya (utility): the foolish are concerned
with the preya (what Yama tried to give the boy), but the wise with control. Implicit
in this praise of control over utility is the MTA: only the foolish are guided by
ends. The wise want to take control over their own destiny—they do not want to
leave it to luck. This control over one’s own destiny ensures that one’s freedom is
unhindered. Yama continues with his allegory of the chariot.
Philosophy is filled with interesting allegories of the chariot: all proving something
different. The Buddhist Questions of King Milinda uses the analogy to press home
the idea that the self is nowhere to be found in the contents of experience. Plato uses
the model to explicate the nature of the soul. All souls are comprised of a charioteer
and winged horses. The charioteer (the person) is the intellect, but the characters of
the horses differ. Gods have noble horses, while humans are stuck with one good
horse, and one troublesome horse (Phaedrus 246a–54e). This is Plato’s trip-partite
model of the soul, according to which the soul is reason, spirit (the attitudinal
component of the self), and desire (Republic Book IV). All of this is distinct from
the body on Plato’s account. Moreover, there is nothing leftover that is the self on
Plato’s account: the soul is the self. This cuts a sharp contrast with a Vedānta account
of the Self as distinct from the soul.
According to Yama, the body is like a chariot in which the Self sits. The intellect
(buddhi) is like the charioteer (reason). The senses (indriya) are like horses (desire),
and the mind (mānasa) is the reins (spirit). These last three components correspond
to Plato’s tripartite account of the soul, which are distinct from the Self. Yet, over
and above this there is the Enjoyer (bhoktṛ, who consumes the fruit—phala— of
action—karman—when it is ripe) who is the union of the self, senses, mind, and
intellect. The objects of the senses are like the roads that the chariot travels. People
of poor understanding do not take control of their horses (the senses) with their
mind (the reins). Rather, they let their senses draw them to objects of desire, leading
them to ruin. According to Yama, the person with understanding reins in the senses
with the mind and intellect (Kaṭha Upaniṣad I.2). This is (explicitly called) yoga
(Kaṭha Upaniṣad II.6). Those who practice yoga reach their Self in a final place of
security (the Preserver’s, Vishnu’s, abode). This is the place of the Great Self (Kaṭha
Upaniṣad I.3). There is no evil here.
The story is noteworthy for a number of reasons. First, the young boy, far from
natural death, has to confront Death ahead of time. And whereas typically the point
of sacrifice to the gods is to avoid problems of misfortune that tend toward one’s
own death (by finding a suitable proxy who is then sacrificed), the boy himself is the
sacrificial victim. But having been deprived of his autonomy by this untimely death,
he has an audience with Death, not as one who suffers the misfortunes of Death,
but as one who is honored with gifts from Death. The gifts given by Death to the
one who faces Him ahead of time includes not only a restoration of relationships
with loved ones, and an understanding of the sacrifices necessary for the high-life,
but also the secret of life: death (the loss of autonomy) as an event (which we call
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dying) occurs only to those who do not take control of their senses, mind, and
intellect. Those who can take control of these elements, and thereby control their
body, are responsible agents avoiding accidents. This is what it is to face Death
ahead of time: it is to live life in the knowledge of the possibility of dying, and
thereby to avoid dying. Death ahead of time is life after Death (though not life after
dying). This is yoga. It is also a matter of taking the good of our freedom away from
luck: we are free by self-determination.
There is a long tradition of interpreting the Upaniṣads as teaching a mysterious
doctrine about a nonempirical self. It is often couched in theological language of
being chosen by a God. Just as God chooses his people, the ātman, we are told,
chooses a person (cf. Müller’s translation of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad I.2.23–25):
That Self cannot be gained by the Veda, nor by understanding, nor by much
learning. He whom the Self chooses, by him the Self can be gained. The Self
chooses him (his body) as his own. But he who has not first turned away from
his wickedness, who is not tranquil, and subdued, or whose mind is not at rest,
he can never obtain the Self (even) by knowledge! Who then knows where He is,
He to whom the Brahmans and Kshatriyas are (as it were) but food, and death
itself a condiment?
This translation consists of distortions, including the gratuitous insertion of
“Veda.” Worse, it makes the issue occult. The doctrine is unmysterious if we have
a taste for moral philosophy. For the topic is ethical. To understand oneself is to
understand oneself as responsible for oneself. This is Death’s lesson.
Here we come across an insight of the Vedic tradition. We need to do something
with Death (i.e., the loss of autonomy). If we do not take control of our loss of
autonomy, we lose our autonomy. The earlier Vedic tradition thought that the way
to remove it from the public realm (our death, or loss of autonomy) is to inflict
it on another. But the later view is that to take control over the loss of autonomy
is for us to take it away from the public realm (what we can all see), where it is a
threat, and privately house it as a loss of autonomy (where it is not visible to others).
The private housing of a loss of autonomy is the loss of autonomy to oneself: self-
governance or self-control. This is a self-imposed limitation on our person that is
our public freedom. For this reason, the Indian tradition has often connected Death
with Duty. Indeed, the latter tradition identifies the God of Death as Dharma (Duty,
Virtue). Reciprocally, the tradition also calls Death by the same term it uses for
ethical responsibility, direction, or self-control: yama. To understand the self via
yama is to take hold of the public freedom for us to be ourselves, by privately
limiting ourselves. This is to understand the self prescriptively in terms of what it
ought to do, and not in terms of what it contingently does. So Death concludes:
This self is not obtained by speech, nor by intellect, nor by much revelations
about sacrifices (śruti). He or she whom the Self chooses, gains him or herself.
Deliberately choosing the self (ātmā vi-vṛṇute) is governing oneself (tanuṃ svam)
verily (am). One who has not first turned away from evil policies (duścara), who
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is not peaceful and subdued, or whose mind is not at rest, can never obtain the
Self by insight! Such a confused one will not know where the Self went—The self
for whom privilege (Brahmins [the priestly caste] and Kṣatriyas [the governing
caste]) is the main course, and death the sauce. (My translation, Kaṭha Upaniṣad
I.2.23–25.)
The account of evil presented by Death resembles the Platonic claim that evil
is a deprivation of goodness, insofar as we start not with evil as a primitive, but as
something derivative. There are portions of the Upaniṣads that sound like this. For
instance, Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2.1 states that priority is to be given to sat (reality,
but also the good) from which all arose. But this is not the final word on the issue,
for Death eliminates talk of goodness in favor of control (śreya) and self-governance
(tanuṃsvam). Whereas goodness is an outcome or state of affairs, self-governance is
the justifying condition of outcomes and states of affairs. To countenance ourselves
as essentially self-governing is to treat ourselves as the explanation of good and evil.
Evil arises from irresponsibility (failed practice, duścara). It is not an explanatory
primitive of our universe. But neither is goodness basic, if the right is prior to the
good and it is our righteous behavior that explains the good. So, evil is a privation
of rightness—not goodness—on Death’s model.
What ethical theory do we have here in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad? It is a form of
Deontology. Deontology holds that right action, though definable by some
outcome that is good, is justified by some non-teleological consideration. Usually,
Deontologists appeal to the requirements of self-governance—self-control—as the
justification for duty. Here, we find abstraction from sense experience as the duty to
be performed (i.e., the right thing to do), and the reason to engage in it is that one
thereby is self-justifying, and self-controlling.
The Deontological reading is bolstered by the primacy of the passenger’s role in
the analogy of the chariot. It is the job of the passenger to bring under its control
the various elements of the chariot. The proper behavior of the chariot in total is
the duty, but the reason for endorsing the good fortune of not driving into a ditch
has to do with non-teleological considerations of being in charge, which is to say,
responsible.
If this were a version of Consequentialism, Death would be appealing to an end
as what justifies action. Then any course of action would be fine so long as it gets
you there. The actual means of getting there would be incidental and secondary. To
make the teleological approach work, we would have to discount the means (sense-
control and self-governance) as inessential to the moral story. But the means (the
duty) in this story are the states of goodness that the wise endorse.
5. MTA PART 2: THE BHAKTI OPTION AND THE GĪTĀ

Here is a generalization: Deontology not only is the account presented in the Kaṭha
Upaniṣad, but is also quite broadly the default ethical frame of the Vedānta—in the
primary, textual sense. The Upaniṣad’s move toward talking about self (ātman) and
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development (Brahman) is part of the shift to proceduralism. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad

does us the favor of analyzing the relationship here. Development is the totality of
the chariot and its travels, and the self is the one whose interest it protects so that
things go well. Development (Brahman) and the self in this view have a practical
identity. If practical rationality is the primary question that the Upaniṣads are trying
to answer, then we can even say that they have a metaphysical identity.
This theme, of moving to Deontology from teleological considerations,
characterizes the shift in philosophers interested in the Vedas. We also find this move
in the MS, which aims to situate its ethics as an account of the Vedas, characterized
by Mantra and Brāhmaṇa sections. Jaimini, the author of this sūtra, defines dharma
as an injunction that is characterized or leads to artha (prosperity, utility; MS I.i.2).
However, the reason we engage in dharma is not artha. We engage in dharma because
it is enjoined by the Vedas (śruti), or permitted by the tradition (smṛti) built around
it (MS I.iii.1–3). The importance of śruti hence comes into force in Vedic thinking
as a nonnatural means of justifying duties that are naturalistic (cf. MS I.i.5). With
the formulation of the idea of śruti, we have a way of pulling the Consequentialist
underpinnings from under Vedic ethics, and converting it into Deontology.
Why would Pūrva Mīmāṃsā authors make this shift? Why not justify Vedic
injunctions by means of their outcomes? It looks like the philosophers from this
tradition were done with teleology. The Gods are virtuous, it seems, but their
bounty is fickle. Sacrifices to the Gods are motivated by the ends, but there is no
causal relationship between the sacrifice and the ends. Indian philosophers seemed
to recognize what is rarely noted that justifying your actions by the ends does not
ensure the ends. Indeed, the project of treating the ends as a condition of right actions
leaves it to luck. These insights constitute the MTA that treats our own development
toward freedom as the primary moral challenge. Pūrva Mīmāṃsā authors appear to
resolve the MTA by identifying the good as the content of the right. When we do
the right thing, we bring about further goods in the future, according to them. With
this moral frame, we can do away with the Gods altogether in an explanation of
moral action (Bilimoria 1989, 1990). We protect our future goods by capitalizing on
present goods. But the Deontological option does not complete the transition of the
MTA: it rests part way. If we completely move away from teleological explanations
we have to invoke Bhakti—Bhakti defines right action not by goodness, but by
a regulative ideal. One reason that you might want to move further away from
teleology toward Bhakti is a concern that the goodness of one’s own actions is itself
a kind of luck, which one has to protect and ensure. But then we need a way to
think about right action that leads to good action that does not assume the goodness
of action. Responsibility has to somehow generate goodness from scratch to ensure
that no luck is involved in one’s good fortune.
Vedānta authors too, as early as the Upaniṣads, were apparently moving away
from teleology, but their break with teleology was more pronounced in two respects.
First the model that we find in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, at least, rejects the idea of
tradition as morally relevant: practical rationality is about moving away from your
surroundings and experiences, as well as teleology as a justification, which was part
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of the earlier tradition. Second, we also have an invocation of the idea of yoga as
analytically tied to preservation.
In the Yoga Sūtra, yoga, the practice, is specified in terms of devotion to the
Lord. In being devoted to the Lord, I act like the Lord, I thereby bring about my
own lordliness and there is no other outcome of note. This is part of the metaphor
of kaivalya being the result of practice: it is the goodness of the perfection of the
practice. But in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad there is the extra outcome from yoga: Vishnu’s
realm of preservation. If Bhakti were part of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad story, there would
be no extra outcome.
However, if we were to identify the practical agent with the charioteer, or some
subsidiary component in the chariot model—whether our mind or intellect—then
the ātman as the passenger would be the regulative ideal that defines the practice
of the intellect or mind. The perfection of this practice would be the realization of
the practical interests of the passenger as something that the subsidiary components
instantiate when they are devoted. Vishnu’s realm (safety) would not be an extra
outcome but merely what it is for the subsidiary components to be devoted to the
interests of the passenger who now takes on the position of the Lord. We, in contrast,
become jīva-s—the ones doing the living. Interpreting the allegory of the chariot as
presented to us by Death as something where we figure not as the passenger—the big
self who is practically identical with Brahman—but with a subsidiary component,
uses the Kaṭha Upaniṣad material as a resource for making a case for Bhakti.
The Bhagavad Gītā from start to finish is the MTA as a dialectic that goes from
teleological considerations, through Deontology (karma yoga) to the extreme
proceduralism of bhakti (yoga) via a metaethical bridge of jñāna yoga; it uses
the analogy of the chariot. Many ideas of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, whether it is the
withdrawal of the senses, or attention to self-control over outcome as a means of
successful living, are front and center in the Gītā. The authors of the Mahābhārata
must have been quite conscious about playing up these parallels (Jezic 2009). But
they also identify Vishnu (Krishna) with the intellect (charioteer) and Arjuna with
the passenger, or ātman. This is a twist that shifts the center of prime agency away
from the passenger to the intellect. Why not identify Krishna with the ultimate
self, and Arjuna with a subsidiary self? The dialogue actually makes these identities
clear, but the inversion of literal roles is a criticism of the earlier model: we do
not get practical rationality off of the ground by taking ourselves seriously as the
ultimate self, but by taking ourselves seriously as the subsidiary to be devoted to the
ultimate self: Bhakti. Perhaps for all these reasons, Vedānta authors such as Śaṅkara
and Rāmānuja treated this text as an Upaniṣad, though it is technically a smṛti—a
secondary text.
The Gītā begins with Arjuna’s teleological arguments as to why he should not
fight in a war that he has been unable to avoid. First, if he was to fight the war, it
would result in death and destruction on both sides, including the death of loved
ones. Even if he succeeds, there would be no joy in victory, for his family will largely
have been decimated as a function of the war (Gītā 1.34–36). Second, if the battle
is between good and evil, his character is not that of the evil ones (the Kauravas),
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but yet, fighting a war would make him no better than his adversaries (Gītā 1.38–
39). Third, war results in lawlessness, which undermines the safety of women and
children (Gītā 1.41). All three arguments are teleological. They lean in various ways
on the outcome’s failure to either justify a course of action or cause right action.
Krishna’s first response is to mock Arjuna. Arjuna’s sense of honor is one way to
get him back on the horse, so to speak, if virtue is a worry or a concern (Gītā 2.2–3,
2.33–37). Those who fight valiantly and die in battle gain paradise, he argues (Gītā
2.36–37). This would be a Consequentialist consideration. But he also appeals to a
very peculiar metaphysical view: as we are all eternal, no one kills anyone and so
there are no real bad consequences to prevent by avoiding a war (Gītā 2.11–32).
With this, he seems to go farther than the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, which seems to claim
that life after death is only for the self-controlled. This marks the end of Krishna
entertaining teleological arguments.
Krishna apparently takes it as his job in the Gītā to turn around the ethical scenario.
Teleology in the face of a dynamic, multiparty game cannot determine a unique
result. The outcome depends on the choices of many players and many factors,
which are out the control of any single player. This is debilitating, especially if we
are to choose a course of action with the consequences in view. But if the practical
challenge can be flipped, then ethical action can be identified on procedural grounds
and one has a way to take charge of a challenge via a simplification: the criterion of
moral choice is not the outcome. It is rather the procedure. This might seem dumb.
If I resort to procedure, it would seem imprudent for then I am letting go of winning
(the outcome). But there are two problems with this response. First, the teleological
approach in the face of a dynamic circumstance results in frustration and nihilism—
or at least, this is what Arjuna’s monologue of despondency shows. So trying to
justify one’s action by way of an outcome in the face of uncertainty is not a winning
strategy. Indeed, when one thinks about any worthwhile pursuit of distinction
(whether it is the long road to becoming an award-winning scientist, or recovering
from an illness), the a priori likelihood of success is low, and teleologically this gives
reason to downgrade one’s optimism, which, in turn, depletes one’s resolve. This, in
turn, curtails actions that can yield success. So focusing on the outcome backfires in
cases of indeterminacy where good outcomes matter the most. Call this the paradox
of teleology. Second, if we can distinguish between the criterion of choice and the
definition of duty—Deontology—then we have a way to choose duties that result
in success, for procedural reasons. Hence this insulates the individual from judging
the moral worth of their choice in terms of the outcome and hence avoids the
paradox of teleology while pursuing a winning strategy (Gītā 2.40). The essence of
the strategy, called yoga, is to discard teleology as a motivation (Gītā 2.50). Indeed,
one abandons the very idea of good (śubha) and bad (aśubha; Gītā 12.17). The
entire dialectic of the Gītā takes the structure of the MTA, but this is one of those
locations in the text where teleology is explicitly rejected in the elucidation of right
procedure.
To this end, Krishna distinguishes between two differing moral theories: karma
yoga and bhakti yoga. Karma yoga is Deontology: doing what is ethical (a good
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thing) without the motive of consequence (Gītā 2.38, 47, 18.47). The ethical so
defined might have beneficial effects, and the ethical so understood is a beneficial
effect, as Krishna never tires of pointing this out (Gītā 2.32). Indeed, the ethical can
be cashed out in terms of the kinds of sacrifices that give the gods (such as those
governing our metabolism) their due and the gods, in turn, support their votaries—
a reciprocal arrangement of nourishment (Gītā 3.11). But the criterion of moral
choice (the justification of one’s action) on karma yoga is not the outcome.
Bhakti yoga, in turn, is Bhakti ethics: endorsing the right and the ethical as
defined by devotion to the regulative ideal that results in one’s subsumption by the
regulative ideal (Gītā 9.27–33). How this begins, the Gītā prescribes, is by devotion
to the ideal, regardless of the moral valence of one’s actions (Gītā 9.30). This
results in dharma itself (Gītā 9.31). Metaphorically, this is described as a sacrifice
of the outcomes to the ideal. This is exactly how bhakti in the ordinary context, or
devotion to an ideal, such as music, for instance, results in accomplishments: one
gives up the claim to the outcome of one’s practice and instead prefers devotion
to the ideal of music. One thereby does not own one’s mistakes in performance or
practice (as though one must be defined by them), but moves past them in the ever
closer approximation of the ideal.
Krishna sets himself up as the regulative ideal of morality in the Gītā in two
respects. First Krishna describes his duty as lokasaṃgraha (the maintenance of
the welfare of the world; Gītā 3.24). To this extent, he must get involved in life
to reestablish the moral order, if it diminishes (Gītā 4.7–8). Second, he acts as
the regulative ideal of Arjuna, who has become confused about what to do. The
outcome of devotion (bhakti) to the moral ideal—Krishna here—is freedom from
trouble and participation in the divine (Gītā 18), which is to say, the regulative ideal
of ethical practice—the Lord of Yoga (Gītā 11.4). This, according to Krishna, is
mokṣa—freedom for the individual. Liberation so understood is intrinsically ethical,
as liberation is about participation in the cosmic regulative ideal of practice—what
Vedic authors called Ṛta.
Krishna also famously entertains a third yoga: jñāna yoga. This is the background
moral framework of bhakti yoga and karma yoga: what we would call the metaethics.
Jñāna yoga, for instance, includes knowledge of Krishna himself as the moral ideal,
whose task is to reset the moral compass (Gītā 4.7–8, 7.7). It involves, as specified
in the fifth chapter, calling upon the idea of asceticism as an ancillary to ethical
action—a code, quite literally, for the rejection of teleological considerations in
practical rationality. The ideal subsumes all of us, and hence a radical equality of
persons follows (Gītā 5.18). A popular idea tied to the Sāṅkhya school is that jñāna
yoga is a distinct path on par with the other two. As jñāna yoga is the metaethics
of the Gītā, there is some truth to this. Substantively however it embraces the other
two approaches as a matter of conceptual analysis. The conceptual coherence of
karma yoga and bhakti yoga is accounted for via jñāna yoga.
One of the very important themes of the Gītā as an articulation of Bhakti is
that the Lord is right, though not good (Gītā 10.4–5). This is a central logical
requirement of a bhakti ethic—if the Lord were good, we would have no explanation
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of how we can bring about the good by pure responsibility. Luck would apparently
be an irreducible feature of the moral picture as goodness would be nothing in our
control. But if the regulative ideal is merely right, then we can bootstrap goodness,
out of our devotion to the right. The alternative is to think teleologically about
ethical questions, where we expect goodness to be a given condition of right action.
But this has problems. Aside from the fact that goodness would be left to luck, we
would be trapped by the moral symmetry principle: that all of our choices can be
evaluated by our outcomes. Omissions and commissions with the same outcome
would thereby have the same moral worth, which means that sitting out a challenge
is not a real choice (Gītā 3.5). There is more than one way to take this. One is to
read this as an account of the determinism of moral reality (Brodbeck 2004). But
another complementary way to read this is as an invocation of the moral symmetry
principle: any choice can be evaluated by its outcome. The problem with this is that
we apparently are responsible for everything that goes wrong, but with no obvious
way to fix the problem as goodness, which is a condition of right action, is left to
luck. Bhakti, in contrast, is a solution: understand the rightness of actions as part
of an emulation of the regulative ideal. This has immediate results, according to
Krishna: those who are so devoted are friendly and compassionate. They do not
understand moral questions from a selfish perspective (Gītā 12.13). Importantly,
they renounced teleological markers of action: good (śubha) and evil (aśubha;
Gītā 12.17). Yet, they are devoted to the welfare of all beings (Gītā 12.4). What
explains this transition is the role of śraddhā—commitment, often also identified
with faith: “The commitment of everyone, O Arjuna, is in accordance with his antaḥ
karaṇa [inside helper, inner voice]. Everyone consists in commitment. Whatever the
commitment, that the person instantiates” (ch. 17.3). Everyone apparently acts in
accordance with some ideal, but the bhakta is one who chooses the moral ideal of
practice (Gītā 11.4). This is not proprietary: it is inclusive.
As noted in my explication of the ethics of the Yoga Sūtra in this book, this logic
of devotion points to the Lord being an abstraction from oneself that also subsumes
oneself and all people. As an abstraction, it is a universal, and not a particular.
But it is thereby nothing that one can understand selfishly. Its relevance is for all
people. Here we find the same logic: the Lord is the one who is responsible for
the maintenance and protection of the world (Gītā 3.24), but this is not a matter
of goodness or luck: this is a matter of the regulative ideal of practice as such. This
regulative ideal (when instantiated) produces a stable environment that makes room
for actors, including oneself.
The regulative ideal so understood is a separate person. So understanding it
involves deprivileging oneself. Hence the devotee understands all moral outcomes
as a function of the regulative ideal. So “He who is free from the notion ‘I am
the doer,’ and whose understanding is not tainted—slays not, though he slays all
these men, nor is he bound” (Gītā 18.17). Moreover, “That agent is said to be
illuminated who is free from attachment, who does not make much of himself,
who is endued with steadiness and zeal and is untouched by successes and failure”
(Gītā 18.26).
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At this juncture, Krishna introduces a virtue theoretic account of duty. Duty,

caste duty specifically, is that suited to one’s nature (18.41). It is hence defined
by the goodness of one’s character—consistent with Deontology. He also recalls
the procedural claim: better one’s own duty poorly done than another’s well done
(18.47). This is at odds with Virtue Ethics, for it is inexplicable how, given virtue or
a natural disposition, one could fail to do what is appropriate to one’s nature. It is
easy to read the Gītā as defending and articulating a caste morality, and it is indeed
a theme that shows up in the text. Yet, philosophically, it does not cohere with a
radical proceduralism. So there is a tension.
Krishna’s first method of reconciling the two is to assign virtue theoretical
considerations to the identification of duty, and distinguish this from an account
of why we should attend to our duty. Krishna claims that the right thing to do is
specified by context-transcendent rules that take into account life capacities and
situate us within a reciprocal arrangement of obligations and support, including the
gods (Gītā 3.5–13, 33–35). These are moral principles. He also further argues that
good things happen when people stick to their duty (Gītā 2.32). The arguments for
sticking to our duties are twofold: Deontology and Bhakti. But yet, an undercurrent
of the argument is to move away from thinking in terms of outcomes—including
duties—as thinking in terms of outcomes leaves goodness to chance. Here we find
Krishna moving the argument along. Bhakti allows the individual to be subsumed by
the moral ideal (18.55). But this subsumption not only leads to renouncing outcomes
to the ideal, but also should in the final analysis give rise to giving up acts themselves
as a sacrifice to the ideal (18.57).
In the western tradition, going beyond duty in the service of an ideal of morality
is often called supererogation. Here, Krishna appears to be recommending the
supererogatory as a means of embracing Bhakti. This leads to excellence in action
that surmounts all challenges (Gītā 18.58). This move, however, treats Deontology,
and its substance— moral rules and principles— as matters to be sacrificed for
the ideal. This culminates in the famous claim: “Relinquishing all Dharma, seek
Me alone for refuge. I will release you from all faults” (Gītā 18.66). This is an
explication of dharma as Bhakti (Gītā 9.31): do not worry about THE RIGHT OR THE
GOOD, approximate me (the regulative ideal) and you will be spared bad outcomes.
It leaves behind dharma as Deontology.
6. THREE ORTHODOX OPTIONS

The Gītā elaborates the MTA to a conclusion that keeps features of the tradition
intact while providing a criticism of these very features. The feature of this tradition
that it keeps intact are duties defined by the expectations of the Vedic tradition—
duties defined along caste and character. These are good in some measure as they
allow for the protection of further goods. Duty so understood is very much like the
Pūrva Mīmāṃsā idea of duty that leads to artha. Duty so understood can be given
a justification as karma yoga. But in moving toward Bhakti, it treats what we think
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of as duties as grist for the mill of contemplative practice that approximates the
regulative ideal. The bridge is a metaethical discipline—jñāna—and the practical
end is bhakti. The substance of this account, however, is the story of development,
personal growth, and expansion past the very particular and contingent aspects of
life—our outcomes that are in many ways the output of luck. The story we find
here in the elaboration of the MTA is Brahman. The Gītā hence does not leave
the philosophical question of accounting for development set out in the Upaniṣads,
but provides an account that stretches out the MTA. The main aim here is rooting
out luck. The model that sets the stage for this exploration of the MTA is that of
the chariot we find in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad and there it is employed as a model for
rooting out luck from an account of the good life. Yoga connects both developments
but is at the heart of this story, and Brahman or development is the philosophical
idea that is depicted here. But Brahman as an idea is a concept and philosophical
concepts are controversial.
The controversial matter that is left unresolved by the MTA is just the paradox of
development: we want responsibility to protect and procure the good of freedom;
otherwise whether we are free or not is a matter of luck, but apparently we need to
be free in order to be responsible. How do we resolve this? Krishna’s comments at
Gītā 18.66, where he encourages Arjuna to not worry about THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD
and seek the regulative ideal as the solution, seems to only deepen the problem. In
one way it responds to the paradox by suggesting that the regulative ideal will bridge
the gap between responsibility and freedom. Divine grace will pick up the shortfall.
But in another way it leaves the problem unsolved for we must choose to engage
the regulative ideal, which presumes our freedom to do so. The famous Vedānta
philosophers are the ones who try to answer this question by thinking synoptically
about the philosophical considerations in the tradition. The Brahma Sūtra is by no
means the only text they talk about, and for finding out their rationale for their
position it might be the least expressive. What is helpful is to keep the MTA and the
associated paradox of development in view, for here the three positions on character
and responsibility come to life as responses to both.
6.1. Śaṅkara
Śaṅkara attempts to resolve the tension by adopting the official (Deontological)
line about what dharma is, in order to be subversive. He does this by assuming the
unofficial ethical theory as the better story, without calling it dharma.
Ethics, on Śaṅkara’s account, are the rules that govern desiring individuals. Such
selves are bound by karma. But as karma is action, analyzed in terms of choices that
result in consequences, the individual self is as though constituted by karma, as it
is hell-bent on objects of desire. For such individuals, Śaṅkara holds that dharma is
obligatory, for dharma on this account regulates our actions and choices, relative
to outcomes (Gītā Bhāṣya 2.11). Dharma so understood are the rules that the
charioteer would be wise to adopt in driving, so as to regulate its relationship to
sense objects. Indeed, on these grounds such practices as Vedic animal sacrifice are
to be sanctioned (Brahma Sūtra Bhāṣya III.i.25), for they are part of the normative
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order that works with those who are desire-motivated. But for those interested in
freedom (mokṣa), dharma is an evil (Gītā Bhāṣya 4.21).
If the Self as passenger is the regulative ideal, and dharma is not for it, but its
servants, then choosing devotion to the passenger would mean being through with
dharma. Śaṅkara, to no surprise, enthusiastically endorses Krishna’s claim at Gītā
18.66 that one should abandon all dharmas and come to him. Technically, this is
moral irrealism, especially as in Śaṅkara’s telling, there is no effort to recover an
alternate account of dharma (such as Bhakti) tied to the criticism of Deontology.
Śaṅkara’s rejection of ethics also has to do with his identification of the self
with epistemic freedom. In the preamble to his commentary on the Brahma Sūtra
he makes the very influential argument that the true Self is the pure subject, and
that the natural self is a confusion of this pure subject and the objects of knowledge.
The argument is reminiscent of the Sāṅkhya Kārikā (SK), which claims that dharma
leads only to the higher worlds, but not to freedom (SK 44–45): it is the distinction
between the self and objects of awareness that leads to liberation (SK 62). Freedom
is an epistemic virtue on this account. This is because the Self is ultimately a knower
and not one who does—just like the ātman in the chariot.
6.2. Rāmānuja
Rāmānuja’s account is oddly similar to Śaṅkara’s. They both seem to identify the
practical agent with a subsidiary component of the developing entity (the chariot).
But whereas Śaṅkara sees this as reason to abandon one’s identity as a part of
a whole, Rāmānuja affirms this as integral to our identity. The passenger of the
chariot hence becomes our regulative ideal, our inner-controller, and we a part
of its corporate body (Rāmānuja’s Gītā Bhāṣya 18.15; Vedārthasaṅgraha §14).
The totality, Brahman, is the same as this passenger insofar as they have the same
interests. We are small selves: it is the ultimate self. Our essential role is hence to
serve the regulative ideal, whether we know this or not. The way to fail at this task
is for the individual to identify with their bodies (Vedārthasaṅgraha §99). We are
rather modes of Development (Vedārthasaṅgraha §117). We do not have an essential
character apart from being an essential feature of Development. As members in
the set of Brahman, we manage to govern ourselves if we identify with Brahman
properly understood. This identification with the normative self is what Rāmānuja
calls “bhakti“(devotion), which he identifies as a penetrating knowledge (jñāna).
In time this transforms into para-bhakti, which is an elated state of knowledge as
joy in which the knower is free from the sorrows of saṃsāra (Vedārthasaṅgraha
§§238–242). This is a state of release in which we know the distinction between
natural forces and our essence. But in this state of self-awareness our membership
in Brahman reveals the self as an agent without having to identify with our past (Śrī
Bhāṣya II.iii.38). We are hence liberated from our former troubles in knowledge and
our body is likewise free from bearing the brunt of our personal identity.
Whereas Śaṅkara opts for typically deflationary accounts of the characteristics
of the self (confined to its epistemic virtues), Rāmānuja is sanguine and inflationary
with respect to the characteristics of the real Self. The inflationary mood leads
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Rāmānuja to depict this primary self as ethically and axiologically exemplary.

Among these characteristics are love, compassion and parental considerations, and
opposition to evil (cf. Carman 1974: 65–76). These are our traits, when we submit
to the regulative ideal.
Are Deontology and Bhakti in conflict with each other? Krishna at Gītā 18.66
apparently thinks so. The austere (yogic) commitment of bhakti takes one away from
dharma and toward Krishna, the moral ideal. But Rāmānuja resists this claim by two
alternative glosses. First, Arjuna can abandon a conventional account of dharma
as defined by “śāstric injunction” where ethical claims (of the śāstras, or treatises
of traditional learning) are directed to maintaining ritual purity and voiding ritual
impurity. Given that dharma in the Gītā is largely a śāstric matter of conventional
expectations defined by socially beneficent outcomes, this amounts to a rejection
of its Deontology. Or, second, Arjuna may not worry about his inadequacies at
performing bhakti yoga, and seek Krishna directly so that he will be relieved of
imperfections (Bhagavad Gītā Bhāṣya 18.66). As bhakti yoga, the performance of
duty as worship to the ideal is, in the context of the Gītā, working things out with
Krishna; this is a way to repackage Bhakti.
Why does Rāmānuja not merely agree with Śaṅkara that Krishna is right: give up
on dharma? Rāmānuja’s explication has the force of redefining what dharma is. It
becomes bhakti, and not karma yoga. If the regulative ideal is morally excellent, as
Rāmānuja depicts it, then devotion to it is an ethical practice. Does Rāmānuja always
hold this line? It is not clear that he does. He defends the śāstric injunctions, such
as animal sacrifices (Brahma Sūtra Bhāṣya III.i.25), as Śaṅkara does at this point, as
part of the requirements of dharma. But at many other points (cf. Vedārthasaṅgraha
§13), he emphasizes a theme of bhakti ethics: our natural constitutions do not define
us, but our interest in serving the ideal does. It is the same highest self in all beings.
Personhood hence cuts across species.
6.3. Madhva
According to Madhva in his Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya (Explication of the
Mahābhārata, henceforth MT), there are three kinds of things: individual selves (jīvas)
the ultimate self (Brahman), and inanimate things. These are completely distinct (MT
1.70–71). There are an innumerable number of jīvas (MT 1.19). However, there are
three levels of jīvas. The bottom level is evil, the middle level is neither completely
evil nor completely good, and the top level is good. Their character is eternally set
and different. Only jīvas in the top level are eligible for liberation owing to capacity
for devotion to Vishnu or Brahman (MT 1.121). Brahman, in contrast, is not a jīva.
Dharma or ethics is not sufficient for freedom, but devotion to Brahman is necessary
and sufficient (MT 1.109). The middle levels of jīvas experience ups and downs, and
the lowest are eternally in hell.
Jīvas are conditional agents. The outcomes of their choices are delivered by
Brahman. It is Brahman that makes people transmigrate (MT 1.100). In Madhva’s
works, we see an echo of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad: Brahman cannot be obtained by
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discourse or mere intelligence—only one who is chosen by God attains freedom

(MT 1.78).
One implication of this, on Madhva’s account, is that exalted personages, such
as Lakṣmī, the Goddess of Good Fortune (thought to be the consort of Vishnu), is
one essentialized, unchanging self—a jīva (MT 1.82–83). The other implication, on
Madhva’s account, is that Brahman (Vishnu) is not an essentialized self. There is no
character that defines Brahman’s makeup. This is inexplicable until we recall that
“Brahman” means development. So indeed, Brahman has no essentialized character,
as it is open ended, and self-governing. Because Brahman is not constrained by
its character (not having any), it is in a position to facilitate the experiences of
essentialized individuals. According to some commentators, this seems to imply that
Brahman is above ethics (Buchta 2014). This is an inaccurate conclusion, not based
on Madhva’s reasoning. Brahman is above virtue insofar as there are no character
traits that define Brahman. But being above virtue is not the same as being above
ethics. Brahman, on Madhva’s account, has no essential character: it is the one
self-governing item that determines its destiny by virtue of its freedom, and not
its identity. It is Bhakti incarnate. Everything else requires Brahman to realize their
ambitions. Freedom (Brahman) plus the right character means good things happen.
Freedom plus the wrong character means bad things happen. In the chariot model,
the jīva is the subsidiary element, whose freedom is not ill spent if devoted to the
regulative ideal. Unfortunately, our character is an essential trait, which means it
never changes. It is our personal identity.
7. DO YOU HAVE CHARACTER?

According to Śaṅkara, you do not have a character (what Madhva or even the
Jains would call a “jīva”)—not a real one at least, but one constructed from mixing
up the epistemic freedom of your true self with objects of awareness (Preamble,
Brahma Sūtra Bhāṣya). Your Self is definable by epistemic virtues that we all share,
and ethical considerations (which might individuate us) pertain to a very subsidiary
form of existence—your person (for a useful sorting out of the fine distinctions
between these ideas, see Ram-Prasad 2013). According to Madhva, your character
is essential—eternally real—unless you are Brahman, in which case you are freedom
and undefined. Rāmānuja, in contrast, takes the view that your individuality is
moldable. It is equivalent with your practical functioning, and can and ought to be
brought in line with the governing principle via devotion (cf. Ram-Prasad 2013: 90–
91). We might not be perfect, but devotion to the regulative ideal changes us for the
better: do not worry about dharma and your inadequacies, just be devoted to the
regulative ideal.
Some have argued that character is not real, because our dispositions are context
sensitive (Harman 2001). Rāmānuja and Śaṅkara might agree, but would for the
same reason suggest that our state of character is inessential to us. If the dialectic of
the Vedic thought is to move away from teleological considerations, then virtue is far
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from what we should be worried about. It is at best the end of the ethical life: not
the condition (Rāmānuja). Or, it is just a kind of worldly status, irrelevant to the free
individual (Śaṅkara). Madhva’s position is an interesting standout, as it tries to make
use of virtue as an explanation of the problem of evil: evil comes about because of
an individual’s character, which is essential.
If our three philosophers were explicating the same tradition, it would seem that
they would arrive at the same conclusion. But because the tradition in the form of
the MTA leaves open the paradox of development, there is room for a philosophical
choice about how to reconcile the need to protect freedom from luck, but yet explain
responsibility by freedom. “Development” is the term that promises to answer this
tension: development is at play in the resolution of this paradox, but this leaves open
disagreements about how to characterize development with respect to the individual
and from here we find at least three options: character irrealism along with moral
irrealism (Śaṅkara), character essentialism with Bhakti as the moral realism (Madhva),
and character functionalism with moral realism set out by Bhakti (Rāmānuja).
Of the three accounts, Rāmānuja champions the MTA to its extreme conclusion
in Bhakti and it thereby undermines our confidence in teleological matters.
Understanding ourselves in terms of our contingent strengths— virtues—is to
be downplayed because these are at best an output of an approximation to the
regulative ideal of practice—the Lord. We are thereby modes of Development,
and the Lord is the center of Development. Madhva’s character essentialism would
not fly with this model for that would be to treat our character as unaffected by
devotion to the regulative ideal. Śaṅkara’s attempted redescription of the moral
predicament as already solved by Development follows the MTA, but rests with the
identification of morality with good practices, which Krishna tells us not to worry
too much about. Indeed, yogis and bhaktas would regard rules as general guides and
hardly dispositive, for it is the devotion to the ideal that defines right action. The
difference between Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja lies on Bhakti’s status as a moral theory.
At the point of Gītā 18.66 where Krishna articulates Bhakti as a criticism of dharma
on Deontological lines, Śaṅkara sticks to the letter of what Krishna says but not with
his dialectic. Rāmānuja sticks with the dialectic but has to downplay the wording of
Bhakti at Gītā 18.66.
8. DRIVING PAST THE IDEA THAT VEDĀNTA IS

THEOLOGY NOT ETHICS
A global criticism of Vedānta is that it is not philosophy but something like theology.
Yet, understanding Vedānta as advocating Theism is a mistake as Theism is a version
of Virtue Ethics that is, in turn, a version of teleology. Vedānta is a rejection of
teleology. It is rather an affirmation of proceduralism that identifies Development—
a practical notion—as primary in moral and cosmological explanation. Many Indian
moral philosophers adopt such a stark moral realism. Buddhists are fond of calling
everything dharma: philosophers such as Nāgārjuna identify saṃsāra (the world of
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trouble) with nirvāṇa (the world of liberation), but this thereby affects an identification
of dharma of the conventional world with the association of Buddhas and mokṣa.
Part of this argument involves a characterization of ultimate truth as empty, and the
reason that moralists should be ok with Emptiness is that it depicts reality as filled
with possibilities. Because everything is empty, things can change, says Nāgārjuna.
We need to mediate conventional accounts of morality with our appreciation of
Emptiness to bring about lasting improvement (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV 8–
14). The Vedānta approach, in contrast, is to identify the ultimate not in terms
of its lacking an essence or svabhāva, as Nāgārjuna does, but rather as having a
svabhāva, autonomy, own being, or essence: Development. Like Emptiness, it is an
ethical postulate, but unlike Emptiness we understand it not in terms of its lack of
a teleological character, but rather in terms of its procedural quality. But this allows
us to be critical of teleological conventions, whereas Buddhists of Nāgārjuna’s sort
require it to fill out the contingent content of Emptiness. We have to have faith in
these conventions in order to mediate the Emptiness of possibility on Nāgārjuna’s
Buddhist account, and failing to have faith in these conventions leads to a dangerous
play with Emptiness, like one who handles a snake dangerously. The Vedāntin,
however, might wonder what right we have to take conventional morality seriously
in its own right. Conventional morality too, endorsers of the MTA would hold,
should be viewed critically. A move to proceduralism is not a blind acceptance
of convention, but a concern for rightness, and not all rules and conventions are
right. Calling the Vedānta option an alternate mysticism or theology shows a lack
of explanatory insight into the model. What we have in it is a deliberate moral
philosophical choice in characterizing the basic explanation as Development.
The Jain tradition apparently has a similar take: dharma is itself Movement,
which is superficially like Development. But the Jain tradition identifies the self with
virtue and motion has its ethical explanation by way of virtue as a disposition, and
Vedanta philosophers reject this categorically, though Madhva identifies some selves
by their character. The MTA provides us reason to be suspicious of prioritizing
THE GOOD in an account of ethics, and Virtue Ethics especially of the Jain variety
is the ultimate prioritization of good in ethical explanation. We could imagine a
Euthyphroian skepticism: either we have an independent criterion of virtue, or we
simply endorse whatever disposition possesses us as good. If we opt for the latter,
we have no way to discern whether our dispositions were good or not. If we opt for
the former, we have a way of distinguishing the virtuous dispositions from the non-
virtuous depositions, but this shows that something else is at stake in moral choice
aside from the goodness of our character. The same type of argument applies to ends
too. The buck stops with proceduralism for it separates the goodness of the ideal
from its rightness, and explains the rightness in terms of its ability to bring about
goodness if we take it seriously. The good outcomes of sticking to proceduralism are
independent evidence of rightness.
But Buddhists of Nāgārjuna’s variety might claim that their view is not so different.
The rightness of conventional Buddhist dharma is born out of its ability to mediate
the Emptiness of possibilities prudently. But the main difference is that the Buddhists
270
have to really take their moral rules seriously, while the Vedāntin is free to view them
with some suspicion. Especially if dharma is general, we need to apply dharma in cases,
and the decision to apply rules in contexts has to be informed by something other
than the conventions for the latter in actual cases can conflict. Bhakti here provides
a way to think about the practice of making choices that go beyond convention.
Development, the procedural characterization of reality, is the open-ended practice
of applying conventions as a basic feature of the existential condition.
The usual counterclaim to viewing the project of Vedānta as an open-ended life
project guided by procedural considerations is that Vedānta is primarily concerned
with interpreting or making sense of tradition—the Vedic tradition. Philosophy
is interested in reason and argument, and what you find in Vedānta is appeal to
culturally familiar scenarios and tradition—smṛti—in light of revealed truths—śruti.
The trouble with this criticism is threefold.
First, it assumes a standard of reason that is apparently incompatible with Vedānta.
But the question in philosophy is typically: what is reason? So Vedānta cannot be
dismissed from counting philosophically because it appeals to considerations
that are different from familiar canons of reasoning for philosophy constitutes a
disagreement about what the proper canons of reasoning are. Second, if philosophy
has nothing to do with smṛti and śruti, then contemporary analytic philosophy with
its heavy reliance on cases and intuitions could not be philosophy.
After a general criticism of axiology during the years of logical positivism, analytic
philosophers resumed philosophical exploration into value. At the same time, they
began—en masse—to appeal to culturally familiar (traditional) scenarios (smṛti)
that were judged against intuitions (śruti) that authors appealed to. These intuitions
were not supposed to be memories or traditions: they are quite literally depicted as
perceptions (śruti) and when philosophers appeal to them, they talk about them as
what suitably sophisticated individuals (ṛṣis) could know. Of course, the scenarios
and intuitions in the case of western philosophers are culturally different from those
of the Vedāntins, but the categories of smṛti and śruti are the same in both cases—
they serve to set out the data and adjudicating criteria of philosophical theorizing.
One difference one might suppose is that when we read Vedānta authors at face
value, they depict śruti as revelation, but the intuitions of analytic philosophers are
not revelation. This impression arises from not taking analytic philosophers at face
value. If we did, it seems as though analytic philosophers are a bunch of mystics
relying on a mysterious faculty of intuition in no way like empirical intuition (Kagan
2007). But, more plausibly, what we have in the rhetoric of cases and intuitions is an
appeal to common experience and sentiment.
If you do not think that Vedānta makes for good moral philosophy or good
philosophy because of its interest in śruti and smṛti, I would suggest that you should
probably ignore much of analytic philosophy too (cf. Thomson 2007). I myself am
tempted to ignore it, in part because I see no value in memory as providing data
for philosophical reasoning: this confuses sociology with ethics. Yet, in this respect,
Indian thinkers were more progressive. They typically treated memory and tradition
as something to be vindicated by intuition, and intuition as something that has to
be defended. In the contemporary analytic case, it is not always obvious that the
271
intuitions themselves are thought to require defense. It appears in many cases that
they are treated as dispositive and in need of no further vindication (Weinberg,
Nichols, and Stich 2001).
Of course, the idea that we have intuitions we can rely on is implausible too, unless
we could generate these intuitions by a methodology that moves past error. This is
perhaps what Death’s model of the Chariot does for us. We can take our intuitions
seriously if we are self-governing, and have reason not to if we are determined by
experiences and memories. The self hence reveals itself to the self who chooses it. This
constitutes our moral intuitions against what we choose. But if Deontology requires
us to define duty in light of good outcomes, it too becomes subservient to tradition
and memory, which set out the parameters of the outcomes that we can aspire to.
Bhakti as an alternative provides a fixed intuition—the regulative ideal—that we
are to train ourselves on—and one that does not rely on our ordinary, conventional
memories. It makes new ones, or Rāmānuja appears to say, results in the enjoyment
of new ends, which were not part of the conventional world we start out in.
Hence, the philosophical relevance of this debate in ethics that we find in Vedānta
not only has normative implications, but also metaethical implications for how
we generate cases and intuitions for practical rationality. The disagreement about
whether to identify ethics (dharma) with Deontology (karma yoga) or Bhakti (bhakti
yoga) among Vedāntins can be read as a disagreement about whether we should
generate intuitions via self-governance (Deontology) or via devotion to the ideal
(bhakti). Bhakti seems here a conservative alternative as it requires devotion to the
Lord. But this is conservative in proportion to the nature of the ideal—the more it
has going for it, the more we have to change in order to fit with it. If the Lord is
eternally free and underdetermined, we need to locate our identity in our character
for all time (Madhva). Change here is an illusion. If the Lord is identifiable primarily
by epistemology, then we seem to have to jettison ethics and the need of a character
(Śaṅkara). If the Lord is defined by moral and epistemic excellences, then we can
allow our character to be the price we pay for our self-improvement (Rāmānuja).
Third, philosophy begins with explication and explicators attempt to discern the
theory implicit and entailed by a perspective that explains its usage of controversial
terms, such as “morality,” “ethics,” “dharma,” or “Brahman.” The simplified
explanation of a perspective’s use of a term such as “Brahman” is the perspective’s
theory of Brahman. Vedānta is the project of explicating the term “brahman” and
what the conflicting theories of Brahman amount to converge on the common concept
BRAHMAN: DEVELOPMENT. That this question has defined a tradition of philosophy
informed by the MTA does not make it any less of a philosophical project.
9. CONCLUSION: RESPONSIBILITY?
The core of what we understand as Vedānta is a moral argument, the MTA.
This argument entails a further paradox or lacuna, which I called the paradox of
development. Accordingly, we need to protect freedom by our activity so as to make
sure that freedom is not left to luck, but it appears that we have to be free in order
272
to be responsible. The major schools of Vedānta that we associate with Śaṅkara,

Madhva, and Rāmānuja are explicatory efforts to make sense of Development—
Brahman—and in accounting for this common interest, each of the major schools
proposes a resolution of this paradox. Śaṅkara’s proposal is to deny any real need
for responsibility, and hence all character, good or bad, is to be renounced. Madhva’s
approach is not only to affirm the need for responsibility, but to also bite the bullet: if
you do not have a good character, you are out of luck. Rāmānuja denies that character
is a very deep feature of ourselves, but rather a function of our freedom as modes
of Development. On his account, responsibility is required to protect our freedom,
but this is not anything very different from Development, of which we are a part.
These are philosophical solutions to a philosophical problem that is not about India
or about theological matters. The MTA constitutes the foundation of a moral theory
from the ground up, and it connects the ancient Vedic tradition to the medieval Indian
Vedānta philosophers. To understand Vedāntins backward as mere commentators on
a tradition is to fail to appreciate how the problem was set before them and how their
works are philosophical solutions to this problem.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda. 1922. Translated by Martin Haug, and edited by
The Sacred Books of the Hindus. Vol. 2. Allahabad: Sudhindra Nath Vas, M. B.
Bilimoria, Purushottama. “Hindu-Mimamsa against Scriptural Evidence on God.”
Sophia: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Metaphysical Theology and
Ethics 28 (1989): 20–31.
Bilimoria, Purushottama. “Hindu Doubts About God: Towards a Mimamsa
Deconstruction.” International Philosophical Quarterly 30, no. 4 (1990): 481–499.
Boyd, Richard N. 1988. “How To Be a Moral Realist.” In Essays on Moral Realism, edited
by G. Sayre-McCord, 181–228. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Brodbeck, Simon. “Calling Kṛṣṇa’s Bluff: Non-Attached Action in the Bhagavadgītā.”
Journal of Indian Philosophy 32, no. 1 (2004): 81–103.
Buchta, David. 2014. “Dependent Agency and Hierarchical Determinism in the Theology
of Madhva.” In Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy, edited by
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Hare, R. M. 2000. Sorting out Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Harman, Gilbert. 2001. “Virtue Ethics without Character Traits.” In Fact and Value: Essays
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Jezic, Mislav. 2009. “The Relationship between the Bhagavadgītā and the Vedic
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Goldman and M. Tokunaga, 215–282. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
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K. T. Pandurang, Vol. 1. Chirtanur: Srīman Madhva Siddhantonnanhini Sabha.
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Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi. 2013. Divine Self, Human Self: The Philosophy of Being in
Two Gītā Commentaries. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Rāmānuja. 1968. Vedārthasaṅgraha (Edition and Translation). Translated by S. S.
Ragavachar. Mysore: Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama.
Rāmānuja. 1991. Śrī Rāmānuja Gītā Bhāṣya (Edition and Translation). Translated by
Svami Adidevanada. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math.
Rāmānuja. 1996. (Śrī Bhāṣya/Brahma Sūtra Bhāṣya) Vedānta Sūtras with the Commentary
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Swami Gambhirananda. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama.
Santucci, James A. 1976. An Outline of Vedic Literature. Aids for the Study of Religion
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PART THREE
Applied Ethics
Applied ethics concerns the exploration of THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD via case-types.
Environmental ethics, for instance, explores ethical questions from cases that arise
from a concern for the environment. Nursing ethics explores ethical questions from
cases that arise from nursing. Bioethics explores ethical questions from cases that
arise from biology. Legal ethics explores ethical questions from cases that arise
from the law. Medical ethics, for instance, explores ethics via cases that arise from
medicine.
India has a tradition of applied ethical reasoning quite separate from formal
moral theorizing that constitutes the basis of professional philosophy in the Indian
tradition. The tradition of applied ethics in each case follows a profession or sphere
of concern that gives rise to specific varieties of cases. Examples of Indian traditions
of applied ethics include the ethics of medicine, state and war craft, and law as
understood in the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā tradition.
In this book, Dagmar Wujastyk explores the Indian tradition of medical ethics
associated with traditional Indian medicine: Ayurveda. The problem that such cases
present is a conflict between public standards of decency and morality and the goals
of a physician to bring about success in treatment: the means to the latter might
conflict with the former. This led to the formulation of a secondary set of practical
guidelines for medical practitioners, which are at odds with the formalized public
presentation of professional medical ethics.
Francis X. Clooney in his contribution on the Mīmāṃsā text Garland of
Jaimini’s Reasons, explicates an approach to ethics that is at once Deontological
and Particularist—eschewing the idea of context-transcendent principles in favor
of case-based resolutions to ethical problems. The cases that this text presents are
constituted by a cultural landscape saturated by the procedural considerations of this
tradition. While the cases typically involve the resolution of competing procedures,
they also bring the human in focus as a mere inhabitant of a moral landscape, and by
no means the only one. The Particularist tendencies of this tradition vitiate against
the attempt to understand the morality of this text by principles.
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277
CHAPTER TWELVE
Medical Ethics in the

Sanskrit Medical Tradition*
DAGMAR WUJASTYK
1. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, I explore ethical guidelines and moral discourses on the practice of
medicine as described in the foundational texts of the classical Indian medical tradition
of Ayurveda. The classical Indian medical compendia contain many guidelines on the
ethics and etiquette for the practice of medicine. Their advice on right professional
conduct is two-tiered: At one level, physicians were supposed to conform to social
norms that maintain a public image acceptable to society. At another, physicians’
professional success was based on their ability to treat their patients successfully,
and this meant that several public ethical values had to be broken or circumvented.
This led to the formulation of a secondary set of practical guidelines, which are in
tension with the more formalized public presentation of professional medical ethics.
Translating and discussing a selection of Sanskrit texts of the core Ayurvedic treatises,
I survey the tension between these two levels of Ayurvedic medical ethics.
To begin with, I will briefly outline the ways in which ethical issues are approached
and integrated into modern Ayurvedic education and practice. I will then survey the
contexts in which medical ethics and etiquette are discussed in the classical Ayurvedic
sources. This will include an examination of who the agents in an Ayurvedic medical
setting were and what conduct was expected of them, particularly in regard to their
relations with each other. I will then focus more closely on a specific aspect of the
doctor-patient relationship, namely, the question of which role veracity played in
the Ayurvedic physician’s communications with the patient. I will show how an
Ayurvedic ethic of truthfulness could coexist with an ethic of medical expedience
that allowed for untruthfulness in certain circumstances.
2. MEDICAL ETHICS IN MODERN

AYURVEDIC EDUCATION
Ayurveda is one of several medical traditions that enjoy the status of being a national
system of medicine in India. National systems of medicine are supported and
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278 DAGMAR WUJASTYK
regulated by the government and self-statutory bodies and are divided into two formal
groups, the first being biomedicine (also variously called “Western medicine” or
“allopathy”) the other being the “Indian systems of medicine.” Currently, the second
group includes Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy,
and Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine).1 Ayurveda is the most prominent among the
Indian systems of medicine, boasting the greatest number of colleges, hospitals,
dispensaries, and graduate practitioners.2 A study of the government- approved
syllabi for Ayurvedic colleges shows that Ayurvedic education provides the students
with concurrent medical knowledge, as both traditional Ayurvedic and biomedical
subjects are taught side by side.3 Ayurvedic subjects are taught through a selection
of readings from the classical Sanskrit medical treatises, beginning with the oldest
ones known to us, the compendia of Caraka (ca. first century CE) and Suśruta (ca.
third century CE), but also including later works, such as the seventh-century works
by Vāgbhaṭa, the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā and the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha, the thirteenth-
century Śārṅgadharasaṃhitā, the sixteenth- century treatise Bhāvaprakāśa, and
the eighteenth-century Bhaiṣajyaratnāvalī, and, finally, modern synopses and new
interpretations of the Sanskrit works.4 The latter are nearly exclusively written by
Indian authors and often published expressly for the purpose of college education.
Biomedical subjects are taught using textbooks also used for regular training in
biomedicine.5 The syllabi for courses in Ayurveda are revised periodically, and this
includes changes in the use of source materials, though readings from the earliest
Ayurvedic texts always form part of the courses. However, one can note shifts in
focus on particular contents within them. The Sanskrit medical treatises cover a
wide range of topics: They catalogue the causes, nature, and effects of diseases and
the materia medica to counteract them, but they also provide perspectives on other
aspects of human life. For example, the Carakasaṃhitā discusses the relation between
physical matter and sentience; it gives instructions on how to conduct debates and
outlines how to behave well.6 The early compendia also include many guidelines
on right medical practice, which were again and again reiterated in later works and
also appear in modern Ayurvedic education. For example, the 2009 syllabus for
the postgraduate Ayurvedacharya degree comprised modules on various aspects of
Ayurvedic ethics based on readings of the Ayurvedic classics.7 Postgraduate students
of Ayurveda were supposed to study the “vaidyasadvṛttam,” the “physician’s right
conduct,” not only by memorizing aphorisms on this topic, or by reading fables
written specifically for this purpose, but also by consulting the relevant passages in
the Ayurvedic classics. The syllabus also included a module on forensic medicine
and medical jurisprudence, which referred to categorizations found in the classic
treatises. The topics to be studied were listed in the syllabus as follows: “Ethics
as in Classics, Types of Physicians and Methods of Identification, Pranabhisara
and Rogabhisara Physicians, Qualities of Physician, Responsibilities of Physicians,
Chaturvidha Vaidyavrutti, Duties of Physician to his Patient, Vaidyasadvrittam,
Apoojya Vaidya, Accepting Fees, and Relationship with Females.”8 This pretty
much covers the Ayurvedic classics’ treatment of the subject of medical ethics and
should give students a good idea of the values endorsed by the Ayurvedic authors.
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MEDICAL ETHICS IN THE SANSKRIT MEDICAL TRADITION 279
However, other guidelines on ethics were also included in the syllabus, namely,
the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) official guidelines on professional
ethics, which include a list of legal issues and guidelines that Ayurvedic practitioners
share with biomedical doctors.9 The CCIM’s guidelines are not derived from the
teachings of the Ayurvedic works, but from international guidelines first established
by the World Medical Association (WMA).
When the CCIM was established in 1971, one of its main objectives was to
prescribe the standards of professional conduct, etiquette, and a code of ethics to
be observed by the practitioners of Indian medicine. Eleven years later, the CCIM
issued the “Practitioners of Indian Medicine (Standards of Professional Conduct,
Etiquette and Code of Ethics) Regulations, 1982,” which was based entirely on
international standards set by the WMA. For example, the CCIM declaration, which
is to be signed by the practitioner-to-be and forwarded along with the rest of his
or her application form for registration (and which therefore is legally binding),
copies the wording of the Declaration of Geneva, first issued by the WMA in 1948.10
The CCIM’s other guidelines on professional conduct and standards of medical
practice, in turn, seem to broadly follow the WMA’s Declaration of Helsinki of
1964. India was one of the founding members of the WMA. However, the Indian
delegation consisted exclusively of members of the Medical Council of India (MCI),
the statutory body regulating biomedical education and practice, and did not include
representatives of Ayurvedic medicine.11 Since the MCI was involved in drafting
the WMA guidelines, it is not surprising that it adopted the WMA’s guidelines as its
own. In turn, the CCIM, which was modeled on the example of the MCI, adopted
the same guidelines, probably in a bid to establish the Indian systems of medicine as
on par with the rival system of biomedicine.
3. MEDICAL ETHICS IN THE

AYURVEDIC TREATISES
While modern Ayurvedic practitioners are legally obliged to abide by the rules set
out by the WMA and CCIM, their ideas on right medical practice are still likely to
be influenced by values propounded in the Ayurvedic works.
One can find many guidelines in the Ayurvedic works concerning the duties or
obligations physicians, carers, and patients had to each other. The early treatises, in
particular, provide a catalogue of rules of professional conduct that physicians were
bound to, including guidance on appropriate interactions with both patients and
colleagues. These provide the reader with a fairly detailed impression of both the
ideals of medical practice as well as of hierarchical structures within which medicine
was practiced.
3.1. The Pillars of Medicine: Physicians, Attendants, and Patients

The Indian classical medical treatises identify four agents or constituents of
medicine in a standard formula: the physician, the medicine, the attendant, and the
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280 DAGMAR WUJASTYK
patient.12 Together they form the “four pillars” or “quartet of pillars” (catuṣpāda or
pādacatuṣṭaya) of treatment.
In definitions of the four pillars, we learn about the qualities desired in each,
their relations to each other, and their respective place within medical hierarchy.
Vāgbhaṭa’s account of the four pillars of medicine is perhaps the most succinct:
The physician, the medicines, the attendant and the patient are called the quartet
of pillars of medical treatment. Each one has four qualities.
The physician is skilled, has received the meaning of the teachings from a
preceptor, has witnessed practice and is clean. The medicine has numerous
preparations and many qualities, is palatable and suitable.
The attendant is affectionate, clean, able and intelligent. The patient is wealthy,
obedient to the physician, provides information and is resolute. (Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha
Sūtrasthāna 1.27–29 and Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 2.21–25ab)
3.1.1. The physician The characteristics the medical authors attribute to the
good physician within their four-pillar definitions can be broadly divided into two
categories: The first group of characteristics pertain directly to the physician’s medical
knowledge and proficiency in practice, the “hard skills” of the medical profession.
The second group encompasses more general virtues, such as learnedness, and also
includes “soft skills,” such as personality traits, social graces, and personal habits
desired in a physician. These groups are therefore distinguished according to what
makes someone a good person (or at least one who behaves well within a certain
social context) and what qualifies him as a doctor. The boundaries between the two
groups are somewhat fluid. There is also some overlap in what could be deemed
either a person’s general positive characteristic or a more specifically medical one
(e.g., attributes such as diligence, dexterity, and calmness).
All the medical authors require the physician to have studied and fully understood
medical science on one hand, and to have extensive practical experience, both
through observation and through performing treatment or surgery, on the other. The
physician’s command of both theory and practice is the sum total of his competence,
on which the success of his treatments—to cure or to prevent illnesses—rests.13 His
knowledge and skill are complemented by his adherence to etiquette (on which, see
below). This normative behavior ensures patients’ trust and the physician’s status
within society and sets him visibly apart from untrained physicians.14 Caraka is alone
among the medical authors in demanding a kind and affectionate attitude toward
the patient. He states:
Kindness and compassion for those who are ill, affection for the remediable and
equanimity towards those in their natural state, this is the quartet of a physician’s
conduct. (Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 9.26)
This, however, follows a long passage on how the physician is the most prominent
and important of the four pillars and how he should be shown respect, praise, and
deference due to his superiority.
281
3.1.2. The attendant (and other carers) Perhaps unsurprisingly, attendants

receive less elaborate attention in Caraka’s description of the four pillars. Caraka’s
ideal attendant knows how to attend, is skillful, clean, and full of affection (cf.
Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 9.8). Suśruta would have them friendly, accepting, and
strong, ready to care for the sick, obedient to the physician, and unwearying, and
Vāgbhaṭa’s attendants are affectionate, clean, able, and intelligent.15 These lists
show strong affinity with accounts from the Buddhist Pāli canon on how monks
should behave as carers.16 However, Kaśyapa envisages rather more distinguished
attendants who, apart from being healthy, strong, clean, and swift, are also able
to prepare medicinal decoctions and excel in their knowledge of medical practice,
their skill, and their experience in all treatments. These perfect attendants are
devoted to their master, are unsqueamish, and come from a good family. They are
straightforward, self-controlled, and patient, having conquered anger and other
vices (Kāśyapasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 26.7).
Conversely, we know what an attendant should not be like: bad attendants would
be vulgar, dirty, badly behaved, disloyal, impractical, and impious. They would be
unskilled in nursing, unaccomplished in all treatments, and reluctant to work.
This does not, however, bring us much closer to an idea of the dos and don’ts
of medical attendance: it is difficult to tease out an actual ethic of nursing from
the descriptions of attendants and other caregivers in the medical works. The
characteristics the medical authors describe seem more like selection criteria that
the physician should heed when setting up his medical team. The question of what
behavior might be grounds for dismissal, on the other hand, is not touched on.
Neither are we offered any insight into moral conflicts that nursing might present to
an attendant. We do not learn much about an attendant’s actions during treatment,
or about his or her interactions with the patient. And since there is no description
of an attendant’s actual actions, there is also no moral evaluation of them. One
reason for this may be that the medical authors envisaged attendants as absolutely
subordinate to, and dependent on, the physician, with no agency or will of their
own, so that nothing they do is done on their own initiative; they merely follow the
physician’s orders. It is as if the attendant were a physical extension of the physician,
his unthinking hired hand, applying and thus embodying some of the physician’s
theoretical knowledge. Yet, intelligence and knowledge are described as attendants’
prerequisites in the four-pillar definitions, so perhaps their work entailed more
agency and hence more moral choice than can be inferred from the descriptions
available from the medical classics.
3.1.3. The patient The patient is omnipresent in the medical classics as a carrier
of disease and its symptoms. Patients are the subject of the physician’s study and
scrutiny, and the recipients of the physician’s diagnosis and administrations. And yet,
we learn surprisingly little about them, and even less about the interaction between
them and the physician. The medical treatises offer no case histories that would
flesh out the patient’s image. In Caraka’s, Suśruta’s, and Vāgbhaṭa’s four-pillar
definitions, the patient—the ātura (suffering, diseased), vyādhyupasṛṣṭa (afflicted
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by illness), vyādhita (ill), or rogin (sick)—is quickly described. Caraka’s patient is

mindful, obedient, fearless, and gives information on his disease. Suśruta’s list is a bit
more extensive. His patient is long-lived, resolute, curable, wealthy, prudent, pious,
and attentive to what the doctor says. As we have seen, Vāgbhaṭa picks “wealthy,
obedient to the physician, providing information and resolute” from Caraka’s and
Suśruta’s characteristics. Kaśyapa has similar things to say about the patient, and
adds that the perfect patient has a curable disease.
Obedience to the physician is at the core of the patient–physician relationship.
Following the physician’s orders is important for the success of therapy, which in turn
reflects on the physician’s competence. The medical authors seem to envisage a fairly
passive patient who simply receives the physician’s (or the attendants’) administrations
and advice. Patients are required to take up a certain regime for the duration of
treatment (though adhering to the tenets of svasthavṛtta—healthy lifestyle—is
recommended to all at all times), but therapy generally seems to consist of things done
to them rather than by them. Patient participation—apart from in the shape of patients
giving the physician information on their condition—does not figure as a desirable
element of therapeutic interaction. Patient resistance, on the other hand, is clearly
categorized as unacceptable: A patient who will not follow the physician’s orders may
even be abandoned by the physician. Indeed, one may argue that the medical authors’
image of the patient is very much derived from the perspective of the physician’s
needs. Most of the patient’s good characteristics—wealth, curability, obedience to the
physician, and fearlessness—pertain to the physician’s convenience: a good patient is
one who makes the physician’s job easy and worthwhile.
3.2. Right Professional Conduct

Specific instructions on correct professional conduct are found in various
contexts in the Ayurvedic compendia. The most detailed discussion of the ethics
and etiquette of medical practice occurs in the Carakasaṃhitā in the context
of a medical student’s entry into his apprenticeship.17 The relevant passage in
Vimānasthāna 8 describes an initiation ceremony in which the teacher addresses
the prospective medical student, explaining the formal procedures of medical
education (particularly the duties of the student toward his teacher) and the rules
for subsequent practice.18
The teacher’s speech begins by urging the medical student to adopt a philanthropic
attitude as well as a wider concern for the happiness of all living beings, but above all
to be committed to preserving or establishing a patient’s welfare.
A greater part of the speech, however, is dedicated to the etiquette of physician–
patient interaction. Both a physician’s general appearance and conduct, and his
behavior to his patients, are guided by the principle of conformity and modesty.
He should be inconspicuous, pleasant, and nonthreatening in any way. The
teacher’s description of how to behave in the patient’s house is quite detailed
and reads like a step-by-step guide to the proper house visit. The first rule is to
come to the patient’s house accompanied by someone who is known and welcome.
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The physician’s behavior during his visit should be composed and modest. It is
imperative for him to observe everything closely so that he can arrive at a diagnosis.
He should be extremely attentive to the patient’s needs and to his care, and not let
himself get distracted by other occurrences in the household. He must respect the
confidentiality of anything he witnesses during his visit to the patient’s home, and
this discretion includes not only information about the patient’s condition, but also
any other information regarding the patient’s home. The physician must generally
take care with how to deal with information on the patient’s condition: if a patient’s
condition is terminal and his death near, he may not divulge this information to the
patient himself if he judges that informing him will cause damage to the patient, or
to his relatives (we will explore this further below). Finally, the teacher warns the
student not to boast of his knowledge and achievements, since this would alienate
his patients.
The emphasis on modesty in attire and bearing that characterizes the model
physician in this speech may reflect his uneasy status in society. He is a figure of
authority whom patients trust and respect and whose services they depend on.
But at the same time he is someone who practices a trade, moreover one that has
connotations of impurity. Then again, he is educated and powerful with his specialized
knowledge, which makes the hierarchy less clear. In any case, the physician must
make sure his patients’ needs are met, and this includes making them comfortable
with his presence. Adhering to confidentiality, for example, is very much part of
this policy of posing no threat, and being agreeable to the patient. Patients may
resent their very need of the physician, and may fear his power over them, and he
must assuage these fears. In short, a physician must tread carefully. By behaving
in certain ways, he is creating a public image of himself that allows him to fit into
society, and to be accepted by his patients. This is as much the key to his success as
his medical knowledge and skill. The professional skills of a doctor must therefore
include an understanding of social circumstances and an aptitude to adapt to them.
In this part of the speech, then, the teacher is revealing an essential part of medical
practice. Perhaps not all of it must necessarily be understood in the light of pleasing
clients to secure their custom. While the rules of conduct may be partly aimed at
the prudential goal of making a living, one could certainly also make the argument
that the prescriptions may pertain to an external manifestation of a Deontological-
like, Virtue Ethic. It is Deontological insofar as it specifies rules of conduct in terms
of good practice. But it is Virtue Theoretical as it characterizes the rules as the
dispositions of the good physician.
Modesty in dress and behavior can reflect true freedom from vanity and
arrogance. The physician may also cultivate a real sense of responsibility for the
patient’s welfare that does not spring from self-interest, but from a sense of duty
and the rights of others. In any case, self-interest and a sense of duty need not be
mutually exclusive, since they can be directed at the same ultimate, or intermediate
goal: the welfare of the patient.
The speech also reveals a naturalism in which there is a predictable order to life.
Certain actions bring about certain effects—if you do A, B must follow. The benefits
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of wealth, fame, and heaven after death that a physician reaps from his right works
are not only his just, but also his expected reward.
If the above guidelines (which are echoed in many of the other Ayurvedic works)
provide information on how physicians were meant to behave in professional
situations, some of the teacher’s advice reflects a tension that exists between the aim
of treating patients successfully and the aim of treating them in ways patients would
find acceptable from a social or a religious point of view. We will explore this tension
and the ways which the Ayurvedic works advocate to deal with it in the following.
3.3. Veracity in The Doctor–Patient Relationship

Laying out a framework of guidelines for professional ethics, Tom Beauchamp and
James Childress, the authors of Principles of Biomedical Ethics, identify four clusters
of moral principles they consider central to biomedical ethics. These are:
1. respect for autonomy (a norm of respecting the decision-making capacities of
autonomous persons),
2. nonmaleficence (a norm of avoiding the causation of harm),
3. beneficence (a group of norms for providing benefits and balancing benefits
against risks and costs), and
4. justice (a group of norms for distributing benefits, risks, and costs fairly).19
While the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence are firmly anchored in

historical traditions of Western medical ethics (such as the medical ethics that has its
roots in the Hippocratic medical traditions and those that developed from them),
the principle of respect for autonomy marks a fundamental shift in the history of the
doctor–patient relationship from medical paternalism to an emphasis on patient’s
rights. Medical paternalism, the dominant model of the doctor–patient relationship
until well into the second half of the twentieth century, is based on the principle
that a doctor should act benignly in accordance with his or her conception of the
patient’s needs for treatment, information, and consultation. This model rejects the
notion that a patient has a right to information and hence to autonomy in judgment.
In practice, this means that it is up to the doctor’s discretion whether he or she
will or will not disclose medical information to a patient or a patient’s relatives
or guardians, and to what extent he or she will do so. In a paternalistic doctor–
patient relationship, the doctor may opt for comprehensive, accurate, and objective
information if he or she judges his patient fit to receive such information. He or
she may, however, also choose the under-or nondisclosure of information, or even
give false information, depending on the circumstances. Assuming that the doctor–
patient relationship is of a fundamentally benign nature, a doctor’s well-considered
and deliberate choice to give partial or wrong information is perfectly in accord with
accepted standards of usage in the paternalistic model. Speaking untruths, which in
other contexts might be seen as morally reprehensible, may be considered an action
of positive moral value.
In the Indian classical medical writings, the doctor– patient relationship is
described as firmly paternalistic. As we have seen, in most of the medical treatises a
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good physician is characterized by his knowledge and skill, while a good patient is
characterized by his obedience to and faith in the doctor.
The ancient Indian doctor knows best, at least if he is a good doctor. And he will
decide for the patient what needs to be done, while the patient is expected to comply
with the doctor’s instructions. In this top-down relationship between doctor and
patient, information management, including under-and nondisclosure, deception
and lying, is a matter of the doctor’s discretion.
Generally, the medical authors advocate honesty as a requisite virtue of a good
doctor in accordance with their general instructions on right conduct. It should
be noted that while many of the instructions concerning proper professional
conduct may seem self-serving and mainly indicative of how physicians wished to be
perceived by the public, right conduct is not solely a matter of etiquette and social
rules for the medical authors; it is part of a metaphysics that understands individual
human behavior as having far-reaching consequences for the individual, for society,
and for the environment at large. By contrast, bad conduct is seen as one of the
root causes of illness and unhappiness in the individual, and it has similarly serious
implications for human society as a whole. And yet, we also find instructions in the
medical treatises that advise the physician to use deception. Three circumstances can
be identified, in which the physician not only has license to withhold information or
to actively lie, but is positively encouraged to do so: (1) to shield patients and their
relatives from upsetting news, (2) to ensure patient compliance, and (3) to bring
about a certain therapeutic effect. In the following, I will explore these scenarios
more closely, and examine the tension between the Ayurvedic ethic of truthfulness
and its coexisting ethic of medical expedience.
3.3.1. A physician’s honesty: Truth, but not the whole truth There are several
contexts in which a physician’s honesty is discussed in the medical classics. One
of these is the medical student’s initiation already mentioned above, descriptions
of which are found in the Suśrutasaṃhitā, the Carakasaṃhitā, the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya
saṃhitā, the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha, and the Kāśyapasaṃhitā.20 Suśruta gives particular
emphasis to the virtue of honesty in his version of the initiation, calling the student
to abandon untruth, and to be totally devoted to truth as part of his studentship:
Then, having lead the pupil three times around the fire, he should say to him
with the fire as witness: “Having abandoned passion, anger, avarice, arrogance,
conceit, envy, harshness, slander, untruth, laziness and disgrace, you must
have short nails and hair, be clean wear ochre clothing, and by all means be
totally devoted to truth, religious observance, celibacy and respectful salutation.
Standing, walking, lying down, sitting, eating and studying as permitted by me,
you should do what is pleasant and wholesome to me. Your behaving otherwise
is unrighteous, your knowledge will be unproductive, and you will not attain
renown.” (6; Suśrutasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 2.6)
Caraka mentions honesty twice in his version of the medical student’s initiation
in Vimānasthāna 8.13. The first instance parallels Suśruta’s passage, relating to a
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medical student’s behavior during his apprenticeship and describing the spartan
habits he should adopt while studying with his teacher:
You should lead the austere life of a student, wearing a beard, speaking the
truth, not eating meat, resorting to that which is pure, unselfish and not carrying
weapons.
The second pertains to the medical student’s behavior once he is a practicing physician:
You should speak gently, purely, justly, joyfully, in a wholesome manner, truthfully,
affectionately and moderately.
In the Kāśyapasaṃhitā (Vimānasthāna 2.4), truthfulness is listed as one of the
desired qualities of a pupil, but it is not mentioned in the same chapter’s description
of the method of practice. Finally, the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha’s summary of the student’s
initiation (Sūtrasthāna 2.1–7) makes no mention at all of honesty or dishonesty as
a virtue required of the student or the practicing physician. Caraka’s instruction to
“speak . . . truthfully” in the latter half of Vimānasthāna 8.13 follows the statement,
“As a physician who wishes for success and wealth and the attainment of fame and
heaven after death,” and thus relates to medical practice and physicianship rather
than to a student’s conduct during his time of study. As we have seen from the
above, Caraka is alone in this specification of a physician’s conduct. However,
“speaking truthfully” may be qualified, as Caraka advises the following stance for
communication with patients in the very same passage:
And even if you know that the life-span of the diseased is diminished, you should
not speak of this in a situation in which by speaking about it, you would harm
the diseased or another.
This would seem to imply that Caraka differentiates between lying and withholding
the truth. “Speaking truthfully” then means telling the truth, but not necessarily the
whole truth. The validity of this theory of truthfulness, however, rests on a crucial
assumption: when Caraka advises not to tell all that is to tell, he specifies that the
disclosure of information should be subject to the potential damage a patient might
suffer from hearing it. This reflects a fundamental paradigm of medical paternalism,
namely, beneficence, according to which the consideration of a patient’s well-being
is central to any communication or interaction between doctor and patient. Under
the rules of paternal beneficence, not telling the whole truth in order to shield a
patient from harm represents the ethically correct choice of action.
3.3.2. Ensuring patient compliance In this section, I would like to discuss a

more active use of deception or untruth by the doctor as part of his therapeutic
method. I have stated above that the medical authors propose deception as an
appropriate course of action to facilitate medical treatment by ensuring patient
compliance. A passage from Caraka’s Cikitsāsthāna (the section on therapeutics)
gives an example of how deception may be used by a physician to make sure that
patients get the treatment they need. This passage has already been commented
on by Francis Zimmermann (1999 [1987]) in his landmark publication The Jungle
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and the Aroma of Meats, where he discusses it in the context of the tension in the
Ayurvedic classics between a therapeutic system of purity, based on nonviolence,
abstinence, and vegetarianism, and a therapeutic system of force and virility, in
which there exists a certain amount of violence through the use of meat and purging,
for instance. Counter to what one might expect from texts that position themselves
within a brahmanic context, now widely associated with vegetarianism,21 the early
classical medical treatises present the use of meat, either as part of diet or as part of
a medicinal preparation quite casually and do not discuss it at all as an ethical issue
vis-à-vis vegetarianism or other food rules.22
Carakasaṃhitā Cikitsāsthāna 8 is about therapies against consumption or wasting
disease, and the passage that is relevant to our discussion provides the reader with a
list of meats that are declared particularly nourishing and strengthening for those who
are emaciated and worn out. The catch is that what is considered the most nourishing
type of meat by Caraka, namely, the meat of meat eaters, seems to have also been
regarded as an unacceptable food by his contemporaries. Thus, Caraka warns the
reader that patients may refuse to eat this meat, or may vomit when told what it was.
To avoid this, he advises to deceive the patient by presenting the carnivore’s meat
as the meat of a more acceptable animal, and provides a list of replacement names:
One who knows the rules should give those who are dehydrated and whose flesh
is wasting the prepared meat of meat eaters, which is particularly nourishing. To
one who is dehydrated, he should give peacock and other meats under the name
of peacock: vulture, owl and blue jay, well-prepared according to the rules. He
should give crows under the name of partridge, and fried snakes under the name
of fish; as well as earthworms under the name of fish entrails. A physician should
give cooked jackals, large mongooses, cats and young jackals under the name of
hare. To increase flesh, he should give lions, bears and hyenas, tigers and meat-
eaters of such a kind under the name of antelope. To increase flesh, the doctor
should give the seasoned meat of elephant, rhinoceros and horse in the name of
buffalo. Valued for its pungent, hot and light properties, the meat of particular
kinds of beasts and birds, whose bodies are abundantly covered in meat, is the
best provider of flesh. (Carakasaṃhitā Cikitsāsthāna 8. 149–157)
Caraka concludes:
He should employ deception about those meats that are not liked because they
are unusual, because that way they can be eaten easily. Knowing what it was,
feeling disgusted, the patient would not even eat, or would cause what was eaten
to come up again. Therefore, he should let such meats be administered after they
have been disguised (as something else).
This practical advice is echoed by Vāgbhaṭa in Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā
Cikitsāsthāna 5.7:
The meat of vultures and birds of prey, donkeys and camels is wholesome
when prepared so as to be unrecognizable; when recognized, it is abhorred and
therefore would cause vomiting instead of strength and vigor.
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Suśruta also devotes a similar passage to the treatment of consumption, which he

calls śoṣa rather than rājayakṣman. Suśrutasaṃhitā Uttaratantra 41.35–36 and 39
have direct reference to the preparation of carnivores, as well as of some other
animals. While Suśruta here does not, like Caraka, advise to give particular meats
under other names, he does hint at using deception when giving certain meats:
One should give the meat of crows, owls, mongooses, cats, earthworms, beasts
of prey, hole-dwellers and moles, and vultures under various pretexts, fried in
mustard oil with rock-salt.
Suśruta has more to say about the meat of meat eaters in Cikitsāsthāna 1.82cd–83ab,
where he discusses it in the context of treating patients with wounds. Here, the meat
of meat eaters is said to promote the growth of flesh—probably for covering deep
wounds:
A man should eat meats of meat eaters according to rule. The flesh of one whose
mind is pure grows through meat.
Ḍalhaṇa, Suśruta’s commentator, specifies meat eaters as lions, for instance. He also
explains “one whose mind is pure” (viśuddhamanas), as “one whose mind is not
beset by sorrow, anger etc.,” but adds that another commentator Jejjaṭa interprets
viśuddhamanas differently: “The meats of lions etc. are given under disguise, thus of
‘one whose mind is pure.’ ” Jejjaṭa’s comment, as quoted by Ḍalhaṇa, links Suśruta’s
passage on the treatment of wounds and Caraka’s passage on the treatment of
rājayakṣman by bringing terms into context that are not actually common to these
passages (viśuddhamanas occurs only in the Suśrutasaṃhitā, and chadmopahita only
in the Carakasaṃhitā).23
When Caraka writes that one should give patients meats under false names,
he explains that persons will not want to eat something that they are not used to
(anabhyāsa). Caraka’s commentator Cakrapāṇidatta brings this matter to a more
complex level, when he glosses anabhyāsa—“lack of habit”—with abhakṣyatva—
“not to be eaten,” a technical term found in reference to food laws of brahmanic
law literature.24 And indeed, most of Caraka’s items fall into the categories of
forbidden foods found in Manu’s Dharmaśāstra. Manu’s categories also include
animals that are not meat eaters. This could explain why Caraka mentions horses
and elephants in a list otherwise consisting of carnivores.25 Caraka’s list of meats
also corresponds to a list found in the rules of discipline for Buddhist monks in
the Pāli Canon (Vinayapiṭaka, Suttavibhaṅga, Pacittiya 8.4). If the meats listed by
Caraka were subject to food laws his contemporaries generally adhered to, their
use in therapy would have serious ethical implications. Patients might, for example,
consider themselves irredeemably ethically tainted by the use of such substances—or
they might understand it as a minor misdemeanor, easily made up for. Intentionality
might play a role in establishing whether an offense was committed: It might make
a difference that the patients did not know what they were taking.26 Finally, the
physician might be considered tainted by administering impure food, either through
being in contact with it, or by committing a bad deed through making someone
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else take such food. However, this discussion goes beyond both Caraka’s and
Cakrapāṇidatta’s treatment of the subject: neither actually comments on or discusses
food laws. This omission is somewhat surprising, given that diet is such a central
concern in Ayurveda. An acknowledgment and debate of existing food laws would
therefore prima facie seem a necessity. Yet, Caraka’s prescriptive menu of meats not
only runs completely counter not only to brahmanic prohibitions, but also does so
quite casually. What made such a cavalier attitude possible? It is conceivable that
the mentioned religious food rules were simply of no particular importance to the
society Caraka (or later Cakrapāṇidatta) lived and worked in. A comment made by
Cakrapāṇidatta in a different context (ad Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 8.29) may give
a clue to why common ethical prohibitions may have been disregarded by Caraka:
For the rules of Ayurveda do not teach the achievement of righteousness (dharma).
Rather, they teach the achievement of health.27
However, the medical authors, and Caraka among them, do on many occasions
display both a knowledge of and, more importantly, agreement with brahmanic
customs,28 and the correspondence of Caraka’s list of foods to foods forbidden by
Manu (or by the Buddhist canon) is too extensive to be coincidental. Perhaps the
question is, which came first: the custom not to eat certain foods (and remember,
it is that the meats are “uncustomary” (anabhyāsa) that Caraka refers to), or the
brahmanic (or Buddhist) prohibition? Unfortunately, this question cannot be
answered here, so that we are only left with the observation that it does not seem
Caraka’s intention to link his choice of prescribed meats with religious significance
or deeper meaning.
To return to the initial topic of deception, it should be noted that the passage in
Caraka’s Cikitsāsthāna 8 is not composed as an ethical discourse in general. While
it indicates that a physician may need to make allowances for a patient’s attitude or
feelings toward a substance—a concern that is rarely expressed in the medical texts—
it does not present this as an ethical dilemma for the physician, but simply as a matter
for practical consideration. Caraka is not asking moral questions about truthfulness
or whether a physician should give a substance to patients that they object to. He
simply promotes deception as a tool to ensure patient compliance. However, Caraka’s
commentator Cakrapāṇidatta questions the moral implications of Caraka’s practical
advice, and compares it with a statement Caraka makes in a passage on right conduct
(sadvṛtta) in another part of his work (such as Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 8.19).
There, Caraka states, “One should not tell a lie” (nānṛtam brūyāt), which leads
Cakrapāṇidatta to ask whether this does not contradict what is said in Cikitsāsthāna
8.19, namely, that one should use deception (upadhā) in saying one animal’s meat is
that of another. He answers his own question as follows:
“One should not lie” should not be seen as a contradiction to the advice about
speaking falsely beginning with “crows by the name of partridge” etc. in the
context of royal consumption, since the guilt of speaking falsehood is incurred by
speaking untruth that results in harming another, but not by speaking untruly for
the sake of another’s life.29
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In other words, truth, or rather untruth, can be morally qualified. It is only a vice
when used to harm others, but acceptable when used for a good cause. Thus,
tricking a patient into using a substance that is medically efficacious, albeit generally
considered disgusting, is not an act of vice, but one of virtue. The underlying
principle here is that whatever needs to be done to ensure patient compliance—
always a key factor for the success of any therapy—may, or indeed, should be done.
From the above, we have seen how Ayurvedic authors advise deception as a
legitimate means to shield patients and their relatives from upsetting news, as well
as to ensure patient compliance. A third possibility, namely, the use of deception as
a tool to bring about a certain therapeutic effect, will be explored in the following.
3.3.3. Deception as a therapeutic tool In chapter nine of the Cikitsāsthāna, Caraka

describes various types of madness (unmāda) and their treatment. For patients who suffer
from madness categorized as paittika—associated with the humor pitta, or bile—Caraka
prescribes the following ways of interacting with the patient as part of the therapy:
Or a friend should encourage him/cheer him up with words of religious merit and
wealth, or tell him of the death of a beloved one, or show him surprising things.
Or, after he has been fettered and oiled with mustard oil, one should lay him down
stretched out on the back in the sun. Or one should touch him with kapikacchu30,
or with heated metal, oil or water. Or, having struck him with whips, one should
confine him firmly fettered in a deserted house, for his confused mind thus comes
to rest. One should scare him with a snake, whose fangs have been extracted, or
with tamed lions31 and elephants, or with robbers or enemies holding knives. Or
otherwise, royal officers should take the well restrained patient outside32 and
should scare him, threatening to kill him on the king’s order. For the fear for
one’s life is thought to exceed fears of bodily pain. Through this his disordered
mind comes to rest. (Carakasaṃhitā Cikitsāsthāna 9.79–84)
The Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā (Uttarasthāna 6.48– 51), the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha
(Uttarasthāna 9.54–57), and the Bhāvaprakāśa (Madhyakhaṇḍa Cikitsāprakaraṇam
8.22.39– 42) copy Caraka’s instructions, quoting him nearly verbatim,
the former two with one variant reading each at the same place: Caraka’s
trāsayeyur “they should scare” in stanza 83 is exchanged for bhāpayeyur—
“they should appear as” in the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā, and again for another
word in the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha: bheṣayeyur— “they should make fear.” The
Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā’s reading would seem to suggest that the physicians
or carers should dress up as royal officers, rather than that real royal officers
should play a part in the treatment. In any case, this scenario points to such
treatments taking place in a courtly setting, or at least in proximity to it. This is
indicated not only by the role royal officers (or persons disguising as such) play
in it, but also by the use of animals such as lions and elephants. These, and the
lion in particular, would hardly have been easily available to normal citizens.33
However, the treatments themselves stand in striking contrast to privileges one
might associate with a courtly setting, as—apart from the initial suggestion that
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“a friend should encourage him with words of religious merit and wealth”—they
are characterized by various degrees of violence to the patient. A low level of
violence lies in the telling of sad news. These may be quite untrue, but—true or
not—are probably intended to let the patient experience anguish, or strong grief.
Whipping, burning, fettering, and isolating the patient are more marked displays
of violence.34 However, the central method of treatment is the use of threat. Each
threat—of being bitten by a snake, attacked by lions or elephants, assaulted by
robbers or enemies, or executed by royal officers on the king’s orders—is aimed
at making the patient fear for his life. However, Caraka indicates fairly clearly
that these threats are just that: the patient is at no time in real danger of losing
his life. After all, the snake’s fangs should have been removed and the lions and
elephants should be tame. As for the robbers and enemies, it is very unlikely that
true criminals were at the physician’s disposal, so that we can safely assume that
some chosen persons were to play-act, pretending to be robbers with the intention
of assaulting the patient with knives. The same goes for the execution threats of
the royal officers, whether real or not. As there is no true intention of harming
the patient, the threat is in fact an act of deception. The treatment’s success relies
on the contrasting perspectives the participants in this medical drama have: While
the doctor/carer/royal officer does not intend to actually commit the violent act
or to let it happen, it is crucial that the patient believes he does. The violent fear
that the patient experiences is what is meant to ultimately set his mind (which, as
we must remember, is disturbed as he is mentally ill) to rest. However, the actual
mental processes that bring on this change are unfortunately not explained by
Caraka, who merely points out that the fear for one’s life is an extremely powerful
emotion, stronger even than the fear of bodily pain.
Similar treatments are described by Suśruta in Uttaratantra 62.17–21b:
One should show him surprising things, or tell him about the death of one dear
to him. One should intimidate him with men of fearful appearance, with tamed
elephants and poisonless snakes. Or one should then beat him with whips, after he
has been fettered with chains. Or, having restrained him, one should frighten the
well-guarded one with a grass-fire. Or else one should threaten him with water, or
one should pretend (to threaten him) with blows with a rope. And a strong man
should guard him, and make him stand overnight in water. One should pierce him
with a pointed tool, (but) one should avoid injuring the vital points (marman).
Having entered a house, one should set that house on fire, protecting him. Or one
should constantly keep him in a covered and waterless pit well.
Suśruta’s suggestions for treatment are an even more startling read than Caraka’s,
though the basic principle is the same: deceiving the patient into believing that his
life is under threat. Again, the rough and violent treatments are meant to frighten
the patient, but never to seriously endanger him. Interestingly, just a few sentences
before (Uttaratantra 62.12), Suśruta describes how the fear for one’s life, but also
the loss of what is dear to one, can be the very causes of madness.35 Generally
speaking, Suśruta’s section on madness (unmāda) seems somewhat less structured
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292 DAGMAR WUJASTYK
than Caraka’s treatment of the subject, which first gives the symptoms of each type
of madness, followed by their remedies. While it is clear from Caraka’s description
that these particular fear-inducing treatments are meant for patients with “paittika”
madness, this is not clearly categorized in the Suśrutasaṃhitā, indicating that these
treatments may not have been fully understood in the latter tradition.
4. CONCLUSION
In the Ayurvedic classics, honesty is described as one of the qualities that define right
conduct. For the medical authors, right conduct is not solely a matter of etiquette
and social rules; it is part of a metaphysics that understands individual human
behavior as having far-reaching consequences for the individual, for society, and for
the environment at large.
Advice on right conduct in general is echoed by the medical authors’ descriptions
of desirable characteristics in a medical student. Several of the medical classics
describe how in the medical student’s initiation ceremony, the student is called upon
to be honest and to abandon untruth. This rule may pertain mainly to the student’s
behavior toward his teacher during his apprenticeship, but it is also described as a
necessary behavior for the practicing physician “who wishes for success and wealth
and the attainment of fame and heaven after death.”36
Such advice is, however, contradicted, or at least somewhat reinterpreted, in the
course of action proposed by Caraka in the case of a patient’s imminent death. Here,
he advises the physician not to tell the patient or his relatives the whole truth about the
patient’s condition, if he considered it too upsetting for the patient. This introduces
the first of the three contexts in which a physician’s actions may break the general
requirement of honesty, while remaining ethically correct. In the second context,
physicians are advised to administer certain efficacious but disgusting meats disguised
as more acceptable foods to patients. In the third context, deception is used to shock the
patient into believing his life is at stake, and thus to bring about the necessary changes
in the patient’s mental state. The role of dishonesty is different in each context: In
the first, dishonesty is used to shield the patient from upsetting news. In the second,
dishonesty is used to ensure patient compliance with the physician’s prescription. In
the third, deception is a central part of the therapeutic process: it is used as a medical
tool, as it were. Each use of deception ultimately relies on the fundamental assumption
that the physician has both a full understanding of the medical situation, and bears
the patient’s best interests in mind. Thus, the doctor–patient relationship in Ayurveda
is shown to be essentially paternalistic. One should, in any case, remember that the
master virtue for the doctor is not honesty, but medical prowess: the Ayurvedic
authors all define extensive knowledge and skill as a good physician’s most important
characteristics. In the end, a doctor is judged by his success, that is, his ability to cure
disease, the means for achieving cures being a secondary consideration.
As a final observation, it needs to be pointed out that while the chosen excerpts
from the medical texts display a certain amount of reference to the topic of honesty
293
and deception in the doctor–patient relationship, the classical texts lack ethical meta-
discussion of this topic entirely. Only the commentators—and particularly Caraka’s
commentator, Cakrapāṇidatta—actually problematize the ethical dilemmas facing
physicians in some of the situations depicted in the classics.
NOTES
* This article is based on research first published in Wujastyk (2012: 124–142).
I would like to thank the Fonds zur Förderung des universitären Nachwuchses and
the URPP Asia and Europe of Zurich University for their support.
1. In 1995, the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy
(ISM&H) was set up as a department of the Ministry for Health and Family
Welfare. The “Indian systems of medicine” at the time meant Ayurveda, Unani,
Siddha, and Naturopathy. In 2003, the Department of ISM&H was renamed the
Department of AYUSH to make note of the inclusion of Yoga. Naturopathy, though
not part of the acronym, remained part of the department’s area of responsibility.
More recently, Sowa Rigpa was added to the catalogue of Indian systems of
medicine, and there are discussions about including folk medical traditions as well.
In 2014, the department of AYUSH was made into a ministry in its own right.
2. The relevant statistics can be found on the AYUSH website under “Infrastructure.”
See http://indianmedicine.nic.in/
3. For the syllabi to attain the degree of Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery
and the postgraduate degree of Ayurvedacharya designed by the Central Council
of Indian Medicine (CCIM) and approved of by the Ministry of AYUSH, see http://
www.ccimindia.org/ayurveda-syllabus.html#. These include lists of recommended
reference works.
4. While older Indian sources on medicine exist, the compilations ascribed to Caraka
(the Carakasaṃhitā) and Suśruta (the Suśrutasaṃhitā) are the earliest Indian
works known to us that systematically present medicine as their main subject.
Both works have complicated transmission histories and went through several
redactions. While it is therefore somewhat inaccurate to refer to Caraka or Suśruta
as the authors of these works, I do so in this chapter for the sake of convenience
and brevity. For a more detailed discussion of the issues surrounding the dating
and authorship of these works, see Meulenbeld (1999–2002: IA, 105–115 [on
the Carakasaṃhitā] and IA, 333–344 [on the Suśrutasaṃhitā]). On references to
medicine in nonmedical literature, see Meulenbeld (1999–2002: IIA, 818–832,
esp. 819, 821 and 830). Also see Zysk (2000) on medicine in ascetic and Buddhist
milieus and Zysk (1996) on medicine in the Vedas.
5. Reference works on biomedicine typically include standard biomedical textbooks
also recommended by the Medical Council of India for MBBS (Bachelor
of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) courses. The MBBS syllabus (including
recommended reference works) at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences
(AIIMS) that is approved by the Medical Council of India, can be downloaded
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294 DAGMAR WUJASTYK
from the AIIMS website at http://www.aiims.edu/aiims/academic/courses_syllabus.

htm
6. See Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 1.46–56 on physical matter and sentience.
See Carakasaṃhitā Vimānasthāna 8.15–67 on debate (in general and among
physicians). See Sūtrasthāna 8.18–33 on right conduct.
7. The syllabus has been revised since and no longer seems to contain the mentioned
sections, though it still has a module on the “Importance of ethics and principles
of ideal living as mentioned in Samhita in the present era in relation to life style
disorders.” See http://www.ccimindia.org/first_year_syllabus.html#ab3
8. The syllabus was on the CCIM’s website at http://www.ccimindia.org/curriculum_
ayurveda_ug_syllbus_2009.html. It can still be partly accessed via the Internet
Archive waybackmachine on archive.org. The cited list of topics was part of Point
12 of Part B, vyavaharayurved evum vidhivaidyak (forensic medicine and medical
jurisprudence).
9. Point 13 of Part B, vyavaharayurved evum vidhivaidyak (forensic medicine
and medical jurisprudence) of the syllabus reads: “Laws in relation to medical
practitioners: Indian Medicine Central Council Act, Code of Medical Ethics,
General Principles, duties of a physician towards his patient, towards the profession
at large, professional services of physicians to each other, duties of a physician in
consultation, duties of a physician in cases of interference, duties of a physician
to the public, Physician’s responsibility in criminal matters, duties of a patient,
professional negligence, civil negligence, criminal negligence, medico legal aspects of
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, rights of an unborn child, transplantation
of human organs Bill 1994, Pre Natal Diagnostic Testing Act, donation of cornea,
malingering of feigned diseases, international code of medical ethics for doctors.”
10. The declaration of Geneva was updated in 1968, 1983, 1994, 2005, and 2006, but
the CCIM’s declaration follows the wording of the 1948 version.
11. The MCI was founded in 1934 in reaction to statements from the General Medical
Council of Great Britain that Indian medical degrees (in modern medicine)
would no longer be accepted in Britain unless a statutory body was established
that regulated medical education in India and made sure that standards in Indian
medical education equalled British standards. The MCI has taken a very strict
stance of exclusion toward practitioners of the indigenous medical traditions from
its inception.
12. Definitions of medical treatment as consisting of four pillars are found in nearly
all of the oldest classical medical texts—the Carakasaṃhitā (Sūtrasthāna 9), the
Suśrutasaṃhitā (Sūtrasthāna 34.15cd–24), the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha (Sūtrasthāna
1.27–29), the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā (Sūtrasthāna 2.21–25ab), the Kāśyapasaṃhitā
(Sūtrasthāna 26.3–11), and the Bhelasaṃhitā (Sūtrasthāna 9). There is a passing
mention of the four pillars in the ninth-century treatise Mādhavanidāna (in 5.39).
13. I use the masculine pronoun as the physician depicted in the Ayurvedic medical
classics is clearly male. By contrast, in modern Ayurvedic practice, there are many
female practitioners.
14. On the characteristics of a good physician in contrast to those of quacks, see
Wujastyk (2012: 42–47).
295
15. See Suśrutasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 34.24, Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 1.29,

and Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha Sūtrasthāna .2.25, respectively.
16. On medical care in the Theravādin Buddhist monastic community and the
characteristics of good carers, see Mahāvagga 8.26.1–8 and Zysk’s discussion of
this passage (2000: 41–42).
17. The Suśrutasaṃhitā does not place the subject of the new physician’s professional
conduct within the context of the medical student’s initiation, but its treatment
of the subject is very similar to that described in the Carakasaṃhitā. Suśruta
devotes an entire (albeit short) chapter to the physician’s entry into the
profession, which covers advice not only on how to behave as a physician, but
also on whom a physician should or should not treat. A physician’s etiquette is
described in Sūtrasthāna 10.3 and 9. Vāgbhaṭa’s treatment of the subject occurs
in Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha Sūtrasthāna 2.7–20. There is no parallel in the Aṣṭāṅgahṛd-
ayasaṃhitā. The Kāśyapasaṃhitā deals with the rules of conduct for physicians
in Vimānasthāna 2.8–9, following on from rules concerning the correct way of
studying.
18. See Preisendanz (2007) for a detailed analysis of the structure of this chapter in
the Carakasaṃhitā, and Wujastyk (2012: 89–90) for a translation of the teacher’s
speech.
19. See Beauchamp and Childress (2001: 12).
20. See Wujastyk (2012: 68–106) for a discussion of the similarities and differences
between the different versions.
21. Though note, for example, the list of forbidden foods and the chapter on eating
meat in Manu’s Dharmaśāstra, a major work on religious law roughly dated to
between the last two centuries BCE and the first two centuries CE. Here, Manu
states: “He may eat meat when it is sacrificially consecrated, at the behest of
Brahmins, when he is ritually commissioned according to rule and when his life
is at risk” (Olivelle 2005: 139). The last part of this statement is particularly
important for the medicinal use of meat.
22. The use of meat does, however, become an issue for the later commentators, such
as Cakrapāṇidatta. See Zimmermann (1999 [1987]: 192–193) for Cakrapāṇidatta’s
discussion of the tension between the use of meat and the ethical goal of
nonviolence. It is, however, only in the Kalyāṇakāraka, a Jain medical work by
Ugrāditya dated to ca. the ninth century (Meulenbeld, 1999–2002: II A, 155),
that vegetarianism becomes the central focus of ethical argument. Here, animal
products that can only be obtained through killing or harming an animal are
replaced by vegetable or mineral substances, or by other animal products such as
hair, nails, and excrement, for instance.
23. This quotation is also interesting for the reason that it represents a section of
Jejjaṭa’s commentarial work that is not available to us at present. It is not clear
whether Ḍalhaṇa’s quotation of Jejjaṭa stems from the latter’s commentary on
Caraka, or the one on Suśruta. According to K. Zysk (personal communication
by email, November 14, 2006), we do not have Jejjaṭa on Carakasaṃhitā
Cikitsāsthāna 8.149–157. Meulenbeld in HIML 1A, 385 writes: “Jejjaṭa
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296 DAGMAR WUJASTYK
commented on both Caraka-and Suśrutasaṃhitā. His commentary on the

latter treatise has partly been preserved, but its title is unknown.” And in note
360 of HIML IB, 507, Meulenbeld adds: “A single MS, containing part of the
commentary on the Uttaratantra, is known (NCC VII, 317; STMI 89).”
24. Patrick Olivelle, in his translation of Manu’s Dharmaśāstra, notes that “Dharma
literature makes a clear distinction between abhakṣya, foods forbidden because
of their very nature, and abhojya, foods that have become unfit for a variety of
reasons’ (2005: 278, note 5.5).
25. Manu’s list of forbidden foods is found in c hapter 5. It includes carnivorous birds
(5.11), animals that wander alone (5.17), and animals with five nails (pañcanākha;
5.17–18). Interestingly the rhinoceros, despite being categorized as having five
nails and wandering alone, may be eaten. The camel is specifically mentioned as
a forbidden food (cf. Olivelle 2005: 138–139). Zimmermann (1999: 243, note
45), referring to Bhāgavata Purāṇa III, 10, 20–24, lists the pañcanākha animals
as follows: dog, jackal, wolf, tiger, cat, hare, porcupine, lion, monkey, elephant,
tortoise, lizard, and makara (a kind of sea monster). Further, Manu notes in
chapter 11: 157 that “the hot-arduous penance is the purification for eating the
meat of carnivorous animals, pigs, camels, cocks, humans, crows or donkeys,” thus
firmly placing carnivores into the list of forbidden foods (Olivelle 2005: 223).
26. This, incidentally, may be what Jejjaṭa (via Ḍalhaṇa) ad Suśrutasaṃhitā
Cikitsāsthāna 1.82bc–83ab is hinting at when he comments that the mind remains
pure because the meats are given under disguise.
27. See Dominik Wujastyk (2004: 836).
28. See, for example, Benner (2009) on brahmanic fertility rituals in the Aṣṭāṅgahṛday-
asaṃhitā. Zysk (2000) writes comprehensively about the use of brahmanic material
in the medical texts, as does Chattopadhyaya (1977).
29. See also Zimmermann’s translation: “It cannot be said that there is any
contradiction[,]‌for false speech is only affected by the vice of lying when its effect
is to harm others, but in this case it is in order to save another’s life that one does
not speak the truth” (1999 [1987]: 178).
30. Mucuna pruriens, “Velvet bean,” “Cowitch,” or “Cowhage.” This plant is a climber
with pods that are covered with irritant bristles.
31. Cakrapāṇidatta glosses “siṃha” with “vyāghra,” thus interpreting it as a tiger
rather than as a lion.
32. Cakrapāṇidatta specifies that “outside” means outside the village.
33. Zimmermann points this out in his discussion of the carnivore’s meats that are
given under disguise by the physician in Carakasaṃhitā Cikitsāsthāna 8.149–
157: “Fantastical prescriptions, I admit, if only because they presuppose a whole
economic infrastructure capable of producing on demand lions, bears, hyenas,
tigers and other game—in short, a royal existence!” (1999 [1987]: 176).
34. For the sake of not digressing too far from my line of argument concerning
veracity in the doctor–patient relationship, I will not expand on the implications
of these casual prescriptions of violence (and therefore harm) to the patient for
the principles of nonmaleficence at length here. As mentioned, the guidelines for
297
apprenticing physicians include the prescription to be committed to preserving

or establishing a patient’s welfare. However, there is no discussion anywhere
about the ethical implications of causing a patient physical or emotional distress.
See Wujastyk (2012: 292–294) on this topic and also Zimmermann (1999
[1987]: 192–193) for a wider discussion of the role of violence in Ayurvedic
medicine.
35. The same passage also appears in the Mādhavanidāna (20.14–15).
36. See Carakasaṃhitā Vimānasthāna 8.13.
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299
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Toward a Complete and

Integral Mīmāṃsā Ethics:
Learning with Mādhava’s
Garland of Jaimini’s
Reasons
FRANCIS X. CLOONEY, S. J.
1. ON HINDU ETHICS AND MĪMĀṂSĀ’S

UNCERTAIN PLACE
My goal in this chapter is to explicate the ethics of a text of a specific school of Hindu
ethics. The text is Mādhava’s Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons and the wider school of
which this is part is Pūrva Mīmāṃsā—a tradition of Deontological ethics that derives
its content from early Vedic intuition (śruti) and its subsequent tradition (smṛti).
When we take up the general question of Hindu ethics, how to estimate articulate
discourses that count as “ethics” and count as “Hindu”—we need also to be open to
variations regarding the very idea of ethics as a field of deliberation. As commonly
explicated, the field of ethics is largely a product of the modern West and its
academic discourses, even if rooted in a wide variety of Western sources including
philosophy stretching back to the ancient Greeks, as the traditions of Christianity,
as well as its courts, canon law, confessional cases, and the consequent casuistry.
Given the contested atmosphere around truths and values in the modern West, ethics,
like theology, has often had to take up a defensive and then apologetic stance, to
explain and justify continuities and changes in Western ethical practice. We ought
not to expect other religious traditions, developing in accord with other histories and
with other requirements, to reach the same form of ethics as has developed in the
West. We certainly need not take for granted that there should be ethical theories
that count as Hindu Ethics, just because there is, in the West, a group of theories that
count as Christian Ethics. More importantly, a Hindu Ethics will resemble a Christian
300
300 FRANCIS X. CLOONEY, S. J.
Ethics only to an extent. In saying this, I am, of course, not talking about whether
Hindu communities have moral standards, but rather about whether there are second-
order realms of deliberation at a remove from the lived practices of any given Hindu
community. To make progress, we must proceed on a smaller scale, looking into the
various Hindu traditions individually, to detect not only the content, but also the
manner of ethical reasoning. Using “ethics” in the Hindu context requires a certain
tolerance of analogy; there is no end of the adjustments required to make “Hindu”
and “ethics” work together. When we turn to Mīmāṃsā ritual analysis—the systems
of inquiry and ritual reasoning grounded in the Veda, its texts and rituals, and in the
millennial traditions reaching back to Jaimini, author of the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras—and
seek out a—or the—Mīmāṃsā contribution to ethics, the problems are still more acute.
It is revealing first of all to observe just how little Mīmāṃsā has figured in accounts
of Hindu ethics at all. John McKenzie’s Hindu Ethics (1922) devotes less than a
paragraph to Mīmāṃsā. He is forthright in his reasons for doubting Mīmāṃsā’s
relevance to ethics at all. After all, it focuses on ritual works, and “these are in the
main not ethical works, but the sacrificial works and other ritual observances of
the Brāhmaṇas, reduced to some kind of system. It is indeed hardly an independent
system of philosophy, even in the Indian sense of the term” (McKenzie 1922: 138).
As such, it is only preliminary to Vedānta, just as, in his view, the Old Testament is
but an introduction to the New Testament that supersedes it. Mīmāṃsā offers a kind
of works righteousness, dispensing with the idea of God in order to render coherent
the notion of karma. Cromwell Crawford’s The Evolution of Hindu Ethical Ideals
devotes a section to Mīmāṃsā, with a focus on dharma, karma, and mokṣa. Gleaning
from Śabara, Kumārila, and Prabhākara a number of interesting insights, Crawford
concludes with a characterization hardly sympathetic to Mīmāṃsā:
Unfortunately, by appealing to Vedic authority as the source of obligation which
categorically enjoins dharma, the Mīmāṃsā postulates a supernatural standard of
authority. Its ethics is therefore authoritarian in character, to be accepted on faith
and not reason. Of course, the Tantrarahasya and other writings allow for the
judgment of “one’s own conscience” in determining what is good, but conscience
is not viewed autonomously. Far from being a free agency of moral perception,
the role of conscience is limited to that of providing a conscientious appeal for
the doing of duties learned from external authority. Such a conscience is good for
tribalism but is bad for individuality. (Crawford 1982: 101–109)
Roy Perrett’s Hindu Ethics (1998) refers some 15 times to Mīmāṃsā, though always
in the course of discussing other matters, in particular the workings of karma.
Of the four essays on Hindu ethics in the 2005 Blackwell Companion to Religious
Ethics, the only author to mention Mīmāṃsā at all is Maria Heim, and even she
evinces a certain skepticism about its maturity as an ethical system: “Sometimes
moral behavior is simply conflated with conformity to rules and any internal
dimension in correct behavior is irrelevant. A Mīmāṃsā definition of dharma is
simply ‘rule-boundedness’ . . . Concerned with external form, much Mīmāṃsā ritual
discourse prescribes the following of rules rather than the development of virtue. In
this view, dharma is exhaustively described by human activity, without reference to
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TOWARD A COMPLETE AND INTEGRAL MĪMĀṂSĀ ETHICS 301
character or disposition” (Heim 2005: 346). This too is a definition largely in terms
of what Mīmāṃsā does not achieve.
The “human” and human moral responsibility according to the Mīmāṃsā
tradition have, in my judgment, been insufficiently considered, and therefore too
the contribution of Mīmāṃsā to Hindu ethics. This neglect is in part due to the
rich variety of other resources in the Sanskrit and Brahminical traditions of India,
and because of the concomitant perception, somewhat plausible, that the Mīmāṃsā
is interested in the human only insofar as this humanity pertains to the performer
of the ritual, an agent who must, to some extent, be known with respect to the
ritual performance and also outside it. By contrast, however, the bulk of reflection
occurring in Mīmāṃsā—ordered according to the approximately 900 problematic
cases presented in Jaimini’s Sūtras—has to do with problems of ritual and textual
interpretation internal to its own system. Mīmāṃsā debates were not primarily
conformed to questions arising from sources other than the rituals and texts of
ritual, but even to questions related to dharma as a religious and societal value.
If we wish to rethink the place of Mīmāṃsā in ethics and as a form of ethical
reflection, we must adjust our notions of what counts as ethics. Certainly there are
some scholars who point the way. Here I draw attention just to one older and one
more recent example. P. T. Raju’s Structural Depths of Indian Thought (1985) devotes a
chapter to Mīmāṃsā. Interestingly, he places it at the beginning of the book (succeeding
only the Upaniṣads), on the grounds that “all the other systems grew and developed out
of its teachings or as reactions to its teachings.” The ethical import is clear: “Mīmāṃsā
is essentially a philosophy of ethical action, but more concerned with the supra-sensual
nature of the ethical force and the ritual, the significance and workings of which have
other-worldly bearings, than with social action, which is concerned with this world
and which the Mīmāṃsā leaves to the ethical codes (dharmasūtras and dharmaśāstras)
for elaboration and explanation.” Raju also thinks that those “ethical codes take for
granted and claim to base their teachings on the metaphysics of the Mīmāṃsā, which
they do not discuss. The commentators on the ethical codes use mainly Mīmāṃsā
methods for interpreting their texts and for applying them to concrete cases” (Raju
1985: 40). Mīmāṃsā is “ethical activism” since “action is ultimate,” and ethical action
indispensable; indeed, “ethical action is the supreme governing force of the universe”
(Raju 1985: 41). Nor is the Mīmāṃsā focus on action merely of a ritual sort, since
Mīmāṃsā attends to the capacities and readiness of the actor. At the chapter’s end,
Raju emphasizes that “Mīmāṃsā is the most important and well-developed philosophy
of action in India.” It should not be seen as derivative, even if, when responding to
questions arising elsewhere, it borrows from Nyāya or Vaiśeṣika (Raju 1985: 62). Raju’s
positive appreciation of Mīmāṃsā is noteworthy, even if it must be interpreted in light
of his overall view of ethics and his understanding of “activism.” But it is refreshing to
see so robust and unusual a defense of Mīmāṃsā, conceived of as central to our wider
understanding of Indian ethical practice.
Elisa Freschi is exemplary in setting a new path in the study of Mīmāṃsā ethics,
Mīmāṃsā as ethics, by a series of key publications on the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā—
“Desidero Ergo Sum: The Subject as the Desirous One in Mīmāṃsā” (2007) and
“Action, Desire and Subjectivity in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā” (2010)—and for her Duty,
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Language and Exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā (2012). These works disclose the
rules and relationships of an ethical discourse. In “Desidero Ergo Sum,” for instance,
after a careful analysis of the role of desire in Rāmānujācārya’s Tantrarahasya, she
concludes:
The Mīmāṃsā (like most Indian philosophical schools, at least at their outset)
did not intend to cover every possible field of investigation and focused on the
exegesis of the Brāhmaṇa-portion of the Veda . . . From a (Pūrva) Mīmāṃsā point
of view, the Self is primarily the agent of sacrifices.
And this, she adds, means that for most actions, “the subject consists in a desiring
subject,” a view which rules out “wrong views on the same topic, such as the
Buddhist denial of a self even in this-worldly actions, or the assumption that such
actions might be undertaken without desiring their results (Freschi 2007: 59). This
astute reading of Mīmāṃsā as a pragmatic tradition adheres to what is, in fact, the
case, taken at face value. From a certain distance, Mīmāṃsā’s ritual agent is indeed
the desiring subject, and thus potentially relegated to the margins of Hindu ethical
discourses. But if we shift our gaze and consider Mīmāṃsā’s overall ritual reasoning,
and the modest place of the human within that world, we will see that its discourse
is not so much marginal as alternative.
If we read Mīmāṃsā in a holistic and integral manner, we will be able to see in what
sense it has a real and distinctive apprehension of the ethical, such as what decenters
the human without trivializing it, and is rigorously analytic without ambitioning any
novelty.1 Indeed, what will turn out to be most interesting regarding Mīmāṃsā is
that this shape of its apprehension of the human, within the world of ritual text and
action, does not simply take a place among standard Western ethical alternatives. To
make this point, I turn now to a Mīmāṃsā text that enables us to see the whole of
Mīmāṃsā reasoning, in detail yet manageably.
2. THE GARLAND OF JAIMINI’S REASONS AS

A BEST ENTRY POINT INTO MĪMĀṂSĀ
ETHICAL REASONING
The Mīmāṃsā way of thinking is famously difficult to characterize as a whole. It is
hard to move beyond a focus on its opening section, the Tarka Pāda (“Reasoning
Chapter”). That chapter proposes initial reflections on authoritative means of
knowledge, the proper approach to dharma, and the correlated views of language,
authorship, and the status of the Veda as a text, the subsequent bulk of the Sūtras. The
following chapters in the first Adhyāya (book) fill out an adequate account of Tradition
and traditions, practices more or less akin to those of the Veda, and likewise more or
less closely related realms of language. Thereafter, in the second and following books,
the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras highlight ritual problems that are intelligible in the context of
specific ritual texts and practical context, distinct from the linguistic, epistemological,
and behavioral questions that arise tangentially and at the second order of discourse.
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The turn to ritual detail is direct and effective in showing us what Mīmāṃsā is about
and how it reasons, but this detail is local and specific, and resistant to generalization.
It quickly becomes too complex, too detailed, for digestion in a chapter such as this
one. To make such points in a succinct fashion, I will therefore turn now to a text
that excels in succinct distillation and thereby in rendering a manageable overview of
the whole of the Mīmāṃsā system: the Jaiminīya Nyāya Mālā (Garland of Jaimini’s
Rules of Interpretation, henceforth Garland) by Mādhavācārya (1297–1388). The
reasoning of this text is the subject of the second part of this chapter.
The Garland2 is a set of more than 1,400 ślokas (two- line metered verses,
henceforth verses), and distills in one or several verses the decisive features of each
of the approximately 900 cases identified by Jaimini. These distillations excel in
economy of expression, in discerning what gets included and left out from the bulk
of the older commentaries. Though written in the fourteenth century and well before
a number of other notable Mīmāṃsā works, in important ways the Garland stands at
and as the “end” of the tradition, a perfection of the distillative practices undertaken
by Jaimini in his Sūtras in the very beginning of its textual history. The “minimalist
fullness” or “lavish economy” of the Garland invites readers to stay with these cases
and, resisting the temptation to turn instead to theory or matters of method, to learn
from each case, one after the other. It may be taken as a final landmark in the quest
to clarify the meaning of the Sūtras while yet retaining the concision of the original,
in fact, making clear for the age of Mīmāṃsā as a tradition of texts that Jaimini had
put forward, often inscrutably, in the place of the spoken word.
Mādhava recognizes economy to be a necessity. At the beginning of his work,
Mādhava notes that Mīmāṃsā had become an ocean of learning too broad and deep,
inaccessible to beginners. He needed to pay attention to the commentators, and yet,
by his own design, distill their expansive teaching very selectively to the essence of
each argument, constrained within the self-imposed format of one or two verses.
With the Garland, therefore, we have come full circle, possessed now of a polished
text that not only does what Jaimini did in the beginning, but also, for the modern
reader, in a real sense does better: a complete and succinct rendering of the entirety
of the Mīmāṃsā debates, this time encoding in a compact and shorthand fashion
all necessary information. The Garland makes the whole visible, a visible whole
that cannot simply be coopted. Every case is probed to its core, but no single case
allowed to dominate the discussion, no rule allowed to replace the cases it rules. It
is the whole set of cases, the full Garland, that matters.
One still needs to learn a great deal to understand what is being talked about, but
Mādhava has compressed what needs to be known to the minimum. In his rendering,
the cases are not so closely bound to their context that all the details of the ritual and
of the commentarial tradition need be known. The Garland sheds light on issues of
ethical import by attention to the details of a ritual analysis that seems, at first glance,
to be resolutely amoral, disinterested in ethical questions of import in the wider world.
The way to learn from the Garland is to read through its 1,400 verses, thus
covering the 900 cases. In preview of that daunting but possible learning project,
I now turn to four sites in the Garland that shed light on Mīmāṃsā’s distinctive
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understanding of the human and its insight into the practicalities of right deliberation
on right behavior. The judgments in any particular case stand between a mass of
detail and general principles; attention to a series of pertinent Mīmāṃsā discussions
will be illuminating both of the text and of its world: I.3, regarding the limits on an
acceptance of practices that seem warranted only by tradition; III.4, particularly the
section regarding the prohibition against lying, the ritual management of yawning,
required respect for brāhmins, and the limits of interaction with women during the
menstrual period; VI.1, regarding the eligibility for ritual practice of all beings who
desire happiness, a universalizable standard consequently limited by factors of body
and wealth, gender and caste; and VI.7, regarding the practical meaning of two
seemingly impossible rites, one in which one gives away all that one possesses and
one that calls for 1,000 years of performance.
Selected cases from these sections of the Garland offer, I will show, insight into
the human person as a ritual performer and as a figure with an identity outside the
ritual arena, but nevertheless still inscribed in that ritual context. Our examples
suggest also that the “person inside and outside the ritual arena” cannot be simply
universalized as “the human person as such,” as if there is such a person who is
natural and exists prior to or apart from the Vedic ritual context. Nor should we
imagine the Garland to concern itself only with the ritual performer, as if placed on
one side of the secular/sacred divide familiar in today’s world. This person is entirely
inscribed in the ritual frame, for such is the paradigm of the human, but the actual
ritual contexts are nothing but particularly intense and evident instances of that
person whose ordinary life too is Vedic.
Our first example is from I.3, a pāda (henceforth “chapter”) that explores the
workable extension of the Vedic realm of text and practice, and the social and
religious world constructed around the sacrifice, whether it can reach beyond the
realm of the explicit Vedic work and the immediately implied extensions of it. At
issue are customs not explicitly sanctioned in the Veda, accompanied by unfamiliar
words and practices, and in some cases practiced by people clearly outside the Vedic
fold; yet the actions can be judged soberly, at times without much attention to the
persons involved. I.3 is the chapter most fully dedicated to the consideration of the
reach and limits of Vedic language—and the conditions under which non-Vedic words
and practices, passed down in smṛti (words and practices passed down in more or
less authoritative traditions), with no explicit basis in śruti (the highest category of
authoritative, revelatory word), need to be excluded on the grounds of incompatibility
with what is explicit in the Vedic. The tradition from Jaimini on is generous in this
regard. The customary, the foreign, can be accepted and should be, except when
there is a direct contradiction of what is mandated in śruti. The chapter is in essence
a series of efforts to avoid contradictions, to include, account for, and rank what at
first glance might seem merely unfounded. The general principle is cited in case 1:
Do customs regarding the eighth day rites, etc., have authority regarding dharma,
or not? Because they have no Vedic roots, they have no authority and no role in
expressing the meaning of the Veda.
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Because they are remembered by the orthodox, their rootedness in the Veda
can be postulated. Custom has a role because, by gathering disparate insights, it
functions as authoritative.3
Mādhava’s own Elaboration (Vistara) refers here to practices, such as the thread
ceremony for twice- born boys and the duty of scriptural study, such as are
spelled out in sources such as the clearly orthodox Laws of Manu. Case 2 shows
a counterexample, where the winding of the cloth around the post would thwart
the command that the post actually be touched. Such conflicts cannot be ignored,
particularly when the inference of a Vedic source is judged not possible:
There is a doubt: is the smṛti, “The whole udumbara-wood sacrifice post is to be
wrapped,” accurate or not accurate? It is accurate, as was the case with the eighth
day rites.
Because “Let him sing, touching the udumbara-wood post” is explicitly Vedic,
and because there is contradiction (with entirely wrapping the post), there cannot
be an inference that the Veda is this custom’s root. So it has no authority.
Why is the inference not possible? Because in this case, it would be judged to contradict
the direct and very clear injunction to touch the post (and not through a covering).
The Elaboration says that the inference is made impossible due to incongruity in
time—the covering first, then the would-be touching; this makes former text, on
covering, tantamount to an unreliable source, hence lacking in authority.
Case 3 shows that the lack of contradiction may be insufficient grounds for
approval, since greed may be the reason for a novel practice. Perhaps the giving of
the special cloth to the brāhmin after its use in a specific offering called “vaisarjana”
is merely an invented custom that allows him to acquire the cloth. And so, an appeal
to similarity with the first case is rejected:
Is the tradition smṛti about “acquiring the oblation cloth related to the vaisarjana
offerings” authoritative or not? Because śruti is not contradicted, it is authoritative,
like the smṛti regarding the eighth day rites, etc.
When there is the possibility of a root in obvious greed, there is no postulation
of a śruti. So even if there is no contradiction, as there was with wrapping the
post entirely, it is still not authoritative.
But how does one judge that greed is a likely factor? Here Mādhava seems to be
relying on tradition: this case was always taken to recognize the fact of greed, and
he seems content to admit this possibility rather than to define more sharply the
reasons for it.
There is no grander speculation here, of course, about why there are such
differences, or any essential judgments about persons who are insiders and outsiders,
with aspersions cast on the (defective) language of the latter. The themes and topics do
not pertain to the interlocking values of the right means of reading texts, the explicit
and inferred meanings, the meanings of sentences and of contexts, but rather due to
judgments essentially about what noble people (ārya, vedic) remember and recognize,
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and what does not conflict with their remembering and regarding which they therefore
have no motive for exclusion. But the claims in this regard are simply posited; there
is no way to check them from a neutral vantage point. Nor does Mādhava give the
impression that this kind of argumentation—reading customs—is starkly different
from reading core texts. We read, in measure, in detail, and without undue extension.
In this too, Mādhava is fair to his tradition, which lives by rules but does not sort out
those rules according to whether they are textual, social, natural, etc.
I draw our second example from the middle of III.4. Here several issues of
ethical import, as it were, suddenly arise: the prohibition of lying, the religious
governance of yawning, the prohibition of insulting a brāhmin, and the prohibition
of speaking to a woman in her period. The prior three cases in III.4 had clearly
focused on ritual details: first case (1–9): whether the nivīta positioning (“around
the neck”) of the thread enjoins something new, or simply commends a practice
already known; second case (10): whether a mention of facing west is an injunction
or a commendation; and third case (11): the point and location of three additionally
cited texts, questions that are to be resolved by following the logic of the first case.
Three of the next four cases— sūtras 12–13, 17, 18– 19— seem promising with
respect to their ethical content, while the intervening sūtras, 14–16, introduce a
ritual dilemma of narrower applicability that, nonetheless, still indicates the general
tension between ritual-specific and wider applicability. First, in case 4 (12–13) we
are confronted with the problem of lying, as a fact of life to be considered in the
context of ritual performance, or more broadly:
Is “Let him not speak untruth” an enjoined character of the man as such, or is it a
reference that pertains to the man just in the sacrificial context, or just a character
that rather pertains to the sacrifice itself? Or is it an injunction regarding the sacrifice?
If by speaking non-truths there were benefit for the man, then so too their
prohibition would benefit him. But here it is simply a reference to what is
remembered, since the force of the explicit text and context pertains to both the
man and the sacrifice.
No. That the man should not speak untruth is not here dependent on the verb
read by itself, but rather on the context of the sacrifice, just as with the fore-
sacrifices (which are not significant out of context). The connection is therefore
different from the rule that one must speak the truth. So this is an injunction
pertaining just to the sacrifice (rather than to the man himself).
Case 5 (14–16) introduces the “yawning mantra,” asking in what circumstances this
mantra is to be used:
Does the rule about reciting a mantra after yawning indicate a character of the
man as such, or rather of the sacrifice? The former, due to the clear statement.
No, let it be the latter, since there is nothing to bar reading it in context.
There is no reason for not reading the rule as specific to its ritual context, and
so generalizations—anytime one yawns, one should recite this mantra— are
unwarranted.
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In case 6 (17), we find a prohibition against reviling a brāhmin. Here too, at

issue is the extent of the prohibition’s applicability, whether context-specific or
of universal import. The expectation is that this too, as in the preceding case, is
context-specific:
Does “He should not impugn the brāhmin” pertain to the sacrifice or to the man?
Because it is in proximity to the fruitful rite, it pertains to the sacrifice, as with the
previous (yawning) mantra.
But the reverse is true, because of a judgment about the mantra’s applicability to the
brāhmin more universally:
The fruitfulness of the prohibition is explained as the avoidance of revenge, and
so the prohibition, because it pertains to the same man (inside and outside the
sacrifice), can be abstracted from context (and read as universally applicable).
The rule against telling untruths has its relevance in the sacrificial context; the
requirement to recite the yawning mantra also pertains in that context. But the
prohibition against reviling a brāhmin has universal application.
Case 7 (18–19) likewise considers what might be either a very narrow or a very
broad prohibition against conversing with a woman during her menstrual period:
“He should not speak to her while she is in soiled clothing” is like the preceding
case, and thus pertains to the man (even outside the sacrificial context). Moreover,
speaking with her was not a possibility anywhere in the sacrifice.
We know from Śabara that all these cases are adjudicated through the interpretation
of key texts, in accord with the weight apportioned to explicit and implicit claims,
injunction, commendation, and reference; the arguments are couched in terms of
reading and weighing competing statements. What Mādhava does is give us the
“pure” arguments, stripped of supporting detail.
Context-specificity (fourth case), lack of reason to transgress context (fifth case),
the fruitfulness of a wider generalization (sixth case), and a commonsense removal
of a prohibition to a context where the prohibited action is possible (seventh
case) are specific arguments presented as persuasive in context. All are handled
dispassionately, in terms of a careful reading of the texts and a view of the reasons
for broader or narrower constraints. Nothing in the argument appeals to universal
standards of right and wrong, any recognition of the equality of all persons, or
the universality of truth- telling or lie-
avoidance. Hygiene, for example, is not
considered with respect to yawning, and the relative good and harm of isolating
women during their menstrual period are not weighed. Nor is there any evidence of
a recognition that some of the cases are more important than others: an expiatory
mantra connected with yawning stands quite equally alongside cases that attract
our attention, pertaining to lying, and the treatment of brāhmins and of women.
All these cases stand together, none highlighted as more important than any other.
Finally, all the cases have pedagogical force, offering instruction as to when strictures
can be generalized or not; knowing by practice the rules regarding generalization is
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what matters for the intended learned reader of the Garland, not anything essential
about human beings.
Nor do we have here any open-ended reflection on what is to be done. Ethical
universals are not at stake. However much we may expect a direct path to rules
and values pertaining to the human person as such—particularly regarding truth-
telling and not-lying, respect for brāhmins, and the barring of conversation with
women (already barred from the ritual site) during their period—there is no evident
weighting of such issues as more important, and no neat sorting out of ritual details
from ethical issues. Given that the texts and actions are already in act, so to speak,
all this is a matter of identifying the best reason or reasons for what is largely settled
practice. Decisions relate to location in the text and in the socio-ritual context;
different factors come into play depending on whether the sacrifice, or the man as a
participant in the sacrifice, matters more.
On this score, the Garland may be thought to advocate a Deontological, Moral
Particularism. Accordingly, right action is defined by an outcome within a context,
but the reason for choosing the right action is procedural and not an outcome.
Specifically, the reasons resemble what the Moral Particularist Jonathan Dancy calls
“the holism of reasons”—the idea that what counts as a reason for choice is context
sensitive (2004).
Our third example comes from the Sixth Adhyāya, where adhikāra (henceforth,
“fitness”) is discussed from various angles. VI.1 focuses on more or less restrictive
rules regarding the fitness of kinds of humans for ritual performance. The study
of this illuminating series of problems facilitates insight into the Mīmāṃsā view
of human nature. As did III.4, the Garland’s analysis reemphasizes the limited,
refined perspective that Mīmāṃsā intellectuals take when considering the human
role in ritual. VI.1 begins with the broad claim that there is fitness for all, due to the
desire for the happiness—for a universally attractive enjoyment—that “heaven” is
stipulated to indicate:
Does everyone have fitness for sacrifice, or not? No, because the word is explicit;
it is evident from the verb that there is an obligation to act. This rules out
enjoyment of results (as a factor, and thus the notion of fitness for all).
By the stronger explicit injunction, the process (of fulfilling the obligation)
comes second. Here, what is to be brought about is heaven (the state of happiness
desired by all). Because it is for the human person’s sake, it is connected to that
person as performer. So there is (fitness for all).
The guiding principle enunciated here is that heaven marks the finality of sacrifice,
the satisfaction of human desire by the attainment of that happiness. In principle,
this opens the possibility of sacrificing to all sentient beings, such as are capable of
actions leading to their happiness; the rest of the chapter is a series of restrictions and
exceptions regarding that fitness. In the Sūtras and thus too in all the commentaries
right up to the time of the Garland, reflection on these cases moves back and forth
across calculations of property, (dis)ability, caste, and gender. If we take the order of the
Sūtras seriously, what is not directly at stake is any general discussion of the treatment
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of women, or the morality of caste exclusions, etc. Rather, we are asked to identify the
minimal adequate that supports the status quo; understand the deeper harmony that
explains the general rule and also exceptions to it, without letting the latter entirely
derail the former; experiment with the chemistry of fitness, comprised of word and
person and material, tempered by attention to the desire for happiness, and qualified
with respect to the ability to learn, overcome obstacles, etc. Let us just consider two of
the cases, disabilities and the status of śūdras (members of the fourth class).
Disabilities pose the first restriction on the general proposition that all beings
desiring happiness are qualified to sacrifice. Those who are temporarily or
permanently incapable of doing certain ritual acts are barred. Thus in case 2, the
blind are excluded because they cannot perform certain required actions:
Do the blind and others like them have fitness or not? Because they too desire
heaven, they do. In accord with the mention of the primary sacrifice, let him do
the subsidiary rites insofar as he is able.
The injunction to “gaze upon the melted butter,” etc. does not pertain merely to
the human person, since as such it is an injunction regarding the rite. Therefore,
there is no eligibility for the one unable (to perform details necessary to the rite).
Jaimini does not treat the questions in neatly separate categories— disabilities,
gender, caste, one at a time—but shifts back and forth.4 For the sake of this focused
study, let us stay with the theme of disability by skipping ahead to the eighth to
eleventh cases, wherein compensations can be made for some disabilities. In case 8,
a poor man, otherwise qualified, can conceivably acquire sufficient wealth, so as to
be able again to perform:
Can only a person of wealth be a performer, or others (too)? Only a person of
wealth, since thus the injunctions have meaning.
Others have eligibility for the sacrifice, so let them acquire wealth, just as they
acquire food.
As for bodily wholeness, the lack of a limb (unlike blindness, presumed to be
irremediable) can be compensated for, perhaps with the assistance of others, as case
9 shows:
Can one lacking a limb not perform, or can he perform? No, because of inability.
Having remedied the lack of a limb, he can act, just as does the one who lacked
wealth.
In case 10, the decision is that even if he cannot entirely remedy his disability, he can
at least do the primary actions:
If the lack cannot be remedied, what then? He cannot be a doer of optional rites,
but if his altar has already been installed, he can be a doer of the obligatory rites.
In this way he acts as far as he has capacity.
The reasons given in these cases are “real-world” reasons, Mādhava’s assessment of
what humans are capable of, rather than closed calculations of texts in relation to
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one another: he can secure wealth, he can get around his disability, he can do the
main parts even if not all the parts of the rite, etc. All this may seem rather different
from the calculations presented in III.4, where at issue were essentially conflicts
between various ways of identifying the meaning of the text. Here, it is not conflicts
regarding authoritative means of knowledge that need to be sorted out, but “real-
life” limitations on what a person is able or unable to do.
Restrictions on caste, relating to the śūdra in particular, are also adjudicated. In
case 7, the śūdra is in principle excluded, even if there is at stake knowledge that he
is able to gain:
Can the śūdra be a sacrificer or not? He can, by acquiring knowledge in a way
other than the prescribed manner, or by learning from the mouth of a teacher.
For it is simply by knowledge of the sacrifice that he can be a sacrificer.
It is those in upper three religious classes who know the Veda who can
implement the injunctions regarding the sacrifice. But such people do not
anticipate such knowledge accruing to any fourth religious class. So how could
the śūdra be a sacrificer?
This is a notably weak rejoinder to the more generous consideration of options
in the Pūrvapakṣa; it is for Mādhava an unusual rhetorical moment, as if a quick
dismissal of a judgment, inherited, that he can repeat but cannot explain.
But at the end of the chapter, again following Jaimini, Mādhava returns to the
caste issue by way of two cases that recognizes limited fitness for some men who
are not twice-born. In case 12, “cart-maker” (rathaṃkāra) may name a specific low-
caste group or, if one wants to avoid the implication that a low-caste person could
perform the sacrifice, the word may merely name a person who makes a cart:
Are the brāhmin and others (of the twice-born) alone able to be the rathaṃkāra,
or rather another? Let it be the former, relying on etymological meaning
(“cart-maker”).
No. By convention, “rathaṃkāra” refers rather to another religious class
(the low-caste rathaṃkāras). Indeed, the rainy season is mentioned as time for
installing his fire altar.
It is interesting that here the appeal to etymology, often taken to be compelling, is
put aside due to the judgment that a conventional meaning is more appropriate.
Similarly in case 13, when it is possible to read the “niṣāda-sthapati” as “the master
of the place of those of the Niṣāda tribe” or as “the master of the place who is
a Niṣāda,” Mādhava has no qualms in adhering to the tradition in reading the
compound as the latter, thus allowing for some performance of sacrifices by low-
caste persons:
Can only someone twice-born be the leader of the Niṣādas (niṣāda-sthapati),
or rather some other? Only someone twice-born, according to the genitive case
(“leader of the Niṣāda,” niṣādānām sthapati).
Because the compound is primarily descriptive, it is rather a Niṣāda (“the
leading Niṣāda,” niṣādasthapati) who is the doer of the sacrifice to Rudra.
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Although the latter two cases turn out to be exceptions to case 7, which had outright
denied eligibility to the śūdra, there is no attempt to conform the latter two to the
first. Nor is the progress of cases in the chapter said to represent the unfolding of
deeper logic or grammar that works out in an unexpected way. Here again, Mādhava
does not try to explain the judgments he offers; he simply appeals (in denying or
permitting the śūdra’s fitness) to reasons deeply imbedded in his tradition. The
universal possibility—sacrifice by all who seek happiness—is thus deeply implicated
in a web of restrictions and modest (re)openings of the possibility.
It is notable that the social issues at stake in VI.1, played out in accord with a
dynamics of inclusion and limitation, show the Garland, like its tradition, to be
uneven in terms of providing reasons. Adhering to previously made decisions and
largely to the traditional reasons, the Garland is typically generous to brāhmins and
the twice-born, more generous than expected regarding the eligibility of women,
but unyielding regarding the fitness of śūdras, though conceding them some access
at the end of VI.1. Yet Mādhava is giving reasons for what is the case, and is not
considering change, again with great dispassion looking at what humans can and
cannot do. In light of the rest of VI, the small place played by the human—not as a
reader or a student, but as an actor within the ritual context—is evident.
For a more briefly considered final case, I turn finally to VI.7. At issue in the
first six cases is the Viśvajit sacrifice, in which a royal sacrificer is instructed to give
everything away: how literally is such a command to be taken? Mīmāṃsā seeks to
honor the said goal of the sacrifice of all, while yet reconfiguring this “giving of all”
with a more plausible meaning:
1. When he gives away all that is his, does that include his father, etc., or just
his wealth?
Because the man is his father, the former. There is no abandoning of father,
etc., the latter: there is a giving away only of wealth.
2. Must the entire earth be given away, or not? Because it belongs to him, let
the king give it away too.
Because ruling is only a matter of protecting, the Earth is not his, and so it
cannot be given away.
3. Is there a giving away of his horses or not? Because this is both enjoined and
prohibited, there is an option.
Rather, giving them away is excluded, as in the case where it says, “We who
recite the offering verse.”5
4. Does he give away all that he has ever acquired, or only what he has at
present?
Because “all” is stipulated, the former. No, since the injunction of “all”
regards only what is now present.
5. Is the śūdra who serves him for the sake of dharma to be given away, or not?
Like a slave, he is to be given away.
But he is not the sacrificer’s property, and he does not depend entirely on
another. So he is not to be given away.
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6. Is everything that had been his and whatever later on will belong to him also
be given away, or just what is counted at the moment?
The former, because it says “all.” The latter, because the two alternatives are
impossible.
The decisions, passed down as judgments with minimal debate, seem to us both
right and sensible: one does not, ought not, give away one’s father or the entire earth
or what one has ever had or will ever have; what is given away at another sacrifice is
not necessarily given away here; and while it seems that there is a category of slaves
that can be given away, there are also śūdras who are not slaves, and are irreducible
to property. The giving is limited also to the present moment, and to what the
sacrificer has possession of now; the past and future are not relevant. At issue then
are commonsense decisions that are plausible even at first glance: of course, more
extreme forms of renunciation are not intended, since they are impossible. But more
to the point, all of this is adjudicated without general reflections on human nature,
human rights, or justice. No generalizations are made. But still, this is an ethically
informed analysis that puts the human in its place, and refines a potentially sweeping
act of sacrificing in a consistent manner that illumines both the Veda and the world
it structures and rules.
In the preceding pages I have offered by way of example four sections of the
Garland, wherein matters of ethical import, ostensibly of a broader kind, are
stated: the cautious assessment of customs that may be rooted in Vedic practices; a
prohibition of lying, a qualification on the ritual response to yawning, more and less
generalized implementations of rules about not reviling brāhmins and not conversing
with women during their monthly period; restrictions on fitness for sacrificial
performance due to material disability or caste restrictions; and the limits of a
seemingly unlimited ritual command. These cases, taken altogether, showcase what
Mādhava takes to be the essential and purest Mīmāṃsā reasoning, also indicating
how far he is willing to go in discussing issues of human and social import. Were
we to complete the process of reading closely all 900 cases, we would see also how
briefly and rarely this intense reading of texts and practices places “the human” at
the center of its attention.
It is not the case, we may add, that the debated points need be resolved one way
or the other, as if the community was in suspense, awaiting a decision. Clarity on
the reasons for practice is rather what is at stake. The Garland offers an education
in thinking through the problems that had for a millennium been highlighted and
debated in the Mīmāṃsā tradition. Which customs are to be respected is already
known; who can offer sacrifices has been long decided in practice; no new value
is assigned to telling the truth (or to not speaking untruth), or to protective rules
requiring respect for brāhmins, or to rules governing when one does (not) speak to the
woman; the sacrificer knows what to give away and what to keep. The deliberation
is neither about ethics in a general sense nor about the behavior of the human, but
rather the interrelations of texts and actions, things and persons, in what is presented
as an utterly consistent series of interconnected arguments. Throughout, a persistent
313
desire is manifest to state the reason as cleanly as possible. The Mīmāṃsā project,
exposed most clearly and comprehensively in this Garland of cases, is to achieve
the most economic statement of the reason—ratio, explication—of why things are
the way they are. The task before Mādhava is the simplest adequate explanation
that threads the needle, so to speak, of the subtle differences of the Vedic and the
ordinary, but assuming that these are in place. All of this is a reading of the human
within a wider religious and ritual world, but far removed from an ethics such as
would face new problems or bring new solutions to old ones.6
3. IN WHAT SENSE THEN IS MĪMĀṂSĀ

REASONING ETHICAL REFLECTION?
In the first section of this chapter, I noticed the problem of the very idea of Mīmāṃsā
ethics, and some unsympathetic and sympathetic alternatives. In the second section,
I offered examples of the close reading necessary to understand what Mīmāṃsā
is about and how it works. I now conclude with four points that will assist us in
further developing the field of a Mīmāṃsā ethics generated from within Mīmāṃsā’s
own practices of study and argument. First, the distinctive, even unique, Mīmāṃsā
ethical work as we see in the Garland lies in seeking out the underlying reasons
for settled practice and custom. Reasoning reflects and supports right practice,
rather than challenging and changing it. The Garland lines up the complete series
of Jaimini’s cases and judgments with their reasons enunciated, and in that way
sheds light on the nature of (religious) law and the use of authorities and rules in the
work of traditions, as they ascertain, defend, and explain right practice. Learning
Mīmāṃsā by way of the Garland is therefore to learn the reasons that surface in all
the difficult cases that had, ostensibly, threatened the coherence of the system. The
vast body of commentary is still there for those who wish to know it more in detail
and with respect to related, secondary issues. But, as such, the Garland is entirely
adequate to the task of training students to think about the world and the human in
the Mīmāṃsā way.
Each case, providing context, positions, final position, nyāya, or ratio (henceforth
“reason,” serves to highlight the reasons driving the Mīmāṃsā analyses from the
time of the Sūtras on: it is, after all, a “garland of reasons” (nyāyamālā). To read the
Garland is to come to understand these reasons, articulated in the most condensed yet
adequate form. As such, the Garland threads together the set of reasons comprising
Mīmāṃsā case law girded with the minimal context needed to highlight what is at
stake in any given case. Noting, but putting aside for the moment, differences that
inevitably distinguish common law and Vedic ritual custom, the scholar of Mīmāṃsā
ethics can therefore profitably understand the Garland as ambitioning the totality of
the reasons that had been argued in Mīmāṃsā tradition. By way of its reasons, the
Garland opens the Mīmāṃsā heritage to a wider understanding that, nevertheless,
does not betray the specificity of its reasoning’s origins.
314
Second, the anthropology of the Garland, such as is relevant to ethics, is grounded

primarily in its positioning the human as simply—merely—part of richer, more
complex fabric of reality. While this was the standard Mīmāṃsā position long before
Mādhava, his style and his refusal to give special attention to any topic make utterly
clear how nonspecial the human is, when observed as an object of study. As student
and reasoner, the Mīmāṃsā scholar is in an exceptional position; as an object of
study, the human is one more element to be taken into account. The quiddity or
essence of things does not matter, and the human is no exception. Nor is there a set
identity of the human that precedes the ritual, which can be examined outside it,
judged by other standards, and at some certain point brought into contact with the
ritual. The decentralization of the human is asserted in both ways, for the sake of a
broader imaginative comprehension of the intelligibility of Vedic word and text. The
cumulative set of approximate instances offers a certain kind of completeness that,
nonetheless, precludes most of what occupies the attention of modern philosophers,
ethicists, and theologians.
We can also observe that the community of the Veda (the vaidika) is not neatly
demarcated from an ordinary world (the laukika). Mīmāṃsā occupies a middle
ground, wherein reasons travel back and forth, carefully, between strictly Vedic
and strictly ordinary realms. To understand the Mīmāṃsā view of the human, we
must enter intellectually into that world, rather than dragging this or that Mīmāṃsā
idea onto unfamiliar ground, now to be read in light of other views that are not
Mīmāṃsā but that quote Mīmāṃsā for purposes germane to other systems of ethics.
The turn to the human in the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras and then, after all that intervenes,
in the Garland, must be read mindful of the border/margin between the world as
potential agents who are, to some extent, drawn into the ritual as actors. There is
no “pure outside” that is then problematically or not drawn into contact with the
specialized, inside world of ritual. Such tidy conceptions of inside and outside, the
prior natural and the later socially circumscribed, must be cast aside, not aiding us in
explaining what the Garland is for. As Śabara indicates at the very beginning of his
commentary on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras I.1.1, individual words have the same meanings
in the Vedic and ordinary language; it is the configuration of them in particular
sentences that communicates “Vedic revelation.”
Third, there is a subtler ethical import to the Garland that becomes more apparent
if we turn from its objective content to its subjective reception. In this move, we look
rather at the participant reader, at the student who works through the cases and
thus becomes skilled in seeing the world of Vedic and ordinary action as precisely
and unwaveringly as Mādhava does. If the treatment of the human in the text is,
as we have seen it, reading one’s way through these cases over and over effaces
self-regard and disturbs deep-rooted expectations regarding the singular importance
of the human. Such readers gain identity, no longer as individuals in a position to
decide for themselves how to think about the rituals or what to do regarding difficult
cases, but as participant observers who will only by error step outside the seamless,
encircled world of the Garland. The Garland again and again makes evident to the
reader the unexceptionable, unvarying intelligibility of the ritual world, which holds
315
the human simply as a small portion of itself. There is no natural author or natural
reader, apart from society. Literate readers find themselves, as it were, written into
the Vedic world, persuaded to work within the bounds of its fundamental structures
of reasoning. In a nontrivial sense, the expected reader of the Garland is a creation
of its culture, knowing neither too little (as if to be unable to understand) nor too
much (as if having mastered the entire tradition). This person is not a solo virtuoso
performer prone or permitted to reopen and renegotiate the series of conclusions
offered in the Garland. We need not think that all its intended readers would have
been experts in ritual practice; rather, we might well conjecture with good cause that
few would be practitioners of more elaborate Vedic rites. The Garland is meant for
readers who become familiar with the overall language of the Vedic tradition, and
think in attunement with its modes of speech and action. The Garland is simply not
meant for readers who will be skeptical about that Vedic world, seeking a higher
level of justification for its basic premises, or requiring proofs that the insights
argued in the sequence of cases.
This close reading, working through of the cases, is not without good effect,
as is shown by the second and third of the introductory verses at the start of the
Garland. Mādhava portrays King Śrībukkaṇakṣmāpati, his own patron, as a perfect
being, equipped with the skills required of an ideal ruler: “Knowing reasoning as
authoritative (I), firm in resolution amidst differences (II), enjoying the meanings
of what is specific (III), skilled in modifying things (IX), accomplished in ordering
things (V), skilled in purposes (IV), elevated in honorable acts of transfer (VII,
VIII), possessed of eternal, manifest eligibility (VI), all permanent blockages gone
(X), an independent lord, (XI) awake and versed in eventualities in accord with
scripture (XII).”7 It is plausible to suggest, by extension, that deep immersion in the
problematics of the 12 Adhyāyas, verse by verse, case by case, heals and (re)forms
the reader. Study cures the ailments that prevent the reader from becoming a person
possessed of these practical–spiritual skills. If we remember too that the Garland
is a teaching tool, for beginners, we can see that Mādhava is also providing access
to a wider set of readers who by it gain access in manageable form to the whole
of Mīmāṃsā; ill-prepared to be insiders to Mīmāṃsā, new readers can read their
way—our way—into Mīmāṃsā’s world by studying the 900 cases in the short form
provided by Mādhava.
Fourth, the cases we have considered are rich in ethical import, pertinent to the
human individual and social conditions, and the reasoned limits of ritually formed
human activity. But all in all we have considered only 21 of the Garland’s—and
Jaimini’s—entire set of 900 cases. And so we need to take seriously Mādhava’s quest
for a most manageable, most concisely written Garland of reasons: a completed set,
traceable back to Jaimini, now presented in a form that can be mastered, admittedly
with great effort. With this garland, a whole subsisting in 900 cases threaded serially,
we can see the entirety of a system of reading, arguing, and judging, such as can only
be poorly understood by any other mode of generalization.
There is little warrant, either in the Sūtras or in Mādhava’s perfection of them,
for singling out any case as significantly more important than others. Ritual details,
316
linguistic clarifications, dissections of the relative importance of deities, and

considerations of the human are all taken up in the same clear and dry manner;
no case is more important due to its content. The cases, following quickly on one
another, are intellectually as well as textually linked, such that we can hardly avoid
taking them up in the order in which we find them. Traditionally ordered, Mādhava’s
sparsely rendered cases again and again demand the reader’s full attention and the
putting aside of all distractions, including the habits by which we think it right to
give priority to thematic continuities and gradations of importance, as if to skip the
detail for some deeper meaning. The ethical import lies then in the student who
actually works through all the cases.
If Mīmāṃsā is restored and yet also retrieves purity of form in the Garland, it
also moves cumulatively, case by case, toward a distinctive ethics that is by its own
measure even if rather distant from the ethical concerns of most modern readers,
and from the starting points, methods, and worldview of most ethical theories
attracting attention today.
NOTES
1. See also Clooney (1990: ch. 5; 1995, 2004).
2. For background and other dimensions of the Garland, see Clooney (2014-15,
Forthcoming-a, 2017, Forthcoming-c, Forthcoming-d).
3. All translations from the Garland are my own, using Mādhavācārya (1937). Since
Mīmāṃsā texts are most easily cited by adhyāya, pāda, and sūtra, I do not add page
references.
4. Even the seeming lack of order among the cases in VI.1, not ordered by theme,
had already been fixed by Jaimini. It may show us, archaeologically as it were, the
pre-Jaimini strata of reasoning on these matters. Mādhava is simply following the
order of the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras, and he does not actually identify any saṃgati-logic
connecting the cases one to another in the order in which we find them. VI.1 is a
chapter in which there is no single dominant text that is being parsed, nor a single
ritual context.
5. This is a case taken up in X.8, where an exception is expressly made. Benson
(Mahādeva Vedāntin 2010: 723) translates, “ye yajāmahe” and the rest of the
clause: “We who recite the offering verse, at sacrifices, not at the after-sacrifices.”
Similarly, Mādhava reasons, there is a giving away of horses, but not at this
sacrifice. See also Garland X.8, case 1, on the kind of exclusion expressed here. For
the context of ye yajāmahe, see Taittirīya Saṃhita I.6.11.
6. On the lack of novelty and of practical urgency in the Mīmāṃsā debates, see
Krishna (2011).
7. Since these attributes seem meant to be allocated in accord with the themes of the
adhyāyas, I have added those numbers here. Pattabhirami Sastri (Mādhavācārya
1937: 2) points out that this list corresponds to the themes of the Adhyāyas, and so
I have added in parentheses the Adhyāya markers.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clooney, Francis X. 1990. Thinking Ritually: Retrieving the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā of Jaimini.
Vienna: Institute for Indology, University of Vienna. The De Nobili Research Series 17.
Clooney, Francis X. “Back to the Basics: Reflections on Moral Discourse in a Contemporary
Hindu Community.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 20 (1995): 439–457.
Clooney, Francis X. “Pragmatism and Anti-Essentialism in the Construction of
Dharma in Mīmāṃsā Sūtras 7.1.1-12.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 32, no. 5
(2004): 751–768.
Clooney, Francis X. (2014–2015). “Styles of Mīmāṃsā: Writings of Mādhava and
His Near Contemporaries.” Brahmavidya. The Adyar Library Bulletin, Vols.
78–79: 487–518.
Clooney, Francis X. Forthcoming-a. “The Contribution and Challenge of Mīmāṃsā to the
Dream of a Global Hermeneutics.” Musings and Meanings. Proceedings of the Global
Hermeneutics International Conference (Pune, 2014). Edited by Nishant Irudayadason.
New Delhi: Christian World Imprint, 2017.
Clooney, Francis X. 2017. “Discerning Comparison: Between the Garland of Jaimini’s
Reasons and Catholic Theology.” In Between Doctrine & Discernment, edited by
Terrence Merrigan and John Friday. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clooney, Francis X. Forthcoming-c. “Mādhava’s Garland: A Philosophical Classic of
Great Unoriginality.” In The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy, edited by
Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clooney, Francis X. Forthcoming-d. “Mīmāṃsā as Introspective Literature and as
Philosophy.” In The Encyclopedia of Indian Religions, edited by Arvind Sharma.
Dordrecht: Springer.
Crawford, S. Cromwell. 1982. The Evolution of Hindu Ethical Ideals. Hawaii: University
Press of Hawaii.
Dancy, Jonathan. 2004. Ethics without Principles. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Freschi, Elisa. “Desidero Ergo Sum: The Subject as the Desirous One in Mīmāṃsā.”
Rivista di Studi Orientali 80 (2007): 51–61.
Freschi, Elisa. 2010. “Action, Desire and Subjectivity in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā.” In Self and
No-Self: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas in Dialogue, edited by Irina Kuznetsova, Jonardon
Ganeri, and Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, 147–164. Farnham: Ashgate.
Freschi, Elisa. 2012. Duty, Language and Exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā: Including an
Edition and Translation of Rāmānujācārya’s Tantrarahasya, Śāstraprameyapariccheda.
Leiden: Brill.
Heim, Maria. 2005. “Differentiations in Hindu Ethics.” In Blackwell Companion to
Religious Ethics, edited by William Schweiker. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Krishna, Daya. 2011. “The Mīmāṃsāka vs. the Yājñika.” In Contrary Thinking,
edited by Nalini Bhusan and Jay Garfield, 228–244. New York: Oxford
University Press.
MacCormick, Neil. 1987. “Why Cases Have Rationes and What These Are.” In
Precedent in Law, edited by Laurence Goldstein, 155–182. Oxford: Oxford
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Mādhavācārya. 1892. Jaiminīyanyāyamālāvistara or Mīmāṃsādhikaraṇamālā, edited by

Pandit Sivadatta. Pune: Anandasrama Press.
Mādhavācārya. 1937. Jaiminīya Nyāyamālā of Mādhavāchārya Part I–III, edited by A.
Ramanatha Sastry and Pattabhirama Sastry. Varanasi: Chowkambha Sanskrit Series
Office.
Mahādeva Vedāntin. 2010. Mīmāṃsānyāysaṃgraha: A Compendium of the Principles of
Mīmāṃsā. Translated and edited by James Benson. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
McKenzie, John. 1922. Hindu Ethics; A Historical and Critical Essay. Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Perrett, Roy W. 1998. Hindu Ethics: A Philosophical Study. Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press.
Raju, Poolla Tirupati. 1985. Structural Depths of Indian Thought. New Delhi: South Asian
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Schweiker, William. 2005. Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics.
Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
319
PART FOUR
Ethics and Politics

“Politics” is etymologically tied to the idea of a polis or city, and politics is hence
about relationships among citizens. Politics in philosophy also came to symbolize
questions of power, as emblazoned in the feminist slogan “the personal is political.”
Indians did not think about thought in terms of language and hence they did not
think about ethical questions politically as what we share with other humans in our
communities. Dharma is often cosmological on the Indian account, knowing no
borders. This certainly sets the Indian tradition of moral philosophy apart from the
Western tradition, where political and ethical questions—up until very recently—
were asked and answered together. In India, morality from the ground up is a matter
pertaining to the concept DHARMA, not POLITICS. This does not imply that Indians
were not aware of the overlap of questions of power, political membership, and
ethics. Both the epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, exemplify a concern
for the overlap and tension between the contingency of political association and
the eternality of moral considerations. Edeltraud Harzer’s chapter on the ethics
of the Mahābhārata explores the intersection of political and moral questions in
the dialogues of the Mahābhārata as a clash between two moral theories: Virtue
Ethics and Bhakti. The protagonists in this epic are Virtue Ethicists, but the relatively
peripheral character who shows up to move the plot along—Krishna—is openly
spoken of as the Lord and personifies Bhakti. The success of the characters is
correlated not merely by their devotion to Krishna, but also in rising to the challenge
of being lordly figures, who lead by example. One of the interesting findings of
this investigation is that characters in the Mahābhārata come to personify moral
theories. This book was meant to have a chapter on the Rāmāyaṇa, but it does
not despite more than one author agreeing to contribute on the topic. As I noted
in the introductory section, “Interpretation, Explication, and Secondary Sources,”
the Rāmāyaṇa also exemplifies the style of moral argumentation that we might call
“moral theoretical personification.” Hopefully future research will pick up on these
themes.
More recently, the issue of the relationship of ethics and politics has been
underscored by India’s experience of colonialism and imperialism. Recent public
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320 ETHICS AND POLITICS
philosophers such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and M. K. Gandhi articulate

philosophies that explicitly occupy the overlap of moral and political theory.
A. Raghuramaraju in his article on Gandhi brings attention to the particular
challenge of India that Gandhi’s ethics and politics speak to: the India of Gandhi’s
(and our) time is an India where the modern and the premodern exist side by side.
Gandhi’s adaptation of traditional Indian moral philosophies to the challenge of
Indian independence was affective, but it was so because it was an adaptation of the
ancient with the modern, argues Raghuramaraju. Ashwani Peetush in his chapter on
Neo-Hindu, Neo-Vedānta ethics notes that both Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan
contribute to what we might call a “Spiritual Liberalism”—a version of liberal
political theory that is grounded in the Neo-Vedānta model of unity. Their Neo-
Hindu theory is hence a contemporary contribution to the family of liberal political
theories, but from a comprehensive and Hindu perspective.
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Study in the Narrative

Ethics of the Mahābhārata
EDELTRAUD HARZER
1. INTRODUCTION
My intention in this chapter is to explore the narrative ethics of the Mahābhārata
(Critical Edition).1 As preparation, I explore the role of narrative in moral philosophy
in the next section. I subsequently note the merit of the Mahābhārata as narrative
moral philosophy. I review basic distinctions in moral theory, reducible to the
concepts THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. This allows for the exploration of moral philosophy
in the Mahābhārata as the tension between the good and the right. The idea that
the good is the condition of the right is Virtue Ethics. The idea that the right is the
condition and cause of the good—as devotion to the regulative ideal of the right
produces good results—is Bhakti (devotion). The Mahābhārata makes the superiority
of Bhakti over Virtue Ethics by personifying the virtues as the protagonists—the
Pāṇḍavas—and by depicting their submission to Krishna as the regulative ideal as
a condition of success. It also depicts the failure of Yudhiṣṭhira (the chief among
the Pāṇḍavas) as a function of a reliance on his virtues, and his success as a matter
of embracing his own responsibility as the fitting object of devotion. Bhakti is not
a theological model of hoping for God to take care of everything: it is a model of
responsibility that propels one out of the status quo.
2. NARRATIVE AND PHILOSOPHY

The standard approach to moral philosophy frames arguments in terms of a
monograph. Of course, this was not always the way such issues were discussed in
the Western tradition. Plato leaves us only dialogues. But here, the moral philosophy
is not played out so much as discussed. Recent analytic ethics is characterized by
a reliance on narrative cases as dispositive examples to choose between competing
moral theories. Famous cases in philosophy include the trolley problem (Foot 2007;
Thomson 2007). But the importance of cases goes beyond the analytic tradition. We
find, for instance, in Jean Paul Sartre’s writing the famous case of the young man who
must choose between joining the French resistance and caring for his mother (1975).2
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322 EDELTRAUD HARZER
Alasdair MacIntyre uses the “plots” of the Greek dramatists to show the values
of the people. In addition to this, he also expands the utility of the narrative into
what he may consider a “dramatic narrative” and he takes an influential thinker of a
culture, such as Aristotle, St. Augustine, or Hume, and spins the cultural development
as a dramatic narrative. MacIntyre works on the presupposition that narrative and
tradition are closely interrelated. He challenges the critics who think that narrative
is just about telling stories, and that therefore such an approach could not make any
truth claims (MacIntyre 1988).
The use of narrative cases has become so prominent in contemporary Western
ethics that there has been a critical backlash. One variety of criticism claims that the
cases provide no useful data for deciding between competing moral theories, as they
are importantly disanalogous from empirical cases used to decide between competing
scientific theories (Kagan 2007). Another criticism is that our response to such cases
are not dispositive of philosophical questions (Cappelen 2012). Philosophical work
is reason and argument: not our reactions to drama.
Yet, narrative of an extended variety has an advantage. In the case of good
narrative ethics, we can address ethical themes explored through several different
scenarios. The results are a form of persuasion that competes with argument. It is a
demonstration of ethical theory, and the plausibility of the theory depends, in turn,
on the aesthetic value it supports.
Here narrative as moral philosophy presents an alternative to discussing merely
cases. Stanley Hauerwas and David Burrell, in “From System to Story: An Alternative
Pattern for Rationality in Ethics,” discuss the state of affairs of moral issues and
criticizes the standard accounts of ethics:
Our difficulty rather lies with the way the standard account attempts to express
and to ground these concerns in a manner of accounting, which is narrative-free.
So we are given the impression that moral principles offer the actual ground for
conduct, while in fact they present abstractions whose significance continues to
depend on original narrative contexts. (Hauerwas and Burrell 1989: 175)3
Perhaps narrative ethics can compete with argument by presenting the challenges
that give rise to moral principles.
While cases may lack the determinacy required to settle questions of moral
theory, narratives as performances of moral philosophy allow the reader to see moral
experimentation as the plot. The result is a fuller exploration of moral questions.
If nothing else, the narrative can function in the place of the argument for a theory.
The persuasiveness of the account can be cast in terms of the satisfaction readers
have with the resolution of moral challenges.
3. THE MAHĀBHĀRATA’S MERIT AS NARRATIVE

The Mahābhārata offers a rich opportunity to investigate narrative as a vehicle for
moral philosophy. Jarava Lal Mehta comments aptly on the fact that “the entire
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NARRATIVE ETHICS OF THE MAHĀBHĀRATA 323
Mahābhārata is cast in the form of narrative discourse, although large sections of it are
primarily didactic or descriptive” (1990: 262). He quotes the historian Hayden White:
Narrative might well be considered a solution to a problem of general human
concern, namely, the problem of how to translate knowing into telling, the
problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of
meaning that are generally human rather than culture specific.(White 2009: 1)
According to White, what is turned into a narrative is necessarily also a moralizing.
In the late eighties, Bimal Matilal addressed some moral issues of the Mahābhārata.
In his “Moral Dilemmas: Insights from Indian Epics,” after discussing some of the
examples of moral dilemma, he curiously introduced a piece of “gossip.” He recalled
a dispute between Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Rabindranath Tagore, which they
carried on in the pages of the contemporary Bengali periodicals toward the end of the
nineteenth century. The dispute was over the ethics of Krishna. Bankimchandra was in
support of Krishna’s interpretation of dharma, whereas R. Tagore considered Krishna
and his behavior as devious. Matilal commented on this: “It was young Rabindranath
who somewhat unconsciously supported a Kantian moral stance” (1989: 18).
Matilal’s exploration of these topics is often praised as it was groundbreaking,
but it is overly simplistic. Kant distinguished between imperfect and perfect duties
(Groundwork 4:421): perfect duties admitted of no exceptions, though imperfect
ones do. To be a Kantian is to be satisfied with this. Kant famously argued that
truth-telling was a perfect duty, so in this respect, Tagore agrees with Kant: many
Kantians disagree with Kant here and depict it as an imperfect duty (O’Neill 2009).
Nevertheless, there is a tension. Certainly, the type of flexibility that Krishna shows
toward dharma is far more characteristic of Rossian Generalism, which recognizes
principles as generally true, but of the sort whose application is context sensitive (cf.
McKeever and Ridge 2006).
The tension in the interpretation of dharma is the prevailing theme of Matilal’s
paper. And so it—the tension between rule following and rule breaking—is a theme
I shall follow. My study explores the following:
1. Arjuna and the Pāṇḍavas from the point of view of Virtue Ethics.
2. The breach of dharma as virtue instigated by Krishna.
3. The friendship of Krishna and Arjuna.
4. Yudhiṣṭhira’s missteps and redemption.
4. MORAL THEORY
As Ranganathan notes in the Introduction to this book, moral theory can be largely
defined as an account of the right (procedure) and the good (outcome). Several
options are possible. He notes the following:
1. Consequentialism: the good (end) justifies the right (means).
2. Virtue Ethics: a good—virtue or strength—produces (or is the condition of
the) right action.
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Both theories are remarkably alike, so much so they are often grouped together as
teleological. Then there are two more procedural possibilities:
3. Deontology: the right (our reasons) justifies the good (that constitute
our duty).
4. Bhakti: the right (action or means) causes the good (outcome or end).
This depiction of moral theory is an outcome of thinking of the concept of

“ethics” in terms of THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD. It serves to clarify that Deontology and
Consequentialism are inverse theories of moral justification. Deontology is the idea
that the goodness of our actions is justified by procedural considerations, whereas
Consequentialism is the idea that the ends justify our actions as means.
Bhakti is easily misunderstood as Virtue Ethics, as both are productive stories of
morality. They depict ethics as one element leading to the other. It is worth noting,
however, that they are deceptively similar. Virtue Ethics take practical questions
of what to do to be solved by the virtues, and the virtues in turn are strengths of
the agent (Hursthouse 1996). The problem for Virtue Ethics is accounting for how
we improve ourselves. Virtue Ethicists such as Aristotle, for instance, took a dim
view of this possibility. He famously opined that some people are by nature slaves
(Politics I.5). Moral education is hence almost impossible on this account: some
people are slaves and this is by prakṛti (nature) and not by political conquest: this
is nothing that they can transcend. This is a theme traceable to Plato, who in the
Republic conceived of individuals as defined by their natural constitution. He found
this so inimical to mutual cooperation that he made a case for the Noble Lie: the
idea that though our character is different by birth, we have a common origin in
a loving God. We are hence siblings (Republic 414c–415d). What is consequently
described as moral education by Plato in the Republic is a system designed to
figure out our place in society. The Noble Lie renders this palatable. But Bhakti,
in contrast, discounts our natural context as dispositive and replaces it with the
ideal. Right action is about approximating and conforming oneself to the ideal,
and the result is liberation from problems like our natural contingencies: mokṣa.
One possible objection to this account of Virtue Ethics is that Virtue Theorists
might sometimes also believe that we must choose so as to bring about virtue. This
view of Virtue Ethics combines what has been identified as Virtue Ethics here with
Consequentialism: it is teleological. This wider teleological package is different
from the simpler Virtue Ethical account, which we find at many points not only in
the Greek, but also in Indian philosophy.
In the Mahābhārata, Virtue Ethics is implicitly conceptualized with a background
Sāṅkhya account: we are puruṣas (persons), not prakṛti (nature), yet our nature
normatively dictates what we should do. It is not uncommon for commentators to
confuse Virtue Ethics and Bhakti, for one might think that Indian Bhakti Theorists
are Virtue Ethicists because they are interested in moral education. But Virtue Ethics
in the strict sense leaves no room for moral education, if the virtues—outcomes of
the world—cause right action. What seems like education (as in Plato’s or Aristotle’s
scenario) is really a test to distinguish individuals by natural constitution— to
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determine whether one is a slave by nature, or a philosopher king. Ethics on the

Virtue Ethical account is about our moral psychology and nature doing its thing.
It is not about principles or ideals that one learns about via moral philosophical
reflection. The Mahābhārata, in contrast, is an extended discourse on moral
learning, and reflections on moral ideals as something that we judge ourselves in
practical transformative contexts, which are not all of them edifying.
Bhaktas (devotees, or followers of Bhakti) sound like Consequentialists sometimes,
but they are not. The important difference is the mediation of the ideal in the case
of Bhakti: this mediation defines right procedure, the good is what is brought about
by this procedure. The outcome does not play a role in justifying the choice of the
bhakta. For the Consequentialist, it does.
5. ARJUNA AND THE PĀṆḌAVAS AS THE

PERSONIFICATIONS OF VIRTUES (AND VICES)
The Mahābhārata, a Sanskrit epic of enormous length, mirrors the time of its
development and presents encyclopedic information on a great variety of topics of
the early culture of South Asia. First and foremost, though, it is a narrative depicting
the struggle for upholding what is right and good (dharma). But the Mahābhārata
does not let itself be perceived in such a straightforward way. On the contrary,
we could say that the epic exhibits many instances of questionable behavior, such
as deviousness—assuming conventional moral standards. It is hence a narrative
exploration of moral contexts. Such a discovery is then enhanced when we realize
that some of the violation of conventional moral standards is perpetrated through
the guidance of Krishna. Krishna, though a king in a remote region, is also a relative
of the protagonists. Moreover, Krishna is also the Lord incarnate, specifically in
a very pronounced fashion in “The Secret Teaching Recited by the Lord” (The
Bhagavad Gītā [Upaniṣad]), delivered at the beginning of the sixth book, one of the
core books of the 18 in total. Here he is depicted as the moral ideal, who restores
dharma, age after age (The Bhagavad Gītā 4.7–12), and is responsible not only for
all that is exemplary, but also, in turn, for what is not (The Bhagavad Gītā 10). This
seems paradoxical only if we ignore that the moral ideal is moral: in addition to
being exemplary, it must also take responsibility for what is bad.
The events of the main narrative may go as far back as the beginning of the
first millennium bce and are located in the northwestern part of the South Asian
peninsula, in what is sometimes called “doab,” a tract of land between two rivers,
Yamuna and Ganga.
As Alf Hiltebeitel asserted many a time, the Mahābhārata, as we have it in the
manuscripts and now in the Critical Edition, is a redacted narrative with a focus
on the protagonists that the redactor (Vyāsa) procreated himself. Hiltebeitel also
claims that it is possible to date the text much more precisely than ever was done in
the past to around the turn of the bce to the ce. Hiltebeitel’s extensive work on the
Mahābhārata is an incredible feat, as it is based not only on the Critical Edition, but
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also on extensive fieldwork on the Mahābhārata tradition preserved in performative

art, especially in South India. There is a century-old scholarship that examines the
text philologically and proposes a wider range for the dates of composition, as well
as shows that many hands contributed to the production of the Mahābhārata as
a whole.
The main narrative concerns the rivalry between two sets of cousins who grew
up together in an extended family with the same elders and teachers. Coming of
age, both parties consider themselves entitled to the throne, so competition starts to
separate them.
Genealogical background can help us to understand better the story of the
Bhārata clan. In the mythical or not so mythical distant past, King Śantanu had
a son, Bhīṣma, before he married Satyavatī. She, too, had a son prior to marrying
Śantanu. Satyavatī is very confident in her demand to have her son with Śantanu
become the heir apparent of his lineage. Her premarital son is none other than Vyāsa,
the redactor or compiler/editor of the Mahābhārata. He lives as a sage. The sons of
Śantanu and Satyavatī die childless. At the request of his mother, Satyavatī, Vyāsa
fathers children for his deceased brothers by means of the levirate (an ancient law
by which an elder brother can produce children on behalf of his deceased brother,
with the deceased brother’s widowed wives, in order to preserve the family lineage).
Coincidentally, Vyāsa becomes the originator of the text as well as the protagonists.
Two of the three sons produced by Vyāsa represent the two sets of cousins. The
firstborn, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, is blind. The second, Pāṇḍu, has some skin deficiency, which
does not interfere with the rules for kinship, as blindness does. The king cannot be
handicapped, as he is, among other things, also the commander of the army. Because
of this disqualification, Dhṛtarāṣṭra could not be coronated, and his younger brother
Pāṇḍu ascended the throne. Since Pāṇḍu is impotent, his five sons by his two wives are
born through divine intervention. Soon Pāṇḍu dies, and his blind brother takes over
the administration, while his one hundred sons and the five sons of Pāṇḍu grow up.
A variety of disagreements and acts of violence grow into irremediable hostility
between the two sets of cousins, usually referred to as the Kauravas and the Pāṇḍavas,
sons of the blind king and of his younger brother, Pāṇḍu, respectively. Since Pāṇḍu
had been installed as the king, the Pāṇḍavas assumed that their eldest brother,
Yudhiṣṭhira should ascend the throne. Still, cousin Duryodhana, the eldest of the
Kaurava brothers, raised the issue that his father’s blindness should not influence the
succession. Had his father not been born blind, Duryodhana would already be king.
This seems inconceivable to the Pāṇḍavas, especially since they had received such ill
will, including an attempt on their lives.
These disputes culminate in a game of dice, to which both parties agree. But
the players are not the eldest sons of each of the brothers, but rather the maternal
uncle of the eldest son of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Duryodhana, playing against the eldest son of
Pāṇḍu, Yudhiṣṭhira. The maternal uncle, Śakuni, is a seasoned gambler and will win
every throw of the dice, until his opponent, Yudhiṣṭhira, has lost all of his material
wealth. Yudhiṣṭhira continues to play, waging his brothers, himself and, at the end,
their common wife, Draupadī. Draupadī is dragged to the assembly hall, which is
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not a place appropriate for women in general, against her will. Draupadī is in her
menses, during which time women were supposed to stay secluded, as menstruating
women were considered polluting. Draupadī is enraged to be humiliated in this way
and tries to challenge her husbands and the court by asking her proverbial question
of her gambling husband: “Did you lose me before you lost yourself or after you lost
yourself?” She gets no answer from the gambler or others present in the court, as
she addresses everybody. They all keep silent. Draupadī continues asking questions
about dharma, displaying her genuine virtue. Still, there is no response, even from
the elders or Dhṛtarāṣṭra, the blind father of the Kauravas. Yet the challenged
Kauravas proclaim the five Pāṇḍavas and their wife their slaves and command
them to take off their clothes. When Draupadī does not respond, the second eldest
of the Kauravas starts stripping Draupadī of her clothes. But he is unable to, as
the clothes keep unrolling from her body endlessly (The Mahābhārata: 2.61.41).4
Dhṛtarāṣṭra, the old blind king finally puts a stop to it all and offers Draupadī to
choose three boons; she chooses two. The blind king gives freedom to her husbands,
and without her asking he releases her also. On leaving the court, Yudhiṣṭhira gives
in to the challenge of another round of dice. This is a remarkable depiction of vice,
a weakness of character, on the part of Yudhiṣṭhira, as causing poor behavior. The
weakness in question is a theoretical weakness: a weakness of deferring to outcomes
(chance, the dice) to determine procedure. This is Yudhiṣṭhira’s compulsion, and
causes the deplorable behavior of a failure to defend his wife and family. The idea
that outcomes determine right action is hence criticized here in the narrative, and
this is a criticism of Virtue Ethics that claims that the good (the outcome) determines
the right (the procedure).
As luck would have it, he loses again and has to accept banishment into exile for
13 years with his brothers and their common wife. It is further stipulated that they
must spend the last year incognito. As the Pāṇḍavas fulfill all conditions, they finally
return and ask for five villages to support their livelihood. When the Kauravas refuse
this request, the recourse is war.
Both the parties ready themselves and they stand prepared on the battlefield—
called the “Field of Ethics” (dharmakṣetra, The Mahābhārata: 6.23.1, The Bhagavad
Gītā 1.1)5—honoring each other and pledging to fight according to the kṣatriya
rules of war, eschewing foul play. They are about to shout out the command to
commence the war. Suddenly, the warrior–archer par excellence, Arjuna, dismounts
from his war platform, sits down, and looks deeply depressed.
With a few exceptions, such as that in which Arjuna displayed excessive pride
(e.g., in not tolerating a rival in archery, Ekalavya), Arjuna was a virtuous person
and was often praised as such. Virtue is the idea of strength that produces right
action. Arjuna’s character as one who is naturally talented at archery (right action
that follows from prowess) renders him a metaphor for Virtue Ethics itself. Here,
his virtue is the problem.
M. M. Agrawal in his excellent article “Arjuna’s Moral Predicament,” in Matilal’s
Moral Dilemma in the Mahābhārata, examines Arjuna’s position specifically in the
Bhagavad Gītā. It is the conflict of Arjuna’s loyalty to the cause of justice and to the
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happiness of his immediate family that is in conflict with his goodwill toward his
kinsmen in general and with other traditional virtues. These virtues are loyalty to
one’s own group and respect for one’s teachers. These virtues have their source in
the notion of an ideal society (ramrājya), in which justice has to be preserved at all
costs (Agrawal 1989: 132). The conflict of virtues causes a practical paralysis, with
no obvious solution.
Krishna, Arjuna’s friend and charioteer in battle, has the challenge of overcoming
Arjuna’s paralysis. Whereas the misfortune of the Pāṇḍavas was to leave right action
to fate (so that the fate of the dice determines what they must do), Krishna inverses
the teaching. Right action determines fate. This is the dialogue (Upaniṣad) known
as the Bhagavad Gītā (The Teaching by the Lord). This comes in the teaching of
karma yoga—Deontology—according to which we do our duty without treating
the outcome as the justification. It is worth noting here that right action is defined
by good outcomes (states of virtue), but the justification for the actions is not the
outcome. This is commonly known as Deontology. But the theory that Krishna urges
is Bhakti: right action is defined by a regulative ideal, and this results in freedom from
evil; a good outcome (Bhagavad Gītā 18.66). Most importantly, the good outcome
of Bhakti is the perfection of devotion to the ideal. Specifically, the ideal is him,
Krishna, the one who revises ethics (Bhagavad Gītā 4.7–12). Whereas Deontology
treats states of virtues (dubbed as duty) as what is to be justified, Bhakti treats it as
what is generated by devotion to the ideal. Whereas Deontology typically has to
identify right action in terms of good outcomes commonly understood, Bhakti does
not. This means that the bhakta is free to contemplate and bring about new moral
arrangements and is not beholden to the status quo, which is the outcome, the virtue.
The Bhagavad Gītā is embedded in the sixth book of the 18-volume Mahābhārata,
about a third of the way into the epic. The sixth book is also the first war book (there
are four war books, 6–9). The actual Bhagavad Gītā starts quite a few verses earlier
than the popular editions of this text that follow the Vedānta commentaries. Here
Krishna persuades Arjuna to fight through the first half on the basis of the known
dharma prescribed for the kṣatriya. But this is only the beginning. He consequently
makes a case for Deontology, and Bhakti. Along the way, in the eleventh chapter he
reveals himself to Arjuna as the supreme Godhead. Despite this revelation, Arjuna
still is despondent and unable to get up and fight what is considered a just war.
Krishna continues to make a case for Bhakti: “Think only of me! Be dedicated to
me! Worship me! Sacrifice for me! Prostrate yourself to me! You will come to me!
I promise you, as you are dear to me” (The Bhagavad Gītā 18.65). At the same time,
Krishna also says: “You are entirely dear to me, therefore I (will) tell you what is
beneficial for you” (iṣṭo ‘si me dṛḍham iti tato vakṣyāmi te hitam, The Bhagavad
Gītā 18.64.). The fusion between the moral ideal of transcendence from trouble
and renewal is Bhakti in the Bhagavad Gītā (18.71). Likewise, Krishna demands that
Arjuna gives up all his dharma and just follow Krishna. This text fully bears witness
to devotionalism (bhakti), in the form of complete submission to God. Of course,
giving up dharma for the God who restores dharma is less than paradoxical. This
speaks to a theoretical shift—from orienting oneself around the Virtue Theoretic
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substance of ethics (dharma) to the ideal of ethics (Krishna). It is the move from
thinking about ethics in terms of duty (good states to be justified by non-teleological
considerations), to defining right action by the ideal. Bhakti so understood is a
generative process of ethics: it creates ethical reality not by deference to the ethical
status quo (the virtues), but by defining right procedure by the ideal that restores an
ethical order, which is beneficial and free from evil.
6. BREACH OF VIRTUE AS THE

RESTORATION OF DHARMA
During the Mahābhārata war, Arjuna was involved in breaching dharma as
conventional virtues, typically called one’s duties. Moreover, the violation of these
duties comes in degrees. In recognition of their conventional status, let us call these
virtues “laws,” and their violation a “crime” or “wrongdoing.”
In the first case of Arjuna’s involvement in a crime, the whole event is as if
camouflaged. Let me recount the sequence.
At the onset of the war, Bhīṣma, the great-uncle of the Pāṇḍavas, as the general
of the Kauravas, fought vehemently and wiped out a large part of the Pāṇḍava army.
The Pāṇḍavas approached Bhīṣma again, just as before the war, with the question,
“How can the Pāṇḍavas defeat Bhīṣma?” This time, Bhīṣma admitted a way: among
the occasions when Bhīṣma would not fight are when his opponent in combat is
without a weapon, is a warrior without a horse, is a woman, or someone handicapped,
and so on. Thus, the Pāṇḍavas should employ Śikhaṇḍin, the brother of Draupadī,
who was in his former life a woman (The Mahābhārata: 1.57.104, p. 255)6 known
as “Ambā.” The Pāṇḍavas seized the opportunity, placing Śikhaṇḍin/Ambā in front of
Arjuna next day. Bhīṣma did not fight, even though he knew that the deadly arrows
piercing him were not from Śikhaṇḍin/Ambā but were Arjuna’s. When Bhīṣma was
completely covered with arrows all over his body he fell off his chariot. But he did
not fall to the ground because the arrows propped him up. A dramatic sight, as we
try to imagine. Still, Bhīṣma had a very close rapport with Arjuna. Bhīṣma asked for
a support for his head and refused all the offers. He accepted the “pillow” of arrows
from Arjuna, praising Arjuna for it. This is an echo of when Bhīṣma was thirsty and
accepted water from Arjuna. Bhīṣma treated Arjuna with respect; there is no trace
of blame in their interaction after Bhīṣma is mortally wounded.
The next occasion for crime was the time when Arjuna felt remorse for
participating passively and so endorsed the wrong. Although Arjuna was not
involved in the actual killing of Droṇa, it was the first time in which Arjuna openly
admitted being guilty of wrongdoing.
After Bhīṣma’s incapacitation,7 Droṇa (the teacher of both the Pāṇḍavas and the
Kauravas) was the next general of the Kauravas. He, too, fought fiercely. Here there
is an important moment of Krishna’s advice. Krishna warned the Pāṇḍavas that there
was no chance of winning the war as long as Droṇa was their opponent. He advised the
Pāṇḍavas to use any means to stop Droṇa from fighting. When the Pāṇḍavas objected
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that this was not a proper way to treat their teacher, Krishna responded: (āsthīyatāṃ
jaye yogo dharmam utsṛjya pāṇḍavāḥ) “Forget dharma, Pāṇḍavas! Invent a means for
victory/winning!” (The Mahābhārata: 7.164.68. p. 953). Then the Pāṇḍavas devised
a plan: Bhīmasena would kill an elephant called by the same name as Droṇa’s son.
Bhīmasena did so and announced it. Droṇa suspected it to be a trick. So he asked
the reliable, truth-telling Yudhiṣṭhira. On Krishna’s urging, Yudhiṣṭhira spoke the lie
and added under his breath: the elephant. The Pāṇḍavas told Droṇa falsely that his
son has been killed. Droṇa, setting down his weapons and falling into a stupor, was
beheaded by Dhṛṣṭadyumna (brother of Draupadī; The Mahābhārata: 7.165.47).
It was only in the next instance of Arjuna’s wrongdoing that Arjuna participated
actively in the actual killing by taking unfair advantage of the unfortunate position
of his opponent.
With Droṇa dead, Duryodhana and the Kauravas chose Karṇa as their general.
Karṇa, half-brother to Arjuna, was Arjuna’s archenemy. According to a prewar
agreement with Śalya, who was an uncle to the Pāṇḍavas, Śalya was supposed to
weaken the morale of Karṇa while Śalya was Karṇa’s charioteer (Śalya had been
tricked by Duryodhana to join the Kauravas). Śalya did, in fact, demoralize Karṇa
during the combat with Arjuna. Karṇa also had the bad fortune of getting stuck in
the mud with his chariot. He asked for a moment of respite, which was legitimate
according to the rules of war and combat. When a warrior is disabled he should
not be struck down. Arjuna not only did not grant a moment of respite, but took
advantage of it by striking down Karṇa, at Krishna’s behest.
Although the outcome of the war was more or less determined with Karṇa’s
death, still there was another moment of power struggle. In this last moment also,
Arjuna acted improperly according to convention. It was during the last combat
between Duryodhana and Bhīmasena that Arjuna motioned to Bhīmasena to hit
Duryodhana under the belt.
This combat proceeded as follows: when all the generals of the Kauravas
had been killed and their army dispersed, Duryodhana went into hiding. The
Pāṇḍavas found him and dragged him out. Yudhiṣṭhira magnanimously offered to
Duryodhana that he could regain the kingdom if he won a single combat with an
opponent from among the Pāṇḍavas. The opponent would be of Duryodhana’s
choosing, and also he would have the choice of weapon. Duryodhana chose
Bhīmasena as his opponent and a club to fight with (which was the favored
weapon of Bhīmasena). Duryodhana seemed to lead in the fight, but Arjuna, at
Krishna’s urging, suggested that Bhīmasena should hit Duryodhana under the
belt. Bhīmasena broke his thigh.
The evolution of Arjuna’s involvement and participation in offenses can be
summarized as follows: (1) with Bhīṣma, he does not receive any blame; (2) with
Droṇa, he feels remorse that he was a passive onlooker; (3) with Karṇa, he commits
a mean murder; and (4) with Duryodhana, he advises foul play.
Arjuna did not commit these offenses on his own. They were incited by Krishna.
Yet, it was Arjuna who carried them out, except lying to Droṇa, and it was Arjuna
who felt remorse.
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The philosophical value of these transgressions of conventionalized virtues

depends on the theory assumed. If, as a Deontologist, one looks to conventional
goodness to define duty, then these actions are wrong. The approach to defining
duty by way of conventional goodness is very common in Deontology. We find
this most clearly in Kant, for instance, who holds that duty is the good state that
we can conventionalize (this is effect of the Categorical Imperative). This is often
reduced to the Golden Rule: do unto others what you would have them do unto
you. Such reasoning is not foreign to the Mahābhārata, which affirms the rule (The
Mahābhārata: 12.167.9; 12.308.126–128; 13.113.8). But this renders Krishna’s
advice all the more ironic.
Virtue Ethics as a background theory of how we should select the acceptable
actions does not condone these actions either insofar as they constitute
transgressions of established conduct that issue from the accepted virtues—even in
the context of the Mahābhārata. Yet, if the ethical ideal is to dictate policy, then,
indeed, these transgressions are acceptable. Krishna, as someone who transcends
challenges, is the Mahābhārata’s choice: where Krishna is, there is dharma; where
dharma is, there is victory (yataḥ kṛṣṇas tato dharmo yato dharmas tato jayaḥ; The
Mahābhārata: 6.62.34 and 13.153.39). In following Krishna, Arjuna embodies the
capitulation of Virtue Ethics to Bhakti. Instead of letting fate of the dice or accepted
conventions of behavior determine action, Arjuna follows Krishna as his moral ideal,
thereby bringing about a resolution to the unjust predicament of the Pāṇḍavas. The
exile, we might say, was brought about by the Kauravas’ avarice of the Pāṇḍavas
or by a general weakness that leaves the determination of right action to chance
(the dice) and thereby outcome. But having lived up to their end of the bargain,
the Kauravas are to blame for their continued hostility. Under this context, all the
conventions of morality, such as the Golden Rule, appear to work in the favor of
those in power and the status quo who are to blame.
Krishna, in contrast, recommends violating conventionalized morality to
reestablish a moral order. The bridge is a critical departure from the status quo that
is devotion to the ideal of restoring the moral order.
7. JUSTICE
In discussing the Mahābhārata, I do not take a position interpreting Krishna as
human or divine or sometimes both at the same time (Katz 1989; cf. Hiltebeitel
1990). That kind of work has been done, though the issue still deserves further
inquiry; this is beyond the scope of this study. It is the advice that is realized in action
and it is the actions themselves that are of primary concern for the study of moral
conduct.
Krishna’s words indicate that, for him, producing a particular result in the war is
justified, namely, that his allies the Pāṇḍavas win and the Kauravas are defeated. It
would be a mistake to call this Consequentialism: Consequentialism does not try to
justify outcomes. It appeals to outcomes to justify actions. Krishna, rather, seemed
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to think that the outcome of the Pāṇḍavas winning was justified. The war was over
rather quickly (18 days).The Kauravas were defeated, but by what means?
In the last moment of the war, a painful scene took place. After he was struck
under the belt, Duryodhana, unable to stand or to sit, somehow hovered in midair
and spoke his grievances against the Pāṇḍavas, a speech that in truth recapitulated
all the major trespasses of Krishna in this war. The speech is so powerful that the
listener forgets that the speaker, Duryodhana, hardly had a clear conscience himself.
The crimes of the Pāṇḍavas are atrocious in Duryodhana’s summary: Yudhiṣṭhira
lied to Droṇa in order to kill him. Arjuna in fact killed Bhīṣma, Karṇa, and
Bhūriśravas. Bhīmasena mortally wounded Duryodhana.
Duryodhana, in placing the blame on the first three Pāṇḍavas, pointed out
that actually all these crimes were committed at Krishna’s instigation (The
Mahābhārata: 9.60.30– 34). The Pāṇḍavas hung their heads in shame (The
Mahābhārata: 9.60.54–55). Krishna said to them consolingly that there had been
no possibility of defeating the Kauravas by fair means (The Mahābhārata: 9.60.59).8
I suppose Krishna must have realized before the war, when he committed his armed
forces to Duryodhana (the Kauravas) and offered himself as a charioteer to Arjuna
(Duryodhana and Arjuna actually did the choosing; The Mahābhārata: 5.7.13–21),
that he would have to resort to underhanded means in his advice to the Pāṇḍavas,
despite the pledge of no foul play that both parties had made to each other just
before the war began (The Mahābhārata: 6.1.26ff.). Regardless, Krishna engineered
the outcome of the war.
It is obvious that Krishna was fully aware of the injustice and unfairness of
Duryodhana, whose greed drove him to deprive the Pāṇḍavas of their rights. It
is also evident that all the treachery that Krishna himself committed during the
war was in support of the Pāṇḍavas, who had suffered unduly by Duryodhana’s
hand. Duryodhana did not yield, even when the Pāṇḍavas, after their term of exile,
would have settled for five villages instead of their former kingdom, when they saw
that Duryodhana was unwilling to part with much. Krishna displayed his single-
mindedness regarding the tension between the two parties. He aided the side that he
considered at a disadvantage because they had dealt too fairly with a party that did
not appreciate fairness but had rather focused ruthlessly on its self-interest.
In this way Krishna represented dharma as justice—an ideal of moral theory.
All the trickery he employed was justified by the eventual end result of justice. The
saying “where dharma is, there is Krishna, where Krishna is, there is victory” (yato
dharmas tataḥ kṛṣṇo yataḥ kṛṣṇo tato jayaḥ (The Mahābhārata: 6.41.55 and 9.61.30)
or “where Krishna is, there is dharma, where dharma is, there is victory” (yataḥ kṛṣṇo
tato dharmo yato dharmas tato jayaḥ; The Mahābhārata: 6.62.34 and 13.153.39) is
in accord with what happened. These two similar quotes deserve a separate scrutiny.
Those who were excessively concerned with the virtues of honesty, or deontic
rules of truth-telling, were somehow not successful by themselves. Yudhiṣṭhira, who
himself would be a prime example of an honest person, got himself and the Pāṇḍavas
into trouble by being obliging after the game of dice. Yudhiṣṭhira meant well with his
behavior as a holy man, when he did not claim what Draupadī considered his due
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(The Mahābhārata 1933–70: 3.12.ff). Yudhiṣṭhira’s lot also shows that such saintly
behavior has no reciprocation in the world at large. When Yudhiṣṭhira gambled his
family away irresponsibly, including himself, thus losing his agency, he played by his
enslavers’ rules, or rather most of the time he gave no response. This nonengagement
in action, being aloof to the concerns of the world around him, is often interpreted
as ascetic behavior (niṣkāma-karma).
Yudhiṣṭhira’s trespasses on dharma were few. Yudhiṣṭhira had to use means that
he did not approve of. A prime example of this is when he lies to Droṇa, that
Droṇa’s son is dead, with the result that Droṇa gave up fighting and hence was easily
killed. Yudhiṣṭhira spoke this lie at Krishna’s instigation. A much greater offense was
Yudhiṣṭhira’s repeated request, addressed to Śalya, king of Madra, who now joined
the Kaurava side, to berate Karṇa in order to demoralize him during the war (The
Mahābhārata: 5.8, 5.18 and 6.41.84). Though Śalya was fighting on the side of
the Kauravas, he did as he was asked by the opposition. Yudhiṣṭhira urged Śalya to
commit treason, given the context. That is, Śalya worked as an undercover agent for
Yudhiṣṭhira, in order to undermine Karṇa’s mental strength.
8. FRIENDSHIP
The topic of friendship has been discussed by Alf Hiltebeitel in his Ritual of Battle
(1990: 259ff.). His observations and detailed analysis concern the antithesis of
friendship, namely, the relationship between the Kaurava general, Karṇa, and his
charioteer, Śalya, king of the Madras.
Śalya is a relative of the Pāṇḍavas as a brother of Mādrī, the second wife of
Pāṇḍu, yet he joined the opponents’ side. When Yudhiṣṭhira heard of it, he requested
that Śalya collaborate with the Pāṇḍavas in one campaign. He asked him to weaken
the morale of Karṇa during the duel with Arjuna. Śalya berated Karṇa, and Karṇa
spared no pains and energy (which Śalya was supposed to dissipate) to insult and
humiliate Śalya. Karṇa’s main argument was that Śalya did not belong to the central
kingdoms but rather represented the other kings. Basically, he told Śalya that he was
a dirty, fickle foreigner (and literally so—he used the word “mala”).9
In the exchange of insults between Śalya and Karṇa, we have just the opposite
of the relationship between Arjuna and Krishna. Walter Ruben (1944) considers the
Śalya–Karṇa exchange a caricature of the Bhagavad Gītā. Yet, both Śalya and Karṇa
demonstrate amply their friendship and loyalty to their respective parties: Śalya
was loyal to his promise to Yudhiṣṭhira to demoralize Karṇa, and Karṇa’s speech
demonstrated his unwavering loyalty to and affection for Duryodhana.
Now, the relationship between Krishna and Arjuna and, as a matter of fact, Krishna
and the other Pāṇḍavas, is of a different sort. Krishna as an advisor has an absolute
authority. What Krishna says is heeded. The trust on the part of the Pāṇḍavas is most
overwhelming considering that the Pāṇḍavas suffered pangs of remorse for their
involvement with Krishna’s schemes on several occasions—remorse that appeals to
conventional morality.
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While Krishna was a long-time friend of the Pāṇḍavas, he demonstrated a closeness

to Arjuna that was undoubtedly special. On one occasion, Arjuna travels and meets
up with Krishna at Prabhāsa (present-day Somnāth), where they spend some time
and eventually continue to Dvārakā. Arjuna stays there and by chance sees Subhadrā,
Krishna’s sister, at a public place hosting some festivities. Arjuna fell for her (The
Mahābhārata: 1.211.15). Since Krishna knew that the family would not approve of
a marriage between Arjuna and Subhadrā, he advised Arjuna to abduct Subhadrā,
as abduction was one of the customary ways to “win” brides, just as Bhīṣma did for
his brothers, by abduction of the Kāśī princesses, Ambā, Ambikā, and Ambālikā. By
means of a legal argument (The Mahābhārata: 1.213.2–5), Krishna also managed to
pacify his family in their outrage over Subhadrā’s kidnapping. When Arjuna went
into exile, Krishna took his sister and her son, Abhimanyu, to his own place for
safety.
It is not only during their two-hour-long dialogue in the Bhagavad Gītā that
Krishna displayed affection and closeness. Arjuna, in turn, trusted Krishna fully and
followed Krishna’s advice without ever questioning it. Even though there was regret
on the part of Arjuna, for example, after Droṇa’s death, there never was even the
slightest inclination to consider Krishna in the wrong.
The forgiveness for and acceptance of Krishna does not end with the end of the
war. Long after the war, when Krishna suffered his unfortunate death at the hands
of an ignorant, anonymous person, Arjuna tried to help as sincerely as he could. He
performed the funeral rites for Krishna’s father, Vasudeva, as a son would. He also
tried to rescue the people of Krishna, who went mad, although he did not succeed.
Arjuna said sadly: “Life without Krishna is without joy.” With his brothers, he went
on the last journey (mahāprasthāna).
The friendship between Krishna and Arjuna is very important for the overall
outcome of events. It was actually only those who survived the massacre and, even
more so, it was Arjuna’s and Subhadrā’s great-grandchild who had the Great Story
retold at the snake sacrifice. It was Arjuna’s and Krishna’s family that went down
in history. As Ruth Katz in Arjuna in the Mahābhārata proposes when she speaks of
Arjuna’s marriage to Subhadrā, “Although not as important to the central heroic tale
as the marriage to Draupadī, the marriage of Subhadrā at Dvāraka . . . is extremely
significant; it may even provide some insight into the composition of the epic as a
whole, since it is a connecting link between Arjuna and Janamejaya” (1989: 62).
I myself would rather emphasize the importance of the alliance between Krishna
and Arjuna as being Subhadrā’s bearing the offspring who survives to tell the story
of the Mahābhārata, as a perspective for hypothesizing about subsequent editing and
whose tradition is transmitted.10
After all, the story is this hindsight, so to speak, from the point of view of those
who recollect these events at a later date. The recollection11 could, in part, have been
motivated by gratitude for having survived the carnage and for being able to retell it.
If it were not for Krishna’s insightful cunning, there would not have been anybody
to retell the story, at least not with Krishna and Arjuna as heroes. It would be a story
with a different outcome, or no story at all.
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Philosophically, we can see the friendship of Arjuna and Krishna as a dialectic

between Virtue Ethics on one hand, and Bhakti on the other. Bhakti does not
demand that we demean our strengths. But its conceptualization of ethics suggests
that relying on our strengths is a weakness. If our strengths are born of past events,
they may not be up to the challenge of novelty. Hence, we find Arjuna, Virtue Ethics,
submitting to Krishna, Bhakti. Arjuna resists because he is unable to give up his
dharma, though Krishna insists that Arjuna just act and submit to Krishna. Krishna
will make sure that all will be well with Arjuna, but only if Arjuna obeys Krishna’s
will. Ramakant Sinari argues that Arjuna is not free not to fight the war (Sinari
2001: 92–96). The “cosmic vision” (viśvarūpa) that Krishna displays for Arjuna is
deterministic in its essence by maintaining that the whole cosmic process is organized
and set in motion by Krishna or God. In this picture Krishna showing to Arjuna that
he is an instrument of the divine. For a Virtue Ethicist who believes that they should
act on the basis of their nature (prakṛti) properly understood, this depiction would
be persuasive. Thus Arjuna is to act without attachment to the outcome; he would be
an agent for accomplishing a goal devised by God himself. Acting without regard for
his self-esteem (abhimāna/authorship), Arjuna would be an accomplisher without
desire for a particular outcome (niṣkāma-karmin). Here we have the idea that an act
performed without desire (niṣkāma-karman) leaves aside teleological considerations
of good and bad outcomes. The point of Bhakti is that good outcomes are thereby
caused by this abandonment.
9. YUDHIṢṬHIRA’S TEST
Yudhiṣṭhira would be the closest fit to an exemplar of Virtue Ethics in the
Mahābhārata. Considering that he is the son of the god Dharma, he is meant to
represent virtue in the epic. He is as though the very actions that arise from the
outcomes or states of affairs called ethical. Following the opinion that he is the
most righteous (dharmic) person, he exhibits ascetic tendencies. He often refuses
to entangle himself in worldly concerns, especially when things go awry. (Here, he
allows the bad outcome to determine his action.) And this very upright protagonist
failed dharma. As the eldest brother, he had the responsibility of taking care of his
family, protecting it, including their common wife, at all of which he just failed
miserably. Thus, in the already familiar narrative, he is lured into gambling, resulting
in a 13-year exile for all six of them (five brothers and their wife). He fails his
responsibility (a procedural notion) by allowing the outcomes (the throw of the
dice) to determine the procedure. His failure at dharma is Virtue Ethics. The last
year of exile was especially challenging, as they had to stay incognito. Ironically,
Yudhiṣṭhira’s disguise was to become an instructor in dice-playing at a court. After
the exile ended, he and his brothers asked the Kauravas for a small piece of land to
live on. When they were denied their request, the situation escalated into war.
There is nothing dharmic in the gambling incidents; on the contrary, they just
accentuate the lack of responsibility on the part of Yudhiṣṭhira. During the war, two
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incidents are truly adharmic given the Golden Rule: one, lying to Droṇa that his son
was dead, and the other, bearing great gravity, is the deceitful employment of Śalya
to demoralize the opponent’s general during a decisive combat in the war. This was
Yudhiṣṭhira’s own scheming; he did not act on the advice of Krishna.
After the war, when his side had won by means contrary to the Golden Rule,
Yudhiṣṭhira does not want to take responsibility for his hard-won kingdom (The
Mahābhārata: 12. Śāntiparvan). He proclaims that he wants to become an ascetic,
again trying to avoid his responsibilities according to the kṣatriya dharma to be the
king and in charge.
Only at the end of his life, when he is the last survivor of the family, at the point
of his ascent to heaven, does he show his true leadership. Along his way on the
last journey (mahāprasthāna) a dog appears and follows him. He is implored by a
divine voice (Indra) to leave the dog behind as he ascends to heaven as there is no
place in heaven for dogs (it is claimed), but he refuses, asserting that it is wrong to
abandon those who are devoted to one. Indeed, the argument here revolves around
the obligations that arise on the part of the one idealized by a devotee (bhakta; The
Mahābhārata: 17.3.11–24). For once Yudhiṣṭhira stands his ground at odds with
the fated outcome. It turns out to be the correct position, as the dog is revealed
to be Dharma Itself. But this was known only after he choose to stand his ground.
In this way, he ultimately keeps his dharma intact. He becomes the person who is
responsible for those whom he leads, and a regulative ideal himself. At this moment,
he seems to have left behind the idea that states of affairs determine what he does.
He determines his destiny.
10. CONCLUSION
Although the narratives were drawn from the Mahābhārata as a whole, the impact
of Krishna’s teaching in the Bhagavad Gītā and advice throughout the war brought
the war to an end that was desirable from the point of view of the narrator and
the Pāṇḍavas. The narrators actually, as there are several, depicted the events,
protagonists, and their moral dilemmas in an evocative way—bringing them alive
to the extent that the audience forgets that it is a large poem of insurmountable
import that does not necessarily express any historical date, but mainly their ethical
and unethical situations and their resolutions. This is a text of ethics, without being
prescriptive, in contrast with some other literature, such as the Dharmaśāstras.
It seems that it is not so much the teaching that one stereotypically associates
with the Bhagavad Gītā of giving up goals or craving for a particular outcome and
adopting ascetic ideals or following the ideology of Bhakti as much as what Krishna
as a divine being represents: the Puruṣottama, the supreme person, as revealed in
the Bhagavad Gītā, which enables the Pāṇḍavas to win. But these come to the same
thing. It is devotion to the one who offers a new ethical order that leads to victory.
The way to this victory is the relinquishment of teleological considerations of
outcomes that constitutes the status quo for devotion to the ideal. Krishna justifies
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his devious ways to show you cannot survive in life by deferring to what is virtuous,
like Yudhiṣṭhira. This, in particular, Krishna, would deem a kind of naïveté that is
complicit in injustice. Indeed, this theme is recurring in the Mahābhārata: it is Virtue
Ethics in the large sense of deferring to dispositions, natural endowments (even
the good ones), and outcomes, which leads to trouble. The solution is apparently
counter intuitive: one has to break the rules that are consistent with the outcomes
to bring about justice. Justice is the freedom to determine one’s destiny—not to be
determined by outcomes. The Kauravas wanted to deny this to the Pāṇḍavas. By
considering the circumstances that led to the war, namely, the unjust treatment by
the Kauravas, the Pāṇḍavas’ resistance against an aggression by the Kauravas is just,
and the Pāṇḍavas’ victory serves justice (dharma).12
In closing, Krishna’s point appears to be that you should not worry about
ethics—the actual virtues and rules as they are—so much as restoring the ethical
order, and that trouble comes for those who blindly follow rules for these virtues
are complicit in injustice. But if this is his point, then the Mahābhārata seems to
say something clear about ethics insofar as it is Krishna’s advice that makes the
Pāṇḍavas’ victory possible. Conventionalized dharma is what we should be critical
of. This criticism restores the dharmic order. That Yudhiṣṭhira in the end resists the
rules and finds some reward by embracing devotion as something to be protected is
telling indeed. Friendship between Yudhiṣṭhira and his dog, or between Arjuna and
Krishna—between leader and follower, the protector and the vulnerable—is one
contentment protected by this new order ushered in by Krishna. Devotion is not
merely transgressive of the moral order: it protects and restores the moral order.
NOTES
1. Readers interested in following the Sanskrit should consult the Critical Edition,
referred to here as The Mahābhārata. For an English translation, see The
Mahābhārata: Abridged and Translated. Some events not included in the Critical
Edition can be found in the Vulgate versions and in the Southern Recension of the
text. References to all of these are in the bibliography.
2. I appreciate Shyam Ranganathan’s generous contribution to the chapter by
clarifying substantial discussions of moral philosophy.
3. I am thankful to Ann Mongoven of Indiana University for making suggestions on
the literature for Western narrative ethics.
4. The editor notes that the popular idea that Krishna comes to the rescue of
Draupadī by providing an endless length of cloth, so that Duḥśāsana is unable to
remove the single piece of clothing she has on, is found in the Southern Recension
of the Mahābhārata, where the miracle of endless clothing happens after Draupadī
prays to Krishna for help (2.90.43). The author notes that this is verbatim in the
Vulgate edition (2.68.41). The Critical Edition has this information of the endless
cloth as well, without the prayer to Krishna (The Mahābhārata: 2.61.40). In none
of these, Krishna is present. This chapter follows the Critical Edition.
338
5. The Bhagavad Gītā 1.1 is the customary editions numbering. The text
dharmakṣetre kurukṣetre . . . of the Bhagavad Gītā in the Mahābhārata, is 6.23.1.
The Bhagavad Gītā proper starts long before this point, that is, at 6.14.1, with
atha gāvalgaṇir dhīmān samarād etya sañjayaḥ.
6. Actually not only in his/her former life, Śikhaṇḍin was born in this life also as a
female, but the yakṣa (nature-spirit) Sthūṇa changed her into a male to do her a
favor (The Mahābhārata: 1.57.104, p. 255).
7. Bhīṣma was mortally wounded by Arjuna and spent some time after that being
propped up by a great many arrows.
8. Krishna explains that there was no way to win the war by “ethical” means (na
śakyā dharmato hantum); the four of the Kaurava party, Duryodhana, Bhīṣma,
Droṇa, and Karṇa, were so invincible that even the earth-protecting gods would
not be able to bring about their end.
9. The Critical Edition has “sacāpalaḥ” (fickle), although several other manuscripts
read sadā malaḥ”; another reading is “sucāpalaḥ” and yet another “sadā calaḥ”
(The Mahābhārata: 8.27.80, p. 230).
10. Ruben thought that in the prototype of the Mahābhārata there was no Krishna.
He surmised so on the basis that Krishna was absent during Draupadī’s disrobing
(Ruben 1944: 283). As it is, the Mahābhārata remains within the “multi-centering
series of narrative techniques and . . . constantly revising its contextual frame,” in
the words of Huberman (1997), until today the redaction keeps changing.
11. J. L. Mehta ponders Vyāsa’s “creative imagination.” He says: “Shall we call it
pratismṛti [usually translated as “recollection”], the power to see and give form to
the truth of things, he [Vyāsa] gave shape to his narrative” (Mehta 1990: 224).
12. It is worth noting that Alf Hiltebeitel’s study of dharma in the Mahābhārata
explores in detail how the Bhagavad Gītā is contextualized in the wider
Mahābhārata. His approach is to trace the “ripple effects” through a formula that
relates dharma and victory to Krishna (Hiltebeitel 2011: 517). He particularly
devotes c hapter 12 (Hiltebeitel 2011: 568ff.) to the issues of dharma and bhakti.
For an earlier account of dharma by him, see Hiltebeitel (2010).
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Dostoevsky to Sartre, edited by Walter Arnold Kaufmann, translated by Phillip Mairet,
345–369. Toronto: Meridian.
Sinari, Ramakant. 2001. “Reply to Dr. Rajendra Prasad’s Note Entitled ‘Can a Nishkama
Karma Have Really No Effects?’.” In Agenda for Research in Indian and Western
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Philosophy, edited by R. S. Bhatnagar. Jaipur: University of Rajasthan and Literary

Circle. Original edition, 2001.
Thomson, Judith Jarvi. 2007. “Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem.” In
White, Hayden. 2009. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical
Representation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ethics of M. K. Gandhi:
Nonviolence and Truth
A. RAGHURAMARAJU
1. INTRODUCTION
Presenting philosophical ideas from India in global scholarship has to factor in some
underlying differences regarding the protocols of presentation.1 This is because,
unlike Western philosophy, modern Indian philosophy does not have—or, modern
philosophers in India have not yet worked out—modern academic protocols. In the
West, philosophical activity continuously strives toward representing ideas, texts,
and themes in different and new idioms, thereby facilitating its scholarly availability.
Philosophers, perhaps, have not done the same, from India in academia. Academic
Indian philosophy has not restated its ideas and arguments in a new idiom and
remains archaic and outdated. This is despite the headway made in comparative
philosophy and through translation of classical texts into European languages.2
The processing of these texts in the modern idiom—in terms of both volume and
frequency—leaves much to be desired. To present Indian philosophy on the global
platform requires it to be framed differently so that it can be presented formally like
a painting on the wall. Instead, its status today is like a painting that is held by hand.
One might think that there is a need to rewrite Indian philosophy in a new idiom.
This is similar to that of Ādi Śaṅkara rewriting different philosophical schools
that existed before him in a new idiom subsequent to Buddha and Buddhism. For
instance, Śaṅkara and his Advaita successors, “salvaged and destroyed Sāṅkhya
philosophy in much the same manner as Christian theology in the medieval period
both salvaged and destroyed Plato and Aristotle” (Larson 2012: 29). While this is a
problem for a long tradition of rigorous Indian philosophical scholarship, there is
an additional problem with regard to presenting philosophically the views of those
like M. K. Gandhi. He is not a systematic philosopher of classical type and he is not
strictly an author, which is to say, he did not make writing out to be his profession.
He, however, wrote extensively in different genres, culminating in nearly 100
volumes of writings on various themes. This should not be ignored especially as
this constitutes one way in which classical Indian philosophy has been rewritten,
thereby rendering it accessible to a wider audience. However, in the process of
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342 A. RAGHURAMARAJU
making it available to the wider audience, it appears differently and at times loosely,
which can be presented systematically following academic protocols. So, there are
several novel ideas and radical interpretations in the writings of Gandhi, whose life
is dominated by experiments with truth and politics. There is a need to present them
in a philosophical idiom, thereby enriching the existing field of ethics.
My aim in this chapter is to undertake this task in the context of uncovering the
ethics of Gandhi. Gandhi effectively used the Indian philosophical resources available
to him to refashion a different Indian response to colonialism. While he did not
rewrite Indian philosophy in an academic idiom, he rewrote it in an activist’s idiom.
In talking about this, we may be rewriting the academic idiom of Indian academic
philosophy. Thus, this chapter intends to discuss some available works on Gandhi,
point out limitations in them, claim the ingenuity in his radical interpretation of
Bhagavad Gītā, and extend the discussion by providing philosophical analysis to his
ideas about nonviolence and truth. The next section discusses the works of A. L.
Basham that related Gandhi to Indian tradition and the work of Akeel Bilgrami who
finds in Gandhi an alternative to moral philosophy in the West. Section 3 discusses
Gandhi’s critique of modernity that sets aside the East–West binary and treads the
modernity and tradition binary. In treading this binary, he manages to disaggregate
modern West from the premodern West, including the latter along with India, thus
enlarging the purview of the oppressors of modernity.
2. SOME PREVIOUS RESEARCH

Let me begin by recognizing the three volumes edited by Raghavan N. Iyer, Moral
and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (1986). In addition, he wrote a lucid
summary of these volumes in The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi
(2013). In this comprehensive and descriptive work, Iyer presents Gandhi’s views on
moral and political ideas such as the indictment of modern civilization, purification
of politics, nonviolence, truth, satyagraha (direct action), swaraj (self-rule), and
swadeshi (solidarity). I will, in this chapter, extend the discussion on Gandhi’s
critique of modern civilization, nonviolence, and truth.
From another direction, A. L. Basham highlights Gandhi’s contribution when he
says, “Gandhi’s debt [was] not to ancient India in general, but to those aspects of
Hindu culture which were preserved and emphasized in the Gujarat of the 1870s and
1880s, and to those ancient Indian texts which he is known to have read and admired
in his earlier years” (2006: 19). In this context Basham, however, acknowledges how
Gandhi “himself in many passages of his voluminous writings admits his debt to
certain Western sources, notably the Gospels (especially the Sermon on the Mount),
Tolstoy, Thoreau and Ruskin” (2006: 19). Without minimizing these outside
influences on Gandhi, Basham, however, draws our attention to closely scrutinize
“how far Gandhi accepted the doctrines of these sources in their own right . . . and
how far he looked on them as merely confirming and systematizing attitudes and
values which he had obtained at home” (2006: 19–20). He notes at the start that
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M. K. GANDHI: NONVIOLENCE AND TRUTH 343
certain “elements in the religious life of nineteenth-century Hinduism may have

prepared the ground for some of Gandhi’s ideas” (2006: 20). Having made this
claim Basham, however, admits in the end one “feature of Gandhi’s teaching for
which we can find no Indian prototype is his doctrine of the spiritual and moral
value of manual labor” (2006: 39). Basham claims he derived this from Christianity.
The other “non- Indian” moral value is his “championship of equal rights for
women.” This can be traced to “Western feminism” (2006: 40). Finally, “Gandhi’s
objection to mechanized twentieth-century life has no counterpart in the attitudes
of ancient India” (2006: 40). Basham claims that “several of Gandhi’s concepts
are fully in keeping with Indian tradition and were probably developed from ideas
which he absorbed in his childhood and youth, fertilized and brought to fruition by
his contact with the West” (2006: 40).
Having located possible sources of ethics in and of Gandhi, let me bring into the
discussion a major claim made by Bilgrami. Bilgrami in his seminal essay “Gandhi’s
Integrity: The Philosophy behind the Politics” (2006) claims that Gandhi provides
an alternative to overcome a certain dead-end that pervades much moral philosophy
of the West. Summarizing the history of moral philosophy in the West, Bilgrami
says that choosing an “action on moral grounds under certain circumstances is to
generate a principle which we think applied as an ‘ought’ or an imperative to all
others faced with relevantly similar circumstances” (2006: 255). Bilgrami claims
that this entire tradition equates morality with moral principles.
Bilgrami makes a distinction between universality and universalizability. He
defines the former as suggesting that “a moral value, whether or not someone in
particular holds it, applies to all persons.” According to the latter, “if someone
in particular holds a moral value, then he must think that it applies to all others”
(2006: 255). While universality in this particular definition makes morality
independent or autonomous from the practitioners, universalizability, on the
other hand, invariably demands its acceptance by all. Alternately, it gives rise to
a moral dilemma: is it possible for me to accept something as morally correct
and not convince or even force others who do not similarly accept it? If I do
not, then it dents my acceptance of this principle in two ways. One, maybe
there is something wrong with the principle, particularly because others are not
accepting it; two, maybe there is something wrong with my choosing it as a moral
principle. In both instances the variance between my choosing something as a
principle and not doing anything with regard to those who have not accepted it,
is problematic. According to Bilgrami, there are no solutions to this in Western
moral philosophy, which does not accept any variation between one’s acceptance
of a moral principle and others not accepting it. It is this demand to universalize
the first-person moral values to the rest that Bilgrami identifies as encouraging
violence. Bilgrami explores how to hold something to be of universal moral value
and still not demand universalizability. This is a challenging task for him as he finds
universalizability to be a pervading moral process in the West. This moral process,
as already pointed out, contains in it elements of criticism, that is, criticizing those
who do not accept what you believe to be universal, hence the use of violence. If
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we remove universalizability as has been done in the West, there is the danger of
moral solipsism via subjectivism.
It is at this juncture that Bilgrami finds in Gandhi a repudiation of this entire Western
tradition. Gandhi, claims Bilgrami, repudiates the entire Western moral theory that is
wedded to the universalizability program, but at the same time did not encourage “self-
enclosed moral” subjectivism. He reconciles rejection of the universalizability of a value’s
potential for being rooted in criticism of others with a yearning for the significance of
one’s choices to others. This he does in the following way. While a dominant line of
ethical thinking in the West maintains, “When one chooses for oneself, one chooses for
everyone,” the first half of the slogan describes a particular person’s act of conscience.
The second half of the slogan transforms the act of conscience to a universalized
principle, an imperative that others must follow or be criticized (2006: 257). Gandhi,
points out Bilgrami, accepts this thinking too. However, he says Gandhi “understands
the second half . . . differently. He too wants one’s acts of conscience to have a universal
relevance, so he too thinks one chooses for everyone, but he does not see that as meaning
that one generates a principle or imperative for everyone.” Rather, Bilgrami explicates
a bold proposal in Gandhi, “When one chooses for oneself one sets an example to
everyone.” For Gandhi the role of the satyagrahi (the one committed to direct action,
who lives by truth) is not to formulate principles from their moral conscience, but to
“lead exemplary lives, to set examples to everyone by their actions.” This concept of
exemplar, contends Bilgrami, is “a wholesale alternative to the concept of principle in
moral philosophy” (2006: 257). This is a larger claim, the tenability of which awaits
closer scrutiny from different perspectives (cf. Raghuramaraju 2013). Here it may be
pointed out that while there are some resemblances between Gandhi’s rejection of
universalizable principle and the idea of exemplar as interpreted by Bilgrami and Virtue
Ethical theories, each of their focus remains different, hence an immediate comparison
may not be rigorously sustained.
3. CRITICISM OF MODERNITY
In the previous section, I outlined some sources and highlights of Gandhi’s ethical
thought. In this section, I briefly discuss Gandhi’s criticism of modernity, his
rejection of those like Swami Vivekananda who recommended modern science and
technology from the West to eradicate poverty in India. I will discuss his difference
with those like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar with regard to the relation between
religion and politics.
Gandhi rejected modern civilization, its technology, and industry. It is “satanic,”
“irreligious,” “leaves no time for contemplation,” “offers neither stability nor
certainty,” “is treacherously deceptive, hypnotic and self-destructive,” it “measures
progress by the progress of matter . . . railways, conquest of disease, conquest of the
air.” It is not concerned about those aspects like whether “people are more truthful
or more humble” (1986: 328). This rejection is on moral grounds and not on
provincial grounds. That is, he does not reject modern civilization because it is bad for
India; instead, he chooses religious metaphors from Christianity to make his claim.
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This quarantines modernity within the West from its own premodern, particularly
Christianity. Having accomplished this he goes on to bring under the same umbrella
both Indians and the English. He says that people of Europe and India had “much
in common.” This came apart with the advent of “modern civilization.” This,
according to Gandhi, is evident in those “Europeans who are not touched by modern
civilization” as they are able to mix with Indians even today (1986: 293). Having
segregated modernity from the rest of the West, he claims that it is bad not only for
India, but also equally so for the West. This move to disaggregate modernity from
the rest of the West is novel and had far-reaching implications as it made many things
easier for him. For instance, it reduced the stature of his enemy. It was no longer the
entire indomitable West, combating which would have proved costly and difficult, if
not impossible. This move also made it possible to gain sympathy of the non-modern
West. He says that “India is being ground down, not under the English heel, but under
that of modern civilization” (1989: 38). He concludes that it is “machinery that has
impoverished India. It is difficult to measure the harm that Manchester has done to
us. It is due to Manchester that Indian handicraft has all but disappeared” (1989: 82).
It is clear from the above that for Gandhi, Indian poverty is the creation of modern
industry. In making this claim, he distances himself from those like Vivekananda and
Aurobindo who sought modern technology and industry to eradicate poverty in India.
Without naming them, Gandhi declares that if India “copies England” it will be surely
“ruined” (1989: 31). He also distances himself from his other contemporary, V. D.
Savarkar, in his definition of politics and religion. He finds in Savarkar modern, what
Nandy later calls, masculine politics. Savarkar sought to militarize Hinduism, thus
establishing the idea of Hindutva. He gives a call, “Hinduise All Politics & Militarize
Hindudom” (Savarkar 1967: 1). Gandhi rejects this.
Having made a case for including both religion and politics, he makes two bold
moves—one, with regard to rejecting many aspects of religion that are objectionable.
This includes the practice of untouchability, which rendered those outside of the
pale of caste hierarchies personae non gratae (1950: 10); stories in the purāṇas that
are “most dangerous, if we do not know their bearing on the present conditions”
(1950: 23); the practice of animal sacrifice that had been an aspect of Vedic society
(1950: 49); the Vedic texts that are repugnant to reason and contrary to experience.
He asserts that he does not “hold that everything ancient is good because it is
ancient” (1950: 290). Two, Gandhi distinguishes politics from state and power.
While acknowledging that certain actions need “political power,” he, however, says
that several other things are not dependent on “political power” (1986: 413). Some
of these include Charkha Sangh (cottage industry of a local economy), Gramodyog
Sangh (retail of local products), Harijan Seva Sangh (association for the service of
Dalits, those outside the caste hierarchy), and Talimi Sangh (grassroots education).
Thus, distinguished both from orthodoxy and state power, Hindu religion to
Gandhi stands for a message not of physical might, but of love—not only for one’s
“friends but love even to those who may be your enemies” (1986: 393). Thus,
Gandhi, in sharp contrast to Savarkar, appeals for spiritualizing politics, making it
softer. It is through this spiritualizing of politics that he sought to reject the attempts
to not only make political use of religion, but also considerably make politics more
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humane. This attempt by Gandhi saved politics from being used for bolstering power,
increasing social tensions, and the need to have more state control to maintain order.
4. NONVIOLENCE (AHIṂSĀ)
The idea of nonviolence that Gandhi made popular has two classical associations,
namely, Sāṅkhya and Jainism. Nonviolence is generally contrasted with violence.
However, Gandhi’s idea of nonviolence is in a triangular relation with violence and
inaction. This is reminiscent of the three guṇas—sattva (illumination), rajas (activity),
and tamas (inertia)—in Sāṅkhya. Thus, the concept NONVIOLENCE is contrasted not
only from VIOLENCE, but also equally, if not more, from INACTION. This is important
because while the contrast between violence and nonviolence is evident, what is not
emphasized is Gandhi’s further contrasting of violent action from inaction. He says in
Young India on August 11, 1920 that if “there is a choice only between cowardice and
violence,” he would advise “violence” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 21, 131). Having located
three kinds of actions in Gandhi within Sāṅkhya, there is another classical association
that needs attention. The Bhagavad Gītā had a singular impact on Gandhi. In the Gītā,
Krishna persuades a reluctant Arjuna to fight the war. War is a violent act, so the Gītā
is often interpreted to endorse violence. However, Gandhi advocated nonviolence.
This poses a serious problem. Let us discuss how Gandhi solved this problem.
4.1. Nonviolence in the Bhagavad Gītā

Gandhi did not accept the conventional reading of the Gītā as endorsing violence.
Those like Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Gandhi 1969: vol. 37, 175) and Savarkar (Gandhi
1969: vol. 37, 82) accepted this conventional reading and recommended the use of
violence in their fight against the British. It is against this formidable background
that Gandhi embarks on an unprecedented hermeneutical task, asserting, based
on detailed textual analysis, that the main idea behind the Gītā is to not endorse
violence. On the contrary, he claims, the text demonstrates the futility of violence.
This move has both hermeneutical importance and political relevance. Gandhi
ventures into a hermeneutic feat, or a heightened mīmāṃsā act when he declares,
contrary to the linear meaning of the text, that his reading of the epic Mahābhārata
presented “quite a different impression.” Vyāsa, says Gandhi, wrote the epic “to
depict the futility of war” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 33, 87).
Explicating the underlying reasons for the conventional reading of the text, he
does concede that Vyāsa described the epic as an incident in history. However, he
realized the allegorical nature of the epic when he read the Gujarati translation while
in jail. This proved to be a turning point in his understanding of this great epic.
Referring to his realization that the illustrations Vyāsa used are very beautiful, he says:
Just as in Aesop’s Fables, and in Tales from the Panchtantra, the authors have
created conversations among birds and animals to impart moral teaching, so
in the Mahabharata virtues and vices are personified, and great moral truths
347
conveyed through those figures. The description of the battle serves merely as a
pretext. (Gandhi 1969: vol. 37, 82)
Gandhi personally believes that “Duryodhana and his supporters stand for the
Satanic impulses in us, and Arjuna and others stand for Godly impulses in us. The
battle-field is our body” (1969: vol. 33, 88). This allusion to the symbolic nature of
the text is closer to the Sāṅkhya account of three guṇas associated with Yoga. The
associated Sāṅkhya traditions offers eight fundamental predispositions (bhāvas),
four of which are sāttvika (enlightened): dharma (virtue), jñāna (thoughtfulness),
vairāgya (calm dispassion), and aiśvarya (Lordship); and four of which are tāmasa
(recalcitrant): adharma (vice), ajñāna (unthoughtfulness), avairāgya (agitation), and
anaiśvarya (victimization). Referring to the three different realms, it is said:
The projective force of the fundamental predispositions, together with the subtle
body, generates not only the human realm but also an eightfold divine or cosmic
realm and a fivefold animal and plant realm. Taken together, the projected realms
are referred to as the external world (bhautikasarga), with sattva predominating
in the divine realm, rajas in the human realm, and tamas in the animal and plant
realm. (Larson 2012: 26)
Thus, the “physical battle is only an occasion for describing the battle-field of the
human body. In this view the names mentioned are not of persons but of the qualities
which they represent” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 37, 76). If we consider this, says Gandhi,
we will realize that “the Mahābhārata was not composed with the aim of describing
a battle” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 37, 82). Rather, he asserts, the “author has cleverly
made use of the event to teach great truths” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 37, 82). Given this
tricky nature of the plot and the literary style, he cautions that if the reader is not on
“his guard, he may be misled. The very nature of dharma is such that one may easily
fall into error if one is not vigilant” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 37, 82).
What is important here is that Gandhi takes on the colossal task of undermining the
endorsement of war and therefore violence, and ventures, or one might say adventures,
into claiming that the Gītā endorses sattva among the three guṇas, the other two being
rajas and tamas. A sattvic person does not get angry and cannot commit violence. The
Gītā advocates sattva, hence it cannot accept violence. Having made this larger claim,
he consolidates his interpretation that the Gītā does not endorse violence; on the
contrary, it advocates the practice of sattva, which is closer to nonviolence.
He further takes on the task of responding to Krishna’s advice to Arjuna to fight
in the war and not abstain from it. This is the most difficult issue that is at the
back of those who interpreted the text as advocating violence. Here too Gandhi
takes recourse to other cardinal virtues such as nonattachment (niṣkāmakarma).
The reason Krishna asked Arjuna to fight in the war is to move him from the state of
tamas to the rajasic state. Arjuna’s reluctance is not because of his sattvic nature as he
had “fought often enough in the past” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 37, 7). The reason for his
reluctance is not nonviolence but attachment toward his kinsmen. When Arjuna was
reluctant to kill, Krishna reminded him that you have already committed violence.
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By talking now like a wise man, you will not learn nonviolence. Having started on
this course, you must finish the job. Here, let us note that Gandhi distinguishes
inaction from nonviolent action.
So Gandhi clearly prefers violence (rajas), as already referred to earlier, if the
choice is between rajas and tamas, though he is clear and consistent in advocating
the doctrine of nonviolence. Given this standpoint, Gandhi sees in Krishna an
attempt to save Arjuna from relapsing into tamas, that is, inaction. It is this, says
Gandhi that made Krishna ask Arjuna to take to violence. So, Arjuna has already
committed violence, but now, by refraining to fight, he is relapsing into inaction
(tamas). Arjuna, says Gandhi, is “clouded by ignorant attachment” (1969: vol. 33,
87). Instead of this regression, given the circumstances, while nonviolence is the best
option, Krishna persuaded Arjuna to fight, in order to save him from this regression.
This is evident in Gandhi when he says:
If a passenger travelling in a train which is running at a speed of forty miles an
hour suddenly feels an aversion to travelling and jumps out of the train, he will
have but committed suicide. He has not in truth realized the futility of travelling
as such or of travelling by train. Arjuna was in a similar condition. Krishna who
believed in non-violence, could not have given Arjuna any advice other than what
he did. (Gandhi 1969: vol. 33, 87–88)
While Krishna’s advice to Arjuna was necessitated by the context, it, however, says
Gandhi, cannot be universalized and cannot be taken as Krishna endorsing violence.
Clarifying this Gandhi says, “But to conclude from this that the Gītā teaches violence
or justifies war is as unwarranted as to argue that, since violence in some form or other
is inescapable for maintaining the body in existence, dharma lies only in violence”
(1969: vol. 33, 88). On the contrary, he asserts, “the man of discriminating intellect
teaches the duty of striving for deliverance from the existing body through violence,
that is, the duty of striving for mokṣa” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 33, 88). Thus, Gandhi
clarifies his stand, depicting the Gītā as advocating nonviolence and explaining the
reason and the context behind Krishna’s advice to Arjuna to fight. This he does by
pointing out that violence is to be preferred to inaction, though nonviolence is the
first preference.
4.1.1. Niṣkāmakarma Sthitaprajña, Anasakti Another important and recurrent theme

in Gandhi’s interpretation of Gītā is niṣkāmakarma (desireless action, or performing
actions without attachment to outcomes). It has to do with “Sthitaprajña”—a person
who has become completely free from attachments and aversions (Gandhi 1969: vol.
37, 126). We should not be attached “even to a good work” (Gandhi 1969: vol. 37,
105). This makes the relation between action and the fruits of action contingent. The
attachment to action requires a separate sense of self, which, while giving oneself
individual identity, also distances one from the rest, and even from nature. Here we see
why Gandhi found the idea, in the Gītā, of performing actions without attachment to
either one’s action or fruits of action, profoundly interesting. It underlies his doctrine
of trusteeship and cooperation, which is the basis of sarvodaya (compassion for all). It
also is expressed in his idea of anasakti yoga (non-attached action).
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It is a common error to confuse the question of justifying duties with defining

duties. Justifying duties is a practical consideration: a matter of identifying criteria
for choosing actions. Defining duties is a matter of accounting for the goodness of
what is to be done. The disagreement between Consequentialists and Deontologists
amounts to the question of whether the criteria for choice also defines the goodness
of an action. Deontologists believe that the cognitive competence necessary for
choosing is different from what accounts for the goodness of an action (cf. Alexander
and Moore 2015). Consequentialists deny the distinction. For them, the goodness of
the action is its justification.
To return to viewing anasakti along the moral axis, this does not often enable
us to see the cognitive aspects that are at the background of the moral axis. What
anasakti suggests is not mere indifference to consequences. The answer in the Gītā
is not that actions are good in themselves or that they do not need to be defined
by outcomes. The answer is regarding the cognitive competence of the action. That
is, if you move your attention from the action and turn toward its results, you will
not be able to concentrate on your next action, but be distracted by the fruits of
action (an idea first articulated by the god, Death, in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad I.2–3). If
your concentration moves from A1 to R1, for it to come back to perform A2, it has
to move from R1. In this process, the performance of A2 will be less compared to
A1 and consequently the result of R2 will be less than R1. Thus, niṣkāma seems to
operate at the level of cognitive competence of actions by turning attention from the
fruits of actions to the task at hand. The criteria of choosing is hence different from
the states of affairs they bring about. Accordingly, there is a need to pay attention to
the underlying cognitive aspects that define the moral realm. Concentration, rather
than detachment, is the more overriding aspect in niṣkāmakarma. The moral idea of
detachment is a subset of the larger idea of concentration.
4.2. Jainism
Another classical Indian philosophical dimension of Gandhi’s theory of nonviolence
will be clear in relation to yet another Indian philosophical system, namely, Jainism,
one of the heterodox schools of Indian philosophy. His Collected Works amply attests
to the impression and influence popular Jainism of his native Gujarat had on him.
The multiple sources of Gandhi’s moral practice renders its philosophical
foundations murky. One can imagine the charge that Gandhi’s thinking on these
issues is ad hoc. Yet, Gandhi experimented with moral philosophy at a practical
level as sādhana, through application in social and political spheres, particularly in
the freedom struggle.
Gandhi is often remembered within the public imagination as a prophet of
nonviolence. This identification can be strongly anchored and rightly qualified as
reviving a fundamental ethical principle of not only Jainism, but also Patañjali’s Yoga.
Indeed, on this point, Yoga (Yoga Sūtra II.30) and Jainism (Ācāraṅga Sūtra II.15.i.1-
v.1, and Uttarādhyayana XXIII.12) are in agreement: the Mahāvratas (Great Vows)
are five values beginning with ahiṃsā, followed by satya (truth), abstinence from
theft (asteya), sexual restraint (brahmacarya), and unacquisitiveness (aparigraha).
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As a matter of sādhana, these values specify the order of practice: the first rule of
practice is ahiṃsā, but this allows us to realize the outcomes of the subsidiary values,
starting with truth. The only truth we can know is the one that does not harm us.
Jainism not only advocated nonviolence, but also provided a metaphysical
foundation for this ethical principle. Harm, on its account, is of the form of action,
which cleaves to the jīva, inhibiting the intrinsic virtue of the individual. (For more
on this, see Jayandra Soni’s chapter in this book on Jain Ethics.) The Jain presentation
of this idea is Virtue Ethics. Gandhi’s presentation is Deontological insofar as ahiṃsā
becomes the cognitive competence of ethical choice, conceptually distinct from the
beneficence (truth) of the outcome.
By reviving this classical philosophical idea of ahiṃsā (and its relationship to
truth), Gandhi becomes a modern icon, ingenuously presenting this classical principle
in a modern idiom so that it is accessible to common people. He, thus, skillfully
enlarged the availability of classical concepts of Indian philosophy. This move of
making philosophical ideas available to the public is a tremendous contribution of
those like Gandhi.
4.3. Independence
In addition to this democratic gesture, there is something adventurous about his
attempt. He embarks on this project against the backdrop of India’s freedom
struggle, growing Hindu–Muslim polarization in the 1930s and 1940s, culminating
in Partition, and with a pervading acceptance of the inevitability of violence
in social and political life in the world. These two were considered almost an
impossibility during the time preceding Gandhi. Not many believed in the British
leaving India, though they desired it in varying degrees. Reading the history of
this period lays this bare. For instance, it is reported that in 1907 the Indian
National Congress met at Surat in Gujarat where the moderates estimated India
would achieve independence over the next two or three centuries. So, the process
that culminated in 1947 had to go through several installments of hope, marginal
achievements, and several rounds of struggles at various regions, and finally at
the national and international levels. There was progress; there were also glitches
and obstacles. Looking at this history from the point of view of installments of
success will be qualitatively different from making a register of these from the
vantage point of 1947. The other thing that was considered an impossibility was
nonviolence as a political instrument to achieve independence. This is a common
belief held by many. Nonviolence did not figure even marginally. Nonviolence as a
political instrument and India’s freedom were not considered a possibility together.
Against such a jarring backdrop of impossibility, Gandhi brings nonviolence to the
center stage of Indian politics. This long discussion of nonviolence in Gandhi
demonstrates the complexity in modern Indian thinkers who operate at both the
traditional and the modern levels. A clear and straightforward discussion is not
proper or even not possible in their case.
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5. TRUTH (SATYA)
An idea that has not become as prominent in the public imagination as nonviolence,
with respect to Gandhi’s thought, is TRUTH. Between TRUTH and nonviolence, Gandhi
gave more conceptual importance to the former. He himself admits this in a letter
to Ranchhodlal Patwari:
By instinct I have been truthful, but not non-violent . . . I put the former in the
first place and the latter in the second place. For, as (a Jain muni) puts it, I was
capable of sacrificing non-violence for the sake of truth. In fact, it was in the
course of my pursuit of truth that I discovered non-violence. (1950: 3)
Given the primacy Gandhi accorded to Truth, there is a need to retrieve the
importance of the idea of Truth and install it at the center of public discourse.
Truth in Gandhi’s hands undergoes a radical and fundamental transformation from
ordinary linguistic ideas of truth. First, he makes a massive move when he swaps
the relation between God and Truth. He makes a move where he reverses “God is
Truth” to “Truth is God.” These statements need not be read as establishing identity
but as consisting of part and whole.
Let us identify the underlying algorithm in these statements. In the earlier formula,
Truth becomes a subset of a whole that is God. Strictly speaking, this makes Truth
available to those who believe in God. Truth thereby becomes a part, an instrument
in the hands of religion and theology. It remains inaccessible to those who do not
believe in God. So nonbelievers are outsiders to Truth. That is, for someone who
wants to embrace Truth, it becomes mandatory to believe in God. This prerequisite
may discourage some, if not become an impediment to many, who want to access
Truth. For instance, there are atheists like Gora who are followers of nonviolence.
Thus, the nonbelievers are not admitted into the domain of Truth. The change that
Gandhi embarks on, the swapping that he initiates, removes this obstacle. In this move
God becomes either identical with or a part of the Truth. This, thereby, makes Truth
accessible to both those who believe and those who do not. This, thus, enormously
extends the purview of the domain of Truth and accomplishes extensive inclusions. In
contemporary moral and political discourse, this is a radical move by Gandhi. While
his idea NONVIOLENCE has its roots in the classical Indian philosophy he, however, in a
way neutralizes this relation and brings this concept into the center stage of modern
society in an unusual way and at a remarkable time. What he does with regard to
truth is radical. It secularizes the philosophical resources he employs to articulate his
ethics, rendering his tradition the solution to the challenges of a diverse world.
6. COMBINING TRUTH AND NONVIOLENCE

I have traversed some of the ethical ideas and ideals of Gandhi with regard to modern
civilization, nonviolence, and truth, anchoring the last two within the classical
tradition and identifying their modified nature. Now let me discuss an important
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feature that distinguishes Gandhi from others, particularly his predecessors and
contemporaries. This is with regard to his relationship with the ordinary people,
particularly in India. Something interesting about this relationship needs to be
highlighted. On close observation, this bond between Gandhi and the common
people is not always from top to bottom as leader and follower. At times it is from
bottom to top, as the leader fulfilling democratic demands and representing the
aspirations of the people. This bottom–up relationship is identified and clearly
highlighted by the Marxist politician and thinker, E. M. S. Namboodiripad. He
recognizes the fact that Gandhi relates himself with the masses. He says that:
one point of departure between Gandhi on the one hand, and all other politicians
of those days on the other, was that, unlike the latter, Gandhi associated himself
with the masses of the people, their lives, problems, sentiments and aspirations.
Politics for him was not a matter of high-level debate among erudite politicians;
it was a matter of selfless servants of the people associating themselves with
everything that is of the people. This characteristic feature of Gandhism in
action was already visible in the South African struggle in which . . . Gandhi drew
inspiration and sustenance from the simple and devoted action of the common
people . . . It was this passion for close association with the common people, this
desire to familiarize himself with living conditions and problems of the people,
that made Gandhi slowly evolve a technique of political work which was as
different from the technique of the “extremists” school as that of the “moderate.”
(1958: 19; emphasis in the original)
Namboodiripad further points out that:
[Though Gandhi] . . . did not rouse the people against imperialism, landlordism,
and other forms of oppression, he spoke of the miseries of people, the inequality
that existed in the country, the necessity of redressing the grievances of people.
There was not one section of people whose problems he did not study, whose
miserable conditions he did not bring out, for whose comfort and solace he did
not plead with his audience. It was this that enabled him to attract the various
sections of the poor and downtrodden masses. (1958: 36)
The significance about these passages is the close association between Gandhi and the
common people, the contingent relation between being close to people and raising
large problems of economic exploitation, and the difference between immediate real
problems and larger economic issues. More specifically, it points out the difference
between particular and even the aggregate of particulars that is alluded to on one
hand, and the general that is bereft of the particular, on the other.
In addition, this seems to underlie his decision to shed the modern dress and wear
the simple white dhoti (loin cloth) and extensively travel, especially across rural
India, thereby creating new political spaces of pilgrimage. This visual presentation
has enormously facilitated the common people of India to identify themselves with
him and his programs. This also seems to have clarified to the people many of their
doubts about his actions and views. In comparison, the combination of saffron dress
and wandering of Swami Vivekananda or a simple white dress and seclusion in an
353
ashram like a traditional sage, such as Sri Aurobindo, dispatched different signals
to common people. Choosing white yet wandering, or alternatively, giving up the
saffron dress and seclusion, and further identifying the white with homespun cloth
(khādī), not only symbolized the purity associated with white, but also brought into
the ethics of contemporary costume designing, the labor of the common people.
Here, Gandhi’s practice resonates with the philosophy of the Buddha. Buddha
discarded the practice by earlier Vedic seers who were seekers of the truth, withdrawing
into forests to do penance. Instead, he turned to the people he met to form the
saṅgha (community). This Buddhist legacy of wandering among the people underlies
Gokhale’s recommendation to Gandhi to tour the country to know its people.
6.1. Ethics of Consumption (Aparigraha)

Internal criticism always preceded in Gandhi the other two forms of criticism
highlighted in the West, namely, criticism and self-criticism. Unlike in the discourse
of modernity where criticism leads to denouncing what is given, and Fanon who
attributes all the problems of the native to colonialism, Gandhi and contemporary
Indian philosophers like Vivekananda and Aurobindo, while maintaining their
critique of colonialism, simultaneously embarked on pointing out the internal evils
and problems within Indian society.3 Another important idea that is available in
Gandhi is, while liberals beginning from Adam Smith highlighted the realm of
production, and Karl Marx the importance of distribution, Gandhi emphasized the
ethics of consumption.
Further, there are those like Judith Brown, who while discussing the contribution
of Gandhi, point out that the British had already decided to leave India, thereby
reducing the contribution of Gandhi and struggle for Indian freedom. To quote her:
In the long term, Gandhi’s nonviolent campaigns did not bring about the British
decision to leave India. This was a decision precipitated by wartime politics, but
also reflective of the declining significance, over a long period, of India to Britain
and its Empire. (2011: 66)
However, adds Brown,
as the British government in London was contemplating the timing of British
withdrawal from India, it was aware that any further large-scale campaigns of
civil resistance would be politically and practically impossible to combat given
the declining power of the British regime in India. (2011: 66)
While conceding Brown’s claim for the sake of argument, which appears to reduce
the significance of Gandhi and the Indian freedom struggle, her argument is one-
sided. In this context, Gandhi, more than anyone else, saw through the bravado of the
opponent and changed strategies in dealing with the Empire. This understanding—
by Gandhi the agent about his opponent—rather than combat, is what reveals the
ingenuity of Gandhi the activist.
Here I wish to take Brown’s argument in two other directions. One, to the nature
of British entry into India, and two, the predicament after they left, to highlight the
354
ingenuity of those like Gandhi. Let me begin with the latter, conceding to Brown
that Gandhi’s nonviolent campaigns “did not bring about the British decision to
leave India,” and that their leaving was “precipitated by wartime politics.” However,
what Brown does not recognize is the enormous task of receiving the independence
after British left. The work of the freedom struggle does not end, as assumed by
Brown, in gaining independence, as there is a further task of receiving it. That is, the
freedom struggle consists not only of sending out the outsiders, but also in claiming
what is left by those who were colonized. The ingenuity of those like Gandhi lies
in making sure that India is received back by Indians, at the very juncture of India’s
independence. This is an enormous achievement given the historical fact that the
British did not capture a single geographically unified nation, but occupied several
principalities and tried to put them together as a nation. Brown’s failure lies in
not taking into consideration this second aspect of the freedom struggle. In this
context, it may be of interest to note that India as a nation was handed over mostly
to lawyers. Gandhi contributed, though with varying success, in facilitating this
takeover process. This is a remarkable achievement given the size of the subcontinent
and the complex contrasting agencies involved in this process.
Now about the first point: while nonviolence was not necessary to obtain
freedom—it might have been possible to procure it through armed resistance—what
is important to recognize is that it was the second possible option to combat the
British. Again, Gandhi’s ingenuity lies in recognizing it, unlike others who thought
of using violence to gain freedom. Violence, even if it had worked, would not have
matched with the entry of the British into India. To make this point clear we need
to examine the nature of the Raj’s entry into India. There is a radical difference
between other forms of invasion and British entry into India. While most other
forms of invasions are through physical fighting, in contrast, the British did not use
explicit violence to enter the region that was later called India. It was parigraha—
acquisitiveness—that lead them. They may have subsequently used explicit violence
to maintain their presence in India. If they entered without using explicit violence,
then using explicit violence to drive them out would not have been a good match. So
the nonviolence from this point of view can be seen as a proper answer to this peculiar
situation. It lead to the British adopting an attitude of aparigraha toward India, which
would have been diminished had violence been the means of expulsion, resulting in
costs to the British. It is as though the practical syllogism of the Mahāvratas brought
to bear: Indian ahiṃsā leads to the aparigraha of the British. There are two points
here: the nature of British entry into India, rather than Gandhi, may have to be
credited for this; however, Gandhi’s ingenuity, unlike other radical Indians, lies in
reading the question before him and coming up with the matching answer.
7. CONCLUSION
To sum up, Gandhi is not a systematic academic author like Śaṅkara or Nāgārjuna who
presented systematic philosophies. He is an activist who made use of philosophy for
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his purposes. In order to capture this and decipher unique aspects associated with him,
I have identified four distinct features. One, his roots in premodern tradition, though
not necessarily what is identified by Basham. Two, there is a relationship he comes to
have with the outside, in this case, the West, though not in the way conceded by Basham
or claimed by Bilgrami as the typical Western response to moral challenges. Three,
another dimension is his relationship with the common people. This is pointed out by
the Marxist politician thinker, Namboodiripad, though we find Buddhist antecedents
to this. Finally, those like Gandhi had to inhabit something radically different from
the West. Unlike in the West where modernity disinherited the premodern through a
series of exclusions, both of these coexist in modern India. Thus, the tradition, West,
common people, and the unique relationship between the premodern and modern
surround and form the context of Gandhi. Within these broad parameters Gandhi
effectively articulated philosophical ideas of nonviolence and truth to a diverse crowd.
While other Indian intellectuals tried to revise Indian philosophy in a manner
that reflected the values of Europeans, Gandhi saw the political potential of the
moral philosophies of the various related Indian traditions he relied on. It is an
Orientalist fashion to depict Indian moral philosophies as antisocial, otherworldly,
and unconcerned with practical matters. Yet, Gandhi relied on these resources to
fashion a different response to imperialism that consisted of both ideas and actions;
thus there is activist orientation to Gandhi’s ethics. This is both important and
interesting as it worked.
NOTES
1. The consequences of not paying attention to this, by those like B. K. Matilal, which
lead to temporal imbalance in comparing classical Indian philosophy with modern
Western philosophy is discussed in Raghuramaraju (2006).
2. See more on this in essays including Daya Krishna’s (1989) and Larson and
Deutsche’s (1989).
3. For more on this, see the chapter “Internal Criticism” in Raghuramaraju (2011).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, Larry, and Michael Moore. Spring 2015. “Deontological Ethics.” In Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Thaddeus Metz. http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/spr2015/entries/ethics-deontological; accessed Spring 2015.
Basham, A. L. 2006. “Traditional Influences on the Thought of Mahatma Gandhi.” In
Debating Gandhi: A Reader, edited by A. Raghuramaraju, 19–44. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Bilgrami, Akeel. 2006. “Gandhi’s Integrity: The Philosophy Behind the Politics.”
In Debating Gandhi: A Reader, edited by A. Raghuramaraju, 248–268. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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Brown, Judith. 2011. “Gandhi as National Leader, 1915–1948.” In Cambridge

Companion to Gandhi, edited by Judith M. Brown and Anthony Parel, 51–68.
Gandhi, M. K. 1950. Hindu Dharma, edited by Bharatan Kumarappa.
Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.
Gandhi, M. K. 1968. The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi: The Voice of Truth, edited
by Sriman Narayana. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.
Gandhi, M. K. 1969. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. New Delhi: Publication
Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.
Gandhi, M. K. 1986. The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by
Raghavan Iyer. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gandhi, M. K. 1989. Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Ahmedabad: Navajivan
Publishing House.
Gandhi, M. K. 2004. Soul Force: Gandhi’s Writings on Peace. UK: Tara Publishing.
Hegel, G. W. F. 2001. Philosophy of Right. Translated by S. W. Dyde. Kitchener: Batoch
Books. http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hegel/right.pdf; accessed
Spring 2015.
Iyer, Raghavan N. 2013. The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press. Originally published 1973.
Larson, Gerald J. 2012. “Introduction to the Philosophy of Samkhya.” In
Encyclopaedia of Indian Philosophies, edited by Gerald James Larson and Ram
Shankar Bhattacharya, 3–83. Vol. 4, of Samkhya: A Dualist Tradition in Indian
Philosophy, edited by Karl Potter. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Original edition 1987.
Larson, G. J., and Eliot Deutsche. 1989. Interpreting across Boundaries: New Essays in
Comparative Philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Namboodiripad, E. M. S. 1958. The Mahatma and the Ism. Calcutta: National Book
Agency.
Patañjali. 2008. Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra: Translation, Commentary and Introduction by
Shyam Ranganathan. Black Classics. Delhi: Penguin Black Classics.
Raghuramaraju, A. 2006. Debates in Indian Philosophy: Classical, Colonial and
Contemporary. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Raghuramaraju, A. 2011. Modernity in Indian Social Theory. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Raghuramaraju, A. 2013. Philosophy and India: Ancestors, Outsiders and Predecessors.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Raghuramaraju, A. 2014. Debating Vivekananda: A Reader. New Delhi Oxford
University Press.
Savarkar, V. D. 1967. Historical Statements, edited by S. S. Savarkar and G. M. Joshi.
Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
Savarkar, V. D. 1989. Hindutva. Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Ethics of Radical

Equality: Vivekananda
and Radhakrishnan’s Neo-
Hinduism as a Form of
Spiritual Liberalism1
ASHWANI PEETUSH
1. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter I explore how Swami Vivekananda and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s
development of Advaita Vedānta has an enormous impact on Neo-Hindu, and indeed,
Indian, self-understandings of ethics and politics. I contend that Vivekananda and
Radhakrishnan both conceive of the spirit of Hinduism as a radical form of equality
that lies at the heart of an Advaitic (monistic) interpretation of the Upaniṣads. This
metaphysical monism of consciousness of self and other in Advaita paves a solid
conceptual road to an ethic of radical equality in both the personal and the political
spheres. In the political realm, I argue, Advaita for Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan
grounds a profound critique of caste hierarchy. I show here how Vivekananda
and Radhakrishnan see this enterprise through and mount an inclusive attack on
caste. I contend that Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan’s conception of Hinduism
is a form of what I call “Spiritual Liberalism.” That is, it is a view that grounds
the equal individual freedom and opportunity of each member of a community to
pursue whichever conception of the spiritual good she chooses and with which she
most resonates. I contend that this is an evolving implication of the metaphysics of
Advaita. My arguments in this chapter are a part of a larger project of building a
substantive overlapping consensus on basic political values from different moral,
ethical, philosophical, and spiritual comprehensive perspectives (Maritain 1948;
Rawls 1993, 1999; Taylor 1999; Peetush 2014).
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358 ASHWANI PEETUSH
I also should note that my use of “spiritual” in Spiritual Liberalism is in the modern
sense that Charles Taylor (1999) employs it: the spiritual for me concerns questions
of ultimate meaning, significance, and purpose—this would include Theistic as well
as non-Theistic perspectives. Let me also emphasize that, in my view, Vivekananda
and Radhakrishnan’s interpretation of Hinduism is only one type of a Spiritual
Liberalism; in fact, I would argue that Hinduism itself—apart from factions such as
Hindutva—is a dynamic and growing family of such interrelated, multilayered and
diverse forms of Spiritual Liberalisms. In addition, my concept of Spiritual Liberalism
includes many traditions from around the world: for example, Yoga schools, Bhakti
movements, Jainism, Buddhism, Sufism, Universalist Unitarianism, and the Bahá’í
religion, to list only a few.
How might liberalism, which emerges in seventeenth–eighteenth-century Europe,
in part as a political response to the inability of religion to cope with diversity, be
related to Hinduism—a movement so far removed historically and culturally? Any
purported connection would seem implausible. On the contrary, I demonstrate that
the similarities are much stronger than one might think. Indeed, I argue that there are
significant points of conceptual and normative overlap between Hinduism and that of
liberalism; I explore how such overlap emerges and is solidified in Vivekananda and
Radhakrishnan’s reading of Hinduism. Minimally, I take liberalism as a normative
political philosophy that centers on values such as individual freedom (e.g., of each
member of a community to choose and revise her substantive conception of the good),
equality, state neutrality, tolerance and respect for diversity, secularism, and basic rights,
among other such principles. I understand that the articulation and prioritization of
such values has given rise to wide divergences ranging from left liberalism to Neo-
Libertarianism (see Rawls 1993; for a brilliant contextual history of liberalism, see
Bell 2014). I argue that, in the context and framework of the transcendental and
spiritual, Hinduism is similarly grounded on pivotal values such as the freedom of
each individual or jīva to choose whichever conception of the spiritual good that she
decides. Hinduism understands a broad range of diversity and plurality of such views
as being equally legitimate and worthy of respect and recognition.
What about equality, however? Is Hinduism not by now understood by its
infamous and nefarious connection to caste hierarchy and other kinds of social
inequality? To be sure, while casteism is a part of the development of Hinduism,
I show here that such hierarchy and inequality are also in fact historically and
conceptually contested within Hinduism on undeniably key Hindu tenets, such as
that of Advaita Vedānta, among others; such arguments explicitly emerge as early as
the fourteenth century, if not earlier. Indeed, with regard to the metaphysical and
normative framework of Hinduism, Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan contend that
caste inequality is ethically, socially, economically, and politically inconsistent with
the radical equality that critically defines the metaphysical monism of self and other
in Advaita Vedānta—an equality that is argued to be a part of the nuclei of historical,
religious, and philosophical movements of Hinduism.
I would contend that such a normative reading of Hinduism is often given far too
little attention or too easily dismissed, especially in light of criticisms as that made
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NEO-HINDUISM: RADICAL EQUALITY, SPIRITUAL LIBERALISM 359
by philologist Paul Hacker (1995), which I also address in this chapter. I realize, of
course, that texts and traditions are internally diverse and contested; they speak with
a multiplicity of voices and are formed by histories of conflict and struggle between
the powerful and the oppressed; as such I understand that there are no “raw”
uninterpreted texts or traditions, free from the histories of such power struggles. In
addition, I recognize that various contradictory values and practices always exist in
complex historical traditions. In fact, John Locke, the father of liberalism (for many),
himself justified the theft of indigenous land on a Liberal basis since Aboriginal
peoples did not understand the Liberal notion of private property, John Stuart Mill
justified the colonization of India because Indians did not understand the Liberal
ideal of individual autonomy, and NeoLiberals continue to interpret liberalism in a
manner that allows for the grossest economic inequalities in history, despite John
Rawls’s convincing arguments that individual freedom is meaningless without basic
economic conditions. Now, my point here is that if it is legitimate for Westerners to
debate, reconstruct, and rethink the nature and histories of liberalism, for example,
the same freedom should be afforded to other traditions as well; such traditions
cannot be simply painted with the same facile broad strokes of a brush that hastily
glosses over contested and subtle philosophies and histories that must be explored if
we are to gain insight into the nuanced complexities of ancient traditions, texts, and
self-understandings that are still alive and continue to flourish.
2. THE ETHICS OF RADICAL EQUALITY

Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan recognize (unlike their critics) that Hinduism
is not some sort of static or homogeneous doctrine: “Hinduism is a movement,
not a position; a process, not a result; a growing tradition, not a fixed revelation”
(Radhakrishnan 1988: 92). It is a living, breathing, and growing tradition that
contains some of the most diverse philosophical and religious doctrines and
practices—defined minimally by its continuance in paying homage to the literature of
the Vedas. The history of Hinduism is one of amalgamation, addition, and inclusion,
containing a plurality of Theistic and non-Theistic doctrines and practices, explicitly
eschewing exclusivist and singular soteriologies. As a living and growing tradition,
Radhakrishnan argues that Hinduism is a process, it is a form of becoming; as such,
it needs to be continuously interpreted and reinterpreted to account for all that we
continue to learn about what it is for sentient beings like us (and not like us) to live
together and share saṃsāra or this world.
Radhakrishnan urges that we need to “look upon our ancient faith with fresh
eyes,” as there is “much wood that is dead and diseased and that has to be cleared
away” (1988: 92). Indeed, both Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan vehemently
attempt to “cut the dead and diseased wood,” of caste and gender inequality. They
seek a deeper sense of identity in what they see as the underlying principles of
Hinduism that cohere with what we have come to learn about basic justice and
equality. Against the “cries of conservatives” (Radhakrishnan 1988: 91), when there
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360 ASHWANI PEETUSH
is no historical or conceptual precedence, they are willing to construct and create

and forge new possibilities for Hinduism. Indeed, as Vivekananda contends, religion
is neither beyond the ken of reason nor should it ever be so; this would be to give
way to fanaticism and violence (1964–1970: vol. 2, 335). Traditions must change in
the face of arguments about basic justice and equality—and thus interpret and justify
text and tradition in their best possible light—indeed, this is what it is “to light a
candle in the darkness” against fanaticism (Radhakrishnan 1988: 92).
Radhakrishnan and Vivekananda develop the ethical intuitions that emerge
from the radical metaphysical equality at the core of Advaita Vedānta. I would
contend that monism, in the hands of Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan, provides
a significant and lasting contribution to ethical inquiry, not only in India, but also
in general. In their thought, metaphysics cannot be separated from ethics, at both
an ontological and a conceptual level, and at a psychological or motivational level.
What the right thing to do is or the right kind of person to be cannot be separated
from the inquiry into the nature of the Good—and this is a metaphysical question,
as it is inextricably tied to the nature of Being and the cosmos itself—the former
cannot be given a sufficient response without profound reflection on the latter
(Radhakrishnan 1914: 168). Although Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan break with
tradition in numerous ways, the structure of their ethical reasoning complements
ancient Indian philosophy, almost all of which is a response to the ethical question
of how to live a life that is free from duḥkha or existential suffering. It is assumed
that a right understanding of the cosmos (metaphysics, ontology) will give us a right
understanding of the Good—this is not unusual, of course, as most ancient Greek
philosophy too proceeds in this manner (e.g., Plato, Aristotle)—as philosophy is
always to be grounded in the practice of ethics.
Indeed, Brian Black (2015b) shows that grounding ethics in metaphysics is
widespread in ancient Indian sources. For example, in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad
(4.4.23), Yāgñavalkya instructs Janaka that knowledge of the true self, or the Ātman
as pervading all things, leads to freedom from evil, stain, and doubt. For “he sees the
self (Ātman) in himself (Ātman) and all things as the self;” such a person becomes
“calm, restrained, withdrawn, patient, composed” (translation from Olivelle 1996;
see also Radhakrishnan 2000: 280). This establishes the normative and ethical based
on the ontology of the Self: a person who knows the Self, attains the Good. Another
fascinating example occurs in the Mahābhārata (12.308.128) where Sulabhā in her
debate with Janaka makes an explicit argument that knowledge of the ontological
nondual nature of the Self leads to a particular ethic of equality (Black 2015a).
She criticizes the king: “You see the Self within yourself with the knowledge of the
Self. But if you have attained impartiality, why can’t you see the Self in others with
the same knowledge?” Indeed, if the king were truly “freed from duality,” then
his treatment of his enemy and friend would be the same. This again grounds the
normative and ethical in the metaphysical picture of the nondual nature of the Self
and other (see also Arti Dhand 2007 for an interesting commentary on this passage).
A dramatic interpretation that employs Advaita Vedānta specifically as explicitly
grounding a particular form of an ethic as a matter of conceptual necessity occurs in
361
the well-known fourteenth-century hagiography of Ādi Śaṅkara, the Śaṅkara-Dig-

Vijaya of Mādhava. Andrew Nicholson argues (forthcoming) that the radical ethical
implications of Śaṅkara’s ontological framework were well- known in medieval
India— even if the philosopher Śaṅkara himself did not acknowledge them. In
the often-told story, Śaṅkara comes across a caṇḍāla (outcaste) and his four dogs.
Afraid that he, a brahmin, will be polluted by the potential touch of the caṇḍāla,
Śaṅkara asks the caṇḍāla to move out of the way. The caṇḍāla chides him, arguing
that Śaṅkara has failed to live up to the ethics of his metaphysical commitments.
This story makes explicit that a true understanding of the ontological/metaphysical
nature of monism of the Self and other in Advaita makes necessary a particular
form of ethics: that of radical equality between self and other, at the level of the
phenomenal world to the extent that it requires the obliteration of caste hierarchy.
The hunter asks:
You are always going about preaching that the Vedas teach the non-dual Brahman
to be the only reality and that He is immutable and unpollutable. If this is so,
how has this sense of difference overtaken you? . . . You asked me to move aside
and make way for you. To whom were your words addressed, O learned Sir? To
the body which comes from the same source and performs the same functions
in the case of both a Brahmana and an outcaste? Or the Atman, the witnessing
Consciousness, which too is the same in all unaffected by anything in the body?
How does such differences [sic] as “This is a Brahmana, this is an outcaste” arise in
non-dual experience. O revered teacher! Is the sun changed in the least, if it reflects
in a liquor pot or in the holy Ganga? How can you indulge in such false sentiments,
“Being a Brahmana I am pure; and you, dog-eater, must therefore, give way for
me”—when the truth is that the one universal and unblemishable Spirit, Himself
bodiless, is shining in all bodies. Forgetting out of infatuation one’s own true nature
as the Spirit—beyond thought and words, unmanifest, beginningless, endless, and
pure—how have you come to identify yourself with the body which is unsteady like
the ears of an elephant? If you say that your conduct is meant only for the guidance
of the world, even then how can you explain such conduct in the light of the non-
dualistic doctrine? Wonderful indeed, is the magic of the great Magician which
infatuates the ignorant and the learned alike! (Mādhava 1986: 59–60)
Śaṅkara is then said to be shocked by the truth of these words and takes the outcaste
as his teacher. Now of course, being a hagiography, an idealized story, I am certainly
not claiming that this actually happened to the historical Ādi Śaṅkara—but this
is not somehow critical to my argument in the least. My point is that as early as
the fourteenth century in India, we find an explicit philosophical argument in the
story that develops the radical ontological identity of Advaitan metaphysics as a
basis for radical ethical, social, and political equality: to the point of undermining
the caste system. This is no small ethical, social, and political achievement in the
history of philosophy, not just in India, but also, in fact, to the entire history of
philosophy (including the West). This is one of the first clear ethical arguments for
an emancipatory politics—ever.
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362 ASHWANI PEETUSH
Indeed, here we see a departure from Ādi Śaṅkara’s own view of Advaita, where at
the start of the Brahma Sūtra Bhāṣya, he argues that identification of the phenomenal
self with the other (I and thou) superimpose the false characteristics of object on subject,
thus creating a phenomenal unity that is the worldly self. This unity of phenomenal self
and other, as the worldly self, is what needs to be transcended for Śaṅkara. But the
new argument contends that the failure to understand the truth of the self is a failure
to understand the unity of persons, where identification of self and other is a potential
route to liberation, not an obstruction. This is typical of Neo-Vedānta Monism and it
might be argued that, indeed, it was Ādi Śaṅkara who himself had failed to grasp the
implications of his own metaphysical framework: that is, how living in the phenomenal
world of relationships in saṃsāra can be a route to enlightenment, not a roadblock.
Nicolson emphasizes that Ramakrishna, Vivekananda’s revered teacher, was
rather fond of this story. In fact, let me point out that Vivekananda cites a similar
story, and although he does not mention Śaṅkara, he uses this story to illustrate that
a brahmin priest who attempts to avoid the low-caste in the street has not really
understood Vedānta at all (1964–1970: vol. 1, 427). For if such knowledge were
truly grasped it would require virtuous action, that is, virtuous action in saṃsāra
would be evidence of true understanding. But not just any virtuous action, Advaita
necessitates a specific kind of virtuous action: those who were once considered the
lowest of the low, at the social and political sphere of society, the outcastes, must be
accorded equal respect and seen as none other than the self.
Now, let us look more closely at the philosophical argument that grounds this
story. The higher goal of Advaita is to realize the totality of the whole or Being, to
see the other as oneself, and oneself as the other. As Radhakrishnan argues: “Vedanta
postulates the absolute oneness of all things” (1914: 168). This is a rather radical
form of equality as it not only destroys caste hierarchy, but also includes all sentient
beings. Radhakrishnan thus quotes from a famous passage of the Bhagavad Gītā in
which Krishna asserts:
In a Brahmana endowed with wisdom and humility, in a cow, in an elephant, as
also in a dog and dog-eater [śvapāke, outcaste], the wise see the same [Ātman].
(Radhakrishnan 1914: 168; Gītā 5.18)
The metaphysical and ontological claim of identity of self and other is used to
ground the ethical normative claim for this radical form of equality that “requires us
to look upon all creation as one” (Radhakrishnan 1914: 169). The integral identity
of pure consciousness in self and other gives rise to an ethical precept to treat the
other as coequal, in a spirit of abheda or non-difference:
The individual is [therefore] enjoined to cultivate a spirit of abheda, or non-
difference. Thus, the metaphysics of the Vedanta naturally leads to the ethics of
love and brotherhood. Every other individual is to be treated as your coequal,
and treated as an end and not a means. (Radhakrishnan 1914: 169)
Referring to the same passage in the Gītā, Vivekananda argues that “this is the gist of
Vedāntic morality—this sameness for all” (1964–1970: vol. 1, 425–426).
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Historically, both Vivekananda’s and Radhakrishnan’s work is, in part, influenced

by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) and Paul Deussen (1845–1919), two German
philosophers who explored the ethics nascent in an Advaitic interpretation of the
Upaniṣads. Two passages that both Schopenhauer and Deussen used to illustrate
such an ethic were also from the Gītā. The reasoning is as above: if the same Self
exists in all, then to harm another is to harm the self in one:
Alike in all beings
Existing the Supreme Lord
Not perishing when they perish
Who sees him, truly sees. (Gītā 13.27)
The realization of metaphysical monism of the Supreme Lord (which Advaitans
interpret as Supreme Self), leads to a particular form of ethics:
For seeing in all the same
Lord established
He does not harm the Self by the self [na hinasy Ātmanā’ tmānaṃ]
Then he goes to the highest goal. (Gītā 13:28)
Importantly, let me note that this interpretation of the ethics of Advaita Vedānta
provides a response to moral skepticism about why one should be concerned with
the well-being of others; indeed, a key problem that plagues both ancient and
modern ethics is why should I care about anyone other than myself. Vivekananda
in this regard is swayed by Deussen’s work (see Deussen 1930). Such a skepticism
is thwarted in this view for the reason that the self of the other is indeed one’s own
self: they are one. As Vivekananda asserts:
We have always heard it preached, “Love one another.” What for? That doctrine
was preached, but the explanation is here. Why should I love every one? Because
they and I are one. Why should I love my brother? Because he and I are one.
There is this oneness; this solidarity of the whole universe. From the lowest worm
that crawls under our feet to the highest beings that ever lived—all have various
bodies, but are the one Soul . . . There is nothing beyond me. Fear ceases, and
then alone comes perfect happiness and perfect love. That universal sympathy,
universal love, universal bliss, that never changes, raises man above everything.
It has no reactions and no misery can touch it; but this little eating and drinking
of the world always brings a reaction. The whole cause of it is this dualism, the
idea that I am separate from the universe, separate from God. But as soon as we
have realised that “I am He, I am the Self of the universe, I am eternally blessed,
eternally free”—then will come real love, fear will vanish, and all misery cease.
(1964–1970: vol. 2, 414–415)
Such a conception of self establishes a virtuous circle, a true understanding of reality
makes necessary, in the strongest possible sense, virtuous action; and, at the same
time, virtuous action in saṃsāra leads to a true understanding of reality, as it opens
one’s heart to the same reality in others.
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364 ASHWANI PEETUSH
In the last part of this section, I want to consider a number of objections

made by Paul Hacker against Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan as being “pseudo-
Vedāntins” (1995: 294, 296, 297), as well as against Schopenhauer’s and Deussen’s
interpretations. These objections have gained some currency. I contend that they
are deeply misguided. Hacker argues that the above reading of Advaita is absurd;
let me note that Hacker often equivocates on just what his criticism means; at
times he means that such a reading is (i) philosophically and conceptually absurd,
as monists supposedly cannot have any ethical system; indeed, he claims that such
a view is a “logical monstrosity”; and, at other times (ii) he means that such a
reading is historically unprecedented and thus a historical distortion of the Advaitan
school (1995: 305–306). I take issue with both claims here. Let me start with the
conceptual claim.
Hacker borrows his conceptual philosophical objection from Albert Schweitzer.
Hacker argues that “there is no route from the monism of consciousness to ethics”
(1995: 277). Indeed, to found an ethic on “Vedāntic monism of consciousness is a
logical impossibility” (Hacker 1995: 305). As the identity of self with consciousness
contained in the “logical monstrosity” of tat tvam asi [you are that] (Hacker
1995: 306–307) is always “supra-ethical” (Hacker 1995: 305–306). The supposed
problem with an ethical reading of Advaita is that “all volition and action are an
unreal objective appearance, [thus they] cannot be the basis of my behavior toward
another” (Hacker 1995: 277) and “ethical behavior presupposes an interpersonal
relationship, which loses its metaphysical justification if individual personhood has
no ultimate responsibility” (Hacker 1995: 305).
Let me respond. First, I contend that Hacker’s objection presupposes a view of
ethics that is unnecessarily narrow and arbitrarily stipulative. It not only distorts
ethics as a form of philosophical inquiry but also blatantly gets the history of
philosophy plain wrong. A cursory examination of the history of ethics in the West
alone shows that ethics is and continues to be understood much more widely as
a philosophical examination of what it is to live the Good life in general, what
it is to live a meaningful and purposeful life, and what such a life contains—and
importantly what constitutes the nature of the Good, metaphysically (see also
Ranganathan 2008, 2015). Ethics is not limited to interpersonal moral norms and
injunctions. In this there is a long and venerable history in the West alone, which
includes Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, and more recently Charles Taylor,
Michael Sandal, and Martha Nussbaum, to name only a few—all fall within such
a tradition of ethics. Ethics concerns a multiplicity of questions into the nature of
the Good and the Right and such questions are indeed inextricably related to larger
metaphysics and ontology.
This brings me to Hacker’s/Schweitzer’s curious assertion that Vedāntic monism
is “supra-ethical,” so it cannot be ethical. Given the intimate connection between
metaphysics and ethics, it is not clear what this possibly could mean. If there’s
anything to be learned from the mistakes of the logical positivists in the history of
philosophy, it is that indeed, all normative ethical theories are conceptually forced to
ground their accounts in some axiomatic metaphysical “supra-ethical” assumptions.
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Here is a small list against Hacker’s specious argument: Plato, the Good is the Form
of the Forms; Aristotle, the good is the natural telos toward which a thing aims;
Kant, the good is that which conforms to rationality; Bentham and Mill: the good
is pleasure/happiness for the most concerned; or, Hacker’s own view, the good is
whatever is commanded by his Christian (Catholic) God.
Second, I contend that there is no contradiction or “logical impossibility” to
be found in grounding an ethics in monism, as Hacker argues. This is an absurd
assertion on his part. Indeed, Radhakrishnan consistently and logically defines the
good to be that which leads to the monistic unity that underlies diversity:
All ethical goods, bound up as they are with the world of distinctions, are valuable
as means to the end. While self realization is the absolute good, ethical goods are
only relatively so. The ethically “good” is that what helps the realization of the
infinite, and the ethically “bad” is its opposite. (Radhakrishnan 1999: 614)
Where is Hacker’s purported logical inconsistency or “impossibility” here? It does
not exist. (Neoplatonists also provide illustrations of solid and consistent monist
ethics, see, e.g., Ranganathan 2016. This approach to ethics is also explored in the
Indian Pratyabhijñā Philosophy; for more, see Ratie 2009).
Perhaps, however, I have failed to understand Hacker’s key objection: the “logical
monstrosity” is that ethics presupposes interpersonal relationships and diversity. But
the metaphysical identity at the heart of Vedāntic reality, however, does not mean
that saṃsāra or the phenomenal world of interpersonal diversity and jīva do not
exist. This confusion rests on, as Radhakrishnan argues, identifying the imperfect
and temporal with the absolute. Although saṃsāra has its roots in Brahman, it is
not Brahman. Aham brahmāsmi does not mean that I, the phenomenal ego, qua
jīva, is identical with Brahman (Radhakrishnan 2000: 621–622). Rather, it is the
ground of the jīva, of which the jīva is a reflection; it is the Ātman that is identical
with Brahman and not the jīva. Moreover, from an ontological perspective, even
though saṃsāra and diversity are māyā or “illusion,” this does not mean saṃsāra is
a figment of one’s imagination and does not exist—like imagining an oasis in the
middle of the desert —saṃsāra is not a hallucination. Nor does it mean that the
diversity and plurality of saṃsāra or the phenomenal world does not exist. Saṃsāra
is not wholly real or is an “illusion” in the sense that it is merely temporal, limited,
and not permanent. That is, it is critical to understand that the real in Advaita
is trikālābādhyam, that which is permanent, eternal, infinite, and not subject to
temporality, but, certainly, saṃsāra or the phenomenal world does not meet these
conditions (Deutsch 1973: 32–33). The world is an “illusion” in the sense that it
will, in fact, be reduced to dust and ashes (see also Radhakrishnan 1959).
Furthermore, it is only from the standpoint of perfect knowledge and experience,
from the epistemic perspective that enlightenment affords, that one is able to see the
existence of the plurality of jīva or saṃsāra and the world for what it is truly: none
other than pure consciousness or undifferentiated being. But, to the degree that
one has not attained realization, nothing changes and one’s epistemic perspective is
not altered. One continues to live among a diversity of beings, with whom one has
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interpersonal relationships. Indeed, the temporality and diversity of saṃsāra gives

rise to the conditions that make the existence of ethics necessary (Radhakrishnan
1999: 621–623, 625).
But then, ethics in the Advaitan view is purely instrumental and has no intrinsic
value—as it is ultimately not real, as Hacker argues. To use the Buddhist metaphor,
ethics or dharma becomes the raft that one uses to sail across the sea of saṃsāra,
but, in the end, it is abandoned when one reaches the shores of nirvāṇa. The Neo-
Vedānta Monism of Radhakrishnan and Vivekananda, conceptually, is no different
(cf. Radhakrishnan 1999: 621–624). One way to express such a worry might be: if
ethics is not somehow “absolute,” then is not the person who attains mokṣa or
nirvāṇa free to commit any harm whatsoever, since she is “beyond good and evil?”
As Radhakrishnan interprets Śaṅkara, such an objection is also misguided. It fails
to understand that enlightenment is not the death of ethics, but the death of the
conditions that require ethics in the first place: as self and other are realized to be one.
That is, the conditions that require ethics no longer exist in the same sense that, for
example, assertions of individual rights are not necessary in ideal conditions of loving
relationships; indeed, assertions of one’s rights are fallback mechanisms required only
when relationships fall apart (that is, rights are to love as ethics is to mokṣa). Along
the same lines, ethics is not required when one fully realizes self as other and other
as self. Radhakrishnan asks us to remember that harm and injury to other arises from
action borne of selfish desire, grounded in ignorance, in the clinging of the jīva to
itself as somehow separate and real—such action is avidyākāmakarma—karma that
results from kāmā or selfish desire, grounded in nescience of having taken the distance
between individuals as absolute. Selfish attachment that characterizes such action does
not arise for her who has realized the real and understood the falsity of saṃsāra; she
is dead to vice, as Radhakrishnan contends. She has broken through the distortion
of saṃsāra. Ethics is like the medicine that one takes for a particular disease, once
the medicine cures the condition, it is no longer necessary. Ethics is the medicine to
cure the heart of selfish egoism and to help it expand. Radhakrishnan thus argues,
“purification of the heart” is a prerequisite for spiritual realization (1999: 625)—the
telos or end of ethics is to overcome the distance from self to other. Indeed, perfection
is not achieved by abandoning the moral law and the practice of virtue, but rather,
only “through the gates of law” (634) can perfection or enlightenment be achieved.
Now, as I asserted, Hacker often equivocates on his criticism. In addition to the
conceptual claim, he argues that the above reading is historically unprecedented
and thus a historical distortion: Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan are “pseudo-
Vedāntins,” who arrive at their reading through the readings of Schopenhauer and
Deussen, the two German scholars who themselves did not understand Advaita
and misconstrued it. Hacker’s historical claim is problematic, as Nicholson’s work
shows: as early as the fourteenth century such a reading of Advaita was already
familiar, as is explicit in Mādhava’s hagiography of Śaṅkara—not to mention that
the derivation of ethics from metaphysics is present in the Upaniṣads as discussed.
Schopenhauer and Deussen did not invent this reading, as Hacker would have it, but
he pays no attention to the ramifications of the verse cited earlier.
367
Hacker is, however, aware of the seventeenth-century monist Nīlakaṇṭha, whose

work stands in the way of Hacker’s objection that the above ethical reading of
Gītā verses 13:27– 28 is historically unprecedented on the subcontinent before
Schopenhauer. To be sure, Nīlakaṇṭha himself seems to give us just such a reading.
Quoting Nīlakaṇṭha on the Gītā verses in question, “Because he sees that the Self
is but one, he does not harm another, just as he does not harm himself; that is,
he has compassion for all,” Hacker (1995: 286) proposes to rebut the claim of
historical precedent by showing that Nīlakaṇṭha’s ethical reading is really different
from Schopenhauer’s. Hacker asserts that Nīlakaṇṭha’s view is not the same ethic
as propounded by Schopenhauer because “Nīlakaṇṭha does not say that the self of
another is in itself my own self, as Schopenhauer and Deussen teach. [Nīlakaṇṭha]
looks first at the universal self and concludes from its universality that it is in another
as well as in me . . . there is still a difference” (Hacker 1995: 286).
I contend that Hacker’s reasoning makes no sense here. Even if Hacker was
right that there is a difference in the manner that Nīlakaṇṭha proceeds in his
interpretation of the above Gītā verses from Schopenhauer, this does not undermine
Nīlakaṇṭha’s monistic ethics, both as setting historical precedent or as to the cogency
of Nīlakaṇṭha’s philosophical and conceptual argument itself. Historically this is
indeed a reading of the Gītā that conceptually derives ethics from the monism of
a universal self, which is prior to Schopenhauer. Furthermore, because the monist
Nīlakaṇṭha may proceed differently from Schopenhauer does not show that there
is a deep conceptual difference between the two here in any relevant regard.
Nīlakaṇṭha’s reading of the verses in question remains an ethical reading of the
above two passages: to the degree that our selves share some universal property Ω in
common, then, it goes without saying the same Ω exists in both you and me as the
ground of our individual being or the jīva in Nīlakaṇṭha’s view; it is on account of
this property Ω that I derive a normative/ethical stance (i.e., compassion) toward the
other. Nīlakaṇṭha consistently argues from the metaphysical to the ethical.
Furthermore, let me for the sake of argument grant Hacker’s objection that there
is no historical precedent for Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan’s interpretation of an
ethical reading of Śaṅkara’s Advaita—they “took” their reading from Schopenhauer
and Deussen, who also happen to misunderstand Śaṅkara. Nīlakaṇṭha too happened
to commit this blunder before them. All of these philosophers were engaged in
a distortion of history and of “authentic” Vedānta. But let me ask: even if there
were no such historical precedent, does this show that such an interpretation is not
conceptually, philosophically, and ethically sound? No, it does not. Furthermore,
because no one has offered such an interpretation does not mean that such an
interpretation should not be offered or welcome. It is true that no judge in America
prior to the 1920s interpreted the principle of political equality to include women,
but what does that show? Does it show that such interpretations should never
have been provided? Does it show that such interpretations are not actually the
correct interpretation of the implications inherent in the American constitutional
framework? Does it show that future judges were “pseudo-judges”—indeed, as
Hacker attempts to expose Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan as “pseudo-Vedāntins”
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368 ASHWANI PEETUSH
(Hacker 1995: 294, 296, 297), as inauthentic “Neo-Hindus” to be distinguished

from genuine and pure Vedāntins such as Śaṅkara—who, we should remember, lived
a thousand years prior.
Indeed, even B. R. Ambedkar, an architect of India’s constitution, known to be
a critic of Brahmanical Hinduism and a Buddhist, contends that the radical ethical
equality that conceptually emerges from the Vedāntic view that we are part of the
same cosmic principle has profound ethical, social, and political ramifications.
Such radical equality “does not merely preach Democracy. It makes democracy an
obligation of one and all”:
Democracy demands that each individual shall have every opportunity for
realizing its worth. It also requires that each individual shall know that he is as
good as everybody else. Those who sneer at Aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahma)
as an impudent Utterance forget the other part of the Maha Vakya namely
Tatvamasi (Thou art also Brahma). If Aham Brahmasmi has stood alone without
the conjunct of Tatvamasi it may have been possible to sneer at it . . . this theory
of Brahma has certain social implications which have a tremendous value as a
foundation for Democracy. If all persons are parts of Brahma then all are equal
and all must enjoy the same liberty which is what Democracy means . . . But there
cannot be slightest doubt that no doctrine could furnish a stronger foundation
for Democracy than the doctrine of Brahma . . . to recognize and realize that you
and I are parts of the same cosmic principle leaves room for no other theory of
associated life except democracy. It does not merely preach Democracy. It makes
democracy an obligation of one and all. (Ambedkar 2015)
Ambedkar would also be a “pseudo-Vedāntin” for attempting to develop the nascent
ethics at the heart of Advaita on Hacker’s account. Hacker’s arguments assume that
philosophy and culture are somehow closed, monolithic, and unchanging, which is
absurd and dangerous. But more pernicious is the implicit normative assumption
behind Hacker’s arguments: that this is how it should be. On the contrary, philosophy,
and the culture of which it is part, are dynamic and vibrant, with porous borders.
In fact, this is a good thing: we should be open to learning from others, whether
they are our compatriots or not. The implicit insistence on purity and authenticity
(whatever these are) that one finds in Hacker’s work, on the other hand, is connected
to some of the darkest moments in human history, no doubt on Hacker’s own soil.
That Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan were in part influenced by Schopenhauer and
Deussen does not invalidate the importance of their ethical insight, nor that of the
two German philosophers.
3. THE HELL DANCE OF DEMONS:

THE POLITICS OF CASTE OPPRESSION
I have argued that equality is a fundamental ethical principle in Vivekananda and
Radhakrishnan’s Hindu ethics founded on metaphysical monism— a principle
expressed in earlier material from the Indian tradition. Such an ethic saturates the
369
social and the political realms; it is no surprise that such a view would be used to
dismantle structural forms of domination and oppression. In this section, I show
how this Neo-Advaitan construction is used by Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan to
challenge all forms of oppression, including that of women and lower castes; I then
consider an objection to my interpretation.
Vivekananda argues that the “two evils” of India are the “trampling on the
women, and grinding of the poor through caste restriction” (1964–1970: vol. 6,
335). He contends that distinctions of privilege and superiority based on “sex, caste,
wealth, learning” are “gateways to hell” and the “aim” and “end” of religion is to
“obliterate all such fictions and monstrosities” (1964–1970: vol. 4, 357–358). He
repeatedly rails against the caste system through the span of his life as an unjust
“social institution” (1964–1970: vol. 1, 22); for caste is in complete opposition to
Vedānta and to unity of Brahman (1964–1970: vol. 5, 197–198) and a barrier to
self-realization (1964–1970: vol. 8, 139), for in “religion there is not caste” (1964–
1970: vol. 1, 22) since “all beings, great or small, are equally manifestations of God”
(1964–1970: vol. 1, 424) and “the soul has neither sex, nor caste” (1964–1970: vol.
4, 357–358; see also vol. 1, 423, 425–426; vol. 3, 211, 212; vol. 4, 340–341, 423,
425–426; vol. 6, 369, 495–496; vol. 7, 34; vol. 8, 205, 136, 139). In fact, in a letter
in 1897, Vivekananda contends that caste is the root of ignorance and māyā, that it is
“madness” and “the hell-dance of demons” grounding “oppression and persecution”:
In my views . . . much perversion has supervened—one attributeless absolute
Brahman, I see . . . the conviction is daily gaining on my mind that the idea of
caste is the greatest dividing factor and the root of Maya; all caste either on the
principle of birth or of merit is bondage. Some friends advise, “True, lay all that at
heart, but outside, in the world of relative experience, distinctions like caste must
needs [sic] be maintained.” . . . [ellipsis in original] The idea of oneness at heart
(with a craven impotence of effort, that is to say), and outside, the hell-dance of
demons—oppression and persecution—ay, the dealer of death to the poor, but
if the Pariah be wealthy enough, “Oh, he is the protector of religion!” . . . I am a
Shudra, a Mlechchha . . . It is in the books written by priests that madnesses like
that of caste are to be found, and not in books revealed from God. (Vivekananda
1964–1970: vol. 6, 393–395)
How did such a heinous form of oppression infect India? Vivekananda believes
the caste system was a degenerate form of a social and economic division of labor or
“guilds,” which was originally intended to limit the excesses of competition between
various jobs (1964–1970: vol. 2, 515–516). “Original caste” or “jati,” as guild or job,
had nothing to do with ideas of superiority and privilege, but this system “degenerated
into iron-bound casts [castes]” (1964–1970: vol. 2, 508). The oppressive features of
the castes system are a result of two insidious factors. First, the privilege and superiority
that are attached to certain guilds or jobs. Second, one of the most pernicious aspects
of the caste system is its hereditary nature, which suffocates individual freedom,
for “as soon as a child is born, he knows that he is born a slave: slave to his caste”
(1964–1970: vol. 3, 516). Citing the now well-known Puruṣa-Sūkta in the Ṛgveda,
Vivekananda argues that the earliest reference to the caste system in India does not
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indicate either heredity or superiority as a part of the original system in the Vedas
(1964–1970: vol. 6, 211); in contrast, castes/guilds/jobs in society are compared to
various parts of a functioning human body as a part of an organic whole: from the
mouth come the Brahmins who are the scholars/priests; from the arms, the warriors
or Kṣatriya; from the belly, the Vaiṣyas; and from the feet, the Śūdras or laborers.
Radhakrishnan also elaborates that on such an organic model, each member of a
community is “indispensable to the whole,” as the whole is integral to each, thus
ruling out the idea of power and the privilege of the few (1988: 76).
Indeed, Radhakrishnan argues that the Vajrasūcika Upaniṣad undermines any
caste distinction based on birth. What determines whether one belongs to the
priestly or scholarly class is not pedigree of brahmanical ancestry. First, the Upaniṣad
argues that brahamanas have come from “many [even non-human] species among
creatures”; for example, Jāmbuka was from a jackal—something utterly revolting
to Brahmanical purity (Radhakrishnan 1999: 936). Second, religious duties do not
confer the title. Third, and most importantly, a brahmana is one who is distinguished
by virtue, character, and wisdom. This opens the doors to any individual, whatever
be their birth, to becoming a brahmana:
[2]‌The Brahmana, the Ksatriya, the Vaisya and the Sudra are the four classes
(castes). That the Brahmana is the chief among the four classes is in accord with
the Vedic texts . . . In this connection there is a point worthy of investigation.
Who is, verily, the Brahmana? . . . Is he the class based on birth? [5] Then (if it
is said) that birth (makes) the Brahmana, it is not so, for there are many species
among creatures, other than human, many sages are of diverse origin . . . Among
these, despite their birth, there are many sages, who have the highest rank, having
given proof of their wisdom. Therefore birth does not (make) a Brahmana. [9]
Then, who, verily is the Brahmana? He who, after, directly perceiving . . . the
Self . . . becomes rid of the faults of desire, attachment, etc., and endowed with
qualities of tranquility etc., rid of the states of being, spite, greed, expectation,
bewilderment, etc., with his mind unaffected by ostentation, self-sense and the
like, he lives. He alone who is possessed of these qualities is the Brahmana.
This is the view of the Vedic texts and tradition, ancient lore and history. The
accomplishment of the state of the Brahmana is otherwise impossible. (Vajrasūcika
Upaniṣad 2000: 935–938)
Vivekananda contends that it was the smṛtis (remembered texts), the purāṇas
(mythologies), and “priestcraft” of the Brahmins that contributed to the degeneration
of the caste guild system, which attempted to divide tasks and limit the excess of
competition. The “distinctions of caste and the like have the invention of our modern
sapient Brahmins” (1964–1970: vol. 6, 247), guided by “economical consideration”
to justify and “defend that form of religion which made their existence a necessity of
society and assigned them the highest place in the scale of caste” (1964–1970: vol.
6, 160). He contends that such arguments are specious as they are only meant to
“uphold the privileges of certain portion of the community,” for “those who have
an advantage want to keep it, and if they find an argument, however one-sided and
crude, they must cling to it.”
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Although the caste system may have restrained the excesses of economic rivalry,
“there is a great evil: it checks individuality. I will have to be a carpenter because
I am born a carpenter; but I do not like it.” It robs the downtrodden of the good of
equality and individual choice and is a “[blight] upon the race.” The oppression of
individual choice obstructs social and economic progress, for such progress depends
on competition, for competition “makes everything alive” (1964–1970: vol. 3, 515–
516). Thus, the “modern caste distinction is a barrier to India’s progress. It narrows,
restricts, separates. It will crumble before the advance of ideas” (1964–1970: vol. 5,
197–198). This rigid oppressive caste system “is now filling the atmosphere of India
with its stench, and it can only be removed by giving back to the people their lost
social individuality”—freedom from being a “slave to society.” Indeed, the demise of
the modern caste system, according to Vivekananda, must come as India progresses
as a result of economic competition and desire for growth, as individual freedom
is a “pre-condition” for such growth. This is the reason for Brahmin shoemakers
and wine-distillers, or śūdra entrepreneurs. The modern Indian government neither
prohibits anyone from pursuing any kind of livelihood nor should it. The result will
be many thousands, from all castes alike, rising to the top instead of “vegetating at
the bottom” because of an antiquated and oppressive system:
Caste is simply a crystallized social institution, which after doing its service is
now filling the atmosphere of India with its stench, and it can only be removed
by giving back to the people their lost social individuality. Every man born here
[America] knows that he is a man. Every man born in India knows that he is a
slave of society. Now, freedom is the only condition of growth; take that off, the
result is degeneration. With the introduction of modern competition, see how
caste is disappearing fast! No religion is now necessary to kill it. The Brâhmana
shopkeeper, shoemaker, and wine-distiller are common in Northern India. And
why? Because of competition. No man is prohibited from doing anything he pleases
for his livelihood under the present Government, and the result is neck and neck
competition, and thus thousands are seeking and finding the highest level they were
born for, instead of vegetating at the bottom. (1964–1970: vol. 5, 22–23)
Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan’s argument that caste hierarchy is antithetical
to the equality at the heart of Advaitan metaphysics is without doubt the case.
Furthermore, Vivekananda’s insight that hierarchical caste distinctions are grounded
and motivated by hidden economic relationships of power and domination, and that
the powerful will “cling” to any argument, however specious, to hold on to power,
is also without doubt the case.
Let me now consider an objection against my interpretation of Vivekananda.
Jyotirmaya Sharma argues that Vivekananda was indeed a casteist, as well as
suggesting that he was a “Hindu supremacist.” Sharma grounds his arguments on
particular statements that Vivekananda made, such as, “Let Jati have its sway; break
down every barrier in the way of caste and we [India] shall rise” (2013: 178) and
that “caste is good, that is the natural way of solving life” (2013: 182). I think that
Sharma’s interpretation is problematic since it fails to adequately take into account
the meaning and context of these remarks of Vivekananda.
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372 ASHWANI PEETUSH
While Sharma certainly cites Vivekananda that modern caste is a “degenerate” form
of jati or occupation “filling the atmosphere of India with its stench” (2013: 176),
his argument fails to account for why exactly it is degenerate for Vivekananda. This
is since modern caste “prevented the free action of jātī [occupation, guild],” that is,
it prevents individuals from freely choosing their own occupation, which is critical
for Vivekananda— this is the reason that in this particular context, Vivekananda
immediately argues that “any crystallized custom or privilege or hereditary class in any
shape really prevents caste (jātī) from having its sway.” What Sharma’s argument does
not pay sufficient attention to is that, for Vivekananda, the modern caste or guild system
is oppressive because it limits and “checks” an individual’s freedom to pursue what he
or she may be good at, not to mention other forms of “monstrosities” for which it is
responsible, such as making one a “slave to society.” In addition, when Vivekananda says
that we should give full sway to caste, (i.e., choice of occupation) as America has done,
what he means is that when people are free to compete economically, then “thousands”
are “finding the highest level they were born for, instead of vegetating at the bottom.”
If these sentiments do not count in support of a Liberal democratic order with a free
economy where individuals can live as free equals, I am not sure what would.
Furthermore, while it is true that Vivekananda makes the particular statement that
“caste is good, that is the natural way of solving life” (Sharma 2013: 182; original in
Vivekananda: vol. 3, 244–246), this remark is made in the context of Vivekananda’s
objection that we need to democratize Vedānta and make it accessible to all equally
against caste hierarchy—as it is done by Krishna in the Gītā. As such, Vivekananda
explains how the caste system was and should be conceived of as he thinks it was
originally: a division of labor that facilitated mutual cooperation among equal
members of a society—not a rigid hereditary structure without choice that impedes
growth, or prevents individuals from learning the truths of Vedānta. Indeed, each—
from “fisherman to philosopher”—should be able to access it, for there should be
“no privilege for any one, equal chances for all.” Vivekananda asserts this in the
same breath as Sharma quotes him supposedly approving of a rigid caste hierarchy
(1964–1970: vol. 3, 244–246).
Furthermore, Sharma points out that brahminhood is an ideal for Vivekananda
(2013: 179). But Sharma pays little attention to the fact that since Vivekananda
makes brahminhood open to any person who is a lover of God, it is no longer a
matter of privilege, power, or heredity—which are the key reasons why the caste
system is oppressive in the first place—as Vivekananda asserts: “Caste is a state, not
an iron-bound class, and every one who knows and loves God is a true Brahmin”
(1964–1970: vol. 2, 508). Moreover, Sharma makes little of the fact that while
Vivekananda might extol brahminhood as defined above, the latter constantly derides
brahaminhood in the sense of a rigid social category consistently throughout his life.
In sum, I would contend that Sharma’s argument fails to pay sufficient attention and
give due recognition to the fact that Vivekananda repeatedly and forcefully rejects
and condemns the institution of caste as a social and economic institution based on
power and privilege, a “gateway to hell” of enforced slavery that must die if India is
to make social, economic, ethical, and spiritual progress.
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The terrible reality of caste in India still exists today. It is not unlike the situation
that blacks find themselves in America: although there are laws against discrimination,
and there are affirmative action plans at many levels of society, indeed in the very
constitution of law itself, blatant racism continues to plague social consciousness, as
is evident in the economic disparity between blacks and whites, not to mention the
heinous policing system in America. On the other hand, huge strides continue to be
made in social equality, in both America and India. What is clear, though, is that the
caste system must be challenged not only on the basis of global Liberal–democratic
norms of equality, but also, as Vivekananda had originally argued a hundred years
ago, “growth must proceed from within”—as such challenges must resonate with
the spirit and consciousness of the Indian imagination (1964–1970: vol. 5, 197–
198). Indeed, I contend that, as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, Tilak, and Gandhi,
among many others, have argued, such discrimination and hierarchy is indeed
the hell dance of demons—it is against the very foundation of key Advaitan self-
understandings that the same Self or Ātman exists in each and all.
4. NEO-HINDUISM AS SPIRITUAL LIBERALISM

I will argue that both Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan conceive of Hinduism as
a form of what I call Spiritual Liberalism, grounded in the radical equality and
individual freedom at the heart of Advaita. Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan are
acutely aware that religion, while it can be a force for the good of all beings, it
can equally be, as history shows, a force for conflict, unimaginable suffering, and
“horror.” Indeed, Vivekananda argues that “nothing has bred more bitter enmity”
and “bloodshed” than religion. As we know, Liberalism in the West develops from
the European Wars of Religion.
Notwithstanding the current utter barbarism of Hindutva postindependence,
Radhakrishnan notes that the history of Hinduism is relatively free from the kind
of pervasive religious persecution one finds, for example, as a result of the Islamic
conquests of Europe and Asia or the Crusades of Christianity. In contrast, India
has a comparatively strong precedent of religious tolerance. While the Jews were
being persecuted elsewhere, for example, India gave them official patronage in the
Hindu Kingdom of Cochin, where they were given a self-governing district (indeed,
some of the oldest tribes of Israel lived in India, free from religious domination);
Christians arriving in the fifth century, the Muslims in the eighth century, and the
Zoroastrians fleeing from Islamic persecution in the tenth century were welcomed
and given religious freedom to practice. This continued postindependence, with the
acceptance of Tibetan Buddhists in India fleeing from religious persecution at the
hands of Maoist China (Radhakrishnan 1988: 41; Parekh 2008; Peetush 2015). Let
me emphasize again that the point here is not to deny that sectarianism or violence
did not exist in India or that Vivekananda or Radhakrishnan would somehow deny
the brutality of Hindu religious extremism, including the bringing down of the
Babri Masjid and the pogroms in Gujarat, or anything of the like. The point is that
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374 ASHWANI PEETUSH
while religious tensions existed in India prior to British colonization, they were, in
comparison, significantly to a lesser degree than in other parts of the world.
Radhakrishnan and Vivekananda contend that the reasons for this ultimately have
to do with the conceptual nature of the philosophies and practices that originated
in India. Radhakrishnan argues that Hinduism’s solution to religious conflict and
approach to diversity is to recognize the plurality of mārgas or paths as being equally
legitimate to spirituality—each jīva is unique and different from any other, and
thus one ought to be free to pursue whichever conception resonates most with her
individual being. Furthermore, this account of Hinduism recognizes that the various
paths are each “irreducible to the terms of the other,” but seeks to establish the
“unity of religion not in a common creed but a common quest” (Radhakrishnan
1988: 42). That is, rather than insist on a singular and exclusive doctrine of religious
truth, this account focuses on a common search for the spiritual good. For indeed, as
far back as the Ṛgveda, it is asserted: ekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadantyaghniṃ yamaṃ
mātariśvānamāhuḥ, or that the wise speak of what is one in many ways (Ṛgveda
1.164.46, [Vedic Edition] 2011). And, as both Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan
point out, in the Bhagavad Gītā, Krishna, an avatāra, when reflecting to Arjuna, on
the issue of which path or mārga is best for enlightenment professes:
Ye yathā māṃ prapadyante tāṃs tathaiva bhajāmyaham [In whichever way men
take refuge in me, I love them. All men, Arjuna, follow my path] (Gītā 4.11)
Indeed, during the time of the Gītā, a multiplicity and rich and deep pluralism
of philosophical thought and practice existed: asceticism, Buddhism, the Jaina path,
Brahmanical ritualists, Sāṅkhya dualists, yogic practitioners, atheists, and many
more. Krishna proclaims that the multitudes of divergent paths are all potential
paths to the realization and emancipation from the wheel of saṃsāra. Indeed,
Vivekananda opens his address to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 by
quoting verse seven of the Śiva Mahimnaḥ Stōtram:
As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their
water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different
tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.
(1964–1970: vol. 1, 4)
Quoting a South Indian folksong, Radhakrishnan uses the same metaphor:
Into the bosom of the one great sea
Flow streams that come from Hills on every side,
Their names are various as their springs,
And thus in every land do men bow down
To one great God though known by many names. (1988: 35)
Each river, each mārga, has its place in saṃsāra and leads to perfection,
but none are reducible to any other. Indeed, each is only a partial glimpse of the
totality of the ultimate truth (Radhakrishnan 1988: 22–23). One’s ideas of God are
always incomplete, they are always in the becoming, as they are only ever a partial
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representation of an ultimate reality distilled through one’s heart and mind, colored by
one’s biases, culture, time, and place. Thus, as Vivekananda contends, no one religion
can encompass the universal and whole truth, each is only a fragment of the totality
of being, for each “takes up one part of the great universal truth, and spends its whole
force in embodying and typifying that part of the great truth” (1964–1970: vol. 3,
365). Indeed, the “truth may be expressed in a hundred thousand ways, and that each
of these ways is true as far as it goes” (1964–1970: vol. 2, 383). But each is as necessary
as the other, for each suits the particular needs of specific jīvas or individuals. Hence,
one must not simply tolerate others’ views, but rather, one must recognize each mārga
as an equally legitimate path to spirituality. As such, Vivekananda asserts:
Our watchword, then, will be acceptance, and not exclusion. Not only toleration,
for so-called toleration is often blasphemy, and I do not believe in it. I believe in
acceptance. Why should I tolerate? Toleration means that I think that you are
wrong and I am just allowing you to live. Is it not a blasphemy to think that you
and I are allowing others to live? I accept all religions that were in the past, and
worship with them all; I worship God with every one of them, in whatever form
they worship Him. I shall go to the mosque of the Mohammedan; I shall enter
the Christian’s church and kneel before the crucifix; I shall enter the Buddhist
temple, where I shall take refuge in Buddha and in his Law. I shall go into the
forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu, who is trying to see the Light
which enlightens the heart of every one. (1964–1970: vol. 2, 373–374)
I would argue that what defines this conception of Hinduism as paradigmatically a
form of Spiritual Liberalism is not simply the recognition of a diversity of spiritual
goods as legitimate, but, as critically, its insistence on individual freedom: each jīva
must be free to choose whichever conception of the spiritual good resonates most
with her being. Recall that the self of Advaita, qua jīva, is distinctly unique: each
individual in saṃsāra has a specific set of needs, capacities, abilities, likes, and dislikes;
these are the guṇas or characteristics that contribute to her identity. Moreover,
each individual lives in the context of a particular history, religious, and cultural
framework, all of which dialectally influence her sense of individuality, identity,
and self-understanding. As such, it is understood that the form of the sacred that
will appeal to one will depend on her particular being, her particular personality
and psychology, and her interests and training (Radhakrishnan 1988: 20–21, 32).
As Radhakrishnan points out, when a pupil approaches a spiritual teacher in India,
the teacher asks him about his iṣṭadevata, the form of the divine that resonates
with him most, as “every man has a right to choose that form of belief and worship
which most appeals to him” (1988: 34). Just as the medicine one takes depends on
one’s needs and particular condition, so too with one’s spiritual condition. Thus
as Rāmakṛṣṇa (1836–1886), Vivekananda’s teacher, who was central to the Hindu
renaissance in his combination of Advaita with Bhakti or devotion, asserts:
As a mother, in nursing her sick children, gives rice and curry to one, and sago
and arrowroot to another and bread and butter to a third, so the Lord has laid
out different paths for different people suitable to their natures . . . Dispute not.
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376 ASHWANI PEETUSH
As you rest firmly on your faith and opinion, allow others the equal liberty to
stand by their own faiths and opinions. (quoted in Abhedânanda 1903: 73–74)
Thus, the ethical and political ideals of equal recognition and respect of others, and
certainly toleration of diversity and difference, are therefore intrinsic to the very
nature of this metaphysical account of the legitimacy of a plurality of mārgas or
paths toward spirituality. Liberation and salvation, or mokṣa, nirvāṇa, or kaivalya—
emancipation from the ever- turning wheel of saṃsāra— comes to each through
individual effort on her own chosen path. In this view then, the idea that there is only
one true path or religion is intrinsically flawed. Given her uniqueness, each individual
must thus have the equal liberty to work out her own salvation in her own way, in her
own time, with the form of the divine that best suits her. An individual cannot thus
be coerced to follow a path that is not of her making, or a god not of her choosing.
This not only is a violation of her personal integrity and individual autonomy, but
also will not work, for she is a jīva unlike any other, and requires a path that is suited
for her individual well-being. In pursuing the common quest of the spiritual good,
we must thus respect the diversity of ways of attaining such a goal, as each mārga is
as necessary as another, since ultimately each mārga must be walked by an individual,
and no one can walk the path of another, nor should she be so required or forced.
Given our different needs, it only makes sense that questions of ultimate meaning
and significance must resonate with our individual being, what matters most to us,
what appeals most to us—indeed, what we most need. This conceptual framework
accounts for the diversity and heterogeneity, both doctrinally and in practice, that one
finds in contemporary India and among practicing Hindus. Such religious pluralism
is evident in most Hindu homes, where, for example, a daughter may be devoted to
Krishna, the son to Mother Kālī, the father to Gaṇeśa, the mother to Veṇkaṭeśvara,
the grandmother to Hanuman, and the grandfather to the Buddha. Furthermore, it
certainly is not out of the ordinary to find icons of non-Hindu deities, gods, saints,
and the like, statues of Jesus, or mother Mary. In fact, some Hindus claim themselves
as Hindu-Muslims, and Muslim-Hindus; Salam Girassia Rajputs have both a Hindu
and a Muslim name for every member of their community; Shirdi Sai Baba, a Sufi-
Hindu saint is revered in both Hindu and Muslim homes (he regularly admonished
those who attempted to pigeonhole his spirituality to either Hindu or Muslim).
Nor do many Hindus find it problematic to pray in a church, or a mosque, or a
synagogue, as Vivekananda himself professes. In a world filled with sectarian and
religious violence, such openness is a good thing indeed.
5. THE LIMITS OF RADICAL EQUALITY:

NEO-HINDUISM AS A SUBSTANTIVE DOCTRINE
One of the arguments often made against Neo-Hinduism conceived of along these
lines is that it is not nearly as open and tolerant as Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan
make it out to be. Radhakrishnan claims that Hinduism solves the problem of
religious conflict by recognizing a plurality of “quests” toward the spiritual as all
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legitimate—as each jīva is different and thus ought to be free to choose the conception
of God that resonates most with her individual being. This view, however, is itself
a comprehensive and substantive doctrine of the spiritual good. It is not consistent
with all quests as it makes out. On one hand, Advaita excludes singular theories
of salvation, which proclaim themselves as the only path to the spiritual good.
But Advaita conceives of such paths as being equally as good as any other path—
something these views themselves deny since they understand themselves as the sole
possessors of the truth. On the other hand, while this account purports to include
a diversity of paths as being “equally” good, such as Sāṅkhya dualism, for example,
they are equally good insofar as they lead to the same destination. Thus the Rome to
which all roads lead is built on the foundations of (Neo-)Vedānta Monism—this is
the spiritual ocean of pure consciousness in which all rivers merge. In effect then, it
is not really the sameness of quest that ends up being important to such a conception
of Hinduism, but sameness of destination.
Sharma makes this objection in his case against Vivekananda as a “Hindu
supremacist.” The essence of Sharma’s criticism is that Vivekananda’s recognition
of spiritual diversity is only “limited to the externals.” The universal faith that
Vivekananda has in mind is “the Vedāntic ideal of Oneness and the Universal Soul,”
which “would ultimately prevail” in any purported recognition of diversity of
religious perspectives (Sharma 2013: 233).
Let me respond. Indeed, there is one Neo-Advaitan Rome to which all roads lead,
but that is a city of immense splendor whose multiplicity is roaring with a diversity
of citizenry and the broadest spectrum of perspectives, spiritualities, and practices. It
is not the city of an exclusivist and singular monotheism, where those with differing
perspectives are condemned and forever lost beyond its walls. The Neo-Advaita
of Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan is firmly grounded in a sense of epistemic and
metaphysical humility: each spirituality is only one aspect of the immeasurable
grandeur of the totality of Being—that each, by itself, is unable to fathom. Diversity
and difference represent the horizon, the breadth, and the richness, of the human
experience of the divine, which is plural. Each experience develops an aspect that the
other does not, and as such, cannot be abbreviated as a form of the other. Neo-Advaita
is thus pluralistic: it admits a deep and wide range of the diversity of perspectives of
the spiritual good, firmly grounded in the view that no one viewpoint embodies
all that is legitimate or worthy. Such a view founds not simply mere tolerance or
putting up with others, but, as Vivekananda asserts above, profound respect and
recognition of others’ perspectives and spiritualities. We are urged to see others with
a sense of epistemic humility: our perspectives are but mere representations of the
entirety and wholeness of Being. They are saguṇa Brahman as opposed to nirgụna
Brahman—Brahman perceived through our eyes, endowed with qualities, as opposed
to Brahman in-it-self. Contrary to Sharma, there is nothing in this conception that
would lead one to becoming a “supremacist” in the likes of the Ku Klux Klan or the
Nationalist Socialist Party of Germany; in fact, it is quite the opposite.
And, while it may be true that Hindutva Right-wingers have misappropriated
Vivekananda for their nefarious purposes, it is not an argument against him. The
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Maoist government of China misappropriated Marx, but I would certainly be loath

to claim that Marx was a Maoist.
Furthermore, while I think that one certainly needs to acknowledge that such a
conception of Hinduism is indeed a substantive comprehensive doctrine that can
account only for a certain range of a plurality of divergent spiritual goods, no one
view can accommodate all visions of the spiritual good, nor should it attempt to. In
fact, there is often confusion when Neo-Hinduism is seen as embracing all differences,
but it cannot nor should it. Neo-Advaita is, in effect, an overlapping consensus of
comprehensive views of reasonable spiritualities—I would argue that Hinduism
itself develops in this way. There are basic limits—as any form of Liberalism by its
egalitarian foundation excludes the views of racists, sexists, homophobes, ableists,
and other forms of discrimination (see Rawls 1993, 1999), so must any form of
Spiritual Liberalism. The parameters of what constitute legitimate goods open to
spiritual pursuit are conceptually constrained. For this very reason, Vivekananda and
Radhakrishnan argue against caste hierarchy and gender inequality as contradictory
to the radically egalitarian conceptual foundation and basis of Advaita. But these are
not the only things they argue against.
The equal individual freedom of each jīva is not an absolute good; each
individual’s freedom is constrained by others’ equal right to such freedom: thus,
Vivekananda is explicit that “fanaticism” has no part to play in any religion; this
also flows from the equality of each at the heart of his interpretation of Advaita.
Apart from caste hierarchy, Vivekananda often criticizes fanaticism as the “most
dangerous of all diseases,” as the root of “bigotry,” “sectarianism,” and “horror.”
He argues that “nothing has deluged the world with more blood than religion”
in this regard (Vivekananda 1964– 1970: vol. 2, 360; vol. 1, 4). Historically
and conceptually, the idea that there is a singular and exclusive path to the one
true God has lead not only to intolerance, but also to violence and murder: for
not only is it ever enough to posses the truth for fanatics and fundamentalists,
but also others, nonbelievers, must be made to believe the “truth” too or die.
Radhakrishnan contends such intolerance “is written in letters of blood across the
history of man” (1988: 40). As caste hierarchy and gender abuse have no place
in any religion, neither does fanaticism; it too must be weeded out in whichever
religion it occurs.
Indeed, Vivekananda argues that religion is not outside the bounds of reason or
ethics, it is not outside public scrutiny, nor should it ever be so (1964–1970: vol.
2, 335). Religious views are not immune to ethical criticism as much as any other
views and beliefs are not so immune. Beliefs and practices that unconfusedly and
unmistakably infringe on basic ethical values cannot and should not be regarded
as legitimate (cf. Peetush 2014, 2015). We have learned much about what it is to
be human, to suffer, and to flourish and thus have a solid basis for making such
decisions: While beings differ in many regards, we still share basic needs, such as
food, shelter, nurturance, love, the opportunity for social and cultural engagement,
play, and meaningful work. The boundaries of toleration are reached when beliefs
and practices undermine the most basic of such needs. No matter to which culture
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or religion a person belongs, she suffers when she is starved, raped, tortured, and
taken from her family and community.
Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan insist on unity around basic ethical norms,
and rightfully so: these constitute the limits of any form of diversity whether in
spirituality or politics (in this regard, see also Maritain 1948). Advaitan Neo-
Hinduism on this conception is only one such form of a Spiritual Liberalism. That
is, although equality and freedom here are in fact grounded in a substantive view
of the self and other, that of the jīva in an ocean of saṃsāra, both Vivekananda and
Radhakrishnan admit that equality and freedom have equally solid grounding in other
metaphysical and spiritual commitments, such as, for example, in the Jain principle
of anekāntavāda or multisidedness, or the Buddhist principle of pratītyasmutapāda
or interconnectedness, or the love at the center of Christ’s teaching, or the mercy
and compassion of the Koran.
6. CONCLUSION
I have argued here that Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan draw out and develop
what Śaṅkara himself did not: the ethics of a radical equality at the heart of Advaita
in its full glory. This development continues to have deep resonances in the family
of interrelated and myriad streams and tributaries of Neo-Hinduism. I have shown
how this internally grounded and scathing critique of caste makes possible an
ethic of radical social and political equality. This is the candle in the darkness that
Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan light. Its flame is a spark of unity, of the conviction
that we are all on the same spiritual road, asking the same ultimate questions
about meaning and significance—each with a different response: including theists,
atheists, dualists, monists, and materialists. The pluralism and diversity of life
cannot be stifled by the few who claim to be sole possessors of a singular and
exclusivist truth; this can only lead to more conflict and strife as history shows,
time and again. Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan recover principles of equality
and individual freedom already inherent in a (Neo- )Vedānta Monism of pure
consciousness, and establish a conception of Neo-Hinduism as a form of Spiritual
Liberalism: indeed, the equal individual freedom of each member of the community
to pursue whichever spiritual good with which she most resonates is integral to a
world that shines with such brilliant splendor and diversity.
NOTE
1. I would like to thank Shyam Ranganathan, Andrew Nicholson, Dermot Killingley,
Jason Neelis, Jon Keune, and Brian Black for sharing their immense and profound
knowledge with me. In addition, I thank Joe LaRose for sharing his intricate
expertise of Sanskrit with me. Of course, all shortcomings are my own. Lastly, I owe
a debt of gratitude to T. S. Rukmani and to my friend Robin Fermin, who handed
me my first work of Vivekananda many decades ago.
380
380 ASHWANI PEETUSH
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383
GLOSSARY
Applied Ethics The philosophical investigation into ETHICS via case types, such as
medical cases or legal cases.
bhakti This is the Sanskrit term for “devotion.”
Bhakti/Yoga One of the four basic moral theories, but unique to the Indian
tradition. Accordingly, right procedure is defined by a regulative
ideal—the Lord—and devotion to the regulative ideal brings about
the good. In the standard versions, the good is nothing but the
perfection of the practice of the right.
Consequentialism One of the four basic moral theories, which states the right
procedure is justified by a good outcome. Its famous version is
Utilitarianism.
Deontology One of the four basic moral theories, which holds that good states
that define duty or rights are to be justified by procedural means.
dharma This is the Indic term for ETHICS or MORALITY.
ethics/morality In philosophy these terms are synonyms, and their conceptual
content is THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD.
explication The basic skill and practice in philosophy of accounting for a
third-party perspective’s employment of controversial terms, such
as “dharma,” by way of the reasons that constitute the third-party
perspective. The resulting explanation that entails all the third-
party perspective’s uses of “dharma” (for instance) is its theory of
dharma.
interpretation The practice of explaining third-party perspectives (and their
reasons) by way of first-party perspectives (and their reasons).
metaethics A philosophical account of the constraints of moral theory.
mokṣa The Indian term for “freedom.” It is often regarded as a chief good
of Indian ethics. Teleological theories often regard it as a condition
of moral action, while procedural accounts often depict it as the
outcome.
moral theory A systematic account of the RIGHT OR THE GOOD from some vantage.
normative ethics An account of the concept ETHICS from a perspective, formalized in
a moral theory.
384
384 GLOSSAARY
objectivity What we can disagree about from differing perspectives. It hence

transcends our perspective and hence our mind.
proceduralism Any moral theory that prioritizes the right over the good, such as
Deontology, or Bhakti/Yoga. The opposite of teleology.
THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD The basic concept of the terms “ethics,” “morality,” and “dharma.”
This is discovered by comparing what disagreeing moral theories
have in common. THE RIGHT pertains to procedure, and THE GOOD to
outcome. All uses of these terms in philosophy invoke this concept.
teleology Any moral theory that prioritizes the good over the right, such as
Consequentialism, or Virtue Ethics. The opposite of proceduralism.
truth The property of a fitting representation.
Utilitarianism The version of Consequentialism that identifies the good as agent
neutral (the same for all).
virtue A strength, usually of character.
Virtue Ethics One of the four basic moral theories that holds that the good state
of affairs conditions or produces the right procedure.
Virtue Theory Often used as a synonym for “Virtue Ethics,” though a theory of
virtue (Virtue Theory) need not be a Virtue Ethics.
yoga The Indian term for not only “discipline,” but also “meditation.” It
also doubles as a name of a philosophy of Bhakti.
385
INDEX
abandon 130, 134, 167, 178, 265, 266, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 246,
285, 292, 336 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 257,
abandoned 18, 25, 55, 113, 124, 129, 134, 258, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 268,
157, 243, 282, 285, 366 272, 281, 283, 284, 286, 292, 301,
abandoning 41, 75, 165, 167, 178, 302, 304, 307, 308, 309, 312, 314,
311, 366 315, 317, 324, 327, 328, 329, 331,
abandonment 24, 114, 167, 168, 230, 335 333, 335, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346,
abandons 230, 260 348, 349, 350, 352, 355, 362, 363,
Abhidhamma 133, 139, 152 364, 366, 372, 373, 383
ability 61, 72, 73, 89, 112, 117, 136, 177, activism 301
194, 200, 269, 277, 292, 308, 309 activity 7, 15, 23, 74, 105, 112, 155, 160,
able 13, 51, 53, 96, 106, 145, 168, 188, 162, 163, 168, 171, 175, 235, 237,
245, 250, 280, 281, 302, 309, 310, 246, 271, 300, 315, 341, 346
334, 338, 345, 349, 365, 372 acts 119, 131, 134, 137, 149, 166, 206,
ableism 200, 378 208, 209, 219, 232, 239, 243, 245,
aboriginal 359 261, 262, 263, 309, 315, 326, 344
abortion 338 Advaita 47, 52, 57, 120, 186, 204, 213,
absence 149, 180, 187, 215, 240 221, 224, 273, 341, 357, 358, 360,
absolute 98, 114, 147, 171, 190, 204, 205, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367,
206, 210, 211, 217, 220, 333, 362, 368, 373, 375, 377, 378, 379, 380,
365, 366, 369, 378 381, 382
absorption 178, 185, 186, 231, 234, advice 6, 51, 115, 116, 130, 133, 277, 282,
238, 239 284, 287, 289, 292, 295, 329, 331,
abstinence 161, 163, 165, 189, 190, 332, 334, 336, 337, 347, 348
287, 349 aesthetic 74, 102, 322
abstract 7, 8, 113, 114, 148, 197, 250 aesthetics 52, 57
abstraction 7, 8, 42, 185, 192, 193, 195, affiliation 60, 90, 117, 246
257, 262 affliction 132, 134, 135, 139, 146, 150,
abstractions 7, 322 184, 188, 230, 239
abuse 72, 218, 378 afterlife 219, 220
acar ya 74, 297, 298 agama 129, 134, 135, 143, 152
action 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 45, 60, 90, agency 167, 281, 300, 333, 356
113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 123, 124, agent 24, 25, 45, 60, 119, 123, 124, 136,
128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 145, 155, 158, 159, 162, 166, 182,
136, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 151, 184, 195, 206, 217, 240, 245, 246,
155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 251, 259, 262, 265, 301, 302, 324,
162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 333, 335, 353, 384
170, 171, 178, 182, 183, 184, 190, agent-neutral 24, 113, 136, 145, 159
193, 194, 195, 199, 203, 205, 206, agent-relative 136, 159
207, 209, 210, 218, 224, 226, 228, agents 60, 92, 110, 133, 135, 136, 162,
231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 195, 218, 256, 266, 277, 279, 314
386
386 INDEX
aggregate 127, 128, 138, 139, 145, 149, anthropocentrism 72, 99, 121, 195
151, 352 anthropocentrists 71, 109
agnostic 16, 100 anthropology 6, 314
agreement 18, 37, 76, 87, 88, 89, 99, 139, anti-conservativism 184, 186, 191
182, 289, 330, 349 anti-essentialism 317
aham￸kara 206 anti-interpretive 70, 73, 181
ahim￸sa 48, 77, 165, 169, 189, 190, 346, anti-philosophical 79
349, 350, 354 anti-philosophy 73, 103
Aitareya Brahmana 253, 254 anti-realism 149
Akbar 49, 50, 93, 197 anti-teleology 183
akusala 25, 130 anu-vrata 162, 164
allopathy 278 aparigraha 190, 207, 349, 353, 354
alms 165, 168 apathetic 235
altar 309, 310 appearance 5, 21, 31, 74, 179, 187, 282,
alternative 8, 14, 17, 18, 36, 38, 41, 50, 67, 291, 364
76, 78, 85, 86, 97, 103, 106, 110, 146, apprenticeship 282, 286, 292
177, 179, 187, 198, 262, 266, 271, argument 3, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 27, 36, 37,
302, 322, 338, 342, 343, 344 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 55,
altruism 193, 209, 248, 381 60, 61, 63, 66, 75, 76, 77, 85, 96, 97,
altruistic 209, 235, 381 101, 102, 108, 115, 116, 121, 128, 129,
Amba 329, 334 136, 139, 140, 141, 148, 151, 180, 190,
Ambalika 334 192, 193, 195, 197, 213, 215, 221, 227,
Ambedkar, B. R. 368, 380 234, 235, 240, 242, 244, 250, 251, 259,
Ambika 334 260, 263, 265, 269, 270, 271, 283, 295,
America 53, 367, 371, 372, 373 296, 303, 307, 312, 313, 321, 322, 333,
analytic 1, 46, 67, 70, 71, 82, 113, 270, 334, 336, 341, 353, 357, 358, 359, 360,
273, 302, 321 361, 362, 365, 367, 368, 370, 371, 372,
analyticity 66, 68, 70, 80, 91 376, 377
analyze 180, 236 Aristotle 22, 23, 29, 30, 52, 65, 66, 67, 71,
Ānanda 127, 134, 135, 150 72, 73, 74, 99, 111, 121, 128, 131,
anatta 128, 129 137, 144, 147, 148, 151, 182, 218,
ancestors 223, 356 219, 223, 241, 242, 322, 324, 341,
ancient 1, 54, 57, 65, 66, 67, 75, 77, 79, 360, 364, 365
85, 148, 173, 208, 222, 224, 272, 285, Aristotelian 33, 67, 82, 113, 121, 128,
297, 298, 299, 320, 326, 342, 343, 131, 132, 136, 145, 202, 223
345, 359, 360, 363, 370 Aristotelianism 241
anekantavada 379 Arjuna 27, 118, 199, 259, 260, 261, 262,
anger 25, 147, 157, 163, 164, 213, 222, 264, 266, 323, 325, 327, 328, 329,
225, 228, 233, 234, 239, 240, 241, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 337,
244, 281, 285, 288, 347 338, 339, 346, 347, 348, 374
Anguttara Nikaya 131, 132, 149 arrogance 110, 283, 285
animal 72, 81, 168, 169, 253, 264, 266, artha 258, 263
287, 295, 345, 347 Arthasastra 113
animals 66, 72, 112, 166, 167, 169, 177, Asanga 229
193, 194, 198, 200, 217, 288, 290, ascetic 80, 159, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168,
296, 346 172, 293, 333, 335, 336
anonymous 7, 18, 334 asceticism 261, 298, 374
Anscombe, G.E.M. 102, 184 asmita 185
antah karana 262 astronomy 21, 86
387
INDEX 387
Atheistic 29, 68, 204 axiological 107

Atheists 351, 374, 379 Ayer, A. J. 74, 81
asubha 260, 262 Ayurveda 116, 275, 277, 278, 289, 292,
atman 113, 153, 238, 252, 254, 256, 257, 293, 294, 298
259, 265, 360, 361, 362, 363, 365, 373 Ayurvedic 117, 277, 278, 279, 282, 284,
atonement 167 285, 287, 290, 292, 293, 294, 297
attachment 163, 164, 171, 206, 207, 208,
211, 212, 219, 228, 229, 230, 231, bad 25, 28, 29, 31, 35, 36, 51, 106, 108,
232, 233, 234, 235, 238, 239, 240, 112, 119, 131, 135, 160, 166, 181,
241, 243, 244, 245, 262, 335, 347, 190, 194, 196, 206, 207, 208, 210,
348, 366, 370 238, 242, 243, 250, 254, 260, 263,
attachments 219, 237, 348 267, 272, 281, 285, 288, 300, 325,
attainment 26, 286, 292, 308 330, 335, 344, 345, 365
attention 3, 13, 51, 61, 80, 115, 152, 163, banishment 327
168, 193, 226, 228, 230, 233, 236, barbarism 373
237, 238, 241, 242, 247, 259, 281, begging the question 10, 11, 14, 16, 26, 35,
301, 303, 304, 307, 309, 312, 314, 40, 43, 252
316, 320, 342, 346, 349, 355, 358, non-question-begging 11, 14, 40, 41
366, 372 question-begging 11, 14, 25, 40, 193
attribute 239, 240, 280 behavior 36, 52, 86, 90, 94, 122, 135, 146,
attributeless 369 162, 163, 171, 188, 199, 257, 280,
attributes 177, 196, 200, 280, 316, 353 281, 282, 283, 285, 286, 292, 300,
Augustine, St. 322 304, 312, 323, 325, 327, 331, 332,
Aurobindo 345, 353 333, 364
Austin, J.L. 32, 55, 56, 74, 80, 87, beings 6, 65, 66, 71, 72, 80, 128, 134, 136,
101, 201 137, 144, 148, 157, 158, 159, 161,
authenticity 368 162, 163, 165, 168, 169, 177, 196,
authority 11, 12, 15, 80, 130, 180, 283, 206, 213, 217, 218, 228, 229, 230,
300, 304, 305, 333 232, 233, 235, 236, 238, 240, 242,
authorship 170, 174, 293, 302, 335 243, 262, 266, 282, 304, 308, 309,
autonomy 2, 12, 22, 27, 31, 36, 48, 52, 359, 362, 363, 365, 369, 373, 378
70, 72, 86, 90, 98, 100, 114, 118, 122, belief 45, 46, 48, 51, 64, 65, 66, 70, 81,
177, 179, 181, 183, 185, 186, 187, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 159, 165,
189, 190, 191, 193, 195, 197, 199, 178, 199, 211, 235, 350, 375
201, 239, 240, 254, 255, 256, 269, beliefs 9, 10, 15, 30, 40, 48, 54, 64, 71,
284, 300, 343, 359, 376 75, 77, 82, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108,
awake 152, 315 109, 110, 178, 179, 180, 181, 185,
awaken 192, 229, 235 192, 194, 203, 251, 378
awakened 90, 115, 226, 227, 229, 245, believe 1, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21,
246, 247 27, 40, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 60, 61,
awakening 115, 135, 225, 226, 227, 65, 69, 71, 76, 99, 103, 104, 105, 107,
228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 108, 109, 110, 111, 178, 179, 180, 181,
236, 237, 239, 241, 243, 244, 245, 192, 194, 199, 249, 324, 343, 349, 351,
246, 247 375, 378
awareness 2, 66, 99, 114, 124, 143, 144, beneficence 194, 253, 284, 286, 350
167, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 212, beneficial 120, 171, 206, 207, 209, 211,
214, 215, 216, 217, 220, 222, 226, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 222, 230,
228, 231, 232, 233, 234, 236, 237, 235, 245, 261, 328, 329
238, 244, 265, 267 beneficiary 194
388
388 INDEX
Bentham, Jeremy 24, 72, 182, 217, 365 brahmanical 301, 368, 370, 374
Bhagavad Gıta 26, 27, 33, 116, 124, 182, brahmins 80, 134, 256, 257, 295, 370
194, 199, 250, 252, 257, 259, 260, bravery 218
261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 268, breathing 191, 359
325, 327, 328, 333, 334, 336, 338, Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 360
342, 346, 347, 348, 349, 362, 363, Buddha 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133,
367, 372, 374, 380 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 146,
bhakti 6, 26, 27, 28, 29, 44, 114, 115, 116, 147, 149, 150, 152, 153, 170, 226,
118, 123, 124, 125, 182, 183, 184, 228, 229, 230, 234, 239, 243, 244,
195, 196, 197, 199, 249, 250, 251, 246, 341, 353, 375, 376
252, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, Buddhism 24, 28, 29, 44, 113, 127, 129,
263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 270, 130, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 140,
271, 319, 321, 324, 325, 328, 329, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147,
331, 335, 336, 338, 358, 375, 383, 384 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 201, 204,
bhakta 29, 30, 252, 262, 325, 328, 336 224, 229, 235, 236, 239, 247, 248,
para-bhakti 265 341, 358, 374
Bhakti/Yoga (Theory) 26, 27, 28, 116, 123, buddhas 229, 231, 232, 269
195, 383, 384 Buddhist 24, 25, 31, 32, 44, 48, 70, 71,
Bharata 119, 339 108, 113, 115, 124, 127, 128, 129,
Bhagavata Purana 296 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137,
bhavana 164, 238 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144,
bhavas 347 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151,
Bhısma 326, 329, 330, 332, 334, 338 152, 153, 182, 201, 209, 210, 213,
Bhumi 87 226, 227, 228, 229, 233, 238, 239,
bias 38, 51, 110, 189 240, 241, 245, 246, 247, 255, 269,
bigot 3, 86, 94 281, 288, 289, 293, 295, 298, 302,
bigotry 11, 16, 110, 378 317, 353, 355, 366, 368, 375, 379, 380
bigots 95 Buddhists 24, 133, 147, 170, 172, 213,
biomedical 278, 279, 284, 293, 297 229, 235, 243, 268, 269, 373
biomedicine 278, 279, 293 Bunker, Archie 94, 95
blame 147, 329, 330, 331, 332
blameless 130 caitanya 158
blameworthy 25, 130, 131, 134, 135, capacities 186, 193, 228, 232, 235, 263,
147, 150 284, 301, 375
blasphemy 375 capacity 36, 71, 93, 194, 233, 234, 236,
blindness 309, 326 244, 266, 309
bodhicitta 227, 229, 230, 231, 234, 235, Caraka 278, 280, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289,
238, 241, 242, 246, 247 290, 291, 292, 293, 295
bodhisattva 115, 226, 227, 229, 230, 231, caregivers 281
232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, carers 279, 281, 290, 295
240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 247, 248 carnivores 288, 296
brahmacarya 190, 349 Cartesian 221
Brahman 116, 124, 125, 251, 252, 254, Carvaka 182
258, 259, 264, 265, 266, 267, 271, cases 8, 17, 18, 25, 28, 30, 64, 69, 73, 78,
272, 361, 362, 365, 369, 377 80, 86, 88, 89, 94, 111, 117, 118, 120,
Brahmanas (Vedas) 252, 300 129, 133, 134, 146, 155, 159, 161,
brahmaviharas 228 172, 198, 199, 212, 215, 216, 219,
brahmin 361, 362, 370, 371, 372 222, 227, 260, 270, 271, 273, 275,
brahmanic 287, 288, 289, 296 294, 299, 301, 303, 304, 306, 307,
389
INDEX 389
308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, choice 5, 14, 23, 30, 37, 67, 91, 104, 114,
315, 316, 317, 321, 322, 339, 383 182, 188, 198, 199, 216, 218, 219,
caste 54, 120, 257, 263, 304, 308, 309, 250, 260, 261, 262, 268, 269, 281,
310, 312, 345, 357, 358, 359, 361, 284, 286, 289, 308, 325, 330, 331,
362, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 346, 348, 349, 350, 371, 372
378, 379 choices 115, 124, 146, 168, 184, 186,
caste-discriminated 76 188, 195, 196, 198, 199, 206, 218,
casteism 112, 358 219, 242, 250, 260, 262, 264, 266,
castes 369, 370, 371 270, 344
outcaste 361–2 Christianity 299, 343, 344, 345, 373
cause 23, 24, 75, 112, 114, 128, 129, 135, Christian 74, 299, 341, 365
158, 168, 171, 177, 188, 193, 198, Christianized 74
199, 206, 211, 216, 217, 218, 219, church 60, 375, 376
231, 234, 237, 239, 242, 243, 260, circularity 86, 144, 145
283, 287, 290, 315, 321, 324, 327, 363 cites 138, 180, 243, 246, 362, 372
causal 89, 149, 182, 196, 203, 204, 206, citizens 26, 65, 71, 89, 91, 138, 139,
207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 214, 290, 319
215, 216, 252, 258 citta 52, 69, 172, 180, 185, 192, 198
causality 182, 186, 187 citta-vrtti-nirodha 63, 185
causation 249, 251, 284 coercion 180
causes 22, 25, 26, 27, 115, 119, 124, coerced 376
166, 169, 183, 187, 199, 208, 216, cognitivist 102
218, 222, 233, 234, 239, 249, 252, colonialism 12, 35, 48, 59, 85, 86, 113,
278, 285, 291, 327, 328 198, 319, 342, 353
celibacy 285 colonial 59, 118, 356
censorship 66 colonialist 11, 12
cetana 131, 132 colonization 72, 74, 96, 359, 374
challenge 3, 7, 26, 72, 144, 168, 181, 187, commitment 15, 18, 41, 43, 44, 88, 106,
190, 195, 199, 258, 260, 262, 317, 111, 136, 190, 191, 198, 230, 231,
319, 320, 327, 328, 335, 369, 381 234, 240, 242, 245, 262, 266
character 7, 23, 52, 92, 93, 114, 115, 116, commitments 7, 8, 15, 42, 48, 71, 77,
128, 131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 88, 107, 119, 156, 161, 361, 379
144, 155, 156, 166, 182, 188, 190, communication 3, 62, 89, 91, 97, 98, 100,
208, 218, 219, 223, 226, 232, 241, 219, 286, 295
249, 250, 251, 253, 255, 257, 259, communitarianism 71, 72, 121
261, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, communitarian 71, 72, 78, 99, 112
269, 271, 272, 273, 300, 306, 319, compassion 24, 32, 113, 115, 119, 127,
324, 327, 370, 384 132, 133, 144, 148, 149, 150, 152,
chariot 138, 139, 140, 141, 255, 257, 258, 201, 207, 209, 221, 226, 227, 228,
259, 264, 265, 267, 271, 329, 330 229, 233, 234, 242, 243, 245, 247,
charioteer 255, 259, 264, 328, 330, 266, 280, 348, 367, 379, 381
332, 333 compassionate 90, 115, 137, 226, 227,
charity 193 228, 230, 231, 233, 241, 242, 243,
charity, principle of 51, 67 244, 245, 246, 262
Charlemagne 197 compatibilism 114, 187, 189
cherry-picking 122 concept 2, 5, 6, 13, 20, 21, 22, 30, 32, 37,
China 79, 106, 148, 239, 373, 378 39, 40, 53, 54, 55, 56, 76, 86, 95, 100,
Chinese 23, 65, 69, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 104, 105, 106, 116, 123, 138, 142,
129, 134, 135, 143, 145, 151, 245 160, 161, 179, 180, 181, 184, 200,
390
390 INDEX
201, 233, 247, 264, 271, 319, 324, 155, 177, 182, 184, 194, 202, 203, 204,
344, 346, 351, 358, 383, 384 205, 207, 209, 211, 213, 215, 217, 219,
concepts 8, 9, 13, 14, 20, 21, 22, 33, 37, 220, 221, 223, 227, 243, 251, 257, 273,
48, 51, 52, 55, 64, 74, 85, 89, 91, 95, 323, 324, 331, 383, 384
102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 123, 127, Act-Consequentialism 24, 133
142, 160, 179, 181, 240, 264, 321, Consequentialist 24, 27, 114, 115, 116,
343, 350 119, 124, 127, 128, 131, 133, 134,
conch 31, 45, 70, 86, 188 135, 136, 137, 145, 146, 147, 149,
conclusion 10, 11, 21, 25, 30, 40, 41, 43, 182, 194, 208, 214, 219, 242, 243,
48, 54, 55, 94, 98, 103, 121, 139, 249, 251, 258, 260, 325
140, 148, 150, 168, 192, 199, 213, Consequentialists 24, 25, 115, 194, 199,
220, 234, 243, 263, 267, 268, 271, 242, 325, 349
292, 336, 354, 379 Quality-Consequentialism 134
conduct 53, 117, 131, 132, 135, 156, 158, Rule-Consequentialism 24, 27, 133, 194
159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167, Welfare-Consequentialism 128, 134,
171, 192, 228, 232, 238, 254, 277, 136, 145
278, 279, 280, 282, 283, 285, 286, conservative 187, 190, 193, 198, 271
289, 292, 294, 295, 322, 331, 361 conservativism 114, 186, 198
confabulation 1, 77 unconservative 125, 184, 186, 187, 189,
confidence 232, 235, 236, 241, 268 193, 194, 200
conflict 118, 119, 158, 168, 266, 270, 275, constituents 71, 279
306, 327, 328, 359, 373, 374, 376, 379 constitution 155, 156, 157, 193, 324,
conformity 6, 90, 107, 161, 168, 195, 252, 368, 373
282, 300 construct 68, 94, 95, 136, 360
Confucius 23, 65, 69, 70, 78, 80 contemporary 1, 61, 65, 66, 67, 71, 75, 79,
Confucian 65, 156 81, 82, 86, 95, 99, 104, 113, 122, 127,
Confucianism 80, 83 128, 129, 148, 151, 156, 170, 219,
confusion 6, 12, 18, 31, 39, 48, 55, 60, 65, 223, 246, 270, 317, 320, 322, 323,
95, 99, 105, 109, 112, 161, 199, 207, 345, 351, 353, 356, 376
208, 211, 230, 245, 252, 265, 365, 378 context 3, 8, 17, 19, 45, 51, 53, 59, 66, 69,
conjugal 164 71, 76, 91, 92, 94, 109, 112, 117, 119,
conquerors 90, 156, 163, 170, 232 120, 131, 134, 141, 160, 162, 164,
conscience 194, 300, 332, 344 165, 167, 169, 170, 172, 182, 190,
conscientious 91, 300 222, 231, 261, 266, 267, 280, 282,
consciousness 59, 113, 115, 120, 127, 137, 287, 288, 289, 292, 295, 297, 300,
138, 139, 140, 151, 158, 189, 211, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, 308, 311,
212, 213, 214, 220, 221, 227, 230, 313, 316, 323, 324, 331, 333, 342,
240, 247, 357, 361, 362, 364, 365, 348, 353, 354, 355, 358, 371, 372, 375
373, 377, 379 context-sensitive 117
conscious 188, 213, 221, 259 context-transcendent 119, 263, 275
consequence 30, 187, 209, 235, 241, 242, contexts 1, 7, 46, 48, 55, 71, 99, 119,
252, 261 125, 160, 168, 190, 199, 209, 270,
consequences 1, 24, 32, 113, 127, 128, 277, 282, 284, 285, 292, 304, 305,
129, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 146, 322, 325
147, 149, 152, 160, 184, 186, 189, contextual 117, 338, 358
201, 209, 217, 228, 241, 242, 247, convention 70, 138, 142, 151, 239, 253,
251, 260, 264, 285, 292, 349, 355 269, 270, 310, 330
Consequentialism 6, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, conventionalize 331
33, 44, 71, 113, 114, 116, 119, 123, converge 5, 8, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
124, 128, 133, 135, 136, 137, 145, 147, 21, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 46, 51,
391
INDEX 391
53, 62, 85, 98, 104, 105, 144, 147, Dalits 345
179, 180, 181, 182, 271 damage 283, 286
convergence 30, 41, 144 Dancy, Jonathan 122, 150, 152, 308, 317
conversion 48, 91, 93 darkness 222, 232, 360, 379
corpuscularity 160 daughter 376
correspond 9, 38, 41, 43, 116, 179, 255 Davidson, Donald 3, 9, 11, 13, 32, 55, 57,
correspondence 40, 41, 289 67, 86, 87, 93, 94, 101, 178, 201
cost-benefit 218 dead 148, 189, 223, 330, 333, 336,
country 49, 72, 190, 352, 353 359, 366
courage 21 death 146, 150, 157, 158, 165, 172, 174,
court 327, 335 175, 209, 216, 221, 222, 223, 235,
cowardice 164, 218, 346 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260,
critical 2, 15, 16, 17, 18, 47, 74, 96, 98, 283, 284, 286, 290, 291, 292, 330,
100, 107, 118, 122, 180, 187, 188, 334, 349, 366, 369
192, 193, 198, 199, 200, 213, 269, deception 166, 206, 209, 285, 286, 287,
297, 318, 321, 322, 325, 331, 337, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293
338, 339, 361, 365, 372 delusion 113, 130, 131, 133, 134, 143,
criticism 9, 18, 36, 38, 40, 43, 44, 50, 51, 144, 210, 227, 228, 240, 243, 244
52, 69, 73, 75, 76, 79, 91, 95, 96, 97, democracy 368
119, 185, 188, 192, 193, 198, 199, democratic 350, 352, 372, 373
200, 213, 220, 246, 259, 263, 265, dentistry 110
268, 270, 322, 327, 337, 343, 344, deontic 113, 114, 155, 158, 332
353, 355, 364, 366, 377, 378 Deontology 6, 25, 26, 28, 33, 44, 72, 116,
cross-cultural 62, 89, 91, 93, 98, 99, 117, 118, 123, 124, 155, 177, 182,
100, 297 184, 194, 196, 251, 254, 257, 258,
crosslinguistic 87, 89 259, 260, 263, 265, 266, 271, 273,
cruel 118, 166, 196, 225 324, 328, 331, 383, 384
cruelty 21, 90, 167, 206, 241 Deontological 26, 29, 116, 217, 219,
Crusades 373 257, 258, 264, 268, 275, 283, 299,
cultivate 113, 124, 129, 134, 142, 144, 308, 350, 355
145, 147, 148, 149, 226, 228, 229, Deontologist 25, 26, 196, 252, 331
230, 232, 233, 235, 236, 241, 243, Deontologists 25, 26, 116, 182, 183,
244, 245, 283, 362 194, 199, 252, 257, 349
cultivating 90, 147, 227, 228, 230, 231, dependence 127, 138, 235
233, 234, 237, 241, 242, 244, 247 dependent 17, 31, 41, 138, 146, 272,
cultivation 115, 132, 226, 227, 228, 229, 281, 306, 345
230, 233, 237, 238, 241, 245 dependent origination 140, 141, 227, 233,
culture 32, 49, 59, 61, 62, 65, 66, 68, 234, 235, 239, 240, 241, 244
77, 80, 89, 90, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98, Derrida, Jacques 66, 68, 81, 87, 101
101, 103, 109, 121, 147, 178, 197, desirable 49, 197, 211, 216, 252, 282,
315, 322, 323, 325, 342, 368, 375, 292, 336
378 desire 24, 40, 46, 162, 164, 165, 210,
cultures 3, 72, 73, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 214, 215, 221, 223, 235, 237, 238,
97, 100, 103, 144, 145, 147 244, 245, 255, 264, 301, 302, 304,
cure 51, 280, 292, 366 308, 309, 313, 317, 335, 352, 366,
cures 292, 315, 366 370, 371
curriculum 294 desired 211, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219,
custom 55, 95, 190, 283, 289, 305, 222, 280, 286, 308, 341, 350
313, 372 determinism 114, 116, 178, 186, 187, 189,
customs 5, 119, 124, 289, 304, 306, 312 191, 195, 262, 272
392
392 INDEX
devotion 26, 27, 29, 45, 114, 118, 125, discipline-relative 19, 35, 62, 63, 105
178, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 197, disciplines 18, 35, 50, 51, 63, 87, 100,
207, 231, 239, 249, 250, 252, 259, 105, 109
261, 262, 265, 266, 267, 268, 271, disease 164, 187, 189, 281, 282, 287, 292,
319, 321, 328, 331, 336, 337, 375, 383 344, 366
devotionalism 184, 328 diseased 281, 286, 359
dhamma 130, 131, 133, 149 dispassion 132, 171, 311, 347
dharma 2, 5, 6, 13, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, dispassionately 307
30, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 48, 50, 53, disquotationalism 41
54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 71, 92, 94, dissent 14, 36, 38, 45, 46, 50, 76, 91, 97,
95, 99, 104, 105, 106, 108, 111, 112, 98, 179
114, 115, 116, 118, 121, 122, 123, dissenting 2, 18, 20, 63, 91, 96, 104, 109
124, 125, 149, 150, 152, 156, 160, distinction 1, 2, 6, 10, 14, 15, 21, 30, 36,
161, 168, 169, 179, 180, 181, 182, 37, 40, 41, 45, 50, 52, 54, 55, 59, 60,
183, 186, 188, 204, 205, 206, 209, 61, 64, 67, 70, 78, 79, 85, 87, 95, 96,
214, 219, 224, 228, 234, 243, 246, 108, 110, 112, 113, 151, 155, 169,
249, 251, 252, 256, 258, 261, 263, 178, 187, 213, 227, 230, 239, 241,
264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 242, 244, 247, 260, 265, 296, 343,
271, 289, 296, 298, 300, 301, 302, 349, 370, 371
304, 311, 317, 319, 323, 325, 327, diversity 3, 7, 47, 55, 59, 61, 68, 69, 70,
328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 335, 71, 77, 78, 79, 85, 86, 89, 92, 98, 99,
336, 337, 338, 339, 347, 356, 366, 100, 104, 107, 109, 110, 120, 238, 243,
383, 384 253, 358, 365, 366, 374, 375, 376, 377,
adharma 160, 206, 219, 336, 347 379, 381
dharma-megha-samadhi 192 divine 23, 29, 74, 261, 264, 273, 326, 331,
dharmaksetra 327 335, 336, 347, 375, 376, 377
dharmasastra 52, 57, 58, 112, 288, 295, divine command 23, 29
296, 297, 301, 336 divine right 74
dharmasutras 301 doctor 228, 280, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286,
sanatana dharma 95, 121 287, 291, 292, 293, 296
dharana 192 doctors 279, 294
Dhrtarastra 326, 327 doctor-patient 277
dhyana 192, 231, 238 doctrine 37, 65, 70, 71, 120, 127, 129,
dialectic 81, 124, 125, 250, 259, 260, 267, 130, 139, 141, 148, 170, 173, 174,
268, 335 209, 228, 237, 242, 256, 317, 338,
dice 326, 327, 328, 331, 332, 335 343, 348, 359, 361, 363, 368, 374,
diet 287, 289 376, 377, 378
discipline 1, 2, 5, 6, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, doctrines 74, 148, 156, 239, 342, 359
26, 30, 35, 36, 37, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, doer 262, 309, 310
62, 63, 77, 81, 85, 86, 87, 88, 97, 98, dog 194, 296, 336, 337, 362
99, 100, 104, 105, 108, 110, 122, 137, dogs 193, 336, 361
197, 199, 219, 227, 228, 229, 231, dog-eater 361, 362
232, 233, 234, 236, 239, 249, 264, dogma 36, 60
288, 384 donkeys 287, 296
disciplinarity 37, 44, 51, 60, 63, 77, Dostoevsky 225, 247, 339
85, 93, 99 doubt 18, 28, 47, 55, 69, 77, 109, 112,
disciplinary 1, 14, 16, 19, 30, 35, 36, 40, 133, 168, 170, 183, 203, 213, 223,
45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 61, 62, 63, 75, 85, 305, 360, 368, 371
86, 87, 88, 92, 97, 98, 100, 104, 105, dosa 206, 218
110, 121, 181 drama 291, 322
393
INDEX 393
Draupadı 326, 327, 329, 330, 334, 337 367, 368, 369, 371, 373, 375, 376,
dravya 171 377, 378, 379, 381
Drona 329, 330, 332, 333, 336, 338 equally 14, 29, 37, 136, 137, 142, 209,
dualism 221, 250, 363, 377 229, 238, 242, 307, 345, 346, 358,
dualist 356 369, 372, 373, 374, 375, 377, 379
dukkha 129 equanimity 171, 172, 228, 233, 234, 238,
dukhaya 25, 130 245, 280
duhkha 24, 228 essence 29, 30, 63, 94, 110, 114, 145, 168,
duty 25, 26, 53, 54, 55, 117, 119, 122, 170, 185, 188, 196, 220, 221, 260,
124, 165, 169, 183, 190, 194, 195, 265, 269, 303, 304, 314, 335, 377
196, 212, 217, 252, 256, 257, 260, essentialized 51, 267
261, 263, 266, 271, 283, 301, 305, essentializes 75
317, 323, 324, 328, 329, 331, 348, 383 essentializing 75, 76, 239
duties 25, 26, 52, 54, 72, 117, 119, 125, ethical 2, 9, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 37,
161, 162, 172, 202, 209, 252, 258, 45, 46, 55, 59, 71, 79, 86, 88, 89,
260, 263, 264, 278, 279, 282, 294, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 99, 100, 104,
300, 323, 329, 349, 370 108, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117,
dying 172, 175, 254, 256 118, 119, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129,
dynamic 22, 28, 35, 43, 156, 190, 260, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137,
358, 368 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148,
149, 150, 152, 155, 158, 160, 163,
Earth 3, 22, 30, 31, 72, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 165, 168, 169, 177, 178, 181, 182,
91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 105, 183, 185, 186, 187, 189, 192, 193,
169, 177, 194, 200, 210, 311, 312 194, 202, 208, 217, 220, 223, 226,
economy 215, 222, 231, 303, 345, 372 227, 229, 243, 247, 250, 254, 256,
economic 296, 313, 352, 359, 369, 371, 257, 260, 261, 262, 264, 266, 267,
372, 373 268, 269, 273, 275, 277, 287, 288,
egocentrism 22, 31, 188 289, 293, 295, 297, 299, 300, 301,
egoism 193, 226, 366 302, 303, 306, 308, 312, 313, 314,
egotism 185, 206 315, 316, 317, 319, 322, 324, 325,
empirical 6, 19, 26, 49, 51, 62, 67, 70, 87, 329, 331, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339,
142, 144, 192, 197, 198, 218, 253, 340, 344, 349, 350, 351, 357, 360,
270, 322 361, 362, 364, 365, 367, 368, 372,
empiricism 82, 178, 198, 273 376, 378, 379
enemy 216, 234, 345, 360 a-ethical 52
energy 231, 242, 245, 333 ethical action 115, 124, 260, 261, 301
enjoyer 255 ethical equality 368
enjoyment 165, 271, 308 ethical claims 127, 130, 134, 136, 142,
enlightenment 170, 246, 362, 365, 147, 148, 266
366, 374 ethical concerns 118, 223, 316
enlightened 230, 234, 347 ethical demands 136, 137
enmity 207, 208, 373 ethical evaluation 113, 132, 133,
environment 72, 144, 164, 165, 167, 168, 134, 146
188, 190, 262, 275, 285, 292 ethical import 301, 303, 306, 312, 314,
epic 27, 52, 57, 113, 118, 119, 124, 224, 315, 316
272, 319, 323, 325, 328, 334, 335, ethical issues 91, 220, 223, 277, 308
339, 346 ethical particularism (see
epistemology 52, 82, 203, 239, 271 Particularism, Moral)
equality 120, 218, 238, 244, 261, 307, 357, ethical questions 128, 262, 275,
358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 365, 303, 319
394
394 INDEX
ethical theories 2, 37, 46, 59, 71, 79, 113, ethos 57, 201
115, 128, 155, 182, 194, 217, 243, etiquette 116, 277, 279, 280, 282, 285,
299, 316, 344, 364 292, 295, 298
ethical theory 2, 21, 26, 28, 45, 71, 91, eudaimonia 132, 241, 242
113, 114, 124, 128, 129, 134, 149, Eurocentrism 53, 59, 79, 103
150, 155, 169, 181, 183, 202, 208, Eurocentric 2, 28, 46, 50, 53, 55, 56, 59,
220, 227, 257, 264, 273, 322, 338, 61, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 85, 96, 99
339, 340 Europe 57, 59, 61, 67, 74, 78, 79, 293,
ethical thought 127, 128, 130, 143, 345, 358, 373
148, 344 European 2, 6, 28, 29, 37, 46, 50,
ethical values 28, 117, 277, 378 52, 53, 59, 60, 65, 72, 75, 78, 79,
supra-ethical 364 341, 373
ethicist 335 evidence 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 25, 29,
ethicists 195, 199, 227, 241, 314, 39, 41, 42, 60, 70, 105, 108, 110, 128,
319, 324 130, 134, 137, 138, 141, 142, 145,
ethics 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 147, 180, 188, 197, 202, 213, 214,
26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 220, 222, 239, 269, 272, 307, 362
40, 43, 44, 45, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, evil 28, 29, 80, 132, 135, 184, 187, 194,
57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 66, 71, 72, 73, 75, 196, 198, 199, 206, 252, 253, 254,
76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 255, 256, 257, 259, 262, 265, 266,
92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 268, 328, 329, 360, 366, 371
103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, evils 253, 254, 353, 369
111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, evolution 229, 251, 252, 300, 317, 330
118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, existence 29, 80, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142,
127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 146, 159, 171, 213, 227, 233, 234,
134, 136, 137, 142, 143, 144, 145, 235, 236, 239, 240, 245, 246, 267,
146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 296, 348, 365, 366, 370
155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, experience 2, 13, 19, 22, 38, 46, 48, 49, 50,
162, 163, 165, 167, 168, 169, 171, 56, 67, 79, 113, 128, 129, 130, 131,
173, 175, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146,
183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 147, 148, 149, 151, 185, 187, 192, 197,
190, 191, 193, 194, 195, 197, 199, 200, 211, 213, 217, 226, 228, 237, 238,
201, 202, 203, 204, 208, 209, 214, 241, 245, 255, 257, 270, 280, 281, 291,
217, 218, 219, 220, 223, 224, 225, 319, 323, 345, 361, 365, 369, 377
227, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, explanation 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15,
237, 239, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246, 16, 17, 21, 29, 36, 37, 41, 43, 44, 50,
247, 249, 250, 251, 252, 258, 261, 51, 53, 55, 60, 74, 78, 85, 86, 100,
262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 104, 105, 106, 110, 113, 121, 122,
269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 277, 123, 124, 135, 146, 169, 178, 179,
278, 279, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 181, 187, 189, 194, 200, 249, 252,
287, 289, 291, 293, 294, 295, 297, 253, 254, 257, 258, 261, 268, 269,
298, 299, 300, 301, 303, 305, 307, 271, 301, 313, 363, 383
309, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, explanations 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 35, 44, 51,
317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 85, 86, 104, 105, 180, 253, 254, 258
324, 325, 327, 328, 329, 331, 333, Expressivism 89, 92, 102
335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 341, 342, externalism 62, 63, 76, 79, 87, 88, 92, 96,
343, 350, 351, 353, 355, 357, 359, 97, 98, 99, 101
360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, extremism 373
367, 368, 378, 379, 380, 381, 383, 384 extremists 352
395
INDEX 395
fables 278, 346 future 133, 138, 141, 171, 192, 206, 241,
failings 114, 203, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 258, 312, 319, 367
218, 219, 221
fairness 332 Gadamer, H.G. 8, 9, 11, 13, 32, 67, 87,
faith 2, 59, 60, 79, 137, 145, 158, 169, 101, 178, 201
207, 262, 269, 285, 300, 359, 376, Gandhi, M.K. 27, 32, 118, 120, 190, 191,
377, 381 201, 320, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345,
fallacious 10, 16, 76 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352,
false 1, 19, 36, 38, 43, 44, 45, 46, 50, 61, 353, 354, 355, 356, 373
62, 64, 75, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 97, Ganesa 376
105, 109, 146, 203, 206, 207, 208, Gautama 222, 229
211, 284, 288, 296, 361, 362 generalism 119, 122, 323, 339
familiar 2, 21, 49, 71, 94, 111, 115, 148, generality 7, 8, 227
212, 270, 304, 315, 335, 366 generalization 76, 77, 108, 249, 257, 303,
family 39, 54, 65, 136, 217, 223, 259, 281, 307, 315
293, 320, 326, 327, 328, 333, 334, generosity 144, 226, 227, 229, 231, 232,
335, 336, 358, 379 233, 234, 236, 239
father 65, 119, 214, 254, 311, 312, 326, Geocentrism 3, 86
327, 334, 359, 376 Geocentric 21, 35
fault 36, 51, 78, 96, 120 Geocentrists 13, 21, 31, 100
fear 71, 157, 169, 222, 226, 228, 237, 242, Gıta (see Bhagavad Gıta)
245, 283, 290, 291, 363 goat 253
fears 228, 283, 290 God 23, 29, 45, 60, 68, 73, 118, 125, 159,
feminism 178, 197, 343 184, 191, 204, 206, 209, 210, 214, 222,
feminist 112, 319 251, 253, 254, 256, 267, 272, 300, 321,
forbearance 227, 233, 234, 236, 239 324, 328, 335, 349, 351, 363, 365, 369,
Ford maker 124, 156, 162 372, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378
forgiveness 225, 234, 334 Goddess 100, 267
form 5, 7, 15, 23, 29, 36, 51, 62, 70, godhead 328
72, 78, 88, 90, 91, 97, 105, 110, gods 73, 74, 251, 253, 254, 255, 258, 261,
115, 116, 117, 120, 132, 133, 137, 263, 338, 376
138, 139, 140, 144, 145, 165, 168, Good 2, 5, 6, 8, 12, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
169, 170, 172, 184, 204, 217, 226, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 37, 39, 43, 45,
230, 231, 236, 242, 243, 251, 257, 50, 51, 60, 66, 73, 76, 80, 87, 92, 95,
267, 268, 278, 279, 280, 299, 300, 98, 100, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111,
301, 313, 315, 316, 322, 323, 328, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120,
338, 340, 348, 350, 353, 355, 357, 121, 123, 124, 125, 135, 137, 144, 145,
359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 146, 149, 160, 167, 177, 178, 179, 180,
369, 370, 372, 373, 375, 376, 377, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 190,
378, 379 192, 194, 195, 196, 199, 203, 204, 205,
four-pillar 280, 281 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213,
framework 56, 127, 132, 136, 140, 144, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 222, 227, 228,
145, 147, 156, 240, 243, 261, 284, 230, 232, 235, 238, 242, 249, 250, 251,
358, 361, 362, 367, 375, 376 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259,
friendship 193, 323, 333, 334, 335, 337 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268,
functionalism 268 269, 270, 271, 272, 275, 278, 280, 281,
fundamentalists 378 282, 283, 285, 290, 292, 294, 295, 300,
fusion 112, 328 307, 315, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 327,
futility 346, 348 328, 329, 331, 335, 337, 345, 348, 349,
396
396 INDEX
354, 357, 358, 360, 364, 365, 366, 368, heterosexism 200
371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, hierarchy 120, 280, 283, 345, 357, 358,
379, 380, 383, 384 361, 362, 371, 372, 373, 378
Goodman, Charles 24, 32, 127, 128, 129, high-life 254, 255
131, 133, 135, 136, 137, 145, 146, Hinduism 28, 29, 57, 59, 81, 82, 93, 120,
150, 152, 182, 201, 227, 242, 243, 247 121, 205, 206, 224, 343, 345, 357,
goodness 23, 25, 28, 29, 87, 116, 119, 124, 358, 359, 360, 368, 373, 374, 375,
125, 131, 152, 182, 183, 184, 196, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380
199, 251, 252, 257, 258, 259, 262, Hindu 29, 33, 44, 52, 55, 56, 58, 59, 78,
263, 269, 324, 331, 349 95, 96, 117, 124, 200, 203, 204, 209,
goods 26, 117, 119, 135, 165, 205, 253, 216, 219, 222, 272, 298, 299, 300, 301,
258, 263, 365, 375, 378 302, 317, 318, 320, 342, 345, 350, 356,
goodwill 131, 183, 328 358, 368, 371, 373, 375, 376, 377,
governance 256, 306 380, 381
government 57, 58, 72, 202, 224, 278, 353, Hindus 28, 46, 78, 170, 272, 376
356, 371, 378 Hınayana 246
grammarians 69 Hindutva 46, 345, 356, 358, 373, 377
Greek 1, 59, 61, 65, 66, 67, 78, 81, 223, historical 7, 17, 18, 19, 31, 50, 56, 61, 65,
322, 360 68, 80, 90, 91, 96, 99, 100, 106, 110,
Greeks 2, 65, 67, 73, 75, 78, 299, 324 111, 115, 124, 129, 141, 148, 151,
guilt 289 152, 175, 178, 226, 227, 229, 248,
guna 158, 206 284, 318, 336, 340, 354, 356, 358,
gunas 346, 347, 375 359, 360, 361, 364, 366, 367
history 2, 17, 18, 27, 31, 36, 46, 48, 50,
habits 232, 235, 280, 286, 316 57, 61, 66, 67, 80, 81, 82, 87, 93, 99,
habituation 241 106, 110, 111, 121, 148, 152, 175,
Hacker, Paul 359, 364, 365, 366, 367, 181, 201, 202, 224, 250, 284, 297,
368, 380 303, 334, 339, 343, 346, 350, 358,
Hanuman 376 359, 361, 364, 367, 368, 370, 373,
happiness 23, 89, 90, 127, 128, 130, 131, 375, 378, 379, 381
146, 157, 160, 162, 182, 198, 210, Hobbes, Thomas 24, 29, 112, 187
212, 213, 217, 218, 221, 230, 238, homophobes 378
239, 241, 242, 243, 282, 304, 308, honor 152, 260, 311
309, 311, 328, 363, 365 horse 100, 183, 210, 253, 255, 260, 287,
happy 23, 89, 90, 96, 133, 193, 218, 254 288, 311, 316, 329
harm 23, 25, 119, 130, 131, 135, 136, 161, hospitals 278
166, 167, 168, 189, 190, 198, 199, hostility 190, 326, 331
200, 202, 211, 216, 217, 218, 219, householder 161, 164, 165, 207, 211, 223
222, 234, 240, 241, 284, 286, 290, humanism 78, 190, 339
296, 307, 345, 350, 363, 366, 367 Hursthouse, Rosalind 23, 32, 182, 201,
harmful 90, 164, 206, 207, 208, 211 324, 339
healing 228, 298 Husserl, Edmund 6, 32, 67, 68, 81, 82,
health 177, 289, 293 198, 201
heaven 217, 284, 286, 292, 308, 309, 336 hygiene 307
Hegel, G.W.F. 52, 66, 67, 356 hypothesis 133, 192, 212
Heidegger, Martin 8, 32, 66, 67 hypothetical 192
Heliocentrism 14, 21, 31, 35, 86, 101
hermeneutic 8, 10, 82, 243, 346 ideal 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 45, 72, 90, 92, 97,
hermeneutics 32, 33, 101, 317 114, 115, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124, 125,
heteronormativity 200 142, 149, 150, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188,
397
INDEX 397
191, 193, 195, 197, 199, 200, 213, 227, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118,
229, 247, 249, 250, 251, 252, 258, 259, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 131,
261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 150, 152, 156, 158, 159, 172, 175,
269, 271, 281, 294, 315, 321, 324, 325, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 190, 200,
328, 329, 331, 332, 336, 339, 359, 366, 201, 202, 203, 206, 209, 210, 213,
372, 377, 383 214, 223, 224, 226, 227, 229, 230,
idealism 119, 142, 150 235, 236, 238, 239, 243, 246, 249,
ideals 29, 30, 120, 183, 188, 189, 190, 252, 256, 258, 268, 270, 272, 273,
191, 232, 279, 300, 317, 325, 336, 275, 277, 278, 279, 284, 285, 293,
351, 376 294, 297, 298, 300, 301, 302, 317,
ideas 6, 7, 9, 18, 39, 50, 62, 67, 70, 73, 318, 319, 320, 323, 324, 339, 341,
77, 118, 120, 121, 127, 166, 181, 204, 342, 343, 345, 349, 350, 351, 353,
235, 240, 251, 259, 267, 279, 317, 354, 355, 356, 357, 360, 365, 368,
341, 342, 343, 350, 351, 355, 369, 371, 373, 374, 380, 381, 383, 384
371, 374 individual 14, 23, 45, 50, 52, 90, 107, 120,
illness 177, 187, 190, 214, 228, 260, 137, 140, 147, 155, 156, 159, 162,
282, 285 167, 191, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 208,
illusion 5, 8, 11, 42, 67, 68, 166, 188, 212, 214, 221, 260, 261, 263, 264, 265,
271, 365 266, 268, 285, 292, 314, 315, 348, 350,
imperative 26, 67, 89, 194, 196, 217, 283, 357, 358, 359, 362, 364, 366, 367, 368,
331, 343, 344 369, 370, 371, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377,
imperatives 214, 217, 224 378, 379
imperfection 184, 197 individuality 267, 300, 371, 375
imperialism 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 27, 35, 36, 48, Indology 1, 2, 3, 13, 31, 36, 38, 41, 46, 48,
49, 50, 51, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 70, 49, 50, 55, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71,
72, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 86, 91, 93, 95, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 86,
96, 97, 98, 103, 106, 110, 111, 112, 94, 96, 99, 100, 110, 111, 122, 173,
114, 121, 178, 197, 198, 201, 319, 174, 317
352, 355 Orthodox Indologists 46, 49, 94, 99, 100
imperialists 51, 95 Orthodox Indology 38, 46, 61, 78, 96,
independence 12, 27, 85, 86, 96, 120, 159, 99, 110, 122
178, 186, 190, 198, 200, 320, 350, 354 infatuation 209, 361
independently 12, 26, 39, 43, 138, 145, injunction 115, 136, 137, 138, 143, 214,
182, 206, 209 215, 216, 217, 222, 252, 258, 266,
India 2, 28, 32, 46, 49, 52, 57, 58, 61, 70, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 364
71, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, 95, inner-controller 265
96, 99, 100, 103, 106, 107, 111, 120, innocent 120, 217, 253
121, 122, 148, 150, 152, 170, 173, insider perspective 71, 95, 96, 121
202, 224, 239, 245, 272, 275, 277, instrumentality 23, 24, 27, 208, 366
279, 293, 294, 297, 298, 301, 319, intellectual 16, 36, 49, 59, 75, 77, 78, 90,
320, 326, 339, 341, 342, 343, 344, 110, 121, 122, 197, 231, 241
345, 350, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, intension 62, 64, 87
359, 360, 361, 369, 371, 372, 373, intention 131, 132, 152, 200, 222, 230,
374, 375, 376, 380, 381 240, 289, 291, 321
Indian 1, 2, 3, 6, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, interdiscipline 36, 50
27, 28, 30, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 44, interpretation 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
46, 47, 48, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 28, 30, 31,
58, 59, 61, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 76, 78, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43,
79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 94, 95, 96, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55,
98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 56, 59, 60, 61, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70,
398
398 INDEX
71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 85, 86, 93, justice 23, 33, 54, 55, 66, 112, 193, 202,
94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 218, 284, 312, 327, 328, 331, 332,
105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 337, 339, 359, 360
114, 115, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 128, justification 24, 25, 26, 52, 90, 117, 119,
133, 135, 140, 141, 144, 146, 151, 152, 124, 134, 137, 144, 147, 166, 179,
178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 186, 188, 189, 182, 243, 249, 251, 252, 257, 258,
192, 194, 199, 200, 201, 230, 239, 241, 261, 263, 315, 324, 328, 349, 364
246, 247, 278, 301, 303, 307, 319, 323,
339, 342, 347, 348, 357, 358, 360, 363, Kaikeyı 119
364, 367, 369, 371, 378, 380, 383 Kalı 376
intersubjective 5, 111 kama 131, 209
intolerance 80, 98, 378 kama 366
intoxication 234 Kant, Immanuel 26, 29, 52, 67, 71, 72, 89,
intra-cultural 91 148, 150, 151, 178, 183, 189, 194,
intrinsic 54, 124, 135, 156, 157, 158, 159, 195, 196, 201, 202, 214, 217, 252,
161, 165, 167, 350, 366, 376 323, 331, 339, 365
intuitions 20, 32, 33, 81, 270, 271, 272, Kantianism 89, 114, 177, 218, 223, 323
273, 338, 360 karma 23, 26, 90, 114, 124, 156, 158, 159,
irony 210 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 169,
irrationality 51, 240 170, 171, 182, 184, 188, 208, 209,
irrealism 265, 268 210, 259, 260, 261, 263, 264, 266,
irresponsibility 257 271, 300, 328, 339, 366
isolation 27, 72, 96, 118, 185, 187, 188, karma-particles 160
191, 198 karman 170, 255
Istadevata 191, 375 karmic 160, 235
Isvara Pranidhana 184, 185, 186, 189, 246 karuna 209, 228
Karna 330, 332, 333, 338
Jaimini 258, 300, 303, 304, 309, 310, 315, Kauravas 118, 259, 326, 327, 329, 330,
316, 317 331, 332, 333, 335, 337, 338
Jainism 20, 23, 28, 29, 44, 70, 113, 114, Katha Upanisad 116, 250, 254, 255, 256,
124, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 257, 258, 259, 260, 264, 266, 349
161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, kayotsarga 114, 167
169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, Keown, Damien 127, 128, 131, 132, 133,
182, 204, 209, 210, 269, 295, 346, 142, 143, 145, 149, 151, 152, 241, 247
349, 350, 351, 358, 374, 379, 380 kill 131, 194, 246, 290, 330, 332, 347, 371
Jains 23, 160, 166, 173, 267 killing 24, 80, 133, 152, 166, 182, 198,
Jesus 29, 74, 90, 376, 379 243, 246, 273, 295, 329, 330, 340
jıva 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, kindness 21, 183, 209, 280
162, 163, 166, 167, 170, 171, 173, kindly 183
175, 259, 266, 267, 350, 365, 366, king 50, 54, 59, 71, 80, 82, 90, 119, 134,
367, 374, 375, 377, 378 226, 255, 311, 315, 325, 326, 327,
ajıva 158, 159, 160, 161, 170, 171 333, 336, 360
jñana 69, 70, 159, 178, 246, 259, 261, kingdom 26, 67, 194, 216, 252, 330,
264, 265, 347 332, 336, 373
ajñana 347 klesa 188
judgment 52, 113, 117, 144, 146, 147, 197, know 1, 3, 5, 11, 16, 29, 44, 46, 48, 49,
201, 223, 284, 300, 301, 304, 305, 51, 67, 70, 71, 76, 79, 95, 105, 122,
307, 310, 311, 312, 313 129, 130, 135, 140, 143, 144, 149,
jurisprudence 278, 294 157, 169, 183, 190, 254, 257, 265,
399
INDEX 399
270, 281, 286, 288, 307, 310, 313, linguistic internalism 87, 88, 89, 97, 99
345, 350, 353, 368, 373 linguistic internalist 88
knowledge 1, 3, 8, 9, 11, 17, 27, 30, 32, linguistic meaning 2, 62, 65, 66, 68, 69,
39, 48, 49, 50, 57, 66, 74, 81, 90, 100, 70, 75, 79, 87, 88, 89, 92, 97, 100,
105, 111, 132, 142, 158, 159, 160, 106, 185
161, 170, 174, 182, 189, 192, 197, linguistic particularism 97, 99
203, 204, 220, 246, 254, 256, 261, linguistic turn 67, 82
265, 278, 280, 281, 283, 285, 289, liquor 361
292, 302, 310, 360, 362, 365, 379 literature 3, 17, 52, 53, 54, 55, 74, 80, 98,
Kripke, Saul 64, 68, 69 103, 114, 124, 150, 165, 169, 172,
Krishna 26, 27, 57, 118, 174, 182, 194, 173, 174, 208, 220, 226, 251, 273,
224, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 266, 288, 293, 296, 297, 317, 336, 337, 359
268, 316, 317, 319, 321, 323, 325, live 16, 23, 32, 36, 59, 90, 92, 119, 121,
328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 127, 142, 149, 165, 168, 184, 190,
335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 346, 347, 194, 199, 201, 219, 223, 256, 335,
348, 362, 372, 374, 376 339, 359, 360, 361, 364, 365, 372, 375
kriya 183 lives 58, 65, 76, 136, 146, 159, 162, 184,
krodha 157, 163, 233 188, 193, 202, 209, 217, 219, 226,
ksatriya 256, 327, 328, 336, 370 227, 228, 229, 245, 306, 326, 344,
Kumarila Bhatta 25, 183, 300 352, 370, 375
Kundakunda 170, 173, 174 Locke, John 29, 359
logocentrism 61, 65, 68, 69, 78, 79, 106,
Laksmana 119 112, 121
Laksmı 29, 267 lokasam￸graha 214, 261
language 3, 17, 32, 55, 57, 61, 62, 63, 65, Lord, The 27, 28, 29, 30, 114, 125, 178,
66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 184, 185, 186, 191, 193, 195, 197,
76, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 207, 249, 251, 252, 259, 261, 262,
89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 268, 271, 315, 319, 325, 328, 363,
99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 106, 107, 111, 374, 375, 383
117, 121, 122, 181, 194, 201, 202, Lordliness 27, 114, 125, 184, 185, 186,
226, 240, 245, 256, 273, 302, 304, 193, 198, 249, 259
305, 314, 315, 317, 319, 341 love 225, 246, 266, 345, 362, 363, 366,
Leibniz, G.W. 66 374, 378, 379
liberal 48, 49, 198, 320, 359, 372, 373 loving-kindness 228
Liberalism 49, 92, 120, 320, 357, 358, 359, loyalty 327, 328, 333
361, 363, 365, 367, 369, 371, 373, lust 143, 164
375, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381
liberation 114, 115, 157, 159, 161, 169, Madhva 116, 250, 251, 266, 267, 268,
171, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 269, 271, 272, 273
209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 217, Madhava 117, 299, 303, 305, 306, 307,
220, 221, 226, 229, 234, 237, 240, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315,
241, 246, 261, 265, 266, 269, 324, 316, 317, 361, 366, 380
362, 376 Madhyamaka 229, 239
Libertarianism 114, 358 Mahabharata 57, 118, 119, 224, 259, 266,
linguistic account of thought 65, 66, 67, 68, 319, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326,
69, 70, 71, 73, 77, 78, 79, 80, 87, 89, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333,
91, 92, 93, 99, 101 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 346,
linguistic externalism 62, 63, 76, 79, 87, 360, 380
88, 92, 96, 97, 98 mahavrata 161, 189, 190, 207, 349
400
400 INDEX
Mahavıra 159, 161, 163, 166, 169, 170, medical ethics 115, 116, 117, 219, 275,
173, 175 277, 278, 279, 281, 283, 284, 285,
Mahayana 24, 229, 239, 243, 246, 287, 289, 291, 293, 294, 295, 297, 298
247, 248 medical practice, 278, 279, 281, 282,
malapropisms 93, 94, 95 283, 286
Manu 289, 295, 296, 305 medicine 116, 160, 164, 170, 214, 223,
Marx, Karl 24, 29, 353, 378 228, 232, 275, 277, 278, 279, 280,
Marxist 90, 190, 352, 355 293, 294, 297, 298, 317, 366, 375
materialism 221 medieval 67, 74, 80, 82, 173, 272,
mathematics 2, 6, 18, 51, 83, 87, 105, 181, 341, 361
192, 297 meditation 69, 115, 124, 128, 164, 185,
Matilal, Bimal K. 52, 57, 174, 223, 224, 191, 212, 227, 228, 231, 232, 233,
323, 338, 339, 355 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241,
maya 157, 163, 365, 369 243, 244, 245, 246, 375, 384
meaning 2, 8, 13, 18, 19, 26, 32, 33, 40, mental 12, 24, 63, 96, 131, 134, 136, 137,
47, 48, 52, 53, 54, 55, 61, 62, 64, 65, 138, 142, 143, 146, 177, 185, 198,
66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 79, 81, 82, 227, 228, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234,
86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 97, 100, 235, 237, 238, 239, 240, 243, 244,
102, 106, 115, 122, 162, 165, 172, 246, 291, 292, 333
185, 214, 215, 229, 233, 280, 289, merit 54, 162, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210,
303, 304, 309, 310, 311, 316, 323, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 219, 232,
344, 346, 358, 371, 376, 379 290, 291, 321, 322, 369
meanings 8, 13, 22, 37, 39, 53, 54, 55, meritorious 162, 163, 171, 187, 207,
62, 63, 64, 65, 94, 99, 106, 165, 236, 208, 223
237, 246, 305, 314, 315 meta-semiotic 101
means 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, metabolism 253, 261
27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 37, 38, 43, 46, 48, metaethics 102, 111, 113, 116, 123, 143,
51, 52, 60, 61, 63, 66, 67, 73, 81, 85, 151, 158, 161, 261, 383
86, 90, 97, 98, 100, 110, 111, 113, metaethical 116, 123, 124, 156, 251,
114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 123, 128, 259, 264, 271, 327
129, 134, 136, 143, 145, 147, 158, metalinguistic 15, 41, 60
160, 162, 165, 167, 170, 171, 178, metaphilosophy 33, 58, 102
180, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, metaphysics 52, 56, 66, 82, 114, 136, 148,
192, 195, 196, 203, 204, 205, 208, 159, 161, 162, 186, 189, 200, 201,
209, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 239, 272, 285, 292, 301, 357, 360,
222, 227, 238, 242, 243, 245, 246, 361, 362, 364, 366, 371, 380
247, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 257, metaphysical 120, 123, 127, 128, 129,
258, 259, 262, 263, 264, 267, 275, 136, 137, 138, 140, 142, 145, 146,
284, 285, 286, 290, 292, 296, 302, 150, 189, 240, 258, 260, 272, 350,
305, 310, 323, 324, 326, 328, 329, 357, 358, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364,
330, 332, 333, 334, 336, 338, 354, 365, 367, 368, 376, 377, 379
362, 364, 365, 368, 372, 375, 383 Milindapañha 145, 149
meat 198, 286, 287, 288, 289, 295, 296 Mill, J. S. 24, 49, 50, 57, 58, 71, 72, 93,
medical 115, 116, 117, 167, 219, 275, 277, 148, 151, 178, 182, 197, 198, 201,
278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 202, 211, 217, 218, 242, 264, 359, 365
285, 286, 287, 289, 291, 292, 293, Mımım￸sa (see Purva Mımam￸sa)
294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 383 mind 8, 10, 18, 23, 29, 65, 70, 89, 90, 93,
medical education 282 102, 107, 115, 128, 132, 133, 142,
401
INDEX 401
143, 146, 152, 161, 162, 163, 172, 337, 338, 339, 342, 343, 344, 346, 349,
187, 198, 199, 223, 224, 226, 227, 351, 355, 356, 357, 363, 364, 366, 381,
229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236, 383, 384
237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, amoral 303
244, 245, 246, 255, 256, 257, 259, moral action 28, 156, 178, 224, 236,
288, 290, 291, 292, 296, 369, 370, 254, 258, 383
375, 377, 384 moral agreement 89
mind-independent 146 moral concepts 52, 89, 91
mindfulness 25, 90, 113, 115, 130, 142, moral constitution 155, 156
143, 144, 147, 225, 227, 228, 232, moral dilemma 323, 327, 343
233, 234, 236, 237, 238, 244, 245, 247 moral dilemmas 57, 224, 323, 336,
modern 50, 54, 82, 85, 120, 133, 145, 147, 338, 339
167, 180, 209, 220, 223, 277, 278, moral education 23, 25, 195, 324
279, 294, 299, 303, 314, 316, 320, moral experience 226
341, 342, 344, 345, 350, 351, 352, moral ideal 118, 125, 184, 193, 261,
355, 358, 363, 370, 371, 372, 380 262, 263, 266, 325, 328, 331
modernity 342, 344, 345, 353, 355, 356 moral irrealism 265
moksa 27, 56, 99, 115, 124, 125, 159, 161, moral luck 202
179, 180, 183, 197, 249, 261, 265, moral nihilism 116
269, 300, 324, 348, 366, 376 moral obligation 49, 197
monasticism 137 moral particularism (see
monism 118, 120, 180, 250, 357, 358, 360, Particularism, Moral)
361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, moral philosophies 60, 73, 223,
368, 377, 379 320, 355
monogamy 93, 94, 95 moral philosophy 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11,
monotheism 377 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26,
moral 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 37, 46, 52, 56, 59,
20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 60, 78, 79, 86, 95, 96, 100, 101, 104,
30, 31, 33, 36, 37, 41, 44, 45, 46, 49, 105, 111, 114, 123, 148, 149, 177,
52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 71, 72, 73, 189, 200, 220, 223, 247, 249, 256,
76, 78, 79, 81, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 270, 319, 321, 322, 337, 342, 343,
92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 344, 349
102, 103, 104, 105, 109, 111, 112, 113, moral principle 117, 343
114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, moral principles 150, 156, 263, 284,
122, 123, 124, 125, 131, 135, 136, 148, 322, 343
149, 150, 155, 156, 160, 161, 162, 166, moral proposition 91
168, 169, 175, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, moral questions 117, 156, 197, 262, 289,
183, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 193, 319, 322
195, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 208, moral realism 30, 101, 102, 156,
209, 211, 214, 217, 218, 219, 220, 223, 268, 272
224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, moral theory 2, 45, 53, 60, 95, 112, 155,
232, 233, 234, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 180, 322
241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 247, 249, 250, mother 214, 222, 321, 326, 375, 376
251, 254, 256, 257, 258, 260, 261, 262, motivation 42, 113, 124, 129, 131, 144,
263, 265, 266, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 214, 216, 222, 233, 237, 240, 243, 260
275, 277, 281, 284, 289, 290, 299, 300, motive 150, 151, 261, 306, 339
301, 308, 317, 319, 320, 321, 322, mukti 235
323, 324, 325, 327, 328, 331, 332, 336, multicultural 60, 77
402
402 INDEX
multiplicity 239, 240, 245, 359, 364, 374, nihilism 18, 116, 260
377, 381 Nikayas 129, 130, 139, 141, 143, 149,
mysticism 2, 9, 59, 60, 69, 79, 81, 85, 161, 151, 152
192, 218, 256, 269, 270 nirgu na 377
myth 52, 82, 103, 110 nirvana 24, 151, 236
mythology 122 niyama 191, 207, 218
myths 2, 103 niskamakarma 333, 335, 347, 348, 349
no-self 113, 317
Nachiketa 254 non-acquisitiveness 190, 207, 349, 353, 354
Nagarjuna 44, 120, 229, 239, 240, 268, non-harm 48, 165
269, 354 non-harmfulness 189, 190
Nagasena 138, 139, 142, 151 non-self 139
Nagel, Thomas 113, 129, 145, 152, nonattachment 56, 164, 201, 347
196, 202 nonbelievers 351, 378
Nalanda University 245 nonempirical 198, 256
name-and-form 127 nonhuman 72, 112, 194, 253
narcissism 12, 13, 14, 35 nonmaleficence 284, 296
nationalism 95, 96, 377, 381 nonself 128, 129, 130, 137, 139, 148
nationalistic 96 nonviolence 120, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168,
nations 72, 90, 97, 138 169, 170, 173, 175, 204, 207, 212,
naturalism 73, 144, 178, 283 219, 287, 295, 341, 342, 343, 345,
nonnaturalism 178, 187 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 353,
naturalistic 67, 253, 258 354, 355
nature 10, 24, 54, 55, 80, 82, 112, 114, normative 32, 33, 54, 73, 106, 111, 112,
127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 137, 139, 113, 116, 123, 142, 143, 145, 161,
141, 148, 149, 150, 152, 156, 157, 183, 185, 186, 187, 198, 201, 251,
158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 175, 178, 264, 265, 271, 273, 280, 339, 358,
186, 187, 188, 191, 196, 202, 205, 360, 362, 364, 367, 368, 383
210, 212, 213, 214, 220, 221, 222, normativity 33, 65, 82, 102, 123, 198, 273
224, 228, 233, 239, 240, 242, 244, numerosity 110, 186
247, 253, 255, 263, 271, 278, 284, numerous 179, 226, 238, 280, 360
296, 301, 308, 312, 313, 324, 325, Nussbaum, Martha 23, 33, 73, 82, 364
335, 346, 347, 348, 351, 353, 354, Nyaya 80, 114, 115, 124, 170, 203, 204,
359, 360, 361, 364, 369, 374, 376 206, 208, 212, 213, 221, 301
naturopathy 278, 293
Nazi 217 object 1, 5, 15, 20, 25, 30, 31, 40, 41, 45,
necessity 54, 82, 289, 303, 352, 360, 370 46, 48, 63, 64, 77, 85, 90, 92, 100,
nefarious 192, 358, 377 105, 108, 110, 139, 140, 141, 146,
Neo-Advaita 369, 377, 378 148, 188, 192, 198, 199, 204, 233,
Neo-Hinduism 120, 121, 320, 357, 359, 236, 253, 289, 314, 321, 362
361, 363, 365, 367, 368, 369, 371, objective 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
373, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 381 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 30, 31, 35,
Neoplatonism 65 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 51, 55,
Neoplatonists 365 63, 64, 65, 67, 74, 86, 87, 90, 96, 98,
nescience 366 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 128,
Neurath’s Boat 13 135, 140, 144, 145, 178, 179, 180, 181,
neutral 8, 24, 123, 145, 158, 159, 306, 384 182, 183, 188, 284, 314, 364
neutrality 162, 358 objectivity 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18,
nibbana 132, 135 19, 20, 30, 31, 32, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42,
403
INDEX 403
43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 58, 60, 63, personhood 177, 178, 187, 189, 193, 200,
68, 70, 77, 79, 81, 85, 86, 87, 88, 96, 266, 364
97, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, persons 113, 114, 118, 122, 127, 128, 129,
110, 111, 129, 130, 140, 144, 147, 130, 131, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138,
149, 179, 185, 188, 189, 190, 384 139, 141, 142, 143, 145, 147, 148,
obligation 16, 49, 114, 191, 193, 194, 197, 149, 151, 153, 157, 163, 177, 178,
204, 207, 208, 209, 212, 214, 216, 217, 186, 187, 188, 193, 194, 195, 200,
223, 233, 263, 264, 279, 300, 308, 309, 213, 222, 233, 261, 284, 288, 290,
336, 368 291, 304, 305, 307, 310, 312, 324,
observance 114, 164, 191, 204, 207, 208, 343, 347, 362, 368
212, 218, 219, 285, 300 phenomenology 189
obstruction 215, 362 philology 36, 38, 46, 47, 79, 100,
occupation 119, 164, 372 110, 380
Ockham’s Razor 13 philosophy 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
ontology 22, 30, 69, 114, 156, 158, 159, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22,
161, 170, 171, 203, 204, 213, 220, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33,
239, 360, 361, 362, 364, 365 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
Orientalism 53, 58, 82, 95, 355 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55,
overlapping consensus 357, 378 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66,
67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77,
paradox 19, 57, 116, 210, 250, 251, 260, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 94,
264, 268, 271, 272 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103,
Parfit, Derek 128, 136, 138, 139, 148, 153 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111,
Particularism, Linguistic 97, 99 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 120, 121,
Particularism, Moral 117, 134, 150, 152, 123, 124, 142, 148, 149, 150, 151,
275, 308 152, 153, 156, 158, 170, 174, 175,
Patañjali 47, 56, 58, 114, 125, 177, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183,
178, 180, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 189, 192, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203,
190, 191, 192, 198, 200, 202, 349, 204, 213, 214, 220, 223, 233, 239,
356, 381 245, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 255,
paternalism 178, 198, 284, 286 256, 268, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275,
patients 117, 277, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 298, 299, 300, 301, 317, 319, 321,
284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 322, 324, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341,
292, 297 342, 343, 344, 349, 350, 351, 353,
peace 100, 190, 226, 234, 243, 356 354, 355, 356, 358, 360, 361, 364,
penance 165, 167, 184, 185, 186, 207, 368, 380, 381, 383, 384
296, 353 physician 117, 275, 277, 278, 279, 280,
permanence 24 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287,
person 15, 23, 26, 45, 91, 122, 130, 131, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294,
133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 295, 296, 297
158, 168, 172, 184, 186, 187, 188, physician-assisted suicide 115, 219
190, 193, 194, 195, 197, 200, 210, Plato 18, 23, 32, 33, 46, 51, 52, 57, 65,
216, 218, 222, 223, 229, 230, 234, 66, 67, 71, 72, 74, 81, 82, 83, 99, 111,
237, 241, 242, 243, 246, 254, 255, 121, 152, 182, 201, 223, 255, 321,
256, 262, 267, 280, 304, 308, 309, 324, 341, 355, 360, 364, 365
310, 315, 327, 332, 334, 335, 336, Platonic 67, 210, 257
348, 360, 366, 372, 379 Platonists 90
personal freedom 90, 118, 156, 187, 199 pleasant 207, 209, 218, 282, 285
personal identity 113, 136, 153, 265, 267 pluralism 120, 374, 376, 379
404
404 INDEX
politics 48, 58, 67, 77, 78, 96, 104, 109, proposition 12, 16, 19, 44, 45, 46, 51, 60,
111, 112, 113, 114, 117, 118, 190, 198, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 69, 71, 75, 81, 82,
202, 319, 320, 324, 342, 343, 344, 345, 83, 86, 87, 91, 92, 98, 104, 105, 108,
346, 350, 352, 353, 354, 355, 357, 361, 109, 121, 179, 309
368, 379 propositional 15, 45, 46, 48, 69, 88,
political 11, 27, 49, 59, 60, 65, 68, 71, 97, 104
75, 76, 78, 79, 92, 93, 96, 106, 112, psychologism 109, 198
113, 117, 118, 120, 121, 189, 191, psychology 5, 6, 13, 64, 90, 110, 124, 131,
192, 198, 220, 319, 320, 324, 342, 133, 149, 177, 250, 325, 360, 375
345, 346, 349, 350, 351, 352, 355, Pudgalavadin 150, 151
356, 357, 358, 361, 362, 367, 368, Pujyapada 164, 165, 170, 171, 172,
369, 376, 379, 380, 381 174, 175
Postmodernism 66 purification 143, 152, 160, 161, 171, 173,
poverty 344, 345 207, 208, 220, 296, 342, 366
power 11, 74, 78, 96, 112, 118, 159, 163, purpose 55, 62, 63, 88, 92, 97, 98, 100,
165, 185, 194, 196, 226, 227, 246, 103, 104, 131, 132, 192, 203, 216,
283, 319, 330, 331, 338, 345, 346, 217, 219, 227, 239, 278, 358
353, 359, 370, 371, 372 purusa 178, 185, 186, 220, 324
Prabhakara 301, 302, 317 Purusa-Sukta 369
practitioner 27, 191, 227, 228, 231, 236, purusavisesa 186
237, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 275, Purva Mımam￸sa 26, 29, 112, 124, 258,
278, 279, 294, 315, 343, 374 263, 275, 299, 302, 303, 305, 307,
prajña 228, 231 309, 311, 313, 315, 317
prakrti 114, 178, 186, 187, 220, 324, 335 purvapaksa 18, 310
premises 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 36, 40, 41, 47, Putnam, Hilary 64, 68, 69, 70, 73, 82, 88,
75, 108, 146, 178, 192, 198, 315 89, 102
premodern 120, 320, 342, 345, 355
prescriptive 289, 336 qualities 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137,
principle 26, 32, 51, 54, 67, 117, 140, 143, 144, 145, 147, 149, 158, 160, 226,
146, 156, 163, 167, 182, 183, 221, 229, 231, 232, 236, 244, 278, 280,
252, 262, 267, 282, 284, 290, 291, 286, 292, 347, 370, 377
304, 308, 310, 343, 344, 349, 350, qualities of heart 131, 132, 133, 134,
367, 368, 369, 379 137, 144, 145, 147, 149
principled 15, 29, 37, 113, 122, 134, qualities of mind 231, 244
146, 147, 339 quality 54, 77, 107, 131, 204, 206, 213,
principles 22, 72, 83, 122, 130, 131, 218, 231, 236, 241, 246, 269
143, 147, 150, 152, 156, 160, 186, Quine, W. V. O. 70, 82, 253, 273
202, 218, 219, 220, 227, 263, 275,
284, 294, 296, 297, 304, 317, 318, racism 200, 373, 378
322, 323, 325, 343, 344, 358, 359, 379 Radhakrishnan, S. 120, 320, 357, 358, 359,
privilege 3, 13, 22, 23, 49, 66, 67, 86, 119, 360, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367,
129, 177, 190, 200, 254, 257, 369, 368, 369, 370, 371, 373, 374, 375,
370, 372 376, 377, 378, 379, 381
proceduralism 114, 116, 250, 252, 258, raksasa 253
259, 268, 269, 384 Rama 119, 120
proof 18, 42, 110, 112, 119, 370 Ramanuja 28, 116, 250, 251, 259, 265,
property 5, 18, 31, 46, 48, 90, 179, 188, 266, 267, 268, 271, 272, 273
190, 194, 207, 208, 308, 311, 312, Ramayana 53, 54, 56, 119, 319
359, 367, 384 rationalism 178
405
INDEX 405
Rawls, John 21, 33, 194, 202, 357, 358, representation 5, 19, 20, 30, 31, 63, 79,
359, 378, 381 108, 112, 116, 194, 198, 199, 340,
realism 30, 57, 82, 83, 101, 102, 124, 141, 375, 384
151, 156, 201, 268, 272 requirement 3, 90, 106, 116, 118, 125,
realpolitik 112 193, 196, 250, 257, 261, 266, 292,
reason 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 21, 25, 27, 299, 307
32, 35, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, resolution 67, 116, 162, 168, 178, 230,
47, 48, 50, 51, 53, 60, 61, 65, 66, 67, 268, 272, 275, 315, 322, 331
68, 70, 71, 73, 76, 78, 79, 85, 89, 92, responsibility 115, 116, 118, 120, 125,
94, 95, 97, 99, 102, 103, 105, 106, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 167, 185,
107, 108, 109, 115, 116, 117, 118, 196, 225, 240, 249, 250, 251, 253,
121, 132, 133, 140, 141, 144, 145, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 262,
146, 159, 178, 180, 185, 190, 194, 263, 264, 265, 267, 268, 269, 271,
196, 200, 201, 205, 209, 217, 218, 272, 273, 283, 293, 294, 301, 321,
225, 227, 233, 234, 238, 242, 243, 325, 335, 336, 364
251, 252, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, restraint 78, 114, 161, 189, 190, 194, 207,
265, 267, 269, 270, 271, 281, 295, 208, 218, 219, 250, 349
300, 305, 306, 307, 308, 313, 322, Rgveda 253, 369, 374
345, 347, 348, 360, 363, 371, 372, Right 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21,
378, 381 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31,
reasoning 11, 12, 32, 39, 41, 49, 51, 117, 32, 37, 39, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50,
130, 132, 136, 137, 151, 179, 193, 60, 67, 73, 74, 76, 79, 90, 92, 95, 96,
198, 240, 242, 267, 270, 275, 300, 98, 99, 104, 105, 106, 111, 112, 113,
302, 303, 312, 313, 315, 316, 331, 114, 116, 117, 119, 123, 124, 125,
360, 363, 367 128, 134, 135, 137, 138, 145, 149,
relatives 166, 222, 283, 284, 285, 290, 292 155, 156, 161, 165, 170, 177, 180,
relativism 91, 101, 102, 109 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188,
religification 2, 9, 16, 22, 28, 53, 59, 60, 192, 195, 196, 199, 200, 202, 203,
69, 78, 85, 93, 94 207, 208, 209, 210, 214, 217, 218,
religion 2, 6, 28, 29, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43, 230, 243, 249, 251, 252, 254, 257,
44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 258, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 266,
57, 59, 60, 61, 74, 78, 79, 81, 85, 90, 267, 268, 269, 275, 277, 278, 279,
94, 95, 103, 106, 122, 152, 201, 272, 282, 284, 285, 289, 292, 293, 294,
273, 339, 344, 345, 351, 358, 360, 304, 305, 307, 308, 312, 313, 316,
369, 370, 371, 373, 374, 375, 376, 321, 323, 324, 325, 327, 328, 329,
378, 379, 381 331, 342, 356, 360, 364, 367, 375,
religion-as-distinct-from-moral-theory 44 378, 383, 384
religions 28, 29, 36, 44, 58, 59, 60, 78, right-wing 46, 95, 377
79, 317, 374, 375, 380, 381 rightness 29, 125, 184, 251, 257, 262, 269
religious 6, 9, 29, 44, 45, 46, 53, 54, 57, rights 29, 44, 59, 60, 72, 79, 118, 119,
58, 60, 73, 74, 77, 79, 96, 103, 105, 178, 190, 191, 197, 198, 208, 209,
108, 123, 171, 202, 224, 231, 284, 217, 218, 283, 284, 294, 312, 332,
285, 289, 290, 291, 295, 298, 299, 343, 358, 366, 380, 381, 383
300, 301, 304, 306, 310, 313, 317, rites 222, 223, 304, 305, 309, 315, 334
318, 343, 344, 358, 359, 370, 373, ritual 9, 26, 116, 117, 173, 220, 231, 266,
374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 380, 381 298, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306,
renewal 328 308, 309, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315,
renouncing 232, 263 316, 333, 339
repentance 165, 172 ritualism 90, 115, 253, 374
406
406 INDEX
root 24, 44, 158, 188, 197, 206, 207, 227, 234, 235, 238, 239, 240, 242, 244,
235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 285, 305, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258,
369, 378 259, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269, 271,
rta 182, 183, 261 273, 302, 317, 344, 348, 357, 358,
Rudra 310 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366,
367, 370, 373, 375, 379, 381
Śabara 69, 83, 300, 307, 314 self-criticism 353
sacrifice 181, 209, 217, 242, 252, 253, self-determination 190, 196, 252, 256
254, 255, 258, 261, 263, 264, 304, self-governance 118, 184, 185, 186, 187,
305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 189, 191, 200, 254, 257, 271
312, 316, 328, 334, 345 self-improvement 195, 271
sadhana 183, 185, 349, 350 self-interest 232, 283, 332
saguna 377 self-interested 124, 243
Śaivas 29 self-mortification 223
sallekhana 165, 172 self-understanding 90, 192, 254, 357,
samadhi 185, 192, 228, 238 359, 375
Śankara 30, 47, 58, 116, 120, 180, 186, selfhood 140, 272
202, 250, 251, 259, 264, 265, 266, selfish 119, 185, 188, 192, 239, 262, 366
267, 268, 271, 272, 273, 341, 354, selfishness 90, 178, 185, 188, 198
361, 362, 366, 367, 368, 379, 381 semantic 55, 65, 69, 81, 82, 88, 99, 102
Sankhya 29, 47, 56, 180, 186, 187, 189, semantics 33, 62, 67, 68, 80, 86, 88, 89,
200, 201, 204, 210, 224, 261, 265, 92, 99, 101, 102, 103
324, 341, 346, 347, 374, 377 sexism 200
Sanskrit 36, 50, 53, 54, 69, 100, 114, 116, sexual 72, 109, 161, 164, 189, 190, 194,
117, 119, 129, 170, 171, 172, 173, 200, 207, 208, 221, 243, 349
174, 202, 203, 208, 209, 214, 223, sexuality 187, 246
224, 236, 238, 252, 273, 277, 278, Sharma, Jyotirmaya 371, 372, 377, 381
279, 281, 283, 285, 287, 289, 291, Shiva 29
293, 295, 297, 301, 318, 325, 337, sıla 131
339, 379, 380, 383 Sıta 119, 120
Śantideva 115, 225, 226, 227, 229, 230, smrti 26, 112, 188, 198, 199, 236, 237,
231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 258, 259, 270, 299, 304, 305
238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, socialization 67, 121
245, 246, 247, 248 Socrates 18, 49, 74, 197, 364
sam￸skara 140, 188, 192, 193, 198, 199 solipsism 17, 344
sam￸sara 19, 86, 183, 236, 245, 246, 265, son 65, 119, 132, 326, 330, 333, 334, 335,
268, 362, 365, 366, 374, 375, 376, 379 336, 376
Sangha 246, 353 sraddha 262
satyagraha 190, 342 sreya 255, 257
satyagrahi 344 Śrı Vaisnavas 80
Schopenhauer, Arthur 363, 364, 366, 367, sruti 26, 252, 256, 258, 270, 299,
368, 380, 381 304, 305
secularism 2, 6, 29, 37, 46, 49, 59, 60, 82, standing, moral 72, 112, 114, 117, 177,
304, 358, 381 178, 184, 196, 285
self 24, 90, 114, 120, 128, 138, 139, 140, subha 260, 262
141, 142, 150, 151, 155, 156, 158, sudra 309, 310, 311, 312, 370
159, 165, 167, 185, 196, 203, 205, suffering 24, 25, 57, 90, 114, 115, 119,
206, 207, 208, 212, 213, 216, 219, 121, 127, 128, 130, 131, 133, 134,
220, 221, 222, 227, 228, 232, 233, 138, 145, 146, 148, 156, 157, 164,
407
INDEX 407
169, 190, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 42, 44, 45, 48, 50, 51, 57, 58, 60, 63,
208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 77, 81, 86,
217, 219, 220, 221, 226, 227, 228, 87, 91, 92, 97, 101, 104, 105, 107,
229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 108, 109, 110, 111, 119, 120, 122,
237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 123, 128, 160, 161, 164, 171, 178,
244, 245, 246, 281, 360, 373 179, 189, 190, 199, 201, 202, 204,
Sufism 358 207, 208, 214, 215, 217, 228, 239,
suicide 115, 172, 219, 222, 223, 348 240, 261, 269, 285, 286, 290, 292,
supererogatory 263 296, 306, 308, 312, 322, 332, 338,
sva-svamı 184, 186 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 347, 348,
svadhyaya 184, 185, 186, 189, 191, 193 349, 350, 351, 353, 355, 356, 361,
Śvetambara 169, 170, 171, 172, 174 362, 374, 375, 377, 378, 379, 384
truthful 344, 351
Tagore, Rabindranath 323 truthfulness 161, 164, 189, 204, 207,
tamasa 347 277, 285, 286, 289
Taoism 65, 69, 78, 80, 83 truths 9, 12, 18, 19, 24, 39, 44, 46, 48,
Taylor, Charles 358, 364, 381 68, 70, 79, 83, 85, 96, 98, 105, 107,
teleology 29, 115, 116, 124, 250, 251, 258, 108, 110, 129, 159, 162, 170, 178,
260, 268, 384 179, 189, 190, 217, 227, 228, 239,
tendency 13, 66, 79, 89, 112, 135, 188, 241, 244, 270, 299, 346, 347, 372
192, 197, 235, 275, 335, 374 truth-telling 307, 323, 330, 332
theism 23, 29, 60, 124, 125, 184, 251, 268 twice-born 305, 310, 311
theology 74, 81, 268, 269, 272, 299, 317,
338, 341, 351 ultimate 31, 49, 70, 127, 132, 138, 142,
therapeutic 228, 282, 285, 286, 287, 151, 192, 204, 208, 209, 211, 217,
290, 292 239, 240, 245, 254, 259, 265, 266,
therapy 282, 288, 290 269, 283, 301, 358, 364, 374, 375,
Theravada 24, 129, 133, 145, 152, 229, 376, 379
246, 247 Umasvati 169, 170, 172, 175
Thoreau, Henry David 342 understanding 2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17,
Tırthankaras 156 22, 30, 31, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 48, 53,
tolerance 92, 120, 300, 358, 373, 377, 380 57, 60, 70, 71, 76, 79, 83, 86, 93, 95,
transformation 86, 114, 115, 118, 187, 96, 98, 101, 104, 106, 111, 116, 119,
190, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 129, 130, 137, 138, 139, 140, 149,
231, 241, 243, 245, 351 178, 181, 192, 199, 204, 207, 226,
translation 8, 9, 32, 53, 54, 56, 62, 63, 65, 228, 230, 233, 236, 238, 239, 240,
72, 80, 88, 101, 102, 103, 143, 152, 241, 248, 254, 255, 256, 262, 268,
157, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 177, 272, 283, 292, 301, 304, 313, 346,
178, 181, 200, 202, 209, 237, 256, 353, 360, 361, 362, 363, 380
257, 273, 295, 296, 297, 317, 337, universal 2, 76, 77, 79, 108, 114, 128, 173,
341, 346, 356, 360 177, 179, 181, 183, 185, 187, 189,
transmigration 163 191, 193, 195, 197, 199, 201, 204,
treatise 117, 243, 247, 266, 277, 278, 279, 217, 221, 229, 262, 307, 311, 343,
281, 284, 285, 287, 294, 296 344, 361, 363, 367, 375, 377
trust 174, 280, 283, 333 universalizability 131, 343, 344
trusted 222, 334 universalizable 304, 344
trusteeship 348 unwholesome 25, 130, 131, 132, 133,
truth 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 19, 20, 30, 134, 135, 137, 143, 144, 146, 147,
31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 148, 151
408
408 INDEX
Upanisad 116, 141, 250, 254, 255, 257, 297, 326, 343, 346, 347, 348, 350,
258, 259, 260, 266, 325, 328, 360, 370, 354, 360, 373, 376, 378
380, 382 virtue 6, 10, 12, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 44,
upaya 242, 243, 246 45, 51, 53, 54, 55, 60, 68, 70, 72, 78,
Utilitarianism 24, 72, 89, 92, 113, 119, 90, 96, 102, 113, 114, 116, 118, 122,
123, 124, 145, 150, 151, 152, 178, 123, 124, 125, 128, 129, 133, 136,
197, 198, 211, 217, 218, 223, 224, 137, 144, 146, 149, 150, 155, 156,
383, 384 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163,
utility 49, 194, 255, 258, 322 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 173,
175, 177, 179, 182, 184, 185, 187,
vairagya 171, 347 188, 195, 199, 201, 204, 205, 206,
Vaisesika 114, 204, 210, 213, 301 218, 219, 223, 227, 232, 234, 237,
validity 10, 39, 40, 41, 43, 108, 192, 286 241, 242, 243, 246, 247, 250, 251,
Valmıki 119, 120 252, 256, 260, 263, 265, 267, 268,
valorize 53, 114 269, 272, 283, 285, 286, 290, 292,
value 6, 13, 16, 19, 49, 52, 64, 82, 102, 300, 319, 321, 323, 324, 325, 327,
112, 114, 136, 145, 147, 152, 165, 328, 329, 331, 335, 337, 339, 344,
167, 186, 188, 190, 196, 198, 205, 347, 350, 366, 370, 384
208, 209, 219, 226, 238, 245, 247, virtues 21, 23, 33, 52, 82, 114, 115, 119,
270, 272, 284, 301, 302, 312, 322, 125, 144, 146, 163, 166, 169, 171,
331, 343, 366, 368 182, 191, 194, 195, 206, 226, 227,
values 5, 6, 20, 28, 32, 68, 69, 77, 78, 91, 228, 230, 232, 241, 242, 252, 265,
92, 93, 95, 96, 99, 100, 107, 117, 118, 267, 268, 280, 321, 324, 325, 328,
121, 124, 143, 145, 147, 190, 205, 206, 329, 331, 332, 337, 346, 347
208, 247, 277, 278, 279, 299, 305, 308, virtuous 23, 25, 26, 32, 45, 118, 124,
322, 342, 343, 349, 350, 355, 357, 358, 131, 134, 136, 156, 159, 162, 163,
359, 378 166, 184, 194, 195, 200, 206, 208,
Vedas 26, 115, 116, 124, 216, 217, 222, 218, 219, 232, 235, 237, 241, 246,
250, 251, 252, 253, 256, 258, 261, 251, 258, 269, 327, 337, 362, 363
263, 264, 267, 270, 272, 273, 293, Virtue Ethics 6, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 44,
298, 299, 300, 302, 304, 305, 310, 60, 72, 113, 116, 118, 123, 124, 125,
312, 313, 314, 315, 345, 353, 359, 128, 136, 137, 155, 156, 157, 159,
361, 370, 374, 381 161, 163, 165, 167, 169, 171, 173,
Vedanta 26, 27, 47, 115, 116, 120, 124, 175, 177, 182, 184, 195, 201, 218,
170, 180, 186, 204, 213, 221, 249, 219, 223, 227, 241, 242, 243, 246,
250, 251, 253, 255, 257, 258, 259, 251, 252, 263, 268, 269, 272, 319,
261, 263, 264, 265, 267, 268, 269, 321, 323, 324, 327, 331, 335, 337,
270, 271, 272, 273, 300, 320, 328, 339, 350, 384
357, 358, 360, 362, 363, 366, 367, Virtue Theory 116, 124, 136, 137, 144,
369, 372, 377, 379, 380 155, 158, 247, 263, 328, 384
Vedantic 362, 364, 365, 368, 377 Vishnu 27, 29, 30, 31, 70, 255, 259,
Vedantin 251, 269, 270, 271, 272, 316, 266, 267
364, 366, 368 Vivekananda, Swami 120, 320, 344, 345,
pseudo-vedantins 367 352, 353, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360,
vegetarianism 287, 295 362, 363, 364, 366, 367, 368, 369,
Venkatesvara 376 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376,
victim 119, 120, 253, 255 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382
violence 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, volition 203, 214, 215, 216, 222, 364
188, 190, 207, 208, 287, 291, 296, vrtti 182, 183, 185, 221
409
INDEX 409
well-being 136, 177, 286, 363, 376 267, 284, 302, 307, 329, 331, 334,
West 2, 28, 30, 36, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 336, 343, 364, 375
61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, wrongdoing 329, 330
75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 83, 85, 86,
89, 90, 96, 98, 99, 100, 103, 106, yama 189, 190, 207, 218, 254, 255, 256
111, 112, 120, 121, 122, 145, 175, yoga 6, 20, 26, 27, 28, 46, 47, 48, 51, 56,
202, 217, 247, 299, 306, 341, 342, 57, 58, 60, 63, 107, 111, 114, 115, 116,
343, 344, 345, 353, 355, 361, 364, 118, 123, 124, 125, 160, 162, 171, 174,
373, 381 175, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184,
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 55, 67, 87, 102 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192,
woman 76, 197, 202, 221, 225, 260, 304, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200,
306, 307, 308, 309, 311, 312, 327, 201, 202, 207, 249, 250, 251, 255, 256,
329, 343, 367, 369 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 266, 271,
women (see woman) 278, 293, 328, 347, 348, 349, 356, 358,
worldly 70, 157, 165, 177, 232, 268, 383, 384
335, 362 Yogacara 229
worship 29, 124, 234, 266, 328, 375 Yudhisthira 118, 321, 326, 327, 330, 332,
wounded 169, 329, 332, 338 333, 335, 336, 337
wounds 288
wrong 12, 14, 59, 80, 133, 135, 136, 147, zoology 193, 197
166, 196, 202, 209, 218, 219, 262, Zoroastrians 373
410
411
412
413
414
415
416

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i

THE BLOOMSBURY RESEARCH

BLOOMSBURY RESEARCH HANDBOOKS

Chakravarthi Ram-​Prasad, Lancaster University, UK.

Editorial Advisory Board:

Other titles in the series:

THE BLOOMSBURY RESEARCH

Edited by Shyam Ranganathan

50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway

First published 2017

© Shyam Ranganathan and Contributors, 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on

British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data

ISBN: HB: 978-​1-​4725-​8777-​0

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Series: Bloomsbury Research Handbooks in Asian Philosophy

Cover design: Clare Turner

Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India

P art I: W estern I mperialism , I ndology , and E thics  1

1 Moral Philosophy: THE RIGHT and THE GOOD  5

2 Philosophy, Religion, and Scholarship  35

3 The West, the Primacy of Linguistics, and Indology  59

4 Beyond Moral Twin Earth: Beyond Indology  85

5 Interpretation, Explication, and Secondary Sources  103

7 Jaina Virtue Ethics: Action and Nonaction  155

8 Patañjali’s Yoga: Universal Ethics as the Formal Cause of Autonomy  177

9 Nyāya Consequentialism  203

10 Mindfulness and Moral Transformation: Awakening to Others

11 Three Vedāntas: Three Accounts of Character, Freedom,

P art III: A pplied E thics  275

12 Medical Ethics in the Sanskrit Medical Tradition  277

13 Toward a Complete and Integral Mīmāṃsā Ethics: Learning

P art IV: E thics and P olitics  319

14 A Study in the Narrative Ethics of the Mahābhārata  321

15 Ethics of M. K. Gandhi: Nonviolence and Truth  341

16 The Ethics of Radical Equality: Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan’s

A special thanks is owed to Alice MacLachlan who encouraged me to include some

2 WESTERN IMPERIALISM, INDOLOGY, AND ETHICS

assumes (without critical awareness) the interpretive model of thought: accordingly,

WESTERN IMPERIALISM, INDOLOGY, AND ETHICS 3

commitments—​widely or narrowly shared—​transparent so that we can objectively

2.1. Explication versus Interpretation

• use S’s reasons (or if you prefer, “premises,” “assumptions,” “beliefs,”

Note that the result of I is I: the result of an explanation of P in terms of rS is rS.

2.2. Why We Should Reject Interpretation

rS, interpretation imperializes what it attempts to understand. Any perspective P at

2.3. Why We Should Explicate

Interpreters will try to understand explication as an elusive version of

2.4. The Evidence: Disciplinary Relativity of Objectivity

and derivability (this is the meaningfulness of mathematical claims), and objective

3. PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS AND

unprivileged and a contributing factor to our experiences by reintroducing the idea

4.1. Four Moral Theories

4.1.2. Consequentialism: The right (action) is justified by the good

worth emphasizing: Consequentialism is not the ethics of endorsing what produces

4.1.3. Deontology: The good is justified by the right. Deontology is commonly

the ethical in terms of good states is to justify it thus is to invent a problem of

4.2. Observations of Indian Moral Theory

philosophical tradition are often exhausted by the big three: Consequentialism,

Nussbaum, Martha C. “Non-​Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach.” Midwest Studies

Indian philosophy, is treated as a topic for interdisciplinary investigation as though

PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, AND SCHOLARSHIP 37

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Lancaster University, UK.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-8777-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

P art I: W estern I mperialism , I ndology , and E thics 1

1 Moral Philosophy: THE RIGHT and THE GOOD 5

2 Philosophy, Religion, and Scholarship 35

3 The West, the Primacy of Linguistics, and Indology 59

4 Beyond Moral Twin Earth: Beyond Indology 85

5 Interpretation, Explication, and Secondary Sources 103

7 Jaina Virtue Ethics: Action and Nonaction 155

8 Patañjali’s Yoga: Universal Ethics as the Formal Cause of Autonomy 177

9 Nyāya Consequentialism 203

P art III: A pplied E thics 275

12 Medical Ethics in the Sanskrit Medical Tradition 277

P art IV: E thics and P olitics 319

14 A Study in the Narrative Ethics of the Mahābhārata 321

15 Ethics of M. K. Gandhi: Nonviolence and Truth 341

commitments—widely or narrowly shared—transparent so that we can objectively

Nussbaum, Martha C. “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach.” Midwest Studies

citta—so that we can be autonomous from thoughts and perspectives. Explication is

thoughts are true by virtue of what we say—analyticity—and are hence truths of

West—Virtue Ethics (Plato and Aristotle), Deontology (Kant), and Utilitarianism

alternatives for it has to understand all third-party options in terms of first-party