Ethics and moral conduct
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What does the guide say determines Hindu moral principles and conduct?
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2.5.19 cards
What does the guide say determines Hindu moral principles and conduct?
Fulfilling one's role and duties as determined by caste — the varnashramadharma.
What is sva-dharma?
A person's own duty — what is theirs to do, shaped by varna, jati and stage of life. The first question in Hindu ethics is whose duty this is.
Name the Three Objectives.
Dharma (religious and moral duty), artha (prosperity and the means of life), kama (pleasure). Moksha stands beyond all three.
What is surprising about the Three Objectives?
That wealth and pleasure appear as objectives rather than concessions — placed inside the religious life and pursued within dharma.
Name the Three Debts.
To learn and recite the Vedas; to give puja to the gods; and to have a son, who traditionally performs the funeral rites.
Why is the third Debt contested?
Because it names a son specifically, resting on the tradition that a son performs the funeral rites, and Hindus debate it in view of its social consequences.
Name four sources of authority in Hindu ethics.
Sva-dharma, the texts (especially the Gita and the Laws of Manu), ahimsa as a cross-tradition principle, and the judgement of a guru and community.
What is dharma yuddha?
Righteous war in defence of the sanatana dharma, defended in the Bhagavad Gita — the qualification that shows ahimsa functions as a weighty principle rather than an absolute.
Which life stage carries most of the Objectives and the Debts?
Grihastha, the householder stage — which is part of why marriage is the central samskara for most Hindus.
2.5.28 cards
Write an accurate sentence about Hindu vegetarianism.
Many Hindus are vegetarian, strongly associated with ahimsa and with Brahmin practice, though diet varies sharply by region, jati and community.
State the guide's four points about caste today.
Controversial within Hindu society in India; illegal there as a form of discrimination but nonetheless habitual; in conflict with more egalitarian notions among Hindus in Western environments; and closely related to ideas of purity.
Name the ethical themes the guide lists for Hinduism.
The treatment and worth of sentient creatures (ahimsa), diet, fasting, vegetarianism, protection of the weak, killing, suicide, euthanasia, abortion, sexual misconduct, and transgression of one's varnashramadharma.
What is dharma yuddha, and where is it found?
Righteous war in defence of the sanatana dharma, defended in the Bhagavad Gita — the clearest qualification of ahimsa in the tradition.
What positive obligation does the guide name alongside non-violence?
Protection of the weak — an ethic of duty that asks for something as well as forbidding something.
Give the four-move shape of a Hindu ethics answer.
Name the principle in the tradition's terms; apply it and show it pulling both ways; say who holds what; conclude on a degree.
Why is "Hinduism teaches that…" risky on a contemporary ethical issue?
Because there is no central authority to hold one position, and Hindu opinion and practice on most of these issues are genuinely divided.
Name a Hindu reformer other than Gandhi who argued against caste.
B R Ambedkar, whose Dalit critique was far more radical and who shaped the constitutional abolition of untouchability in India.
Topic 2.5 study notes
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