Jaina Ethics

Author(s): Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 98

Conception of Morality
: 81 In Vedānta, Sarkarācārya makes it clear while commenting on the Upanișads that since self is neither āpya (to be attained) nor utpādy 2 (to be generated) nor vikārya (to be modified) nor saņskārya (to be refined), it cannot be realised by karmans.1 Wherever Sankara finds a plea for action in the Upanişads he interprets it as an injunction for those who are still at a lower plane of existence and who cannot follow the path of renunciation.
It is this common attitude of all systems of Indian philosophy towards ethics which makes it basically different from Western ethics. This is why Mckenzie remarks: 6...it can be at least maintained with full assurance that Hindu ethical thought and practice have rested on pre-suppositions of a different kind from those on which the ethical thought and practice of the West have rested. 3
Christian View
Mckenzie is right to some extent. But we cannot say that such ideas are absolutely lacking in Christian ethics. The Bible says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."4 Asked by a young man as to what he should do to inherit eternal life, Jesus Christ said, “Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” Jesus teaches us complete non-possession (aparigraha) when he says, “...So likewise, whosoever he be of you that foresaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.96 Dr. Radhakrishnan has rightly remarked, “The only ethics that Jesus can preach is a negative one, to enable man to free himself from the world and fit himself for the Kingdom."? He further adds that 'the eschatological teaching of Jesus that the end of the world
1. Sankara on Isopanişad, Gorakhapura, Vik. Sam. 1994, 1. 2. Cf. Ibid., 2. 3. Mckenzie, John, Hindu Ethics, p. 205. 4. I John, 2.15. 5. Mark, 10.21. 6. Luke, 14.33. 7. Radhakrishnan, S., Eastern Religion and Western Thought, London, p. 69.