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The Humanism of Haribhadra
Christian Lindtner
1. In a modern world of chaos, where intolerance and superstition are often marketed as religion, where ignorance and political correctness too easily masquerade as reason, and where hypocrisy presides proudly and unopposed on the throne of humanity and humility; in a world where pristine ideals of virtue and honour, and of beauty no less than of nobility, are regularly held up to common ridicule and vilification and such is the modern world of the profiteering mentality and the vulgarity of the mass media-in such a world, some solace and strength, I find, may be sought from the ancient sources of Greek and Indian philosophy.
In the last hundred years or more, Western society has been infiltrated by a corruption so pernicious as now to pose a severe threat to the very foundations of European culture. Never before in history, perhaps, has the call for individuals with a sense of loyalty, honesty, and dutythe hallmarks of the Indo-European character-been so urgent if the total disruption of Western civilisation is to be averted.
It is seldom realized that human dignity is a matter of participation in the life of reason and the quest for virtue. And when it comes to human freedom, licentia is, by and large—following upon the failures of reasonmistaken for libertas.
When we study the ancients, we find ourselves in good company. The study of the languages of old serves, in itself, to sharpen our faculty of discrimination. All over the world, the arts and the humanities are now in a phase of decline, in some places they are long extinct, to most places they never even reached out. Our universities have become breeding grounds for mass education, or even indoctrination, that leaves less and less room for the aristocratic pursuits for which the academies, in the interest of
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