Exploring Hindu Philosophy - Ankur Barua

Exploring Hindu Philosophy - Ankur Barua

Multiple Modes of Morality

Exploring Hindu Philosophy - Ankur Barua

Ankur Barua [+-]
University of Cambridge
Ankur Barua is University Senior Lecturer in Hindu Studies in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. He holds a PhD in theology and religious studies from the University of Cambridge. His published books include The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus: Intersections of Hindu Knowledge and Love in Nineteenth Century Bengal (2021) and The Vedāntic Relationality of Rabindranath Tagore: Harmonizing the One and its Many (2018).

Description

A leitmotif running through roughly two millennia of Hindu philosophy is that an integral dimension of human flourishing is the cultivation of the discipline of seeing oneself as another. The fundamental concept is dharma, which is a polyvalent term encompassing connotations such as order, basis, stability, essential nature, duty, and proper way of living. If fire naturally rises upwards and unsupported stones naturally fall downwards, such movements are encoded in their dharma, and if human beings should cultivate self-control, truthfulness, benevolence, and altruism, such self-cultivation is a constitutive element of their dharma in the world. Across the multiple tapestries of Hindu cosmologies, the exhortations to enact a world-structuring dharma exist in a somewhat uneasy tension with the quest of a world-transcending overcoming of finitude. The milieus of dharma, which give structure to worldly living, are immersed in impermanence while the spiritual self (ātman) is the unshakeable citadel of bliss.

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Citation

Barua, Ankur. Multiple Modes of Morality. Exploring Hindu Philosophy. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 125-149 Apr 2023. ISBN 9781800502703. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=42879. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.42879. Apr 2023

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