Ethical issues in the Mahabharata DOCX

Title	Ethical issues in the Mahabharata
Author	Rukmani Trichur
Pages	19
File Size	37.2 KB
File Type	DOCX
Total Downloads	82
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Summary

1 Ethical Issues in the Mahabharata in the Context of Dharma T.S.Rukmani Abstract This paper addresses the question of moral behaviour in the context of dharma in the Mahabharata (MBh). Even though there are many guidelines for what constitutes dharma in the Dharmasutra/Dharmasastra texts there are ...

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Ethical Issues in the Mahabharata in the Context of Dharma T.S.Rukmani Abstract This paper addresses the question of moral behaviour in the context of dharma in the Mahabharata (MBh). Even though there are many guidelines for what constitutes dharma in the Dharmasutra/Dharmasastra texts there are many instances when characters in the MBh do not conform to the dictates of dharma given in textbooks. A refrain therefore throughout the MBh is that dharma in truth is not easy to understand. Underlying the paper is also the argument that dharma cannot be subsumed under an all embracing specific moral theory as is attempted in western moral theories and it is more or else based on specific situations one faces. Keeping these in mind the paper then examines characters like Satyavati, Bhisma, Kunti, Karna and Yudhisthira in the context of dharma. The capacity to decide what is right and what is wrong in any situation is a difficult task at all times. How to behave in a right way in any given situation is what an ethical issue is concerned with. Thus the literature on Moral Philosophy is something which has no closure. Whether morality is something transcendental or empirical or again rooted in an overall ethos of individual societies is again something we will never be able to decide. Different cultures have come up with models of behaviour based on their understanding of what it is to be right under varied circumstances. I would like to state that in common with authors like Austin Creel, P.T.Raju and G.C Pande, I subscribe to the view that a moral life in the Hindu worldview was a life lived in accordance with dharma. 1...