The Ethical Systems of Hinduism and Confucianism - Essay Example

Piety in This World Piety in This World, Perfection in the Next: The Transcendent Legacies of Hinduism and Confucianism Instructor Date Piety in This World 2 ABSTRACT Confucianism and Hinduism are two distinct religious traditions in matters of practice and observance. However, they bear similarities in that they emphasize that a life marked by respect, love and loyalty is the pathway to personal improvement and spiritual fulfillment. Both were among the first of the world’s great belief systems to promote the notion that piety and social achievement are linked to transcendence. Piety in This World 3 Piety in This World, Perfection in the Next: The Transcendent Legacies of Hinduism and Confucianism The nature of the individual’s spiritual essence lies at the heart of Hinduism as it does with other religions that follow a path of eternal salvation. This core belief presupposes a journey of transcendence, of transformation, that ultimately brings the soul to spiritual perfection, or moksha. The idea of the reincarnated soul is intrinsic to Hinduism, which teaches that the atman at long last merges with the great universal soul, or Brahman. Confucianism espouses a more humanistic, temporal view that emphasizes the improvement of human nature through teaching and personal experience. Confucianism is not a Deist religion in the same sense as Hinduism. It is sometimes considered more of a philosophy than a pure religion in the sense that it doesn’t emphasize care of the soul. However, its 6 million adherents have come to regard Confucius as a divine source of wisdom who achieved a form of ideal perfection in his life. Confucianism is a fairly elastic term for a belief system that has been present in China “from time immemorial” (Sarkar, 1916). In “Chinese Religion Through Asian Eyes,” Sarkar writes that a man named Confucius was the librarian at Lu and is thought to have compiled, or edited, a classic text in which the ancient Chinese “Cult of the World Forces” found expression (Ibid). Therefore, Sarkar writes that Confucianism, as it is now known, had actually pervaded China long before Confucius was born. It has since the 5th century A.D. become more like Hinduism in that Confucius himself has been worshipped as a god since that time (Ibid). Piety in This World 4 Confucianism may, in practice, be an intricate system of moral, philosophical and social thought but it has long held the status of a religion in China as Hinduism has for hundreds of millions in India and throughout Southeast Asia. For many, the comparison between the two begins and ends there. Hinduism is, after all, a polytheistic religion with thousands of deities in which reincarnation plays a prominent role. Salvation only comes after the soul is at long last freed from the cycle of birth and death. For adherents of Confucianism, the journey toward perfection happens in life and can be judged based on the extent to which an individual attains strong moral and social development during life. Whereas Hinduism holds the promise of eternal reward for the worthy soul, Confucianism teaches that living a life in which one serves others holds its own rewards. “The superior man can achieve complete self-realization only in his public vocation. It might indeed be stated that a commitment to public service – even when such service is unattainable – forms one of the basic criteria distinguishing the Confucian ideal of self-cultivation…” (Wright, 1959). The other side of this proposition is that society can only be brought into balance when men who have attained a state of self-realization serve the community, in official capacities, as sages (Ibid). Service to one’s fellow man is also an important tenet of Hinduism. The cycle of death and rebirth can be broken and nirvana attained by acting ethically and charitably toward others; by seeking wisdom; through meditation; and by renouncing worldly possessions. Hindus believe that when a person dies, the moral weight of their actions dictate what becomes of them in their new incarnation. In other words, a soul is either reincarnated into a higher or lower state of Piety in This World 5 existence based on the sanctity of the life they lived previously (Molloy, 2009). The elaborate transcendent spiritualism that distinguishes Hinduism from others of the world’s religions is clearly different from the foundational principles of Confucianism. Nevertheless, the drive toward a state of personal perfection is strong in both traditions. Hindus believe that arriving at that ideal condition is a matter of “elevating (oneself) to the standard of the Maximum, until you become proximate to the Creator Himself who embodies the Maximum, in which case, the limitations of your mortal existence can no longer stand in the way of your tasting eternal and unlimited bliss” (Basu, 2004). As Confucians strive for personal development and to fulfill their role in society by jettisoning pettiness and selfishness, Hindus seek the divine by freeing themselves from low impulses and temptations of the flesh. The extent to which Hinduism and Confucianism evolved differently is due almost as much to socio-political factors as to religious philosophy and spiritual practice. The power and prestige of the Chinese empire changed Confucian ideology in ways that melded it with the imperial establishment, thereby becoming a kind of state religion. One can see this phenomenon at work in the development of European nation states such as England, which wielded Anglicanism as a tool of empire that was as ethically important to the British imperial program as its navy was to the physical enforcement of “Rule Britannia.” In China, the wise men who for centuries disseminated the teachings of Confucius scrupulously separated what they saw as the spiritual from the temporal, specifically, the day-to-day machinations of government. Nevertheless, China’s rulers adopted and adapted Confucianism for their own purposes. In this way, the worldly altered the spiritual just as Confucianism impacted the very soul of China. Piety in This World 6 “The early Confucian distrust of law simply could not persist once all of China was united under a centralized, bureaucratically administered government” (Wright, 1959). It has often been claimed that Hinduism and Indian civilization evolved hand in hand. This belief can be marginalized by those who point to the influence of Islam and the fact that the prevalence of caste in the Indian tradition more profoundly impacted Hinduism than the other way around. However, orientalists and native historians have made the case that Indian civilization and its religion have existed more or less symbiotically since time immemorial (Vanaik, 1997). Some audacious scholars maintain that India is the world’s oldest example of cultural-religious development. This claim gained support when it was discovered that the Vedas are the oldest texts on Earth, having been passed down from generation to generation in a spectacularly long and unbroken chain. For many, this provided further evidence that “Hinduism was the mind or ethos of Indian civilization…at the level of social organization” (Ibid). Regardless of one’s perspective, it cannot be denied that Hinduism, like Confucianism, has had an important and formative “inside-out” effect on the surrounding culture. Such matters lead to a consideration of how such entrenched and lasting religious belief systems have traditionally been practiced. Here we find significant differences between Confucianism and Hinduism. Confucians do not observe or recognize specifically prescribed rituals or ceremonies, at least not in the sense that Hindus recognize particular religious festivals. Rather, Confucians tend to wed other religious observances, such as Buddhism and Taoism for example, to their Confucian philosophy. Hindus, on the other hand, observe hundreds of holidays and events of historic import, such as Mahashivaratri, Holi and Diwali. In Piety in This World 7 fact, the number of Hindu religious events appears to be too large to accurately catalogue, though some claim to have recorded more than 1,000 holy days of varying importance and levels of participation (Bowker, 2000). Mahashivaratri is the great festival of Shiva and is celebrated by most Hindus. Similar in some respects to the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, it is a time of fasting and contemplation in commemoration of the story in which Shiva saved the world by swallowing a deadly poison unwittingly released by the gods (Ibid). Confucianism and Hinduism have a number of interesting similarities that are no less remarkable for their subtlety. These are less overt than religious festivals but significant for what they have to say about the social settings in which they developed. Both religions are, in varying respects, the product of class though in different ways. Confucius is said to have grown up in considerable poverty, the son of a member of the lowest level of Chinese nobility who died when Confucius was very young. The Analects, the scriptures in which Confucius’ sayings are recorded, reflect a particularly sensitive attitude toward “matters of wealth and class” (Confucius and Watson, 2007). As such, the Analects teach moral and social probity; loyalty to one’s family and community; and the pathway to becoming a “proper man,” or junzi (Ames and Rosemont, 1998). What Confucius and, by extension, the Analects stress is a rule by “sage kings,” who “governed by observing ritual propriety and custom …rather than by law and force” (Ibid). For Confucius, the junzi embodied ethical purity as well as the inclination and ability to serve and lead. For Hindus, the ancient books of the Vedas contain the Mantras and Brahmanas of their tradition. The Vedas recall something of the Analects in that it is not “a systematic treatise on Piety in This World 8 the Vedic view of life” but a collection of hymns and prayers throughout which elements of Vedic wisdom are scattered (Chatterji, 1992). As is not unusual with very ancient texts, the Analects and Vedas are rambling compendiums rather than a series of carefully organized lessons. The Upanishads, which are part of the Vedas, are the written philosophical source in which separation between the transcendent, or Brahman, and the true self, or atman, is explained. The process by which the infinite can be realized within the self is a journey through which one embraces and embodies the divine. “To become Brahman means to realize oneself as immortal, unconditioned, beyond space and time and causation; to become the whole universe” (Dhavamony, 1982). Whereas the Analects chronicle Confucius’ teachings on the development of the exemplary person, the Upanishads are concerned with matters of the soul and its striving for a state of spiritual perfection, of ultimate change and transcendence. Hinduism’s pantheism stems from its conception of the primeval man, a being descended from the divine, who was sacrificed to create earth, sky, water, air, moon and sun (Ibid). All men, then, must strive to recover that lost state of grace and thereby bring the world to a sublime condition of peace and understanding. Language is, of course, the one indispensable medium of religion and it is through the practice of religion that a language reaches the apex of its expressiveness. Hinduism and Confucianism are nearly as old and venerable as the languages which gave them form. In China it is said, “The process of learning Chinese language is the process of converting to Confucianism” (Chen, Moran and Gardner, 2009). Indeed, it is difficult to separate one from the other, as many common Chinese phrases come directly from Confucianism (Ibid). The Piety in This World 9 relationship between Hinduism and Sanskrit is quite different, Sanskrit, once the lingua franca of Southeast Asia, having been relegated to the status of a near-archival language, much as Latin has become in the West. Languages links both religions with the social order that plays such an important role in the ethical principles of both Hinduism and Confucianism. Class divisions represent continuity for both. Confucians assert that such distinctions are highly desirable. Hindus use social stratification to illustrate that the individual occupies a particular social position based on karma created by actions (or inaction) from past lives. Social order is key to both systems, though both ascribe an intrinsically inferior social position to women. Confucianism says that women are not to occupy positions of power and that they are responsible for much that is disordered and chaotic in society. Hindus see women as servants to their husbands and fathers, as mothers and as objects of sexual gratification. While the gender inequality the Hindu system created in India has lessened somewhat in recent years (the ritual sacrificial practice of sati, for example, having been ruled illegal), women still occupy a decidedly inferior position in society, though women are scrupulously protected and cared for by the men in their lives. By way of example, Buddhism, which many consider a sect of Hinduism, holds more enlightened views on gender relations, even permitting women to become nuns. Hinduism therefore is aimed at improving life for everyone, as is Confucianism. Though they differ over the importance of the spiritual versus the temporal world, both espouse an ordered social hierarchy through which the individual can better himself and draw nearer to the Piety in This World 10 supreme ideal. Social position is quite important in both faiths, Hindus seeing social advancement as a manifestation of positive karma. A firm belief in education and a strong work ethic are also common to both religions in the sense that they are important for bettering oneself socially as well as spiritually. Both place great stock in maintaining a strong bond between master and subject. For Confucians, this is part and parcel of a philosophy that teaches one should serve selflessly those who occupy higher-ranking positions. The great civilizations of the Far East and Southeast Asia are culturally and ethically inseparable from the religious traditions that have enriched the entire world with their teachings. Hinduism and Confucianism teach that spiritual growth and enlightenment are the products of a life lived in harmony with the social order and with a respect for one’s family. Taking a broader view, these two ancient belief systems were among the very first to teach that one’s conduct in life is inextricably linked with the journey toward spiritual fulfillment and the soul’s transcendent migration. Piety in This World 11 References Ames, R.T. and Rosemont, H. (1998). The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Basu, D.D. (2004). The Essence of Hinduism. Calcutta, India: Prentice-Hall of India. 57. Bowker, J. (2000). "Festivals." Oxford Concise Dictionary of World Religions. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP. 193. Chatterji, J.C. (1992). Wisdom of the Vedas. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House. 11. Chen, J.Q., Moran, S. and Gardner, H. (2009). Multiple Intelligences Around the World. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 33. Confucius, Watson, B. (2007). The Analects of Confucius. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. 2. Dhavamony, M. (1982). Classical Hinduism. Rome, Italy: Gregorian University Press. 55. Molloy, M. (2009). Experiencing the World’s Religions. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Sarkar, B.K. (1916). Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes. Shanghai, China: The Commercial Press, Ltd. 175, 176. Piety in This World 12 Vanaik, A. (1997). The Furies of Indian Communalism: Religion, Modernity and Secularization. London, UK: Verso. 137. Wright, A.F. (1959). Confucianism and Chinese Civilization. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 5, 53. Read More