Explain the Buddhist attitude to the Indian Ideals.

The Indian word for ideal is puru a artha (human ideals). There are four ideals that Indian
people were trying to follow: Dharma (virtue), Artha (wealth), Kma (sense pleasure), and Moka
(liberation). There is another ideal called Praj (wisdom). These ideals are understood and
explained in different ways by the different religions.
Dharma (Virtue) as understood in Brahmanism is not meant by Jainism and Buddhism. It
is meant by Brahmanism that the virtuous person who offers sacrifices. That is the true nature of
Brhmaa: to accept the Vedic religion and to please God by offering the sacrifices. It is the dharma.
But, according to Buddhism, it is totally against the virtuous person. Buddhism does not believe in
the existence of the God creator, universal soul, and the value of sacrifice. Jainism also has different
understanding of dharma. According to Jainism, you must be free from violating human life. While
preaching non-violence, it cannot accept the value of sacrifice. Buddhism also teaches not to harm
others life; so it also cannot accept the value of sacrifice. Thus, what is dharma in Brahmanism is
adharma in both Jainism and Buddhism.
Artha (wealth) is praised in Siglovda Sutta. You have to divide what you earned into
four: consume one portion; two portions should be invested for your future enterprise; and the
fourth portion is to be saved for the difficult times. The Indian Materialists emphasized only two
values; artha and kma. You must earn the wealth to enjoy your life. They did not give much praise
to dharma. They did not believe in future birth. Life comes to the end with death. Since we are only
in this life, we should enjoy life. But, other religious teachers believed in the existence of future
life.
K ma (sense pleasure) has place in Jainism and Buddhism. As long as Buddhism accepts
the existence of the laity, it does not reject the value of kma. The laity as husband and wife needs
sense pleasure. The Buddha blessed the birth of infants. He did not condemn kma but not valued it
as much as Crvakas did. Among the five precepts, the third one is kmesu micchcr. The sexual
misconduct was rejected. But, you can enjoy life. Some people came to the Buddha said, I have
enjoyed my life very well. Please preach a Doctrine for me to be happy in this life and be better in
the next life. The Buddha did not reject their request. Therefore, there is a place for sense pleasure
in Buddhism but not to the same extent as Indian Materialists taught. The sexual misconduct was
discouraged and condemned. Jainism was also similar to Buddhism regarding kma. Without the
laity, there cannot be any religion. As Siglovda Sutta revealed, one of the duties of the lay is to
look after monks and nuns. The religious teachers depended on the support of lay people. In the
Dasadhamm Sutta (AN), there are ten points that the monks and nuns are expected to remember
always. One of them is thus: My living is dependent on others.
Buddhism did not accept the Indian ideals as understood by other religions. Buddhism had
a different interpretation. You have to show how Buddhism differs and why Buddhism differs
from other religions. Buddhism had its own philosophy. It does not accept the creator and the
existence of the soul; it accepts the future birth and the value of virtues. Therefore, while there are
four or five ideals, Buddhism has its own interpretation.
Mok a (liberation) from sasra is understood by Indian Materialism as death. Death itself
is liberation because they did not accept the existence of future life whereas most of the religions
accepted the existence of the future life. But, each religion differs from each other to explain how
the process goes on and what leads to the future birth. You can read the Naradas book (The
Buddha and His Teachings) to see the explanation of Buddhism. Jainism has a different
interpretation of how the rebirth takes place. It believes in the existence of soul that will be reborn.

Buddhism has the path known as the threefold training (Tisikkh) to attain liberation: sla, samdhi,
and pa. It is under the samdhi and pa that you get all forms of meditation. Firstly, you should
be virtuous. Then you follow the certain types of meditation to purify your mind. But, the
purification of the mind is not completed unless you see the reality of the world. Then, under
vipassan or pa, you have to know three things: everything is impermanent and changing
(anicca); everything is subjected to suffering (dukkha); and there is no soul (anatta). The last one is
the most important Buddhist teaching which other religions have not taught. Under Brahmanism,
Jainism, and jivakism, it is believed that there is a soul. But, Buddhism says that there is no soul in
this world or in the other world; there is no soul even in nibbna. Under samdhi you cannot have
full understanding of this important teaching (anatta). Only by vipassan meditation you can fully
understand the reality.
According to Buddhism, pa (wisdom) would be the understanding of vipassan. In the
Brahmanism, it is to know the nature of soul. For the Indian Materialism, it would be a rejection of
all religions.
With this introduction you may give me a tutorial (lesser than four pages). You must read
my notes and referential books. If you read the Naradas book several times, you can get lots of
information for the tutorial. You can also get information from the internet but you must be careful
that some internet sites do just copy without understanding the contents. When you write the
tutorial, do not copy from others without understanding. Everybody must have ones own writing
style.

From old note 2002

Indian values
Human ideals
The Brahmana introduced a system of ideals in term of the caste system and the theory of four
stages. The advantages of these depended on ones caste. There were other teachers known as
Saramanas who developed different theory of ideal known as Surusa+artha-human ideal. These
human ideals differed from the Brahmanical ideals on many methods. They are:
1. Dharma- virtues
2. Arth- wealth
3. Kama- pleasure
4. Moksa- liberation
These ideals were acceptable to many thinkers. And for that reason many Indians tried to achieve
them. But these ideals differed from one teacher to the others.
Dharma-virtues
It was the general Indian views that there is a different between human beings and animals. There
are many factors, which are similar to them. But they differed only on virtues. Animals do not have
a concept of virtues, but only human beings. But with regard to what is Dharma and what is not
Dharma human beings and also thinkers have different ideals. Saramana teachers accepted the
significance of the ideals of virtues. But they criticized people as they did not sincerely live up to
them (they did not follow). There were some other thinkers who said that there is no mother, there
is no father, and there are no religious teachers. But this statement did not imply that there were no
real mothers, fathers or religious teachers. But it meant was these members did not receive the due
respect, due recognition that they should have got. On the other hand, there were different list of

virtues among different thinkers. These different lists were based on different concepts of religions.
Some religions believed the most important thing a man could do was to offer sacrifice, to please
the creator God. There were some religions according to them the world was not created. It gust
happened the most important thing a man could do was to live according to nature because it is the
nature that brought the human beings into this world. Naturally these two religions one believing in
God, the other believing in nature had two different list of virtues. In the same way, Jainism and
Buddhism also have two different list of virtues. On some matter there is similarity. But on some
other matter there is different. These two lists are based on different religious ground. Therefore,
they may preach the same things for different reasons. In the same way materialism is also against
the performance of sacrifice. Buddhism, Jainism and Materialism condemned sacrifice for different
reasons.
Arth- wealth
Wealth is the second ideal Indian thinker thoughts. It was very much emphasized by materialist
thinkers. For materialism out of four ideals only two were important. They are wealth and pleasure.
For them pleasure could be enjoined if one has wealth. Therefore, they encourage their followers to
become wealthy. India at that time was clanging its symbol economy and people were gathering
wealth as much as they could get. Some Indian writers devoted their time to produce on wealth. A
well-known book that was been discovered recently on this subject is Arthasastra-economy, written
by Canakya or Kautilya. This Kautilya is very important since he laid the foundation for the
emergence of a new Empire, which later produced Empire Asoka. Canakya in his book mentioned
several teachers who had written on the subject. This book had been lost. This shows the ideal had
become popular. Various thinkers expressed their views regarding the significance of wealth.
Sramana thinkers, while excepting the value of wealth, they tried to show that there was an evil of
incoming. Most of the Jainism followers were merchants. And they engaged in trade and
commerce. Buddhism also understands poverty as a form of suffering and also speaks earning
wealth by righteous means. There are several Suttas which instruct man to devote their time and
energy and earn wealth.
Kama- pleasure
According to these thinkers, who introduced the four ideals, there are different interpretations. For
the materialists pleasure is the more important ideal. Some materialists maintained that as long as
we are living we must enjoy life. They advocated that for the sake of enjoyment even borrowing is
advisable. There is well known word which says that one may run into death even to buy ghee. And
when the body is cremated there is no coming back. But these materialists accepted social values
and maintained that people should have good relation to each other. So that they can live happily.
Other Saramana teachers taught pleasure can be enjoy within a certain limit. For instance
Buddhism and Jainism taught self-control. In the case of Buddhism there is list of Sila-precepts for
a follower to observe. For a Jaina follower there is list of vows. If the follower observes these, his
life will be controlled and governed properly. So that he may be able to practice his own religion.
For instance for the layman Buddhism has the well known five precepts. That is the basic code of
ethics a Buddhist can start to practice of Buddhism. If one wants to go higher and higher there are
more virtues that he is expected to observe. Some other teachers went to the other extreme of
advocating the renunciation of pleasure. They believed by the practice of austerity or torturing of
the body one can attain happiness. They thought with the body there are certain defilements what
one has to do is to remove the defilements is to torture the body. There was another group of
thinkers who maintained that inside the body there is a soul. The soul is infested with defilements.
To remove the defilements from the soul one has to torture the body. So there were so many
practices aimed at purify the body and soul. During hot season they used to sit under the sun with
fire-lit around the person. During the winter they remained with necked and bathed several times.
Thus they tortured the body. When we reach the biographical account of the Buddha during the

period of six years we can know the practices he followed. During that period he followed the
practices followed by those ascetics.
Moksa- liberation
Usually liberation was taught by those thinkers who taught that present life is not satisfactory. As it
is not satisfactory they wanted to escape from this life. Many methods were taught. One method
that Jainism taught is the practice of self-mortification based on non-violence. They believed there
are souls everywhere and these souls should not harvested. So they practised or observed nonviolence. Buddhism teaches the noble eight-fold path for the attainment of liberation. In the every
first discourse Buddha said the two extremes have to be avoided. One is self-mortification taught
by those thinkers who advocated severe ascetics practices. The other is self-indulgence taught by
extreme materialists. According to Buddhism these noble eight-fold path is the middle path, which
avoids these two extremes. Some materialists who did not accept future life maintained that life
comes to an end will with death. Therefore, their view was liberation could be attained if one is
desirous of such a thing with death of this life. This account shows with regard to four ideals there
is no agreement among Indian thinkers. All these thinkers interpreted these according to the
philosophy of life they accepted. Later we find even Brahmanism was influent by these ideals. That
is why later they extended the stages of life by adding two more. In the beginning they had two that
is student and householder. Because of the influence of Sarmana thinkers they added the forest
dwellers and the renunciated or ascetics. Brahmanism as a religion, which advocated sacrifice has
to change and accept liberation also as an ideal. These show though Brahmanism was relevant
among the high caste people the ideals of Saramana thinkers were able to reach larger number of
followers. So much so not only high caste people but ordinary people also followed those ideals.
Read
Ariyapariyesana sutta of M.N
Masacca sutta
Sutta sutta