Comparative Ethics in Hindu and Buddhist Traditions

The book begins with “Method in Comparative Ethics,” where Hindery defines the descriptive scope of comparative ethics and proposes key questions concerning moral motivation, worldview, ethos, textual selection, popular and elite traditions, and the relation between individual persons and social institutions. The following chapters examine “Ethics in the Rigveda,” “Ethics in the Upanishads,” and “Ethics in the Laws of Manu,” showing how early Hindu sources articulate moral order, ritual duty, social responsibility, self-discipline, and metaphysical foundations for conduct. The chapters on “Ethics in the Rāmāyaṇa” and “Ethics in the Bhagavad Gītā” analyze epic and devotional models of duty, loyalty, righteousness, action, renunciation, and divine-human relationship. “Ethics in other Popular Classics, Poetry and Drama” expands the inquiry beyond formal scripture into wider literary and cultural expressions of moral imagination. The chapter on philosophers and reformers presents Śaṅkara and Gandhi as representative figures for understanding ethical reflection, spiritual insight, social responsibility, and reform. The ninth chapter summarizes pluralism in Hindu ethics and reflects on ethical relativism and motivation in comparative judgment. The final chapter introduces ethical thought in Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, opening the study toward Buddhist compassion, wisdom, moral cultivation, and the broader comparative field of Asian ethics.