印度文化-Indian Culture [9]
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论文字数:7652论文编号:org201505281505135836语种:英语 English地区:印度价格:免费论文
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摘要:本文是一篇学期论文,主要介绍了印度文化的渊源历史。
mic significance because they help determine what form we are reborn into and when we are finally able to attain absolute liberation. Our actions are linked to our atman. In response to the question of what happens to the atman after death, the Katha Upanisad states, “some enter a womb by which an embodied self obtains a body, others pass into a stationary thing – according to what they have done, according to what they have learned.” [31] In short, our actions stay with us (with our atman) throughout our many lives. It is by our karma that we work our way through life in the physical realm and ultimately become ready for liberation from death and rebirth. The ultimate goal then, is to only act in ways that move one closer to the ultimate goal of release into brahman.
It is logical that given the increase in the significance of the self and the self’s actions that the importance of individual experience increased as well during this time. As we have already investigated, personal contemplative practice and simple living, especially away from society in the forest, were common ways in which people sought liberation and truth. Individual practice continued to become even more important in Indian culture at this time, especially within branch movements that broke away from Vedic culture such as Buddhism and Jainism.
Along with this increasing importance of atman and karma, began what would come to full flower in the Jain and Buddhist movements, ahimsa. Ahimsa (non-violence or non-injury) was not a cohesive concept in the Upanisads; however, there are slight traces of it within them. It is quite logical that a non-violent approach to life would be the next step in this progression away from sacrificial ritual, towards individual practice that values the self and one’s every action. The first example of this pseudo-non-violence of the Upanisads is found in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad. In the midst of a discussion on the regenerative, creative power of the new moon, it states, “on that night a man should not take the life of any being that sustains life, not even that of a lizard.” [32] This example relates more to the creative power of the universe than to atman and karma, but it does demonstrate an increasing appreciation for the value of life, even the lives of lizards.
The Chandogya Upanisad also contains the beginnings of non-violence. At the very end of the Upanisad, it states that one who “does his daily vedic recitation in a clean place, rears virtuous children, draws in all his sense organs into himself, and refrains from killing any creature except for a worthy person” [33] will attain brahman. Obviously this is problematic in that it is not a truly non-violent statement since it tolerates the killing of a “worthy person.” Nonetheless, it does show an increase in the value of the lives of other creatures, which is incompatible with a sacrificial system that regularly took the lives of animals.
Although these examples do not form a cohesive concept of ahimsa, it is evident that the beginnings of non-violence are present in the Upanisads. The gradual movement away from the sacrificial system of the Vedas left room for non-violence in the growing Indian worldview of the latter half of the first millennium BCE. The concept of the self (atman) and the concept of karma lent themselves to a growing awareness of how one must act in relation to other living be
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