Ethical Thought in Rig Veda ( Hindu Ethics)

TiIK Rig Wuia may seem a somewhat barren field for the study of ICthics. There is in it no ethical speculation in the strict sense, and even tnoral conduct receives but small attention. It may be said without exaggeration that none of the questions treated in modern European ethical works have

yet been raised. There is no discussion of the moral end; there are no problems arising out of seemingly conflicting duties, nor regarding the relation of the individual to society. And yet in any study of Indian ethical thought we shall find it desirable to begin with the Rig Veda^ for we shall find there the springs of the ethical thinking as well as of the religious thinking of the Hindus, The river of Hinduism has followed a strangely tortuous cours Cj in which it has been fed by many streams, but at every point it retains something of the character of those springs in which it took its rise.There arc no doubt many ethical conceptions in modern Hindu thought that we shall not be able to trace back to the Vedas, but on the other hand there are many that we can so trace back, and there are others that arc less direct developments of tendencies that may be discovered there. In the history of Greek philosophy wc find in the ethical maxims, crude and fragmentary as they are,of the Seven Wise Men, the germs of ethical ideas developed in the thinking of Plato and Aristotle;and the task which we here undertake is one which is parallel to that undertaken by historians of Greek thought.

There is a further consideration that makes it imperative that we should begin our study of the history of Hindu ethics with the Rig Veda, Ethics for most European students means the ethical systems wrought out by Ancient Greek and Modern European philosophers. And these again presuppose the civilization^ social organization, and, to put it broadly, the whole culture of these comparatively limited sections of human society. The thought of Ancient Greece and Modern Europe represent, indeed, but a single stream of thought. It is a stream that has been joined by many tributaries. Yet the thought and life of Modern Europe arc so related to those of Ancient Greece that the modern student readily feels himself at home in the study of the latter. 

When we turn to Indian literature, on the other hand, we find a civilization, social organization, and intellectual outlook, that in their character were almost as remote from those of the West, and that until modern times were as free from the influence of the West as wc can well imagine. In thinking of the ethical problems that confront us in Western thought, we are apt to forget how much is presupposed in the very setting of these problems. The setting is familiar to us, and consequently its significance tends not to be fully recognized. But in studying the problems of Indian ethical thought we shall at every point be conscious of the need of understanding the conditions under which they arose, especially the religious and social conditions. A study of Indian ethics will, accordingly, involve some study of problems not themselves strictly ethical, and also some study of conditions that held prior to the rise of ethical speculation proper. In undertaking this study, it will be necessary for us to seek in the Vedas and in other Indian literature the germs from which ethical ideas developed, and also to exhibit features of Indian life and thought, the connexion of which with our subject may seem even more remote.

 The Rig Veda consists of hymns addressed to the gods, hymns of praise and prayer. Most of the gods were originally personifications of natural phenomena. In some cases the connexion has become obscure, and in almost all cases features have been introduced into the characters of the gods that cannot be shown to have any connexion with the original physical phenomena. Yet the characters and in many cases the names of the gods point to such an original identification. Such a natural polytheism, if nothing more could be said regarding it, could not obviously form a foundation for any satisfactory ethic, nor indeed for a very satisfactory morality. The absence of unity in the universe as it is conceived by the strict polytheist, the existence of Powers antagonistic to each other, or at any rate not united in purpose ; these are features characteristic of all systems of