Hindu Ethics - Purity - Abortion - and Euthanasia SUNY Press - 1989
Hindu Ethics - Purity - Abortion - and Euthanasia SUNY Press - 1989
Hindu Ethics - Purity - Abortion - and Euthanasia SUNY Press - 1989
Introduction
HAROLD G. COWARD
approaches to India, and in particular to Hinduism, have
Modern Western
1.
Purity in Hinduism: With Particular Reference to
Patañjali's Yoga Sutras *
HAROLD G. COWARD
There are two widespread pictures of Hindu society in the West. One is of
the yogi performing great feats of physical and mental gymnastics,
wandering through the world with his begging bowl or sitting motionless
in the forest, deep in meditation. The other picture is of the Brahmin
priest-scholar at the top of a vast hierarchy of hereditary communities
that do not intermarry or even eat together outside the caste. The first
picture is supported by the Indian philosophies elaborating various paths
that renounce the world and lead to eternal salvation. The second picture
has its scriptural support in a different set of sacred texts, the "law
books" (Dharmasastras*).1
The first picture is summed up by the word moksa*release from the
seemingly endless round of death and rebirth. Release, in this
picture, is realized by purifying oneself of the pollution created by
one's previous births. The second picture is of the caste system
guided by the law books and is also very concerned with keeping
pure. Purity, then, is a fundamental dimension of all Hindu
experience: that of the yogi, the renouncer, and that of the worldly
householder. In this chapter, we will comment on how purity
functions in both Hindu worlds but will end with our focus on the
world of the yogi or renouncer, especially as seen in the
fundamental yoga text, The Yoga Sutras* of Patanjali*.
Throughout the chapter, special attention will be given to the
ethical impact of purity practices on Hindu women.
The notion of purity as somehow being closely related to the
spiritual has a long history in both the Jewish and Christian
traditions. "Cleanliness is next to godliness" was long a motto in
the West. Cleanness has a history of being related to holiness. For
Christians and Jews to be unclean means to be contaminated by a
physical, ritual, or moral impurity.2 This notion of spir-
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itual purity will provide the Westerner a good beginning point from
which to approach Hindu thought and practise and will render
understandable even such repulsive behaviour as sati * or widow
burning.
In Hindu Brahmanical culture, the Sanskrit term suddha* stands for
purity. The meaning of this term in its Hindu usage is best
conveyed by invoking images of fullness or completeness in the
specific sense of perfection. It refers to the ideal condition of the
human body or the most desired state of being. This Hindu notion
of purity is effectively summarized as follows:
Suddha* and its opposite asuddha* are attributes of animate beings,
inanimate objects and places with which a human being comes into
contact in the course of everyday life. For example, a prepubescent
unmarried girl (kanya*), water from a holy river, unboiled milk, ghee
and a temple are suddha*. On the other hand, contact with certain
kinds of human beings (low caste Hindus or non-Hindus), animals
(dogs), objects (goods made of leather), foods (beef or food cooked in
impure utensils), substances (discharges from a human body), places
(cremation ground), etc. causes Brahmans and other upper caste
Hindus to become polluted.3
After this graphic portrait of the polluted nature of the body, the
very next verse of the Maitri* sets forth descriptions of tamas and
rajas, the qualities that Sankhya* and Yoga thought identify as
requiring purification.
Now, it has elsewhere been said: 'The characteristics of the Dark
Quality (tamas) are delusion, fear, despondency, sleepiness,
weariness, heedlessness, old age, sorrow, hunger, thirst,
wretchedness, anger, atheism (nastikya*), ignorance, jealousy, cruelty,
stupidity, shamelessness, religious neglect, pride, unequableness.
The characteristics of the Passionate Quality (rajas), on the other
hand, are inner thirst, affection, emotion, covetousness,
maliciousness, lust, hatred, secretiveness, envy, insatiability,
unsteadfastness, fickleness, distractedness, ambitiousness,
acquisitiveness, favoritism towards friends, dependence upon
surroundings, hatred in regard to unpleasant objects of sense,
overfondness in regard to pleasant objects, sourness of utterance,
gluttonousness. . . .19
The Maitri* goes on to add that sattva or purity comes from the
practice of austerity (tapas). This again accords with the Jaina view
that the way to purge the heavy tamasic and rajasic karma from
one's self is to starve and burn it out through tapas. Another verse
quoted in the Maitri* identifies impurity with desire.
The mind is said to be twofold:
The pure and also the impure
Impureby union with desire;
Purefrom desire completely free!20
In the Hindu view, all death results in pollution for the members of
the dead person's family. If there is a widow, this death pollution is
focused on her and is removed from the human world by her
immolation. For the sati* to be fully efficacious in removing
impurity, it was important that the widow be in as pure a state as
possible. Thus there were strict injuctions against sati* by widows
who were menstruating or in a state of birth pollution, for, in these
cases, the pollution level of the widow was already such that it
would not allow the death pollution to be reduced.41 Also, before
sati*, the woman's purity was accentuated by a ritual bathing and
dressing in new clothes.
According to Hejb and Young when the sati* state is compared
with that of the widow, many similarities emerge. The sati*
engages in a controlled, yoga-like act in entering the fire. In the act
of sati*, she not only burned away her own bad karma but also the
pollution surrounding the death of her husband. Thus, she purified
herself and her family and produced good karma for the next life.
Her equanimity at the moment of sati* revealed her yogic
attainment.42 Her act was said to radiate benevolence, not only on
the family and those present, but on generations to come. Thus,
both the sati* and the widow perform tapas which purifies the
pollution of the husband's death and the wife's bad karma. The
woman choosing sati* is more auspicious because she instantly
reunites herself with her husband. The widow, thinking more of
herself, has to use the rest of her own life to put herself back into
the state of purity required of being a good wife (sati*). In addition,
the act of sati* ensured that the couple would be reunited in
heaven, while widowhood left open the destination to earth, heaven
or hell. Thus, according to Hejib and Young, while the result of
sati* was clear, ambiguity tormented the widow.43
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Regardless of how they lived or died, one impurity that was
inescapable throughout life for the Hindu woman was the pollution
of menstruation. Menstruation seems to be regarded as more than a
simple physical pollution. In India, menstrual blood has been
closely linked with notions of conception. In many texts, there are
injunctions to the effect that monthly periods must not be misused
that a women's menstruation must be transformed into a fertile
result. 44 Some Indian women believe that after ten months of
blood is collected, a child is born.45 Thus fathers who do not
provide husbands for their postpubertal daughters are held to
commit embryo murder at each menstruation. Husbands also have
a duty to have intercourse with their wives at the proper time so
that the blood will be used in child production and not issue as
menstruation.46 On the other hand some texts reflect the view of
many Hindu women that menstruation is a purifying process. One
text says, ''Women possess an unrivaled means of purification; they
never become entirely foul. For month by month their temporary
uncleanness removes their sins."47 The dominant Hindu view,
however, is that menstruation is a pollution.
In the Classical Brahmanical Hindu view, women are assessed and
given value in terms of purity. In worldly life, women are seen as
existing on a continuum from the most pure as being a prepubertal
virgin to the most impure as being a menstruating widow.48 Since
almost the whole of a woman's life seems to caught up in tamas or
pollution, it is perhaps not surprising that Brahmanical society felt
that the desired condition of purity could only be achieved by the
imposition of rigorous controls. There is also the concern that the
purity of women be maintained to raise the status of their men.49
The above discussion has focused on the worldly life picture of
Hinduism in which dharma is the goal and purity is the means. The
pure is noumenal and is symbolised in the sadhu or renouncer. The
impure is inextricably involved in the cycle of life and death,
especially in the case of women. In this impure world, the role of
the priest or Brahmin is to help his client maintain or enhance
purity. Thus the Brahmin is the exemplar of purity in the world of
the nonrenouncers and, as such, sits atop a social hierarchy based
on relative purity. As we have seen, this has had a doubly
unfortunate effect on the lives of Hindu women. On the one hand it
has led to the perception that during menstruation, childbirth, and
widowhood they are a major source of pollution, comparable
perhaps with that associated with untouchables.50 In this light,
women are seen as of low spiritual value and little social worth. On
the other hand, paradoxically, women are also held up as symbols
of purity and spiritual power (e.g., Sita* of the Ramayana*). Such
women reflect honour upon their menfolk. In a sense, they combine
the worship of a pure virgin with that of the reproductive mother.
Sita* was both chaste (and thus pure) and the mother of sons. "Just
as purity, virginity and chastity are valued in conformity with caste
mores, so
Page 21
too are fertility and maternity valued in conformity with joint
family and lineage ideology." 51 For the life-affirming Hindu
family, women are a positive and necessary link in the artha
(acquisition of wealth) chain. Over and against the seeing of
women in terms of impurity and chastity, this perspective sees
woman as sakti*, as symbolizing divine creative power. Hinduism
has developed the idea of divine motherhood into the idea of
cosmic energy (sakti*) which can be creative, sustaining, or
destructive in form. The most developed forms of mother-goddess
worship are found among those Hindus who put wordly values to
the forefronttypically the Ksatriya*, Vaisya*, and landowning
Sudra*. "Sakti* represents the divine energy in the phenomenal
universe, and hence is the chief focus of cult activity on the part of
those with materialistic (artha) rather than other-worldly (moksa*)
or purity (dharma) goals.52 However, this categorization does not
always hold. Sakti*, female power, is experienced by many Hindus
as a means not only to material wealth (artha) but also as a way of
liberation (moksa*). Sometimes in the worship of sakti*, normal
purity and pollution values are turned upside downas, for example,
when sexual intercourse becomes a Tantric practise by which
moksa* may be realized. In bhakti devotionalism, the sexual
relationship between lover and beloved is related to the submissive
but passionate relationship between the devotee and the Lord, and
is thus transmutted into religious ecstasy and release (moksa*).53
Although it is important to note the complex variation in the
positive valuations given to sexuality and to women, let us now
return to the main analysis of this chapter, namely, the function of
purity in Hindu Brahmanical culture. Having surveyed the role of
purity and its effect upon women in the worldly or materialistic
practise of Hinduism, let us now turn to a detailed examination of
purity in that other picture of Hinduismthe picture of the Hindu as
the yogi or renouncer. As a method for focusing on the yogi, we
will begin by examining ideas relating to purity found in the Yoga
Sutras* of Patañjali.54
II. Purity in the Guna* Theory of Patañjali's Yoga Sutras
Patañjali takes the above ideas of the impure nature of the human
body, and especially of the womb, and uses them to highlight the
nature of human ignorance (avidya*). In Yoga Sutra* II.5 Patañjali
states, avidya* is the taking of the impure and highly repulsive
body to be pure and attractive. To convince us of the fact that this
body (especially of a beautiful, perfumed girl) which seems to us
so pure is really full of impurity, Vyasa* in his "commentary"
quotes many of the ideas we have encountered earlier:
Because of its first abode and because of its origin and because of its
sustenance and because of its exudations and because of its decease
and
Page 22
because it needs constant cleaning, the learned recognize that the
body is impure. 55
By way of elucidation, Vacaspati Misra* adds:
The abode is the mother's womb polluted by such things as urine; the
seed is the mother's blood and the father's semen. The sustenance is
formation into juices of the food eaten and drunk; for by it the body is
held together. Exudation is sweat. And death defiles the body of even
a scholarly man. Inasmuch as a bath is required after his dead body is
touched.56
The body is thus seen as impure in its conception, birth, life, and
death. Forgetting about the perfumed girl dominated by desire,
even the body of a scholarly man is impure. So for the Yoga
Sutras*, any body and all its secretions and excretions are
thoroughly impure, although in our ignorant infatuation we take
such a body to be pure and even beautiful.
Before going on to explain how to deal with this entrapping
impurity, Patañjali offers a sophisticated theoretical explanation as
to the nature and cause of the impurity. Patañjali, following the
Sankhya* theory,57 conceives of consciousness as composed of
three aspects of substantive qualities (gunas*): sattva (brightness,
illumination, intelligence), rajas (emotion, activity), and tamas
(dullness, inertia). Although each of these gunas* keeps its own
separate identity, no individual guna* ever exists independently.
Rather, the three gunas* are always necessarily found together like
three strands of a rope. However, the proportionate composition of
consciousness assigned to each of the gunas* is constantly
changing.58 Only the predominate guna* will be easily recognized
in a particular thought, perception, or material structure. The other
two gunas* will be present but subordinate, and therefore their
presence will have to be determined by inference. If a
psychological cross section were taken through an ordinary state of
consciousness, there would be a dominance of tamas and rajas
especially in its evolved forms of ego, sense organs, and their
everyday experiences. In our routine states of consciousness and
bodily experience, there is a noticeable lack of sattva or pure
discriminative awareness. It is for this reason that we habitually
make the error described in Yoga Sutra* II.5 of taking the impure
body to be pure. In guna* terms, the body is dominated by tamas
and rajas. Only when our sense organs and mental states (citta
vrittis) are purified of domination by the passion and desire of
rajas are they pure enough to allow us to see the body for the
impure thing it is. According to Patañjali, it is by following the
practices set forth in the Yoga Sutra* that the proportionate
composition of the mental states is reversed with sattva becoming
dominant over rajas. At its height, a pure sattva experience would
be like the direct transparent viewing of reality with no emotional
(rajas) or bodily (tamas)
Page 23
distortion intervening. This is technically termed nirvicarasamadhi
* and is defined as a supernormal perception that transcends the
ordinary categories of time, space, and causality and has the
capacity to directly "grasp" or "see" the real nature of things.59 It is
this pure sattva intuition which is given detailed analysis in Sutras*
1.41-51 of the Yoga Sutras* that provides the criterion for purity
against which the ordinary body is judged to be impure.
The purpose behind the evolving nature of the gunas*, and the
desire of the Yoga Sutras* for their increasing purification, is to
enable the True Self (purusa*) to be seen. Ordinarily we take our
body and its desires to be the locus of our True Self. But the
experience of Patañjali and the other great yogis is that the taking
of the body with its dominating tamas and rajas constituents to be
the locus of the True Self is an error. Only when the impure tamas
and rajas are purged through the practice of the yoga disciplines
(the yogangas*) do the body and the mental states become
sufficiently transparent (sattva) to enable one to experience one's
True Self as purusa* (inner spirit), rather than as the material states
of one's mind and body (prakrti*)60 To use the analogy of the light
bulb and lampshade, purusa*, the True Self, is like a pure shining
light (with its own power source) within each of us, while prakrti*,
the body, sense organs, and mental states (composed of the three
gunas*), is like the lampshade. When prakrti* (the lampshade) is
purified of darkness (tamas) and passionate activity (rajas), it
becomes transparent (sattva), and we discover ourselves to be not a
passionate body and mind but a purusa* of pure intelligent
consciousness. Lest the puritan attitude and practice of Patañjali's
Yoga be misunderstood, it is important to keep in mind that it is
this ultimate purpose of release from ignorance into true self-
knowledge (the Yoga parallel to salvation) that drives the desire for
the purification of body and mind.
Aside from the above description of the nature of the impurity in
terms of the three gunas*, the cause of the impurity is given further
analysis in Yoga Sutra* II.15 in terms of the action of karma.
Karma is described by Patañjali as a memory trace recorded in the
unconscious by any action or thought a person has done. The
Westerner should especially note that, for Yoga, a thought is as real
as an actionin fact, in the Yoga view, we think first and then act,
and thought therefore is of primary psychological importance. The
karmic memory trace (samskara*) remains in the unconscious as a
predisposition towards doing the same action or thought again in
the future. All that is required is that the appropriate set of
circumstances present themselves, and the karmic memory trace,
like a seed that has been watered and given warmth, bursts forth as
an impulsion toward the same kind of action or thought from which
it originated. If one, through the exercise of free choice, chooses to
act on the impulse and do the same action or thought again, then
that karmic seed is allowed to flower, resulting in a reinforcing of
the memo-
Page 24
ry trace within the unconscious. Sufficient repetitions of the same
action or thought produce a strengthening of the predisposition
(samskara *) and the establishing of a habit pattern or vasana*.
Such a karmic habit pattern or vasana* is the Yoga equivalent for
the modern psychological notion of motivation.61 The
unconscious, in yoga terminology, is nothing more than the sum
total of all stored up karmic traces from the thoughts and actions
done in this and previous lives. Bad karmic habits, such as not
bathing, not washing and preparing food properly, giving in to base
and materialistic desires, and the ego pursuit of one's own fame and
fortune, all serve to colour one's lampshade with darker hues so
that the true self (purusa*) is not seen. In the yoga view, the
ordinary experience of all of us is to take our true nature to be our
body and mind dominated by the darker karma of our
desiresdesires predisposed by our desiring in past lives. It is this
lampshade of dark karma that prevents us from seeing the lightbulb
of our pure purusa* within and that causes us to mistakenly think
of our impure bodies and minds as pure.
The "Commentary" on Yoga Sutra* II.15 describes all of this in
vivid detail. In every experience of pleasure, the mind and the body
are permeated with passion (rajas) leaving behind a latent deposit
of karma. Pain also causes a passionate response and similarly
leaves behind a latent deposit of karma. A further and more subtle
kind of karma is the frustration that results from the cessation of a
pleasurable experiencewe are always left wanting more of food,
drink, sex, material possessions, and so forth. Thus, even our
experiences of mental and bodily pleasure, on analysis, are seen to
predispose us to future similar acts and necessarily to end in
painful frustration. This is the beginningless stream of our ordinary
experience, which causes the impurity of mind and body and
blocks our true perception of the pure purusa*. While being
immersed in all of this impurity does not bother the average person,
to the one who has begun to purify mind and body through the
practice of yoga and who has begun to see these karmic impulses
(samskaras*) for what they are, such samskaras* are felt by the
yogi to be as painful as if they were a wool thread being pulled
across the eyeball. It is precisely this extreme sensitivity that
causes the yogi to withdraw from contact with anything
representing the heavier karma which causes this pain, e.g., impure
food, unwashed bodies, the bodies and minds of those whose habits
are marked by rajasic and tamasic karma, and finally to shrink
from contact even from one's own body. This condition is the basic
prerequisite requirement for beginning the practice of yoga. It is
nicely summarized in the Comment on Yoga Sutra* II.1:
Yoga is not attained by one not given to purificatory action. Impurity
is variegated by the eternal in-dwelling of the aroma of action and
affliction [the unconscious karmic impulses, vasanas*], and is ever in
contact with the network of enjoyables. It cannot be dispersed without
purificatory action (tapas).62
Page 25
Vyasa * goes on to add that, in addition to purifactory action, study
or the repeated utterance of purifying words like AUM and making
Isvara* the motive of all ones actions are to be practiced by the
yogi. Let us now examine these prescriptions for purifying the
mind and body in more detail.
Saucha* or cleanliness is one of the angas* or means to yoga by
which impurity can be removed and discriminative awareness of
purusa* realized. Vyasa* in his Commentary on Yoga Sutra* II.32
defines saucha* as cleanliness of two kinds: external and internal.
External cleanliness involves washing of the body by earth and
water. External cleanliness also includes the eating of pure food,
properly washed and prepared. Tradition adds that, to be pure, food
must not contain meat, fish, or eggs and must not be touched by
saliva or by the left hand (used to perform ablutions).63 To these
requirements the Hatha Yogis add various practices designed to
clean the digestive tract, e.g., fasting, passing a strip of cloth into
the stomach, and sitting in a tub of water to give oneself an
enema.64 Internal cleanliness involves the washing of impure
thoughts such as arrogance, pride and jealousy from the mind. The
test for mastery of cleanliness is most revealing for the point being
made in this study. In Yoga Sutra* II.40 Patañjali states, "As a
result of cleanliness there is disgust at one's own body and no
intercourse with others."65 The practice of purity of body and mind
leads the yogi to be disgusted and shrink from contact, not only
with the bodies of others, but even from his own body and its
excretions. Vyasa* comments:
As soon as there is disgust with his own body, he [the yogi] has begun
cleanliness. Seeing the offensiveness of the body, he is no longer
attached to the body and becomes an ascetic (yati). Moreover there is
no intercourse with others. Perceiving the true nature of the body,
even after he has washed it with earth and water and other substances,
not seeing any purity in the body, how could he have intercourse with
the bodies of others absolutely unhallowed as they are?66
In terms of the guna* theory, this means that the body is composed
of karmic impurities of the nature of rajas and tamas. To be clean
(sattvic) requires ultimately that one get rid of one's body and
impure thoughts. Implied in the text is that the further one departs
from the relatively pure practice and body of the yogi, the more
revolting (tamasic) the bodies of others become. There is even the
implication that these darker qualities can rub off from the body
and mind of another onto oneself. Thus all contact with others is to
be avoided, especially with those who are not even trying to be
cleanthose who eat meat, don't wash properly, indulge in sexual
intercourse, and engage in uncouth activity not only in this life but
also in previous lives. The most likely candidates for this latter
group in Indian society are of course the lower castes and classes.
The yogi, like the Brahmin, is one who has worked hard at
purifying body and mind not only in this life but likely also in
Page 26
previous lives. It is simply not good either for the individual's
spiritual progress or the well-being of society to lose such purity by
contact with those who, due to their own free choice (after all
according to Patañjali's theory they created their own karma), are
more impure. As Arjuna puts it (speaking in another context):
The mixing of caste leads to hell,[the hell] prepared for those who
wreck the family and for the family [so wrecked]. So too their
ancestors fall down [to hell], cheated of their offerings of food and
drink. 67
IV. The Clash Between the Classical View of Purity and the
Equality Prescribed by India's New Constitution
The classical Indian viewthat low caste and femalehess is simply a
reflection of the karma one had established for oneself due to one's
own free choices in previous birthsis rejected in the thought of
contemporary Hindu thinkers and in the provisions of India's
Constitution. One modern Hindu writer, Swami Iswarananda *,
criticizes the classical view of karma and rebirth as having
produced a certain callousness towards otherstheir needs and
situation in life. The point Iswarananda* makes is that karma
theory implies that it is inappropriate or even hopeless to attempt to
ameliorate situations of distress or injustice in the human
community. As he puts it,
the prevalent Hindu doctrine that one's life is solely determined by
one's karma and therefore one can afford to be callous toward the
suffering of those around him has been responsible for not only the
neglect of the masses in India by the aristocracies of learning, power
and wealth, but also for standing as a barrier to their growth and
welfare.98
The application of these remarks to the lack of equality
experienced by low eastes and women in the classical karma and
guna* theory is obvious. Another modern thinker, Sanat Kumar
Sen, states the problem is a less polemic fashion: '' . . . the
assumption of Karma may even seem to justify callousness in the
face of human suffering, for if everybody's fate is a result of his
own action, why should we attempt to mitigate others' miseries
except on the grounds of selfishness."99 Other writers, of course,
deny that such a selfish result is entailed by the doctrine of karma,
emphasizing the individual's present freedom to act in morally
responsible ways as provided for by karma and guna* theory.100
One modern Hindu who stressed the freedom present in classical
karma theory even to the point of social revolution was Swami
Vivekananda. Vivekananda went so far as to use karma theory as a
basis to criticize the oppressed for their weakness. The following
story was retold within the Ramakrishna Order.
It was in Almora that a certain elderly man, with a face full of
amiable weakness, came and put him a question about Karma. What
were they to do, he asked, whose Karma it was to see the strong
oppress the weak? The Swami turned on him in surprise indignation.
"Why, thrash the strong, of course!" he said, "You forget your own
part in this Karma; Yours is always the right to rebel."101
Page 32
For Vivekananda, karma has manufactured your body and mind for
you. What you do with its future possibilities is up to you. While it
is true that karma theory, as systematized by Patañjali, does stress
that karmic impulses are merely dispositions from past actions, not
predeterminations, still one cannot avoid the fact that the guna *
theory and its sense of the physical reality of impurity leads one to
shrink from contact with othersespecially low caste persons and
menstruating women. Some modern writers feel that, with the
advent of modem scientific knowledge, karma theory is no longer
acceptable. As Sarasvati Chennakesavan puts it, "With the spread
of scientific and technological knowledge, an explanation for the
physiological and mental inequalities so far-fetched as the karma
theory has become unacceptable. Facts of sociological economics
and social psychology combined with anthropology are able to
explain inequalities that so puzzled our ancestors."102 What
Chennakesavan and most other modem writers fail to address is the
spiritual motivation behind the classical ideasa motivation that can
still capture the modem scientific mind, as witnessed by the appeal
of Patañjali's Yoga for well-educated Westerners.
A major conflict exists between the presupposition of the classical
view and that of the Constitution of India adopted in 1949. The
Preamble of the Constitution resolves to secure to all its citizens
justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity, assuring the dignity of the
individual and the unity of the nation.103 Part III of the
Constitution entitled "Fundamental Rights" leads off with a section
on "The Right to Equality." In this section, provision 15(1) states
"The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds
only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them."
Provision 15(2) goes on to elaborate that no citizen shall be subject
to any disability, limitation, or restriction in terms of access to
public buildings (including Hindu Temples); to the use of wells,
tanks, bathing ghats, roads, or public resorts; or to be discriminated
against in respect of employment. The two main groups in mind
here are women and those of low caste. This is made clear by
sections of provision 15 which allow the state to set up special
conditions for the advancement of women and low caste groups
without violating the requirement for equality of treatment.
Provision 16 deals with "Untouchability," which it abolishes. All
these provisions directly attack the gradations of individuals and
groups which was the natural result of the classical guna* theory
and its view of the body, especially the female body, as being filled
with impurities. Whereas before the Constitution, and in line with
the classical view, the untouchable could bring merchandise only as
far as the back gate. Only after the untouchable deposited whatever
it was at the back gate and physically removed his polluting
presence could the pure Brahmin come out of the house to pick up
the delivery. Even then the object, whatever it was, would have to
be thoroughly washed before being taken into the
Page 33
house. Similarly, in the house, the women had to keep apart from
the presence of the men, eating and sitting separately.
The Constitution not only attempted to reject these negative
attitudes based on the classical view of purity, it also forcefully
opposed them by strongly stating the rights to freedom for all as
including freedom of speech, of assembly, of movement, of
settling, of holding property, and of practising and profession, see
19(l).
In his study of the Constitution and the secular India it seeks to
establish, D. E. Smith observes that the above provisions constitute
a revolution in the traditional conception of religion in India. 104
The revolution that the Constitution introduces is nothing short of a
new standardization of Hindu personal law on the basis of equality
rather than on the classical view of karmic purity. On the new basis
of equality, women are no longer to be seen as inferior to men by
virtue of their greater bodily impurity. Nor are people who eat meat
or engage in sex and worldly pleasures to be judged as inferior to
the ascetic yogis by virtue of the impurity of their lifestyles.
Indeed, the very idea of ordering society in terms of levels of purity
and impurity, which, in part at least produced the caste system, is
ruled out by the new Constitution. These equality provisions of the
Constitution have also provided the basis for legislation opening
Hindu religious institutions to all classes and sections of India.
Harijan temple entry laws have been enacted by many state
legislatures. "The central Untouchability (Offenses) Act of 1955
provides inter alia that any attempt to prevent Harijans from
exercising their right of temple entry is punishable with
imprisonment, fine or both."105 Court interpretations of the
equality provisions of the Constitution have quashed attempts of a
religious community to excommunicate one of its members, thus
highlighting the clash between the role of the state and its equality
provisions with the internal autonomy of a religious
demonination.106 While excommunication in the West is mainly a
matter of religious belief, in India excommunication exists much
more on the social level as an act of removing a person from a
particular caste group or baring the entry of others into a particular
caste. The roots of such discrimination are found in the classical
views of religious purity as sanctification. The outlawing of
excommunication by the courts is a dramatic example of the clash
between the egalitarian philosophy of the Constitution and the
elitist (by one's own efforts) approach of Hindu karma and guna*
theory. What the Constitution does not address, of course, is
whether the provision of equality is true and just, whereas the
Hindu distinctions made on the basis of karmic purity in search of
moksa* are to be overturned as untrue and unjust. The basis of the
ancient Hindu views of purity are found in the sruti* and smrti*
which, for the Hindu, have the status of revelation. What makes the
modern situation especially ambiguous is that the Constitution sees
itself as providing freedom
Page 34
of religion, on the one hand, and yet removes that freedom when
the basic revelations of the religion are found to contravene the
Constitution's premise of equality. The courts of India have the
difficult task of having to arbitrate this fundamental clash. 107
Notes
1. John B. Carman, "Axes of Sacred Value in Hindu Society," in
Purity and Auspiciousness in Indian Society, edited by John B.
Carman and Frederique A. Marglin. Liden: E. J. Brill, 1985, p. 109.
2. "Clean and Unclean", The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible,
vol. 1, New York: Abingdon Press, 1962, pp. 641ff.
3. T. N. Madan, "Concerning the Categories subha* and suddha* in
Hindu Culture" in Purity and Auspiciousness in Indian Society, p.
17.
4. For an excellent analysis see the papers by T. N. Madan, A.
Hillebeitel, V. Narayan, and F. A. Marglin in Purity and
Auspiciousness in Indian Society, 1985.
5. Yoga Sutra* I.2
6. Yoga Sutra* 2.32 on saucha*.
7. A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India. New York: Grove
Press, 1959, p. 16.
8. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, p. 18.
9. Katherine Young, "Hinduism" in Women in World Religions,
edited by Arvind Sharma, Albany, New York: State University of
New York Press, 1987, pp. 59-103.
10. Shakuntala Rao Sastri, Women in the Vedic Age. Bombay:
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1969, p. 16.
11. Bhagwat Saran Upadhaya, Women in Rgveda*. New Delhi: S.
Chand & Co., 1974, p. 185.
12. See the analysis of Gerald Larsen, Classical Sankhya*. Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1979, p. 94. Some scholars, however, question
this analysis by Larsen.
13. See Padmanabh S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979, Cp IV "The
Mechanism of Bondage."
14. Larsen, Classical Sankhya*, p. 97, for his analysis of the
Katha* Upanisad*.
15. Katha* Upanisad* III> 3-4
16. Katha* Upanisad* III. 6 & V. 1.
17. See Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1969, p. 25.
18. Maitri* Upanisad* III.4 as translated by S. Radhakrishnan, The
Principal Upanisads*. London: Allen and Unwin*, 1968, p. 807.
19. Maitri* Upanisad* III.5 as translated by R. E. Hume, The
Thirteen Principal Upanisads. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1968, pp. 419-420.
Page 35
20. Maitri * Upanisad*, as quoted in VI.34, trans. by R. E. Hume.
21. Maitri* Upanisad* VI. 10.
22. Maitri* Upanisad* VI.30, trans. by R. E. Hume.
23. Katherine Young, "Hinduism," in Women in World Religions, p.
70.
24. Katherine Young, "Hinduism", pp. 72-92. For a detailed
analysis of sruti* and smrti* texts and their function as Hindu
scripture, see Harold Coward, Sacred Word and Sacred Text:
Scripture in Worm Religions. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books,
1988.
25. See Katherine Young, "Hinduism" for a detailed analysis of this
development, pp. 73f.
26. Alaka Hejib and Katherine K. Young, "Power of the Meek
(abala*): A Feature of Indian Feminism." Unpublished paper
presented to the American Academy of Religion, New Orleans.
27. See Katherine Young, "Hinduism," p. 78.
28. Romesh C. Dutt, The Ramayana and the Mahabharata. New
York: Everyman's Library, 1969.
29. Mahabharata* XII.243.20 as quoted by Johann Jakob Meyer,
The Sexual Life of Ancient India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971,
p. 7.
30. Mahabharata* III.303 ff.
31. "The Sacred Books of the East," The Laws of Manu, trans. by
G. Bühler, vol. 25, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1967, vol. XI, pp.
171-174.
32. Meyer, The Sexual Life of Ancient India, p. 225.
33. Ibid, p. 362.
34. Ibid, pp. 240-241.
35. T. R. V. Murti, "The Gita-Conception* of Philosophy and
Religion," in Studies in Indian Thought, edited by Harold Coward.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983, p. 313.
36. The Laws of Manu, XII.24-37.
37. This summary is taken from Katherine Young, "Hinduism," pp.
80ff.
38. James M. Freeman, "The Ladies of Lord Krishna: Rituals of
Middle-Aged Women in Eastern India," Unspoken Worlds:
Women's Religious Lives in Non-Western Cultures, ed. Nancy Auer
Falk and Rita M. Gross. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980, p.
126.
39. Alaka Hejib and Katherine K. Young, "Towards Recognition of
the Religious Structure of the Sati." Paper presented to the
American Oriental Society, 1978. The following description of the
widow is taken from this article as cited by Katherine Young,
"Hinduism," pp. 83-86.
40. Elizabeth Leigh Stutchbury, "Blood, Fire and Meditation:
Human Sacrifice and Widow Burning in Nineteenth Century India"
in Women in India and Nepal, ed. Michael Allen and S. N.
Mukherjee. Canberra: Australian National University, 1982, p. 23.
Stutchbury offers accounts of both voluntary and non-voluntary
sati*.
Page 36
41. Ibid, p. 36.
42. One eyewitness report describes such stoicism of the sati * in the
fire as follows: "I stood near enough to touch the pile, but I heard no
sound and saw no motion, except one gentle upheaving of the
brushwood over the body after which all was still." Ibid., p. 32.
43. Katherine Young, "Hinduism," p. 85.
44. Jocelyn Krygier, "Caste and Female Pollution," in Women in Nepal
and India, p. 77.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid., p. 94. The quote is from Baudhayana II.2.4, as translated by
Max Muller.
48. Michael Allen, "The Hindu View of Women," in Women in India
and Nepal, p. 17.
49. Ibid., p. 19.
50. Ibid., p. 5.
51. Ibid., p. 9.
52. Ibid., p. 11.
53. See, for example, Manikkavachakar's Tiruvachakam, translated by
Ratna Navaratnam. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1975.
54. See Yogadarsanam* of Patañjali. Varanasi: Bharatiya* Vidya*
Prakasana*, 1963, II.5. English translations consulted include: J. H.
Woods, The Yoga System of Patañjali. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1966; Rama Prasada, Yoga Sutras* of Patañjali. Delhi: Oriental Books
Reprint Corporation, 1978, and Bangali Baba, The Yoga Sutra* of
Patañjali. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976.
55. From Vyasa's* "Commentary" on Yoga Sutra* II.5, as translated by
J. H. Woods.
56. From Vacaspati Misra's* "Explanation" on Yoga Sutra* II.5, as
translated by J. H. Woods.
57. See Sankhya* theory as formulated, around the same time, in the
Sankhya* karika* of Isvara* Krishna, trans. By J. Davies. Calcutta:
Susil Gupta, 1947.
58. Yoga Sutra*, II.18, Commentary (bhasya*).
59. See Gopinath Kaviraj, "The Doctrine of Pratibha* in Indian
Philosophy," Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute,
1924, pp. 1-18 and 113-132.
60. Yoga Sutra*, II. 18, Commentary (bhasya*).
61. Yoga Sutras*, II. 12-14 & IV.7-9. The following is a summary of
karma as found in these passages of the Yoga Sutras*:
klesamulah* karmasavah* (Sutra* II.
Karma has its origin in afflictions
12)
It ripens into life-states, life- sati mule* takvipako*
jatyayyurbhogah*
experiences, and life-time, if the (Sutra* II. 13)
root
exists
Those [life-states, etc.], as the te hladaparitapaphalah*
fruit,
are pleasant or unpleasant, punyapunyahetuvat* (Sutra* II. 14)
because
they are produced from virtuous
or
non-virtuous causes.
Page 37
parinamatapasamskaraduhkhair
To those who understand, all [of
*
those]
is indeed pain, because change, gunavrttivirodhac* ca duhkham
eva
anxiety, and habituation are painful sarvam vivekinah (Sutra* II. 15)
and [the life-states, etc.] obstruct the
operations of virtuous qualities.
In Yoga Sutra*, karma is equal to
vasana*
A Yogin's karma is niether white nor karmasuklakrsnam* yoginas
trividham
black: for [all] others, it is threefold. itaresam* (Sutra* IV. 7)
From the [threefold karma] there tatas tadvipakanugunanam*
come the impressions (vasana*) of ekabhivyaktir* vasananam*
only those which are capable of (Sutra* IV. 8)
bringing about their fruition.
In Yoga Sutra*, smrti* is equal to
samskara*
jatidesakalavyavahitanam* apy
[The process of impression] continues anantaryam*
uninterruptedly, even though there is smrtisamskarayor*
a time lapse between births, places, ekarupatvat* (Sutra* IV. 9)
and time, because memory and Commentary states:
memory traces are of one substance. kutas* ca smrtisamskaravor*
(Note: here, samskara* is better ekarupatvat/yathanubhavas*
translated 'memory traces', because tatha*
unlike Sutra II. 15, samskara* is e amskarah* te ca
quated to smrti*.) karmavasanarupah/yatha* ca
vasanas*
tahta* smrtir
iti/jatidesakalavyavahitebhyah*
samskarebhyah* smrtis* ca
punah
samskara* ity evam ete
smrtisamskarah*
karmasayavrttilabhavasavesad*
abhivayajyante / . . . . /
vasanah*
samskara* asaya* ity arthah/
2.
The Classical Hindu View on Abortion and the Moral
Status of the Unborn*
JULIUS J. LIPNER
I. Clarification of Terms
Let us start with a few clarifications, the better to focus our
perspective and concerns. At present, the nature and moral status of
the human unborn, considered in various contexts (genetic
research, in vitro fertilisation, abortion, surrogate motherhood, and
so on), form a topic of intense discussion in the West. In India,
however, these issues, for the most part, still lie below the surface
in the public mind, or, to change the metaphor, have yet to come
out of the closet. 1 It is all the more important, therefore, to broach
this topic in preparation for the Indian debate that needs must arise,
especially from the Hindu viewpointthe viewpoint of the majority
of Indians. In the process, I hope some light will be shed on the
complexities of the Western discussion. The approach in this essay
has primarily the moral angle in view, though it will also be
necessary, where relevant, to make philosophical, historical,
medical, and other observations. Further, in the Hindu context, this
vast area of study is, for the most part, uncharted in any systematic
way. For this reason, we shall focus on the concept of abortion as
being the most suitable handle to come to grips with the complex
web of ideas which makes up the Hindu view of the moral status of
the unborn. Indeed, it will bring us to the heart of the matter.
*This essay is dedicated to Fr. George Gispert-Sauch, S.J., of
Vidyajyoti, Institute of Religious Studies, Delhisound scholar and
good friend.
Page 42
In this chapter, abortion is to be understood in the causative sense,
that is, as the deliberate effecting of a miscarriage, a deliberate
termination of pregnancy. Abortion, then, is to be distinguished
from involuntary miscarriage. As we shall see, this is an important
distinction, not least in the Sanskritic tradition, and it is not always
observed in discussions like this, especially when translations of
the relevant Sanskrit terms are involved. For the purposes of this
essay, one limit of our study will be the moment prior to (human)
conception; the other limit will be the birth of the infant. Thus, we
shall not consider issues relating to contraception, and so on, on the
one hand, or stillbirth, infanticide, etc. on the other.
Moreover, we shall be concerned with the CLASSICAL Hindu view. In
effect, our study will rely on Sanskrit texts ranging from about 600
B.C.E. to 600 C.E. These texts will be taken from both sruti * and
But the trauma of birththe squeezing in the vaginal passage and the
impact of the air outside the mother's body (the so-called
Vaisnava* Wind)erases all memories and stupefies (balakarana*:
makes a child of!) the newborn.60
The Susruta* Samhita* is more specific as to when consciousness
develops in the womb:
In the first month (after conception) the embryo is formed, in the
second . . . there results a compact mass. If this is globular (pinda*),
it's a male,
Page 56
if longish (pesi *) it's a female. . . . In the third month, five
protuberances appear for the hands, legs and head, while the division
of the other bodily limbs and sections is hardly visible (suksma*). In
the fourth month, the division of these other limbs and sections
appears clearly, while awareness as a distinct category (cetanadhatu*)
manifests itself in relation to the appearance of the foetus' heart. . ..
Also in the fourth month, the foetus expresses desires in respect of
sense-objects. . .. In the fifth month the coordinating sense (manas)
becomes more aware, and in the sixth the intellect (buddhi) is
manifest. In the seventh month, the division of the bodily limbs and
sections is more defined; in the eighth month the life-force (ojas)
concentrates. . .. In one or other of the ninth, tenth, eleventh, or
twelfth months, birth takes place, or else (the pregnancy) is void.61
Note that nothing is said here to indicate that in its development the
embryo undergoes a quantum leap, passing from one kind of
human moral status (human being) to another (human person). On
the contrary, in characteristic Hindu fashion, the language here is in
terms of progressive MANIFESTATION, of a personhood previously only
latent rather than origination of personhood ab initio.62 The
Susruta* Samhita* confirms this conclusion when, after describing
the development of the foetus, it observes in the face of opposing
views that the foetus undergoes an all-round (rather than sporadic)
development from the very beginning.63 For its part, the Caraka
Samhita* implies that the conscious principle is active in the
fertilised egg, directing its growth, right from conception.64 Thus,
in respect of the development of the unborn, the language of the
manifestation of consciousness in traditional Hinduism cannot be
and never has been taken to refer to qualitatively different moral
statuses of the embryo/foetus. There is no scope here then for
arguing for abortion in a traditional context.
The same stricture applies to the minor tradition, notwithstanding
the time lapse it introduces between conception and ensoulment.65
This hiatus, too, has never been used to distinguish qualitatively, in
a moral sense, between one stage of the embryo and another, with
or without abortion in mind. So, as noted before, we can deduce
nothing positively concerning the permissibility of abortion on the
basis of this hiatus. In point of fact, the overriding evidence of the
classical texts as a whole speaks in favour of according the status
of human personhood to the unborn throughout pregnancy, with
consequent implications for (the impermissibility of) abortion,
except in extreme circumstances (see earlier).
Other reasons, embracing both traditions, can be adduced for the
standard view on abortion.
Linguistic Evidence
There is the argument from the negative evidence of the linguistic
terms used to describe different stages in the development of the
embryo.66
Page 57
At no stage in pregnancy is the embryo/foetus designated by a
particular term so as to indicate in any way that it is susceptible of
abortion for reasons not obtaining when the embryo/foetus is
differently designated. Further, while it is invariably some
compound containing bhruna * (embryo/foetus) which is used to
express the reprehensible act of abortion in the literature, bhruna*
is never used, to the best of my knowledge, as a recognised term
for designating a particular stage in the development of the
embryo. Thus, there is no linguistic evidence to enforce a
distinction positing different moral statuses in the unborn, or by
implication, favouring abortion.
Karma and Rebirth
Another reason which made abortion unacceptable in traditional
Hinduism was the belief in karma and rebirth, outlined earlier. This
belief, in one or other of its variants, was firmly implanted in the
Hindu psyche from very early times and had far-reaching
consequences for Hindu practice. It militated against abortion, in
that abortion could be regarded as thwarting the unfolding of the
karma of both the unborn and the perpetrator(s) of the act. The
unborn's karma matures through its prenatal and postnatal
experiences, and abortion unnaturally terminates the possibility of
this maturation. Abortion thus gravely affected the outworking of a
person's destiny, the more so since it is generally believed that it
was as a human being that one could act most effectively to
achieve liberation from rebirth.67
An objection may be raised here. Why could not abortion be
permissible as itself (unwittingly) predetermined by karma? The
Hindus countered this objection by maintaining that the experience
of free choice was not an illusion, that the law of karma did not
abrogate the laws of dharma, of right living in accordance with
freedom and responsibility. In other words, deliberate abortion as a
free act violates dharma and, as such, is reprehensible. In Hindu
tradition, the real distinction between ''timely" and "untimely"
death was recognised. If this distinction did not apply, if everything
that happened (abortion included) could indiscriminately be put
down to the predetermined unfolding of the karmic law, there
would be no place for free, responsible action, and the law of
karma, which is based on such action, would itself be subverted.
Caraka considers the issue raised by the objection and answers:
If all life-spans were fixed (willy-nilly by the power of karma,
abortion notwithstanding), then in search of good health none would
employ efficacious remedies or verses, herbs . . . oblations . . .
fastings . . . There would be no disturbed, ferocious, or ill-mannered
cattle, elephants . . . and the like . . . no anxiety about falling from
mountains or (into) rough, impassable waters; and none whose minds
were negligent. . .. NO VIOLENT ACTS, NO ACTIONS OUT OF PLACE OR UNTIMELY (SUCH AS
ABORTION). . . .
Page 58
For the occurrence of these and the like would not (freely) cause
death if the term of all life were fixed and predetermined. Also, the
fear of untimely death would not beset those creatures who did not
practise the means for fending off fear of untimely death.
Undertaking to employ the stories and thoughts of the great seers
regarding the prolongation of life would be senseless. Even Indra
could not (choose to) slay with his thunderbolt an enemy whose life
span was fixed. 68
172, 1966; p. 147. For an English translation, see THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE
EAST, vol. 2, trans. G. Bühler, Oxford, 1879, p. xiv. 17. Unless stated
3.
Euthanasia: Traditional Hindu Views and the
Contemporary Debate
KATHERINE K. YOUNG
I. Introduction
The extreme debilitation of advanced old age and severe illness
have plagued human beings whose awareness and self-definition
encompass both the idea of death and the "marker events" 1 that
signal the dying process. How human beings have dealt with such
awareness and experience has varied from epoch to epoch, culture
to culture, person to person. Heroically living out the natural life
span despite suffering, suicide to eliminate the difficult dying
process, and murder whether by compassionate or selfish motives
have all been human responses to these phenomena.
The history of the concept of euthanasia is closely associated with
human dilemmas involved in advanced old age and severe illness.
In classical Greece, the term meant the good death (eu-, good and
thanatos, death)2 and referred primarily to the mode of dying,3 an
easy or painless death associated with drinking hemlock.4 "In
Graeeo-Roman antiquity, there was a generally recognized
`freedom to leave' that permitted the sick and despondent to
terminate their lives, sometimes with outside help" (Gruman 1978,
261). Thus, the ancient view of euthanasia in the West was close to
suicide, in that it was voluntary and self-imposed, although it may
have been abetted, especially through provision of poison. Trowell,
for example, thinks that some physicians in the Roman empire "did
assist suicide, and even murder, by the issue of lethal drugs" and
that the "Hippocratic oath and the oath of Asaph arose as protests
against this practise" (1973, 8).
Page 72
After such Jewish and Christian thinkers as Josephus, Augustine,
and Aquinas 5 discouraged the practise of "active" euthanasia with
their insistence on the natural life span, the term came to mean an
"easy death" by leading a temperate life or by cultivating an
acceptance of mortality. In the seventeenth century, however, "with
Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning (1605), `euthanasia'
increasingly came to connote specifically measures taken by the
physician, including the possibility of hastening death" (Gruman
1978, 261). It is with the latter definition that the modern debate
has emerged. Based on the idea of active intervention, the primary
meaning is now compassionate murder (Trowell 1973, 13-22).
There are Western ethicists today who think that compassionate
murder may be a moral act. The arguments proceed in a number of
ways. Some challenge the Christian idea of the sanctity of life as an
absolute principle by arguing that it is a "principle . . . valid most of
the time (in pluribus), but in a particular instance (in aliquo
particulari) it may not be applicable" (Maquire 1973, 195). Some
argue that, while human life is a fundamental value and is to be
protected, considerations of the quality of life also are to be
entertained. Others challenge the Christian acceptance of suffering
for its redemptive value and argue that life must be lived with
dignity and comfort, including an easy or painless death. Still
others challenge the definition of murder as the "killing of the
innocent" and argue that murder is unjust killing; in this way scope
is created for euthanasia as just or mercy killing. Then, too, there
are ethicists who challenge religious or legal authority to forbid
euthanasia by arguing that each individual is the absolute master of
decisions regarding his/her own destiny.
Ethicists have debated the merits of compassionate murder. The
term euthanasia itself has been delimited in recent years to provide
greater precision for the discussion at hand, as new medical
circumstances emerge or reflection on various issues becomes
refined. While the process of legal definition making is far from
over, there is a growing consensus in the West that the term
euthanasia is to be reserved for the concept of compassionate
murder in medically defined cases of terminal illness, which
involves the medical profession in the active killing of the patient
given due process of decision making.6 It has been argued that
euthanasia is to be distinguished, on the one hand, from homicide
(culpable or inculpable) and, on the other hand, from situations of
withdrawal of treatment, pain relief that may result in death,
abetting suicide, and suicide proper. Hence, greater specificity is
being given to the term euthanasia at the present, though different
points are still debated and different legal systems may yet handle
the issue in different ways. While it is becoming increasingly
common in Western hospitals to accept withdrawal of treatment as
a way of hastening death in situations of terminal illness, it is rare
to accept such active intervention as
Page 73
administering poison by a physician. 7 Thus, whereas a distinction
used to be made between inactive and active euthanasia or between
omission and commission, now the distinction is between
withdrawal of treatment and euthanasia as compassionate murder.
The former is usually permissible in certain circumstances; the
latter, even with its new technical restriction, remains largely
unacceptable in the West.
This brief overview of the history of the term euthansia suggests
that while euthanasia was related to the phenomenon of suicide in
the Graeco-Roman world, it is now viewed as closer to murder,
which is not to say that the conceptual boundaries of euthanasia in
both these periods were not distinguished from the two extremes
and in varying degrees invested with legitimacy. The change in the
meaning of euthanasia, however, presents certain difficulties when
one takes up the task of historical and cross-cultural studies. If we
were to take today's emergent definition of euthanasia, with its
technical insistence on medically defined cases of terminal illness
and its circumscribed meaning of a doctor actively killing a patient
on compassionate grounds, given due process of decision making,
then, by definition, we would be hard pressed to find equivalent
situations in the past and in other premodern societies. The
contemporary definition excludes a pre-technological approach to
medicine, especially the process of dying, not to mention different
value systems.
When we turn to reflection on euthanasia in classical India, our
task is made possible if we use, for hermeneutical purposes, the
archaic meaning of euthanasia as "freedom to leave," which
permitted the sick and despondent to terminate their lives. An
alternative working definition for this historical study is self-willed
death with reference to the extreme debilitation of advanced old
age and the seemingly terminal nature of disease. Utilizing these
definitions, we have sufficient scope to discover what were
analogies in classical India to euthanasia in the Graeco-Roman
world. The classical Indian view remained operant for a number of
centuries (unlike the discontinuity in the West regarding the
practise and definition of euthanasia). Recovery of the classical
Indian view will be a major step in understanding the history of this
phenomenon in India, how it differs from the history of euthanasia
in the West, and how it may inform the contemporary discussion of
termination of treatment and euthanasia today.
Death has been described as a central concern not only of Indian
philosophy and religion but also of Indian sociology:
as a source of Indian religious thought, death is probably
unsurpassed; no matter which historical period or cultural level one
chooses to examine, concepts lead to or from the problems it presents.
. . . In the social world, if purity and impurity have anything to do
with the way Hindus perceive
Page 74
and organize it, death is all the more central because it is the single
most polluting human experience. And even if the pure/impure
dichotomy is not the organizing principle of Hindu life, an opposition
between death and life may be.
(Blackburn 1985, 255)
When one approaches the topic of death in the classical Indian
context, one encounters three basic types of death: natural,
unnatural (being killed), and self-willed (killing oneself).
With reference to natural death we find that there was a strong
Brahmanical (Hindu) prescription to live a hundred years or at least
to the end of the natural life span. The funeral or sraddha * rites
were performed for those who died a natural death. Those men who
died naturally became the ancestors who were sustained through
the offerings, ostensibly until they were reborn (though the
offerings also ensured that they became gods (visvadeva* ) as part
of the process, thereby creating a double buffer against the idea of
death as annihilation).
Unnatural death by being killed in battle, by murder or by accident
was viewed as violent and not to be marked by sraddha*. Such
death, however, was not necessarily perceived negatively, for it will
be argued below that violent death, especially that of a warrior
killed in battle, was religiously powerful, for it led to heaven or
deification. (This idea is echoed even today in contemporary folk
cults, which deify victims of murder or accident.)
Besides natural death and unnatural violent death, there also
developed an acceptance of some forms of self-willed death. This
category of self-willed death included three different types: suicide;
what we shall term heroic, voluntary death (mors voluntaria
heroica); and religious, self-willed death (mors voluntaria
religiosa). By way of introduction, these three types may be
distinguished by the following features. Suicide, which was
prohibited, was self-willed death prompted by passion, depression,
or uncontrollable circumstance. Mors voluntaria heroica, found
mainly in the milieu of the warriors in ancient times, was: (1) a
way to avoid calamity, as when a warrior avoided capture and a
woman avoided rape or slavery by a conquerer through self-willed
death; (2) a substitute for heroic death in battle that resulted in
heaven; and (3) a way to allow peaceful succession to the throne.
Closely related both historically and conceptually to heroic, self-
willed death was mots voluntaria religiosa. The latter emphasized
the religious dimension (heaven, liberation, or dharma: duty and
social order based on religious principles). Religious, self-willed
death was found outside the warrior milieu, though it drew from
this context. Moreover, it was carefully distinguished from suicide,
that is, passionate, self-willed death for reasons neither heroic nor
religious.
Page 75
The Amarakosa *, which is written in the early classical period,
places the category of death in the semantic domain (varga) of the
warriors (Ksatriyas); after citing thirty terms for killing (vadha), it
gives ten terms for natural death (marana*) and seven terms for
dead (mrta*). While there is no term for self-willed death in this
text, we shall argue below that reference to suicide, literally one
who kills the self (atmahan*), makes its textual appearance in the
Upanisads* and early Buddhism and may be related to a critique of
heroic, self-willed death which was beginning to occur in Vedic
society. Atmahatya* and atmaghata* become the technical terms
for suicide by the late classical period. The technical terms for the
category of heroic and religious self-willed death, however, do not
emerge until the Indian vernacular languages with the compounds
icchamarana* and istamrtyu* (literally death that is willed or
desired); nonetheless, the concept, if not the technical term, exists
by the time of the Mahabharata:* naisa* mrtyuranisto* no
nihsrtanam* grhatsvayam* (for us who have voluntarily renounced
our home, this death [by refusing to escape the forest fire] is not
"not willed" (anista*) (MBh. 15.49.26). The implication is that the
death is istamrtyu* or [self-] willed death, that is, desired death
which is not evil, for the passage goes on to praise dying through
fire, water, or wind (i.e. by jumping through air) by a hermit. (See
Note 15 below for full discussion of this passage.) The category of
istamrtyu* is also foreshadowed in several more specific terms
found in classical Sanskrit or early Prakrit, which literally refer to
the mode of dying yet by context indicate self-willed death, which
is legitimate unlike suicide which is illegitimate: thus,
mahaprasthaina* (setting out on the great journey, departing this
life, dying), samadhimarana* (death while in meditation),
prayopavesana* (abstaining from food and awaiting in a seating
posture the approach of death), and the Jaina equivalent of
prayopavesana*, which is called sallekhana*. To these specific
terms we may add a number of descriptions that point to the
acceptance if not desirability of self-willed death by burning,
drowning, or jumping. Given this evidence of the phenomenon of
self-willed death, the heroic and religious dimensions of which will
become apparent in this study, introduction of the categories of
mots voluntaria heroica and mors voluntaria religiosa as
distinguished from suicide are valuable to facilitate the discussion
of euthanasia.
The present analysis necessitates an historical treatment to see how
these categories developed and where the topic of euthanasia is to
be situated in the more general discussion of self-willed death.
Different historical periods had very different understandings of the
importance of the natural life span and the acceptability of heroic,
voluntary death and religious, self-willed death. To illumine these
historical vicissitudes with specific reference to the topic of
euthanasia, it is necessary to understand not only the major shifts of
the Brahmanical/Hindu Weltanschauung through the main epochs,
Page 76
but also how they related to and are informed by the dynamic
interaction with Jainism and Buddhism. To capture the salient
features of the evolving view of euthanasia, we shall look primarily
to relevant passages in Sanskrit sruti * and smrti* texts, though on
several occasions we shall make reference to Jaina and Buddhist
works.
Before we begin the historical treatment of our topic, five general
observations may be made:
1. Much sympathy was expressed in classical India for
euthanasia in the sense of "freedom to leave" by one suffering
from a seemingly incurable disease or by one facing very
debilitating old age.
2. Accordingly, euthanasia, belonged to the category of self-
willed death and was never formally viewed as mercy killing of
another person. Once there was a formal public declaration of
the intent to perform self-willed death, helping the person was
allowed. The individual's choice and willpower to implement it
was therefore mandatory when euthanasia was accepted in the
premodern Indian context.
3. The phenomenon of euthanasia was intimately related to the
larger categories of heroic and religious self-willed death, which,
in turn, were related to the yet broader context of violence and
nonviolence in Indian society and religion.
4. Although there was positive evaluation of euthanasia in
classical Hinduism, strong criticism developed by the 10th
century C.E., which suggests that abuse occurred either of
euthanasia proper or of other forms of heroic and religious, self-
willed death to which it was closely associated, despite the
attempt to define parameters.
5. The Indian Penal Code, based on British law at the time of the
Raj*, views suicide as a criminal act. Because suicide has been
interpreted as inclusive of all forms of self-willed death,
euthanasia became illegal with the advent of British law in India.
A challenge to the Indian Penal Code's ruling on suicide was made
by Justice T. K. Tukol in a series of lectures, to the L. D. Institute
of Indology, published under the title Sallekhana* is Not Suicide
(1976). While commentators on the Indian Penal Code have
included the case of religious fasting to death among the forms of
suicide, Justice Tukol argued that such fasting to death
(sallekhana*; samadhimarana*) is not suicide:
upasarge durbhikse* jarasi rujayam* ca nihpratikare*|
dharmaya* tanuvimocanamahuh* sallekhanamaryah*||
The wise ones say that sallekhana* is giving up the body when there
is calamity (upasarga), [suffering from] famine (durbhiksa*), old age
and decay (jaras), painful disease (ruja), and incurable disease
(nihpratikara*) for the sake of dharma.
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antarkriyadhikaranam * tapah* phalam* sakaladarsinah*. stuvate|
tasmadyavadvibhavam* samadhimarane* prayatitavyam||
All systems of religion praise the result of austerities (tapas) which is
control of mind and action; therefore, one should try to attain
dignity/emancipation from existence (vibhava) in samadhimarana*.
These two verses (Ratna-karandaka-sravakacara* 22-23; text
quoted by Tukol 1976, 107; translation here by K. Young) describe
the Jaina forms of voluntary death (sallekhana*) as legitimate
responses to debilitating old age and incurable disease. It is noted
that other Indian religious systems have a similar method of death
by austerities and meditation, presumably in the same
circumstances, which is dignified and salvific. The present task is
to recover the Hindu context of self-willed death in cases of severe
illness and debilitating old age in order to contribute to the Indian
debate initiated by Tukol.
Such a challenge that looks to the Indian past makes timely the
historical, textual study undertaken here. It may inform the
contemporary debate as it unfolds in India and serve as a basis for
cross-cultural comparisons when the topic is historical reflections
on euthanasia. Such a study will illumine how self-willed death in
certain situations of old age and disease was found in India
throughout much of history but was eliminated in the early modern
period. In comparison, euthanasia in the sense of "freedom to
leave" was rarely found in the West after the Graeco-Roman
period, although today its merits are increasingly debated as
withdrawal of treatment becomes a common phenomenon in
hospitals and the debate over compassionate murder continues.
II. Life Affirmation and the Issue of Self-willed Death in the Vedic
Period
Prosperity, progeny, and longevity summarize the earliest
Weltanschauung of the Aryans in India. Repeatedly in the Rg*
Veda, the earliest text, the deities are invoked to shower these
benefits on worshippers who perform sacrifice and praise the gods.
It is the desire for longevity that interests us here. According to
Rg*. III.3.7, for instance, the god Agni is requested to bless the
sacrificer with good progeny and long life. Agni is called the
universal protector of bodies (Rg*. III.4.2) and is addressed as the
source of strength who will give abundant vitality and exemption
from sickness and danger (Rg*. III.18.4). The Lord himself is
praised as the imperishable life principle (Rg*. III.9.1) and the
Asvins* (the physician-gods) are beseeched for good health (Rg*.
1.80.4). The concept of one hundred years represents the ideal of
longevity:
Page 78
O gods, may we hear with our ears what is beneficial, may we see
with our eyes what is good. With firm limbs and sound bodies, having
sung your praises, may we reach old age, our minds steadfast on god.
May one hundred years await us wherein old age is assured, wherein
sons will become fathers. May no harm be done to us in the midst of
the course of life.
(Rg * 1.89.8-9. English translation of Geldner 1951, 114)
A preoccupation of the Vedas is long life, perhaps because life was
precarious on account of disease and war, and the life span was
relatively short. The deities are invoked to protect the body,
invigorate it with energy, provide it with sustenance, exempt it
from disease, or, if necessary, heal it so that one may live the full
term of life which is one hundred years.8 In that the deities
themselves are the imperishable life force, they can take the
individual across the difficulties of life. Whether we view the
charms described in the Atharva Veda as contemporary to or in
continuity with the Rg* Veda, prayers for long life and health
contained therein reflect the same life affirmation.
Live thou, thriving a hundred autumns, a hundred winters, and a
hundred springs! May Indra, Agni, Savitar, Brhaspati* (grant) thee a
hundred years! I have snatched him (from death) with an oblation that
secures a life of a hundred years."
(Bloomfield 1897, 49)
Old age is veritably a blessing from the gods. Prayers for health
and protection from disease and other misfortunes indicate that the
body is viewed positively. Indeed, so strong is the Vedic life
affirmation that immortality is viewed as a continuity to the good,
long life, albeit in another realm (svarga). Immortality itself is
virtually a secondary interest. The perception of a rupture occurs
only with the idea that Yama, the god of death, and his messengers
may take one away. Both the notion of premature death or
relegation to the realm of Yama cast a shadow on happiness and
reflect that life is indeed precarious. But, by and large, optimism
through confidence in divine protection (and praise, ritual, and
charm as human actions to foster the gods' good will) dominates
the orientation. If we try to understand this Vedic premise of
longevity as a historian of religions, we realize that the concept of
longevity, which informs other concepts, is more than an
expression of the life principle at the core of human existence, for
it is nuanced by salient features of Rg* Vedic society.
Early Rg* Vedic society is an extension of the concept of family
and kin, a veritable "being-in-common" where religion and society
are not only immersed in each other but also extend beyond the
human realm. Accordingly, the collectivity includes (1) all
ancestors and (2) all deities who cross over to the human sphere (to
which they can communicate by virtue of their an-
thropomorphismoften on the analogy of an "acquaintance" to the
immedi-
Page 79
ate family such as guest, envoy, friend, guide, physician, and so
forthbut from which they distinguish themselves by their natural,
cosmic, and superhuman traits). Because of the deities' difference
from the human collectivity, they are to be treated with respect,
deference, and as allies to ensure the maintenance of order (rta *)
and well-being, including a long, healthy life surrounded by kin.
It is for this reason that sacrifice was in vogue. Sacrifice is
primarily a way to forge a bonding between oneself and the deities,
that is, to forge a sacral relationship. Because of this bonding, it is
hoped that the deities will protect one through life. The corollary of
this statement is that death as a concept of annihilation is
marginalized or destroyed on account of the organic view of well-
being and the bonding with the deities. The extra antidote is the
charm, which magically helps to keep Yama, god of death, away.
Without the natural optimism of a youthful population and the
security provided by kinship (the family, tribe, etc.), such an
optimistic view of life as one hundred autumns, despite the
precariousness of life and the relatively short life span, probably
would not have developed. Moreover, there would not have been
such confidence at the core of the Aryan migration into India, a
confidence in power and dominion so great that for a long time it
was not eroded by the many battles with the native inhabitants (not
to mention among the Aryan tribes themselves).
With such life affirmation, which is related to the
sacramentalization of life but never quite becomes a principle of
the sanctity of life, it does not surprise us to find no discussion of
suicide (atmahatya*, atmaghata*) in the Veda. And yet, by the 6th
century B.C.E., we find clues that suicide is becoming an issue in
society at the same time that the categories of mots voluntaria
heroica and mots voluntaria religiosa are emerging. To account for
this dramatic change, we must take a closer look at the period
under discussion.
In the late Rg* Veda and the literature of the Brahmanas*, an
interest in control develops. Much of the Vedic energy was
consumed by family concerns, the establishment of dominion over
the land, and the founding of new Aryan settlements. By the time
of the texts of the Brahmanas*,as, there is a desire to control
human life, society, and cosmos. More specifically, control is
extended in two directions. It is extended over the gods who are
now subject to the will of the emerging priests and intelligentsia
(the Brahmins who call themselves gods on earth, for they can
guarantee the results of the system of sacrifice). Control is also
extended over the non-Aryan inhabitants who are gradually
integrated into the social order by adjusting the metaphor of
organic unity to accommodate the hierarchy imposed by ruler and
ruled, hence kingship and the rudimentary caste system.
On initial view, the new concerns with control and system suggest
that
Page 80
the passage from kin groups, inclusive of the federation of tribes, to
the creation of kingdoms was a relatively peaceful process. But, if
we read between the lines of the Brahmanas *, complement this
source by comparative data from other societies undergoing a
transition to kingdoms, and finally deduce certain antecedents from
the literature of Jainism and Buddhism, then a different view of this
transitional period comes to the foreground. To put matters simply,
there are clues that the epoch was fraught with terrible violence:
However peaceful and harmless the srauta* ritual may look, there can
be no doubt about its violent origin in the heroic battle sacrifice
epitomizing the warrior phase. Over the whole of the orderly and
obsessively regulated vedic ritual there still hangs the dark cloud of a
heroically violent world where gods and asuras are for ever fighting
each other in endlessly recurring rounds of conflict.
(Heesterman 1984, 125)
It is necessary to understand the escalation of this violence at the
time of the rise of kingdoms and the variety of reactions to it in the
warriors' milieu in order to appreciate the immediate context of (1)
mors voluntaria heroica, (2) the development of suicide and
nonviolence, and (3) the relationship of these to mors voluntaria
religiosa and euthanasia (which begin to make their textual
appearance by the 6th century B.C.E.). Since this aspect of extreme
violence, including human sacrifice, has been underestimated by
historians in general and historians of religions in particularbecause
of their focus on the ritual violence of animal sacrifice to the
neglect of political violencethe presence of widespread violence
needs to be argued before we can look at related religious
phenomena. At the risk of a digression, I wish to propose a
scenario that to me makes sense of the data. Let me begin by
locating my hermeneutic clue in Eli Sagan's At the Dawn of
Tyranny: the Origins of Individualism, Political Oppression, and
the State (1985).
Sagan's thesis is that a study of societies such as ancient Buganda
in Africa and ancient Tonga, Tahiti, and Hawaii in Polynesia reveal
the emergence of kingdoms, that is, complex soeieites. Complex
societies are characterized by the creation of a form of social
cohesion other than kinship. This cohesion is the State, which is
organized by loyalty to the king and fear of his power to oppress.
The State develops a centralized monarchy, organized priesthood,
hierarchically ordered social system, rich culture full of
imaginative and differentiated cultural forms (such as epic poetry
and theatre), and a religious orientation based on a sacrificial
complex. In the State, it is common to find royal incest,
prostitution, adultery games, sexual exhibitionism, and compulsive
gambling. It is striking, says Sagan, that human sacrifice is a
characteristic form of ritual aggression during the rise of kingdoms
and tyranny is rampant.
Page 81
Leaving aside Sagan's larger thesis of cultural evolution with its
psychoanalytic moorings, it may be argued that his analysis of
complex society, involving the transition from chieftainship to
simple kingdoms, resonates well with the period of Indian history
from the time of the Brahmanas * to the emergent epic of the
Mahabharata*. In India, one finds not only the transition from
tribe to kingdom but also the development of social hierarchy in
the form of caste, a well-defined priesthood (which collaborates
with the State), the advent of epic poetry, theatre, a religious
complex based on sacrifice, cases of royal incest, prostitution,
adultery, sexual exhibitionism, and gambling. In fact, Sagan's
diagnostic features of early kingdoms is a good characterization of
this period in India.9
When hierarchy is abused, argues Sagan (1985), tyranny is born.
Moreover, ''license is implicit in omnipotence;" "the two great
licenses are the sexual and the aggressive, and early kings were
expected to exercise both" (320). With reference to the latter, "a
king was a king because he could kill at will" (321), even though
he could also be the benevolent protector of the land. The
prevalence of sacrifice in complex societies testifies both to
aggression and to an attempt to be omnipotent by controlling life
and death. The latter is symbolized par excellence by human
sacrifice. If this hermeneutical clue from Sagan is correct, then one
should expect to find human sacrifice in the Brahmanas*. The
texts, in fact, point to this reality. A parallel to the horse sacrifice is
the human sacrifice. One text (see Keith 1925, 347ff) mentions the
offering of 166 men at 11 posts. Keith attributes this to priestly
imagination, because there is lack of detail. But the account should
be taken more seriously, given comparative evidence10 and the
possibility of later Brahmanical editing of the texts (in the face of
Buddhist and Jaina critiques) to eliminate details of human
sacrifice or to make them symbolic (as in the Satapatha*,
Taittiriya*, and the Sutras*).
Keith tells us that the king, on this occasion, may give up his goods
and enter into the life of a wandering mendicant. The meaning
escapes Keith, as it does more recent scholars who view the
violence inclusive of human sacrifice only as a survival from the
very distant past. This ritual was performed initially in order to
achieve human success, magically, as it were, by taking a human
victim. The later context for this ritual ensures a regular succession
to the throne by having the king remove himself from the seat of
government, give up his power, and withdraw to the forest. The
performance of the human sacrifice on this occasion no doubt is to
symbolize the king's sacrifice of himself for the sake of his son.
The son, in turn, will perform rituals at the time of his father's
death to secure heaven for his father.
Keith suggests that there are two doctrines in the Brahmanas* that
prefigure approval of religious, self-willed death from religious
motives: (1) the proper sacrifice is that of a man's self, and (2) the
final act of the pur-
Page 82
usamedha * and sarvamedha is "the giving away by the performer
of the whole of his possessions, including in the latter case even the
land, and his wandering into the forest, doubtless as a preliminary
to an early death" (1922, 34).
These doctrines must be appreciated, as has been suggested, in the
context of the rise of kingdoms, which led to a particularly violent
phase of Indian history when the sacrifice of animals was rampant
and that of humans not unknown. Before we can understand fully
the meaning of this human sacrifice by and of the king, we need to
look more closely at the concept of heroic death and a variety of
reactions to violence in the Ksatriya* milieu.
Death in battle has been rewarded by most cultures, for there must
be some compensation for male risk in battle beyond immediate
material gain. Thus Rg* Veda X. 154.3 (Atharva 18.2.17), which
may be dated to about the same period as the Brahmanas* and the
rise of kingdoms in the Gangetic plain, suggests "that warriors
losing life in battle reap the same rewards that those who make
gifts of a thousand cows in sacrifices secure" (Kane 1973, 58).
Later texts indicate that death in battle is equated to participation in
the Brahmanical sacrifice itself. "Santiparva* 78.31 states that just
as those who join in the bath of the king at the end of the
Asvamedha* sacrifice are purified of all sins, so all soldiers (of
whatever caste and on whatever side) killed in battle become pure
by the destruction of their sins" (Kane III, 1973, 58). Texts such as
Gita* II.31-37; Manu VII. 87-89, Yaj*. I. 324, and so on make the
reward explicitly heaven.
Warriors who were defeated in battle sometimes killed themselves
out of shame or killed themselves rather than be captured.
Similarly, women escaped capture, rape, and slaveryat the time of
defeat or after their husbands were killed in battle or when they
killed themselvesby willing their own death. With great violence in
society, we can predict a high level of violence against women. As
Sagan says, the power to take a woman away from another man is a
double tyranny (1985, 291), that is, it is an act of aggression
against the woman and the man. These forms of self-willed death
no doubt were also associated with heaven.
If attainment of heaven was guaranteed by heroic death in battle or
self-willed death to escape capture, rape, and slavery (an idea
which may well date from the period of the Brahmanas*, though it
is explicitly found in later texts), then, according to this cultural
logic, warriors who did not die in or because of battle, despite a
valiant career, were not rewarded. (Even Bhismaparva* 17.11
states that "it is a sinful act for a ksatriya* to die in his house from
some disease; the ancient code of conduct for him is that he should
meet death from steel" (Kane 1973, 3:58; see also Salyaparva*
5.32, Santi* 97.23 and 25). We may surmise that this insistence on
death in battle would seem unjust to those old warriors who had
risked their lives on
Page 83
numerous occasions in battle, yet survived. May we not assume
that such survivors extended the cultural logic to include heroic
self-sacrifice toward the end of life to ensure that they too attained
heaven? Furthermore, it is likely that the close association of mors
voluntaria heroica toward the end of life (as a substitute for death
in battle) leading to the attainment of heaven or deification, in turn,
posited the seeds for the general connection of self-willed death
and the religious goal, heaven or enlightenment, in the emergent
religions of the Gangetic plain, hence the phenomenon of mors
voluntaria religiosa.
Besides this concept of heroic death to ensure heaven, self-willed
death no doubt was also viewed as an appropriation of the violence
of the king. We recall that the king in early complex society is
autonomous and can do virtually anything that he wants, even to
the extent of killing others as sacrificial victims. We have also
indicated that the king's male kin or other warriors in the society
may be jealous of his power and wish to imitate it, yet be afraid of
royal reprisal should they go about killing whom they please when
they please. It is conceivable that some warriors may imitate the
king and his omnipotence by killing themselves, especially since
we know from modern psychology that the thing and its opposite
may be identical in the unconscious. The violence of the king that
makes him omnipotent, in that he decides who lives and who dies,
is achieved by others who develop complete power over the self to
the point of killing the self and thereby achieving power over life
and death. Just as the king becomes a destroyer and takes a human
victim to ward off magically his own destruction and to achieve
success, so too a warrior may desire to imitate the king's
omnipotence and to ward off his own destruction by taking himself
as victim. In this light, violence directed outward and violence
directed inward are intimately related. Jealousy, anger, or fear of
the king's power, which may involve a desire to kill him, is
deflected back on the warriors who kill themselves instead, thereby
becoming omnipotent through taking themselves as sacrificial
victims. Could it not be, then, that the category of mors voluntaria
religiosa was directly connected to the warriors' milieu, almost as
an interiorization of the heroic idiom and heroic mors voluntaria of
the day. 11
One common form of self-willed death became death by fire, for
the Vedic sacrificial cult was focused on fire, understood as the god
Agni. A sacrifice may have a specific purpose: to obtain something
by giving something up. So also voluntary, self-willed death
became linked to a specific purpose: to obtain freedom (heaven or
liberation) through an act of omnipotence, involving the sacrifice
of the self. In that self-inflicted, human sacrifice gave one
omnipotence and the power over life itself, this negative power, as
it were, could lead to the idea of liberation from violence. Once
again, we discover antecedents to mors voluntaria religiosa. The
extreme
Page 84
violence of the age provoked other reactions as well. One was
nonviolence. When a more nonviolent self-sacrifice (such as
fasting to death) was substituted for violent self-sacrifice, the goal
remained the same. But for some, the more nonviolent means no
doubt seemed superior, either as a way to escape violence or as a
protest to violence (albeit still by killing the self, nonviolently, as it
were). If omnipotence through self-sacrifice was related to
asceticism and withdrawal to the forest, as nonviolent ways to
escape the materialism and violence of the age, then such escapism
was no longer a cowardly act, anathema to a warrior. Rather, it was
positively appropriated and converted into a religious path and goal
epitomized by nonviolence and a fast to death, which ensured
heaven or liberation, Such an equation eventually was recorded in
the texts. According to Kane (1973, 3:58), "Two men pierce the orb
of the sun (i.e. reach heavenly worlds), viz. an ascetic endowed
with Yoga and a soldier killed with facing the enemy" (Parasara *
3.37).
In this way, violence and nonviolence were intimately related, in
that nonviolence was to be substituted for violence to achieve the
goal of omnipotence. Killing the self may have taken more courage
and heroism than aggression directed outward. The feeling of
omnipotence may have been even greater than that of the king and
may have given rise to the idea of the superiority of the ascetic who
wills his or her own death. If voluntary self-willed death had its
seeds in the warriors' milieu, its significance as a method for
omnipotence no doubt was noted by others in the society,
especially the Brahmins who were sensitive to issues of power in
their competition with the Ksatriyas*. In the Aranyakas* or the
Forest Treatises, the sequel to the Brahmanas*, we find both
Ksatriyas* and Brahmins withdrawing to the forest to practise
asceticism. To the extent that the new ascetic power did not
threaten the king's power, he allowed its expression. But the
ascetic's power and the king's power were bound to conflict, unless
models for their complementarity were developed.
Now we are in a position to understand why the king not only
sacrificed others to symbolize his omnipotence but also withdrew
to the forest to practise asceticism, possibly leading to some form
of self-willed death. As a warrior, he probably wished to secure
heaven since he did not die in battle. As the most powerful person,
his form of death had to be at least equivalent to other Ksatriyas*,
who had discovered the key to heaven and immortality through
self-willed death. This analysis is not to underestimate the
sociological side of the phenomenon: the king's abandonment of
power and physical withdrawal also eased the problem of the
transfer of power in the royal family.
While such equivalences and substitutions surrounding the issue of
self-willed death no doubt appealed to the Ksatriyas* and some
Brahmins,
Page 85
they must have appeared as forms of suicide to those Brahmins
who supported the Vedic prescription of the natural life span. It
should not surprise us, then, to find that prohibitions against suicide
start to appear in the subsequent texts, the Upanisads *. It also
should not surprise us to find that the Upanisads* reflect
philosophical ferment, as thinkers try to come to terms with
changing values and the new religious perspectives developed by
Buddhism and Jainism. The issue of the natural life span or self-
willed death will be focal to the new thinking that tries to reconcile
violence and nonviolence, materialism and asceticism, and action
and withdrawal.
To conclude, the rise of kingdoms, which resulted in great violence
including human sacrifice, was the background for the emergence
of mors voluntaria heroica, mors voluntaria religiosa, suicide, and
nonviolence through a number of equivalences and substitutions.
These developments played no small part in transforming the Vedic
world view, as we shall see in the next section.
III. The Upanisadic* Weltanschauung and Adjustment of the Vedic
Value of Longevity
Central to the Upanisadic* transformation was the Brahmanical
reaction to, if not participation in, the polarizations of the times.
Brahmins, we must not forget, were the priests who consecrated
and supported the new kings by their sacrificial expertise. They
were not far removed from the seat of power and the violence of
the age, for the religious microcosm involved sacrifice. At the same
time, Brahmins also vied with Ksatriyas* for power, albeit defined
ritualistically and intellectually. As asceticism became a new
means to achieve power, it is conceivable that more and more
Brahmins appropriated this new idiom for omnipotence. By
making themselves equal to the king, they not only elevated
themselves but also brought the king lower. Indeed, in the
Upanisads* Brahmins often learned the secret truth of this "ascetic"
omnipotence from the Ksatriyas*, but they claimed that Brahmins
were at the head of the hierarchy. In short, the individualism of the
age was not without its power struggles.
The new Weltanschauung presented in the Upanisads*, which
reflects integration of the challenges of the epoch, is based on a
polarity between this-worldly suffering through death after death
(punarmrtyu*), later understood as birth after birth (the wheel of
samsara*) and the bliss of liberation (moksa*), which transcends
the human condition altogether. The rupture in existence is no
longer the rupture of death caused by Yama, though this idea
lingers. It is the rupture caused by the soul's disengagement from
matter, nature, and body alike. This rupture is now viewed as
categorically positive. Human life is no longer valued in its own
right, more precisely, for the sake
Page 86
of progeny, family, and material well-being so central to Aryan
identity in the Rg * Veda. Rather, it is viewed from two competing
perspectives: human life as necessary for salvation, and the body as
the cause of bondage. While the new theory of rebirth posits that
the individual may have had or may have in the future other kinds
of birth (for example, as an animal), it is only in a human birth that
an individual may seek enlightenment. Hence, the value of human
life is defined positively by the unique opportunity that it provides
for the pursuit of salvation. Human status is a product of an
individual's karma, a result of good actions in previous lives.
Abuse of this human status is productive of bad karma. The result
may be loss of human status in the next life and with it opportunity
for salvation, thus perpetuating the "bondage of rebirth (samsara*).
At the same time, human status is viewed negatively, for the body
is the expression of bondage and suffering. Thus, the meaning of
human existence has shifted to instrumentality, that is, human
embodiment as a means to obtain the supreme goal. The corollary
of this shift is the opposition of soul and body and a stress on
individual responsibility for salvation. One can cheat Death of its
prey through yoga, comprising austerities and knowledge. This
leads to real transcendence and immortality, understood as
attaining the Absolute (brahman) and the True Self (atman*). As
Blackburn notes (1985, 255), "Vedic sacrifices were designed to
ward off death temporarily and attain a full life span for men. A
more total conquest of death was the goal in the philosophies of the
Upanishads, Buddhism, and Jainism."
The Upanisads*, considered the end or culmination of the Veda,
present this new view of human existence, though the older Vedic
perspective is generally incorporated. For example, in Chandogya*
Upanisad* 11.2 the Gayatri* chant (which reflects the Vedic
orientation) and the breaths of the yogi (which reflect the
Upanisadic* view) together ensure a long, prosperous life (the old
Vedic ideal).
In Kausitaki* Upanisad* 4.8, it is said that the (Upanisadic*)
Brahman fulfills the Vedic goals of life such as longevity. When
Brahman in the self is reverenced as the breath of life (asu), one
"does not die before the time" (Kausitaki* 4.13). Accordingly, the
appreciation of longevity, which is related to the sacramentalization
of life, is often integrated into the Upanisadic* perspective. While
the Vedas relate longevity to vitality and, in the final analysis,
animation or breath itself, the Upanisads* see breath as a symbol of
the soul (atman*) and immortality. Long life, moreover, is still
desired, but there appears a basic disjunction between samsara*
and moksa*. Yoga as a magic power sometimes replaces praise,
sacrifice, and charm as the protector and preserver of life and
ultimately the conqueror of death. Pursuit of yoga, however, may
be relegated to the last stage of life. Here, too, a long healthy life is
necessary to ensure that there is sufficient time for the pursuit
Page 87
of yoga culminating in enlightenment. Through yoga, one conquers
sickness, old age, and also death (Svetasvatara *. 2.12).
The Upanisadic* view, however, poses a tension between the Vedic
view of a life span of one hundred years and the idea that action
(karma) creates bondage. To overcome this conundrum, it is argued
that although the renouncer may desire to live a hundred years,
karma will not bind him after he has achieved liberation.
Even while doing deeds here,
One may desire to live a hundred years.
Thus on theenot otherwise than this is it
The deed (karman) adheres not on the man.
(Isa* 2; Hume 1968, 362)
While the Vedic life affirmation is incorporated into the
Upanisadic* Weltanschauung, so that yoga is like a magical power
which both protects life to full term and leads to liberation, a new
negative view of old age is also found: "May I, who am the glory
of the glories, not go to hoary and toothless, yea to toothless and
hoary and driveling [old age]! Yea, may I not go to driveling [old
age!]" (Chandogya* 8.14; Hume 1968, 273). This verse expresses
a desire to avoid extreme debilitating old age, which may be a
reflection of the fact that the life span is increasing.
Despite ambivalence over human life and the body, the Vedic
respect for longevity and the natural life span remains the dominant
Brahmanical attitude. This may be the reason for the following
verse, which may be taken as condemning suicide, especially if
suicide as a form of escape from violence is becoming common in
society.
Devilish (asurya) are those worlds called,
With blind darkness (tamas) covered o'er!
Unto them, on deceasing, go
Whatever folk are slayers of the Self.
(Isa* 3; Hume 1968, 362)12
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Page 131
Index
A
Abhidharmakosavyakhya *, 104
Abhinavagupta, 103
abisasta*, 93
abortion, 4;
definition of, 42;
Sanskrit for, 42;
as a last recourse, 49-50;
as thwarting karma, 57;
in relation to adultery, 66 n.51. See also bhrunhatya*
Acaranga*, 88
adhikrta, 97
Adiparva*, 93
Adipurana*, 98
Agamas*, 105
Agni, 19, 77;
cult of, 83
ahimsa*, 5, 59, 60, 96;
in Jainism, 88, 92. See also non-violence
Aiyer, Paramanheri Sundaram Sivaswamy, 39 n. 100
Alberuni, 110
Allen, Michael, 36 n.48
Amarakosa*, 75
anapeksatvat*, 97
angas*, 14, 25
anuloma, 50
Anusasana* parva, 100
Aparaka*, 94, 98
Aparantajnana*, 101
aparigraha, 19
apurva*, 97
Aranyakas*, 84
Arjuna, 26, 50, 93
artha, 21, 97, 98
asauca*, 10, 11, 14
ascetics, 16, 19, 25, 84, 91, 101, 109, 118;
self-willed death by, 100. See also yogi
asceticism, 84, 85, 88, 90, 94, 100
asramas*, 2, 103
asuddha*, 10, 11
Asvins*, 77
Atharva Veda, 43, 78, 123 n. 10
atmahan*, 75;
-ah*, 123 n. 12. See also suicide
atmahatya*, 75, 79, 92. See also suicide
atman*, 14, 52, 53, 86;
antar-, 53. See also purusa*; True Self
atmatusti*, 97
Atri, 94
avidya*, 21
ayusmant*, 122 n.8
B
Bacon, Francis, 72
Baird, Robert, 39 n. 106
balakarana*, 55
Basham, A.L., 12
Bhagavad-Gita*, 50, 59, 93, 100, 106, 124 n. 12;
commentary by Sankara*, 102. See also Mahabharata*
bhakti, 18, 101, 108, 111, 114;
-marga, 104
Page 134
Bharata, 16-17
bhavana *, 97
Bhismaparva*, 82
bhruna*, 42, 57;
-ha*, 44;
-hatya*, 44, 63 n. 18, 66 n.47. See also abortion
Blackburn, Stuart H., 74, 86
bodhisattva, 6, 106, 112
bodily discharges, 3, 11, 12, 14, 22
body:
as loathsome, 15;
of women, 28;
in Yoga Sutras*, 21-22
Brahma*, 93, 100
Brahman, 86, 101
Brahmanas*, 79-80, 81, 82
Brahmapurana*, 105-106
Brahmanical, 6, 10, 20, 21, 74, 75, 81, 95, 103
Brahmin, 4, 9, 13, 96, 99, 109, 110;
in ascetic puruit, 84, 91;
crime of killing a, 45, 47;
view of euthanasia, 108, 109, 114;
-ism, 19;
jurists and lawgivers, 94-95, 98, 114;
in marriage with lower castes, 50;
and purity, 11, 20, 32;
and sacrifice, 79, 85, 89;
and self-willed death, 84, 92, 102
Brhadranyaka* Upanisad*, 44, 123 n. 12
Briggs, George Weston, 38 n.72
Buddha, 6, 89-90, 91, 104
buddhi, 56
Buddhism, 5, 59, 75, 76, 80, 85, 86;
in regard to suicide, 89-90, 91, 92, 103-04, 106-07, 108, 112,
113
C
Candala*, 50
Caraka, 42, 45, 57, 66-67 n.52. See also Caraka-Samhita*
Caraka-Samhita*, 53, 54, 56, 62 n. 13, 66-67 n.52, 68 n.61. See
also Caraka
Carman, John B., 34 n.1
Carrick, Paul, 121 n.3
caste, 2, 30, 33, 46, 48, 60, 79, 81;
low, 3, 4, 12, 31,
procreation between members of different -s, 50
cetanadhatu*, 56
Chandogya* Upanisad*, 86, 87
Charter of Rights, 3
chastity, 18, 19, 20
Chennakesavan, Sarasvati, 32
Christian, 6, 9, 72, 110, 112, 122 n.5
Christianity, 1, 120
citta vrittis, 22
codana*, 97
compassionate murder, 5, 72, 73, 77, 118. See also euthanasia
conception, 54-56, 67 n.57
consciousness, 22-24, 27, 52, 55-56, 67 n.57, 68 n.61
Constitution of India, 3, 4, 12, 31-34
Coward, Harold, 3, 35 n.24
D
dakin*, 30
Das, Veena, 69 n.73
Dasgupta, Shashibhusan, 38 n.83
Deshpande, Ganesh Tryambak, 97
dharma, 2, 3, 5, 20, 44, 46, 48, 57, 58, 59, 74, 76, 95-96, 97, 109
Dharmasastras*, 2, 16, 29, 42, 93, 103, 105
Dharmasutra*, 16, 42
Dhrtarastra*, 93, 95, 124 n.15
doctor, 5, 73, 118, 119
Dubois, Abbé J.A., 110
Durga* Puja*, 18
Dutt, Romesh C., 35 n.28
dvandva, 26
dvija, 93, 99-100
E
Eliade, Mircea, 34 n.17
embryo, 4, 60;
conception of, 54-56, 59;
killing of, 20, 43-44, 45, 46, 47;
miscarriage of, 42, 62 n.5, 62 n.7;
moral status of, 60;
as symbol of life, 58. See also abortion; foetus; miscarriage
enlightenment, 83, 86, 90, 99, 102, 103-104. See also liberation;
moksa*, mukti; nibbana*; release; salvation
Epics, 3, 11, 94, 98, 105
euthanasia, 5-7, 114-15, 117-18;
abuse of, 109;
archaic meaning of, 73;
for Brahmin authors, 94;
for the Buddha, 90;
as dharmic, 95;
five observations regarding, 76;
history of, in Western culture, 71-73;
Jewish and Christian prohibitions against, 122 n.5. See also
compassionate murder
F
fast to death, 6, 7, 84, 89, 94, 115, 116, 118-19;
four contexts for, 107. See also sallekhana*
Page 135
foetus, 4, 51, 57, 60;
conception of, 54-56;
delivery of, described in medical text, 49-50. See also abortion;
embryo; miscarriage
Freeman, James M., 35 n.38
G
Gampert, W., 63 n. 18, 65 n.32
Gandhari *, 47-48, 124 n.15
Gandhi, M.K., 59
garbha, 42;
-duhkha*, 55
garbhasrava*, 43, 62 n.7. See also miscarriage; sramsana*
Garbha Upanisad*, 54
Gautama (Hindu lawgiver), 42, 108
Gautamadharmasutra* (GauDS), 42, 45
Godhika, 103-04
Gopalan, S., 39 n.100
Gorakhnath*, 3, 12, 27-28, 30. See also Kanphata* Yogis; Nath*
Goraksasataka*, 27, 28
Griffith, Ralph T.H., 123 n.10
Gruman, Gerald J., 71, 72, 125 n.21
gunas*, 3, 12, 18, 22-23, 24, 25-27, 31, 32
guru, 30, 47, 48, 107
H
Harappa* culture, 3, 11, 12-13
Hara, Minoru, 67 n.58, 68 n.61
Harijan, 33. See also untouchables
Hathayogapradipika*, 27
hatya*, 42, 49
heaven, 5, 6, 82-83, 84, 93-94, 100, 101, 103, 106, 111
Heesterman, J.C., 80
Hejib, Alaka, 18, 36 n.26
hell, 51, 95
heroic, voluntary death, 5, 6, 74, 82, 83, 90, 124 n.15;
technical terms for, 75. See also mors voluntaria heroica; serf-
willed death; suicide
human being, 51-52, 53, 54, 56, 60
human person, 51;
Hindu view of, 52-53, 54-55, 56, 60
human sacrifice. See sacrifice
I
Indian Penal Code, 7, 76, 113
Indra, 44, 66 n.52
intercourse, 20, 29, 54, 67 n.56
Isa* Upanisad*, 87, 123 n. 12
Isitva*, 102
istamrtyu*, 75, 124 n.15. See also self-willed death
Igvara*, 25
Isvara* Pratyabhijna* Vivrti* Vimarsini*, 103
Iswarananda*, Swami, 31
I Tsing, 107
J
Jablopanisad*, 102
Jaimini, 2
Jaini, Padmanabh S., 112
Jaina/Jainism, 5, 6, 7, 80, 85, 86, 90;
regarding ahimsa*, 59, 88, 92;
view of body, 14, 15;
practice of sallekharna*, 76-77, 88, 91, 92, 98, 107, 112-13,
115, 118-19
jani*, 13
jaya*, 13
jiva, 4, 54. See also soul
jivanmukta* , 98, 101, 103;
determining time of death, 101-02
jnana*, 2, 28
Jnanadeva*, 103
Johnson, Bryan, 119
Judaism, 1, 120
K
kaivalya, 88
Kalivarjyas, 109-11
kaima*, 16
Kane, Pandurang Vaman, 61 n.4, 82, 84, 92, 94, 98, 108, 109
Kanphata* Yogis, 3, 12, 27. See also Gorakhnath*; Nath*
kanya*, 10
karma, 4, 14, 17, 87, 95;
bad, 18-19, 27, 86, 98;
in Jainism, 88;
for Patañjali, 23-24, 26, 36-37 n.61, 101;
and rebirth, 53, 57-58, 60;
for Sankhara*, 102
Katha* Upanisad*, 14
Kathavatthu*, 103
Kausitaki* Upanisad*, 44, 86
Kaviraj, Gopinath, 36 n.59
Keith, Arthur Berriedale, 81, 122 n.9
king, 80-81, 82, 83, 85, 92, 114
kingdoms, 80-82, 85, 91
Krsna*, 47, 50-51
Krygier, Jocelyn, 36 n.44
Ksatriya*, 6, 21, 75, 84, 90;
custom of withdrawing to forest, 98, 103;
duty
Page 136
Ksatriya * (cont.)
of, 96;
killing of a, 45;
marriage between a, and person of lower caste, 50;
mileu, 82, 92;
in power struggle with Brahmin caste, 85;
and suicide, 108, 110. See also warriors
ksetrajna*, 53
kundalini*, 28
Kurmapurana*, 105
L
Larsen, Gerald, 14
Law Book of Visnu*. See Visnudharmasutra* (ViDS)
Law Book of Apastamba* (Apastamba-dharmasutra*: ApDS), 45
law books, 4. See also Laws of Manu; Manusmrti*
Laws of Manu, 3, 11, 17. See also Manu; Manusmrti*
liberation, 85, 87-88, 103;
for the Buddha, 89;
for Manu, 101. See also enlightenment; moksa*; mukti; release;
salvation
Lingapurana*, 106
Lipner, Julius, 4
Lipski, Alexander, 30
M
Ma*, Anandamayi*, 30
Madan, T.N., 34 n.3
Mahabharata* (Mbh.), 4, 16, 42, 81, 109, 124 n. 15;
concerning abortion, 46-48;
concerning the embryo, 58;
Mahaprasthanika* Parva of the, 98;
concerning pregnant women, 45;
concerning self-willed death, 75, 93, 99. See also Bhagavad-
Gita*
Mahanarayana* Upanisad*, 44
mahaprasthana*, 75, 93, 94, 98, 101, 109
Mahaprasthanika* Parva, 124 n. 16
maha-rasa*. See semen
Mayayana* Buddhism, 6, 106
Mair, A.W., 122 n.4
Maitri* Upanisad*, 14-15
manas, 56
mantra namokar, 107
Manu, 46, 93, 101, 102. See also Laws of Manu; Manusmrti*
Manusmrti* (MnS), 43, 59, 62 n.7, 63 n.23. See also Laws of
Manu; Manu
Maquire, Daniel, 72
Mara*, 104
marana*, 75
Margoliouth, G., 122 n.5
Marici*, 43
Matsyapurana*, 106
Mayanamati*, 30
meditation on death, 90, 91
menopause, 10, 18, 30
menstrual blood, 20, 30, 54, 67 n.56;
ambiguous character of, 29;
defined as rajas, 28
menstruation, 10, 12, 14, 17, 20, 30;
of widows, 19
Meyer, Johann Jakob, 35 n.29
Mimamsa*, 2, 95, 97
miscarriage, 42, 43, 49, 60, 62 n.5, 62 n.7. See also garbhasrava*;
sramsana*
miscegenation, 50-51
Misra*, Vacaspati, 22, 26
Mitaksara* (Mit.), 43, 46, 49, 65 n.32, 111
moksa*, 4, 9, 11, 16, 21, 33, 85, 86, 103, 106, 111. See also
enlightenment; liberation; mukti; release; salvation
mors voluntaria heroica, 74, 79, 85, 98, 124 n. 15;
leading to attainment of heaven or deification, 83;
response of Brahmanism, Buddhism and Jainism to, 91;
of a king, 92;
and sati*, 110, 123 n.10. See also heroic, voluntary death; self-
willed death
mots voluntaria religiosa, 74, 79, 92, 99, 113-15, 118, 120;
Brahmin reluctance to legitimize, 108;
as classified by Gautama, 108;
as related to euthanasia, 95;
for Jainism, 88, 91;
in relation to the Kalivarjyas, 109-10;
and the rise of the kingdoms, 83, 85;
sacred places and, 104-05;
as separate from suicide, 98. See also religious, self-willed
death; self-willed death
mrta*, 75
mukti, 28. See also enlightenment; liberation; moksa*; release;
salvation
Murti, T.R.V., 35 n.35
N
nadis*, 27-28, 38 n.74
Nagasena*, 104
Page 137
narakagarta, 17
nastikya *, 15
niskama*, 19
Nath*, 28-30. See also Gorakhnath*; Kanphata* Yogis
nibbana*, 90. See also enlightenment; liberation; moksa*; mukti;
release; salvation
Nilakantha*, 109
nirupakrama, 101, 102
nirvicarasamadhi*, 23
niyamas, 2
niyoga, 47
non-violence, 84, 90. See also ahimsa*
O
O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, 29
ojas, 56
P
Padmapurana*, 105
Pali* Canon, 90, 104
Pandey, R.C., 103
papa*, 95
Parajika*, 89
Parasara*, 84, 93
patanam*, 66 n.47
Patañjali, 2, 3, 21-27, 30, 32, 101-02. See also yoga; Yoga Sutras*
patiyoga, 111
patni*, 13
Paulkasa, 50
Poussin, L. De La Vallée, 89, 112
prakamya*, 102
prakrti*, 3, 10, 23, 52
prana*, 27, 28;
-ayama*, 14
prarabdha*, 101
pratiloma, 50-51
Prayaga*, 106, 109
prayopavesa*, 98;
-na, 75, 113, 115
pregnancy, 14, 45, 52, 56, 60, 61
punamrtyu*, 85
Puranas*, 16, 42, 48, 68 n.61, 105
purification, 6, 11;
water used for, 13;
through menstruation, 20;
through tapas, 19;
by yogi, 25-27
purity, 3, 4, 11;
in relation to chastity, 14;
of daughters, 18. See also suddha*
purusa*, 14;
-medha, 81, 98, 122 n.9;
as True Self, 23, 24, 25, 27;
-vadha, 49. See also atman*; True Self
purva* mimamsa*, 2
Q
Questions of King Milinda, The, 104
R
Radhakrishnan, S, 2
rajas, 3, 12, 15, 18, 22, 24, 25, 26;
defined as menstrual fluid, 28;
in women, 31
Raju, P.T., 2
Rama*, 16-17
Ramakrishna Order, 31
Ramayana*, 16, 17, 30, 98
Rammohun, Raja, 112
Ratna-karandaka-sravakacara*, 77
Ravana*, 17
release, 9, 14, 23. See also enlightenment; liberation; moksa*;
mukti; salvation
religious, self-willed death, 5, 6, 74, 81, 88;
in Buddhism, 89-90, 106, 108, 112, 119. See also mots
voluntaria religiosa; self-willed death; suicide
Rg* Samhita*, 43. See also Rg* Veda
Rg* Veda, 13, 68 n.61, 77-79, 82, 86, 122 n.9, 123 n. 10. See also
Rg* Samhita*
Rhys Davids, Mrs., 124 n. 13
Rose, H.J., 122 n.4
Roy, Rammohun, 7 n.1
rta*, 13, 79
S
Saehau, Edward C., 110
sacrifice, 79, 85, 86, 93, 97;
animal, 80;
horse, 81, 82;
human, 80-82, 83, 84, 85, 92;
self-, 84, 98;
self-, of bodhisattvas, 106
sadacara*, 97
sadhana*, 30
sadharana-dharma*, 96
Sagan, Eli, 80-81, 82, 93
Sagaradharmamrta*, 107, 125 n.20
sakti*, 21, 29
sallekhana*, 6, 7, 75, 91, 98, 109, 125 n.20;
and ahimsa*, 92;
in contemporary Indian society, 76-77, 113, 115, 118-19;
four contexts for, in Jaina lawbooks, 107;
significance of, for Jainas, 88-89. See also fast to death
salvation, 86, 100, 101, 105. See also enlightenment; liberation;
moksa*; mukti; nibbana*; release
Page 138
Salyaparva *, 82
samadhi*, 103;
-marana*, 75, 76
Sama* Veda, 13
samkalpa*, 96-99, 100, 107, 117
samsara*, 17, 26, 85, 86, 88
samskara*, 23-24, 37 n.61
samyaksamkalpaja*, 97
samyama*, 101, 102
Samyutta-Nikaya*, 90
Sankara*, 2, 102
Sankhya* school, 13, 14, 22, 27;
- Yoga, 55
Santideva*, 112
Santiparva*, 82
Sarirasthana*, 53
sarvamedha, 82, 98
Sastri, Shakuntala Rao, 34 n. 10
Satapatha* BrAhmana*, 43, 58, 63 n. 16, 81, 122 n.9
sati*, 1, 6, 10, 11, 36 n.42, 111-12, 118;
legal aspects of, 114;
and purity, 18-19;
by wives of warriors, 110-11;
in Vedas, 19, 123 n. 10. See also suttee
sattva, 3, 10, 12, 15, 18, 22-23, 25
sauca*, 10, 14, 25
Sayana*, 62 n. 12
self-willed death: and ahimsa*, 88, 92;
for ascetics, 99-100, 103;
for Brahmin jurists/thinkers, 95, 98, 102, 108, 109;
in Buddhism, 89-90, 103-104, 108;
of enlightened ones, 98, 99, 102;
by fire, 83;
introduction to, 74-76, for Manu, 101;
in modern Indian society, 115-20;
in Vedic period, 77-85;
for warriors, 83-84, 87, 88, 91, 94. See also fast to death; heroic,
voluntary death; mors voluntaria heroica; mors voluntaria
religiosa; religious, self-willed death; sallekhana*; suicide
semen, 3, 4, 16, 22, 29, 54, 67 n.56
Sen, Sanat Kumar, 31
Shah, Shri Chimanlal Chakubhai, 113
Sharma, Arvind, 96, 112
siddhi, 102
Siksasamuccaya*, 112
Sita*, 16-17, 20, 30
Siva*, 55
Smith, Donald Eugene, 33
smrti*, 16, 18, 33, 37 n.61, 42, 105, 109, 110;
in relation to abortion, 44-48;
suicide in, texts in comparison to Buddhism and Jainism, 92-108
sopakrama, 101, 102
Soul, 4, 54, 55, 67 n.57, 107
sraddha*, 5, 58, 60, 74, 108
sramsana*, 43, 62 n.5. See also garbhasrava*; miscarriage
sruti*, 16, 33, 42, 97, 109;
in relation to abortion, 42-43
Sthala-puranas*, 105, 106
Stutchbury, Elizabeth Leigh, 35 n.40
suddha*, 10, 11. See also purity
Suddhitattva*, 109
Sudras*, 14, 21, 50, 109
suicide, 5, 6, 71, 72, 79, 87, 118, 120;
in Buddhism, 89-90, 104;
concern of Indian religions to prohibit, 91;
in Jainism, 88;
in Mahabharata*, 93. See also atmahan*; atmahatya*;
selfwilled death
Susruta*, 42
Susruta* Samhita*, 49, 55-56, 62 n.10
suttee, 45, 48, 119. See also sati*
svarga. See heaven
Svetasvatara* Upanisad*, 87
T
Taittiriya* Sahita*, 13, 81
tamas, 3, 12, 15, 18, 22, 25, 26, 87;
in regard to women, 20, 31
Tantras, 16
Tantric, 3, 27, 29, 30
tapas, 19, 26, 77, 94
terminal illness, 5, 72, 73, 115, 120
Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 122 n.5
tirtha*, 104-05, 110, 118
Tirthaprakasa*, 109
Tristhalisetu*, 109
Trowell, Hugh, 71, 72, 122 n.5
True Self, 23, 24, 86, 123 n. 12. See also atman*; pursa*
Tukol, Justice T.K., 76-77, 113
U
unborn. See embryo; foetus; garbha
Untouchability (Offenses) Act of 1955, 33
untouchables, 20, 32. See also Harijan
Upadhaya, Bhagawat Saran, 34 n. 11