Indian Ethics Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The answer is Vidhi and Niṣedha.

In Mīmāṃsā, scriptural duties are laid down as vidhi, positive injunctions ('one should perform the sacrifice'), and niṣedha, prohibitions ('one should not injure'). Together they state what is to be done and what is to be avoided.

Karma and akarma are action and inaction, dharma and adharma are merit and demerit (or right and wrong), and śruti is the revealed scripture itself, not a negative form of duty.

Answer: D

In the Gita, yoga-kshema is assured by The Lord.

Yoga-kshema means securing what one lacks and preserving what one has. In Gita 9.22 Krishna says that for those who worship him alone, thinking of nothing else and ever devoted, yogakshemam vahamyaham: 'I carry their yoga-kshema'.

Arjuna is the listener being taught, not the one who provides it. The yogi is the devotee who receives this care rather than the one who guarantees it, and Sanjaya only narrates the dialogue to Dhritarashtra.

Answer: B

The key gives Dravyasamvara. The classification of rites and vows under it is the key's reading, and I could not confirm it in a single source.

In Jainism asrava is the inflow of karmic matter and samvara is its stoppage. It is divided into bhavasamvara, the inner state of the soul free of attachment and aversion that checks the inflow, and dravyasamvara, the actual stopping of the karmic matter, which is carried out through outward means such as vows, restraint and observances. Rites and rituals are outward means, so the key places them under dravyasamvara.

Bhavasamvara is the mental state itself, not an outward practice. Samvara alone is the general name for both, and asrava is the opposite process. Some Jain texts count vows under bhavasamvara or do not list them as a kind of samvara, so a different textbook could shift the answer.

Answer: A

The state is called Bhavasamvara.

Samvara, the stoppage of the inflow (asrava) of karma, is described in two aspects. Bhavasamvara is the inner, psychic state of the soul that stops the inflow, a condition free of the passions of attachment and aversion. Dravyasamvara is the resulting actual stoppage of karmic matter from entering the soul.

A state of the jiva itself, devoid of raga and dvesa, is therefore the bhava aspect. Dravyasamvara names the material effect rather than the soul's state, plain samvara is the general term covering both, and asrava is the very inflow that samvara blocks, the opposite of what the stem describes.

Answer: C

Samyak caritra does not include Jagruti.

Right conduct, the third of the Jaina three jewels after right faith and right knowledge, is set out in standard lists such as the five vratas (vows of non-violence, truth, non-stealing, chastity and non-possession), the five samitis (carefulness in walking, speaking, eating, handling things and disposing of waste) and the three guptis (restraint of mind, speech and body).

Jagruti, 'wakefulness', is not one of these technical categories of Jaina right conduct, which makes option C the odd one out.

Answer: D

The statement that is not true is Yamas and Niyamas are to be followed strictly by hook or crook right from the beginning.

Patanjali's yamas (non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence and non-possession) are restraints, the don'ts of yoga, while the niyamas (purity, contentment, austerity, self-study and devotion to God) are positive observances, the do's. So statements A, B and C are true.

Yoga does not ask for forced, mechanical compliance 'by hook or crook'. The practice is a gradual, sincere discipline cultivated through steady effort (abhyasa) and detachment (vairagya), and the yamas become a 'great vow' only when practised universally after long effort.

Answer: D

The keyed answer is Duties are discharged with knowledge and devotion.

The promise of yoga-kshema comes in Gita 9.22, where Krishna undertakes it for those who think of him without any other thought and worship him, ever united with him. The key reads this as joining knowledge of the Lord as the reality with loving devotion, carried out in a life of duty, and so takes the fullest option.

On this reading, duty alone (A) lacks the turning to God the verse requires, and devotion alone (B) or knowledge alone (C) each give only one side of the verse's single-minded contemplation and worship.

Answer: A

The keyed statement is Lokasamgraha gets promoted through work.

Lokasamgraha means holding the world together, the welfare and right ordering of society. In Gita 3.20 Krishna points to Janaka, who reached perfection through action, and tells Arjuna that he should act with lokasamgraha in view; in 3.25 the wise are told to act without attachment for the same end.

The Gita's point is that the world's order is upheld through action, so A is the statement the key accepts. Making lokasamgraha a personal goal or motive in the ordinary sense (B and C) sits uneasily with the ideal of desireless action, while D wrongly says it cannot guide action at all, when the Gita explicitly asks Arjuna to keep it in view.

Answer: A

Carvaka hedonism is based on Carvaka epistemology.

The Carvakas accept perception (pratyaksa) as the only valid means of knowledge. Whatever is not perceived, such as God, the soul surviving the body, heaven, rebirth or karma, is rejected as unproven. Once these are denied, nothing remains to aim at beyond the present life, and pleasure becomes the only end worth pursuing: eat, drink and be merry.

So their ethics and their theory of value follow from their theory of knowledge; they are the result, not the basis. Their materialist ontology of four elements is itself derived from the same perception-only epistemology.

Answer: C

The sthitaprajna is compared to the ocean.

In Gita 2.70, the person of steady wisdom is said to be like the ocean, which stays within its bounds and is not disturbed even though rivers keep flowing into it. In the same way, desires enter the sthitaprajna without unsettling him, and he attains peace, unlike one who chases desires.

The sun, the moon and the mountain are not the images used in this passage. The point of the comparison is fullness that does not overflow its limits, which only the ocean receiving rivers conveys.