Teachings of Prof. S. Ambirajan: Happiness, Ethics, and Economic Values

The second paper which I was talking about here and here is from the paper on “The Concepts of Happiness, Ethics, and Economic Values in Ancient Economic Thought” this paper was published in the edited book Ancient Economic Thought by B.B. Price, in 1997. This book is available in Google book.

Some of interesting paragraphs:

• “During the early epochs (circa 3000 BC to AD 500), both in the East and the West, the production and exchange of material goods were uncomplicated affairs. The economy was basically composed of selfsustaining autarchic units. As custom determined most of the activities (including economic), there was hardly any scope for individual initiative.
• why individuals everywhere in the past and present have preferred happiness, and think of it as the ideal to aspire to. It is, simply stated, a preferred mental state by definition, for even a masochist is “enjoying” pain, since that to him is happiness!
• The Indian philosophers seemed to have made a distinction between happiness in relation to the body and to the soul, in other words, happiness secured through material goods and services, and happiness as a result of non-material spiritual endeavours. The question to be asked is: which is the preferable and according to what standard of “better”? The thinkers of ancient India drew a distinction between the Good and the Pleasant, as the Kathopanishad says:
• One thing is the good and quite another thing is the pleasant, and both seize upon a man with different meanings. Of these whosoever takes the good, it is well with him; he falls from the aim of life who chooses the pleasant.
• The good and the pleasant come to a man and the thoughtful mind turns all around them and distinguishes. The wise chooses out the good from the pleasant, but the dull soul chooses the pleasant rather than getting of his good and its having.
• When Hiuen Tsang, the seventh century AD Chinese pilgrim visited India, he found that even Kshatriyas and Brahmins were clean-handed, unostentatious, simple and frugal in their lives. People lower in the socio-economic scale would not have been any different.

Swami Vivekananda also had similar view like the Tsang one which I will post soon separately.

• There is a vast body of writing—both in the West and the East—to show how human beings should lead a purposeful life. Whereas in ancient Greece it was in the form of philosophical texts, in India it was in the form of epics, hymns and sacred literature, all with one unique purpose—to make the individual realise his duties, potential and role in the society. In short, their aim was to tell man how to live out his life.
• In India, during the early period when States had not yet come about, the dissemination of good ideas through preceptors was prevalent. In the later period (circa post 300 BC), systematic law codes were prepared to say what should be and what should not be done.
• The couplets of Thiruvalluvar (circa 50 BC to AD 50), for example, were described by a contemporary poetess Avvaiar as an achievement similar to boring a hole in the atom to make it a receptacle to hold the seven seas.
• Many of the classical Indian writings on ethics, economics, law or philosophy are somewhat like mathematical theorems whose proofs have not been written out. Hence we have to work out how and why these terse statements came about either in the form of poetry or sutras. This is not easy, partly because of the inherent difficulties of fathoming the minds that considered these issues millenia ago, but also because of the numerous interpolations that have taken place since their original composition.
• Learning in the classical Indian style meant learning to memorize texts. This was not a mechanical process, because in the process of the rote learning, the meaning and context of the portions were explained with detailed crossreferencing. Everything was done from the teacher’s memory.
• The lawgivers did not recommend an ascetic mode of life for everyone regardless of the individual’s circumstances because every human being, according to the four-stage prescription of life, has to take Sanyasa (the ascetic mode) in his old age anyway.
• Any deliberate cultivation of poverty, except by a class of holy persons seeking the ultimate transcendent truth, was considered sinful. Thus the Mahabharata: “Poverty is a state of sinfulness…. From wealth springs all religious acts, all pleasures, and heaven itself, O, King! Without wealth, a man cannot find the very means of sustaining life.”