No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Svaraj, the Indian ideal of freedom: a political or religious concept?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
To many Western students of India, svarāj and mokṣa have often seemed to represent two very different ideals of freedom, the former social, political, and modern; the latter individual, spiritual, and traditional. It is not surprising that the Hindu ideal of spiritual freedom is most commonly known by the term mokṣa (liberation), for it is this word that is usually listed as the fourth and supreme goal in the famous four ends of man (puruṣārtha). The first three ends, desire (kāma), success (artha), and morality (dharma), find their fulfillment within society, while mokṣa, it is generally said, takes one beyond society. It is pertinent to note, as Ingalls and others have pointed out, that mokṣa is a relatively late term, which came to be added to the older, first three goals of man. As a noun, mokṣa does not appear until the latest of the Upanisads, and then only three times, in Śvetāśvatara 6.16 and Maitrī 6.20 and 30. In addition, some orthodox schools did not accept the ideal of mokṣa for several more centuries, the Mīmāṁsā denying it until the eighth century A.D.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984
References
page 429 note 1 Ingalls, Daniel H. H., ‘Dharma and Moksa’, Philosophy East and West, VII (1957), 44Google Scholar; cf. Orgon, Troy Wilson, Hinduism, Its Historical Development (Woodbury, New York: Barron's Educational Series, 1974), p. 201.Google Scholar
page 430 note 1 See, for example, Iyer, Raghavan N., The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), chapter 12Google Scholar, ‘Swaraj and Swadeshi’ (pp. 345–58); Bondurant, Joan V., Conquest of Violence – The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), Pp. 11–35.Google Scholar
page 430 note 2 Quoted in Wolpert, Stanley A., Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), p. 191.Google Scholar
page 430 note 3 Tilak apparently first made this pronouncement in May 1908. See Wolpert, , op. cit. p. 330, n. 107.Google Scholar
page 431 note 1 Nehru, Jawaharlal, Toward Freedom (New York: John Day, 1941), p. 74.Google Scholar
page 431 note 2 Gandhi, M. K., Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1939 [revised ed.]), p. 68.Google Scholar
page 431 note 3 Tagore, Rabindranath, Letters to a Friend (Andrews, C. F., ed.) (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd, 1928), p. 128.Google Scholar
page 431 note 4 Bande Mātaram, 3 May 1908, quoted in Mukherjee, Haridas and Mukhetjee, Uma, ‘Bande Mataram’ and Indian Nationalism (1906–1908) (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1957), pp. 84–5.Google Scholar
page 433 note 1 Kauṭilya, , Arthaśārtra VIII, 2Google Scholar (Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya, a new edition, by Jolly, J. and Schmidt, R.; Lahore: Motilal Banarsi Das, 1923, p. 196)Google Scholar. Sanskrit text also quoted by Kane, P. V., A History of Dharmaśāstra (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1946), III. 102 n. 131Google Scholar. Translation is by the writer, based partly on Kane's.
page 433 note 2 References to Manu, unless otherwise noted, are to Manusmŗtih (Calcutta: Udayacala Press, 1971).
page 433 note 3 Quoted in Sardesai, G. S., The Main Currents of Maratha History (Calcutta: M. C. Sarkar & Sons, 1926), p. 70.Google Scholar
page 433 note 4 Sardesai, G. S., New History of the Marathas (Bombay: Phoenix Publications, 1957), I. 102–3, 106, 276–7Google Scholar. Cf. Sharma, S. R., The Founding of Maratha Freedom (Bombay: Oriental Longman Ltd, 1964), p. 2.Google Scholar
page 434 note 1 See Epictetus, , Discourses of Epictetus (Long, George, trans.) (New York: D. Appleton and Co. 1900)Google Scholar, book IV, chap. I, ‘About Freedom’ (pp. 293–318).
page 434 note 2 See, for example, Mahābhārata, Sānti Parva XC–XCII (The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa [Ray, Pratapa Chandra edition], Calcutta: Bharata Press, 1884–1894).Google Scholar
page 434 note 3 Kauṭilya, , Arthaśāstra 1.6. Translation is adapted from Shamasastry, R. (trans.), Kautilya's Arthasastra (Mysore, Wesleyan Mission Press, 1929), p. 10.Google Scholar
page 435 note 1 Op. at. p. 46.
page 436 note 1 Hind Swaraj, p. 65.
page 436 note 2 25 03 1939, The Harijan newspaper.
page 436 note 3 English translation by Atmananda, (Varansi, 1973) of a Bengali work entitled Sad Vani, pp. 57–8.Google Scholar
page 436 note 4 Tagore, Rabindranath. ‘The Call of Truth’, The Modern Review, XXX (1921), 430–1.Google Scholar
page 437 note 1 Quoted in Wolpert, , op. cit. p. 158.Google Scholar
page 437 note 2 Ibid. pp. 158–9.
page 437 note 3 8 12 1920, ϒoung India newspaper.
page 437 note 4 References to the various Upaniads are to Radhakrishnan, S. (ed. and trans.), The Principal Upanifadṭ (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd, 1953)Google Scholar. Translations of Upanisadic passages are by the writer, based on Radhakrishnan's text.
page 439 note 1 For the commentaries on this verse, including those of Medhātithi and Kullūkabhaṭṭa, see Buhler, Georg (trans.), The Laws of Manu (New York: Dover, 1969; reprint of vol. XXV of the Sacred Books of the East), pp. 503–5.Google Scholar
page 439 note 2 Bhāgavata Purāna I. I. I and x. 87. 28 (Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahāpurāṇa, with Sanskrit text and English translation [Goswami, C. L., trans]; Gorakhpur: Gita Press, 1971).Google Scholar
page 440 note 1 Reference is to Edgerton, Franklin (trans.), The Bhavagad Gītā (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972).Google Scholar
page 440 note 2 Tagore, Rabindranath, ‘The Call of Truth’, loc. cit. 433.Google Scholar
page 441 note 1 Quoted in Brecher, Michael, Nehru, A Political Biography (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 147.Google Scholar