Epics in Imprints-1.pdf - Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan

ole in Puranic ethics. “As a man
sows so he reaps”. Any action, good
or bad or indifferent yields its
corresponding fruit. It is declared
that the karma of a previous birth
seeks out its doer in this birth to
yield corresponding fruits, just as
the calf finds out its mother from
among thousands of mother cows.
Good or bad actions give a person
nobler, godly or inferior birth.
Sinners go to hell. Noble action
takes one to heaven.
10. The doctrine of Karma and hell is a
moral law which controls existence
favouring morality and
discouraging immorality. Karma is
an ethical force which tends to
improve the world by bringing its
spiritual elements to perfection. In
penalizing wrong and rewarding
right, it treats virtue as coincident
with happiness.
11. Many Puranas deal with expiation
for the sins of omission and
commission. It includes repentance
and expiatory rites. A sin is
considered as such because it is
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anti-social. It implies lack of self-
restraint, a tendency to trespass
into other’s rights. Hence theft,
murder, adultery, envy and avarice
are considered sins, transgressions
against the whole society. They are
to be eschewed.
12. Fasting and observing certain
vratas are stressed by Puranas.
Their spiritual and ethical values
lie in purifying, disciplining and
sublimating the mind of man.
13. Puranic ethics is intensely practical and
utilitarian. It takes into consideration the
welfare of society as a whole and prescribes
the caste and customary duties for the
individual. The scheme of varnasrama-
dharma has this end in view. While
prescribing the practice of great virtues
like self-discipline and renunciation as in
the absolutist systems, it advocates their
practice as far as they are practicable in
consonance with svadharma. It is a
synthesis of the ethical principlies
enunciated in the literature of the Vedas,
the Brahmanas and the Upanisads. The
Vedic emphasis on truth, duty and respect