Back to the Basics: Reflections on Moral Discourse in a Contemporary Hindu Community

Abstract

Instead of searching through Hindu sources for appropriate insights into the question related to "playing God" in biomedicine, the author seeks rather to understand why some Hindus at least are not inclined to ask such questions. Using examples from the Srivaisnava sect of south India, the author shows how Srivaisnava Hindus focus primarily on character formation and the practice of the virtues encoded in the classical texts, thereafter leaving it to the individual to "act as he or she will" in the world outside the community -- a world which is neutral vis a vis religious values, neither governed by such values nor able to instigate the adjustment of religious values to fit changing times. The question then becomes, "What do modern ethicists have to learn from the moral discourse of the Srivaisnava community?"