# Vedic Morality ## John Mackenzie 1922 Law or Order, pervading all things, expressing itself in the order of nature and in the manifestations of man’s religious life, and tending to be associated with one Supreme God ## E.W. Hopkins 1924 Morality is an expression of divine law; sin is opposition to that law. The sinner is one who is out of harmony with the higher spiritual environment which encompasses and controls the world ## Ṛta Order, harmony, law, morality, good, truth, it represents not only the moral order but also the natural order as well as the “ordered course of the sacrifice”, though manifested in these various orders, Rita is a unity. though objective, is still ideal in a sense. “It is in the sphere of human conduct, however, that difference between ideal and actuality is most strongly marked. However regular the operation of Òta in the natural world may be, it is expressly stated in IX, 73, 6 (R.V.) that the wicked ‘travel not the pathway of Òta’. Man, as Betty Heimann remarks, is distinguished from nature in that he is placed before the alternatives, to act in accordance with Òta or not” (Henry Lefever, 1935, p.7). ### Anṛta bad, falsehood ## Devas (shiving, fair) ### Rākṣas (injurers who go about by night) ## Later? ### Karma rewards and punishments The germs of this principle are already noticeable in the Rig Veda and the Atharva Veda wherein it is recognised that the ‘sin cannot be escaped’ ### Dharma ... that which holds a thing together, makes it what it is prevents it from breaking up and changing it into something else; its characteristic function, its peculiar property, its fundamental attribute, its essential nature, is its dharma, the law of its being.... Briefly, dharma is characteristic property, scientifically; duty, morally and legally; religion with all its proper implications, psycho-physically and spiritually; and righteousness and law generally, but duty above all