Sacred Texts

Hinduism

The sacred texts of Hindu have no author or clear origins. Indeed, they, like other sacred texts, were not so much written as they were seen or revealed. They began in oral traditions at least 2,000 years before the birth of Christ, and by the time they were written down, they had been highly polished by centuries of practice and revision. The Vedas, the first of the Hindu sacred texts, are among the world's oldest literature and contain poetic hymns for rituals. In the hands of the priestly class of Brahmins, they became an instrument of power and status. Another tradition developed that relied less on ritual, and thus priestly intervention, and more on searching for truth and meaning within oneself. The Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita express this latter tradition and today are still held in high regard for their insights into human consciousness and development.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) derived his fundamental belief in satyagraha from the Vedas and is said to have meditated daily on the closing eighteen lines of the second chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita. They begin with the lines:

The lines continue to describe the highest development of human consciousness and in them, Gandhi found “in a nutshell the secret of the art of living” (Easwaran 1997, 121). It is a premise of most of the sacred texts that leadership is secondary to developing oneself as a human being and that one who has not sought this development is not qualified to lead. Plato will also use these premises in his model of a philosopher king.

In a period of about two hundred years (500–300 BCE), Hinduism, at least 1,000 years old by this time, turned to applied matters of individual development and social relations. Dharma, or righteousness, is one of the aims of life in the Hindu tradition. The Laws of Manu is a dharma-sastra, a code for righteousness and social stability. Book VII [Page 1370]deals with the responsibilities of the king; Book X explains social classes and codes of conduct; and Book XII offers the path to eternal bliss. The honored but restricted and subordinated place of women may be found in Book III, verses 55–60 and Book V, verses 147–168.

Kautilya's (flourished 300 BCE) Artha-sastra provides a code for other aims of life: wealth and power. It is the advice of the chief counselor to Candragupta (died c. 297 BCE), who brought the first unified government to the Indian subcontinent and was a contemporary of Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE). Book VII outlines advice for a king that Machiavelli would repeat 2,000 years later. Chapters 1 to 3 of Book VII deal with traits and styles that are harbingers of leadership advice common in our own times.

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