Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c11.s6.27

c11.s6.27

**Morality.** There is a view that morality or ethics has no place in the teaching of the Upanishads, which concentrate only on the Ātman or the Absolute as the sole Reality, whereas ethics implies social relationships, a world of plurality. This is mistaking the truth of the Upanishads which always take morality as the only foundation of spirituality. The *Muṇḍaka*, for instance, states that "spiritual truths can be imparted only to the pupil who approaches the teacher with proper respect, whose thoughts are not deflected by desire and are completely composed" [i, 2, 13]. Similarly, the discussion between Yama and Nachiketas shows that Yama considered Nachiketas as fit for the highest knowledge only when the pupil proved to him that he was above all desire, desire for "hundred sons and grandsons, many cattle, elephants, gold, and horses, wealth and long life, lovely maidens with chariots, with lyres—whatever desires are hard to get in the mortal world", which Yama promised him to No. 2.—The ascetic, clad in birch bark, with his matted hair bound up into a knot, leaning and grieving over his dead pet antelope.