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Contemporary Interpretation of Ahimsa A Contemporary
Interpretation Of Ahimsa By Agehananada Bharati If Indian
intellects suffer from any endemic trouble, I believe it is a
systematic confusion between the “is” and the “ought”.
Statements which illustrate this confusion abound in modern
Indian parlance: “There is no caste in modern Hinduism”; “Indian
culture is more spiritual than Western culture”; and, directly
concerning our theme, “Ahimsa is the supreme law”. In all these
statements, token statements of Indian culture at various times,
or in a continuum carrying into our day, the “is” should be
replaced by, or should have been avoided in the first place and
substituted by “ought”. I have heard a common rejoinder to this
suggestion: it is not a systematic confusion, but ignorance―so
say the modest; or better intuition of the Truth (the capital
letter is heard whenever it is used in a rejoinder)―so say the
pompous. But whether ignorance or some sort of