Eastern Religions Essay

As far as the studies of Eastern religions show, the founders and saints of the religions exemplify the central virtues of the community. There is no wonder that this feature characterizes the religions because there is always a thirst for perfection in every community and in every nation. In Indian culture, the main figures are Buddha, Yudhishtira and Arjuna. Buddha represents the virtue of giving up comfort for the highest good and following the Eightfold path (right speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration, view and intentions). Yudhishtira represents the virtues of wisdom and justice. Yudhishtira lived for justice, and patiently suffered humiliation and exile. An important representative of Indian culture is Arjuna whose greatest virtues were morality, duty, the idea of karma yoga, acting with holy indifference. We can conclude that all the mentioned central figures reflect the main virtues in Indian culture because the virtues which are the most valued in Indian lecture have always been wisdom, justice, holy indifference. In Chinese culture central figures are Confucius and Lao Tzu. Confucius represents the virtue of goodness which includes an effective concern for well-being of others, rightness, loyalty, knowledge and trust. On the contrary, Lao Tzu completely disagrees with Confucius’ ethics and represents the ideals of primitive utopia without the corrupting accoutrements of civilization. Thus, Confucius’ ethics rather shows the ideals which are reflected in Chinese culture because high morals and values play an important role in their culture. In our opinion, it’s very important for religions to have a central figure of a perfect person because it gives people an idea that they have to be like him and they become kinder. The readings about the mentioned central figures in religions support my opinion that Eastern religions devote lots of attention to questions of high morals and this makes the nations virtuous.