ABSTRACT
The field of comparative theology is continually evolving, as scholars reflect on their tools of comparison and on the implications of such comparative study. In a comparative exercise, let authors draw out this polarity with all the following dualities: dharma and moksha, virtue and faith, works and faith, ethics and spirituality, this life and eternity, and the active life and the contemplative life. In the "Religions of the World" course, they begin with Hinduism, so author focuses first on the tension between dharma and moksha in the Hindu context and raise for students the question of whether religion is about how to live here and now or about the ultimate end of liberation. They discuss the polarity in ancient India between the Vedic householder who maintains family and social harmony through ritual and ethical obligations and the ascetic who renounces family and social life in order to pursue spiritual liberation.
