ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Vedic values and follows the changes in the conception of the good life that led to the classical attitudes and values of Indian society. Although the Vedic people were deeply religious, regarding both domestic rituals and the public rituals of sacrificial celebrations as necessary for the renewal of life and the achievement of their aims in life, their concerns were very much this-worldly. The family, in which the individual and social dimensions of existence are integrated, was regarded as the fundamental unit of human existence. The goal of liberation, with its attendant emphasis on asceticism, renunciation, and vegetarianism, devalued the life in this world that had been of supreme value in Vedic society. The ideas of sasra and karma, the aims of dharma and moka, the organization of society into classes, and the ideal organization of life into four distinct stages have contributed much to the enduring Indian way of life.
