Ryan Jacoby
Fall 2010 History 111 08CP Histoy of World Civilization I
10/4/2010
In early civilization there were different views on what it meant to live the good life. What were their ideas of the good life? It could be a certain type of occupation, pleasing the gods, being successful, or your actions in your everyday life. Every day life in these documents were influenced by achieving the “good life”. Each of these documents had their own views of the good life. In “The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation” the good life was your actions and desires. In “Be A Scribe” the good life was becoming a scribe. Two documents that refer to the good life would be “Be a Scribe” and “The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation”. “Be a Scribe” and “The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation” didn’t share too much in common but both showed you how to live the good life.
In “Be A Scribe” it is a scribe that talks about why living the scribe life is better then every other occupation. It is a strong opinionated document that heavily suggests that the scribes lifestyle is the best. In this document the scribe talks about all the other jobs and how much hard work you have to put into it. Who would want to put in so much manual labor work? That’s why he saying be a scribe. For instance the scribe says “ The washerman’s day going up, going down. All his limbs are weak, from whitening his neighbors’ clothes every day, from washing their linen”. (All Occupations Are Bad Except That of the Scribe, 62) The scribe also states how much easier his job is then everyone else’s he says, “ The scribe, he alone, records the output of all of them. Take note of it!”.(All Occupations Are Bad Except That of the Scribe, 63) Their the scribe is saying why do those other jobs when you could just watch them do it and then write it down. There’s not as much manual work involved so it’s the easier way. Also if you are a scribe you will have more freedom and won’t be working all day. The scribe says, “ You stride freely on the road, you will not be like an hired ox. You are in front of others”. (Be a Scribe, 64) Also the scribe compares his job to that of a soldiers. The scribe refers to the soldiers life as dangerous, tormenting, and a lot of work. He thinks if you are a soldier you will either die in battle or if you do survive you will not be strong enough to continue on. The scribes last words of advice are “Be a scribe, and be spared from soldering! You call and one says: “Here I am.” You are safe from torments. Every man seeks to raise himself up. Take note of it!”(The Scribe Does Not Suffer Like the Soldier, 65) The scribe is basically saying his job is the best because it is the least amount of work. Why not become a scribe because it’s the least work load and least amount of manual labor.
Another document for living the good life would be “The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation”. In this document it talks about what happens to you if you live a good or bad life. It doesn’t necessarily say that this is the good life, its just my interpretation of what I believed lead to the best life in their society. Depending on how you live your life your soul will be reincarnated into a higher or lower life. Therefore, depending on how you lived decided how life after would be. In The Upanishads it says, “ The doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes a virtuous man by virtuous action, bad by bad action. (The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation, 94) Also they believe you desires play a big part on how you live. If you have good desires you will do good actions, “ As is his desire, such is his resolve, as his resolve, such the action he performs; what action he performs, that he procures for himself”. (The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation, 94) To live the good life in this religion you don’t want any desire. That’s how you reach the top, Brahman. It says’ “ Now the man who does not desire. - He is who without desire, who is freed from desire, whose desire is satisfied, whose desire is the Soul- his breathes do not depart. Being very Brahman, he goes to the Brahman”. (The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation, 94) Living the good life in this religion is getting rid of desires or attempting not to desire anything. If you can get rid of those temptations you will be living their idea of the good life. You will be reincarnated into something high up when you die.
Next, in both of the documents they shared their idea of what a good life was. They both focused on the actions you wanted to perform to live the good life. In “Be A Scribe” the actions you wanted to perform were choosing the life of the scribe. You wanted to choose that lifestyle because it included less physical work and you just had to write down what others were doing. In “The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation” the actions you wanted to perform were the desires and actions. You moral virtues decided how good of a life you had. Both of these documents focus your actions on the present and how they would affect how good your life is. Another similar idea that both the documents shared was the idea of being higher up in society. For instance the manual labor jobs in “Be A Scribe” weren’t for high class society citizens. Scribes were considered middle, but definitely higher up than the jobs described in the document. In “The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation” you wanted to live morally and wanted to rid yourself of most desires. You wanted to perform good actions to have a good life. Doing those things would let your soul be reincarnated into a higher state then what you normally were. So living the good and right life would bring your status up after you passed away.
Both of the documents focused on what their idea of the good life was but they didn’t share too many of the same ideas. One of the same influences though was your present actions in life. The other influence would be your status in society, both documents you want to be higher up then in lower class. In “Be A Scribe” living the good life was not doing a lot of manual labor, keeping yourself safe from the extremities of war, and performing the easiest job. Being a scribe was like taking the easy route in the work area but you still learned to read and write, and you worked for high up people. In “The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation” it was all about getting rid of your desires. If you could get rid of them or try to limit them down you would be getting closer to Brahman. Brahman is want you wanted to achieve and would definitely be the best life. Everyone was trying to get there. Also, your actions affected you as well, the better the person you were the better your life would be. Therefore you wanted to be on your best behavior so you could reincarnate to a higher up state. You wanted to live a good life, and by doing that you had to act good.
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