Human relationships — Hinduism

What the specification asks for

Paper 1, Section 2, 2.4 (Hinduism). Assessed on AO1 (knowledge and understanding) and AO2 (analysis and evaluation), weighted equally. Incandio is aligned to this specification. It is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's indicative content — the point numbers are given so you can check every unit against your own copy.

1 · Understand it

The same tradition produced the most famous manual of erotics ever written and a long, serious discipline of total sexual renunciation. Somebody encountering both for the first time usually assumes one of them is a distortion of the religion. Neither is, and understanding why is most of what this unit asks for.

What it means

Kama — pleasure and desire, including sexual love — is one of the four legitimate aims of a human life. Not tolerated, not a concession: an aim, listed alongside duty, prosperity and liberation. That is a more positive starting point than most traditions on this paper offer, and everything else here follows from it.

It is bounded by two things rather than by prohibition. It belongs to the householder stage, so it has a place in a life rather than being either unlimited or forbidden; and it is ordered by dharma, so it does not become the whole of a life. Brahmacharya, continence, is the discipline of the student and the renunciate — the same person, at different stages.

Prema is the word for selfless love, distinguished from kama as desire, and treated as the higher form. That distinction is what the specification means by Hindu teaching about love, and it is worth having by name.

Marriage is the proper setting for sexual relationships and fidelity within it is a duty. On sex outside marriage, mainstream Hindu teaching is restrictive.

On same-sex relationships, Hindus genuinely differ, and the honest description is that the tradition's texts and history are mixed rather than uniformly restrictive. Those arguing for acceptance point to gender-fluid divine imagery in some traditions and to temple sculpture depicting same-sex intimacy; other Hindus regard those as marginal. Much of the uniform restrictiveness of the recent past came from colonial-era law rather than from Hindu texts, and the 2018 decriminalisation in India reopened a question Hindu opinion had not settled.

Why believers hold it

The reasoning is that Hinduism orders goods rather than banning them, and this is the clearest case of it in the specification. Pleasure is genuinely good and genuinely dangerous as a highest aim, so the tradition assigns it a rank and a stage instead of a prohibition. A religion that condemned it would have to explain what the householder stage was for.

The stage scheme is what allows the apparent contradiction to dissolve. The manual of erotics and the ascetic discipline are not two Hinduisms; they are two points in one life, and the same person is expected to be continent as a student, active as a householder and detached in age. That is a genuinely different solution from either permitting everything or forbidding most of it.

On consent, the tradition's disagreement with the non-religious position is precise rather than blanket. Humanists reason that where nobody is harmed there is nothing to regulate, and consent is where the argument ends. Hinduism holds that relationships have consequences for family, for children and for a person's duties, so consent is necessary and not sufficient. Naming that as the exact point of difference is worth more than describing two attitudes.

On same-sex relationships, the strongest thing to say is a historical one, and it is defensible in both directions. The uniform legal restriction in India was colonial, the classical material is mixed, and Hindu opinion since 2018 has divided rather than converged. An answer that reports a single Hindu attitude here is inaccurate whichever attitude it reports.

Where it comes from

• Hindu teaching — Dharma, varna and the four ashramas; Bhagavad Gita and the Dharmashastras (translated)

  Dharma — duty; the four stages of life: student, householder, retirement, renunciation.

  Duty is specific to a person's stage of life and situation, rather than being one rule for everyone.

  What it is doing here: Supplies the stage that makes pleasure a proper good at one point in a life and a discipline to be given up at another, which is the whole resolution.

• Hindu teaching — Ahimsa; Mahabharata and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (2:30) (translated)

  Ahimsa — non-violence, non-harming.

  The principle of not harming living beings, in action, word and thought. The first of the yamas.

  What it is doing here: Sets the limit that applies inside relationships as much as outside them: harm in word and thought counts, not only in action.

• The Bhagavad Gita (smriti) — Bhagavad Gita 2:47 (translated)

  Let right deeds be your motive, not the fruit which comes from them.

  Nishkama karma — acting according to duty without attachment to the outcome. Krishna's answer to Arjuna's refusal to fight.

  What it is doing here: Supplies the test the tradition applies to any strong desire — whether the action is being done as duty or for what it yields.

Where it bites

It shows in marriage understood as entry into the stage where sexual love is proper rather than as permission for it, and in the continued existence, in one tradition, of both a celebrated erotic manual and a living ascetic discipline.

It shows in the high level of family involvement in relationships, which follows from the view that a relationship is not only two people's business. And it shows in the varied response of Hindu communities to the 2018 legal change in India, which ran from welcome to opposition inside the same religion.

What people get wrong

People think: Hinduism is negative about sex, like most religions.

Actually: Pleasure is one of the four legitimate aims of life rather than a concession, which is a more positive starting position than most traditions on this paper. The restriction is on where it belongs in a life and what orders it, not on whether it is good.

People think: Hindus are against homosexuality.

Actually: Hindus differ, and the tradition's own texts and history are mixed. Much of the uniform restriction in the recent past came from colonial law rather than Hindu sources, and opinion has divided rather than settled since India decriminalised same-sex relations in 2018. Reporting one attitude as the Hindu attitude is inaccurate whichever one is reported.

People think: If nobody is harmed, there is nothing for a religion to say about a relationship.

Actually: That is the Humanist position and it is a coherent one. Hindu teaching holds that relationships have consequences for family, children and a person's duties, so consent is necessary without being sufficient. Naming that as the exact point of disagreement is a better answer than describing the two views separately.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Name kama as one of the four aims; it is what distinguishes this tradition's starting point and a general answer about religion and sex is capped as generic.
• The specification asks for atheist and Humanist attitudes with a Hindu response, so both halves have to be there.
• Say that Hindus differ on same-sex relationships and say what the difference rests on, rather than reporting one position.
• Use the stage scheme to explain how celibacy and sexual love are both proper, because that is the tradition's actual solution.
• For the twelve-mark question, the sharpest point is that consent is necessary but not sufficient here, which locates the disagreement precisely.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

The specification asks for Hindu teaching about sexuality and its purposes, about love, about sex outside marriage and homosexuality, and about atheist and Humanist attitudes with a Hindu response. Kama — pleasure, including sexual pleasure — is one of the four legitimate aims of life, which means Hinduism starts from a more positive position about sexuality than most religions on this specification.

Key terminology

Incandio's mark schemes credit the religion's own vocabulary; spelling variants are accepted, a vague paraphrase is not.

Kama

Pleasure and desire, including sexual love; one of the four legitimate aims of life.

Grihastha (also grhastha)

The householder stage, in which kama and artha are properly pursued.

Prema (also prem)

Selfless love; distinguished from kama as desire, and the higher form.

Brahmacharya (also brahmacarya)

Celibacy or continence; a discipline for the student and renunciate stages.

Dharma

Duty; what orders kama so that it does not become the whole of a life.

What Hinduism teaches

• shared — Kama is one of the four legitimate aims of life, so sexual love is a proper good and not merely permitted.
• shared — Kama belongs in the householder stage and is ordered by dharma, so it is bounded rather than unrestricted.
• shared — Marriage is the proper setting for sexual relationships, and fidelity is a duty within it.
• divided — Hindus differ on same-sex relationships, and the tradition's texts and history are genuinely mixed rather than uniformly restrictive.
  • Vaishnava — More conservative in general, with contemporary positions varying widely by community and country.
  • Shaiva — Traditions containing gender-fluid imagery, and Hindu temple art depicting same-sex intimacy, are cited by those arguing for acceptance; other Hindus regard these as marginal.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is that Hinduism orders goods rather than forbidding them. Kama is real and good and must not become the highest aim; the ashrama scheme therefore assigns it a stage rather than banning or unlimiting it. That is why Hinduism produced both the Kama Sutra and a serious tradition of celibacy without contradiction — the two belong to different stages of one life.

Sources of authority

• Hindu teaching — Dharma, varna and the four ashramas; Bhagavad Gita and the Dharmashastras (translated)

  Dharma — duty; the four stages of life: student, householder, retirement, renunciation.

  Duty is specific to a person's stage of life and situation, rather than being one rule for everyone.

  How to use it: Because duty varies with stage, Hindu answers on marriage, family and renunciation can hold both that householder life is a religious duty and that renouncing it is a higher one.

  What it does not settle: Attitudes to the caste dimension of varna vary sharply among Hindus today, and the specification does not require the learner to defend it. Handle it as contested social history, not as doctrine.

• The Bhagavad Gita (smriti) — Bhagavad Gita 2:47 (translated)

  Let right deeds be your motive, not the fruit which comes from them.

  Nishkama karma — acting according to duty without attachment to the outcome. Krishna's answer to Arjuna's refusal to fight.

  How to use it: It separates the rightness of an act from its results, which is why a Hindu answer on war or on wealth need not be consequentialist.

  What it does not settle: Its context is a battlefield, and using it on war without acknowledging that Arjuna is being told to fight misses the difficulty.

• Hindu teaching — Ahimsa; Mahabharata and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (2:30) (translated)

  Ahimsa — non-violence, non-harming.

  The principle of not harming living beings, in action, word and thought. The first of the yamas.

  How to use it: Because all beings share in the one reality, ahimsa follows from metaphysics rather than from sentiment — which is a stronger answer than 'Hindus are peaceful'.

  What it does not settle: It is not absolute pacifism in the tradition — the Gita has Krishna urge Arjuna to fight, and kshatriya duty complicates it. That tension is the evaluation.

• The Upanishads (shruti) — Chandogya Upanishad 6:8:7 (translated)

  Tat tvam asi — That thou art.

  One of the mahavakyas, the great sayings: the atman within is one with Brahman, the ultimate reality.

  How to use it: If the self and the ultimate reality are one, then harming another harms what you are — which is the metaphysical root of ahimsa rather than a moral rule added on top.

  What it does not settle: Advaita reads the identity as complete; Vishishtadvaita holds the soul distinct while dependent on God. Presenting one as 'the' Hindu view is inaccurate.

Different interpretations

• Kama read as sexual pleasure and read more broadly as desire and enjoyment; the four-aims framework uses the broader sense.
• Attitudes to homosexuality read from classical texts, which are mixed, and read from colonial-era law, which was uniformly restrictive; Indian legal change in 2018 reopened the question and Hindu opinion is divided.
• Brahmacharya read as total celibacy and read as continence appropriate to a stage; the second is how it functions in the ashrama scheme.

Differences within Hinduism

Kama as a legitimate aim and marriage as its setting are shared. Attitudes to same-sex relationships genuinely differ, and the texts are mixed rather than uniform in either direction.

• Vaishnava — Marriage-centred sexual ethics; generally conservative on relationships outside it.
• Shaiva — Contains traditions with gender-fluid divine imagery, which some Hindus use in arguing for acceptance of same-sex relationships.
• Advaita Vedanta — Philosophically inclined to treat bodily identity as secondary, which some read as supporting acceptance.

Application to the issue

It shows in the treatment of marriage as entry into the stage where kama is proper; in the Kama Sutra's existence as a text of a tradition that also produced ascetics; in family involvement in relationships; and in the varied response of Hindu communities to the 2018 decriminalisation of same-sex relations in India.

Arguments supporting

• Treating pleasure as a legitimate aim is more honest than treating it as a concession. — Kama is listed among the purusharthas rather than tolerated. (hinduism)
  Answered by: It is still ranked below moksha, so it remains a lower good rather than an equal one.
• Assigning goods to stages avoids both permissiveness and repression. — The same person is expected to be continent as a student, active as a householder and detached in age. (shared)
  Answered by: Life does not divide neatly into stages, and the scheme was designed for a particular social class.

Arguments challenging

• Sexual ethics should be settled by consent alone. — Where nobody is harmed there is nothing to regulate. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Hinduism holds that relationships have consequences for family, children and dharma, so consent is necessary and not sufficient.
• Hindu attitudes to same-sex relationships owe more to colonial law than to Hindu texts. — The relevant Indian criminal provision was introduced under British rule. (shared)
  Answered by: That is historically well supported and does not settle what Hindu teaching now requires, which is what Hindus are currently arguing about.

Secular / non-religious perspective

Atheist and Humanist attitudes take consent, honesty and harm as sufficient, treat orientation as morally neutral and see no reason to confine sex to marriage. Hindu responses vary: many accept the harm criterion while insisting that dharma adds obligations to family and community that consent alone does not capture.

Examinable throughout Paper 1. Nothing here earns a mark on Paper 2.

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether pleasure is a legitimate aim or a permitted concession. Hinduism answers the first, which sets it apart from most religious sexual ethics on this specification.

Defensible conclusions

• The purushartha framework is the most positive religious account of sexuality here, and it explains how the same tradition produced the Kama Sutra and serious asceticism.
• Hindu attitudes to same-sex relationships are genuinely mixed, and the colonial-law argument is historically strong without settling the present question.
• Ordering goods rather than forbidding them is a distinctive method, and it gives less guidance than a rule while producing less conflict between religion and ordinary life.

Not defensible

• Presenting a single Hindu position on homosexuality when the specification asks for different attitudes.
• Claiming Hinduism treats sexuality as shameful, which the purusharthas contradict.

Exam use

• Identify · 3 marks — Three Hindu beliefs about sexual relationships, or three purposes of marriage in Hinduism.
• Outline · 4 marks — Two attitudes developed, each with a reason.
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain Hindu attitudes to sexual relationships: kama as an aim, the householder stage, marriage as the setting, and where Hindus differ.
• Evaluate · 12 marks — 'Sex is a private matter between consenting adults.' Hinduism's four-aims framework gives an unusually sympathetic partial agreement.

Common mistakes

• Presenting one Hindu view as the Hindu view.
• Giving the non-religious position as indifference.
• Ignoring the purushartha framework, which is what makes Hindu teaching here distinctive.

“Christians believe divorce is always wrong.” — That is the Catholic position. Orthodox Christianity permits divorce in limited circumstances, and most Protestant churches permit divorce and remarriage.

Write instead: Name the tradition. 'Catholic teaching holds marriage indissoluble, so the Church annuls rather than divorces' is accurate and scores; 'Christians believe' on a divided question is not. Do not over-correct. Many claims genuinely ARE shared — the Trinity, the resurrection, the authority of the Bible — and hedging those makes an answer weaker, not more careful. (Named in the 2025 examiner report for Paper 1.)

“Hindus worship thousands of separate gods.” — Many Hindus understand the deities as forms or aspects of one ultimate reality, Brahman. Describing them as separate rival gods misrepresents the tradition's own account of itself.

Write instead: Many Hindus hold that Brahman, the one ultimate reality, is worshipped through many forms — Vishnu, Shiva, the Goddess and their avatars. Some are strictly monotheistic in practice; others are more comfortable with plurality. The specification's 1.5 explicitly names monotheism and polytheism and asks why people believe in one God or many, so the question is live and the accurate answer is that Hinduism does not fit either label cleanly.

Grade 9 insight

The same tradition produced the Kama Sutra and the ideal of the sannyasi who renounces everything — and it did so without contradiction, because the ashrama scheme assigns them to different stages of one life. A Level 4 answer uses that to make a general point about Hindu ethics: Hinduism characteristically orders goods in time rather than ranking them permanently, which is why it can affirm what other traditions must either forbid or hedge.

Carry on through Hinduism

• Previous unit: 2.3 · Sanctity of life, abortion and euthanasia
• Next unit: 2.5 · Marriage and partnership
• Human relationships in the other religions: Buddhism · Christianity · Islam · Judaism · Sikhism
• All of Hinduism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification