Giving and righteous conduct, kindness to relatives, blameless deeds: this is the highest blessing.
A shared theme
Love of Neighbour
The Golden Rule — treat others as you would be treated — appears, in one form or another, in every tradition on this site. Around it cluster the commands to kindness, hospitality to the stranger, and the conviction that humanity is one family.
Buddhism
5 versesChristianity
12 versesAnd as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
Confucianism
6 versesFan Ch'ih asked about benevolence. The Master said, "It is to love all men." He asked about knowledge. The Master said, "It is to know all men." …
Hinduism
3 verses'Now that which is that subtile essence (the root of all), in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it.'
Islam
6 versesKind words and the covering of faults are better than charity followed by injury. Allah is free of all wants, and He is Most-Forbearing.
Jainism
5 versesBy doing service he acquires the Karman which brings about for him the nâman and gôtra of a Tîrthakara.
Judaism
7 versesShammai said, Make thy Thorah an ordinance; say little and do much; and receive every man with a pleasant expression of countenance.
Sikhism
8 versesThe One God is our father; we are the children of the One God. You are our Guru.
Sufism
2 versesAlike the drunk and the strict of fare / For his mistress yearns—in the mosque Love doth dwell / And the church, for his lodging is everywhere. …
Taoism
0 versesNo passage in the collection yet.
Where the traditions differ
Most traditions phrase the rule negatively (do not do to others what you would not want done to you) — Judaism's Hillel, Confucius, the Mahabharata, Jainism. The Gospels phrase it positively. Who counts as 'neighbour' has been contested within every tradition; the texts chosen here are the universalising ones. Confucianism grades love by relationship (family first), which Mohists and later critics challenged; the Bahá'í Faith makes the unity of all humankind its central doctrine.