This book provides a comparative and internally grounded analysis of human rights across three major Asian traditions-Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism-focusing on how dignity, moral status, duties, and social justice have been articulated from within each tradition. Each chapter introduces a tradition, sets out its core normative concepts, and traces its encounters with human rights discourse.
The book adopts an emic analytical method, reconstructing ethico-political reasoning using each tradition's own concepts, texts, and historical debates, avoiding apologetic readings and reductive cultural relativism. It combines historical depth with contemporary relevance, tracing how premodern ideas have been reinterpreted in modern and postcolonial contexts shaped by constitutionalism and human rights. It offers a systematic comparison across traditions, addressing a clear gap between abstract philosophical discussions of universalism and relativism and narrowly descriptive studies of religion or culture. An epilogue argues these traditions' humanistic and rationalist formulations belong in human rights discourse, politically and philosophically.
