Editing Golden Rule (section)

==Ancient history==
===Ancient Egypt===
Possibly the earliest affirmation of the maxim of reciprocity, reflecting the ancient Egyptian goddess [[Ma'at]], appears in the story of "[[The Eloquent Peasant]]", which dates to the [[Middle Kingdom of Egypt|Middle Kingdom]] ({{circa|2040–1650 BCE}}): "Now this is the command: Do to the doer to make him do."<ref>[http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/information/REL499_2011/Eloquent%20Peasant.pdf Eloquent Peasant PDF] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925125920/http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/information/REL499_2011/Eloquent%20Peasant.pdf |date=25 September 2015 }} "Now this is the command: do to the doer to make him do"</ref><ref name="John Albert Wilson p. 121">''"The Culture of Ancient Egypt"'', John Albert Wilson, p. 121, [[University of Chicago Press]], 1956, {{ISBN|0-226-90152-1}} "Now this is the command: Do to the doer to cause that he do"</ref> This proverb embodies the ''[[do ut des]]'' principle.<ref>[http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/information/REL499_2011/Eloquent%20Peasant.pdf Eloquent Peasant PDF] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925125920/http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/information/REL499_2011/Eloquent%20Peasant.pdf |date=25 September 2015 }} "The peasant quotes a proverb that embodies the do ut des principle"</ref> A [[Late Period of ancient Egypt|Late Period]] ({{circa|664–323 BCE}}) papyrus contains an early negative affirmation of the Golden Rule: "That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another."<ref>"''[http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/saoc52.pdf A Late Period Hieratic Wisdom Text: P. Brooklyn 47.218.135"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005012109/http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/saoc52.pdf |date=5 October 2013 }}'', Richard Jasnow, p. 95, University of Chicago Press, 1992, {{ISBN|978-0-918986-85-6}}.</ref>

===Ancient India===
====Sanskrit tradition====
In ''[[Mahabharata|Mahābhārata]]'', the ancient epic of India, there is a discourse in which sage Brihaspati tells the king Yudhishthira the following about [[dharma]], a philosophical understanding of values and actions that lend good order to life:
{{Blockquote|One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one's own self. In brief, this is dharma. Anything else is succumbing to desire.| ''Mahābhārata'' 13.113.8 (Critical edition){{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}}}

The Mahābhārata is usually dated to the period between 400 BCE and 400 CE.<ref>Cush, D., Robinson, C., York, M. (eds.) (2008) "Mahābhārata" in [https://books.google.com/books?id=kzPgCgAAQBAJ ''Encyclopedia of Hinduism''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117102108/https://books.google.com/books?id=kzPgCgAAQBAJ |date=17 January 2023 }}. Abingdon: Routledge, p 469</ref><ref>van Buitenen, J.A.B. (1973) [https://books.google.com/books?id=i8oe5fY5_3UC&dq=mahabharata+book+1&pg=PR25 ''The Mahābhārata, Book 1: The Book of the Beginning''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230730165523/https://books.google.com/books?id=i8oe5fY5_3UC&dq=mahabharata+book+1&pg=PR25 |date=30 July 2023 }}. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, p xxv</ref>

====Tamil tradition====
In Chapter 32 in the [[Aram (Kural book)|Book of Virtue]] of the [[Tirukkuṛaḷ]] ({{circa|1st century BCE to 5th century CE}}), [[Valluvar]] says:

{{blockquote|Do not do to others what you know has hurt yourself.| ''Kural'' 316<ref name="Sundaram_Kural">{{cite book | last = Sundaram | first = P. S. | title = Tiruvalluvar Kural| publisher = Penguin | date = 1990 | location = Gurgaon | pages = 50 | isbn = 978-0-14-400009-8}}</ref>}}
{{blockquote|Why does one hurt others knowing what it is to be hurt?| ''Kural'' 318<ref name="Sundaram_Kural"/>}}

Furthermore, in verse 312, Valluvar says that it is the determination or code of the spotless (virtuous) not to do evil, even in return, to those who have cherished enmity and done them evil. According to him, the proper punishment to those who have done evil is to put them to shame by showing them kindness, in return and to forget both the evil and the good done on both sides (verse 314).<ref name="Aiyar_Kural">{{cite book | last = Aiyar | first = V. V. S. | title = The Kural or the Maxims of Tiruvalluvar| publisher = Pavai | edition = 1 | date = 2007 | location = Chennai | pages = 141–142 | isbn = 978-81-7735-262-7}}</ref>

===Ancient Greece===
The Golden Rule in its prohibitive (negative) form was a common principle in [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] [[Greek philosophy|philosophy]]. Examples of the general concept include:
* "Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing."&nbsp;– [[Thales]]<ref>[[Diogenes Laërtius]], "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers", I:36</ref> ({{circa|624}} – {{circa|546 BCE}})
* "What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either."&nbsp;– [[Sentences of Sextus|Sextus the Pythagorean]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/sent.html|title=The Sentences of Sextus -- The Nag Hammadi Library|website=www.gnosis.org|access-date=16 March 2010|archive-date=11 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131011220621/http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/sent.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The oldest extant reference to Sextus is by Origen in the third century of the common era.<ref>[[Sentences of Sextus|''The Sentences of Sextus Article'']]</ref>
* "Ideally, no one should touch my property or tamper with it, unless I have given him some sort of permission, and, if I am sensible I shall treat the property of others with the same respect."&nbsp;– [[Plato]]<ref>Plato, ''[[Laws (dialogue)|Laws]]'', Book XI (Complete Works of Plato, 1997 edited Cooper ISBN 978-0-87220-349-5)</ref> ({{circa|420}} – {{circa|347 BCE}})
* "Do not do to others that which angers you when they do it to you."&nbsp;– [[Isocrates]]<ref>Isocrates, ''Nicocles or the Cyprians''<!--not to be confused with the work ''To Nicocles''-->, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D3%3Asection%3D61 Isoc 3.61] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225044007/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D3%3Asection%3D61 |date=25 February 2021 }} ([https://archive.org/stream/2139247.0001.001.umich.edu#page/70/mode/2up original text in Greek]); cf. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Isoc.%201.14&lang=original Isoc. 1.14] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225060038/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Isoc.%201.14&lang=original |date=25 February 2021 }}, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Isoc.%202.24&lang=original Isoc. 2.24, 38] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225084549/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Isoc.%202.24&lang=original |date=25 February 2021 }}, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Isoc.%204.81&lang=original Isoc. 4.81] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225025500/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Isoc.%204.81&lang=original |date=25 February 2021 }}.</ref> (436–338 BCE)
* "It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly." – [[Epicurus]] (341–270 BC) where "justly" refers to "an agreement made in reciprocal association ... against the infliction or suffering of harm."<ref>[http://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/princdoc.html "Principal Doctrines 5 and 33"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629092936/http://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/princdoc.html |date=29 June 2011 }}, ''[[Principal Doctrines]] by Epicurus'', Translated by [[Robert Drew Hicks]], The Internet Classics Archive, [[MIT]].</ref>

===Ancient Persia===
The [[Pahlavi scripts|Pahlavi Texts]] of [[Zoroastrianism]] ({{circa|300 BCE}} – 1000 CE) were an early source for the Golden Rule: "That nature alone is good which refrains from doing to another whatsoever is not good for itself." Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5, and "Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others." Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29<ref>{{cite book|author=Thomas Firminger Thiselton-Dyer|title=Pahlavi Texts of Zoroastrianism, Part 2 of 5: The Dadistan-i Dinik and the Epistles of Manuskihar|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XdYYnfBXh9QC|year=2008|publisher=Forgotten Books|isbn=978-1-60620-199-2|access-date=5 February 2019|archive-date=26 August 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240826122540/https://books.google.com/books?id=XdYYnfBXh9QC|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Ancient Rome===
[[Seneca the Younger]] ({{circa|4 BCE}} – 65 CE), a practitioner of [[Stoicism]] ({{circa|300 BCE}} – 200 CE), expressed a hierarchical variation of the Golden Rule in his [[Letter 47 (Seneca)|Letter 47]], an essay regarding the treatment of slaves: "Treat your inferior as you would wish your superior to treat you."<ref>{{cite book|author=Lucius Annaeus Seneca|title=The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters of Seneca|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e6pvK6SQuvgC|year=1968|publisher=Norton|isbn=978-0-393-00459-5|access-date=5 February 2019|archive-date=26 August 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240826122539/https://books.google.com/books?id=e6pvK6SQuvgC|url-status=live}}</ref>