Hinduism

You should read
enough of the materials presented in this section concerning the tradition
of Hinduism in order to understand how this tradition displays the
characteristics or elements that make a tradition one that would be termed a
religion. The tradition presented in the materials below is one of the
worlds living religions. You reading should indicate why this is so.
·THE ABSOLUTE: what do the
believers hold as most important? What is the ultimate source of value and
significance? For many, but not all religions, this is given some form of
agency and portrayed as a deity (deities). It might be a concept or ideal
as well as a figure.
·THE WORLD: What does the belief
system say about the world? Its origin? its relation to the Absolute? Its
future?
·HUMANS: Where do they come
from? How do they fit into the general scheme of things? What is their
destiny or future?
·THE PROBLEM FOR HUMANS: What is
the principle problem for humans that they must learn to deal with and
solve?
·THE SOLUTION FOR HUMANS: How
are humans to solve or overcome the fundamental problems ?
·COMMUNITY AND ETHICS: What is
the moral code as promulgated by the religion? What is the idea of
community and how humans are to live with one another?
·AN INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY:
Does the religion offer an explanation for events occurring in time? Is
there a single linear history with time coming to an end or does time
recycle? Is there a plan working itself out in time and detectable in the
events of history?
·RITUALS AND SYMBOLS: What are
the major rituals, holy days, garments, ceremonies and symbols?
·LIFE AFTER DEATH: What is the
explanation given for what occurs after death? Does he religion support a
belief in souls or spirits which survive the death of the body? What is the
belief in what occurs afterwards? Is there a resurrection of the body?
Reincarnation? Dissolution? Extinction?
·RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER
RELIGIONS: What is the prescribed manner in which believers are to regard
other religions and the followers of other religions?
**********************************************************
For those who wish to listen to information on the world's
religions here is a listing of PODCASTS on RELIGIONS by Cynthia
Eller.
Hinduism is a religion with various Gods and
Goddesses. According to Hinduism, three Gods rule the world. Brahma: the
creator; Vishnu: the preserver and Shiva: the destroyer. Lord Vishnu did
his job of preserving the world by incarnating himself in different forms
at times of crisis.
The three Lords that rule the world have consorts and they are
goddesses too. Consort of Brahma is Sarasvati; goddess of learning.
Vishnu's consort is Lakshmi; goddess of wealth and prosperity. Shiva's
consort is Parvati who is worshipped as Kali or Durga.
Besides these Gods and Goddesses there are a number of other Gods and
Goddesses. To name a few of them, there is Ganesh; who has an elephant's
head and he is also a son of Shiva and Parvati, Hanuman; who is an ape,
Surya; Lord of sun, Ganga Ma; Goddess of river Ganges; Samundra; Lord of
the sea, Indra; king of the Gods ( but he isn't an important God), Prithvi;
Goddess of earth, Shakti; Goddess of strength. The Hindus call their
Goddesses 'Ma' meaning mother.
Some gods have more than one name. Shiva is also known as Shankar,
Mahadev, Natraj, Mahesh and many other names. Ganesh is also called
Ganpati. God Vishnu incarnated
9 times to do his job and in his every appearance he had a different
form which are also worshipped as Gods. Among his appearances, he appeared
as Rama, Krishna, Narsimha, Parsuram and Buddha. Krishna also has
different names, Gopal; Kishan; Shyam and other names. He also has other
titles with meanings like 'Basuri Wala' which means the flute musician and
'Makhan Chor' which means the butter stealer. There are also Gods who can
change their forms, for example: Parvati can change into Kali or Durga.
Not all of these Gods are worshiped by all Hindus. Some Hindus worship
only Vishnu. Others worship only Shiva. Others worship only the Goddesses
and call these Goddesses collectively as Shakti meaning strength. Many of
these Goddess worshipers worship Parvati in her images as Kali or Durga.
People who worship Shiva or Vishnu also worship characters and images
connected with these Gods. Vishnu worshipers (Vaishnaites) also worship
his appearances. Shiva's worshipers (Shaivites) also worship images of
bull called Nandi, who was Shiva's carrier and a unique stone design
connected to Shiva. There are also Hindus who worship all the Gods. There
are some Gods who are worshiped all over India like Rama and Krishna and
other Gods who are worshiped more in one region than the other like Ganesh
who is worshiped mainly in west India. Hindus also worship Gods according
to their personal needs. People who engage in wrestling, body building and
other physical sports worship Hanuman, who in Hindu legends was an ape
with lot of physical strength. Businessmen worship Lakshmi, Goddess of
wealth.
Though these Hindus worship different idols, there are many Hindus who
believe in one God and perceive in these different Gods and Goddesses as
different images of the same one God. According to their beliefs idolatry
is the wrong interpretation of Hinduism.
Hindus believe in reincarnation. The basic belief is that a person's
fate is determined according to his deeds. These deeds in Hinduism are
called 'Karma'. A soul who does good Karma in this life will be awarded
with a better life in the next incarnation. Souls who do bad Karma will be
punished for their sins, if not in this incarnation then in the next
incarnation and will continue to be born in this world again and again.
The good souls will be liberated from the circle of rebirth and get
redemption which is called 'Moksha' meaning freedom. Hindus normally
cremate their dead ones, so that the soul of the dead would go to heaven,
except in a few cases of Hindu saints, who are believed to have attained 'Moksha'.
The main Hindu books are the four Vedas. They are Rig Veda, Sama Veda,
Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. The concluding portions of the Vedas are
called Upanisads. There are also other holy books like Puranas, Ramayana,
Mahabharta etc. The different Gods and Goddesses in the Hindu mythology
are derived from these books. Ramayana and Mahabharta are the most popular
Hindu books.
The main story of Ramayana
is the story of Lord Rama. Rama was born in a royal family and was suppose
to be the king, but because of his step- mother, he was forced to exile
from his kingdom for fourteen years. During this period his consort Sita
was kidnapped by a demon called Ravan, who was king of Lanka. Rama with
the help of his brother, Lakshman, and an army of monkeys under the
leadership of Hanuman, rescued Sita. Many Indians believe that the present
day Sri Lanka was then the kingdom of Lanka.
Mahabharta is a family epic. In this epic the Pandva family and the
Kaurav family who are cousins fight with each other for the control over a
kingdom. Kaurav family, which consisted of 100 brothers rule an empire.
The five Pandva brothers ask for a small kingdom which belongs to them.
The Kauravs refuse to give the Pandvas the kingdom so there is a war
between the Pandvas and the Kauravs in which it is believed that all the
kingdoms of that period in India took part. In this war the Pandvas, with
the help of Lord Krishna win the war. Before the commencement of the war,
while the two armies are facing each other, one of the Pandva brothers
Arjun gets depressed. Arjun is depressed because he has to fight against
people whom he knows, loves and respects. At this point Krishna, (who was
also a king of a kingdom, and participated in this war only as the chariot
driver for Arjun) convinces Arjun to fight. Krishna lectures Arjun about
life, human beings and their religious duties. He explains to Arjun that
he belongs to a warrior caste and he has to fight for that's his
destination in this incarnation. Those chapters in the Mahabharta which
are Krishna's discourses on religious philosophy are called Bhagvad Gita.
Because of it's importance the Bhagvad Gita is considered as a separate
holy book. Another Hindu holy book that deals with religious duties is
'Law of Manu' or the 'Dharma Shastra'.
In the wars that occur in the holy books, as in Mahabharta, the
different sides had different war weapons which had characters similar to
modern day war weapons. In some stories the traveling vehicles were
normally birds and animals. But these animals and birds had features
similar to modern day aircrafts. There were even aircrafts with over
velocity of light. The main war weapons were bows and arrows. But these
arrows were more like modern missiles than simple arrows. These arrows
were capable of carrying bombs with destructive power similar to modern
day chemical, biological or even atom bombs. Other arrows could be
targeted on specific human beings. There were even arrows capable of
neutralizing other arrows, similar to modern day anti-missiles.
Hindus have many holy places. Badrinath, Puri, Dwarkha and Rameshwaram
are four holiest places for the Hindus. Other holy places are Varanasi,
Rishikesh, Nasik, Pushkar, Ujjain and other places. Some rivers are also
holy to them. Among them are Godavri, Yamuna and above all Ganges which
the Indians call Ganga. Another holy river is Sarasvati and it is
invisible. Hindus also worship and respect some animals and birds like
cobra, apes, peacocks and cow. Hindus also respect some trees and bush
trees. The famous and the most respected bush tree is Tulsi.
Some of the Hindu customs, which exist or existed, do not have their
bearing in Hindu scriptures but became part of Hinduism in different ways
and fashion. For example, the Hindus see in cow a sacred animal.
Religiously there is no reason to see cow as sacred and it is believed
that cows were made 'sacred' to prevent their slaughter during periods of
droughts and hunger. Cobra worship also is not found in Hindu scripts.
This custom became part of Hinduism when some Indian tribes who use to
worship cobra adopted Hinduism. Burning
of the widow on the dead husband's pyre also has no religious
justification. This custom, outlawed in 1829, was probably brought to
India by the Scythians invaders of India. Among the Scythians it was a
custom to bury the dead king with his mistresses or wives, servants and
other things so that they could continue to serve him in the next world.
When these Scythians arrived in India, they adopted the Indian system of
funeral, which was cremating the dead. And so instead of burying their
kings and his servers they started cremating their dead with his surviving
lovers. The Scythians were warrior tribes and they were given a status of
warrior castes in Hindu religious hierarchy. The different castes who
claimed warrior status or higher also adopted this custom.
There are four castes
in Hindu religion arranged in a hierarchy. The highest caste is Brahman,
and they are the priest caste of Hinduism. After them are the Kshatria,
who are the warrior castes. After them are the Vaishya caste , who are
business people. And after them are the Sudra, who are the common peasants
and workers. Below these four castes there are casteless, the
untouchables. The four castes were not allowed to have any physical
contact with the untouchables.
Each caste is divided into many sub-castes. The religious word for
caste is Varna and for sub-caste Jat or Jati. But sometimes in English the
term caste is used in both cases. Religiously, people are born in a caste
and it cannot be changed. Each caste has some compulsory duties, which its
members must do. Each caste has professional limits which decides what
profession each caste can follow. Each caste members can have social
relations only with its caste members. Religiously this includes marraige
and even eating only with caste members. Please note that socially the
caste system is different from the religious form of caste system.
How did Hinduism originated is a difficult question. The accepted
theory is that Hinduism was evolved after the historical meeting between
the Aryans and Dravidians.
Some claim that Hinduism is mainly an Aryan culture whereas the others
claim that it is mainly a Dravidian culture. Religiously the Vedas were
given by Brahma.
I.
Introduction Hinduism,
religion that originated in India and is still practiced by most of its
inhabitants, as well as by those whose families have migrated from India
to other parts of the world (chiefly East Africa, South Africa, Southeast
Asia, the East Indies, and England). The word Hindu is derived from
the Sanskrit word sindhu (rivermore specifically, the
Indus); the Persians in the 5th century BC called the
Hindus by that name, identifying them as the people of the land of the
Indus. The Hindus define their community as those who believe in the
Vedas (see Veda)
or those who follow the way (dharma) of the four classes (varnas)
and stages of life (ashramas).
Hinduism
is a major world religion, not merely by virtue of its many followers
(estimated at more than 700 million) but also because of its profound
influence on many other religions during its long, unbroken history, which
dates from about 1500 BC. The corresponding influence of
these various religions on Hinduism (it has an extraordinary tendency to
absorb foreign elements) has greatly contributed to the religion's
syncretismthe wide variety of beliefs and practices that it
encompasses. Moreover, the geographic, rather than ideological, basis of
the religion (the fact that it comprises whatever all the people of India
have believed and done) has given Hinduism the character of a social and
doctrinal system that extends to every aspect of human life. II.
Fundamental Principles The
canon of Hinduism is basically defined by what people do rather than what
they think. Consequently, far more uniformity of behavior than of belief
is found among Hindus, although very few practices or beliefs are shared
by all. A few usages are observed by almost all Hindus: reverence for Brahmans
and cows; abstention from meat (especially beef); and marriage within the
caste (jati), in the hope of producing male heirs. Most Hindus
chant the gayatri hymn to the sun at dawn, but little agreement exists as
to what other prayers should be chanted. Most Hindus worship Shiva,
Vishnu,
or the Goddess (Devi), but they also worship hundreds of additional minor
deities peculiar to a particular village or even to a particular family.
Although Hindus believe and do many apparently contradictory
thingscontradictory not merely from one Hindu to the next, but also
within the daily religious life of a single Hindueach individual
perceives an orderly pattern that gives form and meaning to his or her own
life. No doctrinal or ecclesiastical hierarchy exists in Hinduism, but the
intricate hierarchy of the social system (which is inseparable from the
religion) gives each person a sense of place within the whole.
A. Texts The
ultimate canonical authority for all Hindus is the Vedas. The oldest of
the four Vedas is the Rig-Veda,
which was composed in an ancient form of the Sanskrit
language in northwest India. This text, probably composed between
about 1500 and 1000 BC and consisting of 1028 hymns to a
pantheon of gods, has been memorized syllable by syllable and preserved
orally to the present day. The Rig-Veda was supplemented by two
other Vedas, the Yajur-Veda (the textbook for sacrifice) and the Sama-Veda
(the hymnal). A fourth book, the Atharva-Veda (a collection of
magic spells), was probably added about 900 BC. At this
time, too, the Brahmanaslengthy Sanskrit texts expounding priestly
ritual and the myths behind itwere composed. Between the 8th century BC
and the 5th century BC, the Upanishads
were composed; these are mystical-philosophical meditations on the meaning
of existence and the nature of the universe.
The
Vedas, including the Brahmanas and the Upanishads, are regarded as
revealed canon (shruti,what has been heard [from the gods]),
and no syllable can be changed. The actual content of this canon, however,
is unknown to most Hindus. The practical compendium of Hinduism is
contained in the Smriti, or what is remembered, which is also
orally preserved. No prohibition is made against improvising variations
on, rewording, or challenging the Smriti. The Smriti
includes the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana;
the many Sanskrit Puranas,
including 18 great Puranas and several dozen more subordinate Puranas; and
the many Dharmashastras and Dharmasutras (textbooks on
sacred law), of which the one attributed to the sage Manu is the most
frequently cited.
The
two epics are built around central narratives. The Mahabharata
tells of the war between the Pandava brothers, led by their cousin Krishna,
and their cousins the Kauravas. The Ramayana tells of the journey
of Rama
to recover his wife Sita after she is stolen by the demon Ravana. But
these stories are embedded in a rich corpus of other tales and discourses
on philosophy, law, geography, political science, and astronomy, so that
the Mahabharata (about 200,000 lines long) constitutes a kind of
encyclopedia or even a literature, and the Ramayana (more than
50,000 lines long) is comparable. Although it is therefore impossible to
fix their dates, the main bodies of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana
were probably composed between 400 BC and AD
400. Both, however, continued to grow even after they were translated into
the vernacular languages of India (such as Tamil and Hindi) in the
succeeding centuries.
The
Puranas were composed after the epics, and several of them develop themes
found in the epics (for instance, the Bhagavata-Purana describes
the childhood of Krishna, a topic not elaborated in the Mahabharata).
The Puranas also include subsidiary myths, hymns of praise, philosophies,
iconography, and rituals. Most of the Puranas are predominantly sectarian
in nature; the great Puranas (and some subordinate Puranas) are dedicated
to the worship of Shiva or Vishnu or the Goddess, and several subordinate
Puranas are devoted to Ganesha or Skanda or the sun. In addition, they all
contain a great deal of nonsectarian material, probably of earlier origin,
such as the five marks, or topics (panchalakshana), of the
Puranas: the creation of the universe, the destruction and re-creation of
the universe, the dynasties of the solar and lunar gods, the genealogy of
the gods and holy sages, and the ages of the founding fathers of humankind
(the Manus). B.
Philosophy Incorporated
in this rich literature is a complex cosmology. Hindus believe that the
universe is a great, enclosed sphere, a cosmic egg, within which are
numerous concentric heavens, hells, oceans, and continents, with India at
the center. They believe that time is both degenerativegoing from the
golden age, or Krita Yuga, through two intermediate periods of decreasing
goodness, to the present age, or Kali Yugaand cyclic: At the end of
each Kali Yuga, the universe is destroyed by fire and flood, and a new
golden age begins. Human life, too, is cyclic: After death, the soul
leaves the body and is reborn in the body of another person, animal,
vegetable, or mineral. This condition of endless entanglement in activity
and rebirth is called samsara (see Transmigration).
The precise quality of the new birth is determined by the accumulated
merit and demerit that result from all the actions, or karma,
that the soul has committed in its past life or lives. All Hindus believe
that karma accrues in this way; they also believe, however, that it can be
counteracted by expiations and rituals, by working out through
punishment or reward, and by achieving release (moksha) from the
entire process of samsara through the renunciation of all worldly
desires.
Hindus
may thus be divided into two groups: those who seek the sacred and profane
rewards of this world (health, wealth, children, and a good rebirth), and
those who seek release from the world. The principles of the first way of
life were drawn from the Vedas and are represented today in temple
Hinduism and in the religion of Brahmans and the caste system. The second
way, which is prescribed in the Upanishads, is represented not only in the
cults of renunciation (sannyasa) but also in the ideological ideals
of most Hindus.
The
worldly aspect of Hinduism originally had three Vedas, three classes of
society (varnas), three stages of life (ashramas), and three
goals of a man (purusharthas), the goals or needs of women
being seldom discussed in the ancient texts. To the first three Vedas was
added the Atharva-Veda. The first three classes (Brahman, or
priestly; Kshatriya, or warrior; and Vaisya, or general populace) were
derived from the tripartite division of ancient Indo-European society,
traces of which can be detected in certain social and religious
institutions of ancient Greece and Rome. To the three classes were added
the Shudras, or servants, after the Indo-Aryans settled into the
Punjab and began to move down into the Ganges Valley. The three original ashramas
were the chaste student (brahmachari), the householder (grihastha),
and the forest-dweller (vanaprastha). They were said to owe three
debts: study of the Vedas (owed to the sages); a son (to the ancestors);
and sacrifice (to the gods). The three goals were artha (material
success), dharma (righteous social behavior), and kama
(sensual pleasures). Shortly after the composition of the first
Upanishads, during the rise of Buddhism (6th century BC), a
fourth ashrama and a corresponding fourth goal were added: the
renouncer (sannyasi), whose goal is release (moksha) from
the other stages, goals, and debts.
Each
of these two ways of being Hindu developed its own complementary
metaphysical and social systems. The caste system and its supporting
philosophy of svadharma (one's own dharma) developed within
the worldly way. Svadharma comprises the beliefs that each person
is born to perform a specific job, marry a specific person, eat certain
food, and beget children to do likewise and that it is better to fulfill
one's own dharma than that of anyone else (even if one's own is low or
reprehensible, such as that of the Harijan caste, the Untouchables, whose
mere presence was once considered polluting to other castes). The primary
goal of the worldly Hindu is to produce and raise a son who will make
offerings to the ancestors (the shraddha ceremony). The second,
renunciatory way of Hinduism, on the other hand, is based on the
Upanishadic philosophy of the unity of the individual soul, or atman,
with Brahman, the universal world soul, or godhead. The full realization
of this is believed to be sufficient to release the worshiper from
rebirth; in this view, nothing could be more detrimental to salvation than
the birth of a child. Many of the goals and ideals of renunciatory
Hinduism have been incorporated into worldly Hinduism, particularly the
eternal dharma (sanatana dharma), an absolute and general ethical
code that purports to transcend and embrace all subsidiary, relative,
specific dharmas. The most important tenet of sanatana dharma for
all Hindus is ahimsa, the absence of a desire to injure, which is
used to justify vegetarianism (although it does not preclude physical
violence toward animals or humans, or blood sacrifices in temples).
In
addition to sanatana dharma, numerous attempts have been made to
reconcile the two Hinduisms. The Bhagavad-Gita
describes three paths to religious realization. To the path of works, or
karma (here designating sacrificial and ritual acts), and the path of
knowledge, or jnana (the Upanishadic meditation on the godhead),
was added a mediating third path, the passionate devotion to God, or bhakti,
a religious ideal that came to combine and transcend the other two paths. Bhakti
in a general form can be traced in the epics and even in some of the
Upanishads, but its fullest statement appears only after the Bhagavad-Gita.
It gained momentum from the vernacular poems and songs to local deities,
particularly those of the Alvars, Nayanars, and Virashaivas of southern
India and the Bengali worshipers of Krishna (see below).
In
this way Hindus have been able to reconcile their Vedantic monism (see Vedanta)
with their Vedic polytheism: All the individual Hindu gods (who are said
to be saguna,with attributes) are subsumed under the godhead
(nirguna,without attributes), from which they all emanate.
Therefore, most Hindus are devoted (through bhakti) to gods whom
they worship in rituals (through karma) and whom they understand (through jnana)
as aspects of ultimate reality, the material reflection of which is all an
illusion (maya) wrought by God in a spirit of play (lila). C. Gods Although
all Hindus acknowledge the existence and importance of a number of gods
and demigods, most individual worshipers are primarily devoted to a single
god or goddess, of whom Shiva, Vishnu, and the Goddess are the most
popular.
Shiva
embodies the apparently contradictory aspects of a god of ascetics and a
god of the phallus. He is the deity of renouncers, particularly of the
many Shaiva sects that imitate him: Kapalikas, who carry skulls to reenact
the myth in which Shiva beheaded his father, the incestuous Brahma, and
was condemned to carry the skull until he found release in Benares;
Pashupatas, worshipers of Shiva Pashupati, Lord of Beasts; and
Aghoris, to whom nothing is horrible, yogis who eat ordure or flesh
in order to demonstrate their complete indifference to pleasure or pain.
Shiva is also the deity whose phallus (linga) is the central shrine
of all Shaiva temples and the personal shrine of all Shaiva householders;
his priapism is said to have resulted in his castration and the subsequent
worship of his severed member. In addition, Shiva is said to have appeared
on earth in various human, animal, and vegetable forms, establishing his
many local shrines.
To
his worshipers, Vishnu is all-pervasive and supreme; he is the god from
whose navel a lotus sprang, giving birth to the creator (Brahma). Vishnu
created the universe by separating heaven and earth, and he rescued it on
a number of subsequent occasions. He is also worshiped in the form of a
number of descentsavatars (see Avatar),
or, roughly, incarnations. Several of these are animals that recur in
iconography: the fish, the tortoise, and the boar. Others are the dwarf (Vamana,
who became a giant in order to trick the demon Bali out of the entire
universe); the man-lion (Narasimha, who disemboweled the demon
Hiranyakashipu); the Buddha (who became incarnate in order to teach a
false doctrine to the pious demons); Rama-with-an-Axe (Parashurama, who
beheaded his unchaste mother and destroyed the entire class of Kshatriyas
to avenge his father); and Kalki (the rider on the white horse, who will
come to destroy the universe at the end of the age of Kali). Most popular
by far are Rama (hero of the Ramayana) and Krishna (hero of the Mahabharata
and the Bhagavata-Purana), both of whom are said to be avatars of
Vishnu, although they were originally human heroes.
Along
with these two great male gods, several goddesses are the object of
primary devotion. They are sometimes said to be various aspects of the
Goddess, Devi. In some myths Devi is the prime mover, who commands the
male gods to do the work of creation and destruction. As Durga, the
Unapproachable, she kills the buffalo demon Mahisha in a great battle; as
Kali, the Black, she dances in a mad frenzy on the corpses of those she
has slain and eaten, adorned with the still-dripping skulls and severed
hands of her victims. The Goddess is also worshiped by the Shaktas,
devotees of Shakti, the female power. This sect arose in the medieval
period along with the Tantrists, whose esoteric ceremonies involved a
black mass in which such forbidden substances as meat, fish, and wine were
eaten and forbidden sexual acts were performed ritually. In many Tantric
cults the Goddess is identified as Krishna's consort Radha.
More
peaceful manifestations of the Goddess are seen in wives of the great
gods: Lakshmi, the meek, docile wife of Vishnu and a fertility goddess in
her own right; and Parvati, the wife of Shiva and the daughter of the
Himalayas. The great river goddess Ganga (the Ganges), also worshiped
alone, is said to be a wife of Shiva; a goddess of music and literature,
Sarasvati, associated with the Saraswati River, is the wife of Brahma.
Many of the local goddesses of IndiaManasha, the goddess of snakes, in
Bengal, and Minakshi in Maduraiare married to Hindu gods, while others,
such as Shitala, goddess of smallpox, are worshiped alone. These unmarried
goddesses are feared for their untamed powers and angry, unpredictable
outbursts.
Many
minor gods are assimilated into the central pantheon by being identified
with the great gods or with their children and friends. Hanuman, the
monkey god, appears in the Ramayana as the cunning assistant of
Rama in the siege of Lanka. Skanda, the general of the army of the gods,
is the son of Shiva and Parvati, as is Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of
scribes and merchants, the remover of obstacles, and the object of worship
at the beginning of any important enterprise. D.
Worship and Ritual The
great and lesser Hindu gods are worshiped in a number of concentric
circles of public and private devotion. Because of the social basis of
Hinduism, the most fundamental ceremonies for every Hindu are those that
involve the rites of passage (samskaras). These begin with birth
and the first time the child eats solid food (rice). Later rites include
the first haircutting (for a young boy) and the purification after the
first menstruation (for a girl); marriage; and the blessings upon a
pregnancy, to produce a male child and to ensure a successful delivery and
the child's survival of the first six dangerous days after birth (the
concern of Shashti, goddess of Six). Last are the funeral ceremonies
(cremation and, if possible, the sprinkling of ashes in a holy river such
as the Ganges) and the yearly offerings to dead ancestors. The most
notable of the latter is the pinda, a ball of rice and sesame seeds
given by the eldest male child so that the ghost of his father may pass
from limbo into rebirth. In daily ritual, a Hindu (generally the wife, who
is thought to have more power to intercede with the gods) makes offerings
(puja) of fruit or flowers before a small shrine in the house. She
also makes offerings to local snakes or trees or obscure spirits
(benevolent and malevolent) dwelling in her own garden or at crossroads or
other magical places in the village.
Many
villages, and all sizable towns, have temples where priests perform
ceremonies throughout the day: sunrise prayers and noises to awaken the
god within the holy of holies (the garbagriha, or
womb-house); bathing, clothing, and fanning the god; feeding the god
and distributing the remains of the food (prasada) to worshipers.
The temple is also a cultural center where songs are sung, holy texts read
aloud (in Sanskrit and vernaculars), and sunset rituals performed; devout
laity may be present at most of these ceremonies. In many temples,
particularly those sacred to goddesses (such as the Kalighat temple to
Kali, in Kolkata), goats are sacrificed on special occasions. The
sacrifice is often carried out by a special low-caste priest outside the
bounds of the temple itself. Thousands of simple local temples exist; each
may be nothing more than a small stone box enclosing a formless effigy
swathed in cloth, or a slightly more imposing edifice with a small tank in
which to bathe. In addition, India has many temples of great size as well
as complex temple cities, some hewn out of caves (such as Elephanta and
Ellora), some formed of great monolithic slabs (such as those at
Mahabalipuram), and some built of imported and elaborately carved stone
slabs (such as the temples at Khajuraho, Bhubaneshwar, Madurai, and
Kanjeevaram). On special days, usually once a year, the image of the god
is taken from its central shrine and paraded around the temple complex on
a magnificently carved wooden chariot (ratha).
Many
holy places or shrines (tirthas, literally fords), such as
Rishikesh in the Himalayas or Benares on the Ganges, are the objects of
pilgrimages from all over India; others are essentially local shrines.
Certain shrines are most frequently visited at special yearly festivals.
For example, Prayaga, where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers join at Allahabad,
is always sacred, but it is crowded with pilgrims during the Kumbha Mela
festival each January and overwhelmed by the millions who come to the
special ceremony held every 12 years. In Bengal, the goddess Durga's visit
to her family and return to her husband Shiva are celebrated every year at
Durgapuja, when images of the goddess are created out of papier-mâché,
worshiped for ten days, and then cast into the Ganges in a dramatic
midnight ceremony ringing with drums and glowing with candles. Some
festivals are celebrated throughout India: Diwali, the festival of lights
in early winter; and Holi, the spring carnival, when members of all castes
mingle and let down their hair, sprinkling one another with cascades of
red powder and liquid, symbolic of the blood that was probably used in
past centuries.
III.
History
The
basic beliefs and practices of Hinduism cannot be understood outside their
historical context. Although the early texts and events are impossible to
date with precision, the general chronological development is clear. A. Vedic
Civilization About
2000 BC, a highly developed civilization flourished in the
Indus Valley, around the sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. By about 1500 BC,
when the Indo-Aryan tribes invaded India, this civilization was in a
serious decline. It is therefore impossible to know, on present evidence,
whether or not the two civilizations had any significant contact. Many
elements of Hinduism that were not present in Vedic civilization (such as
worship of the phallus and of goddesses, bathing in temple tanks, and the
postures of yoga) may have been derived from the Indus civilization,
however. See Indus
Valley Civilization.
By
about 1500 BC, the Indo-Aryans had settled in the Punjab,
bringing with them their predominantly male Indo-European pantheon of gods
and a simple warrior ethic that was vigorous and worldly, yet also
profoundly religious. Gods of the Vedic pantheon survive in later
Hinduism, but no longer as objects of worship: Indra, king of the gods and
god of the storm and of fertility; Agni, god of fire; and Soma, god of the
sacred, intoxicating Soma plant and the drink made from it. By 900 BC
the use of iron allowed the Indo-Aryans to move down into the lush Ganges
Valley, where they developed a far more elaborate civilization and social
system. By the 6th century BC, Buddhism
had begun to make its mark on India and what was to be more than a
millennium of fruitful interaction with Hinduism. B.
Classical Hindu Civilization From
about 200 BC to AD 500 India was invaded by
many northern powers, of which the Shakas (Scythians) and Kushanas had the
greatest impact. This was a time of great flux, growth, syncretism, and
definition for Hinduism and is the period in which the epics, the Dharmashastras,
and the Dharmasutras took final form. Under the Gupta Empire
(320-550?), when most of northern India was under a single power,
classical Hinduism found its most consistent expression: the sacred laws
were codified, the great temples began to be built, and myths and rituals
were preserved in the Puranas.
C. Rise
of Devotional Movements In
the post-Gupta period, a less rigid and more eclectic form of Hinduism
emerged, with more dissident sects and vernacular movements. At this time,
too, the great devotional movements arose. Many of the sects that emerged
during the period from 800 to 1800 are still active in India today.
Most
of the bhakti movements are said to have been founded by
saintsthe gurus by whom the tradition has been handed down in unbroken
lineage, from guru to disciple (chela). This lineage, in addition
to a written canon, is the basis for the authority of the bhakti
sect. Other traditions are based on the teachings of such philosophers as
Shankara and Ramanuja. Shankara was the exponent of pure monism, or
nondualism (Advaita Vedanta), and of the doctrine that all that appears to
be real is merely illusion. Ramanuja espoused the philosophy of qualified
nondualism (Vishishta-Advaita), an attempt to reconcile belief in a
godhead without attributes (nirguna) with devotion to a god with
attributes (saguna), and to solve the paradox of loving a god with
whom one is identical.
The
philosophies of Shankara and Ramanuja were developed in the context of the
six great classical philosophies (darshanas) of India: the Karma
Mimamsa (action investigation); the Vedanta (end of the
Vedas), in which tradition the work of Shankara and Ramanuja should be
placed; the Sankhya system, which describes the opposition between an
inert male spiritual principle (purusha) and an active female
principle of matter or nature (prakriti), subdivided into the three
qualities (gunas) of goodness (sattva), passion (rajas),
and darkness (tamas); the Yoga system; and the highly metaphysical
systems of Vaisheshika (a kind of atomic realism) and Nyaya (logic, but of
an extremely theistic nature).
D.
Medieval Hinduism Parallel
with these complex Sanskrit philosophical investigations, vernacular songs
were composed, transmitted orally, and preserved locally throughout India.
They were composed during the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries in Tamil and
Kannada by the Alvars, Nayanars, and Virashaivas and during the 15th
century by the Rajasthani poet Mira Bai, in the Braj dialect. In the 16th
century in Bengal, Chaitanya founded a sect of erotic mysticism,
celebrating the union of Krishna and Radha in a Tantric theology heavily
influenced by Tantric Buddhism. Chaitanya believed that both Krishna and
Radha were incarnate within him, and he believed that the village of Vrindaban,
where Krishna grew up, had become manifest once again in Bengal. The
school of the Gosvamins, who were disciples of Chaitanya, developed an
elegant theology of aesthetic participation in the ritual enactment of
Krishna's life.
These
ritual dramas also developed around the village of Vrindaban itself during
the 16th century, and they were celebrated by Hindi poets. The first great
Hindi mystic poet was Kabir, who was said to be the child of a Muslim and
was strongly influenced by Islam, particularly by Sufism.
His poems challenge the canonical dogmas of both Hinduism and Islam,
praising Rama and promising salvation by the chanting of the holy name of
Rama. He was followed by Tulsidas, who wrote a beloved Hindi version of
the Ramayana. A contemporary of Tulsidas was Surdas, whose poems on
Krishna's life in Vrindaban formed the basis of the ras lilas,
local dramatizations of myths of the childhood of Krishna, which still
play an important part in the worship of Krishna in northern India. E. 19th
and 20th Centuries In
the 19th century, important reforms took place under the auspices of
Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and the sects of the Arya
Samaj and the Brahmo
Samaj. These movements attempted to reconcile traditional Hinduism
with the social reforms and political ideals of the day. So, too, the
nationalist leaders Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Mohandas Gandhi attempted to
draw from Hinduism those elements that would best serve their political
and social aims. Gandhi, for example, used his own brand of ahimsa,
transformed into passive resistance, to obtain reforms for the
Untouchables and to remove the British from India. Similarly, Bhimrao
Ramji Ambedkar revived the myth of the Brahmans who fell from their caste
and the tradition that Buddhism and Hinduism were once one, in order to
enable Untouchables to gain self-respect by reconverting to
Buddhism.
In
more recent times, numerous self-proclaimed Indian religious teachers have
migrated to Europe and the United States, where they have inspired large
followings. Some, such as the Hare Krishna sect founded by Bhaktivedanta,
claim to base themselves on classical Hindu practices. In India, Hinduism
thrives despite numerous reforms and shortcuts necessitated by the gradual
modernization and urbanization of Indian life. The myths endure in the
Hindi cinema, and the rituals survive not only in the temples but also in
the rites of passage. Thus, Hinduism, which sustained India through
centuries of foreign occupation and internal disruption, continues to
serve a vital function by giving passionate meaning and supportive form to
the lives of Hindus today. For information on religious violence in India,
See India.
Special thanks to the
Microsoft Corporation for their contribution to our site.
The information above came from Microsoft Encarta. Here is a
hyperlink to the Microsoft Encarta home page. http://www.encarta.msn.com
Spirituality
Home Page
"It deals with matters connected with Science, Spirituality,
Hinduism, Vedanta, Religion...This is a revised and enlarged version of my
monograph entitled SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY."
By Professor V. Krishnamurthy