Satyagraha for Conservation: Awakening the Spirit of Hinduism
…Until very recently, the role of our cultural and spiritual heritages in environmental protection and sustainable development was ignored by international bodies, national governments, policy planners, and even environmentalists. Many fear that bringing religion into the environmental movement will threaten objectivity, scientific investigation, professionalism, or democratic values. But none of these need be displaced in order to include the spiritual dimension in environmental protection. That dimension, if introduced in the process of environmental policy planning, administration, education, and law, could help create a selfconsciously moral society which would put conservation and respect for God’s creation first, and relegate individualism, materialism, and our modern desire to dominate nature in a subordinate place. Thus my plea for a definite role of religion in conservation and environmental protection.
From the perspective of many world religions, the abuse and exploitation of nature for immediate gain is unjust, immoral, and unethical. …[But] no culture has remained immune from human irreverence towards nature. How can we change the attitude of human beings towards nature? Are religions the answer?
I believe that religion can evoke a kind of awareness in persons that is different from scientific or technological reasoning. Religion helps make human beings aware that there are limits to their control over the animate and inanimate world and that their arrogance and manipulative power over nature can backfire. Religion instills the recognition that human life cannot be measured by material possessions and that the ends of life go beyond conspicuous consumption.
As a matter of fact, religion can provide at least three fundamental mainstays to help human beings cope in a technological society. First, it defends the individual’s existence against the depersonalizing effects of the techno-industrial process. Second, it forces the individual to recognize human fallibility and to combine realism with idealism. Third, while technology gives the individual the physical power to create or to destroy the world, religion gives the moral strength to grow in virtue by nurturing restraint, humility, and liberation from self-centeredness. Directly and indirectly, religion can be a powerful source for environmental conservation and protection. Thus, we need a strategy for conservation that does not ignore the powerful influence of religions, but instead draws from all religious foundations and cultures.
World religions, each in their own way, offer a unique set of moral values and rules to guide human beings in their relationship with the environment. Religions also provide sanctions and offer stiffer penalties, such as fear of hell, for those who do not treat God’s creation with respect. Although it is true that, in the recent past, religions have not been in the forefront of protecting the environment from human greed and exploitation, many are now willing to take up the challenge and help protect and conserve the environment. But their offer of help will remain purely rhetorical unless secular institutions, national governments, and international organizations are willing to acknowledge the role of religion in environmental study and education. And I believe that environmental education will remain incomplete until it includes cultural values and religious imperatives. For this, we require an ecumenical approach. While there are metaphysical, ethical, anthropological and social disagreements among world religions, a synthesis of the key concepts and precepts from each of them pertaining to conservation could become a foundation for a global environmental ethic. The world needs such an ethic.
The Religion and Environment Debate
In 1967, the historian, Lynn White, Jr., wrote an article in Science on the historical roots of the ecological crisis. According to White, what people do to their environment depends upon how they see themselves in relation to nature. White asserted that the exploitative view that has generated much of the environmental crisis, particularly in Europe and North America, is a result of the teachings of late medieval Latin Christianity, which conceived of humankind as superior to the rest of God’s creation and everything else as created for human use and enjoyment. He suggested that the only way to address the ecological crisis was to reject the view that nature has no reason to exist except to serve humanity. White’s proposition impelled scientists, theologians, and environmentalists to debate the bases of his argument that religion could be blamed for the ecological crisis.
In the course of this debate, examples from other cultures were cited to support the view that, even in countries where there is religious respect for nature, exploitation of the environment has been ruthless. Countries where Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Shintoism have been practiced were cited to support the criticism of Thomas Derr, among others, that “We are simply being gullible when we take at face value the advertisement for the ecological harmony of non-Western cultures.” Derr goes on to say: even if Christian doctrine had produced technological culture and its environmental troubles, one would be at a loss to understand the absence of the same result in equally Christian Eastern Europe. And conversely, if ecological disaster is a particularly Christian habit, how can one explain the disasters non-Christian cultures have visited upon their environments? Primitive cultures, Oriental cultures, classical cultures—all show examples of human dominance over nature which has led to ecological catastrophe. Overgrazing, deforestation and similar errors of sufficient magnitude to destroy civilizations have been committed by Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, North Africans, Persians, Indians, Aztecs, and even Buddhists, who are foolishly supposed by some Western admirers to be immune from this sort of thing.
This chapter challenges Derr’s assertion with respect to the role of the Hindu religion in the ecological crisis. We need to understand how a Hindu’s attitude to nature has been shaped by his religion’s view of the cosmos and creation. Such an exposition is necessary to explain the traditional values and beliefs of Hindus and hence what role Hindu religion once played with respect to human treatment of the environment. At the same time, we need to know how it is that this religion, which taught harmony with and respect for nature, and which influenced other religions such as Jainism and Buddhism, has been in recent times unable to sustain a caring attitude towards nature. What are the features of the Hindu religion which strengthen human respect for God’s creation, and how were these features repressed by the modern view of the natural environment and its resources?
The Sanctity of Life in Hinduism
The principle of the sanctity of life is clearly ingrained in the Hindu religion. Only God has absolute sovereignty over all creatures, thus, human beings have no dominion over their own lives or non-human life. Consequently, humanity cannot act as a viceroy of God over the planet, nor assign degrees of relative worth to other species. The idea of the Divine Being as the one underlying power of unity is beautifully expressed in the Yajurveda:
The loving sage beholds that Being, hidden in mystery, wherein the universe comes to have one home;
Therein unites and therefrom emanates the whole;
The Omnipresent One pervades souls and matter like warp and woof in created beings (Yajurveda 32.8).
The sacredness of God’s creation means no damage may be inflicted on other species without adequate justification. Therefore, all lives, human and nonhuman, are of equal value and all have the same right to existence. According to the Atharvaveda, the Earth is not for human beings alone, but for other creatures as well:
Born of Thee, on Thee move mortal creatures; Thou bearest them-the biped and the quadruped; Thine, O Earth, are the five races of men, for whom Surya (Sun), as he rises spreads with his rays the light that is immortal (Atharvaveda 12.1-15).
Srsti: God’s Creation
Hindus contemplate divinity as the one in many and the many in one. This conceptualization resembles both monotheism and polytheism. Monotheism is the belief in a single divine Person. In monotheistic creeds that Person is God. Polytheism, on the other hand, believes in the many; and the concept of God is not monarchical. The Hindu concept of God resembles monotheism in that it portrays the divinity as one, and polytheism in that it contemplates the divinity as one in many. Although there are many gods, each one is the Supreme Being. This attitude we may call nondualistic theism. …
All the Hindu scriptures attest to the belief that the creation, maintenance, and annihilation of the cosmos is completely dependent on the Supreme will. In the Gita, Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: “Of all that is material and all that is spiritual in this world, know for certain that I am both its origin and dissolution” (Gita 7.6). And the Lord says: again “The whole cosmic order is under me. By my will it is manifested again and again and by my will, it is annihilated at the end” (Gita 9.8). Thus, for ancient Hindus, both God and Prakriti (nature) was to be one and the same. While the Prajapati (as mentioned in Regveda) is the creator of sky, the earth, oceans, and all other species, he is also their protector and eventual destroyer. He is the only Lord of creation. Human beings have no special privilege or authority over other creatures; on the other hand, they have more obligations and duties.
Duties to Animals and Birds
The most important aspect of Hindu theology pertaining to treatment of animal life is the belief that the Supreme Being was himself incarnated in the form of various species. The Lord says: “This form is the source and indestructible seed of multifarious incarnations within the universe, and from the particle and portion of this form, different living entities, like demigods, animals, human beings and others, are created” (SrimadBhagavata Book I, Discourse III: 5). Among the various incarnations of God …He first incarnated Himself in the form of a fish, then a tortoise… As Rama he was closely associated with monkeys, and as Krishna he was always surrounded by the cows. Thus, other species are accorded reverence.
Further, the Hindu belief in the cycle of birth and rebirth where a person may come back as an animal or a bird gives these species not only respect, but also reverence. This provides a solid foundation for the doctrine of ahimsa—nonviolence against animals and human beings alike. Hindus have a deep faith in the doctrine of non-violence. Almost all the Hindu scriptures place strong emphasis on the notion that God’s grace can be received by not killing his creatures or harming his creation: “God, Kesava, is pleased with a person who does not harm or destroy other non-speaking creatures or animals” (Visnupurana 3.8.15). To not eat meat in Hinduism is considered both an appropriate conduct and a duty .Yajnavalkya Smriti warns of hell-fire (Ghora Naraka) to those who are the killers of domesticated and protected animals. …
By the end of the Vedic and Upanishadic period, Buddhism and Jainism came into existence, and the protection of animals, birds and vegetation was further strengthened by the various kings practicing these religions. These religions, which arose in part as a protest against the orthodoxy and rituals of Hindu religion, continued its precepts for environmental protection. The Buddhist emperor, Ashoka (273-236 BCE), promoted through public proclamations the planting and preservation of flora and fauna. Pillar Edicts, erected at various public places, expressed his concerns about the welfare of creatures, plants and trees and prescribed various punishments for the killing of animals, including ants, squirrels, and rats.
Flora in Hindu Religion
As early as in the time of Regveda, tree worship was quite popular and universal. The tree symbolized the various attributes of God to the Regvedic seers. Regveda regarded plants as having divine powers, with one entire hymn devoted to their praise, chiefly with reference to their healing properties (Regveda 10.97). During the period of the great epics and Puranas, the Hindu respect for flora expanded further. Trees were considered as being animate and feeling happiness and sorrow. It is still popularly believed that every tree has a Vriksadevata, or “tree deity,” who is worshipped with prayers and offerings of water, flowers, sweets, and encircled by sacred threads. Also, for Hindus, the planting of a tree is still a religious duty. Fifteen hundred years ago, the Matsya Purana described the proper ceremony for tree planting:
Clean the soil first and water it. Decorate trees with garlands … Offer prayer and oblation and then sprinkle holy water on trees. … After such worship the actual plantation should be celebrated. He who plants even one tree, goes directly to Heaven and obtains Moksha (Matsya Purana 59.159).
The cutting of trees and destruction of flora were considered a sinful act. Kautilya’s Arthasastra prescribed various punishments for destroying trees and plants. … The Hindu worship of trees and plants has been based partly on utility, but mostly on religious duty and mythology .Hindu ancestors considered it their duty to save trees; and in order to do that they attached to every tree a religious sanctity.
Pradushana: Pollution and Its Prevention in Hindu Scriptures
Hindu scriptures revealed a clear conception of the ecosystem. On this basis a discipline of environmental ethics developed which formulated codes of conduct (dharma) and defined humanity’s relationship to nature. An important part of that conduct is maintaining proper sanitation. In the past, this was considered to be the duty of everyone and any default was a punishable offence. …
Hindus considered cremation of dead bodies and maintaining the sanitation of the human habitat as essential acts. …
Water is considered by Hindus as a powerful media of purification and also as a source of energy. Sometimes, just by the sprinkling of pure water in religious ceremonies, it is believed purity is achieved. That is why, in Regveda, prayer is offered to the deity of water: “The waters in the sky, the waters of rivers, and water in the well whose source is the ocean, may all these sacred waters protect me” (Regveda 7.49.2). …
Still today, many rivers are considered sacred. Among these, the river Ganges is considered by Hindus as the most sacred and respectable. Disposal of human waste or other pollutants has been prohibited since time immemorial:
One should not perform these 4 acts near the holy waters of the river Ganga: i.e., remove excrement, brushing and gargling, removing cerumen from body, throwing hairs, dry garlands, playing in water, taking donations, performing sex, attachment with other sacred places, praising other holy places, washing clothes, throwing dirty clothes, thumping water and swimming (Pravascitta Tatva 1.535).
Persons doing such unsocial activities and engaging in acts polluting the environment were cursed: “ A person, who is engaged in killing creatures, polluting wells, and ponds, and tanks and destroying gardens, certainly goes to hell” (Padmapurana, Bhoomikhanda 96: 7-8).
Effectiveness of Hinduism in Conservation
The effectiveness of any religion in protecting the environment depends upon how much faith its believers have in its precepts and injunctions. It also depends upon how those precepts are transmitted and adapted in everyday social interactions. In the case of the Hindu religion, which is practised as dharma—way of life—many of its precepts became ingrained in the daily life and social institutions of the people. Three specific examples are given below to illustrate this point.
The Caste System and Sustainable Development
The Hindu religion is known for its elaborate caste system, which divides individuals among four main castes and several hundred sub-castes. Over the centuries, the system degenerated into a very rigid, hereditarily determined, hierarchical, and oppressive social structure, particularly for the untouchables and lower castes. But the amazing phenomenon is that it lasted for so many millennia even with centuries of domination by Islamic and Christian cultures.
One explanation by the ecologist, Madhav Gadgil, and the anthropologist, Kailash Malhotra, is that the caste system, as continued until the early decades of the twentieth century, was actually based on an ancient concept of sustainable development which disciplined the society by partitioning the use of natural resources according to specific occupations (or castes); and “created” the right social milieu in which sustainable patterns of resource use were encouraged to emerge. The caste system regulated the occupations that individuals could undertake. Thus, an “ecological space” was created in ancient Hindu society which helped to reduce competition among various people for limited natural resources. A system of “resource partitioning” emerged whereby the primary users of natural resources did not worry about encroachment from other castes. At the same time, these users also knew that if they depleted the natural resources in their own space, they would not survive economically or physically because no one would allow them to move on to other occupations.
Religious injunctions also created the psychological environment whereby each caste or sub-caste respected the occupational boundaries of the others. In a sense, the Hindu caste system can be seen as a progenitor of the concept of sustainable development.
But the system started malfunctioning during the British Raj when demands for raw materials for their fast-growing industrial economy had to be met by commercial exploitation of India’s natural resources. As traditional relationships between various castes started disappearing, competition and tension grew. The trend kept on accelerating in independent India, as each caste (or sub-caste) tried to discard its traditional role and seize eagerly any opportunity to land a job. When this happened, the ancient religious injunction for doing one’s prescribed duty within a caste system could no longer be maintained; this caused the disappearance of the concept of “ecological space” among Hindus. There is no doubt that the caste system also degenerated within and became a source of oppression; nevertheless, from an ecological spacing view point, the caste system played a key role in preserving India’s natural riches for centuries.
Bishnois: Defenders of the Environment
The Bishnois are a small community in Rajasthan, India, who practise a religion of environmental conservation. They believe that cutting a tree or killing an animal or bird is blasphemy. Their religion, an offshoot of Hinduism, was founded by Guru Maharaj Jambaji, who was born in 1450 CE in the Marwar area. When he was young he witnessed how, during a severe drought, people cut down trees to feed animals but when the drought continued, nothing was left to feed the animals, so they died. Jambaji thought that if trees are protected, animal life would be sustained, and his community would survive. He gave 29 injunctions and principal among them being a ban on the cutting of any green tree and killing of any animal or bird. About 300 years later, when the King of Jodhpur wanted to build a new palace, he sent his soldiers to the Bishnois area where trees were in abundance. Villagers protested, and when soldiers would not pay any attention to the protest, the Bishnois, led by a woman, hugged the trees to protect them with their bodies. As soldiers kept on killing villagers, more and more of the Bishnois came forward to honour the religious injunction of their Guru Maharaj Jambaji. The massacre continued until 363 persons were killed defending trees. When the king heard about this human sacrifice, he stopped the operation, and gave the Bishnois state protection for their belief.
Today, the Bishnois community continues to protect trees and animals with the same fervour. Their community is the best example of a true Hindu-based ritual defense of the environment in India, and their sacrifices became the inspiration for the Chipko movement of 1973.
The Chipko Movement
In March 1973, in the town of Gopeshwar in Chamoli district (Uttar Pradesh, India), villagers formed a human chain and hugged the earmarked trees to keep them from being felled for a nearby factory producing sports equipment. The same situation later occurred in another village when forest contractors wanted to cut trees under licence from the Government Department of Forests. Again, in 1974, women from the village of Reni, near Joshimath in the Himalayas, confronted the loggers by hugging trees and forced contractors to leave. Since then, the Chipko Andolan (the movement to hug trees) has grown as a grassroots ecodevelopment movement.
The genesis of the Chipko movement is not only in the ecological or economic background, but in religious belief. Villagers have noted how industrial and commercial demands have denuded their forests, how they cannot sustain their livelihood in a deforested area, and how floods continually play havoc with their small agricultural communities. The religious basis of the movement is evident in the fact that it is inspired and guided by women. Women have not only seen how their men would not mind destroying nature in order to get money while they had to walk miles in search of firewood, fodder and other grazing materials, but, being more religious, they also are more sensitive to injunctions such as ahimsa. In a sense, the Chipko movement is a kind of feminist movement to protect nature from the greed of men. In the Himalayan areas, the pivot of the family is the woman. It is the woman who worries most about nature and its conservation in order that its resources are available for her family’s sustenance. On the other hand, men go away to distant places in search of jobs, leaving women and old people behind. These women also believe that each tree has a Vriksadevata (tree god) and that the deity Van Devi (the Goddess of forests) will protect their family welfare. They also believe that each green tree is an abode of the Almighty God Hari.
The Chipko movement has caught the attention of others in India. For example, in Karnataka state, the Appiko movement began in September 1983, when 163 men, women, and children hugged the trees and forced the lumberjacks to leave. That movement swiftly spread to the adjoining districts. These people are against the kind of commercial felling of trees which clears the vegetation in its entirety. They do recognize the firewood needs of urban people (mostly poor) and therefore do not want a total ban on felling. However, they are against indiscriminate clearing and would like to see a consultative process established so that local people are able to participate in timber management.
These three examples are illustrative of the practical impact of Hinduism on conservation and sustainable development. While the effectiveness of the caste system to act as a resource partitioning system is no longer viable, the examples of Bishnois and Chipko/ Appiko are illustrative of the fact that when appeal to secular norms fails, one can draw on the cultural and religious sources for “forest satyagraha.” (“Satyagraha” means “insistence or persistence in search of truth.”) In this context, the term “forest satyagraha “ means “persistence in search of truth pertaining to the rights of trees.”
Loss of Respect for Nature
If such has been the tradition, philosophy, and ideology of Hindu religion, what then are the reasons behind the present state of environmental crisis? As we have seen, our ethical beliefs and religious values influence our behaviour towards others, including our relationship with all creatures and plant life. If, for some reason, these noble values become displaced by other beliefs which are either thrust upon the society or transplanted from another culture through invasion, then the faith of the masses in the earlier cultural tradition is shaken. As the foreign culture, language and system of administration slowly takes root and penetrates all levels of society, and as appropriate answers and leadership are not forthcoming from the religious leaders and Brahmans, it is only natural for the masses to become more inward-looking and self-centered. Under such circumstances, religious values which acted as sanctions against environmental destruction do not retain a high priority because people have to worry about their very survival and freedom; hence, respect for nature gets displaced by economic factors.
That, it seems, is what happened in India during the 700 years of foreign cultural domination. The ancient educational system which taught respect for nature and reasons for its preservation was no longer available. On the other hand, the imported culture was unable to replace the ancient Hindu religion; consequently, a conflict continued between the two value systems. The situation became more complex when, in addition to the Muslim culture, the British introduced Christianity and Western secular institutions and values. While it is too easy to blame these external forces for the change in attitudes of Hindus towards nature, nevertheless it is a fact that they greatly inhibited the religion from continuing to transmit ancient values which encourage respect and due regard for God’s creation.
The Hindu religion teaches a renunciation of worldly goods, and preaches against materialism and consumerism. Such teachings could act as a great source of strength for Hindu societies in their struggle to achieve sustainable development. I detect in countries like India and Nepal a revival of respect for ancient cultural values. Such a revival need not turn into fundamentalism; instead it could be based on the lessons learned from environmental destruction in the West, and on the relevant precepts enshrined in the Hindu scriptures. That should not cause any damage to the secularism now practised in India. As a matter of fact, this could develop into a movement whereby spiritual guidance is made available to the secular system of governance and socioeconomic interaction.
Hope for Our Common Future
Mahatma Gandhi warned that “nature had enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed.” Gandhi was a great believer in drawing upon the rich variety of spiritual and cultural heritages of India. His satyagraha movements were the perfect example of how one could confront an unjust and uncaring though extremely superior power. Similarly, the Bishnois, Chipko, and Appiko people are engaged in a kind of “forest satyagraha” today. Their movements could easily be turned into a common front—“satyagraha for the environment”—to be used against the forces of big government and big business. This could include such other movements as Mini Bachao Abhiyan (save the soil movement), Van Mahotsava (tree planting ceremony), Chetna March (public awareness march), Kalpavriksha (voluntary organization in Delhi for environmental conservation), and many others. The Hindu people are accustomed to suffering a great level of personal and physical hardships if such suffering is directed against unjust and uncaring forces. The minds of the Hindu people are slowly being awakened through the Chipko, Appiko, Bishnois, Chetna March, and other movements. Satyagraha for conservation could very well be a rallying point for the awakened spirit of Hinduism.
Hindu culture, in ancient and medieval times, provided a system of moral guidelines towards environmental preservation and conservation. Environmental ethics, as propounded by ancient Hindu scriptures and seers, was practised not only by common persons, but even by rulers and kings. They observed these fundamentals sometimes as religious duties, often as rules of administration or obligation for law and order, but either way these principles were properly knitted within the Hindu way of life. In Hindu culture, a human being is authorized to use natural resources, but has no divine power of control and dominion over nature and its elements. Hence, from the perspective of Hindu culture, abuse and exploitation of nature for selfish gain is unjust and sacreligious. Against the continuation of such exploitation, the only viable strategy appears to be satyagraha for conservation.
Sanātana Dharma a.k.a. Hinduism
The purpose of the following article is to address some fundamental concepts of Sanātana Dharma for both Hindus and non Hindus.
I. What is Hinduism?
Hinduism, more accurately referred to as Sanātana Dharma, is said to have originated in the Indian subcontinent over 5000 years ago. The term Hindu was a misnomer used for the people who lived beyond the Sindhu River, and eventually the term Hinduism was coined to denote the Hindu residents of the Indian subcontinent.
Sanātana literally means eternal, that which has no beginning or end. Therefore, by definition, it is beyond the constraints of time, and that is why it is said to be the oldest living religion in the world.
Dharma, translated as religion, righteousness or duty, is a word that is difficult to translate in English or any other language. It is all that and more.
Etymologically it is derived from the Sanskrit root dhṛ, which means to uphold. Dharma points to the essential Truth which supports life as we know it. At the same time, it is also shows us the path of righteousness to reach the goal. That is why Sanātana Dharma is referred to as “a way of life”.
In this article, the terms Sanātana Dharma and Hinduism/Hindu religion will be used interchangeably.
II. Who is the founder of Hindu religion?
As is evident from an understanding of the literal meaning of Sanātana Dharma, it is clear that it cannot be said to have a founder. That which is timeless cannot have a beginning or end. Over the ages there have been several teachers and scholars who have expounded on the timeless Truth in their own way, but none can be said to be the founder.
III. What is the aim of Hindu religion?
The aim of the Hindu religion is Self realization (Ātmajnāna) by each individual (jīva): to seek the Truth, to know the Truth, to be the Truth, to be a liberated soul (jīvanamukta) here and now.
IV. Who is a Hindu?
With over a billion Hindus worldwide, Hinduism is the world’s third largest religion after Christianity and Islam. While the majority of Hindus live in India, other countries with large Hindu populations include Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Guyana, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
From 1,700 people in 1900, the Hindu population in America grew to approximately 387,000 by 1980 and 1.1 million in 1997. Currently, the estimated U.S. population of Hindus of Indian origin is approximately 2 million (1.8 million Indian and 200,000 IndoCaribbean). Estimates are that there may also be as many as 1 million practicing American Hindus, not of Indian origin, in the U.S.
These are some of the fundamental beliefs that define a Hindu:
1. Hindus believe in the existence of a supreme allpervasive Being, who is both immanent and transcendent, both Creator and Unmanifest Reality.
2. Hindus accept the Vedas as the absolute scriptural authority.
3. Hindus believe in a code of ethics based on 4 pillars of righteous living as defined in Shrīmad Bhāgavatam: austerity (tapaḥ), purity (shaucham), compassion (dayā), and truthfulness (satyam).
4. Hindus believe in a prescribed method of living, with regard to its objectives, stages and milestones of life.
5. Hindus believe in specific tenets such as the law of cause and effect (karma), the theory of reincarnation (punarjanma), and the incarnation of the supreme Lord into the world (avatāra).
6. Hindus have prescribed methods of offering worship to the Lord.
1. What is the Hindu concept of God?
Before answering this question, it must be unequivocally clarified that for Hindus “God” is not a concept because a concept is a product of the intellect and God is beyond the limitations of the intellect. Having understood that, let us now try to understand who or what God is for the Hindus! From the absolute standpoint, God or the Supreme Being is beyond the plane of physical existence (transcendent), yet within it (immanent), simultaneously surpassing and pervading it.
In the ancient Vedic scriptures, the Supreme Being is referred to as Brahman, not to be confused with brāhmaṇa (knower of Brahman) or Brahmā (the Creator). This supreme, eternal, allpervading, allknowing, allpowerful, genderless, nameless, changeless substratum supports the entire world of relativity that is ever changing. He is the Creator, the process of creation and the created, without whom the multiplicity of the names and forms ceases to exist, but who exists independent of them. He is beyond the concepts of time and space. His attributes are absolute existence (sat), absolute knowledge (chit), and absolute bliss (ānanda).
With respect to creation, Hinduism also refers to the Supreme Being as Īshvara, the Trinity of Brahmā (the Creator), Vishṇu (the Sustainer), Shiva (the Dissolver). Besides these three, there are references to a multiplicity of other forms of God, which leads to the mistaken belief that Hindus worship many gods. It is important to note that Hindus are not polytheistic. The Supreme is “one without a second”, He can be worshipped as formless or in any form that the devotee’s heart desires. God is One, but His forms are infinite.
In the interest of simplicity, the masculine gender will be used to refer to the Supreme Being.
2. What is the Hindu code of ethics?
Hindus believe in a code of ethics based on 4 pillars of righteous living as defined in Shrīmad Bhāgavatam. These 4 pillars form the foundation of values that can be considered as “commandments”, if you will, for the Hindu way of righteous living:
Austerity (tapaḥ): Outer and inner selfcontrol of the sense organs, organs of action, the mind and intellect.
Purity (shaucham): Outer cleanliness and purity of the inner equipment of the mind and intellect.
Compassion (dayā): Love and show compassion and reverence to all life forms because they are the manifestation of the one Supreme Being. This is the basis for ahimsā, which is more than what is understood as physical nonviolence. It is not just abstaining from physical violence, but understanding that violence arises at the level of the mind before it can be expressed it words or deeds. It is not a passive “turning of the cheek”, but standing up for one’s beliefs without resorting to violence.
Truthfulness (satyam): In one of the Upanishads there is a categorical statement, with no qualification that tells us to speak the truth (satyam vada). At the same time, speaking the truth must pass the twin gateways of being necessary and kind.
Mahaṛshi Patanjali, the great exponent of Rāja Yoga, recommends that ten virtues should be practiced by all men. The first five can be considered as principles of selfrestraint (yama): nonviolence (ahimsā), truthfulness (satya), celibacy in thought, word and deed (brahmacharya), nonstealing (asteya), and noncovetousness (aparigṛaha). The other five virtues are religious observances (niyama): internal and external purity (shaucha) contentment (santosha), austerity (tapas), study of scriptures (svādhyāya) and surrender to the Lord (Īshvarapraṇidhāna).
The development of these values is indispensable for the spiritual seeker. Knowledge and practice of the truthful and righteous way of living, will lead to the purity and fearlessness that is a prerequisite to the absolute bliss of Selfrealization.
3. What are the main Hindu scriptures?
There is a vast and sometimes bewildering storehouse of Hindu scriptures available that can be classified into several categories. The 4 main ones are shruti (that which is heard), smṛti (that which is remembered), itihāsa (history), and purāṇa (the most ancient, yet evernew). Shruti and the smṛti are the two authoritative sources of Sanātana Dharma. It is important to note that the historical accounts given in Hindu scriptures are sometimes referred to as mythology. They are historical accounts of events that happened, not be classified or dismissed as mythology.
Shruti is comprised of the Vedas, which are eternal storehouse of knowledge revealed by the Lord Himself to the ancient seers (rishis). The subject matter of the Vedas is comprehensive, covering various rituals, forms of worship, and the knowledge of the supreme Truth. The Upanishads are the concluding portions of the Vedas. The teaching based on them is called Vedanta.
The smṛtis are based on the teachings of the Vedas. They lay down the laws which regulate Hindu national, social, family and individual obligations. There are eighteen main smṛtis, the most important are the ones given by Manu, Yājnavalkya and Parāshara.
Sage Vālmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata composed by Sage Vedavyāsa are the two main epics that are inspirational sagas of India’s glorious history. Rāmāyaṇa deals with the life and times of Lord Rāma, at the same time providing us with perfect role models. The Mahābhārata is set in the time of Lord Krishna, and through the historical account of the familial war between the royal cousins (Pānḍavas and Kauravas) brings home the ultimate triumph of righteousness. The Bhagavad Gītā, the dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield, is a poetic masterpiece that is a sublime combination of the essence of Vedic philosophy and the art of living it in our daily lives.
The purāṇas, also written by Sage Vedavyāsa, fall within the same class as the itihāsas. They have five characteristics: descriptions of primary creation, secondary creation, genealogy of sages and patriarchs, historical accounts of the reigns of all the Manus, and the genealogy and history of the solar and lunar dynasties. The purāṇas contain the essence of the Vedas. Their aim is to generate devotion to the Lord through concrete examples, lives o legendary saints, kings and great men, allegories and chronicles of great historical events. There are 18 main purāṇas: Shrīmad Bhāgavatam, Vishṇu Purāṇa and Linga Purāṇa to name only a few.
4. What is the “Hindu” way of life?
Hindus believe that life has a distinct purpose with a definite structure. In order to achieve this purpose, a specific blueprint that covers the objectives, stages of life and milestones has been clearly defined.
i. Objectives of life:
Dharma (righteous living): Following the path of righteousness in all pursuits. Hinduism is not a religion to be practiced only on the weekend. The spiritual and the secular are not two separate paths. It is important to note that dharma is mentioned as the first objective because observance of dharma must guide all activities in the secular world also.
Artha (material prosperity): Acquiring the material wealth for meeting our basic needs and security is recognized as a valid and legitimate pursuit as long as it is done within the boundaries of righteous living.
Kāma (enjoyment): Fulfillment of desire and enjoyment of the Lord’s glorious creation should be done at the right place and the right time, within prescribed limits.
Moksha (liberation): The ultimate goal of human life is to gain freedom from the misery caused by the cycle of pleasure and pain, birth and death.
ii. Stages of life:
Brahmacharya āshrama (student life): In order to achieve the 4 objectives of life, each individual should spend the first 25 years of life as a student, honing the spiritual and secular skills necessary success in the later stages of life. The emphasis is on selfcontrol and learning the principles of dharma.
Gṛhsta āshrama (family life): The student completes his education, and he settles down in both his family and professional life. This is the stage wherein one carries out one’s obligatory duties to the family, society and the nation. In order to do this, material prosperity and the enjoying the pleasures of family life within the framework of righteous living are to be achieved.
Vānaprastha āshrama (retirement): After leading a rich and fulfilling life in the world, it is now time to slow down, both personally and professionally. This is the third stage of life, traditionally spent in the forest (vana), a time to introspect, detach and prepare for the final stage and objective of life.
Sannyāsa (liberation): The fourth and final stage of life, wherein the detachment should be complete and liberation from all the cycle of birth and death (moksha) is achieved by the individual.
iii. Milestones:
Hindu scriptures prescribe 52 rites of passage (samskāras), of which 16 are considered more significant. They are meant to purify and sanctify the individual at every important milestone in his life from birth to death.
The first samskāra starts before conception and is performed after the wedding ceremony for the fulfillment of one’s parental obligations. At the nāmakaraṇa or the naming ceremony, the newborn child is given a name on the tenth, eleventh or twelfth day after birth. The celebration for the child being given solid food for the first time at the age of six months is call annaprāshana.
The most important ceremony which marks the beginning of the stage of youth is upanayana (investing of the sacred thread). The word upanayana literally means “bringing near”, and is considered the second or spiritual birth of the child.
Vivāha or marriage is another important milestone that marks the entry into the second stage of the householder’s life. Antyeshṭhi or the performance of the last rites is one of the final samskāras.
5. What are some of the tenets believed by Hindus?
i. The Law of Cause and Effect (karma):
The Sanskrit word karma literally means action or deed, which covers the spectrum of action starting with the intent and ending with the physical manifestation in speech or action. The law of karma states that we are the creators of our own destiny, “as we sow, so shall we reap”. Our destiny, if you will, is a result of our past actions that were done by us in this birth or past births. If this was all, then we would all be in caught in a trap with no hope for escape. That is not so. Karma is causality, not destiny. We are not hopelessly and helplessly caught in the web of destiny. The conscious choices and resulting actions in the present contain the seeds for the future. This law gives rise to the highest form of individual responsibility.
ii. Reincarnation (punarjanma):
Reincarnation is the natural process of birth, death and rebirth. At death we drop off the physical body and continue evolving in the inner worlds in our subtle bodies, until we again take birth in a different physical body. We are not the body in which we live, but the immortal soul which inhabits many bodies in its evolutionary journey through the cycle of life.
Reincarnation is also tied to the concept of karma since the effects of karma can span many lives. This provides us with the only logical explanation of individual differences, without which it would be hard to explain why two children of the same parents are different – one is in perfect health and another is physically challenged.
The process of reincarnation ceases when all our actions have been resolved. This is the highest state of liberation or moksha.
iii. Incarnation (avatāra):
In Sanskrit, the word avatāra is derived from a word that literally means “coming down” and denotes the descent of the Supreme in any form into the world for a specific purpose. In Shrīmad Bhagavad Gītā, Lord Krishna assures us that He manifests Himself whenever there is a decline of righteousness for the destruction of evil and the protection of the good, and the reestablishment of the righteous way of living in the world.
It has been stated in Shrīmad Bhāgavatam that there have been countless incarnations of the Lord. Lord Rāma and Lord Krishna are two of the very well known incarnations of Lord Vishṇu It is also important to note that all the incarnations are worshipped as divine manifestations of the Supreme Lord.
6. What are the Hindu methods of worship?
There are many forms of worship in the Hindu religion, but regardless of the methods, the main purpose is inner purification. Worship can be performed at home or in the temple. Ideally it is to be performed daily. Most Hindus have a place set aside for the Lord in their home where they offer prayers and worship the Lord before starting their day. Temples have a place of great importance for Hindu families, especially on special festival days.
For the Hindu, worship (pūjā) is direct personal communication with the Lord of his heart (ishṭadeva) through a picture or an idol. There are specific steps involved, similar to inviting, greeting and taking care of the needs of an honored guest. The offerings to the Lord are made with the acknowledgement: “I dedicate to You O Lord, what is truly Yours”.
This would be an appropriate point to address a very important and integral concept of Hindu worship, which is misunderstood and negatively presented by nonHindus. Are Hindus idol worshippers? Yes, Hindus are idol worshippers. Idols are used and revered, but they are symbols. The Hindus worship the ideal behind the idol, the ideal being abstract and formless; the idol is something concrete that is used to help the mind to focus. When the mind becomes steady and subtle, it can go beyond the form to understand abstract ideas such as: “That thou art” (tattvamasi). As the spiritual seeker advances in meditation, the form melts in the formless and the duality between the forms and formless ceases to exist.
A havan is a sacred purifying ritual (yajna) that invokes the divinity within by lighting a sacrificial fire, and offering clarified butter (ghee) and various other objects in the fire. Havans are performed for inner and outer purification of the environment.
The Hindu calendar has numerous festivals that give the Hindus an opportunity to celebrate with family and friends throughout the year. There are colorful festivals like the Festival of Colors (Holī), the Festival of Lights (Dīpāvali), the festivals celebrating the birth of incarnations like Lord Rāma and Lord Krishna, the seasonal festivals such as Makar Sankrānti. All these festivals are meant to bring us closer to the Lord by celebrating different aspects of His divinity.
V. Why and What? A few common Qs regarding Hindus:
1. What is meant by the symbol (OM)?
Om represents the primordial and powerful sound symbol of the Supreme Being, present at the creation of the universe, the original sound that contains all other sounds, all words, all languages and all mantras (a series of sounds that can both protect and transform). It consists of 3 syllables: AUM. The mouth is open when we pronounce “A”, partially closed when we pronounce “U”, and totally closed when pronouncing “M”. So the 3 syllables AUM cover the whole spectrum of sound.
These 3 syllables represent the three states of experience: waking, dream, and deep sleep. Beyond these 3 states represented by these 3 syllables is the fourth state (turīya avasthā), which corresponds to the silence that follows after the chanting of AUM, which is the substratum of the other three states. It is called praṇava, a Sanskrit word which means both controller of life force (prāna) and lifegiver (infuser of prāna). It is chanted at the beginning of all prayers and rituals, and is an aid to concentration and contemplation.
Om is a vast and subtle subject. For further study, please refer to Mānđūkya Upanishad.
2. Why are many Hindus vegetarian?
In India, a large majority of all Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs are vegetarian because of their fundamental belief in nonviolence, or ahimsā. The idea that every living creature has a right to live, and there should be respect and compassion for all forms of life is a cornerstone of Hindu philosophy. If that is the case, then what about plants, which are also alive? Hindu scriptures tell us that one’s right to survive should be accomplished by doing the least amount of harm. Eating fruits, vegetables, cereals, pulses, and dairy products does not involve taking a life in the same manner as killing an animal.
An important concept in Hindu religion is that all matter, animate and inanimate, possesses 3 basic qualities, with a preponderance of one: pure and balanced (sāttvika), dynamism and activity (rājasika), inertia and inactivity (tāmasika). Vegetarian food is considered sāttvika. Eating nonvegetarian food is considered detrimental to both physical and spiritual health, whereas eating vegetarian food is considered uplifting, leading to positive qualities and beneficial to the body.
Modern western science is now coming up with many reasons for adopting a vegetarian diet, the main one being the vegetarian diets are healthier. According to some statistics, 95% of former meateaters report that a switch to a vegetarian diet increases their energy, vitality, and wellbeing.
3. What is the caste system and untouchability?
What we consider today as the caste system is originally the ancient division of all human beings based on their aptitude. This was called varṇa, which literally means color. Based on the “color” of their skill set and talents, people were classified as workers, business people, rulers, law enforcers, lawmakers and priests. These classifications were not determined by birth, and allowed movement form one caste to the other.
For example, the Rāmāyaṇa was composed by Sage Vālmikī, who was once a lowcaste robber.
Originally, the socalled untouchables were not the shūdras or workers and artisans like the agricultural workers, service providers, cobblers etc. The untouchables were the criminals, who were guilty of committing heinous crimes against society. They were ostracized by society because of their actions not their birth.
As with any system, over time, the skills and aptitude based system, and exclusion of criminals became a rigid hereditary hierarchy. This distortion was a result of certain social practices and taboos gaining acceptance over time and countless invasions by foreign civilizations. It should be emphasized that there is no basis for a discriminatory caste system in ancient Hindu scriptures. Vedic and nonVedic scriptures advance the concept of equality of all mankind.
Modern India has outlawed caste discrimination, and there have been several Hindu spiritual leaders and organizations that have been actively engaged in eradicating caste based discrimination from Indian society.
4. What is the status of women in the Hindu religion?
One of the most profound attributes of Hinduism is the recognition and worship of the Divine as both masculine and feminine. The Supreme Being is beyond gender, but the manifestations are worshipped as both male and female. The female principle is the energy (shakti) of the Lord: Lord Shiva is inseparable from Mother Pārvati, as is Mother Lakshmi from Lord Viṣhṇu. Our scriptures clearly tell us that the mother is to be worshipped (matṛa devo bhava) and divinity resides where women are worshipped (yatra nāryastu pūjyante ramante tatra devataḥ). Many of the sages to whom the Vedas were revealed were women (rishikās). It is unfortunate, however, that the gender equality of the Vedic period and that of the Hindu view of the Divine has been corrupted because of the thousands of years of slavery and foreign domination by the Moguls and the British.
In the name of protection, their freedom was curtailed, and injustices such as child marriage, dowry, covering the face and body as a symbol of subordination (purdā). The feminist movement has gathered momentum in India and today women in India now participate in all activities such as education, politics, media, art and culture, service sectors, science and technology, etc.
5. What is the significance of svāstika in the Hindu religion?
The svāstika is a symbol of auspiciousness in the Hindu religion, not to be confused with the Nazi swastika which has different design and meaning. The word is derived from a Sanskrit word which literally means “wellbeing”. The four lines of the svāstika emanate from the center in the four cardinal directions, and represent the changing world supported on the substratum of an eternal, unchanging center.
6. What is meant by the traditional Hindu greeting: namaskāra or namaste?
The traditional Hindu greeting of namaskāram or namaste is done by reverently joining the palms at the chest and bowing the head. In Sanskrit, the word namaste means, “I bow to you”, acknowledging the presence of divinity in all beings.
7. What are the marks worn on the forehead by Hindus?
The marks worn on the forehead by Hindu men and women are a mark of auspiciousness. The materials used are sandalwood paste, sacred ashes or a red turmeric powder called kumkuma. The different sects apply the sacred marks (tilaka) in different shapes with different materials, but the significance is the same. The application is done at a point between the eyebrows, where the spiritual eye of intuition is located. It is done as a reminder to the seeker of his ultimate goal of Selfrealization.
The application of tilaka is also done as a reminder of vows. The most popular is the red bindī applied by married Hindu women as a symbol of their wedding vows.
The original name of Hinduism is Sanatan Dharm. ‘Sanatan’ means eternal and ‘Dharm’ means those actions, thoughts and practices that promote physical and mental happiness in the world and ensure God realization.
# Sanatan Dharm eternally exists in God, is revealed by God, describes the names, forms, virtues and the abodes of God, and reveals the true path of God realization for the souls of the world.
# There are three eternal existences: soul, maya, and God. Souls are unlimited in number, infinitesimal in size, Divine in quality but eternally under the bondage of maya. Soul does not belong to maya or the mayic world. It has a natural and eternal relationship with God.
# Maya is a lifeless power of God having three qualities: sattvic (pious), rajas (selfish) and tamas (impious) that represent its existence when it is evolved into the form of the universe. The universe has two dimensions — material and celestial. The Divine dimension of God lies beyond the field of maya.
# Hinduism is monotheistic. There is one single God Who represents the various aspects of His unlimited Blissful charm through many forms such as Krishn, Vishnu, Shiv and Shakti and the impersonal aspect. Out of these Krishn is the absolute supreme form of God which includes all others. God is an eternal, omnipresent, all-Blissful, all-Gracious, all-kind and all-loving Divine personality.
# Hinduism explains that the soul is eternally yearning for perfect, unlimited and everlasting happiness. But the soul is mistakenly searching for this happiness in the mayic world where one finds only transitory pleasures followed by disappointments.
# The illusion of finding perfect happiness in the mayic world is the cause of soul’s reincarnation. The soul, since uncountable lifetimes, has been taking birth into the 8.4 million species of life where it undergoes the consequences of actions (karmas). Perfect happiness is neither a feature of the mind nor a nature or quality of the mayic world. It can only be attained by God realization.
# The human form of life is the only chance for a soul to attain God realization, if one understands the disappointing nature of the illusive attractions and attachments of the world and sincerely proceeds on the path of God realization by completely trusting in the causeless kindness of God.
# The aim of human life is to attain God realization. The means of God realization is bhakti and God’s Grace.
# Humble, loving and wholehearted submission to a personal form of God is called bhakti. Bhakti evokes the Grace of God and ensures God realization. Upon God realization the soul is released from the bondage of maya and achieves unlimited Divine Bliss forever.
# Sattvic practices such as austerity, intellectual study of Vedant, practice of renunciation and meditation, on their own, can only evolve the sattvic quality of person’s mind to a certain extent. They can never be the means of God realization. When one begins to do bhakti, these practices, with the Divine uniting factor of bhakti, are then classified as karm yog or gyan yog. Only when these practices are performed with bhakti, can they become the means of God realization, because only bhakti unfolds God’s Grace.
# A personality who has the Divine knowledge of all the scriptures and who is God realized is needed to guide, protect and Grace the souls on their path to God realization. Such a Divine personality is called Guru. It is the Guru who imparts the Divine vision or Divine love of God to a dedicated soul when they reach a stage of complete surrender through bhakti. Divine personalities are always present on the earth planet to guide the souls.
# In addition to sending Divine personalities from His abode to the earth planet, God Himself descends on the earth planet from time to time to establish and protect Sanatan Dharm, to reveal His absolute Blissfulness through His Divine actions (leelas) and to show the path of bhakti to the souls. The descension of God into the material (mayic) realm is called avatar in Sanskrit.
# The Divine scriptures of Hinduism include the Vedas, the Upvedas, the Vedangas, the Smritis, the Darshan Shastras, the Upnishads, the Puranas, the Itihas (Ramayan and Mahabharat), the Gita, the Bhagwatam and the writings of Jagadgurus, acharyas, and Saints.
# The vast collection of Bhartiya scriptures are a systematic line of teachings. They provide the guidelines for all kinds of people, having varying levels of purity of mind and receptivity for God, and lead them towards God realization.
Do you know…
# The Bhartiya (Hindu) scriptures also reveal the scientific axioms that are valuable in the research and development of modern science. They reveal the sequence of the procedure of creation of the universe, the exact model and working of the universe, as well as the science of defense, medicine and aviation, whatever is required by the society for daily living.
# That Bhartiya scripture — the Upnishads and the Bhagwatam give a detail description of 12 step-wise phases of creation of the universe and the exact calculations of the age of sun and earth planet.
# That the Valmiki Ramayan, relating the history of Bhagwan Ram, was written 18.144 million years ago.
# That Bhagwan Krishn descended on the earth in 3228 BC and the Mahabharat war took place in 3139 BC.
# That Sanskrit is the mother of all the languages and it has been in its perfect form since its introduction in the world.
The ancient Persians, who occupied the lands west to the Indus River called the whole country lying across the Indus River Sindh and its inhabitants Sindhus, a designation that was later taken over by the Greeks who succeeded them and resulted in the now commonly used designations of India and Indians. The Muslims, who began invading India from the eighth century onward, used the term Hindu as a generic designation for non-Muslim Indians, identical with “idol worshipers.” In the 1830s Englishmen, writing about the religions of India, added -ism to Hindu and coined the term Hinduism, making an abstract and generic entity out of the many diverse and specific traditions of the Hindus.
While Hindus have appropriated the designation Hindu and use it today to identify themselves over against Muslims or Christians, they have expressed reservations with regard to the designation of Hinduism as the “religion of the Hindus.” They see a certain disrespect in the -ism suffix and emphasize that the Hindu dharma is more comprehensive than the Western term religion: it designates an entire cultural tradition rather than only a set of beliefs and rituals. With these reservations in mind, we are going to use the widely introduced term Hinduism in describing the majority religio-cultural tradition of India in spite of the impossibility of defining it in any precise manner.
The Vedas, the oldest literary monument of the Indian people, a collection of hymns composed in an archaic Sanskrit, are universally considered the foundational scriptures of Hinduism. The authors of these hymns called themselves Āryans, “Noble People.” The date of the composition of these hymns and the original habitat of the Aryans have become one of the most contested issues in Indian studies. The polemical literature has reached such dimensions and the emotions have been raised to such heights that only a sketch of the controversy and some hints about its ideological background can be given in this place.
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| Prehistoric rock drawings: Bhīmbhetka (Maharashtra) |
Around 1860 a group of European Sanskritists suggested that the best explanation for the many common features of what later were called the Indo-European languages was the assumption of an invasion of a band of Aryan warriors, who till then had been living somewhere between Central Asia and Western Europe, into India. Did not the Ṛgveda, the oldest Sanskrit source, describe the battles, which the Āryas, under their leader Indra, the “fortdestroyer,” fought against the Dasyus, whose land they occupied? Making the self-designation ārya (noble) a racial attribute of the putative invaders, every textbook on Indian history began with the “Āryan invasion” of northwestern India, the struggle between the “fair-skinned, blonde, blue-eyed, sharp-nosed Aryans on horse chariots” against the “black-skinned, snub-nosed indigenous Indians.”
This putative “Aryan invasion” was dated ca. 1500 bce, and the composition of the hymns of the Ṛgveda was fixed between 1400 and 1200 bce. The Aryan invasion theory was conceived on pure speculation on the basis of comparative philology, without any archaeological or literary evidence to support it. It was resisted as unfounded by some scholars from the very beginning. In the light of recent archaeological finds, it has become less and less tenable. Nevertheless, the Aryan invasion theory, recently downgraded to an Aryan migration theory, is still widely defended and forms part of many standard histories of Hinduism. In the following, the arguments pro and con will be presented, and it will be left to the reader to judge the merits of the case.
THE ARYAN INVASION THEORY
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European attempts to explain the presence of Hindus in India were connected with the commonly held biblical belief that humankind originated from one pair of humans—Adam and Eve, created directly by God in 4005 bce—and that all the people then living on the earth descended from one of the sons of Noah, the only family of humans to survive the Great Flood (dated 2350 bce). The major problem associated with the discovery of new lands seemed to be to connect peoples not mentioned in chapter 10 of Genesis, “The Peopling of the Earth,” with one of the biblical genealogical lists.
With regard to India this problem was addressed by the famous Abbé Dubois (1770–1848), whose long sojourn in India (1792-1823) enabled him to collect a large amount of interesting materials concerning the customs and traditions of the Hindus. His (French) manuscript was bought by the British East India Company and appeared in an English translation under the title Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies in 1897 with a prefatory note by the Right Honorable F. Max Müller. Addressing the origins of the Indian people, Abbé Dubois, loath “to oppose [his] conjectures to [the Indians’] absurd fables,” categorically stated: “It is practically admitted that India was inhabited very soon after the Deluge, which made a desert of the whole world. The fact that it was so close to the plains of Sennaar, where Noah’s descendants remained stationary so long, as well as its good climate and the fertility of the country, soon led to its settlement.” Rejecting other scholars’ opinions that linked the Indians to Egyptian or Arabic origins, he ventured to suggest them “to be descendants not of Shem, as many argue, but of Japhet.” He explains: “According to my theory they reached India from the north, and I should place the first abode of their ancestors in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus.” The reasons he provides to prove his theory are utterly unconvincing—but he goes on to build the rest of his “migration theory” (not yet an Aryan invasion theory) on this shaky foundation.
When the affinity between many European languages and Sanskrit became a commonly accepted notion, scholars almost automatically concluded that the Sanskrit-speaking ancestors of the present-day Indians had to be found somewhere halfway between India and the western borders of Europe— Northern Germany, Scandinavia, southern Russia, the Pamir—from which they invaded the Punjab. When the ruins of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa were discovered in the early twentieth century, it was assumed that these were the cities the Aryan invaders destroyed.
In the absence of reliable evidence, they postulated a time frame for Indian history on the basis of conjectures. Considering the traditional dates for the life of Gautama, the Buddha, as fairly well established in the sixth century bce, supposedly pre-Buddhist Indian records were placed in a sequence that seemed plausible to philologists. Accepting on linguistic grounds the traditional claims that the Ṛgveda was the oldest Indian literary document, Max Müller, a greatly respected authority in Veda studies, allowing a time span of two hundred years each for the formation of every class of Vedic literature and assuming that the Vedic period had come to an end by the time of the Buddha, established the following sequence that was widely accepted:
* Ṛgveda, ca. 1200 bce * Yajurveda, Sāmaveda, Atharvaveda, ca. 1000 bce * Brāhmaṇas, ca. 800 bce * Āraṇyakas, Upaniṣads, ca. 600 bce
Max Müller himself conceded the purely conjectural nature of the Vedic chronology, and in his last work, The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, published shortly before his death, admitted: “Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns, whether 1500 or 15000 bc, they have their own unique place and stand by themselves in the literature of the world.”
There were already in Max Müller’s time Western scholars, such as Moriz Winternitz, and Indians, like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who disagreed with his chronology and postulated a much earlier date for the Ṛgveda. Indian scholars pointed out all along that there was no reference in the Veda to a migration of the Āryas from outside India, that all the geographical features mentioned in the Ṛgveda were those of northwestern India and that there was no archaeological evidence whatsoever for the Aryan invasion theory. On the other side, there were references to constellations in Vedic works whose time frame could be reestablished by commonly accepted astronomical calculations. The dates arrived at, however, 4500 bce for one observation in the Ṛgveda, 3200 bce for a date in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, seemed far too remote to be acceptable, especially if one assumed, as many nineteenth-century scholars did, that the world was only about six thousand years old and that the flood had taken place only 4500 years ago.
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| Seals and figurines from the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilization |
Present-day defenders of the Aryan invasion/migration theory are displaying what they believe to be an impenetrable armor of philological detail research: in addition to the Ṛgveda and the Avesta, whole libraries of literary documents pertaining to dozens of languages are marshalled and “laws of scientific linguistics” are adduced to overrun any opposition. The scholarly debate has largely degenerated into an ideological battle. The defenders of the Aryan invasion theory call everyone who is not on their side “fundamentalist Hindu,” “revisionist,” “fascist,” and worse, whereas the defenders of the indigenous origin of the Veda accuse their opponents of entertaining “colonialistmissionary” and “racist-hegemonial” prejudices.
Many contemporary Indian scholars, admittedly motivated not only by academic interests, vehemently reject what they call the “colonial-missionary Aryan invasion theory.” They accuse its originators of superimposing—for a reason—the purpose and process of the colonial conquest of India by the Western powers in modern times onto the beginnings of Indian civilization: as the Europeans came to India as bearers of a supposedly superior civilization and a higher religion, so the original Aryans were assumed to have invaded a country that they subjected and on which they imposed their culture and their religion.
As the heat around the Aryan invasion theory is rising, it is also emerging that both sides return to positions that were taken by opposing camps more than a hundred years ago. The difference between then and now is the evidence offered by a great many new archaeological discoveries, which clearly tip the balance in favor of the “Indigenists.”
ARGUMENTS FOR AN INDIAN INDIGENOUS ORIGIN OF THE VEDA.
One would expect the proponents of an event to provide proof for its happening rather than demanding proofs for a non-event. The controversy about the Aryan invasion of India has become so bizarre that its proponents simply assume it to have taken place and demand that its opponents offer arguments that it had not taken place. In the following a number of reasons will be adduced to attest to the fact that the Aryan invasion of India—assumed by the invasionists to have taken place around 1500 bce—did not take place.
1. The Aryan invasion theory is based purely on linguistic conjectures, which are unsubstantiated.
2. The supposed large-scale migrations of Aryan people in the second millennium bce first into western Asia and then into northern India (by 1500 bce) cannot be maintained in view of the established fact that the Hittites were in Anatolia already by 2200 bce and the Kassites and Mitanni had kings and dynasties by 1600 bce.
3. There is no hint of an invasion or of large-scale migration in the records of ancient India: neither in the Vedas, in Buddhist or Jain writings, nor in Tamil literature. The fauna and flora, the geography, and the climate described in the Ṛgveda are those of northern India.
4. There is a striking cultural continuity between the archaeological artifacts of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization and later phases of Indian culture: a continuity of religious ideas, arts, crafts, architecture, and system of weights and measures.
5. The archaeological finds of Mehrgarh dated ca. 7500 bce (copper, cattle, barley) reveal a culture similar to that of the Vedic Indians. Contrary to former interpretations, the Ṛgveda reflects not a nomadic but an urban culture.
6. The Aryan invasion theory was based on the assumption that a nomadic people in possession of horses and chariots defeated an urban civilization that did not know horses and that horses are depicted only from the middle of the second millennium onward. Meanwhile archaeological remains of horses have been discovered in Harappan and pre-Harappan sites; drawings of horses have been found in Paleolithic caves in central India. Horse drawn war chariots are not typical for nomadic breeders but for urban civilizations.
7. The racial diversity found in skeletons in the cities of the Indus civilization is the same as in today’s India; there is no evidence of the coming of a new race.
8. The Rgveda describes a river system in North India that is pre-1900 bce in the case of the Sarasvatī River and pre-2600 bce in the case of the Dṛṣadvatī River. Vedic literature shows a population shift from the Sarasvatī (Ṛgveda) to the Ganges (Brāhmaṇas and Purāṇas) for which there is also evidence in archaeological finds.
9. The astronomical references in the Ṛgveda are based on a Pleiades-Kṛttika calendar of ca. 2500 bce. Vedic astronomy and mathematics were well-developed sciences: these are not features of the culture of a nomadic people.
10. The Indus cities were not destroyed by invaders but deserted by their inhabitants because of desertification of the area. Strabo (Geography XV.1.19) reports that Aristobulos had seen thousands of villages and towns deserted because the Indus had changed its course.
11. The battles described in the Ṛgveda were not fought between invaders and natives but between people belonging to the same culture.
12. Excavations in Dvārakā have led to the discovery of a site larger than Mohenjo Daro, dated ca. 1500 bce with architectural structures, use of iron, and a script halfway between Harappan and Brahmī. Dvārakā has been associated with Kṛṣṇa and the end of the Vedic period.
13. There is a continuity in the morphology of scripts: Harappan— Brahmī—Devanāgarī.
14. Vedic ayas, formerly translated as “iron,” probably meant copper or bronze. Iron was found in India before 1500 bce in Kashmir and Dvārakā.
15. The Purāṇic dynastic lists, with over 120 kings in one Vedic dynasty alone, date back to the third millennium bce. Greek accounts tell of Indian royal lists going back to the seventh millennium bce.
16. The Ṛgveda shows an advanced and sophisticated culture, the product of a long development, “a civilization that could not have been delivered to India on horseback.” (160)
17. Painted gray ware culture in the western Gangetic plains, dated ca. 1100 bce, has been found connected to earlier Indus Valley black and red ware.
It would be strange indeed if the Vedic Indians had lost all recollection of such a momentous event as the Aryan invasion in supposedly relatively recent times—much more recent, for instance, than the migration of Abraham and his people, which is well attested and frequently referred to in the Hebrew Bible.
INDUS CULTURE OR SARASVATĪ CIVILIZATION?
The Sarasvatī is frequently praised as the mightiest of all rivers, as giving nourishment to the people and, unique among them, flowing pure from the mountains to the ocean. It is the most often mentioned river in the Ṛgveda—and it no longer exists. Its absence led to the suggestion that it might have been a symbolic rather than a real river, an idea supported by the later identification of Sarasvatī with the Goddess of Wisdom and Learning. More recent satellite photography and geological investigations have helped to reconstruct the ancient riverbed of the Sarasvatī and also established that it had dried out completely by 1900 bce due to tectonic shifts. Of the 2,600 archaeological sites so far discovered that were connected with the Indus civilization, over 1,500 were found located on the Sarasvatī River basin, including settlements that exceeded in size the by now famous Indus sites of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. It is hardly meaningful to assume that the invading Vedic Aryans established thousands of settlements on its banks four centuries after the Sarasvatī had dried out.
When the first remnants of the ruins of the so-called Indus civilization came to light in the 1920s, the proponents of the Aryan invasion theory believed to have found the missing archaeological evidence: here were the “mighty forts” and the “great cities” that the warlike Indra of the Ṛgveda was said to have conquered and destroyed. Then it emerged that nobody had destroyed these cities and no evidence of wars of conquest came to light: floods and droughts had made it impossible to sustain large populations in the area, and the people of Mohenjo Daro, Harappa, and other places had migrated to more hospitable areas. Ongoing archaeological research has not only extended the area of the Indus civilization but has also shown a transition of its later phases to the Gangetic culture. Archaeo-geographers have established that a drought lasting two to three hundred years devastated a wide belt of land from Anatolia through Mesopotamia to northern India around 2300 bce to 2000 bce.
Based on this type of evidence and extrapolating from the Vedic texts, a new theory of the origins of Hinduism is emerging. This new theory considers the Indus valley civilization as a late Vedic phenomenon and pushes the (inner Indian) beginnings of the Vedic age back by several thousands of years. Instead of speaking of an Indus Valley civilization the term Sarasvatī-Sindhu civilization has been introduced, to designate the far larger extent of that ancient culture. One of the reasons for considering the Indus civilization “Vedic” is the evidence of town planning and architectural design that required a fairly advanced algebraic geometry—of the type preserved in the Vedic Śulvasūtras. The widely respected historian of mathematics A. Seidenberg came to the conclusion, after studying the geometry used in building the Egyptian pyramids and the Mesopotamian citadels, that it reflected a derivative geometry—a geometry derived from the Vedic Śulvasūtras. If that is so, then the knowledge (“Veda”) on which the construction of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro is based cannot be later than that civilization itself.
While the Ṛgveda has always been held to be the oldest literary document of India and was considered to have preserved the oldest form of Sanskrit, Indians have not taken it to be the source for their early history. Itihāsa-Purāṇa served that purpose. The language of these works is more recent than that of the Vedas, and the time of their final redaction is much later than the fixation of the Vedic canon. However, they contain detailed information about ancient events and personalities that form part of Indian history. The Ancients, like Herodotus, the father of Greek historiography, did not separate story from history. Nor did they question their sources but tended to juxtapose various information without critically sifting it. Thus we cannot read Itihāsa-Purāṇa as the equivalent of a modern textbook of Indian history but rather as a storybook containing information with interpretation, facts and fiction. Indians, however, always took genealogies quite seriously, and we can presume that the Purāṇic lists of dynasties, like the lists of guru-paramparās in the Upaniṣads, relate the names of real rulers in the correct sequence. On these assumptions we can tentatively reconstruct Indian history to a time around 4500 bce.
G. P. Singh defends the historical accuracy of the Purāṇic dynastic lists and calls the Purāṇas “one of the most important traditions of historiography in ancient India.” These lists he says “disprove the opinion that the ancient Indians (mainly the Hindus) had no sense of history and chronology.”
A key element in the revision of ancient Indian history was the recent discovery of Mehrgarh, a settlement in the Hindukush area, that was continuously inhabited for several thousand years from ca. 7000 bce onward. This discovery has extended Indian history for thousands of years before the fairly well dateable Indus civilization.
Nobody has as yet interpreted the religious significance of the prehistoric cave paintings at Bhīmbetka (from ca. 100,000 to ca. 10,000 bce), which were discovered only in 1967, and we do not know whether and how the people who created these are related to present-day populations of India. These show, amongst other objects, horses clearly readied for riding—according to the “Invasionists” horse breeding and horse riding were an innovations that the Aryans introduced to India after 1500 bce.
Civilizations, both ancient and contemporary, comprise more than literature. It cannot be assumed that the Vedic Aryans, who have left a large literature that has been preserved till now, did not have any material culture that would have left visible traces. The only basis on which Indologists in the nineteenth century established their views of Vedic culture and religion were the texts that they translated from Ancient Sanskrit.
Traditionally trained philologists, that is, grammarians, are generally not able to understand technical language and the scientific information contained in the texts they study. Consider today’s scientific literature. It abounds with Greek and Latin technical terms, it contains an abundance of formulas, composed of Greek and Hebrew letters. If scholars with only a background in the classical languages were to read such works, they might be able to come up with some acceptable translations of technical terms into modern English, but they would hardly be able to really make sense of most of what they read, and they certainly would not extract the information that the authors of these works wished to convey through their formulas to people trained in their specialties. Analogous to the observations, which the biologist Ernst Mayr made with regard to translations of Aristotle’s works, namely, that sixteenth-century humanists misunderstood and mistranslated his scientific terminology, we must also expect new insights to come out from new translations of ancient Indian technical texts that are more adequate than those made by nineteenth century European philologists.
The admission of some of the top scholars (like Geldner, who in his translation of the Ṛgveda—deemed the best so far—declares many passages “darker than the darkest oracle,” or Gonda, who considered the Ṛgveda basically untranslatable) of being unable to make sense of a great many Vedic texts—and the refusal of most to go beyond a grammatical and etymological analysis of these—indicates a deeper problem. The ancient Indians were not only poets and literateurs, but they also had their practical sciences and their technical skills, their secrets and their conventions that are not self-evident to someone who does not share their world. Some progress has been made in deciphering technical Indian medical and astronomical literature of a later age, in reading architectural and arts-related materials. However, much of the technical meaning of the oldest Vedic literature still eludes us. It would be enormously helpful in the question of the relation between the Ṛgveda and the Indus civilization if we could read the literary remnants of the latter: thousands of what appear to be brief texts incised on a very large number of soapstone seals and other objects, found over large areas of north-western India and also in Western Asia. In spite of many claims made by many scholars who laboured for decades on the decipherment of the signs, nobody has so far been able to read or translate these signs.
THE ṚGVEDA—A CODE?
Computer scientist Subhash Kak believes to have rediscovered the “Vedic Code,” on the strength of which he extracts from the structure as well as the words and sentences of the Ṛgveda considerable astronomical information that its authors supposedly embedded in it. The assumption of such encoded scientific knowledge would make it understandable why there was such insistence on the preservation of every letter of the text in precisely the sequence the original author had set down. One can take certain liberties with a story, or even a poem, changing words, transposing lines, adding explanatory matter, shortening it, if necessary, and still communicate the intentions and ideas of the author. However, one has to remember and reproduce a scientific formula in precisely the same way it has been set down by the scientist, or it would not make sense at all. While the scientific community can arbitrarily adopt certain letter equivalents for physical units or processes, once it has agreed on their use, one must obey the conventions for the sake of meaningful communication.
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| Nāga: Khajurāho |
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Even a nonspecialist reader of ancient Indian literature will notice the effort made to link macrocosm and microcosm, astronomical and physiological processes, to find correspondences between the various realms of beings and to order the universe by establishing broad classifications. Vedic sacrifices—the central act of Vedic culture—were to be offered on precisely built, geometrically constructed altars and to be performed at astronomically exactly established times. It sounds plausible to expect a correlation between the numbers of bricks prescribed for a particular altar and the distances between stars observed whose movement determined the time of the offerings to be made. Subhash Kak has advanced a great deal of fascinating detail in that connection in his essays on the astronomy of the Vedic altar. He believes that while the Vedic Indians possessed extensive astronomical knowledge that they encoded in the text of the Ṛgveda, the code was lost in later times and the Vedic tradition was interrupted.
INDIA, THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION?
Based on the early dating of the Ṛgveda (ca. 4000 bce) and on the strength of the argument that Vedic astronomy and geometry predates that of the other known ancient civilizations, some scholars have made the daring suggestion that India was the “cradle of civilization.” They link the recently discovered early European civilization (which predates ancient Sumeria and ancient Egypt by over a millennium) to waves of populations moving out or driven out from northwest India. Later migrations, caused either by climatic changes or by military events, would have brought the Hittites to western Asia, the Iranians to Afghanisthan and Iran, and many others to other parts of Eurasia. Such a scenario would require a complete rewriting of ancient world history—especially if we add the claims, apparently substantiated by some material evidence, that Vedic Indians had established trade links with Central America and East Africa before 2500 bce. No wonder that the “new chronology” arouses not only scholarly controversy but emotional excitement as well. Much more hard evidence will be required to fully establish it, and many claims may have to be withdrawn. But there is no doubt that the “old chronology” has been discredited and that much surprise is in store for students not only of ancient India, but of the ancient World as a whole.
It is hard to define Hinduism. It is not a religion in a narrow sense associated with the word religion. Its comprehensiveness bypasses the human mind. No single approach is able to enunciate its basic concept and philosophy. In a very broad sense Hinduism is a way of life. From time immemorial indigenous religious consciousness has continuously enriched it. It has been influenced by the aspirations and needs of the human society from time to time. It embraces the indigenous religions of India which have been modified almost continuously with the development of ideas and the needs of local communities. As a result Hinduism is a mixture of sects, cults and doctrines which have had a profound effect on Indian culture. In Spite of this diversity, there are few of its aspects which do not rely in some way or the other on the authority of Indian religious literature – the Vedas, the Epics and the Puranas.
Vedic Deities
The Vedic gods who eventually became established in India may have been the result of the fusion of ideas brought by migrants and those of the indigenous people.
These deities were defined in the Vedas, along wit Ii meticulous descriptions of the ceremonies that were intended to propitiate them.
There is a popular school of thought which disputes the theory of the migrants having brought in ideas and is of the opinion that Hinduism was highly developed much before. It is not within the scope of this book to go into this controversy.
It is evident from the Vedas that these deities were, to a certain extent, visualized as having human or animal forms. But it is not certain whether they were worshipped in the form of images. There remains the possibility, important for its effect on the later development of images, that some of the lower castes worshipped images in human or animal form and that this practice gradually spread upwards to the higher sections of society. At a much later period, the Vedic deities were given human form and reproduced as images.
In response to the forces of development, the old Vedic religion underwent several changes. These chiefly concerned the deities that were worshipped, and the forms of ritual. Some deities changed their function, or gained or lost popularity, while the powers of mediation between the deity and the devotee became monopolized by the priests (Brahmins) who alone could perform the necessary rites at the rituals. This made the deities remote and some of them acquired awesome aspects. Consequently, while many of the old deities were relegated to minor positions in the pantheon, others were elevated, and new deities were introduced. Parallel with this, and as a possible reaction against the strict orthodoxy of the the need gradually arose for a more satisfying relationship between the worshipper and the worshipped. This need for devotion (bhakti) towards a personal god stimulated the desire for images which would make the deity more approachable. Their introduction was a slow, uneven process and it is likely that images were made at first only of minor deities in the pantheon. One of the earliest references to images for worship is around the 5th century B.C. of the Yakshas (tree Spirits) and Nagas (snake gods).
Epic Deities
Further stimulus to a more personal relationship between gods and men was given by the two great epics of Indian literature, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The stories of these epics are secular in nature but they not only describe the feats of their heroes but refer to the influence that the gods had on their exploits. Thus the stories of the gods were supplemented and expanded as they were woven into the narratives and the heroes themselves got assimilated into Indian popular religion and became deified.
Puranic Deities
Further development of the Indian society brought about changes in religious concepts and an increase in the size of the pantheon. This grew by a process of absorption and combination, adopting popular (including female) deities into a sophisticated and well-developed assembly and merging several deities into one. Thus the minor Vedic deity Vishnu was identified with Vasudeva and another epic hero Krishna. It is likely that the ten incarnations of Vishnu that eventually became conventional were attributed to him in a similar way.
Later, Krishna himself got assimilated with a pastoral flute – playing deity and became the subject of many poems and legends. At the same time, an ancient fertility Lord Shiva, was elevated to the higher ranks of the pantheon and became a important deity with a variety of forms that gave him a popularity equal to that of Vishnu. Shiva and Vishnu were visualized as forming a triad with Brahma. But, in spite of his ancient prestige, Brahma never received the widespread adoration enjoyed by the other two gods.
Beginning about the 4th or 5th century A.D., attempts were made to create some sort of order out of the mass of myths and legends that had evolved around a large number deities. Eventually these traditional tales were incorporated into the Puranas (Ancient Stories) summing up all that was known about the gods, with their elaborate genealogies, and providing religious instructions. In consequence, many of the deities who subsequently made their appearance are the result of formalization given to them in the Puranas. At the same time a further impetus was given to Hindu mythology (and thus a corresponding increase in the number of deities) by the development of Tantrism which emphasized the cult of the female partner (shakti) in association with a male deity, often Shiva.
From the 15th century onwards a revival of interest in the bhakti movement brought about a widespread devotion to the cult of Krishna, one of the earliest gods to have human-like qualities.
The creative powers of India’s religious life have not declined but continue with the same energy as they had earlier. For example recently (in the 1960’s), in Northern India, the goddess Santoshi Mata appeared complete with her own mythology and legends.
The most basic division of the Indian society is of Aryans and Dravidians. According to this division, nearly 72% of Indians are Aryans and 28% are Dravidians. The north Indians are the descendants of Aryans and the south Indians are Dravidians. The languages spoken in five states of south India are considered Dravidian languages and most of the languages spoken in the north are considered Aryan languages. The general script of the Aryan languages is different from the general script of Dravidian languages. The Indians also distinguish themselves by the general north Indian accent and general south Indian accent.
According to general Indian legend, the Aryans arrived in north India somewhere from Iran and southern Russia at around 1500 BC. Before the Aryans, the Dravidian people resided in India. The Aryans disregarded the local cultures. They began conquering and taking control over regions in north India and at the same time pushed the local people southwards or towards the jungles and mountains in north India. According to this historical fact the general division of Indian society is made. North Indians are Aryans and south Indians are Dravidians. But this division isn’t proper because of many reasons.
Many Indians immigrated from one part of India to other parts of India and not all local people of north India were pushed southwards by the Aryans. Some stayed and served the Aryans and others moved to live in the forests and the jungles of north India. Before the arrival of the Aryans there were also other communities in India like Sino-Mongoloids and Austroloids. There were also other foreign immigrations and invaders who arrived in India, from time to time.
There are many that completely doubt that there was ever any Aryan invasion in India. This skepticism is based on the dating of the Aryan invasion of India and the fact that Hinduism and the caste system are believed to have been established as the result of the meetings between the intruding Aryans and original residents of India, the Dravidians.
The caste system is believed to have been established by the Aryans. The fair skinned Aryans who occupied parts of India established the caste system, which allowed only them to be the priests (Brahman), aristocracy (Kshatria) and the businessmen (Vaisia) of the society. Below them in hierarchy were the Sudras who consisted of two communities. One community was of the locals who were subdued by the Aryans and the other were the descendants of Aryans with locals. In Hindu religious stories there are many wars between the good Aryans and the dark skinned demons and devils. The different Gods also have dark skinned slaves. There are stories of demon women trying to seduce good Aryan men in deceptive ways. There were also marriages between Aryan heroes and demon women. Many believe that these incidences really occurred in which, the gods and the positive heroes were people of Aryan origin. And the demons, the devils and the dark skinned slaves were in fact the original residence of India whom the Aryans coined as monsters, devil, demons and slaves. Normally the date given to Aryan invasion is around 1500 BC. But according to Hinduism experts some of the events in Hinduism occurred much earlier. Some of the events like the great war in the Mahabharta epic is believed to have occurred (based on astronomical research) 7000 years ago.
According to this Hindu experts the word Aryan is a misinterpretation of the original Sanskrit word, Arya. Arya means pure or good in Sanskrit. In the holy Vedas the good people were called Arya. Some of the European scholars of Indian culture in the 19th century were Germans. These German scholars who found that Swastika was also a holy symbol among the Hindus distorted, the word Arya to Aryan.
Religion in India is classified by a different religious beliefs and practices.
Indian country is the native place of some of the world’s major religions;
characterized as
1) Hinduism
2) Sikhism
3) Buddhism
4) Jainism
Apart from this India also includes the other religion but not as their native place like
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, communalism etc.
HINDUISM-
Hinduism also called as Sanatana Dharma began about 4000 years before from now in India.
It was the religion of an ancient people known as the Aryans whose philosophy, religion, and
customs are recorded in their sacred texts known as the Vedas.
JAINISM-
Jainism is somehow same as Buddhism, of which it was an important rival in India.
It was founded by Nataputta Mahavira (599-527 BC), called Jina a contemporary of Buddha.
BUDDHISM-
Buddhism was founded in the fourth or fifth century B.C. in northern India by a man known traditionally as Siddhartha
also called as Gautama, the son of a warrior prince.
he lived from 563 to 483 B.C., but his exact life span is uncertain.
SIKHISM-
Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak, a religious leader during fifteenth century in the Punjab area.
The latter followed and formalized by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699.
