Editorial Photo of NSR
Booklets on Indian Heritage and Culture formed part of this journal since last August. This is an intiative of “INDIA CENTURY MISSION (ICM)”, which is dedicated to encourage the realization of the dream of Swami Vivekananda that the 21st Century would be India’s Century. The Dhirubhai Amabani Foundation (DAF) is helping us in the production of these booklets and our many-sided campaigns to create awareness of the glory of our heritage. Ten booklets have been visualized. The first issue gave an illustrative sample of ‘the admiration and adoration’ by respected Western scholars, who had expressed their profound appreciation of India’s spiritual genius. The second described scientific discoveries of our sages and saints who, without the aid of equipment, estimated the speed of light and movements of planets, invented the counting system, zero, decimals and infinity as well as higher knowledge of the mysteries of the universe. Since Indians were not aware of our own ancient discoveries, these are now known by the names of western scientists who acquired such knowledge by conventional methods using elaborate equipment. Now a large number of scientists are acknowledging the significance and the concepts of India’s ancient thought and wisdom. The following three issues were on cultural heritage.
After Independence, we adopted the British model of Parliamentary democracy and a political economy system with government as an active participant in economic development. These were totally unsuitable to our conditions and our plural society. We have evolved an alternative political system, which was described in the sixth issue.
This is the seventh in the series. It is on Indian Civilization. A term used here interchangeably with it is Hindu Civilization. Unfortunately, India inherited a cursed caste system which pervades and pollutes all walks of life, blocking development, creating conflicts. India has been influenced by many cultures. Therefore, there is something intrinsically great in the Indian civilization, which would be of value not only to lndians but to the whole world. That is the reason for bringing out this small volume of 150 pages, drawn from two million pages of India’s religious and spiritual literature, composed long ago and commented upon by scholars in India and abroad.
India is a religious country. Not only Hindus but also people adhering to the other six religions are equally religious. Therefore, it is not easy to separate religion from life, as it is happening in Europe and USA.
But Hinduism is not a religion like Christianity and Islam. Budhism, Jainism and Sikhism are offshoots of Hinduism, but with distinct identities as separate religions, Hinduism is a “View and way of life”. It has no founder or Prophet, nor a single book, as in the case of other religions. Hindus respect their prophets. Hinduism accepts that goals of all religions are only different paths to the same Godhood.
The above explanation is given to avoid possible misunderstanding that this booklet series is a pro-Hindu religious movement. But Hindus need to get an elementary understandilng of the basics of Hinduism, which most do not have. Religion is the outer cover and Spirituality is the inner core. In many ways, religions differ in concepts and practices. But there is a certain amount of commonality on Spiritual concepts. India’s unique genius is Spirituality, which can, over a period of time, unite mankind, allowing different faiths to continue their theology, practices and faiths. In fact, religious scholars, who are open and not rigid, feel that Hindu philosophy can strengthen other religions. So we present these series of booklets with a view to uniting India and mankind and for fostering peace and harmony.
There is already evidence of growing interest in the West on India’s ATW. This booklet may help to give them a glimpse of India. About two million tourists visit India every year. In most Star Hotels, a Bible is kept. No hotel run by Hindus, have cared to put a booklet on Indian civilization. This booklet may help them to produce one which would give facts without any attempt to influence.
This booklet is being published when the whole of India is in a state of flux.
Six generations have grown up since the Union Jack was lowered and the ‘Tricolor took its’ place. Youngsters today have no chip on their shoulders about inferiority or colonialism. They have proved their worth in the marts of the world. They are more attuned to the commercial civilization than the Vedic. Their attempt to reassess the past will by itself rejuvenate old knowledge and old values. For example, a non-fiction best seller, ‘The difficulty of being good’ by Gurcharan Das is the outcome of such a quest. It analyses the great Mahabharata Epic to get at the meaning of Dharma. The facility with which many Indians can use the English language has by itself vindicated the minutes of Macaulay. Whereas ‘The Tempest’ of Shakespeare is often seen as a prophetic algorithm of colonialism, an Indian social activist and novelist Arundhati Roy has turned ‘The Tempest’ on its own head Her novel in English ‘The God of small things’ is symbolic of the decline of Western Supremacy.
Individual brilliance is often despite the educational system, rather than because of it. The standards at school and University have declined. Numbers have proliferated. But in India, systems acquire a ‘Sanadhana’, that is eternal character. Thus we have a Sanadhana land revenue system devised by Raja Todar Mal before the Mughals, later adopted by them and subsequently by the British and later by Free India with minor variations: The Ration Card system devised during the Second World War is still a valuable proof of identity to get anything done at a village level revenue office. The ration card is of course meant for BPL that is Below the Poverty line citizens who want to avail of the parallel system of government distribution of essential commodities at subsidized rates. Side by side there exists the free-market system of distribution. But who would want to pay more for the same item if it can be easily procured? Hence a system meant for the poor tends to be prevented. Official Economic Policies betray a lack of sound understanding of the working of the market system. But this seems to be the case even in the citadels of capitalism. In India, the result is a growing gap between the rich and the poor. Nearly thirty percent of the land area is under the threat of some sort of violent insurgency involving a population more than the total population of British India just before the First World War.
Instead of reforming quickly to hasten progress, all reforms are put on hold. Police reforms and reforms in the judiciary and public administration or education are all caught in log-jams as well as Red-tape. A well intentional move to make a inter-state commercial-tax cheque post ‘corruption free’ resulted in such a pile-up of lorries and delays of many days. A frustrated young driver’s helper attempted to commit suicide. He was arrested for ‘causing public disorder’. It should have been known that more than anything else the check-post itself by its very existence was a threat to progress. A better way of apportioning tax revenue than that which exists at present should have long since been implemented.
Santos Damont the social scientist once classified that Eastern Man as ‘Homo heirarchus’ a man who has a place in a hierarchy. It was a matter of his civilization. The civilizational background of the Western Man makes him a ‘homo Aequalis’ - a man among equals. Taking a very broad view, we can say that all the problems of modernization involve converting one to the other, retaining the best of both worlds.
This booklet on Indian civilization is a small push to move a mountain of problems. It is written with a hope that it will inspire individuals and groups to preserve its better parts of civilization and to remove the ills accumulated over centuries. It is not written by scholars nor it is meant for scholars. It is not comprehensive since it is practically diff towritye about Indian civilization even in 1000 pages. To those who read this book we appeal to send their comments so that we could include same in the next trhree more bookles to be brought on India’s Century Mission.
Our thanks are due to DAF who provided the funds and IHA team, particularly Prof. K.M.P. Menon, who has made significant contribution to the production of this booklet. This is dedicated to our dear Mother India, who has been suffering for centuries from the torture of foreigners and betrayal of some of his own children. We hope that a few will comfort her or at least desisit from ridicuiling her for her patience and forbearance.
Prof N.S. Ramaswamy - Editor
COMMENTS
by
Well known Western Scholars about India’s Civilization
Romain Rolland – French Thinker & Writer:
‘Vivekananda’s words are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of books at thirty years’ distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shocks, what transports must have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero!’
Romain Rolland continues:
Although Vivekananda preached as his ideal the harmonious practice of the four kinds of Yoga, there was one peculiarly his own, which might almost be called after him, or it is the way of ‘Discrimination’ (Viveka). Further, it is the one that should be able to unite the West and the East – Jnana-Yoga-the way of ‘realization’ by ‘Knowledge’, or in other words, the exploration and conquest of the ultimate Essence or Brahman through the mind.
Normally we waste our energies. Not only are they squandered in all directions by the tornado of exterior impressions; but even when we manage to shut doors and windows, we find chaos within ourselves, a multitude like the one that greeted Julius Caesar in the Roman Forum; thousands of unexpected and mostly ‘undesirable’ guests invade and trouble us. No inner activity can be seriously effective and continuous until we have first reduced our house to order, and then have recalled and reassembled our herd of scattered energies. ‘The powers of the mind are like rays of dissipated light; when they are concentrated they illumine.”
Roberto Calasso – Modern European Indophile & Scholar:
“India has the most extreme eroticization of everything since the very beginning. It was more evident in the Vedic rituals. The Vedic altar, for instance, resembled the body of a woman, with the same proportions. There are hundreds of such examples. You had the most eroticized world. Then came, paradoxically, a wave of sexual repression in modern times. Now when the entire world is full of erotic imagery, India reacts to it in two different ways: with attraction or revulsion. It is absurd.”
“Siva had to do a lot with Kama in order to be Siva. It is absurd to be offended by eroticism. They are part of a grandiose vision of how the world is made. Moreover that has no counterpart in other traditions.”
Prof A D Basham – British & Australian Historian:
“O Indians, you’re your spiritual tradition as it is encoded in the Vedas, represents the most precious treasure of the human race. Cherish it, support it, and above all share it with the entire world. For the Vedas are like the sun: in them you will find the key to all light, all life, all love, and there is no individual or collective problem which cannot be solved by them.” David Frawley who explains Vedanta from within the tradition and today acts as a bridge between East and the West – spreading ancient Indian Wisdom world-wide – extract from one of his books.
Dr. David Frawley – American Scholar & Writer:
“India possess a great indigenous civilization dating back to 7000 BC, such as recent archaeological discoveries at Mehrgarh clearly reveal. It had the most urban culture in the world in the third millennium BCE with the many cities of the Indus and Saraswathi rivers. When Saraswati river of Vedic dried up in the second millennium BCE, the culture shifted east to the more certain rivers of the Gangetic plain, which became the dominant region of the subcontinent. Gone is the old idea of the Aryan invasion and an outside basis for Indian culture. In its place in the continuity f a civilization and its literature going back to the earliest period of history.
FOREWORD
Indian Civilization is still a living and vibrant entity. It is due to it’s relevance and resilience that unlike similar civilizations such as the Sumerian, Aztec, Egyptian or Greek counterparts which have all vanished, it still not only survives but also is poised for a new renaissance. As David Frawley points out Indian Civilizations “merely went underground.” In other words it allowed foreign cultures to play a dominant role till these influences were assimilated and made part of itself. Frawley points out that whereas ancient Egyptian culture plays no role in the outlook of the modern Egyptian for example, today’s Indian life is still dominated by ancient Indian ideas.
We hope to present a complete picture of Indian civilization as far as it can be done in a short booklet. We have pointed out the change among the opinion makers of the cultural world about the views of India and her civilization. Whereas it was once looked down upon, it is now looked up to as a source of inspiration. Kathak dance, Kuchipudi or Kathakali were at one time considered symbols of depravity or as a devil dance has now achieved the status of the finest example of the world’s ballet forms. Vedic mantras once dismissed as ritual chants of ignorant shepherds are now considered comprising the world’s highest philosophy. Ayurveda is not mumbo/jumbo but one of the world’s most developed systems of practical healing methods.
We have sourced the material in this booklet from several publications. Primarily they are a rearrangement of my lecture notes given on different occasions. Other Sources have been thankfully acknowledged in other places. We dedicate this booklet to Swami Vivekananda who not only predicted this renaissance but worked very hard for it. He is the inspirer of the India century mission. We also thank the Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation for making this booklet series possible.
Padmabhushan N.S. Ramaswamy, National Professor
BOOKLET ON
GLIMPSES OF
INDIAN CIVILIZATION
INTRODUCTION
Meant for all who want to know about our Indian background
This booklet is presented in the hope that it will meet a long felt need. Three generations of Indians have grown up after India gained independence. They grew up at a time of profound upheavals and changes – more than has ever taken place in the preceding ages. These Indians have missed out on what their ancestors would have naturally picked up from their extended families and villages in former times. A big gap exists in their knowledge and understanding of their own religion and background. We hope to provide essential basic information and close that gap.
Distinction Between Culture and Civilization
Indian ‘Civilization’ is a melting pot of several ‘cultures’. As generally understood, ‘civilization’ is more associated with the externals, the tangible and the material. ‘Culture’ is more internal and has to do with attitudes and the mind.
The dress we wear, the factories we set up or the dams we build, are only a part of the ‘civilization’, the material equipment of life, which tends to increase in complexity with scientific progress. But essentially culture has little to do with material equipment of life. It is the characteristic way of life inspired by fundamental values, in which a people live. It is the sum total of the values expressed through art, religion, literature, social institutions and behaviour, the overt acts of individuals and mass action inspired by collective urges.
What then constitutes culture? Its first characteristic is continuity. It comes from the past, adjusts itself to the present, and moves forward to shape the future. The division of culture in relation to time does not, therefore, give a true picture of what it really is.
A culture becomes a flowing stream only when there is continuity of collective life in a people. In other words, a distinctive culture comes into existence when a people develop a continuous way of life. Such continuity expresses itself in various ways; in common traditions and norms of conduct; in common institutions; in a common memory of triumphs achieved; in a common aesthetic outlook; in a capacity for characteristic collective action.
Further, for a people to have a vital culture, it is necessary that they should have a vivid memory of having achieved common triumphs in the past. Whether the triumphs are mythological, historical or imaginary makes little difference, but they must be closely woven into the collective consciousness of the people.
The most important characteristic of a vital culture is a common outlook among the people which, when faced with difficulty, resistance or adversity, can generate a collective will to action. In other words, the vitality of culture can be measured by the capacity of the dominant minority, and following it, the majority of a people, to offer collective resistance in a characteristic way. However, they cannot do so when the collective will to resist adverse circumstances is weak; then the culture becomes decadent and the people begin to disintegrate.
When all these characteristics, traditions, norms of conduct, institutions, memory of triumphs achieved and the collective will to action give power to a people to will themselves into a unit, their culture, as an integrating force, opens out a destiny for them.
When we study the vitality of cultures, we find that all these characteristics are correlated to each other by certain fundamental values springing from a Central Idea which has the power to replenish their vigour.
With the passage of time environment changes, civilization alters its content, new disintegrating factors arise. When these phenomena become pronounced, a new age comes, and society, with its culture, comes under the pressure of a new crisis. When such a crisis arises, the best among the dominant minority of the society are faced with a new responsibility. They have to accept the challenge; adjust their outlook to it; adjust their norms of conduct and basic institutions - but in the light of the fundamental values of their own culture and under the inspiration of its Central Idea.
Special Qualities
Unique qualities of Hindu Civilization in India include its age old staying power, its open-ended open minded nature, its harmony with scientific knowledge and above all, its spirituality.
The oft-quoted axiom “Ekam sat anekah panthah,” means “Truth is one, paths are many.” What can be learned from the Hindu land that has given birth to Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism and has been a generous protector of all other religions? India’s original faith offers a rare look at a peaceful, rational and practical path for making sense of our world, for gaining personal spiritual insight, and as a potential blueprint for grounding our society in a more spiritually rewarding worldview.
Ancient Wisdom
Hinduism boasts teachings and practices reaching back 8,000 years and more, its history dwarfing most other religions. In fact, there is no specific time in history when it began. It is said to have started with time itself. To emphasize the relative ages of the major religions, and the antiquity of Hinduism, Raimon Panikkar, author of The Vedic Experience, cleverly reduced them to proportionate human years, with each 100 years of history representing one year of human life. Viewed this way, Sikhism, the youngest faith, is five years old. Islam, the only teenager is fourteen. Christianity just turned twenty. Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism and Confucianism are twenty-five. Zoroastrianism is twenty-six. Shintoism is in its late twenties. Judaism is a mature thirty-seven. Hinduism, whose birthday remains unknown, is at least eighty years old - the white-bearded grandfather of living spirituality on this planet.
The followers of this extraordinary tradition often refer to it as Sanatana Dharma, the “Eternal Faith” or “Eternal Way of Conduct.” Rejoicing in adding on to itself the contributions of every one of its millions of adherents down through the ages, it brings to the world an extraordinarily rich cultural heritage that embraces religion, society, economy, literature, art and architecture. Unsurprisingly, it is seen by its followers as not merely another religious tradition, but as a way of life and the quintessential foundation of human culture and spirituality. It is, to Hindus, the most accurate possible description of the way things are - eternal truths, natural principles, inherent in the universe that form the basis of culture and prosperity. Understanding this venerable religion allows all people to fathom the source and essence of human religiosity - to marvel at the oldest example of the Eternal Path that is reflected in all faiths.
While 860 million Hindus live in India, forming 85 percent of the population, tens of millions reside across the globe and include followers from nearly every nationality, race and ethnic group in the world. The US alone is home to 2.4 million Hindus, roughly two-thirds of South Asian descent and one-third of other backgrounds.
Hindu Scriptures
All major religions are based upon a specific set of teachings encoded in sacred scripture. Christianity has the Bible, for example, and Islam has the Koran. Hinduism proudly embraces an incredibly rich collection of scripture; in fact, the largest body of sacred texts known to man. The holiest and most revered are the Vedas and Agamas, two massive compendia of shruti (that which is “heard”), revealed by God to illumined sages centuries and millennia ago. It is said the Vedas are general and the Agamas specific, as the Agamas speak directly to the details of worship, the yogas, mantra, tantra, temple building and such. The most widely known part of the Vedas are the Upanishads, which form the more general philosophical foundations of the faith.
The array of secondary scripture, known as smriti (that which is “remembered”), is equally vast, the most prominent and widely celebrated of which are the Itihasas (epic dramas and history - specifically the Ramayana and Mahabharata) and the Puranas (sacred history and mythology). The ever-popular Bhagavad Gita is a small portion of the Mahabharata. The Vedic arts and sciences, including ayurveda, astrology, music, dance, architecture, statecraft, domestic duty and law, are reflected in an assembly of texts known as Vedangas and Upavedas. Moreover, through the ages God-Realized souls, sharing their experience, have poured forth volume upon volume that reveal the wonders of yoga and offer passionate hymns of devotion and illumination. The creation of Hindu scripture continues to this day, as contemporary masters reiterate the timeless truths to guide souls on the path to Divinity.
Who is a Hindu?
A clear sign that a person is a Hindu is that he embraces Hindu scripture as his guide and solace through life. While the Vedas are accepted by all denominations, each lineage defines which other scriptures are regarded as central and authoritative for its followers. Further, each devotee freely chooses and follows one or more favorite scriptures within his tradition, be it a selection of Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tirumantiram or the writings of his own guru. This free-flowing, diversified approach to scripture is unique to the Hindu faith. Scripture here, however, does not have the same place as it does in many other faiths. For genuine spiritual progress to take place, its wisdom must not be merely studied and preached, but lived and experienced as one’s own.
Meant for Non-Hindus Also
There are many from abroad who yearn to know but are misinformed. Misinformation is not deliberate but happens because some of the western books on Hinduism are dryly academic and also unsympathetic. Others written by Indian apologists of Hinduism are not only tedious but have a narrow perspective being confined to their own traditions or systems.
In either case there is distortion. Indians need to be reassured that they can be proud of their religious background; others need to be given a better picture of this religion to which the majority among one sixth of Humanity subscribes. There is much which Hinduism can offer to the West especially in the realm of spiritual consolation in these imperilled times. In India, you have an unbroken resilient 5000 year old civilization which in the words of Emerson, reached ‘the summit of human thought’. About one sixth of the human race have this civilization as their background. In the course of millennia, some valuable insights about life and existence have become part of its cultural tradition. These have withstood the test of time. Not only Yoga and Ayurveda which are now gaining world-wide acceptance but a whole lot of practically useful knowledge in the realms of body, mind, spirit and matter are available to the world to those who seek for it in this ancient, yet modern civilization.
A word of warning is necessary here. Do not be put off by appearances, but concentrate on the essentials. For instance, let not the chaos in the periphery of a great temple distract one’s concentration on the objective.
In Hinduism there are many gods who partake of the divine power of God. God is unknown and is unknowable. There is no contradiction here but a seamless unity in diversity. Not only every remarkable ‘natural’ phenomenon or intellectual concept is a manifestation of the Divine and can be ‘apotheosized’ (made a god) but man himself is partly Divine. When someone greets you with folded hands he is acknowledging the divinity in you. He is also putting you on your best behaviour.
In India the spiritual has always been privileged over the material. When Alexander the Great conqueror wanted to know from the learned Brahmins he came across on the Northern Plains their insights into Man, they began a lesson on theology. They were told that the emperor was not keen on knowing about God, whereupon the Brahmins burst into laughter. How could anyone know about Man they enjoined without knowing about God?
The situation remains essentially the same today in that if you want to understand India and Indians you have to know something of Hinduism.
The Name of Hinduism
Hinduism is not like any other religious or doctrinal ‘ism’. It is a name given as late as the 18th Century to denote the religious practices of the Hindus a corrupted Arab form to denote the people beyond the Sindhu – the waters. Though it is a ‘portmanteau’ word including many diverse things which range from the crudest primitive rites to the most sublime philosophical speculations.
There is a pervasive cultural unity, common to the whole subcontinent which is founded on the spirit. An integrated world view which has matured over a time span of several millennia still persists. It thinks in terms of the Cosmos but is capable of being of the earth – earthy. It is based on Vedanta (the end or goal of the Veda) and Vedanta is a better name than Hinduism. Another name for it is ‘Sanatana Dharma’. ‘Sanatana’ clearly means eternal or sempiternal that is ‘for ever and ever’. ‘Dharma’ cannot be translated into a single modern word. Dr. Radhakrishnan opined that it means exactly the same as ‘charity’ in the old authorized version of The Bible. In the modern version the word ‘Love’ replaces it. Indeed ‘a loving approach’ defines it in the same sense as in the injunction to ‘love they neighbor as thyself’. The Good Samaritan was showing Dharma to the stricken traveller in the famous parable.
In some contexts Dharma can be translated as law, or canon, or code of conduct or just code. Thus Hinduism has been variously but more appropriately called: The Eternal Law, The Eternal Truth, The Eternal Code and so on.
David Frawley, the great American Scholar of Hinduism thinks that Jesus Christ himself was teaching Hinduism. He says in his book ‘Awake Arjuna’ that nowadays he does not speak about this because of being so easily misunderstood. In fact there are many eminent Christians such as the famous theologian Raimondo Panikkar who have no difficulty in being Christian and Hindu at the same time. These are days of multiple identities and a shrinking global village but Hindus have always found it easy to assimilate practices and concepts seamlessly into ones own system.
Open-Minded Open-Ended
Hinduism is not only an open-ended system but also the Archetype of all religions. In it can be found all aspects of all the religions in the world. To put it in other words, it contains the template of all other faiths. According to scholars, even the doctrinal Christianity of Saint Paul leans heavily on Plautinus who spent many years of study in India.
Hinduism is a holistic religion where every aspect of human existence has its place as part of a greater whole. It has a magnificent, cogent, harmonious world view. There is no conflict or contradiction between faith and science, between religious truth and scientific fact. In Hinduism, man is not only made in the image of God but man can rise to the level of divinity, and god can come down as an avatar in human shape and live among human folk to save them when the natural order is upset.
Constantly Renewed
Further, it is remarkable that when this set of interlinked views and practices, this psycho-spiritual paradigm which we call Hinduism seemed to be on the verge of extinction, some inspired individual has come forward to cleanse, reform and revivify it. Thus, Sankara in the 8th century AD, Raja Rammohan Roy in the early 19th century and Vivekananda in the late 19th century.
RITES OF PASSAGE
Rites of passage are the social and religious ceremonies marking important stages in a person’s life. These include naming a child, the attainment of puberty, marriage and funeral rites. In Hinduism, these rites are called samskaras, which means “to make perfect”. Initiations, or dikshas, are given by a priest, teacher or guru to bring a person into a new level of education, religious practice and spiritual awareness.
The Rites of Childhood
The samskaras of childhood begin before birth with home rituals to ensure the well-being of the mother and her unborn child. The name-giving ceremony is usually held at home on the eleventh day after birth. A pleasant sounding name with a religious or moral meaning is chosen and the father whispers it in the baby’s right ear.
Solid food is given to the baby by its father six months after birth in the first feeding ritual. Head-shaving, symbolizing purity, is performed for both boys and girls at a temple, usually at the end of the first year. At age four, a ceremony marking the beginning of education is done in which children write their first letter in a tray of rice. Ear-piercing, for health and wealth, is performed for girls and boys between the first and eighth year. Girls are adorned with gold earrings, bangles and anklets; boys receive earrings and a gold chain.
The upanayana, or sacred thread ceremony, is the final ceremony of childhood. It marks the formal beginning of student life. Students begin religious instruction and secular education appropriate to their intended occupation. In artisan communities, a similar ceremony is held for boys to formally accept them into their family craft tradition.
The Coming of Age Ceremony
This is often neglected by many modern families with an advanced sensibility to respect the primacy of the adolescent.
The community celebrates a girls entrance into puberty with the ritu kala samkaras, a home ceremony conducted by the family and close relatives. In the Tamil tradition of South India, for example, the girl bathes and then dresses in her first sari. The family invokes Goddess Lakshmi to bless the young woman with happiness and wealth. She is given many gifts, the first of which is always made of gold. Even today, this is a major event for Hindu girls. It is a joyous time of gift-giving. A vow of chastity until marriage may be taken at the same time.
The Rites of Marriage
Hindu weddings are conducted before a sacred fire. This practice dates back thousands of years to Vedic times. Agni, the God of Fire, is called to serve as divine witness to the marriage vows. Weddings are held in special halls. A Hindu wedding can be an elaborate affair spread out over several days attended by many hundreds of guests.
The wedding ceremony is performed by a priest, who invokes Agni by building a small fire in an open brick altar on the ground. The elaborate rituals normally take hours. Close relatives are brought to participate and bless the couple. The groom puts sindur, red coloring, on the part in his bride’s hair, indicating her new status as a married woman.
The final moment comes when the bride and groom take seven steps together around the fire to symbolize the journey of life they will take together. The first step is for strength, the second for health, the third for wealth, the fourth for happiness, the fifth for children, the sixth for a long marriage and the seventh for loyalty and everlasting friendship. The bride and groom usually go to a temple for blessings after the wedding.
Death and Cremation
When a person is close to death, relatives gather around. They sit for hours with him or her, singing religious songs, reading scripture and chant prayers to create a spiritual environment and ease the loved-one’s departure.
After death, the body is bathed and wrapped in white cloth, then taken to the cremation grounds and placed on a wood pyre which is lit by the eldest son. The funeral ceremony also requires Agni, God of Fire. He is called upon to consume the body. Cremation swiftly releases the soul from this incarnation and frees it for the next. The following day, the family collects the ashes, to be scattered later in a sacred river or other chosen place.
Home rituals honor the departed soul on the 10th and 13th days after death and yearly thereafter during the two-week period dedicated to honouring one’s ancestors each fall. These rites help console loved ones and invite the soul to reincarnate back into the family in the future.
Religious Initiations
A mantra is a sacred word or phrase, usually in Sanskrit. Mantra diksha is the most common Hindu initiation. It authorizes the repetition of a mantra as a daily spiritual practice. “Aum Namo Narayanaya” is a mantra chanted in the Vaishnavite tradition. It means “Homage to Lord Vishnu”. “Aum Namah Sivaya” is of the Saivite tradition. At the high point of the sacred thread ceremony, students are initiated in a mantra prayer to the Sun God requesting Him to guide their thinking.
Japa is a form of meditation in which God is visualized while chanting a mantra, silently or aloud, 108times. The repetitions are counted on a strand of sacred beads called a mala. Mantra initiation gives power to japa. One teacher explained, “Chanting a mantra without initiation is like writing a check without money in the bank”.
Mantra diksha may be given as early as age six or later in life when a guru is chosen. After initiation, the devotee is obligated to perform japa each day as an important part of spiritual practice, called sadhana.
Vishesha diksha is initiation into personal daily worship called puja. It requires learning the rites, including chanting the prayers in Sanskrit, knowing the meaning of each part of the ritual and vowing to perform it each day in one’s home shrine. This is a private worship, different from the public puja performed by priests in temples.
VEGETARIANISM
VEGETARIANISM is a natural consequence of the principle of ahimsa, doing no harm. Plants, lacking nervous systems, do not endure the pain and terror that mortifies animals at slaughter. Hindus know that by injuring nature’s other creatures we become a source of pain and sorrow. Through a harmless life, we can be a source of healing and joy.
Hindu scripture speaks clearly and forcefully on vegetarianism. The Yajur Veda (3618) calls for kindliness toward all creatures living on the Earth, in the air and in the water. The Tirukural, a 2,200-year-old masterpiece of ethics, says, “When a man realizes that meat is the butchered flesh of another creature, he will abstain from eating it”. The Manu Samhita advises, “Having well considered the origin of flesh and the cruelty of fettering and slaying corporeal beings, let one entirely abstain from eating flesh. “The yoga-infused verses of the Tirumantiram warn us. “The ignoble ones who eat flesh, death’s agent bind them fast and push them quick into the fiery jaws of the lower worlds”. Man’s appetite for meat inflicts devastating harm on the Earth itself, stripping the precious forests to make way for pastures.
India’s saints confirm that one cannot eat meat and live a peaceful, harmonious life. Satvic eating, a diet composed mostly of fruits, nuts and milk, is the most conducive to meditation, bringing happiness and paving the road to the realization of one’s Self.
The opposite of causing injury to others is to express compassion and love for all beings. Vegetarians, wielding noninjury as a principle of peace, are living reminders that humans should respect, and protect, every living being.
LIVING MUSEUM OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION
A day in the life of an average Indian shows the nature of his civilization. In recent times the advance of the commercial culture is threatening to end it.
On waking up he would look up to his right palm and remind himself that the edge of the hand is the resort of Lakshmi the goddess of wealth, the middle is the goddess of Learning, Saraswati; by the wrist is Gowri the goddess of Energy. After that, he would touch the earth with his forefinger and touch his forehead to remind himself of his connection with the Earth.
The cleaning of the teeth was with a powder. It was made variously in different parts of the country. It could contain neem leaves and twigs or as in Kerala, burnt cocoanut shells and salt an excellent cleansing as it comprises activated carbon. Many customs were preserved unchanged in the South especially in Kerala – which at one time was common all over India. A daily dip in one of the many pools – often serving as a temple tank was part of anyone’s’ daily life.
The clothes worn by men and women comprised a body garment Angavastra and upper garment, Uttareeyam. Both were of course spun out of cotton and so were the underclothes. The women carried a parasol made of palm-leaves. The men wore a tuft of hair knotted sometimes on top, or at the back of the head indicative of the social type. Sandalwood paste or saffron or burnt cowdung mixed with water were applied judiciously on the forehead and often at other prescribed parts of the body served a worthwhile purpose. It helped to keep the body and the temperament cool.
The temple was not only a place where one could have silent communion with the Diety or listen to a religious discourse. It was a meeting place and a social club of sorts. The priest was officiating as a minister to God. He was not an intermediary between the worshipper and God. Certain rites could however be performed on the devotees behalf for a payment such as Chanting a prayer or adoration with a Jasmine or Thulasi garland. There were some flowers and some leaves which were sacred to certain Gods. The Tulsi or sacred Basil was universally sacred and could be used for all sacraments – except for death ceremonies. It exudes ozone and is an air purifier. Frequently there would be a sacramental fumigation. It is now clear that the ingredients have prophylactic medicinal qualities. A visitor to a temple would incidently ingest or inhale a number of substances which ensure perfect health and longevity. The good effects of temple worship was many sided. The psychological effect of group singing as during the ‘worship of the lamps’ during early morn and dusk-fall (the Sandhyas) the meeting time of day and right has a magical effect on the human temperament.
Temples are sacred areas. One enters clean and properly dressed as entitled by sanctity clock-wise circum-ambulation is done before going in to the sanctum sanctorum. To keep the upper body uncovered as a mark of respect was a custom throughout India. It is nothing more than taking off one’s hat in Europe. This survives now only in some ancient Kerala temples. Women have been exempted from doing this for long. Women do not prostrate fully before the diety as men do. The priest does not mean any disrespect when he flings the offering at you. If he touches anyone he would have to bathe and go through an elaborate set of prayers before going into the sanctum-sanctorum again. Such traditions are on the way out. One may get a feel of how men lived in ancient times by watching such things in the living museum’ afforded by Modern India.
Looking around one can see the sacramental rites of passage being enacted. The first feeding of cereal food to a body at about six-months, the naming ceremony, the piercing of the ear lobes, the ceremony of wearing the sacred thread, the worship of the Goddess of learning through a ‘puja’ of books, the various expiatory offerings such as being weighed against a pile of bananas and offering the pile to the Diety – marriages where the bride garlands the groom – are all fervent activities going on in the temple premises.
During day time there would be discourses on ancient texts given by learned experts. In the evenings there would be musical concerts and classical dances. The very décor of the temples are according to classical archetypes preserved to this day. The occasional presence of erotic figures might have served a psychological purpose. After all Eros has to be exercised before the spirit moves on to Agape. Agape is the foundation of spirituality, that higher form of love towards all creation. ( western culture recognizes two kinds of Love, erotic that is sensual and agape that is spiritual; this is common to all civilizations) It is love in the form of agape that is an important aspect of Dharma.
In dance however, within the precincts of the temples only those forms which did not emphasize gore, reverige,warfare, deceit and so on were performed. For example Kathakali even though their subjects were from the Mahabharata, was not performed. On the other hand, Krishnattam kali calculated to encourage devotion by stressing the tales of Krishna as a young Lad were on offer. Though ideally all art was to be considered as a votive offering, this distinction in practice has to be noted.
A refined sensibility rather than prudery marked the attitude towards the human body. In living memory, temple tanks were full of people of both sexes in various stages of undress. It is the influence of Islamic conquerors that changed the dress of men and women to cut and tailored wear. Perhaps it made horse back riding more convenient. In the west-coast on the other hand were the Arabs came as traders, from time immemorial, they tended to adopt local dress and local moves. They merged with the population, provided some essential services, took up retail trade etc. So did the early Christians. There was no conflict on very little of it.
It is only late in the nineteeth century that Victorian prudery became fashionable. Ravi Varma that cosmopolitan and Regal artist conceived of ancient mythical figures and even the whole panthem of Hindu Gods in the grand classical European Manner. Appropriately, he was a master of the technique of oil painting. Faithful reproductions of his paintings in unexpensive lithograph prints adorned almost every Indian home. Apart from adornment, they served a useful purpose. He made the graceful sari the dress of choice for Indian womanhood across the sub-continent. Secondly, he fixed for ever the images of Hindu Gods and Godesses in the national panopticon.
Academic critical taste had by then moved on. The west had come to doubt its own achievements in every field. T.S.Eliots, ‘ Waste Land’ echoes this feeling. All things once considered inferior came to be looked upon as priceless. Ikons and temple idols, obscure but of great antiquity were much sought after by western Art collectors. Kathakali, once considered as a more ‘Devil dance’ is now taken as a foremost example of sophisticated ballet. Ayurveda it is now realized is not ignorant numbo-jumbo but an efficient effective healing system. This change in classification of everything connected with Indian Civilization, a ‘Taxonomic Shift’ is worth noting.
Daily life in India was in accordance to the order in Nature. It was not primitive or ignorant. It was ‘eco-friendly’ in that it respected nature and was harmoniously dependent on it. It used only bio-degradable products such as the banana lead or palm leaf to serve as plates for serving food. It used mud pots as vessels for drinking and cooking. Its farming was what we now call ‘organic’ because no chemical fertilizer was used.
Finally among the rites after death, after the body was cremated, the son or heir would go round the funeral pyre thrice with an earthen pitcher on his shoulder. After the third round, he would, without looking back, throw the pot on to the ground, water and all, till it breaks into pieces. This symbolized the loved one return to the earth, to the elements from which all of us spring. Finally he would plant a tree. This symbolizes renewal.
THE WHOLE WORLD STARTED AS A THOUGHT
- A Fable from the Ancients about how the World Began
In the beginning there was absolutely nothing… He thought, “Let me have a self’, and he created the mind. As he moved about in worship, water was generated. Froth formed on the water, and the froth eventually solidified to become earth. He rested on the earth, and from his luminence came fire. After resting, He divided himself in three parts, and one is fire, one is the sun, and one is the air.
Thus in the beginning the world was only his self, his being or essence, which then took the shape of a person. At first he was afraid, but realizing that he was alone and had nothing of which to be afraid, his fear ceased. However, he had no happiness because he was alone, and he longed for another. He grew as large as two persons embracing, and he caused his self to split into two matching parts, like two halves of a split pea, and from them arose husband and wife.
They mated, and from their union arose the human beings of the earth. The female reflected on having mated with someone of whom she was once a part, and she resolved that she should hide so that it would not happen again. She changed to a cow to disguise herself, but he changed to a bull and mated with her, and from their union cows arose. She changed to the form of a mare, but he changed to that of a stallion and mated with her, and from that union came horses. She changed to the form of a donkey, but he did likewise, and from them arose the single-hoofed animals. She became a ewe, but he became a ram, and from their union came the sheep and goats. It continued thus, with her changing form to elude him but he finding her and mating with her, until they had created all the animals that live in pairs, from humans and horses to ants.
After all this work, he reflected that he was indeed Creation personified, for he had created all this. Rubbing back and forth, he made Fire, the god of fire, from his hands, and from his semen he made Soma, the god of the moon. This was his highest creation because, although mortal himself, he had created immortal gods.
WHY KNOW ABOUT HINDIUSM?
1. It is a valuable gift from our ancient ancestors!
2. It improves our self-esteem.
3. It unifies our country and makes India one!
4. You cannot learn it from schools and colleges.
5. Whatever your community or religion, it is equally relevant to you.
6. It has satisfactory answers to mankind’s F.A.Qs (frequently asked questions)*
7. It is in agreement with all scientific developments.
8. It lets you face life boldly improving your quality of life.
9. It improves your work-performance!
The FAQs are the following :-
*What is the meaning of life? Where do we come from? Why do we suffer? Why is there such inequality in the world? What happens after death? Howe can we break free from the ills that trouble us? Do we have free will? Can we change our destiny? How can we lead a life of virtue? How can we get God’s help? What are the greatest things in life? What should we aim for? How shall we succeed?
HINDU VIEW OF LIFE
The Nature of God
Some descriptions of Hinduism wrongly state that Hindus do not believe in a one Supreme Being but worship a multiplicity of supreme Gods. A common way that this misconception shows up is in the idea that Hindus worship a trinity of Gods: Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva, the Destroyer. To the Hindu, these three are aspects of the one Supreme Being. Indeed, with its vast array of Divinities, Hinduism may, to an outsider, appear polytheistic - a term avidly employed as a criticism of choice, as if the idea of many Gods were primitive and false. But ask any Hindu, and he will tell you that he worships the One Supreme Being, just as do Christians, Jews, Muslims and those of nearly all major faiths. If he is a Saivite, he calls that God Siva. If a Shakta Hindu, he will adore Devi, the Goddess, as the ultimate Divinity. If he is a Smarta Hindu, he will worship as supreme one Deity chosen from a specific pantheon of Gods. If a Vaishnava Hindu, he will revere Vishnu or one of His earthly incarnations, called avatars, especially Krishna or Rama.
Thus, it is impossible to say all Hindus believe this or that. Some Hindus give credence only to the formless Absolute Reality as God; others accept God as personal Lord and Creator. Some venerate God as male, others a female, while still others hold that God is not limited by gender, which is an aspect of physical bodies. This freedom, we could say, makes for the richest understanding and perception of God. Hindus accept all genuine spiritual paths - from pure monism, which concludes that “God alone exists,” to theistic dualism, which asks, “When shall I know His Grace?” Each soul is free to find his own way, whether by devotion, austerity, meditation, yoga or selfless service.
God is unimaginably transcendent yet ubiquitously immanent in all things. He is creator and He is the creation. He is not a remote God who rules from above, but an intimate Lord who abides within all as the essence of everything. There is no corner of creation in which God is not present. He is farther away than the farthest star and closer than our breath. If His presence were to be removed from any one thing, that thing would cease to exist.
A crucial point, often overlooked, is that having one Supreme God does not repudiate the existence of lesser Divinities. Just as Christianity acknowledges great spiritual beings who dwell near God, such as the cherubim and seraphim (possessing both human and animal features), so Hindus revere Mahadevas, or “great angels,” who were created by the Supreme Lord and who serve and adore Him. Each denomination worships the Supreme God and its own pantheon of divine beings. The elephant-faced Lord Ganesha is among the most popular, and is perhaps the only Deity worshiped by Hindus of all denominations. There are Gods and Goddesses of strength, yoga, learning, art, music, wealth and culture. There are also minor divinities, village Gods and Goddesses, who are invoked for protection, health and such earthy matters as a fruitful harvest.
The Nature of The Soul
What does Hinduism say about the soul? The driving imperative to know oneself-to answer the questions “Who am I?” “Where did I come from?” and “Where am I going?” - has been the core of all great religions and schools of philosophy throughout history. Hindu teachings on the nature of self are as philosophically profound as they are pragmatic. We are more than our physical body, our mind, emotions and intellect, with which we so intimately identify every moment of our life, but which are temporary, imperfect and limiting. Our true self is our immortal soul, the eternal, perfect and unlimited inner essence, a pure being of scintillating light unseen by the human eye, undetectable by any of the human senses, which are its tools for living in this physical world.
Our soul is the source of all our higher functions, including knowledge, will and love. It is neither male nor female. The essence of our soul, which was never created, is immanent love and transcendent reality and is identical and eternally one with God. The Vedas explain, “The soul is born and unfolds in a body, with dreams and desires and the food of life. And then it is reborn in new bodies, in accordance with its former works. The quality of the soul determines its future body; earthly or airy, heavy or light.”
The Vedas teach that the Divine resides in all beings. Our true, spiritual essence is, like God, eternal, blissful, good, wise and beautiful by nature. The joining of God and the soul is known as yoga. We spend so much of our time pursuing beauty, knowledge and bliss in the world, not knowing that these objects of our desire are already within us as attributes of our own soul. If we turn our focus within through worship and meditation, identifying with our true spiritual self, we can discover an infinite inner treasure that easily rivals the greatest wealth of this world.
Hinduism is a mystical religion, leading the devotee to personally experience the Truth within, finally reaching the pinnacle of consciousness where the realization is attained that man and God are one. As divine souls, we are evolving into union with God through the process of reincarnation. We are immortal souls living and growing in the great school of earthly experience in which we have lived many lives. Knowing this gives followers a great security, eliminating the fear and dread of death. The Hindu does not take death to be the end of existence, as does the atheist. Nor does he look upon life as a singular opportunity, to be followed by eternal heavenly existence for those souls who do well, and by unending hell for those who do not. Death for the Hindu is the most exalted of experiences, a profound transition from this world to the next, simultaneously an end and a new beginning.
Despite the heartening glory of our true nature spoken of in scripture, most souls are unaware of their spiritual self. This ignorance or “veiling grace” is seen in Hinduism as God’s purposeful limiting of awareness, which allows us to evolve. It is this narrowing of our awareness, coupled with a sense of individualized ego, that allows us to look upon the world and our part in it from a practical, human point of view. The ultimate goal of life, in the Hindu view, is called moksha, liberation from rebirth. This comes when earthly karma has been resolved, dharma has been well performed and God is fully realized. All souls, without exception, are destined to achieve the highest states of enlightenment, perfect spiritual maturity and liberation, but not necessarily in this life. Hindus understand this and do not delude themselves that this life is the last. While seeking and attaining profound realizations, they know there is much to be done in fulfilling life’s other three goals: righteousness, wealth and pleasure.
In some Hindu traditions, the destiny of the soul after liberation is perceived as eternal and blissful enjoyment of God’s presence in the heavenly realms, a form of salvation given by God through grace, similar to most Abrahamic faiths. In others, the soul’s destiny is perfect union in God or in the Infinite. All, a state of oneness.
The Nature Of The World
From the Hindu perspective, the world is the place where our destiny is shaped, our desires fulfilled and our soul matured. Without the world, known as maya, the soul could not evolve through experience. In the world, we grow from ignorance into wisdom, from darkness into light and from a consciousness of death to immortality. The whole world is an ashram in which all are evolving spiritually. We must love the world, which is God’s creation. Those who despise, hate and fear the world do not understand the intrinsic goodness of all. The world is a glorious place, not to be feared. The Vedas advise, “Behold the universe in the glory of God, and all that lives and moves on Earth. Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal.”
There is a false concept, commonly found in academic texts, that Hinduism is world-negating. This depiction was foisted upon the world by 19th-century Western missionary Orientalists traveling in India for the first time and reporting back about its starkest and strangest aspects, not unlike what Western journalists tend to do today. The wild-looking, world-renouncing yogis, taking refuge in caves, denying the senses and thus the world, were of sensational interest, and their world-abandonment became, through the scholars’ eyes, characteristic of the entire religion. Hinduism’s essential, time-tested monastic tradition makes it no more world-negating than Christianity or Buddhism, which likewise have traditions of renunciate men and women living apart from the world in spiritual pursuits.
While Sanatana Dharma proudly upholds such severe ways of life for the few, it is very much a family-oriented faith that supports acquisition of wealth, the pursuit of life’s pleasures and a full engagement in society’s spiritual, intellectual and emotional joys. The vast majority of followers are engaged in family life, firmly grounded in responsibilities in the world. Young Hindu adults are encouraged to marry; marriages are encouraged to yield an abundance of children; children are guided to live in virtue, fulfill duty and contribute to the community. The emphasis is not on self-fulfillment and freedom but on duty and the welfare of the community, as expressed in the phrase, “Bahujan hitaya, bahujan sukhaya,” meaning “the welfare of the many and the happiness of the many.”
Hindu scriptures speak of three worlds of existence: the physical, subtle and causal. The physical plane is the world of gross or material substance in which phenomena are perceived by the five senses. It is the most limited of worlds, the least permanent and the most subject to change. The subtle plane is the mental-emotional sphere that we function in through thought and feeling and reside in fully during sleep and after death. It is the astral world that exists within the physical plane. The causal plane pulsates at the core of being, deep within the subtle plane. It is the super-conscious world where the God and highly evolved souls live and can be accessed through yoga and temple worship.
Hindus believe that God created the world and all things in it. He creates and sustains from moment to moment every atom of the seen physical and unseen spiritual universe. Everything is within Him. He is within everything, God created us. He created time and gravity, the vast spaces and the uncounted stars. Creation is not the making of a separate thing, but an emanation of Himself. God creates, constantly sustains the form of His creations and absorbs them back into Himself. According to Hinduism, the creation, preservation and dissolution of the universe is an endless cycle. The creation and preservation portion of each cycle is a period of approximately 309 trillion years, at which point Mahapralaya, the Great Dissolution, occurs. Mahapralaya is the absorption of all existence - including time, space and individual consciousness, all the worlds and their inhabitants - in God, a return of all things to the source, sometimes likened to the water of a river returning to the sea. Then God alone exists until He again issues forth creation.
Hinduism In Practice
Hinduism Has three sustaining pillars: temple worship, scripture and the guru-disciple tradition. Around these all spiritual disciplines revolve, including prayer, meditation and ritual worship in the home and temple, study of scripture, recitation of mantras, pilgrimage to holy places, austerity, selfless service, generous giving, good conduct and the various yogas. Festivals and singing of holy hymns are dynamic activities.
Temple hold a central place of importance in Hindu life. Whether they be small village sanctuaries or towering citadels, they are esteemed as God’s consecrated abode. In the temple Hindus draw close to the Divine and find a refuge from the world. God’s grace, permeating everywhere, is most easily known within these holy precincts. It is in this purified milieu, where the three worlds (physical, astral and causal) commune most perfectly, that devotees can establish harmony with God, the Gods and their angelic helpers, called devas. Traditional temples are specially sanctified, possessing a ray of spiritual energy connecting them to the celestial worlds.
Temple rituals, performed by Hindu priests, take the form of puja, a ceremony in which the ringing of bells, passing of flames, presenting of offerings and intoning of chants invoke the devas and Gods, who then come to bless and help the devotees. Personal worship during puja may be an expression of festive celebration of important events in life, of adoration and thanksgiving, penance and confession, prayerful supplication and requests, or contemplation at the deepest levels of super-consciousness. The stone or metal Deity images enshrined in the temple are not mere symbols of God and the Gods; they are not mere inert idols but the forms through which divine love, power and blessings flood forth from the inner world of the Gods into this physical world. Devout Hindus adore the image as the Deity’s physical body, knowing that the God or Goddess is actually present and conscious in it during puja, aware of devotees’ thoughts and feelings and even sensing the priest’s gentle touch on the metal or stone.
Priests, known as pujaris, hold a central place of honor and importance. Each temple has its own staff of priests. Some temples appoint only one, while others have a large extended family of priests to take care of the many shrines and elaborate festivals. Most are well trained from early childhood in the intricate liturgy. These men of God must be fully knowledgeable of the metaphysical and ontological tenets of the religion and learn hundred of mantras and chants required in the ritual worship. Generally, pujaris do not attend to the personal problems of devotees. They are God’s servants, tending His temple home and its related dutires, never standing between the devotee and God. Officiating priests are almost always married men, while their assistants may be unmarried young men or widowers.
Hindus consider it most important to live near a temple, as it is the center of spiritual life. It is here, in God’s home, that the devotee nurtures his relationship with the Divine. Not wanting to stay away too long, he visits weekly and strives to attend each major festival, and to pilgrimage to a far-off temple annually for special blessings and a break from his daily concerns.
For the Hindu, the underlying emphasis of life is on making spiritual progress, while also pursuing one’s family and professional duties and goals. He is conscious that life is a precious, fleeting opportunity to advance, to bring about inner transformation, and he strives to remain ever conscious of this fact. For him work is worship, and his faith relates to every department of life.
Hinduism’s spiritual core is its holy men and women - millions of sadhus, yogis, swamis, vairagis, saints and satgurus who have dedicated their lives to full-time service, devotion and God Realization, and to proclaiming the eternal truths of Sanatana Dharma. In day-to-day life, perhaps no facet of dharma is as crucial as the spiritual teacher, or satguru. These holy men and women are a living spiritual force for the faithful. They are the inspirers and interpreters, the personal guides who, knowing God themselves, can bring devotees into God consciousness. Hindus believe that the blessing - whether a look, a touch or even a thought - coming from such a great soul helps them in their evolution, changes patterns in their life by cleaning up areas on their subconscious mind that they could not possibly have done for themselves. They further believe that if his shakti is strong enough, and if they are in tune with him enough, they will be empowered to really begin to meditate.
In all Hindu communities there are gurus who personally look after the spiritual practices and progress of devotees. Such preceptors are equally revered whether they are men or women. In few other religions are women allowed such access to the highest seats of reverence and respect.
Within the Hindu way is a deeply rooted desire to lead a productive, ethical life, following dharma. Among the many virtues instilled in followers are truthfulness, fidelity, contentment and avoidance of greed, lust and anger. A cornerstone of dharma is ahimsa, non-injury toward all beings. Vedic rishis who revealed dharma proclaimed ahimsa as the way to achieve harmony with out environment, peace between people and compassion within ourselves. Devout followers tend to be vegetarian and seek to protect the environment. Many individuals of all faiths are concerned about our environment and properly preserving it for future generations. Hindus share this concern and honor and revere the world around them as God’s creation. Their traditions have always valued nature and cared for it. They find it natural to work for the protection of the Earth’s diversity and resources to achieve the goal of a secure, sustainable and lasting environment.
Selfless service to God and humanity, known as seva, is widely pursued as a way of softening the ego and drawing close to the Divine. Charity, dana, is expressed though myriad philanthropic activities, especially feeding others.
Hindus wear sectarian marks, called tilaka, on their foreheads as sacred symbols, distinctive insignia of their heritage. Rather than burial, they prefer cremation of the body upon death, which quickly releases the soul from its earthly frame, allowing it to continue its evolutionary journey.
Perhaps one of Hinduism’s most refreshing characteristics is that it encourages free and open thought. Scriptures and gurus encourage followers to inquire and investigate into the nature of Truth, to explore worshipful, inner and meditative regimens to directly experience the Divine. This openness is at the root of Hinduism’s famed tolerance of other cultures, religions and points of view, capsulated in the adage, “Ekam sat viprah bahuda vadanti,” meaning “Truth is one, the wise describe it in different ways.” The Hindu is free to choose his path, his way of approaching the Divine, and he can change it in the course of his lifetime. There is no heresy or apostasy in Hinduism. This, coupled with Hinduism’s natural inclusiveness, give little room for fanaticism, fundamentalism or closed-minedness anywhere within the framework of Hinduism. It has been aptly called a threshold, not an enclosure.
Dr. S. Radhkrishnan, renowned philosopher and president of India from 1962 to 1967, summarizes in The Hindu View of Life: “The Hindu recognizes one Supreme Spirit, though different names are given to it. God is in the world, though not as the world. He does not merely intervene to create life or consciousness, but is working continuously. There is no dualism of the natural and the supernatural. Evil, error and ugliness are not ultimate. No vies is so utterly erroneous, no man is so absolutely evil as to deserve complete castigation. There is no Hell, for that means there is a place where God is not, and there are sins which exceed His love. The law of karma tells us that the individual life is not a term, but a series. Heaven and Hell are higher and lower stages in one continuous movement. Every type has its own nature which should be followed. We should do our duty in that state of life to which we happen to be called. Hinduism affirms that the theological expressions of religious experience are bound to be varied, accepts all forms of belief, and guides each along his path to the common goal. These are some of the central principles of Hinduism. If Hinduism lives today, it is due to them.”
VILLAGE MYSTICISM
Each Hindu community on the Indian subcontinent has its own Gramadevata, literally “village Divinity” the Deity regarded as synonymous with the locality and everything within it. Just as the home is viewed as a composite of the spirits of all of its inhabitants and of the materials that went into its construction, so also is the community a blend of its physical, spiritual and emotional components. Every house, every street, all of the shops, the craft studios, the barns, the farms, the trees and bushes, the wells, the reservoirs and streams, the inhabitants (people, animals and insects), the spirits of those who have lived and died there, and even the activities, thoughts and emotions of everyone living there - all are part of one great spirit identified as a Deity, a Gramadevata. This Deity is the community, just as the community is the Deity. They are inseparable.
Towns and cities have many individual subsections, each of which usually has its own Gramadevata. For example, every small locality in the Rajasthan city of Jodhpur has a God or Goddess that has been worshipped in that spot for as long as the community has existed. While most cities are internally divided into numerous smaller entities, a municipality may also be viewed as one great Deity, interwoven with all the inclusive Gramadevatas.
In this way, the entire southern Indian city of Madurai is believed to be the Goddess Meenakshi, the Gramadevata of the initial community that lived there. Her power is believed to be so immense that several kingdoms during the past millennia have owed their greatness to Her beneficence. Many thousands of pilgrims from all over India visit Her temple for Her darshan every year.
Most Gramadevatas are feminine - associated with the Earth, fertility, healing and protection. Their names often reflect their association with the Mother Goddess: they are usually prefixed or suffixed with Ma, Mata, Matrika or Amman (each a regional translation of “mother”), Ben or Bai (sister) or Rani (queen). Sometimes their regional identities have been merged with that of a great pan-Indian Deity, such as Durga or Mari.
For example, the Gramadevata of many southern Indian communities is Mariamman, while seven temples to the Goddess Durga Ma surround and guard the royal city of Udaipur. According to Hindu numerology, seven is particularly auspicious. Seven Mothers (Saptamatrika) are believed to guard many towns throughout the subcontinent, each Mother a specific aspect of the great Divine who may be beseeched in times of particular need. Together They are inseparable from the community that They incorporate. Their images may be delicately carved to delineate the various attributes of the individual Goddesses, but most often They are represented simply by a row of seven sacred stones placed beneath an ancient tree.
Shrines
Although Gramadevatas are indivisible from Their communities, each must have a focal point, a specific place or object on which to direct attention. The devasthana, or shrine, of a Gramadevata is usually associated with an important natural feature: a hill, a boulder, a stream or pond, a tree or grove of trees. Trees are by far the most common: there are hundreds of thousands of scared trees being worshiped constantly in India. Most are ancient, venerated as Gramadevatas for untold centuries in the same way that the papal tree (Ficus religiosa, a kind of banyan) is worshipped by Lalubhai and his family.
The appearance of these tree sanctuaries is a varied as the communities themselves: sometimes there are several trees together, or a single tree with a large platform built around it, or one marked with flags and banners or one with its trunk dressed like the Goddess Herself. The devasthana may be in the center of the village or in the fields beyond the farthest house. When the tree dies, the spot remains sacred. It is believed to be vibrant with the energies of innumerable pujas and will usually continue to be a focus of community worship, most often with a platform or building constructed where the tree stood.
The shrines in brahmana villages or those with brahmana occupant are usually overseen by brahmana priests. Pujas that take place in devasthanas in those many communities without brahmana occupants are often facilitated by non-brahmana priests, often because the community simply may not be able to afford to hire a brahmana. Conversely, a single brahmana in a village might feel isolated and therefore not want to move there.
The position of priest may be hereditary, usually given to a person of a menial caste whose family has conducted the pujas at a devasthana for untold generations. In some villages, however, inhabitants share responsibility for the shrine and appoint respected citizens to conduct worship, like the pujari in Mataji’s shrine. Many rituals that take place in a devasthana are conducted by individual devotees without an intermediary. The contact is direct between devotee and Deity.
Gramadevatas
Occasionally the spirit of community, the Gramadevata, may be transformed into that of another, greater Deity. For example, the essence of the tiny Orissan village of Padmapoda is viewed as the Goddess Gelubai, a local Thakurani, or benign form of the Divine Feminine honored within a sacred tree. Gelubai is belived to protect and nurture every aspect of existence with Padmapoda’s boundaries. At times of great need, however, when an individual, a family, or the entire village requires the aid of Shakti (the dynamic power of the Great Goddess), then a special puja is enacted in which the identity of Gelubai is subsumed into that of the Goddess Chandi. Perhaps someone is particularly ill and is unable to be cured by doctors, or perhaps the village is suffering a drought that endangers its crops and livelihood. In these and other dire cases a special brahmana priest will be hired to perform the puja.
Gelubai is first bathed, dressed and adorned, as She is every day, and Her usual puja is conducted. Next, an area is cleaned on the platform in front of the tree; a sacred diagram is drawn with special powders, and a fire is laid with sticks of wood. Then the flames are made to flare by being anointed with ghee, during which time the priest sings the names and attributes of the Goddess Chandi. As he extols Her, he places a coconut in the flames and invites the Goddess to pour Her divine energy into the tree, thereby transforming its essence from that of the village into the universal power of the Absolute.
As the coconut heats, the milk within it boils, causing it to burst, which signals the moment when the transformation is complete. Chandi in all Her strength is then present within the village. Her devotees may have direct darshan with Her. They believe that whatever they pray for will happen, and that by this ritual miracles do occur. The sick person will be healed or the drought ended. Once the puja is complete and the invocations made, Chandi is reverentially thanked and invited to leave the site. The tree returns once more to Gelubai as the village returns to its peaceful farming existence.
Although the majority of Indian communities worship feminine Gramadevatas, many communities envision these Deities as masculine. In some regions it is common to worship a local form of Rama or Hanuman as Gramadevata. In these cases indigenous legends usually involve the Deity’s interaction with local sites and historical characters that are unique variations of the more common mythology. Many villages refer simply to their God as Baba or Appan (two words for father) or an appellation that incorporates one of these names. Just as Mataji is considered the mother of Lalubhai’s village, in other communities Deities are visualized as judicious and powerful fathers who protect their families from danger.
In the eastern part of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, many towns and villages have two Gramadevatas - one masculine, the other feminine - each housed in Its own tree shrine. The local names of these Gods and Goddesses are as varied as their communities, although the generic name for the God is either Baba or Di-Baba, while the Goddess is called Kali-Ma. Both are considered tutelary Deities: they protect their devotees from adversity. Villagers may pray to either or both, depending on inclination and need. An outsider would have difficulty ascertaining the difference between the two tree shrines that honor the God and Goddess, except when terracotta offerings have been made. When devotees request the aid of Di-Baba, it is customary to promise to give Him a terracotta horse when their prayers are answered. If a boon is received, the worshiper will commission this sculpture to be made by a local potter. On a day considered auspicious to the God, the horse will be placed in His devasthana, along with gifts of flowers and food.
Pujas to Kali-Ma are more popular than those to Di-Baba. Kali-Ma is viewed locally as the Mother Goddess and is petitioned for aid when any kind of problem strikes the family. Her followers may come from any Hindu sect. Her pujas are considered particularly effective in combating agricultural calamities, family crises, civic disputes, infertility and disease. Many believe Her to be both the cause and the cure of smallpox, cholera and measles. When struck with one of these diseases, a person is said to be inhabited by Kali-Ma. Part of the cure is to worship and honor the Goddess within.
Often the worshiper will promise that if the Goddess answers his or her prayers, then terracotta elephants will be given to Her. These elephants are believed to become real animals in the spirit world the instant they are placed in Her shrine, and many believe that Kali-Ma rides them in Her nightly battles against evil. Once the elephants have been given and transformed by the Goddess, they no longer have any value. They, like the horses given to Di-Baba, remain beneath the tree to disintegrate with the weather, their sole purpose fulfilled.
Terracotta gifts are placed in the shrines of Gramadevatas throughout India. Most often made on commission by local potters, they are easily affordable, even in a country where the overall per capita income is particularly low. Their form and the style of production vary according to local tradition. Many are simple stick figures made of dowels of clay, others are sculpted of elements thrown on the wheel, while still others are made by coil or slab techniques, or mass-produced in moulds. They range in size from just inches high to over sixteen feet, the largest terracottas known in the history of mankind. Almost all are gifts to local Gramadevatas in grateful response to the Deities’ beneficence. Each, even the most elaborate, is ephemeral; its value is in the giving. It represents a personal commitment between the devotee and his or her Deity, the essence of Hindu reciprocity.
Considering that each Hindu community honors its own individual Gramadevata, it is no wonder that India is said to contain a million and one Gods and Goddesses. The present census lists more than 630,000 villages, not counting the numerous towns and cities. In its entirety, the Hindu pantheon is overwhelming, inconceivable. Its relevance lies in its approachability, not is vastness. Each Hindu has a vital sense of belonging. Each has an Ishtadevata, the Deity of personal choice; a Kuladevata, the Deity of family and household; and a Gramadevata, the Deity of community. An individual’s life is entwined in recognizing and honoring these relationships, in defining the self and one’s interconnectedness to all other living beings. In a world where concepts and values are constantly challenged, the underlying purpose of all the numerous rituals and pujas of every day and season is to allow the Hindu to meet God, an experience that brings with it a sense of clarity, balance and belonging.
FEATURES OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION
Spirituality
It is often said that the strength of Indian Civilization is its spirituality. It lays great emphasis on spirit which is internal rather than on externalities. But what is ‘Spirituality’? It is not easy to define. It is easier to say by what means one gets to the spiritual realm than to say what it is in itself.
Three avenues of approach to the spiritual are handed down by the almost universal tradition of the sages : (1) to regard sensory experience as relatively unimportant (2) to try to renounce what one is attached to (3) to try to treat all people alike – whatever their looks, intelligence, colour, smell, education, etc.
During the past few centuries, spiritual interests have been relegated into the background by preoccupations with economic and social problems. Whereas Europe and the West have built up and perfected a ‘commercial civilization’ that is rapidly expanding, India had built up a ‘spiritual civilization’. The comparative ease with which one’s needs for daily existence could be met, in other words, natures bounty and kindness to the inhabitants of the sub-continent could be the cause of this emphasis on the spirit.
Holistic and Integrated
It is a holistic civilization where everything has its place in a wide interconnected scheme. Man lives on earth but is influenced by the celestial bodies. This influence depends upon the day and time of one’s birth. Highly developed astronomical knowledge served as a handmaiden to astrology. Not only individuals but occurrences such as natural disasters and favourable trade winds, rains, or a good crop came under the influence of the planets. Till recent times or even today in isolated villages, the local seer would present the landowner with a palm leaf forecast before each sowing season as part of his age-old feudal obligation. This did not mean resignation to the inevitable; it only meant a timely awareness that a necessary step could be taken or a stitch done on time. As for individuals, a customized individual ayurvedic treatment begun at a ‘propitious’ time would effect a sure-fire cure.
World’s Oldest Complete Scripture
It is a treasury of the most inspiring yet mankind’s oldest literary works. It is also a treasury of marvelously effective practical manuals from architecture to the healing arts, from manuals of love making and seduction to war making. It contains not only philosophical and spiritual works but a vast repertoire of miscellany.
It is agreed by any scholar of history or religion that the earliest spiritual writings that can be found are the Vedic samhitas, such as the Rig-veda. In History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (page 557), Max Mueller observed, "In the Rig-veda we shall have before us more real antiquity than in all the inscriptions of Egypt or Ninevah. . . the Veda is the oldest book in existence. . ."
In the same book (page 63) Max Mueller also noted, "The Veda has a two-fold interest: It belongs to the history of the world and to the history of India. In the history of the world the Veda fills a gap which no literary work in any other language could fill. It carries us back to times of which we have no records anywhere."
The Rig-veda, as old and profound as it, nonetheless, represents only a portion of Vedic thought and wisdom. It was further expanded and explained in numerous other portions of Vedic literature. The whole library of ancient Vedic texts covers a wide range of contemplation, experience and learning in regard to an extraordinarily diverse number of topics.
To explain briefly, we first find the most ancient four Vedic samhitas, namely the Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva Vedas. Then there is the Brahmanas, treatises explaining the techniques of the rituals in the Vedas, and the Aranyakas, further explanations for those renunciants who live in the forest. After this we find hundreds of Upanishads, the foremost of which are 108, out of which eleven are the most famous, such as the Katha, Mundaka, Brihadaranyaka, Shvetashvatara, Prashna, Chandogya, and others. These continue to elaborate on the Vedic spiritual truths. The Vedanta Sutras are also codes that contain the essence of spiritual truths that require fuller explanations by a spiritual teacher.
Beyond these are the Itihasas, or the histories, which are contained in such large volumes as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, of which the famous Bhagavad-gita is a chapter. These contain not only an immense library of stories and moral principles, but some of the loftiest spiritual teachings that anyone can find. Furthermore, they can act as guidebooks for one's life, as well as explain the step by step processes for achieving one's own spiritual enlightenment. This is also true of the Puranas, out of which there are 18 greater or Maha Puranas and another 18 lesser or Upa Puranas. There are also many regional or Sthala Puranas. All of these give many stories of the past histories of the world, and even the universe, as well essential spiritual teachings that are universal in nature that everyone could benefit by studying.
We also find additional Sutras, books of codes that explain such things as rules for householders, as in the Griha-Sutras, or codes of duty and other topics. The Vedangas contain the auxiliary sciences, such as phonetics, grammar, astronomy, etc. Then there are the Upavedas, or lesser Vedas, which deal with the arts and sciences such as dancing and music (Gandharva-veda), holistic health (Ayur-veda), or the art of war, and even architecture. Beyond this there are thousands more books that are the books of great spiritual masters and Vedic teachers that are commentaries on the original Vedic texts. All of these are in pursuance of the Vedic path.
In this way, within the Vedic scripture, one can find music, dance, art, biographies on great saints and personalities, and stories that contain every level of emotion. They also exhibit lessons of truth, etiquette, philosophy, and examples of how others have lived and attained the heights of spiritual consciousness and freedom from further material birth.
The most important books for spiritual instruction, as most everyone will agree, are the Bhagavad-gita and Srila Vyasadeva's own commentary on the Vedic texts, the Bhagavat Purana. He was the original author of the essential Vedic scriptures. These will bring anyone to various levels of spiritual knowledge, the likes of which surpass conventional religious principles. The Bhagavat Purana brought out everything that Vyasadeva neglected to explain in his previous writings. Therefore, anyone who studies Vedic knowledge should not neglect reading the Bhagavat Purana, also called the Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Through this short review of the Vedic texts, one can get an idea of how thorough and comprehensive is this science. These scriptures reveal the form of God, His personality, the loving nature of God, His greatness, mercy and compassion like no other scripture available. It also shows the unique paths to God in ways that are far more detailed and beyond anything that other scriptures present. Everyone, no matter whether they are religionists, philosophers, politicians, artists, celebrities, or renounced swamis, will appreciate and benefit from the continued study of this most ancient, sacred, and most complete of all spiritual literature. Therefore, those who are devoted Hindus and practitioners of the Vedic system never give up the reading and study of the Vedic literature, knowing that newer and loftier levels of understanding and perceptions into the secrets of life are awaiting them.
Naturally, there is wisdom and understanding available through all of the great books and religions. But to fathom the vast depths of Vedic knowledge is to flow through such a grand gallery of realizations and levels of consciousness that a person can merely get a glimpse of the innumerable considerations that have been made within the development of the Vedic lifestyle regarding all aspects of life. It has been said that the Vedic scripture remains ever fresh with newer and newer realizations, insights and wisdom. Thus, it could be advised that a person can spend a lifetime reading and studying the Vedic scripture and never end in finding newer and higher levels of understanding.
Spiritual Philosophy
As we can see from the previous description of the Vedic scripture, the Vedic philosophy is the most extensive you can find anywhere. It covers so many aspects of life, both material and spiritual, that it is more comprehensive than any other philosophy or lifestyle that you can find. So many viewpoints on life, the material manifestation, God, and our spiritual nature have already been thoroughly considered and thought out that there is little, if anything, that the Vedic philosophy has not already dealt with and spoke about. Everything is there, more of which than most people are aware. Because of this it has attracted thinkers and philosophers from all over the world and from all points in time. The West in particular has, and still does, look to India for the loftiest spiritual knowledge, and for what the churches or synagogues have not delivered. This may include practical spiritual guidance in self-discovery, an integrated world view, spiritual and emotional fulfillment, and even true mystical or spiritual experiences. The spiritual processes that are explained in the Vedic teachings go far beyond the conventional idea, as presented by most religions, that people should merely have faith and pray to God for forgiveness of their sins in order to be delivered to heaven. Naturally, we all have to be humble before God. That is what is encouraged and developed. This is especially in the loving devotional path, wherein a person can purify his or her consciousness through the spiritual practices that are fully explained in the Vedic teachings, even though this takes time and serious dedication and sincerity.
The point is that the Vedic process does not discourage one from having his or her own spiritual realizations, which are often minimized, neglected or even criticized in other religions, which often teaches that the church alone is what maintains your connection with God. But in the Vedic system it is taught that we are all spiritual and loving parts of God, and automatically have a relationship with Him. Therefore, such experiences are considered a proof that the process is successful at helping one elevate his or her consciousness. One's consciousness resonates at various frequencies, depending on the level of one's thoughts, words, and actions, as well as the images and sounds that one absorbs through contact with objects and activities. By learning how to undergo the proper training, one can include the practices that will bring one's consciousness to a level in which one can perceive that which is spiritual. The more spiritual you become, the more you can perceive that which is spiritual. The whole idea is to bring one to perceive his or her spiritual identity and relationship with God. Thus, it must be a scientific process, used under the guidance of a spiritual master, for it to be successful. If the process is not complete, or if the student is not serious, then of course the results will not be as expected. Yet, if the proper spiritual process is explained correctly, and the student is sincere in his or her efforts, the effects will be there. This is why for thousands of years philosophers and spiritual seekers from around the world have come to India, or have been influenced by the Vedic system: It gives practical results when properly performed.
Lifestyle that is in tune with Science
With all the topics that are covered in the Vedic scripture, it provides the means for a most well-rounded and balanced lifestyle, both materially and spiritually. For example, in regard to meditation, it recommends that the best time to do so is in the early morning during the brahma-muhurta hour, which is just before sunrise. Why? Because this is best since it is before the business and noise of the day begins. It is just after getting rest, arising during the time when satya-guna, the mode of goodness, is prominent, and before the mind is disturbed by so many thoughts of the day.
Regarding diet, it is recommended that you eat your biggest meal while the fire of digestion is at is peak, which is usually around noon or shortly thereafter. This is also when the sun is at its highest. This helps relieve one from indigestion and associated diseases.
Diet is also further divided not only by different foods at certain times of the day, but also by whether the food is in the mode of goodness (sattvic), passion (rajasic), or darkness (tamasic). Foods in goodness are vegetarian (fruits and vegetables) that promote health, peace of mind, happiness, and enlightenment. Rajasic foods are often based on taste and can be spicy. These lead to mental agitation, passion, and disease. Tamasic foods include those that are old, often of little taste, stale, of little nutritional value, and can lead to delusion, laziness and sleep. So simply by the study of food one can direct the diet toward a happier and more peaceful life.
In regard to the way to divide one's existence, there are four ashramas of life. We are students in the first part of our life, called the brahmachari ashrama for men. In the second part of our life most people are married householders, called the grihasta-ashrama. After we have associated with our wife and had children that have grown and married, then it is time to take up the retired order of life, the vanaprastha-ashrama, and begin to relieve ourselves of the responsibilities of married life. Then when we are ready, usually before we are too old, it is suggested that we take up the renounced order of life, sannyasa-ashrama, so that we can devote ourselves completely to reaching God after death. In this way, by following these ashramas, or orders of life, we not only have a fulfilling material existence, but also reach spiritual perfection so as to not waste this valuable form of human life.
These are just a few examples of how the Vedic recommended lifestyle and science is meant to help one live a balanced existence for happiness and progress both materially and spiritually.
Real Care and Concern for Others
By understanding our spiritual nature, and being able to perceive that nature in all other living beings, we naturally care for and are concerned about all others. This does not only mean the material benefits, such as making sure the hungry are fed, or the poor are clothed. But this also extends to the care for the soul. Naturally, it can be difficult to take care of the material or bodily needs of all other living beings. However, the point is that as long as we have these material bodies, there will be a constant drive to care for the problems that our material body will create for us. Therefore, by giving everyone the chance to advance spiritually can also help each person to solve this problem. Once a person has made enough spiritual advancement that they no longer need a material body and become free from any continued rounds of birth and death, then all such problems will naturally be solved. This is the true care and concern of the Vedic system.
Some people may nonetheless criticize Hinduism for what appears to be the issue of the untouchability of the low castes, the disrespect for widows, poverty, etc. However, these issues are not so much the problem or product of the Vedic system in as much as they are social issues that have developed because of society falling away from the Vedic path. To explain briefly, the caste system as we see it today is a perverted remnant from the varnashrama system of the Vedic culture. Varna is a legitimate Vedic system by which a person is recommended for a type of work and social service according to his or her mental and intellectual caliber, ability and tendencies. Thus, if a person showed a proclivity for study and religious pursuits, then he may be trained to be a Brahmin. If he exhibited a talent for business, then he may be trained to be a Vaishya. A child of feeble intellect that preferred performing menial tasks would then be trained in the ways of serving those in the higher varnas, as a Sudra. Nonetheless, his dignity was preserved and he had full rights as any other person.
However, the caste system we see today is that if you are born in the family of a Brahmin, then you are accepted to be a Brahmin. And if you are born in a Sudra family, then that is where you remain. Thus, through the years, the higher castes have shown an attitude of exclusivity above the lower castes. There is no justification for this, since it is clearly taught in the Vedic literature, such as the Bhagavad-gita and Bhagavat Purana that everyone is born in ignorance. Thus, everyone is at first a Sudra until it is determined what mental or intellectual tendencies and abilities a person has. Only then may it be determined what varna or caste a person is likely to belong. In other words, just by being born in the family of a doctor does not mean that you are automatically a doctor. You must be trained, tested and qualified. If you do not become qualified, then you are no doctor, but must be something else. Similarly, if you are born in a Brahmin family, but go out smoking, drinking, eating meat, etc., then you are no Brahmin, but you actually have a low-caste mentality. Furthermore, in the true Vedic varnashrama system, even if you were born in a low-caste family, if you exhibited good intellectual ability, then you were not forced to remain in the low-caste category. You could be trained for other purposes and skills.
These problems would all be resolved if people would actually study more seriously the Vedic literature and regain the spiritual standards that more strictly follow the Vedic path. Then there would certainly be more of the genuine care and concern that the Vedic system promotes. This would naturally be there if we all saw each other as spiritual beings but merely in different types of bodies. With this sort of spiritual perception, we all lose sight of the materialistic distinctions between us and easily become more loving, caring, and cooperative with everyone.
Based on Universal Order and harmony
Indian Civilization is based on a profound acceptance of the ‘order and harmony’ of the Universe. It is called ‘Rita’. This ‘cosmic order’ is reflected by nature in its seasonal changes, by individuals in their rites of passage through the various stages in life, by societies in their interactions and so on. The same ‘cosmic order’ is reflected in not only the physical-material plane but also in the biological, moral and spiritual planes.
When a ‘motif’ is repeated to form a harmonious pattern, we call it a ‘fractal pattern’. For example, look at an attractive sari or a carpet. It has a mango shape on it repeated several times, in some places on it, tiny mangoes and at other placed larger and larger ones. They are all so arranged that the end-effect is pleasing to the eye. The mango is the ‘motif’ and the whole pattern is fractal. The whole cosmos comprises several fractal patterns.
Individuals are born, perform their role on earth and pass away. Stars are born, shine for their allotted aeons and then die away; so do galaxies. Here is another pattern : Each chemical element has its nucleus at the core surrounded by whirling electrons, and space in between. We find the same pattern on a much larger scale in the heavens above. ‘Dharma’ is the quality which upholds ‘Rita’.
Truth (Satyam), Goodness (Shivam) and Beauty (Sundaram) come together in the cosmic scheme of things and become inseparable. If these aspects of ‘Dharma’ are violated, the pattern is upset and the law of cause and effect ensures that consequences will follow!
The religions of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism share the same background as so called Hinduism – or Sanatana Dharma. They are variants so to say built on the same platform. They emphasize or ‘privilege’ certain aspects of ancient Indian spirituality and perceptions. Jainism and Buddhism focus more on Ahimsa whereas Sikhism encourages fighting for a Righteous cause –‘Dharma yuddha’ . For this reason, the Sikhs were considered the Sword-arm of Hinduism till comparatively recent times. Their greeting and their war-cry both remind you of the timeless glory of Truth.
Old Indian Civilisation Still Alive
Throughout the length and breadth of India we come across icons and shrines to the God Ganesa with his impressive elephant head and abdomen. Before any undertaking he is invoked to bring success. He is the God of Gana or ‘Hap’. He makes success happen and avoids ‘mishaps’. He makes the numbers on the dice fall in your favour, aligns your endeavour with the rhythm of the Natural order.
It is said that if you close your eyes and quieten your mind of all distractions preparatory to mentally chalking out your plan of action, you will see in your mind’s eye the God Ganesa.
In no other civilisation or culture are there so many colourful religious festivals Krishnashtami, Rama Navami, Durga Puja, Ganesha Chathurti, Shivaratri, Vijaya Dasami, etc., celebrated all over the country with unique features in different States. There are innumerable region-specific festivals, such as Sabarimala season of Kerala, Tirupati Brahmotsava of Andhra, Jagannath Ratha Utsava of Orissa, Kavadi of Tamil Nadu, Pandharpur festival of Maharashtra, and so on. These festivals draw devotees and pilgrims from all over the country and abroad too. These events are not only instrumental in keeping communities together, but also sustained the Hindu civilisation and India’s cultural unity for millennia.
In fact, out of 49 civilisations, which existed prior to the Christian Era, only the Indian civilisation is still living and vibrant, with an unbroken continuity of 5000 years. The rest are now mere ruins of brick and mortar, of interest only to archaeologists and tourists. In the once mighty Egypt, only the Pyramids remain; in Rome, only the Coliseum stands as testimony to the Roman power in pre-Christian times. Greece gave the Western world its heritage. Where great philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras and others taught truth and heritage, only ruins remain in Athens to remind mankind of her ancient glory. But in India, the same spirit surviving from pre-historic times, can be seen and experienced even now; this shows the values and sustaining power of Indian civilisation and culture.
Unity in Diversity
Politicians and intellectuals talk glibly about unity in diversity, which they ascribe to culture. But Indian culture is essentially derived from the four religions, which were born in India, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, all of which lean heavily on Vedanta and Puranas.
Except for a few hundred scholars, the masses are content with worship in temples, undertaking pilgrimages, singing Bhajans, observing rituals, organising festivals and so on. While such practices are good, and should be encouraged, Hindus should have at least an elementary understanding of Indian Heritage and Culture, and also their relevance to management of life - whether it be at home, in the work place or as a citizen. It is hoped that the insights, particularly the Vedanta (the goal or end of the Vedas), will be taught to all students from secondary school level onwards so that they would grow up with concepts and values of IHC, which will enable them to progress in the material world as well as in the spiritual plane. All educational and management training programmes should introduce the essentials of IHC, which will improve performance and moral excellence. It may be noted that, except for prayers, which may be part of religion, everything else is secular in character. This will ensure emotional equilibrium. If one were to understand the correct meaning of even the prayers and slokas, it will be seen that these are more secular/spiritual in nature rather than narrowly.
Hinduism not an Exclusive Belief System
The Hindu tradition provides a good foundation on which a global formulation of the tradition of perennial wisdom can be renewed. Hinduism is a religion which is open or universal and ever new in its relevance and not closed in an exclusive belief system. Hinduism is not based on the teachings of any single figure like Christ, Mohammed or Buddha. It has no standard creed or practice. It is an open tradition of spiritual search that occupies all true human aspirations regardless of name and form.
Diversity of Hinduism
Hinduism contains the greatest diversity and freedom of spiritual life than found elsewhere, because it allows the Divine to be worshipped in any name or form. It allows us to see God as father, mother, brother, sister, friend or master and ultimately suggest that we see God as everything and above all as our own very self. It says that whatever leads us to our deeper self, which is true Divinity, is good, regardless of the form that it takes, which is a matter of no real significance by itself.
Not an Organized Religion
Hinduism is not an organized religion. There is no central figure like the Pope or Prophet as in Christianity and Islam respectively. There is nothing like the Bible or Quran which all Hindus must read. Hinduism has no prescribed day of the week for worship, or any single prescribed ritual. The different sects within Hinduism have different temples, holy places, and spiritual leaders.
Hinduism has never organized itself on monolithic lines, with a set dogma and specific canons of beliefs. It has remained decentralized, localized and liberal. This is perhaps the reason why it has survived through the millennia.
However, Hinduism has teachings that encompass all of human life and culture from medicine and science, art and music, spirituality and yoga. In this regard Hinduism has the best organized and the most complete teachings among all religions and has addressed in detail all aspects of our existence, including those considered to be outside the realm of religion in other cultures.
Spirit of Hinduism – Open and Universal
While some major religions often claim that salvation is possible only through their faith, Hinduism accepts other religions as equally true, as will be evident from the following statements in Hindu scriptures.
Truth/God is one; saints and scholars call it/Him by different names.
Like water from the sky, falling on earth as rain, take different routes through rivers and rivulets, and finally merge with the ocean, so too all prostrations and prayers – in whatever name and form – reach the same God.
This concept is not just mere theory or an ideal. Sri Ramakrishna demonstrated the universality of religions in practice. He lived like a Christian, and later as a Muslim, observing their respective rituals, and realised God. He then boldly declared, “whatever be the name and form or method of prayer, one can realise God in all religions”. Such a broad minded and liberal view cannot be found in any other culture or civilisation or religion.
Teachings and Concepts
The principles and teachings as well as cultural concepts of Hinduism are built into two Ithihasas: Ramayana by Valmiki, and Mahabharata by Vyasa. There are 18 Puranas consisting of 400,000 stanzas; and 18 more Upapuranas with as many stanzas. There are four Upavedas - AyurVeda (Science of life), DhanurVeda (Science of war and weapons), GandharvaVeda (Science of Music and Dance) and Arthasastra (Statecraft and Economics). Further, there are 24 Dharmasastras, including Manusmrithi. There are Thantras, Pancharatna and Pashupadas, Shilpa Sastra (Architecture), Vasthu Sastra, Lakshana Sastra, Kamasutra (Science of sex life), Ratnapareeksha, Mahendrajala (Science of Magic) and numerous Yantras (vehicles and equipments). Hindu literature covers all aspects of life, and the vast material occupies one million pages. Indian philosophy is also divided into six categories - Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Poorva Mimamsa and Uttara Mimamsa, Sankhya and Yoga.
Upanishads and Bramhasutras
Ancient India postulated theories in the Vedanta (end or purpose of Vedas), called Upanishads and Brahmasutras, which are the philosophic part of India’s spiritual literature. Out of 108 Upanishads, which are extant now, ten are considered more important, since Sankaracharya has written commentaries on them. Brahma Sutras are aphorisms, describing profound principles in a few words. But the vast majority of Indians cannot understand abstract theories or the philosophy in the Upanishads and Sutras. To most, they may appear abstract, and even confusing. Their relevance to modern life may not be evident to them. Therefore, these concepts are condensed and integrated in the Bhagavad Gita, which is the spiritual handbook of Hindus, like Bible and Quran are to Christians and Muslims.
God Realization
Hinduism recognises that for most people realisation of God is a journey, which can be accomplished only in thousands of successive birth and death cycles. Therefore, we should proceed step by step in every birth, purifying the mind by good thoughts, words and actions. The mind has to be cleansed of impure thoughts and desires. Reasonable aspirations for wealth and sensory pleasures are legitimate, recognised as a part of the four Purusharthas. But Dharma should regulate Artha and Kama, which ultimately should lead to Moksha. By observing the principles of IHC, one can be a Jivan-Mukta i.e. a liberated person, while living in the midst of the world of actions and relationships. Dharma should regulate and moderate secular pursuits in the materialistic world.
Mythology and history show that thousands of saints and sages have realised their divinity and conveyed to us that it is possible for all of us to do so, provided we are sincere. Bhagwan Ramakrishna thus realised God. Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, who is considered an incarnation of God, is amidst us now, spreading the message of Sanathana Dharma and rendering social service in a variety of fields, i.e. helping the poor and the handicapped, gathering various groups together, fostering national and international unity, bringing people of different religions in spiritual harmony. Ramakrishna, Ramana, Aurobindo, Vivekananda, Sarada Devi, Ramathirtha, Tapovan Maharaj, Sivananda, Narayana Guru, Yogananda, Shirdi Baba and Prabhupada belong to the last century. Amritananda Mayi has devotees all over the world who flock to receive her blessings. In earlier centuries, we had the three Acharyas, Tulsidas, Vallabha, Nimbarka, Chaitanya, Tukaram, Thyagaraja, Purandara Dasa, Kabir, Mira..... literally hundreds. No other culture or nation has had this unique privilege to give birth to so many saints.
The concepts contained in the Hindu scriptures such as the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras and the scriptures of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism which are off-shoots of Hinduism are in fact secular and scientific. The ideas and principles contained therein are directly relevant to most categories of economic and social institutions as well as to most inter-personal and inter-institutional relationships and transactions.
How to Realize God – be one with God
The primary purpose of human birth, according to the Hindu scriptures, is God realization. Many lives of virtuous and disciplined living are necessary to attain this goal. Depending on one’s tendency, interests and competence, one or more paths towards God realisation can be followed – Jnana (knowledge) yoga, Karma (action/work) yoga, Bhakti (Devotion) yoga and Raja (meditation) yoga.
For most people, Jnana yoga is beyond their comprehension. Karma and Raja yoga are also difficult paths. Most people follow the path of Bhakti, which is relatively easy. Man is endowed with emotion and loves himself. Bhakti Marga suggests that this love may be directed towards God. The devotional path is common to most religions. Muslims pray five times a day. Bhakti Marga is popular and widespread. In order to cater to the individual’s temperament, attitude, eligibility and tendencies from previous births, various concepts and practices are proposed in the Bhakti cult. Innumerable festivals are celebrated every year to
strengthen the Bhakti fervour – Durga Puja, Vijaya Dasami, Ganesh Chaturthi, Rama Navami, Krishnashtami and so on. Other festivals – Deepavali, Holi, Onam, Kumbh mela etc., also have religious significance. Elaborate rituals and procedures are prescribed to approach God through prayer. The Hare Krishna movement believes that chanting names of God i.e. Rama and Krishna is adequate in this Kali Yuga.
Shiva’s dance is a metaphor of the unity and rhythm of existence. The unending, dynamic process of creation and destruction is expressed in the energetic posture of Shiva. “Modern physics has revealed that every subatomic particle not only performs an energy movement which can be an energy dance, a pulsating process of creation and destruction. The dance of Shiva is the dancing Universe, the ceaseless flow of energy through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into one another” (Fritjof Capra, Austrian born theoretical high-energy physicist and ecologist).
Prakriti Compels us to Act
Prakriti (Nature) compels us to act. We cannot keep quiet. In any case, we have to bathe, eat, play and work for a living, enter into social and economic relations, learn and educate others, acquire skills of various kinds and so on. Man works hard for name and fame, power and position, possessions and wealth. We love and hate, enjoy and suffer, experience numerous physiological and psychological states while responding to events, social transactions, filial and organizational relations etc. Some are of our own volition, convictions, requirements and ambitions, while many others are forced on us by society and the environment. Even if we wish to keep quiet, we have to react and respond to outside developments and events over which we do not normally have much control. Some recluses and sages retired to the forests in order to avoid interference and interventions from the environment, thus enabling them to concentrate spiritually.
Law of Karma Explains Diverse Phenomena
Incidentally, the Law of Karma explains the diversity seen in this world which is a mixture pleasure and pain, joy and suffering, success and failure. It also explains why good people suffer and the crooked flourish and prosper. It also explains why some children are healthy and intelligent, while others are handicapped, poor and dull. All these contradictory phenomena are the result of past Karmas.
Laws of Cause and Effect
The Law of Karma is a principal doctrine of Hinduism. “It simply means Action – or the effect of action. What happens to us that is apparently unfortunate or unjust is not God punishing us. It is the result of our own past actions. The Vedas tell us that if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness. If we sow evil, we will reap evil. The divine law is: whatever Karma we are experiencing in our life is just what we need at the moment, and nothing can happen but that we have the strength to meet it. Even harsh Karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest catalyst for spiritual unfoldment”. (Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami).
“Actions in the present life condition the next birth. This is not fatalism since one can modify one’s destiny by consciously performing good actions.”(Romila Thapar).
“According to the Hindu definition, Karma (literally ‘work’ or ‘deed’) was the unseen ripening of past actions….. Through Karma the body of the next life, divine, human, animal or hellish, was acquired; and on previous Karma depended a man’s character, fortune and social class, and his happiness and sorrow. Every good act sooner or later brought its result in happiness, and every evil act in sorrow. The belief in Karma does not necessarily involve fatalism”. “Our present condition is inevitable, but only because of the Karma accruing from past deeds. We cannot escape the Law of Karma any more than we can escape the law of gravity or the passage of time, but by judgement and forethought we can use the law of Karma to our advantage” (A.L. Basham).
As per the Law of Karma we are arbiters of our own destiny. We cannot blame God or others for our failures in life. In order to attain happiness and peace of mind, we have to observe code of conduct and lead a virtuous life. Karma Yoga thus spiritualises life, gives an incentive to lead a noble life and acts as a deterrent and self-regulator against deviant action.
Karma is not Fatalism
“It is wrong to identify the doctrine of Karma with fatalism. Karma is not an external destiny driving man to his doom, nor a fluid mechanical framework from which there is no escape. All that the Law of Karma implies is that our present state is the result of our past actions. So far as our future is concerned we are relatively free to fashion it after our heart’s desire. It is not a blind law that operates in the universe. Freedom from the cycle of Karma is not only possible but is our ultimate goal and destiny”. – (Dr.T.M.P. Mahadevan).
The Nature of the Soul
Man is the product of Nature constituted of the five elements or Pancha Bhootas – earth, water, air, fire and space. The soul does not transmigrate in a state of nudity but with a sheath or series of sheaths of subtle matter. The condition of the sheaths depends on the balance of previous good and evil Karma, and the new birth is determined by the nature of the sheaths which surround the soul. The subtle body of transmigration is deprived of sense organs, including mind and therefore, the soul cannot normally remember previous births. Very advanced souls can sometimes recapture memories of previous existence after deep meditation and practice. Sai Baba has even declared where he will be born in the next birth. But it is a great blessing that ordinary human beings do not remember their past lives. If we recollect what we were in previous births, it will be difficult to live peacefully in this birth.
Rebirth and Transmigration
A corollary to the Law of Karma is the concept of rebirth and transmigration of the soul.
“Thus the magnificently logical Indian doctrines of Samsara or transmigration and Karma, the result of the deeds of one life affecting the next….. even at this early period had an ethical content…..” (A.L. Basham).
“This doctrine of Karma (literally ‘deed’) soon become fundamental to most Indian thought. It provided a satisfactory explanation of the mystery of suffering, which has troubled many thoughtful souls all over the world, and it justified the manifest social inequalities of the community. To the ordinary man such a doctrine might not appear distasteful, and the fact that it quickly obtained almost universal acceptance shows that it met in great measure ancient India’s spiritual needs. Indeed in many respects the idea of Samsara, which offers infinite potentialities of new experience to the soul, and which hold out hope even to the humblest of living things and the most evil of beings, might seem more attractive than the traditional static heaven and hell of the West”(A.L. Basham).
There is no conflict between Indian Hindu
culture and modern scientific culture.
The Concepts contained in the Hindu scriptures such as the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras and the scriptures of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are in fact secular and scientific. The ideas and principles contained therein are directly relevant to most categories of economic and social institutions as well as to most inter-personal and inter-institutional relationships and transactions.
Is Hinduism Other-wordly?
Many Indians and foreigners are under the mistaken notion that is too abstract and even confusing. They have the impression that it is only meant for a recluse who reject this world and retires to the forest; and that it is against wealth, desire and pleasure, and so on. Such notions are based on a misunderstanding. It recognises the reality of this world, with its myriad phenomena, legitimacy of desire for wealth and pleasure, aspiration for name and fame, etc. In reality, it is only against irresponsible indulgence in frivolous pleasure, avarice and greed in pursuit of wealth, etc. ICH further insists that adoption of the right means is essential and that Dharma should control urge for ill-gotten Artha and illicit Kama. Annie Besant stated, “India’s contribution to mankind is the concept of Dharma, i.e., duty to God and society, compassion to animals and respect for plant life, self-restraint and concern for others, observing discipline and moderation, adhering to ethics and morals, showing mutual respect, etc. – all of which are essential elements of culture and values and which are common to all major religions”.
Destiny or Freewill ? - The Doctrine of Karma
It is wrong to think of Karma in terms of what is understood by the word fatalism. Destiny as taught in Vedanta does not involve an unscientific attitude towards natural laws or a break-down of faith in human effort, which is fatalism. Karma is the unalterable law of effect following previous causes. This is what distinguishes Vedanta from its half-brother, fatalism, as it emerged in the West from the pagan philosophies. When a Hindu speaks of the decree of fate, the word he uses for fate is vidhi, which means law. He means thereby that one should expect only the fruit of one’s action and nothing else. Far from understanding human effort, Vedanta puts the highest value on it. It points out that it is foolish to do one thing and expect to undo it before it produces its effects because they will not be to your liking. No act can ever fail to produce its result. Nor can any act produce anything but its true result. It is not possible to do a thing and escape its result. One cannot expect something to happen for which something else appropriate to produce that result should have been done. Given the necessary acts, he natural consequences must follow.
The Law of Karma is really a charter of true freedom. It shows that our actions will have their consequences. Karma means action. Yet people misunderstand that the Law of Karma closes our freedom and that we are doomed to suffer some predestined horrors. We are the masters of our own destiny, the captains of our fate. We chart our own courses. If however we have gone astray, we can always alter our course by genuine repentance. Vedanta does recognize earnest repentance, the very act of which involves some suffering.
When we do not know the causes which have produced an event we call the result destiny or decree of fate or chance. But this loose nomenclature means nothing but the lamenting of results and the confession of failure to use our intelligence to find out the causes which certainly existed and produced the result. A Sanskrit word commonly used for luck is adrishta, which means literally what was not seen. It does not mean that it is not subject to law; it is simply what was not previously seen.
Vedantic Ethic
The Supreme Being in Hinduism is not subject to numerization. He is one as well as many. He is not subject to specification of characteristics. Each aspect is a whole. Grace is sought from Hari or Siva or the Universal Mother even as the pious followers of the great Semitic faiths, Judaism, Christianity or Islam, do. The Bhakti form of worship has prevailed all over India now for some centuries past, relegating philosophy to the background. Adwaita is held in great esteem but has in practice yielded to the Dwaita approach.
The differences between Advaita and Dwaita philosophies do not affect the Hindu Ethic, the way of life that flows as a corollary from the conclusions of philosophers being the same on account of the acceptance of the law of Karma by all Hindu philosophers. Indeed it may be said in passing that the way of life that flows as a corollary from the great Semitic faiths, which are all in Hindu terminology Dwaitic in character, is the same as what every Hindu understands to be the teaching of his faith, be it Dwaita or Adwaita. When coming down to how we should live, all faiths become Dwaita faiths. Man is under God’s command as subjects are under a sovereign monarch.
“The Gita which expands and explains the ethos of Vedanta emphasizes that the activities of the world must go on and we should so act that thereby the world improves in the coming generations. The Vedanta ethic is not for the advancement of the individual but of the world as a whole, advancement in the best sense of the word. The world is peopled by ourselves re-born and so there is an intimate connection between our own spiritual improvement and the future of the world. We leave conditions behind for posterity, not only in the environment, but according to the doctrine of re-birth we decide the character of the future population by our present thoughts and acts. Like good people who plant trees for their children, we should work to improve humanity by improving ourselves for future births, even though there may be no continuity of memory and identity of personality. Otherwise, the world cannot become progressively better as we all desire it should.
The First Step is to realize that
“THERE IS THAT IN ME THAT CANNOT PERISH; INDEED I AM THAT AND NOT THIS BODY OF MINE OR THE SENSES WORKING IN THIS BODY”.
The first lesson to be learnt is there is that in us which is immortal, other than the body which we mistake for it.
The first step in knowing the Vedanta is to develop the firm conviction that “I” AM ENTIRELY DISTINCT FROM THE BODY THORUGH WHICH I FUNCTION. THIS IS ALSO THE MOST DIFFICULT STEP TO REALISE. ONCE IT IS ACCEPTED LIFE BECOMES RICH, MARKED BY DETACHMENT AND UTTER FEARLESSNESS.
“THERE IS THAT IN ME WHICH CANNOT PERISH; I CANNOT BE HURT BY ANYTHING THAT CAN HAPPEN EXCEPT BY THE EVIL THAT I THINK OR DO; THE EVIL THINGS THAT COME FROM WITHIN ME DEFILE MY SOUL, NOT ANYTHING THAT COMES TO ME FROM OUTSIDE; THEY CAN TOUCH MY BODY BUT NOT MY SOUL.” This is the faith that is common ground for all the religions. Yet it is the basic doubt of all men, the removal of which is the essential first step of enlightenment.
What should one aspire to or seek?
What is Moksha or Liberation?
The only happiness worth a wise man’s seeking is permanent happiness as distinguished from fleeting pleasures that are exhausted by enjoyment like a credit account in a bank, either here or in the world beyond. Absolute happiness can result only from liberation and it follows therefore that spiritual enlightenment alone, which frees the soul from all illusion, can liberate the soul by breaking the bond of Karma, the unending chain of work and results, and unite it again to the Supreme Being, which is Moksha (liberation).”
NINE BELIEFS OF HINDUISM
1. Hindus believe in the divinity of the Vedas, the world’s most ancient scripture, and venerate the Agamas as equally revealed. These primordial hymns are God’s world and the bedrock of Sanatana Dharma, the eternal religion which has neither beginning nor end.
2. Hindus believe in a one, all-pervasive Supreme Being who is both immanent and transcendent, both Creator and Unmanifest Reality.
3. Hindus believe that the universe undergoes end-less cycles of creation, preservation and dissolution.
4. Hindus believe in karma, the law of cause and effect by which each individual creates his own destiny by his thoughts, words and deeds.
5. Hindus believe that the soul reincarnates, evolving through many births until all karmas have been resolved, and moksha, spiritual knowledge and liberation from the cycle of rebirth, is attained. Not a single soul will be eternally deprived of this destiny.
6. Hindus believe that divine beings exist in unseen worlds and that temple worship, rituals, sacraments as well as personal devotionals create a communion with these devas and Gods.
7. Hindus believe that a spiritually awakened master, or satguru, is essential to know the Transcendent Absolute, as are personal discipline, good conduct, purification, pilgrimage, self-inquiry and meditation.
8. Hindus believe that all life is sacred, to be loved and revered, and therefore practice ahimsa, “noninjury.”
9. Hindus believe that no particular religion teaches the only way to salvation above all others, but that all genuine religious paths are facets of God’s Pure Love and Light, deserving tolerance and understanding.
Maya
Those who have ever heard Vedanta have also heard about maaya – the famous Hindu doctrine of illusion. It would be well at once to correct the misconception that this doctrine does away with responsibility because the word is, according to the doctrine of maaya, unreal. In truth, however, the doctrine does not lay down that the world is not real. All the teachers who taught the doctrine of maaya taught it as part of Vedanta, and Vedanta includes, it should be remembered, the doctrine of karma. This latter doctrine holds that we cannot escape the effect of our actions. It is, therefore, impossible for the Vedantin to hold that life is not real. There is no doubt or ambiguity about the doctrine of karma which lays down the moral law of cause and effect. No interpretation of any other doctrine of Vedanta inconsistent with the law of karma could be correct, as the latter is an integral part of Vedanta.
Vedanta is a philosophy of evolution. The universe, living and non-living, is a manifestation of Brahman. The destiny of all things is change – never for an instant does anything in nature stand still – and the individual soul is no exception. The philosophy of life for the individual soul is to march from good to better by conscious effort from day to day and birth to birth. This necessarily postulates free will, without which there can be no moral responsibility. A multitude of texts can be quoted insisting on man’s mastery over his own future.
The seeker is exhorted “to grasp the mighty bow of the Upanishads, make of his own soul the arrow sharpened by worship, and shoot himself into the Brahman so that the arrow becomes one with the target.” In fact, no religion is possible without three postulates – the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and freedom of the will; and these are insisted on repeatedly in Vedanta, which conveys also the assurance of success to the sincere seeker. Questioned by Arjuna about the fate of the seeker who fails – “whether losing both worlds he is not lost like a rag of a cloud in the infinite sky” – Sri Krishna assures him that the seeker after good never comes to grief, but goes on improving in efficiency from birth to birth till finally he reaches his goal.
In fact, the Vedanta doctrine, though continuous, can for purposes of clear understanding be regarded in two aspects. The first of that of the evolution of the soul when it moves in maaya till it reaches the stage of eligibility for jnaana which alone results in emancipation. The second aspect is the nature of emancipation itself. About the first aspect, all schools of interpretation – Dwaita, Adwaita and Visishtaadwaita – agree. God and the individual soul are kept sharply distinct with an infinite gap between them. Life with its multitude of trials, its joys and sorrows, its triumphs and defects, in fact all that makes of this world a valley of tears and laughter, is but a link in an almost endless chain of births and deaths. This is samsaara. Here are duties, which can be fulfilled with courage and faithfulness or hirked and avoided, in cowardly fahion. It is by doing these duties honestly that a man can qualify himself for a higher destiny. In fact, the ordinary rule of life of old was for a man faithfully to pass through the various stages of human life, as a student, as a householder, as a hermit in the forest before he could become a sanyaasi. The Upanishad and the Gita are quite emphatic about the imperativeness of doing duty. As a soul progresses either in the same life or in subsequent lives, it perceives that duty is rooted in maaya and that the only way of escaping the enveloping power of cause and effect is to do one’s duty for its own sake and without looking for results. Sri Krishna says in the Gita: “Just as the ignorant man acts with hope of reward, the wise man acts for the good of the world without any personal motive whatever.” When this state is reached, “when free from all desires which had root in his heart – the mortal even here becomes immortal and reaches Brahman.”
In the second aspect of Vedanta, that is the nature of emancipation and what happens to emancipate souls, there are differences between the schools. One school posits the individual soul’s perfect absorption into Brahman – or to be exact, realization that it is Brahman; it had been Brahman all along but did not know it. Another school holds it joins Iswara without losing its own individuality, while a third lays down that it remains eternally distinct from Brahman and from every other individual soul, and enjoys eternal beatitude in the highest heaven to the full measure of its own capacity.
All the great teachers who taught the doctrine of maaya lived their lives on the basis that this world is a reality. Leaving aside the weak and the hypocritical who teach one thing and practise another, if we reflect on the actual lives of the great and good Vedantins who lived in the light of the truth that they saw, it will be evident that they took this world and this life and the law of karma to be hard realities. If still they taught the doctrine of maaya, that everything is an illusion created by the Lord, what can that teaching mean? It can only mean that the apparent with its false values is different from the real. The Supreme Being is the indwelling spirit, the continuing efficient cause that makes all life live. What we consider different and opposed to one another are different manifestations of the same Universal Being. As the soul is to the body, so is the Lord the Soul of all souls. When, for instance, one says ‘I went’, ‘I came’ or ‘I did’ though outwardly it is the movement of the body it is really the act of the person that dwells within and brings about all the activities of the body. It would be a mistake to believe that the body is the agent. In the same, though in a less obvious way, the Supreme Being is the soul of our souls. Every movement of the individual soul is an activity of the Lord. All souls are so to say His bodies. The Lord is a reality and so too are the souls that are His Bodies. Just as, though the body is a reality, it is the spirit within that gives to the body its life, so going one step further, that which gives life and reality to the individual souls and makes them what they are in the Supreme Being. The Paramaatman, the overall Soul, permeates and supports all souls; but that does not mean that the latter are unreal. The universe as a whole and every individual living and non-living object, all together as well as severally, serve as bodies for the all-pervading Universal Being. This is how Ramanujacharya explains the immanence of the Universal Spirit. To give a concrete analogy which may elucidate the thesis, it is the air in the football that jumps and functions in all manner of ways when the ball is knocked about in the field. Yet we forget the air, and we look on the ball as the thing we play with, not the air. What is all-pervasive and invisible is lost in the obvious tangible hard reality, the ball.
Maaya, as understood by long tradition, is not that everything is unreal and that we are free to act as we please. It is not a negation of responsibility. No school of Vedanta denies the validity of the doctrine of Karma. The doctrine of Karma firmly holds, and with it individual responsibility stands unshaken. Life is real and life is subject to the eternal and unchangeable law of Karma. This and not unreality is the core of the Vedantic view of life. The error against which the doctrine of maaya is directed in Vedanta is the false values that men put on things. If we realized the truth regarding the immanence of the Supreme Spirit in all lives and all things, we would put on men, things and events truer and juster values.
The structure of individual life, if we may so call it, according to Vedanta is this: Each body has lodged in it a soul which fills it with life and changes an unintelligent mass of lifeless material into a living being. Again, each soul is inspired by the Supreme Soul, which gives the individual soul its being and its quality as a soul. Just as the soul gives to the body the capacity to function as a living being, so does the Supreme Being give to the soul its capacity to function as an individual soul.
According to the Hindu faith, the same soul occupies various tenements in various births. When it is lodged in a particular body, it has no memory of its past or knowledge of its own true nature. The soul identifies itself completely for the time being with each body, which it successively bears. In like manner, all souls are, at one and the same time, the body of the Supreme Soul, but they do not realize it and carry on as if separate from one another. To take a very mundane analogy, we have seen several departments deriving existence and authority from the same Government above and functioning through the single and entire power of that Government, but opposing, wrangling with and sometimes even over-reaching one another! In a somewhat similar manner every soul is inspired by the Paramaatman – the Overall Soul – and functions as a separate entity. Though the in-dwelling aatman is one and the same, each soul lives a life of separate individuality without a sense of identity with others. Herein is the illusion referred to as maaya, to overcome which is the aim of the Vedantin.
FIVE PRECEPTS
The minimal Hindu belilefs by teaching these to sons and daughters, parents worldwide pass on the Sanatana Dharma to their children.
1. God Is All in all
Children are taught of one Supreme Being, all-pervasive, transcendent, creator, preserver, destroyer, manifesting in various forms, worshipped in all religions by many names, the immortal Self in all. They learn to be tolerant, knowing the soul’s Divinity and the unity of all mankind.
2. Holy Temples
Children are taught that God, other divine beings and highly evolved souls exist in unseen worlds. They learn to be devoted, knowing that temple worship, fire ceremonies, sacraments and devotionals open channels for loving blessings, help and guidance from these beings.
3. Cosmic Justice
Children are taught Karma, the divine law of cause and effect by which every thought, word and deed justly returns to them in this or a future life. They learn to be compassionate, knowing that each experience, good or bad, is the self-created reward of prior expressions of free will.
4. Liberation
Souls experience righteousness, wealth and pleasure in many births, while maturing spiritually. They learn to be fearless, knowing that all souls, without exception, will ultimately attain Self Realization, liberation from rebirth and union with God.
5. Scripture and Preceptor
God revealed the Vedas and Agamas, which contain the eternal truths. They learn to be obedient, following the precepts of these sacred scriptures and awakened satgurus, whose guidance is absolutely essential for spiritual progress and enlightenment.
MORE ABOUT THE FOUR FACTS OF HINDUISM: KARMA, REINCARNATION, ALL-PERVASIVE DIVINITY, AND DHARMA
1) All-pervasive Divinity
As a family of faiths, Hinduism upholds a wide array of perspectives on the Divine, yet all worship the one, all-pervasive Supreme Being hailed in the Upanishads. As Absolute Reality, God is unmanifest, unchanging and transcendent, the Self God, timeless, formless and spaceless. As Pure Consciousness, God is the manifest primal substance, pure love and light flowing through all form, existing everywhere in time and space as infinite intelligence and power. As Primal Soul, God is our personal Lord, source of all three worlds, our Father-Mother God who protects, nurtures and guides us. We beseech God’s grace in our lives while also knowing that He/She is the essence of our soul, the life of our life. Each denomination also venerates its own pantheon of Divinities, Mahadevas, or “great angels”, who were created by the Supreme Lord and who serve and adore Him.
He is the God of forms infinite in whose glory all things are –
smaller than the smallest atom, and yet the Creator of all, ever
living in the mystery of His creation. In the vision of this God
of love there is everlasting peace. He is the Lord of all who,
hidden in the heart of things, watches over the world of time.
KRISHNA YAJUR VEDA, SHVETASHVATARA UPNANISHAD 4.14-15.
2.Dharma
When God created the universe, He endowed it with order, with the laws to govern creation. Dharma is God’s divine law prevailing on every level of existence, from the sustaining cosmic order to religious and moral laws which bind us in harmony with that order. Related to the soul, dharma is the mode of conduct most conducive to spiritual advancement, the right and righteous path. It is piety and ethical practice, duty and obligation. When we follow dharma, we are in conformity with the Truth that inheres and instructs the universe, and we naturally abide in closeness to God. Adharma is opposition to divine law. Dharma is to the individual what its normal development is to a seed – the orderly fulfillment of an inherent nature and destiny.
Dharma yields Heaven’s honor and Earth’s wealth
What is there then that is more fruitful for a man?
There is nothing more rewarding than dharma,
nor anything more ruinous than its neglect.
TIRUKURAL,31-32
3. Karma
Karma literally means “deed” or “act” and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction which governs all life. Karma is a natural law of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. It is the interplay between our experience and how we respond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and dispassionate reaction. Not all karmas rebound immediately. Some accumulate and return unexpectedly in this or other births.
According as one acts, so does he become. One becomes
virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.
YAJUR VEDA, BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD 4.4.5
4. Reincarnation
Reincarnation, punarjanma, 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 enter into birth. Through the ages, reincarnation has been the great consoling element within Hinduism, eliminating the fear of death. We are not the body in which we live but the immortal soul which inhabits many bodies in its evolutionary journey through samsara. After death, we continue to exist in unseen worlds, enjoying or suffering the harvest of earthly deeds until it comes time for yet another physical birth. The actions set in motion in previous lives form the tendencies and conditions of the next. Reincarnation ceases when karma is resolved, God is realized and moksha, liberation, is attained.
After death, the soul goes to the next world, bearing in
mind the subtle impressions of its deeds, and after reaping
their harvest returns again to this world of action. Thus,
he who has desires continues subject to rebirth.
YAJUR VEDA, BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD 4.4.6
HINDUISM’S CODE OF CONDUCT
Twenty keys for spiritual living in contemporary times
How often do you see a professional team of people misbehave on the job?You are on a flight from San Francisco to Singapore. Do the flight attendants bicker in the aisle? Of course not People at this level of business have control of their minds and emotions. If they didn’t, they would soon be replaced. When they are on the job, at least, they follow a code of conduct spelled out in detail by the corporation. It’s not unlike the moral code of any religion, outlining sound ethics for respect and harmony among humans. Those seeking to be successful in life strive to fulfill a moral code whether “on the job” or off. Does Hinduism and its scriptures on yoga have such a code? Yes; twenty ethical guidelines called yamas and niyamas, “restraints and observances.” These “do’s” and “don’ts” are found in the 6,000 to 8,000-year-old Vedas, mankind’s oldest body of scripture, and in other holy texts expounding the path of yoga.
The yamas and niyamas are a common-sense code recorded in the final section of the Vedas, called Upanishads, namely the Shandilya and the Varuha. They are also found in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Gorakshanatha, the Tirumantiram of Tirumalar and in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The yamas and niyamas have been preserved through the centuries as the foundation, the first and second stage, of the eight-staged practice of yoga. Yet, they are fundamental to all beings, expected aims of everyone in society, and assumed to be fully intact for anyone seeking life’s highest aim in the pursuit called yoga. Sage Patanjali (ca 200 BCE), raja yoga’s foremost propounder, told us, “These yamas are not limited by class, country, time (past, present or future) or situation. Hence they are called the universal great vows, “Yogic scholar Swami Brahmananda Saraswati revealed the inner science of yama and niyamas. They are the means, he said to control the vitarkas, the cruel mental waves or thoughts, that when acted upon result in injury to others, untruthfulness, hoarding, discontent, indolence or selfishness. He stated, “For each vitarka you have, you can create its opposite through yama and niyama, and make your life successful”.
THE DONE THINGS AND THE THINGS NOT DONE
(DOS AND DON’TS)
The Ten Vedic Practices, Niyama (The Dos)
Niyama 1 : Allow yourself the expression of remorse, being modest and showing shame for misdeeds. Recognize your errors, confess and make amends. Sincerely apologize to those hurt by your words or deeds. Resolve all contention before sleep. Seek out and correct your faults and bad habits. Welcome correction as a means to bettering yourself. Do not boast. Shun pride and pretension.
Niyama 2 : Nurture contentment, seeking joy and serenity in life. Be happy, smile and uplift others. Live in constant gratitude for your health, your friends and your belongings. Don’t complain about what you don’t possess. Identify with the eternal You, rather than mind, body or emotions. Keep the mountaintop view that life is an opportunity for spiritual progress.
Niyama 3 : Be generous to a fault, giving liberally without thought of reward. Tithe, offering one-tenth of your gross income (dashamamsha), as God’s money, to temples, ashrams and spiritual organizations. Approach the temple with offerings. Visit gurus with gifts in hand. Donate religious literature. Feed and give to those in need. Bestow your time and talents without seeking praise. Treat guests as God.
Niyama 4 : Cultivate an unshakable faith. Believe firmly in God, Gods, guru and your path to enlightenment. Trust in the words of the masters, the scriptures and traditions. Practice devotion and sadhana to inspire experiences that build advanced faith. Be loyal to your lineage, one with your satguru. Shun those who try to break your faith by argument and accusation.
Niyama 5 : Cultivate devotion through daily worship and meditation. Set aside one room of your home as God’s shrine. Offer fruit, flowers or food daily. Learn a simple puja and the chants. Meditate after each puja. Visit your shrine before and after leaving the house. Worship in heartfelt devotion, clearing the inner channels to God, Gods and guru so their grace flows toward you and loved ones.
Niyama 6 : Eagerly hear the scriptures, study the teachings and listen to the wise of your lineage. Choose a guru, follow his path and don’t waste time exploring other ways. Read, study and, above all, listen to reading and dissertations by which wisdom flows from knower to seeker. Avoid secondary texts that preach violence. Revere and study the revealed scriptures, the Vedas and Agamas.
Niyama 7 : Develop a spiritual will and intellect with your satguru’s guidance. Strive for knowledge of God, to awaken the light within. Discover the hidden lesson in each experience to develop a profound understanding of life and yourself. Through meditation, cultivate intuition by listening to the still, small voice within, by understanding the subtle sciences, inner worlds and mystical texts.
Niyama 8 : Embrace religious vows, rules and observances and never waver in fulfilling them. Honor vows as spiritual contracts with your soul, your community, with God, Gods and guru. Take vows to harness the instinctive nature. Fast periodically. Pilgrimage yearly. Uphold your vows strictly, be they marriage, monasticism, nonaddiction, tithing, loyalty to a lineage, vegetarianism or nonsmoking.
Niyama 9 : Chant your holy mantra daily, reciting the sacred sound, word or phrase given by your guru. Bathe first, quiet the mind and concentrate fully to let japa harmonize, purify and uplift you. Heed your instructions and chant the prescribed repetitions without fail. Live free of anger so that japa strengthens your higher nature. Let japa quell emotions and quiet the rivers of thought.
Niyama 10 : Practice austerity, serious disciplines, penance and sacrifice. Be ardent in worship, meditation and pilgrimage. Atone for misdeeds through penance (prayashchitta), such as 108 prostrations or fasting. Perform self-denial, giving up cherished possessions, money or time. Fulfill severe austerities at special times, under a satguru’s guidance, to ignite the inner fires of self transformation.
The Ten Vedic Restraints, Yama (The Don’ts)
Yama 1 : Practice noninjury, not harming others by thought, word or deed, even in your dreams. Live a kindly life, revering all beings as expressions of the One Divine energy. Let go of fear and insecurity, the sources of abuse. Knowing that harm caused to others unfailingly returns to oneself, live peacefully with God’s creation. Never be a source of dread, pain or injury. Follow a vegetarian diet.
Yama 2 : Adhere to truthfulness, refraining from lying and betraying promises. Speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary. Knowing that deception creates distance, don’t keep secrets from family or loved ones. Be fair, accurate and frank in discussions, a stranger to deceit. Admit your failings. Do not engage in slander, gossip or backbiting. Do not bear false witness against another.
Yama 3 : Uphold the virtue of nonstealing, neither thieving, coveting nor failing to repay debt. Control your desires and live within your means. Do not use borrowed resources for unintended purposes or keep them past due. Do not gamble or defraud others. Do not renege on promises. Do not use others’ names, words, resources or rights without permission and acknowledgement.
Yama 4 : Practice divine conduct, controlling lust by remaining celibate when single and faithful in marriage. Before marriage, use vital energies in study, and after marriage in creating family success. Don’t waste the sacred force by promiscuity in thought, word or deed. Be restrained with the opposite sex. Seek holy company. Dress and speak modestly. Shun pornography, sexual humor and violence.
Yama 5 : Exercise patience, restraining intolerance with people and impatience with circumstances. Be agreeable. Let others behave according to their nature, without adjusting to you. Don’t argue, dominate conversations or interrupt others. Don’t be in a hurry. Be patient with children and the elderly. Minimize stress by keeping worries at bay. Remain poised in good times and bad.
Yama 6 : Foster steadfastness, overcoming nonperseverance, fear, indecision and changeableness. Achieve your goals with a prayer, purpose, plan, persistence and push. Be firm in your decisions. Avoid sloth and procrastination. Develop willpower, courage and industriousness. Overcome obstacles. Never carp or complain. Do not let opposition or fear of failure result in changing strategies.
Yama 7 : Practice compassion, conquering callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings. See God everywhere. Be kind to people, animals, plants and the Earth itself. Forgive those who apologize and show true remorse. Foster sympathy for others’ needs and suffering. Honor and assist those who are weak, impoverished, aged or in pain. Oppose family abuse and other cruelties.
Yama 8 : Maintain honesty, renouncing deception and wrongdoing. Act honorably even in hard times. Obey the laws of your nation and locale. Pay your taxes. Be straightforward in business. Do an honest day’s work. Do not bribe or accept bribes. Do not cheat, deceive or circumvent to achieve an end. Be frank with yourself. Face and accept your faults without blaming them on others.
Yama 9 : Be moderate in appetite, neither eating too mujch nor consuming meat, fish, shellfish, fowl or eggs. Enjoy fresh, wholesome vegetarian foods that vitalize the body. Avoid junk food. Drink in moderation. Eat at regular times, only when hungry, at a moderate pace, never between meals, in a disturbed atmosphere or when upset. Follow a simple diet, avoiding rich or fancy fare.
Yama 10: Uphold the ethic of purity, avoiding impurity in mind, body and speech. Maintain a clean, healthy body. Keep a pure, uncluttered home and workplace. Act virtuously. Keep good company, never mixing with adulterers, thieves or other impure people. Keep away from pornography and violence. Never use harsh, angered or indecent language. Worship devoutly. Meditate daily.
THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE
The Sanskrit language is unlike any other language because it is not a language that grew haphazardly or organically. It was invented and perfected with great deliberation. It is not only a ‘Civilizing device’ but also a great product of that civilization.
It was as its ‘ name implies ’, refined from several dialects of which Dravida dialects of the south form a big part or vice-versa ‘Samskritam’ its proper name means that, which is refined, as distinct from ‘ Prakrit’ which means that which is natural and therefore crude or gross.
Experts of Cybernetics, that is artificial intelligence point out to Sanskrit as an ideal existing language readily adaptable to computer usage. All Indian languages have a large proportion of identifiable Sanskrit words or vice-versa. The language served as a valuable tool in the past in transmitting and preserving Indian Civilization. It may play an even more valuable role in the future. It is not only an instrument but is also a glorious product of Indian Civilization. It is a repository of a host of spiritual, philosophical, material and practical achievements of the past. Despite its age, even today useful knowledge in medicine, in psychology, in design, in horticulture etc. is being gained by experts in their respective fields by delving into ancient texts.
The Sanskrit language was a perfect medium for memorizing and transmitting essential knowledge at a time when the printing machine had not been invented and literacy was not very widespread. The vowels and consonants and every conceivable sound is arranged in a logical and scientific manner according to the biological nature of the speech organs. Verses could be easily memorized and everything worth knowing was put in verse form. Many distinctive verse forms were recognized as suitable for different purposes. One example is the Gayatri verse form or metre of the famous Rig Vedic mantra.
Modern Science has validated the ancient insight of the seers to the extent of proving that a sound pronounced or heard has varied effects on different parts of the brain, not only Brocas centre as was thought as recently as the late twentieth century.
The same invocations, in the same accents were uttered or ‘declaimed’ by priests in all parts of the country. Thus we can aver at a very mundane level that the Sanskrit language served as a tool to preserve the cultural unity of the country.
Justice Markandey Katju says:
“The foundation of Indian culture is based on Sanskrit language. There is a misconception, that it is only a language for chanting mantras in temples or religious ceremonies. However,, that is less than 5% of Sanskrit literature. More than 95% of Sanskrit literature has nothing to do with religion; instead, it deals with philosophy, law, science, literature, grammar, phonetics, interpretation etc. In fact, Sanskrit was the language of free thinkers, who questioned everything, and expressed the widest spectrum of thoughts on various subjects.
In particular, Sanskrit was the language of scientists in ancient India. Today, we may be behind the Western countries in science, but there was a time when India was leading the whole world in science. Knowledge of the great scientific achievements of our ancestors and our scientific heritage will give us the encouragement and moral strength again to take India to the forefront of science in the modern world.
The word, ‘Sanskrit’ is the anglicized version of ‘Samskritam’ meaning “prepared, pure, refined or prefect”. It was called ‘Devavani’ (language of the Gods). It has an outstanding place in our culture and was recognized as a language of rare sublimity by the whole world. Sanskrit was the language of our philosophers, our scientists, our mathematicians, our poets and playwrights, our grammarians,our jurists,etc.
In grammer, Panini and Patanjali ( authors of Ashtadhyayi and the Mahabhashya) have no equals in the world; in astronomy and mathematics, the works of Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta and Bhaskar opened up new frontiers for mankind, as did the works of Charaka and Sushruta in medicine.
In philosophy, Gautama (founder of the Nyaya system), Ashvaghosha ( author of Buddha Charita ). Kapila (founder of the Sankhya system), Sankaracharya, Brihaspati, etc. present the widest range of philosophical systems the world has even seen, from the deeply religious to strongly atheistic. Jaimini’s Mimansa Sutras laid the foundation of a whole system of rational interpretation of texts which was used not only in religion but also in law, philosophy, grammar etc.
In literature, the contribution of Sanskrit is of the foremost order. The works of Kalidasa (Shakuntalam, Meghasandesha, Malavikagnimitra, etc.) Bhavabhuti ( Malati Madhava, Uttara Ramacharita, etc.) and the epics of Valmiki, Vyasa, etc. are known all over the world.
The Sanskrit language made two great contributions to the development and progress of science in ancient India. The great grammarian Panini, created Classical Sanskrit, which enabled scientific ideas to be expressed with great precision, logic and elegance. Science requires precision and logic.
In fact, Sanskrit is not just one language, there are several Sanskrits. What we call Sanskrit today is really Panini’s Sanskrit, also known as Classical Sanskrit, also known as Classical Sanskrit or Laukik Sanskrit, and this is what is taught in our schools and universities, and it is in this language that all our scientists wrote their great works.
The earliest Sanskrit work is the Rig Veda, probably composed around 2000 B.C. It is the most sacred of Hindu literature, and consists of 1028 hymns (richas) to various nature gods, e.g.,Indra, Agni, Surya, Soma,Varuna etc.
The Sanskrit language kept changing from around 2000 B.C. In the 5th century B.C the great scholar Panini, who was perhaps the greatest grammarian the world has ever seen, wrote his great book ‘Ashtadhyayi’( book of eight chapters). In this book he fixed the rules of Sanskrit, and thereafter no further changes in Sanskrit were permitted except slight changes by two other great grammarians, namely, Katyayana who wrote his book called ‘Vartika’, and Patanjali who wrote his commentary on the Ashtadhyayi called the ‘Maha Bhashya’.
Except for the slight changes by these two subsequent grammarians, Sanskrit as it exists today is really Panini’s Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit.
Panini studied carefully the existing Sanskrit language in his time and then refined, purified and systematized it so as to make it a language of great logic, precision and elegance. Thus Panini made Sanskrit a highly developed and powerful vehicle of expression in which scientific ideas could be expressed with great precision and clarity. This language was made uniform all over India, so that scholars from North, South, East and West could understand each other.
In the English language, the alphabets from A to Z are not arranged in any logical or rational manner. On the other hand, Panini in his first fourteen Sutras arranged alphabets in the Sanskrit language in a very scientific and logical manner, after close observation of the sounds in human speech. Thus,for example the vowels, a,aa, I,,ee,u,oo, ae, ai, o, ou are arranged according to the shape of the mouth when these sounds are emitted, a and aa are pronounced from the throat, i and ee from the palate, o and oo from the lips, etc.
In the same way the consonants have been arranged in a sequence on a scientific pattern. The (ka) varga (i.e.ka, kha, ga,gha,nga) are emitted from the throat, the (cha) varga from the palate, the (ta) varga from the roof of the mouth, the (ta) varga from the teeth, and the (pa) varga from the lips. No language in the world has its alphabets arranged in such a rational and systematic manner. And when we see how deeply our ancestors went in the seemingly simple matter of arranging the alphabets we can realize how deeply they went in more advanced matters.
Panini’s Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit is in contrast with the earlier Vedic Sanskrit that is the language of the Vedas.
Some parts of the Mahabharata were written before Panini because Panini has referred to the Mahabharat in his Ashtadhyayi. Even such parts of the Mahabharata were altered and made in accordance with Panini’s grammar. Thus today all of the Sanskrit non-Vedic literature is in accordance with Panini’s grammar, except a few words and expressions called Apashabdas or apabhramshas ( as Patanjali has described them) which could not be fitted into Panini’s system, and hence have been left as they were.
However, it was not possible to change the language of the Rigveda and make it in accordance with Panini’s grammar because it was so sacred that it was not permitted to change its language. In fact after having been initially composed around 2000 B.C. the Rigveda was thereafter never written and it continued from generation to generation by oral tradition from Guru to Shishya.
A written language like Classical Sanskrit in which scholars could express and communicate ideas to other scholars living far away with great precision and clarity as thus absolutely necessary for the development of science, and this is the great achievement of Panini.
It is necessary to mention about the Nyaya and Vaisheshik systems, which represent the scientific outlook. Nyaya philosophy states that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience, and this is precisely the scientific approach ( see in this connection D.P.Chattopadhyaya’s What is Living and What is Dead in Indian Philosophy which is a seminal work on Indian Philosophy) Vaisheshik is the atomic (parmanu) theory, which was the physics of ancient India. Originally Nyaya and Vaisheshik were regarded as one system, but since physics is the most fundamental of all sciences, the Vaisheshik system was later separated from Nyaya and made as a separate system of philosophy.
The Sankhya system is perhaps older than the Nyaya Vaisheshika systems but very little literature on it has survived.
However, the Sankhya philosophy certainly’seems to have given the materialist ontological foundation on which the later Nyaya-Vaisheshika scientific philosophy was built, and hence we can broadly call the Indian philosophy representing the scientific approach as the Sankhya-Nyaya-Vaisheshik system.
However, in brief we are calling it the Nyaya-Vaisheshik system, since we know much more about Nyaya and Vaisheshik then we know about Sankhya.
We accept that e=mc2 as Shabda pramana since Einstein has a great reputation as a theoretical physicist, although we ourselves may be unable to understand how he reached that equation.
The Nyaya Philosophy represents the scientific outlook, and it places great emphasis on the pratyaksha pramana (though this too may sometimes be deceptive e.g. a mirage). This is also the approach of science because we largely rely on observation, experiment and logical inferences in it.
Pratyaksha pramana may not necessarily lead to truthful knowledge in all cases. For instance, we see the sun rising from the east in the morning, going up above us in the mid-day, and setting in the west. If we rely only on Pratyaksha Pramana we would conclude that the sun goes around the earth.
However the great mathematician and astronomer Aryabhatta in his book Aryabhatiya, wrote that the same visual impression will be created if we assume that the earth is spinning on its axis.
In other words, if the earth is rotating on its axis it will appear that the sun rises fro the east and sets in the west. Hence along with Prataksha Pramana we have also to apply reason, as observation alone may not always lead to truthful knowledge.
It may be mentioned that the Nyaya philosophy developed logic to an extent even beyond what Aristotal and other Greek thinkers did, and logical thinking is necessary for science.
Thus the Nyaya philosophy gave great support and encouragement to science in ancient India and its philosophy is one of the Shat Darshanas i.e. one of the six orthodox systems in Indian philosophy.
Hence our great scientists could not be persecuted by the orthodox people since they could say that they were relying on an orthodox philosophy, namely, the Nyaya. This was unlike in Europe where some of the greatest scientists like Galileo were persecuted by the Church for preaching ideas inconsistent with the Bible.
In ancient India there were debates or Shastrarthas everywhere which permitted free discussion of ideas, criticism of one’s opponent, and free dissent in the presence of a large gathering.
Such freedom of thought and expression led to great development of science, since since also requires freedom to think, freedom to express one’s ideas, and freedom to dissent.
The great scientist Charaka has mentioned in his book Charaka samhita that debating is necessary for the development of science, particularly debating with one’s mental equals.
It is however as a repository of the worlds spiritual and literary treasures that the dominant western world took up the study of Sanskrit. This happened mainly in the nineteenth century. The setting up of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta by Warren Hastings the far-seeing Governor-General of the East India Company played a great role in this. William Jones Colebrook, Edwin Arnold and many others have to be thanked for focusing attention on Sanskrit and their devotion to it. Geothe went ectzactic about Shakuntala. The Bhagawad Gita was a revelation to a host of intellectuals like Emerson and Thoreau. Max Mueller translated the Vedas and started a tradition that is exemplified today by Raimon Panikkars, Vedic Experience. The study of Sanskrit is poised to usher in a world renaissance.
GAYATRI MANTRA
Gayatri Mantra is a most sublime yet most popular Mantra. For all Mantras, a preceptor’s advice (Upadesa) is a must. Gayatri Upadesa is given under the guidance of Father or any learned men as Guru. Gayatri Mantra is recited in the ear of the Brahmachari during the thread ceremony (Upanayanam).
To remember God by singing his glory for all the virtues he has bestowed on human being, is the most important and sacred duty. The origin of Gayatri Mantra is from the three Vedas viz Rig Veda, Yajur Veda and Sama Veda with the three mysterious words viz. Bhur, Bhuwah and Swah i.e. Earth, Sky and Heavan.
The text of Gayatri Mantra is
Om bhur bhuwah, swah, tat savitur varenyam
Bhargo devasya dhee mahi dhiyo yonah prachodyat
The Mantra is conceived as the worship of Aditya or the Sun and also a Nirguna worship of Brahma.
“Om – Brahma Roopame, tat - that, Savitur – Creator,
varenyam – auspicious - bhargo - divine,
devasia – Gods, dhee mahi - I am praying
dhiyo yona - multi-faced intelligence, prachodayat - leading
I am praying to the creator who is self illuminated and divine God who guides our multi-faced intelligence in each action.
Gayatri is the name given to this verse form. Gayatri means (Gayantham thrayate – protects the person who chats the mantra). Recitation of Gayatri mantra can be chanted loudly so that it is audible to listeners or reciting in a very low voice or mental chanting. The last one is most effective. Gayatri is a spiritual shield which protects one who chants it.
Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavat Gita “Amongst the mantras I am Gayatri”. The Godess Gayatri Devi is the incarnation and manifestation of Brahma who resides in all living beings. The Gayatri mantra is also known as Savitri or Sun Mantra. Savitur is a name of the Sun. It is addressed to the divine power in the Sun. Gayatri Mantra is a specially designed, efficient spiritual ritual for the realization of the divinity of the self. It is nitya karma.
This ancient mantra is found in the Rig Veda. To this day a very large number of people recite it everyday. It is a ritual carried out without a break for generations. Thus today’s daily life is connected to the Vedas.
THE ROLE OF WOMEN
Harmony in Family
The primary unit of society is the family, consisting of husband and wife, parents and children etc. Through various spiritual ways, IC encourages cooperation and harmony in the family. Such filial relationship of affection and mutual respect, and even sacrifice and suffering for the family, are illustrated in innumerable stories and mythology - all intended to mould the mind. In the West, marriage as an institution is breaking down with divorces becoming common, i.e. as much as one divorce out of three marriages in certain parts. Millions of children are born outside wedlock. A few millions have only one parent. Whatever may be the level of consumption of material goods and wealth, happiness is lost due to such alienated relationships. In India, conditions are better, thanks to the influence of IC. Husband and wife do not suspect each other’s fidelity. In spite of many hardships suffered by illiterate women, marriage is relatively more stable. This is not because of their effort. Culture and the sacrifice of many women have inculcated marital values. But India is also now turning to Western thoughts in this respect. Inculcation of values of IC would help to retain mutual respect and trust.
Unique Place for Women in Society
Mankind should admire the creator for having conceptualised Man and Woman with complementary qualities. Woman splits giving birth to a baby. Woman is endowed with many good qualities which are stronger in them than in men, such as unequivocal love, selfless service in bringing up children, loyalty to husband, forgiveness, endurance and patience, and (generally far more) ethics and morals, etc. The quality of civilisation of a society really depends on the social position of women and respect given to them. It would be interesting to compare the place of women in Indian heritage and those in other cultures, such as Semitic religions, China and Japan. India gave a highly honourable place to women. Manu, the law giver, has written “God resides in homes where women are respected. Women, who are weak, should be protected by parents first, husband later, and children thereafter”. Manu’s statement that “women should not be given freedom” is really a misinterpretation of what was intended.
In IHC, ultimate power, that is Parasakthi, is conceptualised as woman. All popular Gods, except Hanuman and Ganapathi, had consorts who are worshipped with equal reverence. Education and wealth are represented as Saraswathi and Lakshmi. Durga is universal mother, worshipped by Bhagavan Ramakrishna. Women were great scholars even in Vedic period, such as Gargi and Mythreyi. In the debate on Adwaita, between Shankaracharya and Mandana Mishra, Mandana Mishra’s wife, Ubhaya Bharathi, acted as a judge. As she had to cook food for them, she garlanded both, and said, “The person, whose garland fades, loses the argument”. Mandana Mishra lost to Shankara, and became the latter’s disciple.
The Panchakanyakas - Ahalya, Draupathi, Seetha, Tara and Mandodari - showed the greatness of chastity and sacrifice. They will be remembered for ever. The devotion of Damayanthi and Savithri for their husbands has inspired millions. Radha and Meera showed the possibility of God realisation through devotion - Madhurya Bhava. Ramayana and Mahabharatha and the Bhagavatham Purana depict hundreds of women characters as exemplars of ideal womanhood. Wives generally display modesty and are loyal to their husbands and loving and caring to children. Part of the reason for such harmony can be traced to our heritage and sacrifice of women in the past for the sake of the family.
Models of Indian Womanhood
“The great models of Indian womanhood are Sita, who faithfully accompanied her husband Rama into exile and endured great hardships and temptations for his sake, and Savitri, who like the Greek God Alcesries, followed her husband Satyavan when he was being carried away by the God of death, Yama, and so impressed the God with her loyalty that he released her lord. A medieval tale gives an even more striking example of wifely fidelity.
‘A woman was holding her sleeping husband’s head on her lap, as they and their child warmed themselves in winter before a blazing fire. Suddenly, the child crawled towards the fire, but the woman made no attempt to save it from the flames, since she would wake her lord. As the baby crawled further into the flames she prayed to the fire god Agni not to hurt him. The god, impressed by her obedience, granted her prayer, and the child sat smiling and unharmed in the middle of the fire until the man awoke’ (A.L. Bashyam).
The following passage from the Mahabharata shows the honour and esteem in which women were held:
The wife is half the man,
the best of friends,
the root of the three ends of life, and of all that
will help him in the world
___
With a wife a man does mighty deeds,
With a wife a man finds courage,
A wife is the safest refuge.
__
A man aflame with sorrow in his soul,
Or sick with disease, finds comfort in his wife,
A man parched with heat
Finds relief in water.
Even a man in the grip of rage
Will not be harsh to a woman,
remembering that on her depend
the joy of love, happiness and virtue.
___
For woman is the everlasting field,
in which the self is born.
We call our country motherland. Rivers also have a feminine connotation and are referred to as women. Bhagavan Ramakrishna worshipped his wife, Sarada Devi, in whose name a world-wide Mission operates. Even in recent times, Ramadevi and Ma Amrithanandamayi are evolved souls with millions of followers.
Another unique feature is that our mythological heroes were known as the husbands of their consorts, such as Seethapathi, Girijavallabha, Umapathi, and so on. The reverse, i.e., Ramapathni, Shivapathni, etc., is not used, showing thereby that Rama and Shiva were known as the husband of Sita and Uma. In modern practice, the wife is known by the husband’s name - i.e. Mrs...
Women have made significant contribution to the continuity of India’s civilisation. They still observe rituals, festivals, Acharas and Samskaras. Woman is known as Saha dharmini, i.e. one entitled to do Dharma together with her husband. They had tremendous Yogic and Siddha powers also. Gandhari blindfolded herself since she did not want to enjoy the visual facility which her blind husband did not have. In order to protect her son in battle, she removed the piece of cloth blinding her eyes. Every part of her son’s body, which was seen by her, became so strong that no injury could be caused to those portions. Such was her power. Even today, women observe fasting on certain days. They decorate the front yard of houses with auspicious Kolam designs. They feed crows, and pray to the Tulasi plant everyday before meals. They join their husbands in all rituals, including Shradha. By their sacrifice, women become goddesses to their children.
Women Exploited
Unfortunately, all these values are fading away under the impact of modernity and Westernisation. As per commercial values, which are dominating the world, women are used as sex symbols and are exploited everywhere, including in India. Their educational standards are so poor that in the Hindi belt only 10 per cent of women are literate. Dowry deaths and wife burning still occur in some parts of India. Only Kerala State has shown the value of education to women. Women’s liberation movement, inspired by Western values, is taking a wrong direction. Women should become economically independent, which has become a reality in the affluent classes. But in India, the majority are workers in the non-organised sector - 280 million - where the woman’s position is really bad. IHC has not been of much help for the emancipation of women from exploitation and abuse. Poor women continue to be harassed and traumatised.
Unlike in the other civilisations and cultures, the abstract principle of Brahman (Nirguna) is prescribed for highly evolved souls. But for ordinary persons, Saguna Brahman, i.e. manifestation of the Brahman principle into Isvara, in innumerable names and forms, is postulated. They are assigned various qualities and powers. Thus we have Rama and Krishna in Vaishnava tradition; Shiva in the Shaiva tradition, and Shakthi in the Devi tradition. Deities in many names and forms are worshipped. Ganesha, Subramaniam, Anjaneya, Ardha Nareeshwara (Man and Woman), Narasimha (man-lion), Shastha, Durga, Bhagavathi, Vishnu, Parvathi, Mahalakshmi, etc. Though God is one, without attributes, such manifestations in human forms make it easier for people to have their Ishta Devata (favourite God). It is a beautiful idea of Hinduism, providing variety, each to suit different temperaments and attitudes of devotees. Emotional fervour is strengthened and intensified by having such a choice.
In order to suit one’s temperament and attitudes, different approaches are proposed, where God can be approached, conceived in different kinds of relationships, such as friend (Arjuna to Krishna), servant (Anjaneya to Rama), child (Krishna to Yashoda), love (Radha & Meera to Krishna), etc. Similarly, prayer can be performed in eight different ways, or Bhavas - Keerthan, Bhajan, Namasmaranam, Service, Surrender, etc. Variety adds colour and helps in concentration and devotion.
Sustainable Resource Use
The Indian agricultural/pastoral society provided a different response to the challenge of resource use. Thus, traditionally, in India, the peepal tree (Ficus religiosa) is never cut, nor any cobra killed, no fishing is allowed in sacred ponds, no breeding heron, stork or crane is disturbed. Such restrictions have contributed to sustainable resource use.
There is, however, now emerging a greater commonality of interests in the human population of the world in maintaining the environmental and ecological balance, based on the awareness that what is happening in one part of the world is bound to affect others in the long run.
Recognition of Biodiversity
Ancient India sanctified plants, animals as a recognition of biodiversity. The Rig Veda is a celebration of Nature. The Gayatri mantra (chant) which forms the core of the Hindu faith, is addressed to Surya, the Sun: “O splendid and playful Sun / We offer this prayer to thee / Enlighten this craving mind / Be our protector / May the radiance of the divine ruler guide our destiny / Wise men salute your magnificence with oblations and words of praise.
The beautiful Chola temple at Gangaikondacholapuram in Tamil Nadu contains a rare and exquisite representation of Surya in a Navagraha stone – a lotus encircled by the planets. But the greatest tribute to the Sun is at Konarak, the giant chariot reflecting the Sun God in all its glory.
Alas! there is a wide gap between these IHC ideals and current practices towards nature in India. India’s sacred rivers, such as Ganga and Jamuna, are so polluted that neither humans nor animals can drink that water. The Ganga Cleaning Project has hardly made any impact. While millions take a sacred bath in the Ganga in Varanasi and the Triveni Sangham in Allahabad, the sewage of these two cities is let into these holy rivers. Over 400 industries and towns drain their sewage and effluents into the Ganga. Forests, trees and pasture lands are being denigrated. Forests have a special place in the Hindu heart and part of the Vedas was written in the forests by Rishis. But, forests are fast dwindling to sub-optimum levels and they are being exploited to meet human need and greed.
ANCIENT LITERARY HERITAGE
“These bards of old were much more than superb story–tellers. They wrote with a sense of their function as architects and sculptors of life, creative exponents, fashioners of significant forms of rational thought and religion and ethics and culture. A profound stress of thought on life, a large and vital view of religion and society, a certain strain of philosophic idea runs through these poems and the whole ancient culture of India is embodied in them with a great force of intellectual conception and living presentation” – Sri Aurobindo.
Foundation of Hinduism
The Four Vedas
The four Vedas, the most ancient literature of Hinduism, date back to 1000 B.C. The Rig Veda, the earliest Veda and the oldest book, is a collection of hymns to various deities and is divided into ten books. The Sama Veda is a collection of songs and mantras. The Yajur Veda is a book of prayers and mystical formulae. The Atharva Veda is a book of spells, incantations, magical and medical prescriptions. The Brahmanas (guides to rituals) were supplementary works to the Vedas. The last section of the Vedas called the Upanishads (or Vedanta, the end part of the Vedas) contains philosophical speculations. How did creation come about? Through a cosmic sexual act? Through heat? Is there a soul? What is the soul? What is the relation between the human soul and the universal soul?
The Upanishads
In their struggle to express the inexpressible the sages of the Upanishads resorted to every device. Here is an imaginary conversation between a father and his son:
“Fetch me a fruit of the banyan tree”
“Here is one, Sir”
“Break it”
“I have broken it, Sir”
“What do you see?”
“Very tiny seeds, Sir”
“Break one”
“I have broken it, Sir”
“Now what do you see?”
“Nothing, Sir”
“My son”, the father said, “what you do not perceive is the essence and in that essence the mighty banyan tree exists. Believe me, my son, in that essence is the self of all that is. That is the True that is the self. And you are that self, Svetaketu”.
Another conversation goes like this:
“Put this salt in water and come to me in the morning”
The son did as he was told. The father said: “Fetch the salt. The son looked for it but could not find it because it had dissolved.
“Taste the water from the top”, said the father. “How does it taste?”
“Of salt,” the son replied.
“Taste from the middle. How does it taste?”
“of salt,” the son replied.
“Taste from the bottom. How does it taste?”
“of salt,” the son replied.
Then the father said, “You don’t perceive that the one Reality exists in your own body, my son, but it is really there. Everything which is has its being in that subtle essence. That is Reality! That is the soul! And you are that, Svetaketu!”.
The Spiritual Hand-Book of the Hindus
But the vast majority of Indians cannot understand the abstract reasoning of the Upanishads. Their relevance to modern life may not be evident. Therefore, these concepts have been condensed and integrated in the Bhagavad Gita, which is the spiritual handbook of the Hindus, as the Bible and Quran are to Christians and Muslims. “The Gita proclaims that each man must do his duty and act according to the sacred law without questioning the results of his action. The Gita is, from many points of view, a remarkable document. Not only does it combine philosophical subtlety with a precise and lucid literary style, but even on a purely human plane, it is a work of considerable quality. Not surprisingly, it has come to be regarded as the sacred book, par excellence, of the Hindus” (Romila Thapar).
The Two Great Epics of India
For the masses, even Bhagavad Gita is difficult to understand. Stories appeal to young minds and adults alike. By reading about the lives of great saints and sages, noble men and women, character is moulded on right moral lines. The two great epics of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are not unitary epics like the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer. They are epic complexes which have satisfied the craving of the people for religion, poetry, drama, fiction, philosophy, entertainment and moral and intellectual enlightenment.
The Mahabharata, the traditional author of which is the sage Vyasa, contains 90,000 stanzas and is the largest single poem in the world. It is the story of the struggle between the Kauravas, the hundred sons of the blind Dhritarashtra, led by the eldest, Duryodhana on one side and on the other side their cousins, the five Pandavas, Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva, over the right to rule the Aryan Kingdom of the Kurus. The epic battle between the two, fought on the plains at Kurukshetra, near modern Delhi, lasted eighteen days and resulted in the annihilation of the Kauravas. It is believed that the battle took place on BC. On Krishna’s death, Kaliyuga started on 17 Feb 3102 BC.
The Pandavas ruled long and peacefully and when their time on earth neared its end they renounced the kingdom and approached the Abode of the Gods on Mount Meru in the Himalayas. The five brothers and their joint wife, Draupadi were followed by their pet dog and when they reached the gates of Heaven the Gods wishing to test them declared that if the Pandavas wished to enter they must leave the dog outside. The Pandavas declared that they would rather forsake Heaven than their dog, which had served them faithfully for so many years, and turned away. This noble answer so pleased the Gods that they opened the portals of heaven to the Pandavas, Draupadi and their faithful dog.
The Mahabharata has many interpolated episodes the most famous being the Bhagvad Gita. Arjuna, the most valiant of the Pandavas, known for his skill in archery, awaits in his chariot the beginning of the battle. He feels that he cannot fight against those who are his old friends, relatives and preceptors whom he has known all his life. He wants to surrender and let the Kauravas take everything so that there may be peace and goodwill. He turns to Krishna who is acting as his charioteer and asks for his advice.
Krishna explains that the death of the body does not involve the death of the soul. There are many roads that lead to God. For most people the way to God lies in the path of duty. Arjuna was a Kshatriya and his duty was to fight for righteousness, whatever be the consequences. Arjuna must act without the desire or hope of reward or glory or even success. Right action, said Krishna, was bereft of all desire even the desire for success.
This is the message of the Bhagvad Gita. Each individual has to fight the Mahabharata war in and through his own life.
Emerson’s famous poem “Brahma”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Sage of Concord, derived great consolation from reading the Bhagvad Gita and solved the metaphysical problems that had beset his mind. He was introduced to it by Thomas Carlyle when he met him in England. In the course of the conversation, Carlyle picked up a book from the table and handed it to him saying, “This is a most inspiring book. It has brought comfort and consolation in my life. I hope it will do the same for you. Take it and read it.” It was the first English translation of the Bhagvad Gita published in London in 1785. After reading it, Emerson wrote his famous poem “Brahma” of four stanzas:
If the red slayer think he slays,
or if the slain thinks he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Fair or forgot to me is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are fame and shame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn they back on heaven.
Nala and Damayanti
Of the other interpolated episodes in the Mahabharata the longest is the story of Nala and Damayanti related to Yudhisthira, the eldest of the Pandavas, to convince him of the evils of gambling because it was in a gambling match that Yudhisthira had lost his kingdom including his brothers and Draupadi to Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kauravas. The story tells how King Nala won Damayanti at a Swayamvara, (self choice), a ceremony at which a girl passed along the assembled ranks of her suitors until she found the man of her choice. Damayanti chose Nala in preference to the Gods themselves who were among her suitors but then lost his queen and kingdom at a gambling tournament. He regained them both after many adventures.
The Mahabharata has the story of Shakuntala and King Dushyanta which was made into a play by Kalidasa, the greatest of Sanskrit poets, who lived in the reign of Chandra Gupta II (380-415 A.D).
Legend of Savitri
Another interpolation is the legend of Savitri, who insisted on marrying Satyavan, although she had been warned by a seer that he had only one year to live. When the fatal day arrived Satyavan went to the forest to cut wood and she followed him. There he fell dying and as she supported him she saw a figure who told her that he was Yama, God of Death, and that he had come for her husband’s spirit. Yama carried off the spirit towards the shades but Savitri followed him. Her devotion pleased Yama who offered her any boon except the life of her husband. She extorted three such boons from Yama but still she followed him, and he was finally constrained to restore her husband to life.
The legend of Savitri conveys the assurance that we have the power to change our destiny. In his epic Savitri, Sri Aurobindo has captured the essence of the legend in these words:
A magic leverage suddenly is caught,
That moves the veiled ineffable’s timeless will;
A prayer, a master act, a kind idea
Can link man’s strength to a transcendent force,
Then miracle is made the common rule,
One mighty deed can change the course of things;
A lovely thought becomes omnipotent.
The Ramayana
The Mahabharata contains as an episode the story of the Ramayana, the traditional author of which was the Sage Valmiki who wrote the Sanskrit original. The regional languages of India have produced their own versions of the epic, the most outstanding being Tulsidas’s Ramacharitamanasa in Hindi and Kamban’s Ramayanam in Tamil.
In the countries of South-East Asia, as much as in India, the Ramayana has, in some local version or the other, been established as a national epic. The Thai Ramakien or Ramakirti is known to Thai choreography as a masked play or Khon, as the Nang or shadow play. The Thai version is derived from the Indonesian version prevailing in the epoch of the Srivijaya Empire. The Malaysian Hi Kayat Seri Rama has been a basis for the repertoire of Malay shadow plays. The similarity of technique indicates its Indonesian origins. Burma too has known the Ramayana since the 11th Century. Nepal has the oldest manuscript of the epic dating back to 1075 AD.
The Mahabharata is known as the fifth Veda for in it may be found every branch of knowledge. Into it has been woven history and legend, mythology and folklore, fable and parable, philosophy and religion, statecraft and the art of war, morals and romance. Compared to the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is a work of greater art. It contains many beautiful descriptive passages which the other epic lacks.
K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar in his work The Epic Beautiful has summed up its greatness in the words:
“The Ramayana is indubitably one of the supreme classics of the world, one of the most ancient, and unquestionably secular in its origin; yet it is also unique in its abiding involvement in the cultural, social, ethical, religious and spiritual consciousness of the people of India. Whether or not the epic is in some measure a factual record of what had once happened – there intervening a long period when the tribal hero became the racial exemplum, who in turn came to be identified with an avatar of Vishnu – the exile of Rama on the eve of his intended coronation as Heir Apparent; the gallant if fruitless attempt of the beneficiary, Bharata, to annul the injustice; the fight with the Titans in the forest in defence of the Rishis and their way of life; the deceitful abduction of Sita by Ravana; Rama’s mutually beneficial alliance with Sugriva, the Vanara chief; Hanuman’s quest in Lanka and the finding of Sita; the war in Lanka, the death of Ravana, Sita’s fire ordeal and her reunion with Rama and their coronation in Ayodhya; all this is closer in reality to the popular imagination than any piece of known or recorded history, ancient or modern. And the principal and ancillary characters –Rama and Sita, Bharata and Lakshman, Kausalya and Kaikeyi and Sumita, Manthara and Surpanaka, Guha and Hanuman and Sugriva, Ahalya andAnasuya and Sabri, Ravana and Vibhishana and Indrajit, Tara and Mandodari and Trijata – these and many others are not just characters in an epic ….. but truly apocalyptic visions of psychic institutions, tremors, surmises, apprehensions and ecstasies.”
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata have influenced Indian culture for millennia. What unites India are these two Itihasas. When they were shown on TV serials, the whole of India watched them. Their appeal to India is eternal. Emotional fervour for India’s unity and status as a nation depends on these far more than other factors such as Constitution, freedom movement, etc.
INDIA’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WEST
If India benefited in many ways from its encounter with the West, the world also owes a great deal to India. India has given to the world rice, cotton, sugarcane, many spices, the domestic fowl and the game of chess, the most intellectual game in the world, which was developed in India, went to Persia and when Persia was conquered by the Arabs, spread all over the Middle East under the name of Shatranj, the Persian corruption of Caturanga, the name by which it was known in India.
Roman Numerals and Decimal System
But the biggest debt, which the West owes India, is for the discovery of the simpler mathematical system of writing numerals - nine digits and a zero, which replaced the complicated system of Roman numerals - and the decimal system. The numerals were long known as Arabic numerals because it was thought that the Arabs had invented the system. But the Arabs themselves called mathematics “ The Indian Art “ (Hindisat). The West came to know of the mathematical discoveries through contacts with merchants trading with the west coast of India.
Roman Numerals would have shackled Western Science:
“The debt of the Western world to India in this respect cannot to be overestimated. Most of the discoveries and inventions of which Europe is so proud would have been impossible without a developed system of mathematics, and this in turn would have been impossible, if Europe had been shackled by the unwieldy system of Roman numerals. The unknown man who developed the new system was from the world’s point of view, after Buddha, the most important son of India. His achievement, though easily taken for granted, was the work of an analytical mind of the first order, and he deserves much more honour that he has received “(A.L Basham).
Aryabhata reorganised Astronomy
Aryabhata (5th century A.D) occupies the first place among Indian mathematicians and astronomers of antiquity. He heralded the science of mathematics-based astronomy. Aryabhata reorganised astronomy on a scientific basis furnishing it with new tools and techniques and more accurate methods of observation.
Because of their knowledge of mathematics, Indian astronomers made advances on the knowledge of the Greeks and passed their knowledge, along with that of mathematics, back to Europe through the Arabs. The Syrian astronomers (7th century) knew of the achievements, of Indian astronomy and mathematicians and the caliphs of Baghdad employed Indian astronomers.
Chemical practices have a hoary antiquity in India. Some of the chemical practices for which ancient India was famous are: metal working, mineral processing, production and use of vegetable pigments and dyes and glass blowing.
The Iron Pillar
The famous iron pillar/opposite Qutub Minar in Delhi is a typical example of the fine iron craftsmanship of the classical period. The pillar is 24 feet in height, diameter ranging from 16 inches to 12 inches and weighing more than six tons. The iron pillar was probably a memorial to emperor Chandra Gupta II and belongs to 400AD. The pillar, which is more than 1500 years old, is not showing any signs of rusting or decay.
This has made V.P. Bell, a Western geologist, to remark. “It is not many years since the production of such a pillar would have been an impossibility in the foundries of the world and even now there are comparatively few places where a similar mass of metal could have been produced”.
Yoga
The Western world is familiar with the science and practice of yoga. “Yoga, the science of union with the Divine, was found to have a special appeal to the Western mind because yoga contains an aspect of physical culture, the science of asanas or yogic postures in Hatha Yoga, which is attractive to and has become emphasised by the physically minded Western world. Hatha Yoga, the yoga of physical culture and personal effort, was originally used to orient us physically toward the pursuit of higher states of consciousness. Its goal is self-realisation, not merely health or flexibility” (David Frawley).
Yoga aims to eliminate physical and mental problems and helps to maintain mental balance and peace. Swami Sivananda has said, “Yoga is integration and harmony between thoughts, words and deeds, or integration between head, heart and hands”.
David Frawley has stated “Hinduism is a vegetarian religion, though it has accepted eating of meat for those who are not yet ready for spiritual life.” 95% of the world population of 6.2 billion are non-vegetarians. India has the largest proportion of vegetarians (30-40 per cent). In recent times, there has been an increase in the number of non-vegetarians in India, But there has been an increase of vegetarians in the West because of the realization that subsisting on a meat diet is not only undesirable from the point of view of health. It is well known that reaving of animals for meat is wasteful from economic and ecological points of view. Ten kgs of food fed to an animal yields only one kg of meat. 10 vegetarians can live off one acre of land; but a non-vegetarian needs a whole acre land in getting tired and infertile due to intensive farming with inorganic fertilizer and pesticides. In India, pollution around slaughter houses is a health hazard. Further, meat is produced filthy condition, inflicting in unimginable suffering to animals.
Ayurveda
Next to Yoga, Ayurveda is the most commonly known of the Vedic sciences. Ayuveda is the medical and health side of Vedic sciences. It is organic of nature. Ayurveda is a form of naturalistic medicine or naturopathy. It is Nature herself that heals and all we can do is assist in the process. Ayurveda emphasizes the balancing of the life-force within us as the basis of all treatment. Ayurvedic treatment is based on diet and herbs for its treatment, but uses many specially prepared mineral substances as well (David Frawley).
ONE NATION, MANY RELIGIONS
Buddha Preached Compassion
Let us now consider the other religions born in India, which are a part of India’s heritage and culture. Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, and Buddha were contemporaries. Both came from the Kshatriya warrior class. Buddha was born in 566 BC and died at the age of 80 in 406 BC. Buddha was born on the full moon day of Vaisakha (which falls in May-June). His attainment of enlightenment at the age of 35 and death at the age of 80 also took place on full moon day. Buddha preached compassion to all living beings.
The essence of Buddhism is contained in the first sermon, which he preached to the first five disciples at the Deer Park at Sarnath, 10 kms from Varanasi. This sermon is called the Sermon of the Turning Wheel. This contains the four Noble Truths and the noble Eight Fold Path or the Middle Path.
The Four Noble Truths
The four Noble Truths are : life is suffering; suffering is caused by human desires; the renunciation of desire is the path to freedom and this freedom is possible through the Eight-fold Path.
The way to Nirvana, freedom from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth is known as the Noble Eight-fold Path or the Middle Path : 1) Right understanding (Insightful understanding of things as they really are), 2) Right thoughts (Thoughts based on renunciation, loving – kindness – compassion), 3) Right speech (Truthful, kindly, gentle and meaningful), 4) Right Action (Reverence for life, honesty and sexual propriety), 5) Right Livelihood (Abstaining from livelihood that brings harm to other beings), 6) Right Effort (Avoiding or overcoming evil things and of developing wholesome thoughts), 7) Right mindfulness (Active, watchful mind), 8) Right concentration (Concentration or one-pointedness of mind).
Buddha preached that the world is full of suffering (dukkha), it is transient (antica) and it is soulless (anatta). There is no individual soul (atman) or world soul (Brahman). Buddha advocated welfare of animals, protection of plant life and ecological preservation.
There is no place in Buddhism for a supreme creator God. Buddha did not encourage speculation on the origin and end of the world. He laid stress on purity of conduct, clarity, calmness of mind and development of wisdom.
Buddha, the Karma Yogi
Swami Vivekananda on Buddha “Let me tell you a few words about one man who actually carried this teaching of karma-yoga into practice. That man is Buddha. He is the one man who carried this into perfect practice. All the prophets of the world, except Buddha, had external motives to move them into unselfish action. The prophets of the world, with this single exception, may be divided into two sets, one set holding that they are incarnations of God come down on earth, and the other holding that they are only messengers from God, and both drew their impetus for work from outside, expect reward from outside, however lightly spiritual the language they use. But Buddha is the only prophet who said, “I do not care to know your various theories about God. What is the use of discussing all the subtle doctrines about the soul? Do good and be good. And this will take you to freedom and whatever truth there is.” He was absolutely without personal motives; a selfless soul spreading awareness about the right path to tread in life. Show me in history one character who has soared so high above all. The whole human race has produced but one such character, such high philosophy, such wide sympathy. This great philosopher, practising the higher philosophy, yet had the deepest sympathy for the lowest of animals. He is the ideal karma-yogi, acting entirely without motive, and the history of humanity shows him to have been the greatest man ever born; beyond compare the greatest combination of heart and brain that ever existed, the greatest soul-power that has ever been manifested. He is the first great reformer the world has seen”.
Buddhism enjoyed a long existence in India. Around 186 BC, the Shingo Dynasty, which succeeded the Mauryas, rejected Buddhism in favour of a new form of Hinduism. Monuments with large endowments did not maintain contact with the laity and so were isolated. This led to the decline of Buddhism in India. The resurgence of Hinduism with philosophical modes of thought and the Bhakti movement were other causes. There has been an increase in the number of Buddhists, particularly in Maharashtra, as a result of conversion from Dalits. The inspiration for this came from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who became a Buddhist. Buddhism spread to Sri Lanka and the East – Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Japan. But Buddhism did not destroy local cultures, and coexisted along with Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism. Strangely, in all these countries, they eat meat, though Buddha was a vegetarian.
Jainism
An Ascetic at 30:
Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, was born in 540 BC and died in 468 BC. Like the Buddha he was born a prince, married and had a daughter but his real interest lay in the quest for salvation. At the age of 30, when his parents passed away, he left his home to lead the life of an ascetic. For 12 years he wandered from place to place, begging for food, meditating and subjecting his body to austerities of all kinds. At first he wore a single garment, which he never changed; but after 13 months he discarded it and spent the rest of his life in complete nudity.
In the thirteenth year of his ascetism, Mahavira found full enlightenment and Nirvana. He became a Jina, a victor over his own passions. His teaching led to the rapid spread and organization of the Jainas or Jains as they are now called.
Doctrine of Ahimsa
The core of Jain ethics is the doctrine of Ahimsa or non-violence that is non-injury to all living beings. Ahimsa signifies love of all creatures and forbids any harm being caused to any living being. In its insistence on non-violence Jainism goes much further than other Indian religions. Jain monks usually carry a feather duster to brush ants and other insects from their path and save them from being trampled upon. They wear veils over their mouths to prevent minute living beings in the air being inhaled and killed. This emphasis on non-violence has prevented Jains from taking to agriculture as a profession since cultivation involves killing insects and pests. Thus Jains have confined themselves to commercial activities and have become money lenders. Jainism does not prosylitise. There may be five million Jains now.
In their zeal of love for animals, they maintain hundreds of Goshalas, where cattle and buffaloes are maintained after their productive life is over. They actively oppose slaughter of animals for meat. Jains donate liberally for animal welfare activities.
Jains are strict vegetarians. The whole world owes a great deal to Jainism for advocating vegetarianism. 60% of Indians and 95% of the world population are non-veg. The implications of non-veg food to health, hygiene, ecology etc are dealt with later.
Sikhism
Divine Revelation
The founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak (1469-1539) was born to a small Hindu farmer-trader and village revenue official in a place later named Nankana Sahib after him. It is not far from Lahore in Pakistan. Nanak married early and had two sons. One morning while bathing in a rivulet flowing by the town of Sultanpur, where he worked as a keeper of the grain store, he had a Divine revelation. Thereafter, emerging from the rivulet he went into the town and the first words he uttered were: “There is no Hindu, there is no Mussalman.”
For the next 24 years, Guru Nanak, accompanied by Mardana, a Muslim follower who was a rebec player, traveled all over India, spreading his message of love, faith, truth and equality. He visited Hindu centres of pilgrimage. He visited Muslim centres also, both in India and abroad, going as far as Mecca and Baghdad.
It is possible to live pure among life’s Impurities
Contrary to the medieval Indian practice of renouncing the world for spiritual elevation, Guru Nanak believed that the world is worth living in. He believed that it is possible to live pure amid the impurities of life.
To practice his teaching of equality, Guru Nank started the institution of langar (a community kitchen), in which all had to sit in line without distinction of high and low, rich and poor, etc. while they were fed.
Guru Nank preached strict monotheism and described the creator as Ikk, one without a second.
Guru Nanak was succeeded by nine other Gurus. The tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, revolutionised the Sikh faith and transformed it into a militant faith. He founded the Khalsa (the pure), the Sikh brotherhood. His first five disciples were given new names and a suffix “Singh”, meaning “lion” or “lion-hearted”.
The Guru Granth Sahib is the holy book of Sikhism. It was compiled by the Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru. It contains the hymns of all five Gurus, some excerpts from ‘Devi Mahatmyam’ Markandeya Purana of ancient India as well as some precepts from Baba Farid of Pakpattan, the Muslim mystic.
No Priesthood in Sikhism
There is no priesthood in Sikhism. The Sikh temple is called the Gurudwara. The only object of veneration in the Gurudwara is the Guru Granth. No idols or images are permitted inside a Gurudwara. The Guru Granth is enthroned on a high seat or pedestal, under a canopy. The congregation takes place in the presence of the Guru Granth and the official could be anyone from those present, who holds a whisk in his hand which he keeps swinging in veneration. The Holy volume is opened ceremoniously in the early hours of the morning after ardas or supplication and the first hymn on the left hand page is read to obtain what is called the Vak or the day’s lesson or order. At the end of the evening service the Holy Book is closed again after a short prayer and put to rest for the night. There are about 10 million Sikhs now.
Christianity
The Arrival of St. Thomas
The coming of Chrstianity to India in the first century AD is associated with the legend of St. Thomas, who is believed to have arrived in Malabar (part of present-day Kerala) on the West Coast in AD 52. After establishing a number of Syrian Churches along the coast, he traveled overland to the East coast to a place near Madras (Chennai) city, where he began to preach. But this attempt to spread a new religion was strongly opposed. It is believed that he was killed in AD 68 at Mylapore in the vicinity of Madras. His tomb is in a cathedral in Madras. The Syrian Church, and its adherents, the Syrian Christians, are concentrated on the West Coast of India in Kerala. Elsewhere in the South, Roman Catholics and Protestants have a strong presence. The Constitution of India guarantees freedom of worship as also propagation. There are about 40 million Christians. Todays vigorous Indian Christian communities are drawn from the broad Ecumenical Spectrum.
Zoroastrianism
The Zoroastrians, the followers of Zoroaster, the great prophet of Persia (Iran), who lived about 700 years before Christ, sought refuge in India when Islam established itself in Persia. After the Arab conquest, settled first in Diu, and then in AD 785 set sail for Sangam (one party of refugees from Persia), a small fishing village on the west coast of Gujarat, where the local Hindu Raja gave them shelter.
Conditions for Settling
In return for permission to settle, the Raja imposed five conditions on them : 1) The Parsi high priest would have to explain their religion to the king, 2) They would have to give up their native Persian language and adopt Gujarati as their mother tongue, 3) The women would give up their Persian dress and adopt the customary dress of the country, 4) The men should lay down their arms and 5) They should hold their wedding processions only in the dark.
The Raja then asked them what they wanted. They asked for freedom of worship and freedom to bring up their children in their own tradition. The Raja asked them what they would do for the country of their adoption in return. The high priest asked for a bowl to be filled with milk. He then stirred a spoonful of sugar in the bowl and asked, “Do you see the sugar in the bowl of milk?” All shook their heads. “Sir,” said the priest, “We shall strive to be like this insignificant amount of sugar in the milk of your human kindness.”
Today the Parsis form a numerically small, but vibrant community, who have contributed to the country as captains of industry like J.N. Tata and JRD Tata, Ardeshir Godrej, scientists like Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha and Dr. Homi Sethna; and Zubin Mehta, renowned orchestral conductor.
Islam
The coming of Islam
The coming of the Arabs, Turks and Afghans brought a new religion to India – Islam – which was founded in Makkah (Arabia) by the Prophet Mohammed, who was born in the year AD 570. The Arab conquest of Sind took place in the 8th century. The Prophet preached the unity of God. He is one and unique. He has no partner and no equal. The strict monotheism of Islam contrasts with the polytheism of Hinduism. “Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958, born in Makkah as the heir of a distinguished family, he was Indian on his father’s side and Arab on his mother’s) in his translation and commentary of the Holy Quran maintains that the Islamic idea of the unity of God was the most advanced because it refused to give God shape or form and went beyond the Upanishadic definition of neti, neti (not this, not this), but gave God positive attributes by calling him the Great Provider (Al Razzaq), Ruler of the Universe (Rabb-ul Aalameen), Merciful and Just (Al-Rahman, al Raheem) and the final arbiter of human actions (Malik – i – Yawmiddeen – Master of the Day of Reckoning)” (Khushwant Singh). Islam came to India not with the Arab-conquer of sind as commonly stated but with the sailors of the spice trade on the Malabar Coast. The local overlord built a mosque, the oldest in India. He converted to Islalm, abdicated and went to Mecca (8th century A. D). An ancient Islamic theological college at Ponani recalled Al Azhar at Cairo in the middle ages.
The Arrival of Sufis
But apart from the Muslims who came as invaders, the influence of Islam came with the arrival of mystics from Persia. The Sufis, as they were called first, settled in Sind and Punjab from where their teaching spread to the Deccan and Bengal. Sufism in India began its real history with the arrival of Kwaja Muin-uddin Chisthi. He was born in Sistan in about 1142 and was educated in leading intellectual centres in Eastern Persia. He arrived in Delhi in 1206 and moved on to Ajmer by the end of the year. He died in 1236 in Ajmer. In the history of Sufism in India, Muin-uddin Chisthi’s name and shrine are unrivalled. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit his shrine each year during his urs. His shrine greatly increased in importance from the time Akbar began to make his pilgrimage there. Other Muslim emperors followed suit, and left an impressive shrine in honour of the saint. Ajmer became the leading Muslim pilgrim centre in India. Among Sufi mystes who influenced Indian Heritage, mention must be made of Baba Farid Shakkar ganj’ – treacle trove whose verses find a place in the Adi Granth.
“India has a long and great tradition of mysticism. It is also interesting that mysticism, especially the Bhakti mysticism, flowered in South India. The Vaishnavite Alvars and the Saivite Nayans hailed from Tamil country. Both Sankara, the greatest of non-dualist philosophers, and Ramanuja, the most eminent interpreter of theistic Vedanta and Bhakti philosophy were from the South. While in metaphysical terms Advaita has remained intellectually and philosophically most integrated, and therefore the most admired system, it is the religious penetration, spiritual, emotional and social dynamism of Ramanuja and later Bhakti philosophers and saints that captured the hearts of the saints of India. It is coincidental that Sankaracharya was born just after the arrival of Islam in India” (Akbar Mirza Khaleeli).
Jews
The Jews came before the Christian era:
Yet another religious community, which forms part of the religions and cultural mosaic of India, are the Jews who first came to Kerala as traders well before the Christian era. Later they came as refugees, and in the first century AD, there was a large settlement in Cochin. According to Christian tradition, when St. Thomas arrived on the West Coast, he was received by a Jewish girl. Forty Jews agreed to be baptized by him and entered the Christian fold. But the majority stuck to their faith. A further ancient community of Indian Jews, the Beni Israel, has lived for many centuries on the West Coast and is now centred in Bombay (Mumbai). With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, many Indian Jews migrated to Israel, leaving only a remnant behind in India. Members of the Jewish community, who have achieved eminence, include : Ruby Myers whose screen name was Sulochana, one of the highest paid film stars in the early days of the Indian film industry; David, veteran character actor; Major General J.F.R. Jacob, Chief of Staff of the Eastern Command during the 1971 Bangladesh war; Nissim Ezekiel, poet.
IDEALS OF LIFE
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata have shaped the ethos of India in a remarkable way. It is often asked what in a nutshell is the lesson of the Ramayana. According to some experts it can be put in just two words: “ Mama Vidhi” which can be interpreted as “like myself”. When Sri Rama goes to the forest along with Sita and his brother Lakshmana, it is part of the advice given by Lakshmana’s Mother. He is asked to treat Sri Rama as he would treat the king, his father, Sita as he would treat his own mother and indeed the Forest dwellings as no different from the comfortable palace of Ayodhya. This wonderful advice contains many lessons that would be of help to everyone. It is how we approach anything, rather how we conceive something that helps us to act in an ideal manner. Of course, anyone who treats others as one would like to be treated oneself – “ Mama Vidhi” can be sure of doing the right thing. In another context, it has been said that this policy is “the law and all the prophets”.
Coming to the Mahabharatha, what is the most important lesson? This epic deals with the ideal qualities that a human life should have, the ideals that behooves cultivation – the Purusharthas. They are; Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Sage Vyasa himself has reiterated the most cardinal point of the Epic. It is that people should observe Dharma. This is the most important of all the Purusharthas. The others become infructuous if Dharma is absent. The Sage declares that he had appeal with raised hands this truth; yet people continue to ignore very often the path of Dharma! They easily and naturally strive for the other ideals without realizing that everything else is hollow without Dharma.
What is Dharma? What are the other Purusharthas? The other Purusharthas are easier to realize. Kama is the pleasurable fulfillment of the senses. Man has a natural tendency to indulge in this. In its widest sense not only sexual satisfaction but also every fulfillment that man senses require to be attended to, such as the happiness derived from satisfying hunger or the need for pleasurable surroundings, the delight one gets from a good picture or a song is part of Kama. If such a sensation is not legitimately obtained or in other words the result of Adharma, the sensation is followed by contrition and a feeling of guilt.
Though Artha is often translated as wealth, its wider implication is not confined to the material. It is really “meaning, or that which gives meaning to something” A well known psychiatrist, Doctor Victor Frankel in his book points out how one of the greatest requirements of human beings, which enhances their lives is the meaning that they can find in living. This great author who survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany had the unique opportunity of studying inmates. He found that those people who survived despite the most horrible conditions of deprivation were those people who had discovered a meaning for life. This spiritual quality helped them to live and also enhanced their lives. One should have a meaning in life to make life worthwhile. This is what Dr Frankel discovered not only in his own life but in that of others. He used this knowledge to treat others suffering from Mental illnesses even in the affluent surroundings of the American life style. This is nothing else but what our ancient sages declare. This is Artha – that which make life meaningful – an ancient Purushartha. It is easy enough to understand that if material wealth or if an intellectual explanation for gaining it, or a spiritual attempt for its provenance is devoid of Dharma, it will be a hollow gain. A well known question in a Christian context asks; “ What avails you if you gain the whole world but loose your own soul? “
Moksha is explained as liberation. It is also described as freedom from the bonds of the world. Sometimes it is considered the union of the individual soul or Atma with the universal soul – the Paramatma. Whenever a demonic personality such as King Hirayankashipu is slain by an Avatar of God that person is supposed to enjoy union with God. Rajaji explains Moksha as gaining freedom from the illusions caused by the veil of Maya. Any one who genuinely repents his sins and wishes to turn a new leaf, it is said, can gain Moksha. Thus Moksha is variously described in different contexts but in each of them different aspects of the same entity is being highlighted. However, it is very clear that Moksha cannot be obtained without the help of Dharma. In any case it has a lower priority than Dharma.
Now what is this all important Dharma? Dr Radhakrishnan once observed that there is no exact English equivalent for it. The Greeks may have had a word for it. In Latin the word closest to it is ‘Charitas”. The King James Bible chose the word ‘charity’.
St Paul in his famous epistle to the Corinthians privileges Charity above all the other virtues. Several generations remember his poetic writing so much so that when the modern version of the Bible substitutes “Love” in the place of ‘Charity”, there was disappointment. Dr. Radhakrishnan had pointed out that what the epistle really meant was to point out to the Corinthians the importance of ‘Dharma’.
Dharma is more than love or charity. It is that which upholds the moral order. The ancients whether in the East or in the West had this idea of a moral order being upheld by the right behaviour of human beings. Any action that violates this is a violation of the order in the world. In all the tragedies of Shakespeare we find this ancient idea being repeated. He is in a way a link between the old world and new. Any violation of the moral order by the committing of a wrong deed is reflected in the order of Nature. Violent deeds are echoed by thunder storms and calamities. St Paul incorporated much of pre-Christian archetypical world views into his Christianity.
Some of the ancient archetypes popular in Greece came from India’s cultural lore. The Ramayana and Mahabharatha emphasise the role of Dharma. To this day the common folk of India sit under the shade of village trees, in temple halls and in recent years in front of TV sets entranced by the stories, the situations, the moral dilemma and its solutions found in our ancient epics – all of which enjoin one to uphold Dharma at all costs.
PERFECTLY INTEGRATED CIVILIZATION
THE CHAKRAS
Man, God and the COSMOS are seamlessly interconnected. The Chakras play in important role in this. The outer universe (macrocosm) and the inner universe (microcosm) are linked by them. Chakras are the 14 mystical force-centers that govern awareness.
There are fourteen great nerve centers in the physical body, in the astral body and in the body of the soul. These centers are called chakras in Sanskrit, which means “wheel”. These spinning vortices of energy are actually regions of mind power, each one governing certain aspects of our inner being, and together they are the subtle components of people. When inwardly perceived, they are vividly colorful and can be heard. In fact, they are quite noisy. When awareness flows through any one or more of these regions, the various functions of consciousness operate, such as memory, reason and willpower. The physical body has a connection to each of the seven higher chakras through plexuses of nerves along the spinal cord and in the cranium. As the kundalini force of awareness travels the spine, it enters each of these chakras, energizing them and awakening in turn each function. By examining the functions of these great force centers, we can clearly cognize our own position on the spiritual path and better understand our fellow man.
In any one lifetime, one may predominantly be aware in two or three centers, thus setting the pattern for the way one thinks and lives. One develops a comprehension of these seven regions in a natural sequence, the perfection of one leading logically to the next. Thus, though we may not psychically be seeing spinning forces within ourself, we nevertheless mature through memory, reason, willpower, cognition, universal love, divine sight and spiritual illumination.
There are six chakras above the muladhara, which is located at the base of the spine. When awareness is flowing through these chakras, consciousness is in the higher nature. There are also seven charkas below the muladhara, and when awareness is flowing through them, consciousness is in the lower nature. The lower chakras are located between the coccyx and the heels. In this age, the Kali Yuga, most people live in the consciousness of the seven force centers below the muladhara. Their beliefs and attitudes strongly reflect the animal nature, the instinctive mind. Thus, the muladhara chakra, the divine seat of Lord Ganesha, is the dividing point between the lower nature and the higher. It is the beginning of religion for everyone, entered when consciousness arrives out of the realms below Lord Ganesha’s holy feet. Through personal sadhana, prayer, meditation, right thought, speech and action and love of God, we lift our own consciousness and that of others into the chakras above the muladhara, bringing the mind into the higher nature.
The functions of the chakras are aspects of our being that we use every day. In the same way, we use our arms and hands everyday without thinking. Yet, if we study the physiology of the hands, we encounter layer after layer of intricate interrelationships of tissues, cells, plasma. We examine the engineering of the structural system of bones and joints, the energy transmission of the muscular system, the biochemistry of growth and healing, the biophysics of nerve action and reaction. Suddenly a simple and natural part of human life seems complex. Similarly, we use the various functions of consciousness, the chakras, every day without even thinking about them.
The charkas do not awaken. They are already awakened in everyone. It only seems as if they awaken as we become aware of flowing our energy through them, because energy, willpower and awareness are one and the same thing. To become conscious of the core of energy itself, all we have to do is detach awareness from the realms of reason, memory and aggressive, intellectual will; then turning inward, we move from one chakra to another. The physical body changes as these more refined energies flow through it. And the inner nerve conduits, nadis, inwardly become stronger.
It may help, as we examine each of these centers individually, to visualize ourselves as a seven-storied building, muladhara with each story being one of the chakras. Awareness travels up and down in the elevator, and as it goes higher and higher, it gains a progressively broader, more comprehensive and beautiful vista. Reaching the top floor, it views the panorama below with total understanding, not only of the landscape below, but also of the relation of the building to other buildings and of each floor to the nest. Venturing below the muladhara, we enter the basement levels of consciousness.
Planetary patterns: During each predominant age throughout history, one or another of the chakras has come into power. When the Greek God Cronus, the God of time, was worshiped, the mass consciousness came into memory – the muladhara chakra – with its new-found concern for time, for a past and a future, dates and records. Next the mass consciousness came into the svadhishthana and its powers of reason. Reason was a God in the Golden Age of Greece. Discourse,debate and logic all became instruments of power and influence. If it was not reasonable, it was not true. Next the chakra of will came into power. Man conquered nations, waged wars, developed efficient weapons. Crusades were fought and kingdoms established. Our world was experiencing force over force. Direct cognition, the anahata chakra, came when man opened the doors of science within his own mind. He cognized the laws of the physical universe: mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology. Then he unfolded the mind sciences by looking into his subconscious mind, into the chakras where he had previously been. With man’s look into his own mind, psychology, metaphysics and the mind-religions were born.
Now, in our present time, the mass consciousness is coming into vishuddha – the forces of universal love. The forerunners of this emerging Sat Yuga, popularly called the New Age, are not worshiping reason as the great thing of the mind or trying to take over another’s possessions through the use of force. They are not worshiping science or psychology or the mind religions as the great panacea. They are looking inward and worshiping the light, the Divinity, within their own body, within their own spine, within their own head, and they are going inward into a deep spiritual quest which is based on direct experience, on compassion for all things in creation.
As the forces of the vishuddha chakra come into prominence in the New Age, it does not mean that the other centers of consciousness have stopped working. But this new one coming into prominence is claiming the energy within the mass consciousness. When the center of divine love gains a little more power, everything will come into a beautiful balance. There will be a natural hierarchy of people based on the awakening of their soul, just as previous ages established hierarchies founded on power or intellectual acumen. With that one needed balance, everything on the Earth will quiet down,because the vishuddha chakra is of the new age of universal love, in which everyone sees eye to eye, and if they do not, there will always be someone there to be the peacemaker. Look back through history and you will see how these planetary influences, these great mind strata of thought, have molded history and people.
Personal patterns: The same cyclical pattern of development in human history is evident eve more clearly in the growth of the individual. In the seven cycles of a person’s life, beginning at the time of birth, awareness automatically flows through one of these chakras and then the next one, and then the next, provided a pure life is lived, following Sanatana Dharma under the guidance of a satguru. Each one experiences the chakras somewhat differently, depending upon the amount of kundalini force that is released. Non-religious people, who have a minimal amount of kundalini released, may experience the chakra only in its physical and emotional manifestation. Those who perform sadhana will experience the chakras in a much deeper way. Yogis performing tapas, serious austerities, would likely experience each chakra in the depths of their soul body.
In reality, most people never make it into the higher four chakras, but instead regress back time and again into the chakras of reason, instinctive will, memory, anger, fear and jealousy. Nevertheless, the natural, ideal pattern is as follows. From one to seven years of age, one is in the muladhara chakra learning the basics of movement, language and society. The patterns of the subconscious are established primarily in these early years. From seven to fourteen one is in the svadhishthana chakra. One reasons, questions and refines the ability to think for oneself. Between fourteen and twenty-one, one comes into willpower. The personality gets strong. Likes and dislikes solidify. Generally, about this time one wants to run away from home and express oneself. From twenty-one to twenty-eight one begins realizing responsibilities and gaining a new perspective of themselves ad the world. Theoretically, one should be in anahata, the chakra of cognition, but a lot of people never make it.
If awareness is mature and full, however, having incarnated many, many times, one goes on at twenty-one to twenty-eight into the anahata chakra. Here we begin to understand “what it’s all about”. We comprehend our fellow men and women, their relationships, the world around us. We seek inawardly for more profound insight. This chakra is stabilized and smoothly spinning once one has raised one’s family and performed one’s social duty, and though one may yet continue in business, one would find the energies withdrawing naturally into the chest. It is most often the renunciate, the mathavasi, the sannyasin, who from twenty-eight to thirty-five or before, depending on the strictness of his satguru, comes into the vishuddha chakra, into inner light experiences, assuming a spiritual responsibility for himself and for others. This awakening soul appreciates people, loves them. His heart and mind broadly encompass all of humanity. He is less interested in what people do and more in what they are. It is here that, having withdrawn from the world, the world begins to renounce him. Then, from thirty-five to forty-two or before, he perfects his sadhanas and lives in the ajna chakra, experiencing the body of the soul, that body of light, awareness traveling within naturally at that time, withdrawing from mundane matters of the conscious mind. From forty-two through forty-nine he is getting established in the sahasrara charka in a very natural way, having met all of the responsibilities through life.
Esoterically, there are sevenmore chakras above and within the sahasrara. Agamic Hindu tradition cites them as seven divisions of Paranada, inner sound. They are, from highest to lowest Unmana, Samana, Anasrita, Anatha, Ananta, Vyomanga and Vyapini. These charkas are a conglomerate of nadis that slowly develop as a result of consistent and repetitive Self-Realization experiences.
The Seven Chakras of Higher Consciousness
Here we present a brief overview of each of the seven principal chakras, followed by the seven chakras below the muladhara.
Muladhara
The memory center, muladhara, located at the base of the spine, creates a consciousness of time through the powers of memory. Whenever we go back in our memory patterns, we are using the forces of the muladhara. It has four petals or aspects, one of which governs memories of past lives. The other contain the compiled memory patterns and interrelated karmas of this life. This chakra is associated also with human qualities of individuality, egoism, physicality (including sexuality), materialism and dominance. A person lives predominantly in this chakra during the first seven years of life, acquiring language skills, relationships and cultural ways.
Svadishthana
Once the ability to remember has been established, the natural consequence is reason, and from reason evolves the intellect. Reason is the manipulation of memorized information. We categorize it, edit it, rearrange it and store the results. People in this six-petaled chakra research, explore and wonder, “Why? Why? Why? They propose theories and formulate rational explanations. They often form a rigid intellectual mind based upon opinionated knowledge and accumulated memory, reinforced by habit patterns of the instinctive mind. It is in this chakra that the majority of people live, thinks, worry and travel on the astral plane. We open naturally into this chakra between ages 8 and 14. This center controls the muladhara , as does each progressively higher chakra control those that lie below it.
Manipura
The third chakra is represented in the central nervous system by the solar plexus, where all nerves to form the ‘second brain”. Of its ten petals, five face up and five down. Correspondingly, depending on how the energy is flowing, the forces of willpower from this chakra add power either to worldly consciousness through the first two centers or to spiritual consciousness through the fourth and fifth centers. When awareness is confined to the realms of memory, reason and aggressive willpower, men and women are instinctive in nature. They are quick to react and retaliate, quick to have their feelings hurt and quick to pursue the conquest of others while fearing their own defeat. In these states of mind, the ego rises to its greatest prominence, and emotional experiences are extremely intense. Young adults from 14 to 21 discover willpower, willfulness and individuality as this chakra unfolds.
Ananhata
The center of perception and insight is often referred to as “the lotus of the heart”. Its 12 “petals” imply that cognition can be expressed in twelve distinct ways or through as many masks or personae. People abiding here are generally well-balanced, content and self-contained. Even when in day-to-day life they become involved in the seemingly fractured parts, they are able to look through it all and understand. They have a deep understanding of human nature, which brings effortless tolerance and an innate ability to help others, to resolve conflicts and confusions. Between ages 21 and 28, perceptions deepen and understanding matures for those who enter this chakra. Many people regress back into reason and memory. But, if awareness is mature, having incarnated many times, and well-trained all through youth, the soul proceeds smoothly into anahata consciousness.
Vishuddha
Universal or divine love is the faculty expressed by the vishuddha chakra. Whenever people feel filled with inexpressible love for and kinship with all mankind, all creatures large and small, they are vibrating within the sixteen-pitaled vishuddha. When deeply immersed in this state, there is no consciousness of being a person with emotions, no consciousness of thoughts. One is just being the light or being fully aware of oneself as radiant force flowing through all form. One may sometimes see light throughout the entirely of the body. The exceptional soul who resides fully in this center, usually between the ages of 28 and 35, is able for the first time to withdraw awareness totally into the spine, into sushumna, the central spiritual current. Ultimately, he realizes that the inner being is the reality of himself.
Ajna
The sixth force center is called ajna. It is the “third-eye,” the center of divine sight and direct cognition. Of its two “petals” or facets, one is the ability to look into the lower worlds or states of mind and the other is the perception of the higher worlds, or spiritual states, of consciousness. It, therefore, is the connecting link, allowing the awakened soul to relate the highest consciousness to the lowest in a unified vision. We open naturally into this chakra between ages 35 and 42.
Sahasrara
The seventh center at the top of the head is called the crown chakra. According to the ancient mystics, it governs 1,008 aspects or attributes of the soul body. These personae are transparent, a crystal-clear white light, ever present,shining through the circumference of the golden soul body. Here the soul dissolves even blissful visions of light and is immersed in pure space, pure awareness, pure being. Within the sahasrara is the Brahmarandhra, or “door of God.” an aperture in the sushumna nadi through which the kundalini exits the body, catapulting the mind beyond and into nirvikalpa Samadhi, and the truly pure spirit escapes the body at death. We open naturally into the crown chakra between ages 42 and 49.
Often when people get older, if they are not learned to sustain consciousness in the higher chakras, they start to drop in consciousness, returning to reason and trying to understand why all the things that happened to them in their lifetime happened as they did. They get stuck in the muladhara and spend years just remembering the past, reliving old experiences, good and bad alike. But more mature souls rightly fulfill life’s two final stages: senior advisor and religious solitaire. They utilize their golden years to manifest higher-chakra faculties of love, light, inner vision and God Realization through service, sadhana, pilgrimage, worship and meditation.
The Seven Lower Chakras
Atala
The first lower charka, located in the hips, govern the state of mind called fear, which is truly a bottomless abyss. Someone in this consciousness fears death, fears life, even fears God and other people. This center is also the home of lust and promiscuity.
Vitala
Here anger predominates, and burning resentment. Anger comes from despair, confusion, frustration or lack of understanding. People in the consciousness of this chakra, centered in the thighs, are always wrathful, mad at the world, even angry at God.
Sutala
This chakra, found in the knees, governs jealousy, wanting what one can’t have. Jealousy is a feeling of inadequacy, inferiority and helplessness. People in sutala consciousness covet everything, often deny the existence of God and are contentiously combative.
Tatatala
Prolonged confusion dominates here, giving rise to instinctive willfulness: to get rather than give, to push others around and pursue materialistic advancement over all else. Greed and deceit prevail in this dog-eat-dog state of mind, centered in the calves.
Rasatala
This chakra of the ankles is the true home of the animal nature. Unmitigated selfishness prevails, of seeing to the well-being of “number one” first. The suffering of others is of no concern. Jealousy, anger and fear are intense, even high, states of consciousness.
Mahatala
This is the realm of consciencelessness, or inner blindness to the effect of one’s action, of negativity and deep depression. Those living in this chakra of the feet steal freely, taking what they justify as theirs anyway, feeling that the world “owes them a living.”
Patala
Here, in the soles of the feet, is the abode of destructiveness, revenge, murder for the sake of murder, torture and hatred expressed through harming the properties, minds, emotions and bodies of others. Hatred and scorn abide here. Malice reigns supreme. Reason seldom reaches this state of mind.
This is the story of our evolution through the mind – from the gross to the refined, from darkness into light, from a consciousness of death to immortality. We follow a natural pattern that is built right in the nerve system itself: memory; reason; will; direct cognition; inner light perceptions of the soul which give a universal love of all mankind; psychic perceptions through divine sight; and the heavenly refinement of being in the thousand-petaled lotus.
VEDIC LITERATURE, THE RISE OF BUDDHISM
AND JAINISM
The word Veda ( from the word vid, to know) means Wisdom, and orthodox Hindus regard the Veda as eternal, and revealed to the Rishis or seers. The Vedic hymns have come down to us in three reensions: the Rig, the Sama, and the Yajur Veda. The Rig Veda ( from rik, a stanza) is the oldest. It consists of 1,028 hymns, now grouped into ten books. They were mostly in praise of different gods, and were intended for recitation by the hotri or chief priest at the sacrifices. The tenth book is evidently much later than the rest and is more philosophical in character. The Sama Veda consists of verses from the Rig Veda arranged in the form of a hymn-book for the use of the udgatri or chanter; the Yajur Veda, on the other hand,is interpolated with prose passages or prayers to be recited by the priest who performed the manual acts. Besides these we have the Atharva Veda, which is on a different plane; it contains some fine hymns, but it consists principally of spells and magical formulae.
The Vedic hymns were handed down from father to son in the families of the Rishis who composed them. For this reason they were never committed to writing. In one of the hymns, the pupils learning to repeat the Veda after their teacher are comically compared to frogs heralding the bursting of the monsoon by their croaking.* The learned Chinese traveller I-tsing, who visited India between A.D 671 and 695, says: “the four Vedas, containing about one hundred thousand verses, have been handed down from mouth to mouth, not transcribed on paper or leaves. In every generation there exist some intelligent Brahmins who can recite 100,000 verses.”
When the creative period of the Vedas came to an end, and the hymns assumed their final form, a number of prose treatises called Brahmanas were added. They contain instructions in ritual and explanations of meanings, often conveyed by mythological stories. At the time they were composed, the Indid tribes had moved eastwards as far as Kosala (Oudh) and Videha (Bihar). Side by side with the Brahmanas are other treatises, the Arayakas or Forest Books, and the Upanishads, theosophical works containing mystical speculations for advanced students. As a kind of appendix to these came the Sutras, so called because they consist of aphorisms strung together. The Srauta Sutras give elaborate rules for the performance of the Vedic sacrifices; the Dharma Sutras contain the beginnings of Hindu law, and the Grihya Sutras deal with domestic ceremonies to be performed at the time of marriage, birth, the investiture with the sacred cord, and similar occasions.
From the Brahmanas we learn that the life of the Brahmin was divided into four stages. After his initiation, he went as a novice to the asrama or monastery of his Guru. Here he remained for ten or twelve years, studying one of the Vedas, with its commentaries, together with grammar, phonetics and ritual. He lived a life of poverty and chastity, begging alms, waiting on his teacher, and tending the sacred fire. He then married, and devoted himself to bringing up his family. When he felt old age creeping on, he retired to the forest, and passed the third and fourth stages of his life in religious meditation and preparation for death. Even to-day these customs are not entirely extinct. There are schools where the Vedas and their commentaries are still committed to memory, and pious Hindus still renounce the world at the approach of old age. In 1886, Gaurishankar Udayashankar, the Prime Minister of the State of Bhavnagar, after a distinguished career, became a Sannyasi or ascetic on retirement.*
The period of the Upanishads (c.800-600 B.C) was one of profound religious discontent. The old beliefs were in the melting pot; the later Vedas show a growing desire to probe into the origin and destiny of man, and there now arose a new religious philosophy, with a number of elements quite foreign to the spirit of the earlier hymns. The first was a feeling of pessimism. Life is full of trouble, and the main object of religion is moksha or mukti, a way of release from its trammels. The second was the belief in a World Soul, of which all individual souls are a part:
The Atma permeates the human body, as a lump of salt, to use the favorite simile of the authors of the Upanishads, permeates a bowl of water. In the Chhandogya Upanishad, the sage Uddalaka orders his son to throw a lump of salt into water, and return in the morning. The boy does as he is bid, and the father says: “Take out the salt which thou didst put into the water in the evening.” The boy is unable to do so, and the father orders him to taste the water. He obeys, and finds that the salt, though invisible and intangible, is still there, permeating the fluid. “Even so,” says the father, “ That atom, which forms the essence of the Universe, that is the Truth, That is the Soul. That art Thou ( Tat twam asi ).*
Thirdly, there was the doctrine of rebirth metempsychosis. The later Hindu thinkers, like the Orphic schools in Greece, were not content with the belief that the soul after death passes to an endless Elysium. They found a solution in the theory that the soul undergoes a long series of ‘wanderings” (samsara) from body to body, until at last it finds release in re-absorption in the World-Soul. The theory is set forth in its earliest form in the Chhandogya Upanishad. Having gone to various regions, the spirit on its return becomes mist or cloud or the herbs eaten by men and animals, and through them it is reborn in their offspring. He whose conduct was good in a previous birth is reborn as a Brahmin, Kshatriya or Vaisya; the evil-doer is reborn as “ a dog, a hog, or a Chandala”. A man’s life on earth is determined by his actions (Karma) in his previous existence. “ Just as he acts, just as he behaves, so he becomes,” says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad ( IV,iv.5);as fast as the clock of retribution runs down, it winds itself up again, as Deussen puts it.
One method by which evil Karma, accumulated in past lives, could be exhausted and release obtained, was the practice of penances, which often assumed grotesque and painful forms. From them, probably, was developed the practice of Yoga, a method of “Yoking” the mind by means of intense concentration, the assumption of certain postures, and controlling the breath. These practices were systematized into a formal aaxnov or discipline by Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras. It was claimed that the Yogi acquired abnormal powers, and there seems to be little doubt that Yoga goes back to a stage of belief when there was no distinction between the priest and the magician.
Even more important is the Sankhya school of philosophy, traditionally ascribed to Kapila, with its boldly materialistic outlook; it is a complete departure from the theosophical speculations of the Upanishads. Only a few of its leading tenets, however, can be indicated here. The doctrine of the Atma is rejected. Matter and individual souls are both eternal and real. Matter has three qualities ( guna), goodness, passion and darkness.* From the combination of these in varying proportions, the phenomenal world arises. Soul is,on the other hand, undifferentiated; perception and sensation arise from the subtle body, formed from Karma, which causes the soul to migrate from birth to birth. Rebirth is due to ignorance. Once this is dispelled, the Karma of former lives drops away, and the soul returns to its undifferentiated condition. The Sankhya system had immense influence on succeeding literature and thought, both within and outside India. It has been traced both in the earlier Eleatic and the later Gnostic schools of Greece, and the oldest Sankhya manual was translated into Chinese in the 6th century A.D. The two great religious reformers of whom we shall now speak, Vardhamana Mahavira and Gautama Buddha, were born in a Sankhya atmosphere, and this had a marked effect upon their doctrines. These two teachers had much in common. Both belonged to the Kshatriya or warrior caste, and led revolts against the priestly tyranny of the Brahmins, who represented to the common folk that salvation was only to be won by the performance of a complicated ritual, known to themselves alone. Both employed Prakrit, the language of the common people for their teaching, in place of Sanskrit, the language of the priests. Buddha has been called the Indian Luther, and there are some parallels between this movement and the Protestant Reformation in 16th century Europe. Both ignored the Vedas and caste-distinctions and taught that salvation, i.e., release from future births, could only be obtained by Right Faith, Right Conduct, and Right Action. Both founded congregational and monastic religions; their followers lived in communities, begging their daily bread and practicing the virtues of charity, benevolence and simplicity, never stealing, coveting, or telling untruths, and above all abstaining from taking life in any form. But Jainism is more extreme than Buddhism. Vardhamana, its founder, practiced extreme asceticism, while Gautama followed the “middle path”. The Jains considered that suicide under certain circumstances was justifiable, which was quite repugnant to Buddhist ethics. One Jain sect actually went stark naked, while the Buddhist monk was content to wear the yellow robe of the beggar; the Jain looked upon all nature, even lifeless objects, a animate,* and took the most elaborate precautions to prevent the accidental death of even the smallest animalculae, whereas the Buddhist merely refrained from taking life or flesh-eating. The fate of the two religions is also curiously dissimilar. Both went through many vicissitudes; from time to time, under royal patronage, they rose to positions of great importance, until they were finally overthrown by the revival of Brahminism. But Buddhism, extinct in the land of its birth, has become the religion of the greater part of Asia, while Jainism,which does not aspire to be a world religion, is confined to India, where it still flourishes.
We know little about Vardhamana, afterwards called mahavira, the founder of Jainism. He belonged to the royal family of Vaisali and was probably born in 599 B.C. His mother was of the Lichchavi clan, and his kinsfolk observed the rules of an older reformer, Parsva by name, who lived about two centuries earlier. He married and had a family, but when thirty years old, he handed over the ruler ship of his state to his brother, and forsook the world. For twelve years he lived the life of an ascetic, wandering about among the primitive tribes on the Bengal border. At the age of 42, while sitting in deep meditation, he attained enlightenment.
“Omniscient and comprehending all objects, he knew all conditions of the, of gods, men and demons; whence all come, where they go, whether they are born as men or animals,or become gods or hell-beings: their food, drink,doings, desires, and the thoughts of their minds; he saw and knew all conditions in the whole world of all living beings.”
For the next thirty years he was engaged in preaching his doctrine; during he rainy season he stayed at various cities of Bihar, including his birthplace, Vasali. His work was hindered by schisms, especially that started by a former disciple, Gosala. He probably died in 527 B.C at the age of 72, in the little town of Pawa near Rajagriha in the Patna district. Some centuries after his death, the Jain church was divided into two sects, the Svetambaras, or wearers of white robes, and the Digambaras or “sky clothed,” i.e. naked. We shall speak in other places of the subsequent fortunes of Jainism, the part it played in the civilization of Southern India, and the temples with which the Jains crowned the peaks of Gujarat and Kathiswar. The language of the Jain scriptures is the ancient Prakrit dialect of Bihar, known as Ardha Magadhi. As time went on, the Jains, like the Buddhists, began to recognize and worship previous incarnations of their founder, who were known as Tirthakara or ford-makers.” Images of these were installed in temples and worshipped as gods. Owing to its religious views, Jainismhas never been the religion of large masses of the people and today the Jains are a small but wealthy community, dwelling mostly in Gujarat and Rajputana. Their extreme opinions on the subject of taking life in any form have closed the door of many professions to them, and they are usually merchants and bankers. Many Jains have spent large sums in endowing animal hospitals for the care of aged and sick beasts and birds of all kinds. The Jains to-day regard themselves as a reformed Hindu sect, and employ Brahmins to perform their domestic ceremonies.
Gautama Sakyamuni, the sage of the Sakyas, was born, probably in the year 563B.C., the son of a petty chieftain named Suddhodana, at Kapilavastu on the Nepalese border, one hundred miles north of Benaras, and within full sight of the snow-crowned Himalayas. The spot was afterwards marked by the Emperor Asoka with a column, which is still standing. The Sakyas formed one of the many little tribal republics which were afterwards swept away in the advancing tide of empire which presently absorbed all the smaller states of Northern India. The tribesmen, who probably had a good deal of Mongolian blood in their veins, transacted their affairs in a common mote-hall. They lived in villages on the edge of their rice-fields; these were mere clearings in the Great Forest which covered the foot-hills all round them, and was the haunt of robbers and runaway slaves.
Gautama in due course married his cousin Yasodhara, who bore him a son, Rahula. At the age of twenty-nine he determined to abandon the world. “In the days before my enlightenment, when I was as yet but a Bodhisattva, I bethought me that a hole-and-corner life is all that a home can give, whereas a wandering mendicant is as free as air; it is hard for the home-keeping man to follow the higher life in all its completeness and purity and perfection; come, let me cut off hair and beard, don the yellow robe, and go forth from home to homelessness. So the time came, when I was quite young and with a wealth of coal-black hair untouched my grey and in all the beauty of my early prime-despite the wishes of my parents, who wept and lamented – I cut off my hair and beard, donned the yellow robe, and went off from home as a wandering mendicant.”* This was the Great Renunciation. For a time he studied under two learned ascetics of Rajagriha, but they failed to satisfy him. Then he practised austerities and penances until he nearly died. At one time he was on the point of collapse, when his life was saved by a village girl, who gave him a draught of milk. But he was still as far as ever from his goal. For six years he wresled in vain, when one day, while sitting in profound meditation under a papal tree at Bodh Gaya,he received Bodhi or Illumination. On the site now stands the Mahabodhi temple. The Buddhist Scriptures tell us that at this crisis he was assailed by Mara, the Prince of Darkness, who sought in vain by all manner of terrors and temptations to shake him from his purpose.
After remaining in the same spot for some days, enjoying the bliss of deliverance, Gautama, or rather Buddha, the Enlightened One, as he must now be called, hastened to Benares, and here in the Deer Park he preached his first sermon and “set the Wheel of the Law rolling”. The text of this discourse has come down to us: “Sorrow; the cause of sorrow; the removal of sorrow; the way leading to the removal of sorrow.” All existence is sorrow. This sorrow is caused by the thirst of the individual for existence, which leads from birth to birth. Understanding, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Living, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Action, Right Living, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Meditation. Buddha was deeply touched by the Eightfold Path-Right Living, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Meditation, Buddha was deeply touched by the pessimism of his age. Existence is an evil, from which an escape must be found. Like Mahavira, he thought this deliverance lay in a practical way of life, attainable by all, and not in the abstract Right Knowledge of the privileged few. Where Buddha differed from his contemporaries was in his view of the Atma or Ego. This, he declared, was not an entity, but an aggregate of qualities or tendencies; “a transitory manifestation of a collection of phenomena.” What persists after death is not the Ego, but Karma, the result of our deeds. It is this which is reborn. Later Buddhist philosophers compare rebirth to the lighting of one candle from another. The light is at once the same and yet different. By following the Eightfold Path, Karma will be at last extinguished. There will be nothing left to be reborn, and this is Nirvana, or the blowing out of the flame. “After the dissolution of the body, neither men nor gods shall see him.” Buddha would have agreed with the declaration of the great western philosopher, so nearly his contemporary, that “ if death is the absence of all sensation, like the sleep of him whose slumbers are unbroken by any dream, it will be a wonderful gain.”* On the subject of God he is silent. Karma is the moving force in our lies. What a man sows he must reap. Sacrifice and prayer are idle things. In the gods, the innumerable spiritis of earth and air and sea, Buddha, like any other Hindu of his time, believed. But they are as much in need of salvation as mankind; later Buddhists regarded them as the Buddha’s doubtless kept for his inner circle of disciples. To the world at large he preached the necessity of kindness to all living things, purity of heart, truthfulness and charity, abstention from covetousness, fault-finding, hatred and violence, as the highway to salvation, which lay open to all, from the highest to the lowest, irrespective of caste.
After the Buddha’s sermon in the Deer Park, disciples began to flock to him. At the end of three months there were sixty, including the beloved Ananda, the companion of all his wanderings. The little band then started on their mission, preaching as they went from village to village. Princes and Brahmins, merchants and husbandmen, hermits and outcastes, noble ladies and repentant prostitutes joined the community. A life-like picture of typical day in the life of the Master has come down to us. Rising at dawn, and donning their yellow robes, he and his disciples would go from door to door, begging for their food from pious householders, for they subsisted entirely on charity. Returning home, they ate their meal in common, regardless of caste. The heat of the day was spent in rest and meditation. In the evening the villagers assembled and the Buddha would preach to them “in a manner suitable to their understand.” Religious discourse and the solution of difficulties occupied the time until the first watch of the night, when all went to rest. During the rainy season, the monks retired to one of the retreats which had been presented to them retired to one of the retreats which has been presented to them by pious donors, and spent the time in study and preparation for their work. A favourite resort was the Jetavana monastery, which was built in a park at the city of Sravasti, now Seth Mahet of Oudh, given to the Buddha by a wealthy merchant of the name of Ananthapindaka, and here many of is discourses were delivered. One of his first visits after his Enlightenment was to his ancestral home. His son was converted and his wife became one of the first of the newly-founded order of Buddhists nuns.
For forty-six years the Buddha traveled far and wide, in the states of Kosala and Magadha. Amongst his patrons was Bimbisa, king of Magadha, and according to one story, he sternly reproved his son, the parricide Ajatasatru, for his father’s murder. Sometimes he met with violent opposition; an attempt was made to assassinate him, and he was greately troubled by the rivalry of his cousin, the heretic Devadatta. During his travels he visited Vaisali, where he gave dire offence to the nobles, by preferring a meal prepared by the dancing-girl Ambapali to their sumptuous banquet: “Were you to offer all Vaisali and its subject territory, I would not give up so honourable a feast.”
The story of his death is told with great pathos and simplicity in an old narrative, the Mahaparinibban Sutta or Book of the Great Decease.* The Buddha was now eighty years old, worn out with toil and travel. At a village near the little town of Kusinagara, in the Gorakpur district, about 120 miles north-east of Benares, a poor smith named Chunda had prepared a dish of pork for him. The food was tainted, but the Master, with his usual courtesy, partook of it rather than hurt the feelings of a humble follower, though he forbade his disciples to follow his example. Then he continued his journey, but after a few miles a sharp attack of dysentery came on, and in great pain he lay down to rest in a grove of Sal trees. Feeling his end to be approaching, he called his disciples together and urged them, if they had any doubts or difficulties, to lay them before him. “Be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to the truth as to a lamp. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves.
The faithful Ananda, heartbroken at the prospect of losing his life-long friend and teacher, went aside and burst into tears. The Buddha sent for him, and gently reproved him. “Enough, Ananda! Do not let yourself be troubled;: do not weep! Have I not already, on many occasions told you that it is the very nature of things most near and dear unto us, that we must divide ourselves from them, leave them, sever ourselves from them? Whatever is born must be dissolved.” A postulant named Subaddha came begging to be admitted to the Order; the disciples would have turned him away, but the Buddha called him to him and received him. Another characteristic act of thoughtfulness for others was to send a message to Chunda, begging him not to reproach himself. “Then the Blessed One addressed the Brethren and said: Behold now, brethren, I exhort you saying, Decay is inherent in all component things! Work out your Salvation with diligence!’ This was the last word of the Blessed One.” He passed into Paranirvana, “from which there is no return.” Without recovering consciousness (483 B.C)*
After his death, the brethren solemnly cremated the Buddha’s body. A dispute arose over his remains, which were distributed among his followers and were enshrined as relics in mounds of brick, known as stupas or dagabas, in many parts of India. It was necessary that the Master’s teachings should be preserved uncorrupted, before the lapse of time should make those who had heard forget them, or remember them imperfectly. Accordingly 500 disciples met at the Satapanni Cave near Rajagriha, and all the Buddha’s precepts were collected, learnt and recited by the whole gathering. The language was an early Prakrit dialect of Bihar, afterwards called Pali or “text” by the monks of Ceylon, to distinguish it from the commentaries which were in Sinhalese. Thus the Buddhist cannon was formed. The sacred books were divided into three Pitakas or “baskets,” consisting of the Vinaya, dealing with the daily life and discipline of the Order; the Suttas, stories and sayings; and the Abhidhamma, or higher philosophy of Buddhism. It is the second of these which appeals most strongly to the student today. It contains what are probably authentic records of the Master’s sayings, Buddhist texts and psalms of great spiritual beauty, and the Jatakas, a series of charming fold tales of how the Buddha, in previous existences, did deeds of charity and benevolence to all creatures. About a century later, a second council, held at Vaisali ( 376 B C ), caused a serious dissension. A band of heretical monks, who chafed at the severe simplicity of the rules of the Order, demanded certain relaxations or indulgences.
“They broke up the old scriptures and made a new recension, attached new meanings to new words as if spoken by the Buddha, and destroyed much of the spirit by holding to the shadow of the letter.”
In 240 B.C, however, the canonical books were finally settled at a Council held at Pataliputra under the patronage of the Emperor Asoka.
The Buddha expressly disclaimed either divine birth or supernatural powers. He worked no miracles. He repeatedly warned his hearers that salvation lay in their own hands alone. The most that he could do was to show the way. His immediate disciples strictly followed the Master’s teaching. The earliest sculptures carefully refrain from depicting him in bodily form. His presence is indicated by symbols – the empty throne, the Wheel of the Law, or a pair of footprints.* But as time went on the historical Gautama became, to all intents and purposes, a divine being, to be worshipped in temples by prayers and offerings, and was looked on as only one of an endless series of incarnations, past and future, sent down to earth for the salvation of the human race.
A few extracts from early Buddhist literature may serve to illustrate the lofty ethical teaching of the Buddha:
“Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love.”(Dhammapada).
“Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good. Let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.” Dhammapada).
“All men tremble at punishment, all men love life. Remember that you are like unto them, and do not cause slaughter.” Dhammapada).
“Not to commit sin, to do good, to purify the mind, this is the teaching of the Buddhas. (Dhammapada).
This is called progress in the discipline of the Blessed one, if one sees his sin in its sinfulness, and refrains from it in the future.”
“Not by birth does one become an outcast, not by birth does one become a Brahmin. By deeds one becomes an outcast, by deeds one becomes a Brahmin,” (Sutta Nipata)27)
A LOOK AT
RELIGION, ART AND LETTERS IN THE GUPTA PERIOD
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HINDUISM
THE most striking feature of the period between the downfall of the Maurya dynasty (c. 185 B.C.) and the Gupta (8th Century A.D.) period is the gradual emergence of Hinduism in the form in which we now know it. The Brahmin priests once more re-asserted their power; animal sacrifices were revived, and Brahmanical philosophers began to evolve a practical way of life in answer to that propounded by Jainism and Buddhism. These sects, though they temporarily prospered in various parts of India, when they were patronized by powerful sovereigns, were never the religion of the masses; as time went on, Buddhism approximated more and more to Hinduism. The older gods have now receded into the background, and even Indra, the popular deity of the heroic age, has taken an inferior position. Gradually all these were superseded or absorbed by the Hindu Trimurti or Triad, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, representing God in his threefold aspect of creation, preservation and destruction. Brahma, the demiurge, quickly fell into desuetude, and orthodox Hindus to-day are either Vaishnavas or Saivas. Vishnu and Siva represent opposite aspects of religion. Vishnu is mild and benevolent, ready to assist his followers; Siva, the god of destruction, is severe and terrible and worshipped from motive of fear rather than love. The popular religious myths about Siva and Vishnu were collected in eighteen long Sanskrit poems known as Puranas or “old stories,” which consist of legendary accounts of the creation of the world and of the gods, saints and heroes of ancient times, together with genealogies of kings, and rules about prayers, pilgrimages and festivals and forms of worship. The Puranas are the Bible of popular Hinduism; the nearest parallel to a Purana in modern Western literature is Milton’s Paradise Lost, with its legends of the Creation and of heroic combats between the Powers of Food and Evil.
Vishnu is the subject of the majority of the Puranas. His favourite epithet is Bhagavan, the Adorable, and his worshippers are known as Bhagavatas. He offers salvation to all, irrespective of caste, which may be won by devotion rather than by the performance of ritual or penance. This accounts for the popularity of Vaishnavism among the masses. One of the features of the religion of the age was the emergence of the doctrine of Avatars or Incarnations; Vishnu was incarnate from time to time in various forms to save the world from the assaults of the demons or powers of evil. “Whensoever the Law (dharma) fails, and lawlessness uprises, I bring myself to birth. To protect the good, to destroy evil-doers, to establish righteousness, I am born from age to age.” Ten incarnations of Vishnu are described in the Puranas. As the Fish, he saved Manu, the father of the human race, from the Cosmic Flood; as the Tortoise he supported on his back Mount Mandara, which the gods used as a churning-stick in order to churn from the Sea of milk the fourteen precious objects for the benefit of mankind; as the Boar, the Man-Lion and the Dwarf he slew various demons determined to destroy the world; as Parasu Rama, “Rama with the Axe,” the champion of Brahminism, he exterminated the Kshatriyas - a reference, no doubt, to the long struggle between Brahmin and Kshatriya for spiritual supremacy, which ended in the victory of the former. The first six incarnations are purely mythical; the next three are historic or semi-historic personages. Rama and Krishna are deified heroes of the Epic period, while Buddha was regarded by the Vaishnavas as an incarnation of Vishnu sent to mislead demons and sinners. To these must be added Kalki, the Avatar who, like the Buddhist Maitreya, is yet to come. In the Puranic age, each deity had his female counterpart or “energy” (Sakti). That of Vishnu is Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and beauty, who rose from the ocean when it was churned by the Gods and Demons. Vishnu is represented in art as sleeping upon the World-Serpent, Shesha or Ananta, or riding upon his vahan or vehicle, the bird Garuda. The practice of depicting the gods as many-armed and many-headed now became more and more popular. This has been criticized as unaesthetic by European writers, but is mythology, the Greek centaurs or Egyptian sphinxes. The god holds in his hands the emblems of his power, the thunder-bolt, the discus, the conch shell, the lotus and the trident. The salagrama, a fossil ammonite found in the Gandak river, is supposed, on account of its resemblance to the discus, to be sacred to Vishnu, and his sacred plant is the tulsi or basil pant (Ocymum sanctum).
The most popular of the Avatars under which Vishnu is worshipped in modern India is Krishna. Krishna first appears in the Mahabharata as the charioteer of Arjuna, and in his mouth is put that remarkable poem, the Bhagavad Gita, or “Song of the Adorable.” Arjuna is aghast at the prospect of a conflict in which so many heroes are doomed to perish at the hands of their kinsfolk. Krishna consoles him by propounding the theory of Karma Yoga or union with the World-Soul by means of action. Action without attachment is the ideal. Each caste has its dharma or divinely appointed duty. The dharma of the Brahmin is religion; of the Warrior it is war; of the Sudra it is menial service. But all service is of equal merit if it is performed in honour of Him Who is the Author of all. The warrior’s duty is to slay his opponent - it is no sin if does so as a duty, uninspired by any personal feelings and regardless of the result or fruit of his action. In the concluding portion of this great philosophical poem, Krishna reveals himself to the wondering Arjuna as the All God:
Nor source nor midst nor end: infinite force,
Unnumbered arms, the Sun and Moon thine eyes;
I see Thy face as sacrificial fire,
Blazing, its splendour burneth up the worlds.
The Bhagavad Gita has been to generations of pious Hindus what The Imitation of Christ has been to Christians.
Krishna, the “dark” God, is probably non-Aryan, and this hypothesis is strengthened by references in Puranic literature to conflicts between Indra and Krishna which appear to be symbolic of the gradual replacement of the older Vedic god by a newer indigenous cult. Krishna was said to have been the son of Vasudeva, a Yadava chieftain of the Lunar Race; he was born at Mathura, the chief centre of his worship; legends, which have many analogies with the Christian Gospel, tell of his early escape from a massacre of the Innocents by Kamsa, the Indian Herod. He grew up as a herdsman, and medieval Indian art and literature are full of stories of his youthful amours with the Gopis or milkmaids and especially his beloved Radha. Radha’s love for Krishna mystically typifies the yearning of the soul for union with God. The Story of Krishna, as narrated in the tenth chapter of the Bhagavata Purana and the Gita Govinda of Jayadeva, is intensely popular, and has been reproduced in every Indian vernacular. In art, Krishna is represented as a beautiful youth playing on a flute, or as an infant lying on a lotus. Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, was not yet more than a demi-god.
Siva, or Mahadeva, “the Great God,” is the antithesis of Vishnu. He has been identified with the Vedic storm-god, Rudra, but in some of his aspects may perhaps even be traced back to the early civilization of the Indus valley. He is the Lord of Yogis, who seek union with the World Soul by intense concentration, and he sits for endless ages in meditation among the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, smeared with ashes and wearing a necklace of skulls; the river Ganges flows from his hair. In another aspect he is the god of fertility and procreation. He is worshipped under the symbol of the lingam or phallus, and his vehicle is Nandi, the bull. A stone bull, often of gigantic size, always faces the doorways of his shrines. He is the embodiment of cosmic energy, and as such is sometimes represented as the Lord of the Dance (Nataraja). His consort is Parvati or Uma, a goddess of sublime beauty and sweetness; in her terrible form of Kali or Durga, she is worshipped with bloody and obscene rites. At her temple at the Kali Ghat in Calcutta, goats are sacrificed to her in the Durga Puja festival, and she is associated with the Tantric or “Left Hand” worship known as the Sakti Puja.
What chiefly distinguishes later Hinduism from the religion of the Vedas is that it now becomes definitely anthropomorphic. The god is represented by an idol dwelling in a temple, which is treated as a royal personage. He has a wife and children: every morning he is awakened by hymns sung by attendant Brahmins and dancing girls. He is bathed, anointed, dressed in costly robes and taken out in a palanquin or chariot. Offerings of flowers, fruit, coconuts and betel are laid at his feet, and incense is burnt and lights waved before him.
But the worship of the greater gods is mostly confined to the higher castes. The fundamental religion of the majority is mainly animistic, and when trouble comes in the shape of disease, drought or famine, it is to the older deities that the peasant turns. These godlings are usually represented by sacred stones or rude images, and are to be propitiated rather than adored. Animals such as fowls, goats or buffaloes are offered to them. Among the Khonds, one of the primitive tribes, a human victim known as the meriah was until recently sacrificed in order to secure fertility for the fields. Certain animals, such as monkeys, peacocks and snakes, and certain trees such as the Pipal (Ficus religiosa) are regarded as sacred. No account of Hinduism can be considered complete without a reference to the worship of the cow. In Vedic times, the cow was sacrificed and eaten at weddings and other feasts; the fatted calf was specially reserved for the visit of a seer or other distinguished guest. Later, however, it came to be regarded as a sacred animal, and in the Mahabharata we are told that the cow-killer will suffer in hell for as many years as there are hairs on her body. In some Hindu states the slaughter of a cow is still a penal offence, and from time to time it is made the occasion for blood-thirsty riots between Mussulmans and Hindus. As an expiation for offences against caste, the delinquent is required to partake of a mixture of the five products of the cow. The pious Hindu, when he feels himself to be dying, grasps the tail of a cow, as this will ensure a safe passage to heaven.
Hinduism is hard to define. It is not a creed, like Christianity or Islam, but a way of life - a collection of rites, traditions and mythologies, sanctioned by the sacred books and propagated by Brahmanical teaching. All Hindus, however, believe in caste and pantheism; they regard all their countless deities as merely manifestations of the all-pervading divine energy. With these they associate the doctrines of rebirth and Karma. Every act has its consequences in a future existence. The keystone of the system is the Brahmin: he is the ascetic who by penance can attain to super-natural powers; the priestly ministrant of indispensable rites; and the learned man who alone is able to expound the sacred lore, and in secular life help the king to govern the state according to the rules laid down in the scriptures. A caste-Hindu’s life, from birth to death, is a long succession of ceremonies, for the due performance of which the Brahmin is indispensable.
LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
Literature in India ha always depended upon court patronage, and the rise of the Guptas was accompanied by great activity in many fields. This was facilitated by the introduction of written books, which were in common use all over India by the fourth century A.D. In the north they were written on birch-bark, while in the south leaves prepared from the talipot and palmyra palms, Corypha talifera and Borassus flabelliformis, were used. Few early specimens have survived. The earliest is a medical treatise found by Lieutenant Bower in Turkestan in 1890: its date is A.D. 350. As Hinduism regained its ascendancy, there was a great revival of Sanskrit. Two outstanding features of the period were the systematization of existing knowledge and the appearance of secular literature. Older works, such as the Epics and Puranas, were re-arranged in their present form: the Mahabharata, which was originally a secular poem describing the fate of the Kurus at the hands of the treacherous Pandavas, was re-cast by Vaishnava Brahmins as a religious and didactic work with the Pandavas as its heroes, and the epic utilized to inculcate Brahmanical views about dharma. About the same time, the Dharmasastras, or text-books embodying the teaching of the Brahmanical Schools on the rules of caste, were compiled from the earliest Sutras; the law books of Yajnavalkya, Narada, and, most famous of all, the Manava-dharma-sastra, or laws of Manu, probably belong to the Gupta period. In this work, the rules of dharma or conduct for each caste are rigidly laid down. The first book deals with cosmogony; the next five with the four asramas or stages of the Brahmin’s life as student, householder, anchorite and mendicant; the seventh and eighth with the Kshatriya’s duties and rules of government; the ninth with domestic law - women, husband and wife, parents and children, and inheritance; the tenth with the origin, development and rules of caste; and the eleventh and twelfth with laws of morality, the nature of good and evil, and penances and expiation for sin. Elaborate precautions are taken for preserving the purity of the Brahmins: for them, travel to foreign countries, and even into certain parts of India, is prohibited. Strict injunctions about diet, education and marriage are given; girls are to be married at puberty, and the remarriage of widows is forbidden. “Until death let the widow live a life of endurance, self-restraint and chastity, yearning to fulfil the law of wives to one husband, that most excellent law.”
Universities for secular and religious studies flourished at Nalanda and other centres of learning. Medical science was widely studied, and Sanskrit medical treatises were the basis of much of the later Arabian learning which reached Europe in the Middle Ages. Dissection was practiced, and students were trained in “ holding the lancet, in cutting, marking and piercing with it, in extracting darts, in cleansing wounds, in causing them to dry up, the application of ointments and in the administration of emetics, purges and oil enemas.” In astronomy, much was due to the Alexandrian Greeks, to whom the Indians freely acknowledged their indebtedness. “The Greeks are barbarians,” says the Hindu astronomer, Varahamihira, “but the science of astronomy originated with them, and for this they must be reverenced like gods.” Hindu astronomers had discovered that the heavenly bodies were spherical, and shone by reflected light; they were aware of the diurnal motion of the earth on its axis and had calculated its diameter. Brahmagupta (A.D. 628) anticipated Newton by declaring that “all things fall to the earth by a law of nature, for it is the nature of the earth to attract and keep things.” The Vaisesika school of physicists propounded the atomic theory. In mathematics the theorem of Pythagoras was understood, a value was calculated for , a table of sines given, and a rule laid down for the solution of simple equations.
In imaginative literature, the chief developments were the kavya or Court Epic, which might be in prose as well as verse, drama, lyric poetry, and prose romances or fables. The galaxy of writers, popularly known as the Nine Gems, who graced the court of the Gupta Kings, was, however dwarfed by the towering genius of Kalidasa, who was equally eminent as a lyric poet and dramatist. Kalidasa’s chief poems are the Raghuvamsa, or ‘Story of the Race of Raghu,’ the Kumara Sambhava or ‘Birth of the War-god,’ the Ritu Samhara or ‘Cycle of Seasons,’ and the Meghadhuta or ‘Cloud Messenger,’ a lyrical gem which won the admiration of Goethe. The date of Kalidasa is a matter of considerable uncertainty, but it is supposed that he lived at Ujjain about A.D. 400. The ‘Cloud Messenger’ consists of a lyrical monologue put into the mouth of a Yaksha or spirit in the court of the god Kubera, who has been banished from his home in the Himalayas to central India. Sitting in Exile, he watches the dark rain-cloud hurrying northwards, and gives it a message to bear to his beloved wife. In fancy he pursues the cloud in its journey over the Indian scene:
On Naga Nadi’s banks thy waters shed,
And raise the feeble jasmin’s languid head.
Grant for a while thy interposing shroud,
To where those damsels woo the friendly cloud;
As while the garlands’ flowery stores they seek,
The scorching sunbeams tinge their tender cheek,
The ear-hung lotus fades, and vain they chase,
Fatigued and faint, the drops that dew thy face.
Only less famous than Kalidasa as a lyrical and erotic writer was Bhartrihari, the Indian Horace, whose Sringara Sataka or ‘Century of Love’ is full of charming but cynical epigrams.
The following translations give some idea of Bhartrihri’s muse in its varying moods:
“You are a lord of acres,
But we are lords of song;
And we subdue the subtle
If you subdue the strong;
The rich of you are speaking
The wise in me believe;
And if you find me irksome
Why then I take my leave!”
What profit are the Vedas,
Or books of legal lore?
Or those long-winded stanzas
Repeated o’er and o’er?
What gain we by our merits?
A dwelling in the skies -
A miserable mansion
That men of sense despise!
All these are huckstering methods,
Give me that perfect way
Of self-contained fruition
Where pain is done away!
The witty, elegant and versatile Bhartrihari, recluse, courtier, philosopher, grammarian and poet in turn, was typical of the many-sided culture of the period. According to one story, he took monastic vows more than once, but found the attractions of the world too much for him. In the end, however, he retired to a Buddhist monastery and assumed the yellow robe, and died in the odor of sanctity in A.D. 651.
Among the prose romances the most remarkable are the Dasa Kumara Charita or ‘Adventures of the Ten Princes’ of Dandin and the Kadambari and Harsha Charita of Bana. These are classed by Sanskrit writers on style as prose kavyas or epics. Bana’s prose in the extreme example of highly polished and ornate Sanskrit; his endless compound words and his fantastic similes are triumphs of ingenuity, but make little appeal to western taste. Here, for example, is a typical description of a grief-stricken princess:
“Lost in the forest and in thought, bent upon death and the root of the tree, fallen upon calamity and her nurse’s bosom, parted from her husband and happiness, burnt with the fierce sunshine and the woes of womanhood, her mouth closed by silence as well as by her hand, she was held fast by her companions as well as by grief.”
Mention must also be made of the famous collections of beast-stories, the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa or ‘Book of Wise Counsels.’ These stories, the successors of the Buddhist Jatakas, were carried to the courts of Bagdad, Byzantium and Cairo, and ultimately found their way to the West, where they had an immense influence upon the literature of medieval Europe. Chaucer, Shakespeare and, in modern times, Rudyard Kipling have borrowed indirectly from this source.
THE DRAMA
The word nataka or drama domes from the Sanskrit nrit, to dance, and this derivation throws a flood of light on the origin of the Indian theatre. From Vedic times Indians were fond of dancing and recitations, and dramatic representations at religious festivals are referred to in Asoka’s inscriptions. No doubt the first plays resembled the yatra still popular in Bengal, and on occasions such as the spring festival, episodes such as the death of Ravana, the abduction of Sita, the binding of Bali, the slaying of Kamsa, or Krishna’s adventures with the Gopis were crudely enacted. Panini (c. 400 B.c.) speaks of actors as singing, and specifically mentions dramas as represented both by action and declamation, the theme being recited off stage and accompanied in mimic pantomime. Jayadeva’s celebrated Gita Govinda, or ‘Song of the Cowherd,’ is a later example of the lyrical dialogue from which the drama proper arose. The earliest dramas must have been not unlike European miracle and mystery plays. In the time of Kanishka (A.D. 120) the drama was used by religious teachers like Asvaghosha for purposes of edification. Later a regular court-drama arose, with elaborate rules, which are embodied in a work on dramatic criticism known as the Natya Sastra, or ‘Treatise on the Drama.’
The Indian and Elizabethan theatres have many common characteristics. Plays were not acted, as in Greece, on a public stage in an amphitheatre, but in the courtyard of a palace or a private house. The stage itself was a plain wooden floor, at the back of which was a curtain, which served as a tiring house for the actors. Female parts were taken by boys, and the scenery was of the simplest, much being left to the imagination of the audience. A stock character is Vidhusaka, the fool or parasite. As in the Greek theatre, there was little action, and violent or indecorous scenes were not acted. The plots were usually romantic like those of the New Attic Comedy, and commonly turned upon a love affair; after mutual understandings the lovers are united, for tragedy is contrary to the Sanskrit canons of art, which prescribe a happy ending. The dialogue is a mixture of verse and prose; kings, Brahmins and noblemen speak Sanskrit, while women and the lower orders employ one or other of the Prakrits according to their status. The play starts with a prayer, and this is followed by a prologue, in which the manager (sutradhara) discusses the drama with some of the cast, incidentally commending the author and elucidating the plot for the benefit of the audience.
To write a history of the Indian drama would require a volume to itself, and mention can only be made here of one or two outstanding masterpieces. One of the earliest of the classical dramas is ‘The Toy Cart’ (Mricchakatika), ascribed to an otherwise unknown King named Sudraka, which gives us a vivid glimpse into the social life of an Indian city in the 5th century A.D. The play opens with a busy scene in the streets of old Ujjain. A festival is taking place; the streets are being decorated; girls are grinding paint to adorn the house-fronts; garlands of flowers are being hung over the doors, and the smell of cooking is in the air. Ujjain has all the vices of a great city. In the evening the narrow, cobbled streets are crowded with loose persons, cut-throats, courtiers and courtesans, and are not particularly safe for the ordinary citizen. Gaming-houses are provided by the state, and Act II opens with a gambler who has ‘welshed,’ and escapes pursuit by crouching in a ruined chapel and pretending to be an image of the god! The central figure of the play is the courtesan Vasantasena, for, in ancient India, as in Greece, the hetaira held a dignified and honoured position and enjoyed the friendship of men of wit and learning. Vasantasena is strangled by a villain named Samstanaka, a hanger-on of the court, whose advances she has rejected; and he used his corrupt influence to fasten the crime upon a noble but simple-minded Brahmin named Charudatta. The scene in the court, where Charudatta is on trial for his life, is vividly described:
The court looks like a sea; its councilors
Are deep engulfed in thought; its tossing waves
Are wrangling advocates: its brood of monsters
Are these wild animals, Death’s ministers.
Attorneys skim like wily snakes the surface;
Spies are the shell-fish cowering midst its weeds,
And vile informers, like the hovering curlew,
Hang fluttering o’er and pounce upon their prey.
Charudatta is condemned and actually led away to the execution-ground, amid the sorrowing farewells of the citizens. But all’s well that ends well: Vasantasena is not dead, but only rendered unconscious. A Buddhist priest, who had witnessed the crime, intervenes, and Charudatta magnanimously rescues the villainous Samstanaka from a well-deserved lynching at the hands of the enraged mob. This excellent play, which combines the elements of the New Attic Comedy with the thrills of a modern melodrama, has been performed with success in Germany. It takes its name from an incident in the sub-plot, in which the lost jewels of Vasantasena are found in a boys’s toy cart.
Visakhadatta’s Mudra Rakshasa or ‘Seal of the Minister’, on the other hand, is an historical play, dealing with the plots by which the wily minister Chanakya overthrew the last of the Nanda Kings of Pataliputra, and raised his master Chandragupta Maurya to the throne. The contrast between the two rivals, Chandragupta and Rakshasa, is strongly drawn. When the plots against the usurper fail, the defeated ex-minister exclaims.
Fortune in all befriends
The cruel Chandragupta. When I send
A messenger of certain death to slay him,
She wields the instrument against his rival,
Who should have spoiled him of one-half his kingdom,
And arms and rugs and strategies are turned
In his behalf against my friends and servants.
But all the dramas of the period pale before those of Kalidasa, the Indian Shakespeare. “It is impossible to conceive language so beautifully musical and magnificently grand as many of the verses of Kalidasa.” Of Kalidasa’s three plays, Malavikagnimtra or ‘The friendship of Malavika and Agni,’ Vikramorvasi or ‘Urvasi won by Valour,’ and Sakuntaka, the last is recognized on all hands to be the greatest of all the classical Sanskrit dramas. “Of the arts the best is the drama; of dramas, Sakuntala; of Sakuntala, the fourth act; of that act, the verses in which Kanva bids farewell to his adopted daughter.” The plot is taken from a theme in the Mahabharata. King Dusyanta, when hunting in the forest, comes to the hermitage of the sage Kanva, where he is greeted by the hermit’s foster-daughter, the beautiful Sakuntala. The king falls in love with her, and they are wedded in the simple Gandharya fashion, which requires nothing else save the mutual plighting of troth. Presently the King is recalled to his capital by affairs of State. He leaves his signet ring with Sakuntala, promising to return in due time and take his bride to his capital. Sakuntaka, alas, is so wrapped up in her love that she neglects the summons of the sage Durvasas, who puts a curse on her for neglecting to serve a Brahmin. The curse is that, as Sakuntaka forgot her duty to the Rishi, so the man she loves shall forget her. A curse, once uttered, cannot be recalled, but at the earnest request of Sakuntala’s companions, the irascible old man so far modifies it by saying that when her lover sees his ring, his memory will return. Sakuntala, of course, knows nothing of this.
Sakuntala waits in vain for her royal lover and, finding that she is to bear a child, she determines to go to court to seek him. The fourth act, in which the heroine says farewell to her home, her parents, and the flowers she has tended is the climax of the drama, of unsurpassed tenderness and beauty. Her pet gazelle follows her in a vain attempt to bring her home; the very trees bow their heads in sorrow. Kanva speaks to her solemnly and movingly of her duties as a wife and sends her on her way. Voices in the air waft her a sad farewell:
Thy journey be auspicious; may the breeze,
Gentle and soothing, fan thy cheek: may lakes,
All bright with lily-cups, delight thine eyes;
The sunbeam’s heat be cooled by shady trees;
The dust beneath thy feet the pollen be
Of lotuses.
Sakuntala, alas, drops her ring in a river on her way, and when she reaches the court her husband fails to recognize her. Years pass, and a fisherman is arrested for being a possession of royal signet ring, which he has found in the felly of a fish. As soon as he sees the ring, the King’s memory returns, and stricken with remorse he seeks in vain for Sakuntala. At last, when engaged in a campaign against the demons, he sees a boy playing, quite unafraid, with a lion-cub. The King, little knowing that the child is his own, takes his hand. Just then, Sakuntala appears and is recognized, and the lovers are reunited.
After Kalidasa, the drama continued to flourish for some centuries at the courts of local rulers. The learned Harsha, among his multifarious activities, managed to find time to compose a number of heroic plays, not distinguished by originality. The last of the great dramatists of the Augustan age of Indian literature is Bhavabhuti, whose Malati and Madhava has been compared to Macbeth. It contains a famous act, in which the heroine, entrapped in the temple of the demon-goddess Chamanda, is about to be sacrificed, when Madhava breaks in, slays the priestess and rescues her. For weird horror, the scene in the burning-ground where Madhava invokes the help of the obscene spirits of the place, in unsurpassed:
Now wake the terrors of the place, beset
With crowding and malignant fiends; the flames
From funeral pyres scarce lend their sullen light,
Clogged with their fleshy prey, to dissipate
The fearful gloom that hems them in. Pale ghosts
Sport with foul goblins, and their dissonant mirth,
In shrill respondent shrieks is echoed round.
This is Bhavabhuti in his severer mood, but he can write equally well in a lighter vein. Here is his incomparable description of the heroine of The Last Story of Rama (Uttara Rama Charita):
‘Tis Sita: mark
How lovely, through her tresses dark
And floating loose, her face appears,
Though pale and wan and wet with tears.
She moves along, like Tenderness
Invested with a mortal dress.
Not without reason, Indian critics look upon Bhavabhuti as only a little lower in rank than Kalidasa himself.
GUPTA ART
Gupta art and architecture have suffered severely from time and the ravages of Hun and Muslim raiders, and comparatively few specimens have survived. Those, however, which have been recovered, show that the glowing descriptions of Hiuen Tsang and Bana are not exaggerated. One reason, doubtless, why so much has perished is because the houses were mostly of painted and lacquered wood and this has not withstood the ravages of time. Temples containing the images of gods and of the Buddha begin to make their appearance: the earliest of these are the little Hindu shrines at Sanchi, Eran and Tigowa. The characteristics of Gupta temples are flat roofs without spires, short pillars with massive square capitals, and statues of the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna guarding the entrance. At Bhitargaon in the Cawnpore district is a brick temple of the period, with a high tower and brilliantly executed terra-cotta ornamentation. The famous shrine at Bodh Gaya, marking the site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, and so admired by the Chinese travelers, has been altered and restored beyond recognition. Many of these temples are decorated with stone panels in low relief, of a very high quality. Some of the most striking of these are found in a ruined shrine at Deogarh in the Jhansi district. One of the panels depicts Siva as the Mahayogi. The god is represented as four-armed, and is in converse with a yogi. He is surrounded by flying figures hovering in the air over his head. Another panel represents Vishnu sleeping in the folds of Ananta, the serpent of Eternity. Above are Indra, Siva and Parvati, together with Brahma, seated on a lotus. The extraordinary vigour, and at the same time, the clam and majestic repose and dignity of these figures is extremely impressive. The same majestic serenity characterizes the Buddhist art of the period. The Buddha figure which originated in Mathura in the Kushan period now reaches its highest pitch of development. One of the most striking examples is the seated Buddha in white sandstone discovered at Sarnath. There are other fine specimens in the Mathura Museum. Metal work reached a high degree of proficiency, and the colossal 4th century Buddha from Sultanganj, now at Birmingham, weighing over a ton, is a noble figure, cast in pure copper by the cire perdue process. Indian rulers were found of setting up ‘pillars of victory’ to commemorate their conquests. Usually these were of stone, but the most celebrated of all is the iron pillar at Delhi, erected by Kumaragupta I in A.D. 415 in honour of his father. It is a solid shaft of pure, rustless wrought iron, 16 inches in diameter and 23½ feet high, and weighs about six tons. Even to-day there are comparatively few foundries where a similar mass of metal could be turned out. Another colossal iron pillar, broken into three pieces, belonging to the same period, has been found at Dhar in Central India.
SANATANA DHARMA AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD
Sanatana Dharma as a universal tradition has room for all faiths and all religious and spiritual practices regardless of the time or country of their origin. Yet it places religious and spiritual teachings in their appropriate place relative to the ultimate goal of Self-realization, to which secondary practices are subordinated. Sanatana Dharma also recognizes that the greater portion of human religious aspiration has always been unknown, undefined, and outside of any institutionalized belief. Sanatana Dharma thereby gives reverence to individual spiritual experience over any formal religious doctrine. Wherever the Universal Truth is manifest, there is Sanatana Dharma - whether it is in a field of religion, art or science, or in the life of a person or community. Wherever the Universal Truth is not recognized, or is scaled down and limited to a particular group, book or person, even if done so in the name of God, there Sanatana Dharma ceases to function, whatever the activity is called.
The Religions of India: Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma
India has been a great land of spirituality and mysticism since time immemorial. It is not merely a country but a subcontinent held together not by a force of arms but by a common spiritual aspiration. The great beings of this land, men and women, have focused on the spiritual life, the development of higher consciousness as their primary pursuit, giving military expansion, economic development, intellectual pursuits and religious ritual - the prime goals of other cultures - a secondary role. Because of the emphasis on spiritual experience in all its forms, India has promoted the idea of a universal tradition and has given birth to a number of religions and to the greatest diversity of spiritual teachings and yogic practices in the world.
Hinduism itself is not merely a single religion, one among many, but a harmony of many different religious teachings that maintained a peaceful coexistence with each other as parts of a universal tradition. It has not forced or molded these different teachings into uniformity, in fact this diversity itself has manifested because of the universality of the Hindu view, which is that it is not the many who become One but the One that expresses itself as all. This recognition of the One is all and all in One is the basis of the creative and yet synthetic Hindu vision that can produce ever new teachings without losing track of the underlying eternality of Truth.
One could divide Hinduism into a Vedic (Brahmanical) religion, a Shaivite (Shiva) religion, a Vaishnava (Vishu) religion, a Goddess (Shakta) religion, a Ganesh religion, a solar (Saura) religion, and various local or regional systems, including new spiritual movements which may have no defined affiliation. These different teachings have neither merged into one common belief, nor separated off into conflicting creeds. They have come together while maintaining their particular approaches, in the recognition that true unity includes the fullness of diversity. They have realized that the truth of any religion need not exclude the truth of others because all religions are merely aids to the unfoldment of the universal, which is the real goal and origin of all.
This harmony between the different religions of Hinduism can be used as a model to integrate the different religions of the world. It would not require any religion giving up its distinctive spiritual flavor but only recognizing the validity of other approaches in the Universal Self which is the real aim of all spiritual practices.
Hinduism’s Spread through History
Hinduism is often erroneously looked at as restricted to the subcontinent of India. However, historically Hinduism has been practiced throughout much of the world, and teachings of the same order as Hinduism have flourished everywhere. Hinduism has never formulated itself as restricted to a particular geographical region but as relevant to all beings. Nor has it frozen itself in time. It has continued to grow and absorb additional spiritual and cultural impulses into itself, developing in an organic way.
Hinduism has spread in three main waves through history. The first wave occurred during ancient history and prehistory. It is difficult to define but is clearly evidenced by the common language, culture and religion found from Bengal to Ireland among peoples speaking Indo-European languages. Regions of ancient Indo-European culture consist of Europe (including Greece, Rome, the ancient Germans, Celts and Slavs), Anatolia (Modern Turkey, until the Turkish invasions of the Middle Ages), Syria (the Mittani Era, second millennium BC), Iraq (the Kassite Era of the second millennium BC), Armenia, Persia, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Western China (the Tarim Basin and further east), and north India (to the Krishna river).
In addition similar practices to the Hindu can be found in all ancient cultures, including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians, Chinese and Meso-americans with their common solar religions, fire offerings, and tripartite social system of priests, warriors and common people. This early phase of Hinduism, or Vedic culture, existed from perhaps as early as 7000 BC to as late as 500 BC. It was the ancient phase of Hinduism, evidenced by the Vedas, the oldest books in the world, particularly the oldest Rig Veda.
The second phase involved a diversification of Sanatana Dharma, with the development of many religions, philosophies, mythologies, monastic and spiritual movements through Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Its main movement was to the East with Buddhism spreading to Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan, and both Hinduism and Buddhism spreading to Burma, Thailand, Indochina, Indonesia, and even into Polynesia. There was at this time a secondary spread of dharmic teachings to the West into Central Asia, which was predominately Buddhist but had Hindu elements as well. A yet lesser diffusion occurred to Persia and Europe, mainly through various mystical movements.
This was the classical age of Hindu-Buddhist culture which came to dominate Asia. IT began around 500 BC, overlapping with the first wave. It began to decline with the Islamic invasions of India around 700 AD and come to an end around 1500 AD with the Islamic conquest of India and Indonesia, which involved massive destruction of temples, and genocide of people, and a policy of forced conversion to Islam that caused the Hindu religion to contract in order to preserve itself and which eliminated Buddhism from India as it did from Central Asia.
The third phase is occurring today as part of one of the most important spiritual movements of modern times, the expansion of Eastern meditational teachings throughout the world. It also shows a combination of Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as aspects of Taoism or all the main Himalayan spiritual traditions. This phase began with the dissemination of Hindu teachings to the West through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Vedantic influences reached many Western thinkers including Geothe, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and Thoreau through various translations of the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita. This phase started in earnest with Vivekananda’s trip to the West in 1893. There are now various Yoga, Vedantic, Vedic, Trantric and Buddhist centers in most countries and most major cities of the world. Along with it has been a modern migration of Hindus to different countries with significant Hindu populations in Canada, USA, the Caribbean, South America, Africa, and Europe. This movement is likely to last for many centuries to come. It will help create a global spiritual tradition, though this may take decades or centuries to accomplish.
Yet Sanatana Dharma is more than what is commonly regarded as Hinduism. It reflects the spiritual approach of the sages of India and the Himalayan region whatever their outward religion. All the religious traditions of India have at least at times reflected the universality of Sanatana Dharma. The Christians and Muslims of India, particularly a number of Sufis, often reflect Sanatana Dharma in their mystical teachings more so than their own less experiential orthodox traditions. They demonstrate a greater openness to Truth and seeking for spiritual realization than is characteristic of their religions as a whole. They have their own meditation practices, which are often more typically Hindu is nature and almost unknown in other countries dominated by their religions. This is because Sanatana Dharma can link one to the essence of spirituality, whatever religion one comes from originally.
As a conscious formulation of Sanatana Dharma, Hinduism remains close to its basic principles of universality and eternity. This universality even encompasses partiality. Hinduism holds that it is alright for any one of us to think that our particular religion is the best, or that our teacher is the highest, if such thoughts increase faith and concentration in our inner practices. But we should recognize the right of others to think the same of their teachings, and not try to impose our point of view upon them. Sanatana Dharma requires that we respect the sacred nature of each individual and his or her own private relationship with Divinity, which it is not for us to judge.
Hinduism and Particular Religions
BUDDHISM
Buddhism formulates itself as Buddha Dharma, “the way or Dharma of enlightenment.” Starting as a monastic reform movement within the field of Hindu teachings, Buddhism gradually developed a separate existence of its own apart from the common stream of Sanatana Dharma, though it never entirely gave up its roots. Indian Buddhism and its direct offshoots, like Tibetan Buddhism, contain much of the greater Hindu tradition or Sanatana Dharma with the use of Sanskrit mantras, Yoga techniques, Vedic fire rituals, Ayurvedic medicine and Vedic astrology, and a common iconography and temple worship with the Hindus. Buddhist traditions of more distant lands, like China and Japan, maintain many of these same practices but adapted over time to their own cultures.
Buddhism and Hinduism have much in common and their differences are often merely semantic or variant line of approach. In fact there are greater differences among teachings in each tradition than between the two, as both traditions contain considerable diversity. While Hindus and Buddhists may disagree as to the nature of enlightenment or liberation, not only with each other but among themselves, all their various branches accept spiritual realization through meditation as the goal of life.
The Buddha is not portrayed as the only Son of God, the last prophet, or the only Buddha. He is simply the main representation of enlightenment in this era, the ideal sage or yogi. He is often regarded more as an inner archetype than an historical person. There are said to be Buddhas teaching in all worlds, not just this Earth. Previous Buddhas are recognized and many of these, like the Buddha Kashyapa, which is the name of one of the seven seers of the Vedas, have the names of great Hindu sages. Hindus recognize Buddha as an avatar of Bishnu and Buddists recognize the Hindu avatar Rama as a Bodhisattva or enlightened being. There are many sages and yogis honored in both traditions.
Sanatana Dharma or the eternal tradition can be called Buddha Dharma or the enlightenment tradition. There is no conflict between Sanatana and Buddha Dharma as both emphasize dharma. Only if there is an insistence that one tradition or the other has an exclusive hold on truth or enlightenment do they have any real conflict with one another.
JAINISM
Jainism is another great religion of India that did not entirely merge into the common fold of Sanatana Dharma until recent times. Mahatma Gandhi has been called the greatest modern Jain, for his championing of non-violence, though he was actually a Hindu. The Jains base their teachings on various Tirthankaras, who like Buddas, are great enlightened teachers going back to ancient times. They have similar yogic values and practices as other Hindu and Buddhist teachings. In fact, much that is regarded as typically Buddist, like the emphasis on non-violence, karma, and the rejection of a personal God, were originally Jain teachings, which predate the Buddist by some centuries. Jainism can also be seen as an aspect of Sanatana Dharma, not a separate religion. The Jains have included some of the greatest minds of India, including poets, mathematicians, astronomers and philosophers.
THE SIKHS
The Sikhs were originally a sect of the Hindus. It was a custom to make the eldest son into a Sikh or a defender of the faith. This was to counter the Islamic invaders who tried to force conversion upon the people of India. The Sikhs arose as defenders of Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma against this Islamic invasion from Central Asia.
Some modern Sikhs consider that they have a separate religion outside of Hinduism. However, if we examine the sacred books of the Sikhs we find that they are filled with references to Hindu name for God, like Ram and Hari, and Hindu holy books, like the Vedas and Puranas, and are composed by various saints and sages, like Nanak, who are equally revered by the Hindus. The Sikh holy books are written in a language, Gurumukhi, that has much in common with Sanskrit. Many Sikhs still consider themselves to be a sect of the Hindus and hold to the idea of Sanatana Dharma.
Some people hold that the Sikhs combined Hinduism and Islam but the Sikh holy books have very few references to Islam, Allah or Mohammed. The Sikhs fought against the Muslims and were their main opponents in northwest India. But the Sikhs like the Hindus accepted Muslims into their culture if they were peaceful and respected the spiritual traditions of Islam, like Sufism.
TAOISM
Taoism arose in China not India, yet there were considerable contacts between Taoism and the Indic traditions, and both arose in the Himalayan region. Buddism and Taoism in China influenced each other considerably and often merged into a single teaching. Hinduism had contact with Taoism from a pre-Buddist era, which was maintained through the Buddhist era.
Taoism can also be considered to be a dharmic tradition. It has its yogic and meditation practices much like the Hindu and Buddhist, as well as its tradition of occult knowledge. Like the Vedic tradition it looks back to an earlier enlightened age of humanity before what we know of as civilization began. Like Hinduism Taoism is a religion of life and Nature that seeks to grow organically. It does not proselytize or seek converts. It has no dogma or ideology and promotes a universality of vision. Like Hinduism it has its folk religion of various Gods, Goddesses and nature spirits, with a similar form of temple worship being offered to them.
The Shinto religion of Japan, which has much in common with Taoism, and interacted with Buddhism, can similarly be regarded as part of the Eastern dharmic traditions.
ZOROASTRIANISM
The Zoroastrian or ancient Persian religion still survives in India as the Parsees, who took refuge in India in the eighth century after the Islamic conquest of Persia. Their religion is very similar to the Vedic in language and concepts, particularly in its emphasis on fire worship, and hence can perhaps be counted as another dharmic tradition. It also had a strong influence on the Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians and Muslims and brought many Vedic / Hindu ideas to them. Its influence even spread to China. Western India was often under Persian rulership in ancient times and brought about yet a further exchange of ideas and practices.
PAGAN RELIGIONS
The pagan religions of Greece and Rome, and those of the ancient Celts, Germans, Slavs and Baltic peoples (Lithuanians and Latvians) have much in common with the Hindu, particularly through their similar Indo-European languages and cultures. The ancient Greek culture has many affinities with that of ancient India. Both had temple worship of Gods and Goddesses, many with common names or characteristics, had elaborate mythological systems, deep philosophical traditions and a love of astrology. Much of this older European religion can be better understood through looking at Hinduism. A study of Hinduism - wherein these traditions are still alive - can aid in the restoration of this older European tradition in which many of the keys of Western mysticism, Goddess worship, spiritual art, philosophy and science lay hidden and ready to return.
This same worship of Gods and Goddesses, temples, magic and mysticism can be found among the Egyptians and Babylonians. In this regard Hinduism as the most ancient of living religions can help us understand and perhaps even recreate other ancient traditions like those of Greece, Egypt and Babylonia.
While Christianity looks down upon pagan religions, we should note that Christian theology and philosophy relies heavily on Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, who were pagan philosophers. The philosophy, medicine and science of both Christianity and Islam has a pagan Greek basis from which came modern science and most of modern European intellectual culture, art and poetry. Science and its empiricism developed from a pagan basis, reflecting the concern of indigenous traditions with understanding of the world of Nature. Hence it may not be surprising that the keys to a spiritual science can be found within these same pagan traditions. In this regard the resurrection of Greek and other pre-Christian religions of Europe is an important part of the spiritual awakening today.
Christian and Islamic mysticism has also maintained connections with the pagan mystical traditions of the Hindus, Egyptians, Greeks and Persians. Pagan cultures thus are not simply primitive but capable of great spiritual, philosophical, and scientific sophistication. On the other hand, the non-pagan beliefs have been noted, particularly in the Middle Ages, for oppression of art, science, and mysticism, destruction of libraries and colleges and an anti-learning attitude which has not aided in the unfoldment of true knowledge for humanity.
JUDAISM
Judaism as an ancient religion resembles Hinduism in a number of respects. Ancient Judaism employed similar fire offerings as the Vedic religion. Its emphasis on Torah or the law is similar to the Hindu emphasis on Dharma. It has actively promoted mysticism in its Kabbalistic tradition, which contains an honoring of the Goddess. In fact some Jewish mystics teach karma and rebirth and promote yogic like teachings and practices, including non-violence.
In terms of social practices, the Jews like the Hindus are a tolerant religion, not promoting conversion, and a culture, not merely a belief system. They have never sent armies on crusades and holy wars or sought to impose their religion on others by the force of arms or propaganda, like Christians and Muslims. The Jews respect other religions, even those who follow very different practices, and do not claim that their’s is the only true religion.
Historically there was trade between ancient Israel and India via the Phoenicians, particularly during the reign of Kind Solomon, the most famous Jewish king. During the second millennium BC Syria was under the rule of the Mittani, an Indo-European people worshipping Vedic Gods, so some exchange of ideas even at that time might have been possible. Later some Jewish communities went to India where they found protection. There has been a long interchange between Hinduism and Judaism.
The main difference between Hinduism and Judaism is theological, with the Jews being opposed to the use of images that most Hindus use. However there are Hindu groups, like the Arya Samaj, who also oppose the use of images. In this respect Hindusim can include traditions like the Jewish as one line of approach. Hinduism as a religion has no real quarrel with Judaism, though unfortunately modern India under leftist and Islamic influence has not properly supported Israel, though the two countries have many common causes.
CHRISTIANITY
Christ exhibited not only mysticism but a practice of non-violence that may derive from a yogic influence. There are stories that Christ came to India to study during his lost years, or that he came to India after the crucifixion and died in Kashmir at a very old age. There is an additional story that St. Thomas, one of the twelve disciples, and in some Gnostic literature, the brother of Jesus, died in India (though this is highly speculative). Yet for certain we know that Hindus admitted Christian refugees into India as early as the fourth century AD, giving them a land to practice their religion without persecution.
Hindu and Buddhist ideas spread to some degree into Greece and Rome. Many of the early mystical traditions of Christianity, and some which were outside of it, reflect a knowledge of karma and rebirth and the seeking of mystical experiences. The Desert Fathers were ascetics much like those of India. However the development of Christianity as a social institution through the elements in the early church and most were forgotten, like its rejection of the doctrine of rebirth as heresy. Catholic Christianity alone of the main Western religions developed monastic orders like the Hindu and Buddhist, which had mystical traditions as well (though subordinated to the authority of the church).
Trade between India and Europe continued throughout the Middle Ages up to the time of the Turkish invasion of Europe (the fifteenth century), which was why Columbus originally journeyed to America seeking India. Not surprisingly many of the great Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart or Hildegard of Bingen arose in the Rhineland region, noted for its trade with the East. No doubt spiritual ideas came along with this trade. There is a possible Hindu and Vedantic influence on Christianity through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, where great thinkers like Marsilio Ficino mention Hindu practices with great respect. The practices of Christian mystics often have more in common with Hindu yogic practices of mantra and meditation, than with that is ordinarily regarded as Christianity.
Otherwise Hinduism and Christianity are very different in both their teachings and practices, particularly the Protestant form, which like orthodox Islam is against all images and generally anti-mystical. Catholicism, though having a mystical and devotional side like the Hindu, has an authoritarian structure and missionary militancy quite different than the diversity of Hinduism. Naturally as along a such missionary activity is directed against Hindus, it is difficult for Hindus to respect Christianity as a spiritual path, however much they may appreciate some Christian mystics or Christ himself.
ISLAM AND SUFISM
Early Islam had a considerable influence from Hinduism and Buddhism. Hindu traders lived in Mecca and contributed to the culture of the city. The Pre-Islamic religion of Arabia, like the Pre-Christian religions of the Middle East and Europe, was much like the Hindu, using a multiplicity of names and forms for the Divine and not formulated as a belief system. Mecca was a site wherein the Goddess was worshipped and contained 360 icons, much like those used in Hindu temples. The stone at Mecca was an ancient sacred stone much like the
Shiva lingas or Shiva stones of Hindu worship.
The first part of India to come under Islamic influence was the province of Sind, by the mouth of the Indus river. Mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and other arts and sciences better developed in India were taken in part back to the Middle East. Hindu Vedantic teachings were taken by the Sufis, the mystics of Islam, who are defined even today by the Dictionary of Islam in India as Muslims following Vedantic ideas.
Afghanistan and Central Asia came under Islamic influence from 700-100 AD. They were originally regions of Buddhist and Hindu predominance and preserved aspects of these teachings. Even today many Sufis look to this region as their holy land, particularly eastern Afghanistan and its portion of the Himalayas, which links them back further to the greater Himalayan tradition that is more typically yogic in nature. Hence Hinduism has strongly influenced the mystical side of Islam.
However Hinduism and Islam are otherwise almost opposite religions, with Hinduism presenting all the diversity and creativity of the tropical jungle and Islam the stern absolution of the desert. Islam is more of a social-political movement than a spiritual teaching. Otherwise it would not be so intolerant of yogic traditions like the Hindu (and to its own Sufi tradition) that emphasize the inner quest more than any outer religious identity. Hinduism has more affinity with the Sufis as with Western mystics but finds that they often do not understand the full range of yogic practices or the ultimate truth of Self-realization.
THE WESTERN INFLUENCE
India, under the Pax Britannica of the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, enjoyed a peace and tranquility which she had not known since the days of the Emperor Akbar. The Indian Mutiny was really a blessing in disguise, for it swept the sky clear of many clouds, and paved the way for a uniform system of government, which provided security of tenure, regular taxation, protection of life and property and equal justice to high and low throughout the country. The government was strictly paternal, but it was administered by enlightened viceroys, and by a Civil Service which attracted the flower of the Public Schools and the Universities. It has been faithfully depicted in the pages of Rudyard Kipling. The most typical and by far the ablest of its administrators was Lord Curzon, who embodied the virtues and failings of the period. “To me,” he once said in a characteristic utterance, “the message is carved in granite, it is hewn out of the rock of doom - that our work is righteous and it shall endure.” The climax came when King George V in 1910 was proclaimed King Emperor at Delhi, now restored to its historic position as capital of India, amid scenes of pomp which recalled the palmy days of the Great Mogul. After this, the stately Victorian edifice began to crumble. The demands for home rule, made by a generation of Indians brought up to admire British parliamentary forms of government, became more and more insistent, and were met with half-hearted concessions and compromises. The inevitable end followed in 1947, when British rule was withdrawn, and the Dominions of India and Pakistan took its place.
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
One of the first acts of Warren Hastings in order to establish a system of government in Bengal in consonance with the tradition of the people, was to institute an enquiry into the ancient language and literature and the legal system of the Hindus. In this he was following the precedent of enlightened princes like Akbar and Dara Shikoh, who had caused Persian translations of the Hindu scriptures to be made. The result was that European scholars were encouraged to take up the study of Sanskrit. In 1785 Charles Wilkins published a translation of the Bhagavad Gita, and five years later, Sir William Jones translated Kalidasa’s great drama, Sakuntala. In 1802 an Englishman named William Hamilton, who was detained in France owing to the Napoleonic Wars, beguiled his time by teaching Sanskrit to his fellow prisoners. Among them was the German poet William Schlegel. The effect upon Europe of the discovery of Sanskrit literature and philosophy was electrifying, and may not unfairly be compared to the discovery of Greek at the Renaissance. To Schopenhauer, the Upanishads came as a new Gnosis or revelation. “That incomparable book,” he exclaimed, “stirs the spirit to the very depths of my soul…. In the whole world there is not study, except that of the original, so beneficial and exhilarating. It has been the solace of my life: it will be the solace of my death!” Geothe’s verse in praise of Sakuntala is well-known:
Would’st thou the young year’s blossoms, and the fruits of its decline,
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed,
Would’st thou the earth or Heaven itself in one sole name combine?
I name thee, O Sakuntala! And all at once is said.
Indian thought deeply influenced the German transcendentalists and, through them, Coleridge, Carlyle, Emerson, and the other pioneers of the Romantic Movement in England and America.
India benefited in her turn by contact with European minds. The application of western methods of study to Oriental literature had an intensely stimulating effect. The Vedas were no longer part of a mysterious ritual, the very meaning of which was forgotten, but living works, to be interpreted and studied like the Greek and Latin classics. Until the coming of the British, the history of the pre-Muhammadan period in India did not exist, and the very name of the great Emperor Asoka was forgotten. But in 1834 James Prinsep discovered the clue to the Brahmi and Kharoshthi alphabets, and this enabled him to undertake the reading of the ancient Hindu inscriptions. Since then generations of scholars - Indian and European - have been enegaged in the laborious task of reconstructing, line upon line, the early history of India. Buddhism as well as Hinduism has been investigated, and now the western world can read in reliable translations the authentic words of the greatest of India’s religious teachers. One of the pioneers in this direction was the Oxford scholar, Professor Max Muller, who, after thirty years of unremitting labour, published the first complete test of the Righ Veda in 1875. He followed this up by editing The Sacred Books of the East, in fifty volumes, which for the first time enabled the western world to have a first-hand acquaintance with the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and Chinese scriptures. The early European officials in India were often excellent connoisseurs of Indian art, and brought home to England collections of Mogul and Rajput pictures. One of the most important is that made by Mr R Johnson, the banker of Warren Hastings, which is now in the India Office.
The earlier Englishmen in India adapted themselves to the customs and habits of the country. Colonel Kirkpatrick, Resident at Hyderabad, “married a Muslim lady of rank, spoke Persian like a gentleman, and in manners and costume could hardly be distinguished from a Muslim noble.” The “nabobs”, as the Anglo Indians were familiarly called in the eighteenth century, were thoroughly Oriental in their outlook, with their queer Eastern habits, their hookahs and curries and native servants, and above all their inexplicable habit of taking a daily bath. Thackeray has immortalized the Civil Servant of the old type in Jos Sedley. It was part of the Company’s policy not to interfere with the religion or customs of the people. The money spend on education was devoted to the encouragement of the indigenous learning of the country. Warren Hastings endowed a Madrassah or Muhammadan College at Calcutta: Jonathan Duncan, the ‘Brahmanised Englishman’, founded at Benares, where he was Resident, a Hindu College for teaching Sanskrit. Customs such as suttee, infanticide, and slavery were tolerated. Governmetn acted as trustees for temples; they derived a handsome income from the pilgrim-tax, and Indian regiments formed guards of honour and fired salutes at Hindu religious processions. Protestant missionaries were not admitted into British India, though a small body established itself at the Danish colony of Serampore near Calcutta outside the Company’s jurisdiction. In the South, Catholics had in many instances adopted the prevailing attitude towards Hinduism. The Jesuit Robert de Nobili and his followers adopted the saffron robe and sacred thread of the Brahmins, lived on vegetarian food, and studied Sanskrit; they allowed their converts to retain the caste-system, and the Pariahs had separate arrangements made for them in their churches. Father Beschi, another Jesuit, wrote a Christian poem in Tamil which has become a classic. The Abbe Dubois vividly describes a Christian religious procession in the eighteenth century. “Accompanied with hundred of tom-toms, trumpets and all the discordant music of the country; with numberless torches and fire-works; the statute of the saint is placed on a car which is charged with garlands of flowers and other gaudy ornaments according to the taste of the country - the car slowly dragged along by a multitude shouting all along the march - the congregation surrounding the car all in confusion, several among them dancing or playing with small sticks or native swords; some wrestling, some playing the fool; all shouting or conversing with each other, without anyone exhibiting the least sign of respect or devotion.”
But with the beginning of the nineteenth century, a change set in. In 1813, when the Company’s Charter was renewed, a sum of £10,000 was ear-marked for “the revival and improvement of literature and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of British territories in India.” A demand for western education was rapidly growing up among better class Indians who had come into contact with Europeans. This was encouraged by the Baptist missions at Serampore. The missionaries started a printing-press, and gave a great impetus to the vernaculars by printing the first Bengali newspaper in 1818, and translations of the Bible in Bengali, Tamil and Marathi, numerous institutions to promote western literature and science sprang up in Calcutta; the first was the Hindu College, afterwards the Presidency College, founded in 1816. Four years later the Bishop’s College was established.
In 1825, Lord William Bentinck, the most enlightened of the Governors General, arrived in India. A bitter controversy had been raging for some time whether the sum of money to be devoted to education was to be spent on subsidising the traditional institutions of the country, the old tol and math and madrassahs, or upon western learning. The demand for the latter was becoming more and more pressing, especially as, by the provisions of the renewed Charter of 1833, Indians were to be admitted to the higher branches of the civil service. The matter was finally clinched by Thomas Babington Macaulay, who had come out to India as Bentinck’s Law Member. Macaulay ridiculed the venerable literature of the Hindus as “false history, false astronomy, false metaphysics, which attended their false religion,” and concluded by pointing out that “the languages of Western Europe civilized Russia; I cannot doubt they will do for the Hindu what they have done for the Tartar.” However much we may deplore the tone of Macaulay’s minute, there is little doubt that the change was inevitable. It certainly convinced the other members of the Governor General’s Council, and Lord Bentinck issued his famous resolution that “all the funds appropriated for education would be best employed on English education alone.”
The pioneer in the changes which have revolutionized modern India was undoubtedly Ram Mohun Roy. He was born in 1772 and belonged to a good Brahmin family, whose members had held office for generations under the Muhammadan rulers. His parents were orthodox Hindus, and he was married while he was still a child. He studied Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit while at school, and when he was about twenty, he learnt English and started to read the Bible. Not satisfied with a translation, he acquired enough Hebrew and Greek to study the original. In 1804, disgusted with the corruption of the Hindu religion practiced around him, he wrote a pamphlet in Persian denouncing idolatry. In 1811, his desire for reform was brought to a point by witnessing the immolation of his sister-in-law on her husband’s funeral pyre; this terrible sight altered his whole life, and soon after, he gave up a lucrative government appointment to devote himself to the religious and social betterment of his countrymen. He found in the Vedas and the Upanishads a pure and noble creed which had long been overlaid with superstition and idol-worship. Still higher teaching, however, he discovered in the first three Gospels, and in 1820, he published a remarkable book entitled The Precepts of Jesus, The Guide to Peace and Happiness. It recorded the moral precepts of Jesus Christ in the words of the Gospels, but explicitly omitted all mention of miracles or of Christ’s Divinity. This deeply offended the Serampore missionaries, hitherto friendly to him, but gained him friends in David Hare, a Unitarian watchmaker, and William Adam, both devoted to the cause of bringing western enlightenment to India. Orthodox Hindus were deeply suspicious of the new education and Mussalmans stood entirely aloof. Ram Mohun Roy’s courageous and outspoken views “raised such a feeling against him, that at the last he was deserted by every person except two or three Scotch friends.” He addressed a remarkable letter on the subject to the Governor General, Lord Amherst, in which he asserted that “if it had been intended to keep the British nation in ignorance of real knowledge, the Baconian philosophy would not have been allowed to displace the system of the Schoolmen, which was best calculated to perpetuate ignorance. In the same manner, the Sanskrit system of education would be the best calculated to perpetuate ignorance, if such had been the policy of the British Legislature. But as the improvement of the native population is the object of government, it will consequently promote a more liberal and enlightened policy of instruction.”
In 1828, Ram Mohun Roy brought to fruition one of the great objects of his life, the establishment of the Brahma Samaj, a Church open to all sorts and conditions of men for “the worship and adoration of the Eternal, Unsearchable and Immortal Being Who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe.” The offering of sacrifices, the taking of life, and the use of any kind of image, painting or portrait were forbidden. In the following year, Lord Bentinck, supported by Ram Mohun Roy, took the courageous step, in the face of his more conservative advisers, of declaring suttee illegal; those aiding and abetting it were liable to be prosecuted for murder. Other cruel practices, the murder of female babies at birth, and thugee, the ritual strangling of travelers by assassins who were devotees of the goddess Kali, were also suppressed. The Hindu College and other institutions for imparting English education were now in full swing, and Ram Mophun Roy proceeded to do what was then practically unheard-of for a high-caste Hindu. He accepted an invitation from the Emperor of Delhi to go to England in order to represent certain grievances to the Board of Directors. Ram Mohun’s English visit was an unqualified success. He was given a banquet by the Directors; he was presented to Kind William IV and was accorded a seat of honour at the Coronation; he was a constant visitor at the House of Commons, and heard the debates on the Reform Bill, the Factory Act and the Act for the abolition of Slavery. He impressed on the Court of Directors the necessity of codifying the Indian criminal code, substituting English for Persian as the official language, and admitting Indians to the highest posts, freely and impartially, without distinction of race, religion or colour. The momentous Charter Act of 1833, which put an end to the commercial character of the Company, was largely due to his inspiration. Soon after it was passed, he died at Bristol at the age of sixty-one.
Raja Ram Mohun Roy was the ‘first modern’ not only ‘Indian’ but ‘world citizen’. He was the true possesser of a ‘multiple identity’. He had two houses in cosmopolitan Calcutta, one furnished in European and the other in Indian fashion, of his European House, it was said that he himself was the only Indian element in it; of his ‘Indian’ house, everything was Indian except himself who was an Englishman. Sometimes he would be taken for a Persian Nobleman.
Ram Mohun Roy was the greatest Indian of his age. He was indeed the prophet of the new India. It is untrue to say that he wished to denationalize his country. He was a fine Oriental scholar, and deeply read in Persian and Sanskrit. But he recognized, years before any of his countrymen, that the education which had been fostered by the pandits and maulvis was too vague and unpractical to influence the people at large; western knowledge would not only enable India to fight against the abuses and corruptions which disfigured her social life, but would lead to a truer understanding of her own immemorial culture.
The Brahma Samaj received considerable development from its third leader, Keshab Chandra Sen. A reformed church arose, which, while mainly Hindu in its outlook, anticipated the more modern Theosophical movement in recognizing the inspiration of the Scriptures of all creeds. The Samaj movement has done an immense amount of good in Bengal, in purifying the popular religion, putting down social evils like child-marriage, developing the vernacular and popularizing education. Nearly all the leading writers and thinkers of Bengal in the last century have been Samajists, and many of them have come from the Tagore family, which has produced a galaxy of philosophers, artists, musicians, dramatists and poets. The best known is Rabindranath, born in 1861, whose Gitanjali, or Handful of Songs, published in 1913, gained for him the Nobel Prize, and an international reputation enjoyed by no other Indian writer. His poems breathe the passionate love of God which is familiar to students of Kabir and Chaitanya:
Thus it is that they joy is me is so full. Thus it is that thou hast come down to me.
O thou Lord of all heavens,
Where would be thy love if I were not?
Thou hast taken me as thy partner of all this wealth.
In my heart is the endless play of thy delight.
In my life thy will is ever taking shape.
And for this, thou who art King of kings hast decked thyself in beauty to captivate my heart.
And for this thy love loses itself in the love of thy lover,
And there art thou seen in the perfect union of the two.
Dr. J. N. Farquhar, speaking of Gitanjali, says: “There is no Karma, no transmigration, no inaction, no pessimism in this lofty verse; but there is the perception that Nature is the revelation of God; there is everywhere the joy of meeting Him in sun and shower; there is the dignity and worth of toil, deliverance won by going down where God is, among the poorest, lowliest and lost, the duty of service, the core of religion found in righteousness, life won by dying to self, sin recognized a shame and thralldom, and death as God’s messenger and man’s friend!”
The efforts of Christian Missionaries have undoubtedly been on the whole beneficial in the past. They provided a sound education to large numbers. They spawned a large number of novels and other literary forms and formalized grammar of local languages. To give three examples, we may mention William Kittel for Kannada, Herman Gundert for Malayalam and William Carey for Bengali: It is a pattern found repeated for all the spoken languages. Indeed English itself had been given the impetus to develop by the translation of The Bible into the ‘tongues of the people’. It is in this context that Graham Greene speaks of the New Testament itself as a liberalizing influence.
Not only Lord Macaulay’s Education system but his Legal Code adopted in India, were examples of a ‘leap of faith’. Both involved the ‘grafting’ of Western Values on an age-old Eastern Civilization. The Western values were fortunately the products of England’s rise to an age of enlightenment and reason. Macaulay is a much misunderstood man both in England and India. It is often forgotten that he was a champion of secularism. He had to argue against Gladstone for keeping the government in England the ‘governance’ part of it free from Church influence. In India the evangelizing missionaries were kept at bay for a long time. They could work for Bengal only from Serampore a Dutch settlement. Government divorced from religious authority or sanction was a new experience for Indians. The English made it on the whole possible for India to adopt a ‘secular’ form of Government after Independence. This creates irritations to the majority Hindu community who think that the political parties in their zeal to be ‘more secular than thou’ in their jostling for power, take them for granted. In a real and effective Democracy, all need to be equal and a line has to be drawn somewhere to stop ‘affirmative action’.
Rabindranth Tagore combined in his person the old and the new, and his work was the product of the union of Eastern and Western culture to a unique degree. He was an ardent lover of his country, and mourned for her lost greatness, but he recognized her indebtedness to the West. “It is only by knowing the Europe that is great and good that we can effectively guard ourselves against the Europe that is base and greedy.” He had a deep desire for union with God; but union comes not from Yoga and asceticism, but from mixing in the world and helping others. “God is the great playfellow who creates flowers of beauty for His children, and death is a momentary interruption of the lila”. At Bolpur, Rabindranath Tagore established a school where the teaching is carried out in the traditional Indian manner. The pupils study beneath the trees in the open air; they are responsible for their own discipline, and they begin and end the day with prayers to “the Deity who is in fire and water, nay, who pervades the universe through and through, and makes His abode in tiny plants and towering forests.”
The Samaj movement spread to Bombay, where the Prarthana Samj or Society of Prayer was inaugurated. As in Bengal, its followers tried to evolve a pure and simple theism, purged of idolatry and superstition and evil social customs. Its members abjured child marriage and caste restrictions. The most enlightened writers and politicians of Western India, Ramkrishna Bhandarkar, M G Ranade and G K Gokhale, supported it, and from it sprang the Society of the Servants of India, which has taken a leading part in promoting educational and social reform.
The Brahma movement was regarded by pious Hindus as unduly rationalistic in its outlook, and it led to a number of attempts to purify orthodox Hinduism. The most remarkable of these reformers was Dayanand Sarasvati, who was born in Kathiawar in 1824. In his autobiography he describes his conversion. He was keeping vigil as part of the ceremony of initiation in the temple of Siva, when doubts suddenly assailed him. “I feel it impossible,” he told his father, “to reconcile the ideal of an omnipotent, living God, with this idol, which allows the mice to run upon its body, and thus suffers its image to be polluted on the slightest provocation.” After this, like the Buddha, he wandered about India as a mendicant ascetic, seeking the truth. He practiced Yoga, but found it a fraud. In 1860, however, he met his Master, a blind Brahmin, who instructed him in the Vedas. After a further period of study, Dayanand started his public career in 1868, and founded the Arya Samaj. Like Luther, Dayanand aimed at stripping religion of all its later accretions, and going back to the primeval simplicity of the Vedic hymns and Upanishads. The Vedas are the source, not only of all religious truth, but moreover, of all knowledge. They contain implicitly everything worth knowing, even the most recent inventions of modern science, steam-engines, railways and aeroplanes. Dayanand threw open the study of the Vedas to both men and women, regardless of caste; idolatry is forbidden, but members of the Arya Samaj believe in Karma and rebirth. The Arya Samaj has many followers in the Punjab, and maintains a College in Lahore. The Arya Samaj represents militant Hinduism; it adapts a polemical attitude towards Christianity and Islam, and vigorously condemns cow-killing.
An equally interesting personality is Ramkrishna Paramahamsa, who was born near Hooghly in Bengal in 1834. He was a Brahmin by caste, but in 1871, when he forsook the world and donned the ascetics’ robes, he worked in a temple as a scavenger, performing the most menial offices and joining in the meals of outcasts. At one time he shared the humble abode of a Muhammadan fakir. He had visions of Krishna and Jesus, and came to the conclusion that all creeds are only facets of the same Truth. “Every man should follow his own religion. A Christian should follow Christianity, a Muhammadan should follow Muhammadanism. For Hindus, the ancient path, the path of the Aryan Rishis, is the best.” Ram Mohun appealed to the head, Ramkrishna to the heart. The saintliness of his life and the simplicity of his teaching won him a large following. Among these was Swami Vivekananda, a highly educated man, and a staunch, defender of Hinduism. To him, everything in Hinduism is right; the West is degraded and materialistic. His creed was based on the Vedanta, and was an attempt to graft Hindu beliefs on modern thought. He was a powerful orator, and in 1893, when he attended the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, he created a profound impression. He made numbers of American converts, and in San Francisco is a picturesque Hindu temple, the headquarters of the Ramkrishna Mission. One of his European followers was Margaret Noble (Sister Nivedita), whose charming work, The web of Indian Life, presents a highly idealized view of the Hindu religion.
One result of these movements was to check the conversion of the educated classes to Christianity which seemed almost inevitable in Macaulay’s time. Another was to encourage the growth of the Indian vernaculars. When Macaulay advocated the adoption of English for purposes of higher education, the choice lay between it and Sanskrit or Persian. Sanskrit, like Latin in medieval Europe, was the lingua franca of the learned. Educated men regarded the vernaculars, as a literary medium, with contempt. Thanks first to the Christian missionaries and then to the various Hindu reformers, the various Indian vernaculars have now developed an extensive prose literature.
At first, in their desire to enlarge the vocabulary, Sanskrit words were freely introduced, and early vernacular prose literature was an alien from the language of the people as, say, Dr. Johnson’s English from the common English speech of his day. But now there is a return to a simpler and less affected style. Almost all the vernaculars have nor a flourishing literature. The chief literary forms are the novel, the essay, the drama and lyric poetry. The novelists and dramatists usually select as their themes the glories of India’s past and social reform. Several of the early novelists - Bankim Chandra Chatterji in Bengal, Nanda Shankar in Gujarat, Hari Narayan Apte in the Deccan and others, were imitators of Sir Walter Scott. Bankim Chandra Chatterji’s chief claim to fame lies in his poem Bande Mataram (I salute the Motherland) which has been adopted as the Indian national anthem. It has been translated into English by Aurobindo Ghose, the great Indian philosopher and nationalist:
Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Cool with the winds of delight,
Dark fields waving, Mother of might,
Mother free.
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands,
When the swords flash out in seventy million hands,
And seventy million voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and strong,
To thee I call, Mother and Lord,
Thou who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry, who ever her foemen drave
Back from plain and sea,
And shook her country free.
“Bankim Chandra Chatterji,” says Mr. R. W. Frazer, “is the first creative genius modern India has produced. For the western reader his novels are a revelation of the inward spirit of Indian life and thought.” The modern vernacular drama, in Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali, is chiefly a comedy of manners. Social reform, caste, the lot of the widow, and the anomalies rising from the clash of East and West, are the usual themes, treated often with an almost Shavian humour.
We must now turn to the Muhammadans. Urdu, the Muhammadan lingua franca, flourished chiefly at the courts of the local rulers, and was considerably developed in the eighteenth century, after the downfall of the Mogul Empire. In the Mogul Court, which was essentially foreign, Persian was alone patronized, but now people began to realize the absurdity of writing one language and speaking another. The Nawabs of Oudh were great patrons of Urdu poetry, and it is claimed that the purest Urdu is still spoken at Lucknow. With the coming of the English, the need for prose literature in Urdu as in other Indian languages was felt. In 1800 a College was founded at Fort William in Calcutta for training the cadets who came out to the Company’s service; its learned Principal, Dr. J. B. Gilchrist, found that it was necessary to translate books into Urdu, and for this purpose a number of learned Indian scholars were employed. From translation, the Fort William writers went on to original prose works; the chief difficulty was to persuade them to adopt a simple style and avoid Persian embellishments. After the Mutiny, the Muhammadan community remained in a state of deep depression; less adaptable and more concervative than the Hindus, they were outstripped by their more nimble-witted competitors, and this let to a recrudescence of the latent bitterness always subsisting between the two communities. From this parlous condition they were retrieved chiefly by the work of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the great Muslim reformer who did for his co-religionists what Ram Mohun Roy had done for the Hindus. Sir Sayyid was a pioneer of simple Urdu; he was indefatigable in his efforts to bring modern knowledge to his fellow-countrymen by means of magazines, books, societies and schools. In 1869, at the age of fifty-two, he visited England and met Thomas Carlyle and other famous people. His liberal views on religious and social matters earned him the hatred of the orthodox, and at one time his life was in danger; but in 1877 he realized the dream of his life in the foundation of the Muhammadan College at Aligarh, now the Muslim University. The foremost Muhammadan writer of recent years has been Sir Muhammad Iqbal, peot and mystic. His Secrets of the Self, published in 1915, created a great stir. Iqbal was greeted as a Messiah who stirred the dead bones of Islam to fresh life. Iqbal, who wrote in Urdu and Persian, in the apostle of militant Muhammadan nationalism. His philosophy is coloured by his studies of Nietzsche and Bergson, but at heart he remains a mystic with ideas attuned to those of the Persian Sufis, and his dominant note is abhorrence of the materialism of the West.
The glitter of modern civilization dazzles the sight,
But it is only a clever piecing together of false gems.
The wisdom or science in which the wise ones of West took such pride
Is but a warring sword in the bloody hand of greed and ambition.
The Osmania University in Hyderabad State employs Urdu as its language, and it is now proposed to make Hindi the lingua franca of the new India.
English, however, is the medium in which educated men and women from different parts of India communicate with one another; it is the language of the courts, the universities and the press. Toru Dutt in the past generation, and Sarojini Naidu in the present, have written English verse of great charm and distinction.
It is now over forty years since Sir Edmund Gosse exhorted the young Deccani poetess to vouchsafe to her readers “some revelation of the heart of India, and of such mysterious intimations as stirred the soul of the East long before the West began to realize that it had a soul”:
What longer need hath she of loveliness,
Whom Death hath parted from her lord’s caress?
Of glimmering robes like rainbow-tangled mist,
Of gleaming glass or jewels on her wrist,
Blossoms or fillet-pearls to deck her head,
Or jasmine garlands to adorn her bed?
In the realm of fiction, one of the most significant writers is Mulk Raj Anand, whose studies of Indian peasant life have been described as the most important and promising books ever written in English by an Indian. Indians have won for themselves a place among the world’s scientists: Sir Jagadish Bose in botany, Sir P C Roy in chemistry, and Sir C V Raman in physics have secure niches in the temple of Fame. Indian statesmen have taken a large part in the political movements of the day. Of the past generation, perhaps the most distinguished was G K Gokhale; the most inspiring figure of to-day was M K Gandhi. The Mahatma, as he was affectionately called, combined India’s traditional asceticism with a very modern outlook. Deeply imbued with the teachings of Tolstoi, Ruskin and the Sermon on the Mount, he believed that the remedy for the social and political evils of to-day lay in simplification. He told India to abandon her mills and railways and other capitalistic machinery and return to the spinning wheel. He imported into politics the old principle of ahimsa or non-violence, stressed by Asoka 2,000 years ago. Gandhi’s great hold on the peasant was partly due to his power of writing plain, unadorned, nervous Gujarati; he was one of the great masters of prose in his own tongue as in English, and his recent autobiography is a classic of its kind.
One of the most helpful signs of to-day is the revival of interest in Indian art. The old traditional arts and crafts of India have never died; masons and sculptors may be found to-day in the Indian States, who work according to the rules laid down in the ancient manuals. Lord Curzon’s zeal for the preservation of historic monuments of the country did much to rescue them from the oblivion into which they had fallen; but educated India had almost forgotten her ancient heritage in these matters, until two notable pioneers, E B Havell and Ananda Coomaraswamy, succeeded in arousing the national conscience. A school of painting has arisen in Bengal, chiefly under the inspiration of Abanindro Nath Tagore and his followers Nanda Lal Bose and Surendra Nath Ganguly, which has inaugurated a new era. Their work, which draws its inspiration from Ajanta, has not the strength or vigour of the old indigenous schools, but has great charm and grace. The younger Indian artists of to-day are coming more and more under the influence of contemporary European schools, or, like Jaimini Roy, base their work mainly on indigenous folk traditions.
The Tagores have done much to rescue Indian music, the most characteristic and ancient of the Indian arts, from oblivion. Indian music has close affinities with painting, drama and dancing. In Calcutta, Bombay, Poona and Baroda there are academies of music, and one of the latest developments has been the application of western music science to traditional Indian forms. Indian dancing, based on classical traditions and borrowing some of its technique from the European ballet, has attracted much attention in Western countries.
At present India and Pakistan stand on the threshold of a new era. Political and social changes have followed in bewildering succession. The nationalist movement has created a revulsion against the indiscriminate imitation of the West which was the fashion in the Victorian era. When, however, occidental influence has been assimilated, we may look forward to the emergence of a new eclectic culture combining what is best in both; the future of India, in art and literature, seems to lie in the amalgamation of Western thought with her own immemorial civilization.
“Men such as Ram Mohun Roy, Keshab Chandra Sen, Michael Madhusadhan Datta, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Kasinath Trimbak Telang,” says R W Frazer, “are so bastard bantlings of Western civilization; they were creative geniuses worthy to be reckoned in the history of India with such men of old as Kalidasa, Chaitanya, Jayadeva, Tulsi Das and Sankaracharya, and destined in the future to shine clear as the first glowing sparks sent out in the fiery furnace where new and old were fusing.”
THE BLISS OF THE LIBERATED SOUL
Adhyatma Upanishad describes the realization of Oneness with God
ADHYATMA IS THE 24TH OF THE 108 UPANIshads and is attached to the Krishna Yajur Veda. It includes this explanation of who is a jivanmukta, a person who is free from rebirth, and how to attain this supreme state.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Unborn One is ever located in the cave of the heart. The earth is His body; though He pervades the earth, it does not know Him. The waters are His body; though He pervades the waters, they do not know Him. Agni (fire) is His body; though He pervades agni, it does not know Him. Vayu (wind) is His body; though He pervades vayu, it does not know Him. Akasha (ether) is His body; though He pervades akasha, it does not know Him. Buddhi (wisdom) is His body; though He pervades buddhi, it does not know Him. Ahamkara (ego) is His body; though He pervades ahamkara, it does not know Him. Chitta (awareness) is His body; though He pervades chitta, it does not know Him. Mrtyu (death) is His body; though He pervades mrtyu, it does not touch Him. He who is the inner soul of all creatures and the purifier of sins, He is the one divine Lord Narayana.
The wise should, through the practice of deep meditation of Brahman, relinquish the concept of “I” and “mine” in body or senses, which are not the Atma. Having known oneself as the Self, being witness to buddhi and its actions, one should ever think “So’ham” (“I am That”) and leave behind the idea of separate Atma in others. Shunning the pursuits of the world, the body and the shastras, he should set about removing the false attribution of self. When a yogi stays always in his own Atma, his mind then perishes, having known his Atma as the Atma of all through self-experience. Never giving the slightest attention to worldly talk, think of Atma to be the Atma yourself. Then you will become Brahman and be in a blessed state.
O Sage, having dissolved jiva into all-encompassing Atma with the thought of its oneness, like the air of a jar in the universal air, be ever in a state of serenity. Having become That which is all Atmas and self-resplendent, give up both macrocosm and microcosm. Having known “I am that Brahman” in which all the universe appears like in a mirror, become one that has performed all his dharmas. O sinless one. The ever-blissful and the self-effulgent, freed from the grip of ahamkara, attains its own eternal state like the glorious moon becoming full as it always was.
With the extinction of actions arises the decay of vasanas (sub-conscious inclinations) and from that moksha (liberation). Who attains this is a jivanmukta. But carelessness in seeing Braham in everything and in all places should not in the least be allowed. In a minute, maya envelops even the wise, should they become careless. Ever devoted to samadhi, become a nirvikalpi, the changeless one, O sinless! The knot of ignorance is broken completely when one sees his Atma through nirvikalpa Samadhi.
Having strengthened the conception of Atma and given up the “I” in the body, one should be indifferent to any material thing. From Brahma down to a pillar, all are only unreal. Hence one should see his Atma as existing by itself. How can there be the heterogeneity in the universe made of that One Principle which is immutable, formless and all-pervasive? When there is no difference between the seer, the seen and sight, then the darkness of ignorance and the light of wisdom merge. When chitta (awareness) is not, there is nothing.
The fruit of vairagya (detachment) is spiritual wisdom, which brings then uparati (renunciation). Nivrtti, the return to One’s Self, leads to the highest contentment and bliss beyond all analogy.
By separating maya from jiva (the individuated soul) and Atma, one realizes Parabrahman. Understanding this is just hearing. It becomes contemplation when such ideas are quieted. Their meaning is confirmed though concentration of the mind, called Samadhi. This Samadhi destroys crores of virtuous and sinful karmas which have accumulated during cycles of births.
He is a jivanmukta who preserves equanimity of mind, either when revered by the good or reviled by the vicious. He has cognized the nature of Brahman and is not subject to rebirth as before. An ascetic, having known himself, is not at all affected by any of his karmas at any time. He is Atma, all-full, beginningless, endless, immeasurable, unchangeable, replete with Truth, Consciousness and Bliss.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge our debt to the following publications from which we have sourced part of the material :-
Hinduism : The Eternal Tradition - David Frawley
India, A short Cultural History - H.G. Rawlinson
Hinduism Today - Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
The Upanishads - S. Radhakrishnan
Convocation Address to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
- Justice Markandeya Katju
Some Features of Hinduism - Stephen Knapp
Hinduism – Doctrine and
Way of Life - C. Rajagopalachari
Indian Civilization - K M Munshi
Village Mysticism - Stephen, H Huyler
Gayatri Mantra
(Source:
Sandhyavandana Bhashya of
Shri Ananthasankara Iyer
Sanskrit Scholar, Tripunithura (1940)) - T R Sivaram Iyer
The Bliss of the Liberated Soul - K. Narayana Swami Aiyer’s – translation – 1914
Prof. Ramaswamy Padma Bhushan & National Research Professor in Management , Founder Director IIM Bangalore, Director NITIE. Kindly become a Member of INDIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY (IHA) and give donation to IHA and support our Mission in order to protect India’s Unity and Culture Monthly Journal will be sent free. We welcome your Feedback/views/articles and we shall publish them.
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