Hinduism

By Phiroz Mehta

Continued from part 1

Three broad divisions and literature

The Aryans brought with them a wonderful collection of religious hymns when they entered the Punjab. More hymns were composed as time passed. The composers of the hymns were saintly sages.

In modern times their real greatness is not clearly understood. Some of them were, in fact, as great as the Founders of the world’s Great Religions. They were called Ṛsis. The main collection of their hymns is called the Ṛg-veda (verses of knowledge); the smaller collections are called the Sāma-veda, the Yajur-veda and the Atharva-veda.

An elaborate system of religious services and sacrifices arose in order to suit private and public worship, state occasions such as a king’s coronation, family events such as births, weddings and funerals, and ritual sacrifices such as the horse-sacrifice. These are described in detail in treatises known as the Brāhmaṇas.

In the several, prosperous, civilized kingdoms which the Ṛg-vedic Aryans established over the Indo-Gangetic plains, there arose philosophically-minded men and women, deeply religious by nature, who, after having brought up a family, retired into little hermitages adjoining the villages. There they devoted the rest of their lives to holy living. They got to know the truth about the deep mysteries of life, the purpose of man’s existence and his destiny, the hereafter, and about the soul and immortality and God. As a result of this came the compositions known as the Āraṇyakas (forest meditations) and the Upaniṣads (‘sitting-at-the-feet-of-the-master’ knowledge). In the very early days, knowledge was handed down orally. After the fifth century before Christ, it began to be written down and preserved in palm leaf manuscripts. Books as we know them today were made only in recent centuries.

When we say Vedic literature, or Vedic scriptures, we mean the four collections of the hymns, the Brāhmaṇas, the Āraṇyakas and the Upaniṣads all together. When we say the Vedas, we often mean only the four collections of the hymns.

Now just as the old Greeks had their two great epics, the Iliad, or the story of the Trojan War, and the Odyssey, or the story of the Wanderings of Odysseus, from which we learn a good deal about early Greek religion, even so there are two very long Hindu epics, the Mahābhārata, or the Story of the Great War of the descendents of Bhārata, and the Rāmayana, or the Story of the ideal King Rāma and his wife, the ideal woman Sītā, which contain religious teachings in addition to the Vedic scriptures.

The Brahmins not only taught the common people their religion, but also their daily duties, professionally and socially. All these daily duties in the household, the school, the shop, the office, the farms and the government, had religious ceremonials associated with them. When you went to your shop you said a little prayer; before eating your meal you said grace and a made a little offering; when you went on a journey and when you returned home, a little religious ceremony was performed; and so on in connection with everything. Thus religious ceremonial permeated the whole of life. Each member of each social group had his own religious duties exactly laid down. This type of religion has been called Brahmanism. In a broad sense, it was the successor of Vedic religion.

Brahmanism flourished for a thousand years or so before the birth, in 563 B.C., of Prince Siddhartha Gautama who became the Buddha. During this period, as happens in the history of all organized religions, abuses had crept in. The Buddha taught afresh the supreme truths and the path to the Highest, which he called Nirvana. So the Buddha’s reformation of Brahmanism produced a great new world religion, namely Buddhism. As the centuries passed, large numbers of people became Buddhists. Brahmanism had to take note of this. It went through a series of changes. Hinduism is the name given to the old Brahmanism after it went through these developments. Hinduism also has undergone changes and developments during the last fifteen centuries.

Vedic religion, Brahmanism and Hinduism are the three broad divisions in the development, over some four thousand years, of the one religion we call Hinduism today. In addition to the Vedic scriptures, there are the Purāṇas (ancient teachings) which are a great collection in eighteen books of Hindu myths and stories of Hindu saints. There are also several great systems of philosophy which have scriptural status to some degree or other.

Uniqueness of Hinduism

Pre-eminent among all the Hindu scriptures is the Bhagavad-Gītāor Lord’s Song. Here, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who is God incarnate in man, gives the supreme teachings to his beloved disciple Arjuna, a heroic prince. Hinduism is unique among the great religions of the world in certain respects. It has had many Great Teachers instead of one single founder. It is intimately bound up with the Hindu social system and with the daily life of the people. It has always been so willing to absorb different or new ideas that it includes almost all doctrines and beliefs and religious practices found all over the world. Consequently, even contradictory beliefs and doctrines are found in one and the same religion, Hinduism. Lastly, the Hindu outlook on life is one in which religion, philosophy, art and science do not have rigid boundaries but mingle together to a great extent. The aim is to make life a unified whole.

Varnāśrama Dharma

The socio-religious way of life of the ancient Aryans was called Varnāśrama Dharma. The varṇas were the various groups of people — workers, warriors, merchants etc. The āśramas were the four stages of life:

1. Youth and studentship;
2. Adulthood and citizenship;
3. The anchorite in his forest hermitage;
4. The homeless, wandering saint.

Only the very religious men and women went through the third stage; and of these, only the great saints went through the fourth stage. The bulk of people stayed in the second stage to the end of their days.

Dharma means all your social, professional and religious duties, proper to your varṇa and to your āśrama. Thus the word dharma stands for your own religious faith and worship, and also for the whole way of life you ought to observe throughout every day of your life according to the instructions of your religion. One may wonder why religion should control ordinary everyday life, love, happiness and pleasure, etc. The answer is well expressed by Vyāsa, one of the Great Teachers: Success and happiness in the true sense are the results of living the good life as taught by religion.

Just as Christianity has many branches such as the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, etc., Hinduism has its branches such as Shaivism, Vaishnavism, etc. There is, however, a core, a Hindu dharma, which is common to all these branches, and is called the Sanātana Dharma or the Eternal Religion. This declares that the universe is an orderly cosmos and not a disorderly chaos. The Power or Law by which this world-order is upheld is dharma. This upholding Power is inherent in everything, both living and non-living.

It is not forcibly imposed by Divine Command. Indeed, the Divine is absolute Dharma itself, or absolute rightness, love, truth, goodness, beauty, wisdom, duty, etc. Thus if we recognize and understand dharma, we recognize and understand the truth in everything from a flower to a star-cluster, in every creature from an ant to a saint, and, most wonderful of all, in God. A moment’s thought will show us, then, that scientific knowledge, which reveals to us the laws of principles according to which things happen, life grows and the universe moves in marvellous patterns, reveals dharma, reveals the ways of Providence to us. So, too, if we look into art and philosophy, we can discover how they reveal dharma to us. Thus we can understand how, in the Hindu view, religion, science, art, philosophy and the affairs of daily life are so intimately related to each other.

Dharma, or religion, is the power for making harmony in our own selves and in our personal and community life. Hinduism teaches that the means for producing this harmony and happiness is to fulfil all our duties: in relation to the world of affairs we must do our jobs perfectly; in relation to our own self, constant purification and training; to family and to mankind, loving service; to life and nature, reverent and joyous appreciation; to God, our whole self in uttermost adoration, worship and surrender. The religious man is he who devotes himself to making and maintaining such harmony. His life is truly the happy life, the good life, the holy life. The irreligious man is he who makes disharmony.

Continued in part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6

Comments

This article is a good one as it brings up some of the most important highlights of Hinduism — how it is not just a system to take one to heaven or some such wishes of the ego.

T. C. Gopalakrishnan, 9^th November 2011