Hinduism. Introduction SESSION 1. Hinduism, 1 1. Hinduism is religion and culture rolled into one.

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1 Hinduism SESSION 1 Hinduism is religion and culture rolled into one. Introduction Hinduism is an unfathomably ancient religious tradition. Glancing back into its origins, the trail fades away in the mists of time. Unlike other religions, no one can pinpoint a date or identify a founder for the spiritual movement that eventually became the vast body of beliefs and practices known as Hinduism. Perhaps because of its age and the opportunity for a wide variety of developments to take place within it, one cannot narrow Hinduism down into a single distinct religion. It is more accurately called a religious tradition. Another reason to use the term tradition is that we commonly think of religion as a set of shared beliefs. In Hinduism each person may choose freely how to practice her or his faith. No one must accept any particular set of rituals or beliefs. It is possible to meet two Hindus with completely opposing views on a number of aspects of their faith, but they will embrace one another as fellow Hindus. As soon as one starts the sentence All Hindus believe..., somewhere there is a Hindu who will vehemently disagree. Hinduism is an inclusive way of thinking in which no one can make claims to possess absolute truth. Any truth as experienced by humans issues forth from the one great reality known as Brahman. Hindus may not agree on any concrete set of doctrines or a single version of the truth, but they do share in common a profound grappling with the nature of the individual self in relation to the Universal Self known as Brahman. Most Hindu rituals serve as means to merge one s private self into the ultimate self of Brahman, much like a drop of rain will dissolve into the ocean. The definitions of Brahman are nearly as numerous as the forms of Hindu faith. To some, Brahman may be like a mango tree with many fruits or like many streams and rivers running into one ocean. For others, Brahman is the electrical current in all shapes and sizes of light bulbs. Another posits Brahman as the concept of an hour of time that has a distinct name in each language. Some compare Brahman to chocolate as the essential ingredient in an endless variety of shapes, bars, desserts and beverages, meaning Hindus can witness the divine even in chocolate. 1 With its many beliefs and currents of thinking, there are practices that serve as the red thread binding together the colorful swath of life that is Hinduism over time as well as over vast distances. Stepping into a Hindu temple anywhere in the world today, one will see rituals little changed for millennia, as pilgrims take a break from their daily routine, remove their shoes, and enter the holy place to catch a glimpse of the divine. It is remarkable to observe that during the past two thousand years Hinduism has been challenged by a host of Hinduism, 1 1

2 COWS, KARMA, AND CURRY A common image of India is the cow lying placidly in the middle of traffic, untouched and unperturbed. Cattle commonly command the right-of-way. Many Hindus are vegetarian in honor of their bovine neighbors. Theologically the Hindu reason for not eating meat is the principle of ahimsa, or do no harm, and they wish to avoid bad karma by killing a defenseless creature. Traditionally, the Hindu practice of not eating beef goes back to a story from the childhood of Krishna, one of the incarnations of the god Vishnu. According to legend, the young but already wise Krishna appealed to cow herders to stop worshiping Indra, king of the gods, and to worship their cows instead, since the cows were providing them with their livelihood, not the gods. Similarly, Hindus have great respect for their mothers as life-givers, including their provision of milk in the early months of an infant s life. The well-known Hindu phrase matru devo bhava means, See God in your mother. Once a toddler can walk, however, the cow provides the milk, butter, cheese, and yogurt that provide sustenance for the rest of one s life. Therefore the cow has earned a legendary degree of respect and gratitude. Because cows are sacred, their milk also enjoys an exalted status. Dairy products are considered pure and believed to promote spiritual, intellectual, and physical health. In addition to providing food, the cow provides labor for plowing and pulling carts, as well as fertilizer and fuel for fires and cooking through its droppings. Besides being considered sacred, the cow serves many functions in the daily life of Hindus. Therefore they are not likely to want to lose such a beloved ally. The lack of meat in many Hindu diets does not correspond to a lack of flavor or depth in the cooking. On the contrary, Hindu cooking, much like the religion itself, is a plethora of tastes and smells and colors. The traditional spice mix of curry, used to flavor many dishes, is not one type of spice but a mixture of herbs, spices, and chilies that vary greatly by region. A cook will take pride in the distinctiveness of his or her special blend. Curry mixtures add flavor to the dhal or lentil dish that is the staple of Hindu meals, eaten with either rice or flatbreads. invaders into both its geographic and metaphysical territory: Islam, Christianity, British colonialism, and the globalization of our present era. Yet in its most intimate moments of worship, Hinduism is much the same as it always has been. It is impossible today to step into an Egyptian temple on the banks of the Nile and see descendants of Pharaoh Akhenaton s priests worshiping the sun god Aton, or to enter the Parthenon and see a Greek temple priest leading prayers to the goddess Athena. But we would be warmly welcomed in any Hindu temple in the world to join as a sacred flame is lit and the colorful powders and holy water are distributed to folks young and old. These rituals and their meanings stem from practices dating back to prehistoric times and to Hinduism s mysterious beginnings in Indo-Iranian civilization. Back to the Source: The Indus River Valley Hinduism developed within one of the world s oldest known civilizations located in the Indus River Valley, with settlements traced back to as early as 15,000 BCE. The modern country of Pakistan covers approximately the same territory from the foothills of the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. In fact, the name India comes from the river itself and was originally the name for the area around Pakistan. Only with the arrival of the British was the name applied to the entire Asian subcontinent. The word Hindu is the Persian version of the word Sindhu, which is the Sanskrit word for river. To the Persians, the Hindus were the river people, those who originated from the vast river valley that served as the major gateway to the rest of southern Asia. Hinduism began in the Indus Valley in the form of a pagan religion some five to eight thousand years ago. The people worshiped a pantheon of spirits who controlled the forces of nature, such as the river goddess Sarasvati and the god of thunder Indra. By pleasing the gods and goddesses through worship, the worshipers received blessings of good harvests, large families, and life in peace. Rituals for worshiping the gods had to be done in precisely the correct fashion to achieve the desired result. Thus two key aspects of Hinduism emerged in Hinduism, 1 2

3 Sanskrit is Hindu s holy language, which Hindus believe is the main medium for revelation of truth and life s ultimate reality. this period: the books called Vedas, which described the proper rituals, and the priests who enacted the rituals. For this reason these ritualized aspects of the religion are known as Vedic Hinduism, practiced today primarily in northern India by the Brahmin or priestly caste. The linguistic background of Hinduism is termed Indo- Iranian, recognizing the close connection between the Indus Valley and Persia. The main Indo-Iranian languages include ancient Sanskrit, as found in the Veda scriptures, and ancient Persian. Sanskrit is Hindu s holy language, which Hindus believe is the main medium for revelation of truth and life s ultimate reality. Language study is a field of Hindu theology wherein it is believed that perfecting grammar is a way of coming closer to the truth. Linguists were parsing Sanskrit in 500 BCE, nearly 2,500 years before the modern notion of textual criticism and the field of linguistics began. Very little information is available about the early millennia of Hinduism except for the information found in the Vedas. As mentioned above, the Vedas were not history books but guides to ritual worship for the earliest form of Hinduism. Written in the holy language of Sanskrit, the Vedas are the primary source of revelation of Hindu truths. Outside of these books, the only other sources are inscribed on copper plates in the frustratingly undecipherable writing known as Indus script. Some of these plates are over 4,500 years old. Despite frequent attempts, no one has been able to break the code and no other comparable sources provide helpful clues. Thus the most ancient history of Hinduism remains enshrouded in mystery. What can be confirmed is that nearly 10,000 years ago a practice of spirit worship started in the Indus Valley and over eons developed into an intensely ritualistic religion led by Brahmin priests. The Vedas, or scriptures, that described the ritual practices and their meanings became enshrined as the sacred texts of Hinduism. Over the course of millennia, the resilient practice of their faith by its practitioners established the foundational beliefs and traditions that form the core of Hinduism in its many different interpretations today. From the Vedas and the Upanishads to the Present Beginning around 800 BCE, increasingly abusive and power-hungry behavior by Brahmin priests triggered a reformation of Vedic Hinduism. Part of the reformation included a shift from an emphasis on rituals to a more meditative style of worship. A new form of literature, known as the Upanishads, highlighted the oneness of the spirit world. Over time, this oneness came to be known as Brahman, the essential unity behind material existence. According to the Upanishads, material existence is an illusion, designated by the word maya in Sanskrit. Maya is the mental prison that prevents people from encountering the underlying reality of Brahman, hidden behind the veil of the visible world. For Hindus, the sin that enslaves humankind is not immoral behavior, as Christians believe, but ignorance of the real nature of existence. What we see and experience in this life is mere illusion, maya. Reality lies behind the illusion in the oneness known as Brahman. Release from sin and suffering, such as overcoming ignorance about the truth that life as we experience it is an illusion, comes through direct encounter with the oneness that is the Universal Self. Yoga had its beginnings in this era as a way to release oneself from the world and glimpse the real Self behind everything. Two types of Hindu monasticism also developed at this time as ways to access ultimate reality: Jainism and Buddhism. The Upanishad reformation, also known as Brahmanism, had lasted for approximately five hundred years. Then, as Buddhism and Jainism became religions in their own right and continued to flourish, Hinduism went into a period of decline. Around 100 CE, however, Hinduism entered a new era now referred to as classical Hinduism. The word classical refers to the fact that much of what we associate with the Hindu religion and culture developed during this period. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata, two epic poems that had developed orally centuries before, were finally written down, illustrated, and circulated widely during this period. Hinduism, 1 3

4 HINDU CONCEPTS IN AMERICAN LIFE A number of concepts and practices from Hinduism have made their way into Western conversation and lifestyles: Guru: This common word in our vocabulary comes from Sanskrit in which the two syllables, gu meaning darkness, and ru meaning destroyer of, are joined together. In the United States, we apply the word to anyone with specialized knowledge, such as gurus for health, fitness, diet, relationships, finance, stain removal, traffic, and science fiction. Karma: Not as simple as either punishment or reward for what we do, Hindus believe that karma is the universe s way of teaching us to take responsibility for our thoughts and actions. The result is not felt in this lifetime; doing good deeds and surrounding yourself with positive energy will help you attain a higher or more spiritual form of life in the next reincarnation. Reincarnation: According to Hindu belief that developed in the Upanishad phase between the seventh and fifth centuries BCE, each human has a core entity called an atman (individual self) that undergoes a series of incarnations before finally rejoining the Brahman or Universal Self. Although clearly a contradiction of Christianity, in which each individual has one existence in a single body, reincarnation has attained something of folklore status in the United States. Vegetarianism: Like reincarnation, vegetarianism started around the sixth century BCE in India, although a similar practice started in Greece at the same time. In India, religious leaders promoted the practice in accordance with the concept of ahimsa, Do no harm. Today in the United States the practice is more commonly associated with concerns about personal health or the ethical treatment of animals. Yoga: Another very popular import from Hinduism, yoga in its broadest sense is self-transcendence, although the Sanskrit word yoga means yoked. A person seeks to transcend the material world so that the atman as individual self unites or is yoked with Brahman, the Universal Self. There are various ways within Hinduism of interpreting why the individual and the Universal Self have separated, and thus different ways of overcoming it, all known as yoga. Yoga in the United States tends to be an exercise program to improve physical health that may include mental and spiritual disciplines. Their popularity greatly expanded the philosophical and devotional dimensions of Hinduism. Another label for this formative period is devotional Hinduism, based on the form of worship that characterized it. People began to express loyalty to particular incarnations of Brahman by practices of devotion known as bhakti. While most Hindus refer to the incarnations that they worship as Devi and Deva, which are Sanskrit for goddess and god, respectively, they do not apply these terms to Brahman, the Hindu Supreme Being. Brahman has no gender associations, is never represented in human terms, and is not the object of bhakti. The three primary incarnations are a triad known as Brahma the Creator, Shiva the Transformer, and Vishnu the Preserver. Each of these incarnations of Brahman have their own followers, particularly Shiva and Vishnu, but there are also Hindus whose devotion focus on female incarnations, or devis. Devotional worship during this period became a way to have a personal encounter with the chosen incarnation and through that incarnation with Brahman. Devotion is not practiced as a way to receive material gain or worldly success but as an encounter with the ultimate truth of Brahman. In Hinduism there are three ways to unite with Brahman: through knowledge from the study of texts and contemplation, through the action known as karma in Sanskrit, or through the acts of devotion and self-surrender known as bhakti to a particular incarnation of Brahman. In the famous Hindu epic, the Bhagavad Gita ( Song to God ), Krishna praises the three methods but shows clear preference for bhakti because of its accessibility to all classes of people. Hinduism, 1 4

5 The bhakti or devotional period continued until the eighteenth century, when influences from the Western world began to infiltrate Hindu society and culture. The two main effects of westernization were felt in Hindu philosophy, which tended to become more rational rather than spiritual, and in the decline of more esoteric aspects of Hinduism considered unacceptable in the modern world. Nevertheless the most basic rituals of the faithful have held strong in the face of rapid change and industrialization of Indian society, maintaining the unique contribution that Hinduism offers for an understanding of ultimate truth and of humankind s relentless quest to encounter it. About the Writer Rebecca Blair Young is a pastor and professor of systematic theology at Jakarta Theological Seminary as well as liaison for tsunami relief with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, serving both roles as mission coworker of the Presbyterian church (U.S.A.). Endnote 1.Horst G. Pöhlmann, Encounters with Hinduism: A Contribution to Inter-Religious Dialogue (London: SCM, 1996), 38. Hinduism, 1 5