11. Hindus and their Environment - S. Gupta Gombrich

Transcription

1 11. Hindus and their Environment - S. Gupta Gombrich The oldest religious records of Hindus are called the Vedas. Early Vedic religion was polytheistic; it later developed into a pantheism in which all phenomena are considered to be manifestations of the Godhead. Hindu cosmogony depicts a world structure made of two distinct categories, viz, the living and the insensate. The Godhead is above the realm of these two categories, abiding in both as their essence. But while in the living the divine essence exists in an active state, in the non-living the divine essence is totally dormant. It is further conceived that the latter category exists for the benefit of the former. Living beings are divided into various groups. The most spiritually developed are the celestial beings, the human race and some supernatural people. Animals, birds, insects and plants are also living but their spiritual capacity diminishes as we move down the scale. This happens not due to any inferiority of their divine essence but due to their comparative dimness in knowing their own divine core. For instance a tree s level of awareness does not allow it to have any notion of its divine essence, whereas a saint experiences a total revelation of the divine in himself. The divine essence in living beings is known as the self (atman), which can roughly be equated with the Christian concept of the soul. Each soul transmigrates through countless lives until divine intervention and spiritual wisdom release it from the cycle of life and death. Hindus believe in the theory of karma. This means that our future rebirth and the course of life depend on the quality of our deeds. Good deeds are rewarded by a good birth and bad deeds are punished with a bad birth. The quality of one s birth is determined by one s opportunities and propensity to engage in a spiritual quest for liberation from the bondage of endless rebirths. Therefore in theory the souls of a tree and a dog and a saint are basically equal; only the quality of karma` of the last is better than the others. The Arjuna Trees There are many stories recorded in ancient Indian mythology underscoring this view. For instance, once two young dwellers in Indra s heaven, demigods, stole some rare flowers from Indra s celestial garden. Indra, the king of gods, came to know this and cursed them to be born on the earth as two trees. These young godlings, who were twin brothers, piteously begged Indra to be merciful. Somewhat mollified, Indra told them that Krsna, the great incarnation of Visnu, would redeem them. Fallen from heaven, the brothers were reborn as twin Arjuna trees in a grove at Vrndavana. Many years passed and the two trees grew very tall and imposing. Then Krsna was born in Mathura. His father took him to Vrndavana and there Krsna grew up in the

2 home of Nanda and Yasoda as their foster child. The baby Krsna was very naughty and used to escape Yasoda s vigilant eyes to go for little adventures. Once Yasoda tied him to the stone mortar and was herself busy doing household chores. Krsna broke loose and went to the grove where those Arjuna trees stood. He uprooted both of them with his bare little hands. At this the two godlings stood before him in a worshipful attitude, praising him for their delivery. Krsna blessed them and bade them farewell. They thankfully worshipped Krsna and then went back to heaven. Meanwhile Yasoda discovered Krsna s absence and the broken rope with which she had tied him. Distraught with fear she started hunting for Krsna and finally found him in the grove playing near the uprooted trees. Yasoda was scared but she never knew how the trees fell. Krsna was born as a man because he needed to deliver the good and pious souls from their bondage and misery. How totally helpless a soul can be to achieve spiritual liberation is illustrated in the above story. Trees are deprived of volition so they cannot act in any way to improve their spiritual standing. Only God in his boundless grace and compassion can deliver them. Sometimes a soul is reborn as a thoroughly evil creature and would not have the mental capacity for goodness and piety until it finds itself in some impossible corner and must beg for God s mercy. The story of the kingelephant illustrates this point. The King Elephant There was a great elephant who was the leader of all elephants in his forest. He was very powerful and self-indulgent. Once he took it into his head that it would be nice to spend some time each day playing in the water of a lotus lake. In the water he indulged himself not only by destroying the lotuses, trampling and eating their stalks, but also in the process, trampling to death many water snakes. As this went on for months the snakes complained to their king and the snake king in his wrath came with a big troop of very poisonous cobras to punish the elephant. The latter was far into the lake at that time, since had destroyed all the lotuses near its banks. The cobras coiled round his four legs, pinning him to one place and then proceeded to spit venom at him. Try as he might he could not move even one limb. The desperate elephant then started abjectly praying to Visnu for deliverance. Finally, moved by the elephant s sincere devotion and repentance, Visnu appeared. At his presence the snakes at once released the elephant in order to worship Visnu. God makes no distinction amongst his devotees be they trees, animals or human beings. The point is that every living being possesses a soul which has great spiritual potency. As far as that is concerned there is absolutely no difference between the tiniest creature and the sovereign king. Harming a living creature is deemed sinful, be it a human being or any other form of life. The followers of the Jaina religion are strict

3 believers in this; not only are they vegetarians, but they also take immense care not to harm even insect life. Thus seldom do they engage in farming. The followers of the Vaisnava religion too believe in the idea of universal compassion and not harming even the smallest form of life, though they are less strict than the Jainas. God in Nature In Hinduism there is the tradition of venerating natural phenomena as divine beings. Great mountain ranges like the Himalaya, mountain peaks like the Kailasa, and the Nanda Devi, rivers like the Ganges, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Narmada etc. are worshipped as divine beings. In ancient India the river Sarasvati was considered the source of grains and wealth and finally was raised to the position of goddess of learning and the arts. The river Ganges is deemed the embodiment of sanctity. Bathing in this river is regarded as a great act of piety and religious Hindus believe that if they die on its banks and get cremated there, all their bad karma will be cancelled. Various trees are venerated too by the Hindus. The banyan tree is very sacred. This tree lives long and sends forth secondary roots from its branches, making a miniature forest by itself. Its shadow is specially welcome in the hot plains of India. Another sacred tree is the ficus religiosa. This tree became famous amongst the Buddhists too, since under it the Buddha achieved enlightenment. The tree known as Asoka is supposed to give children to women, so women worship it. Among other plants, the Indian sacred basil is worshipped because it is a favourite plant of God Visnu. According to Vaisnava mythology, this plant is a reincarnation of a milkmaid of Vrndavana who was Krsna s favourite. Similarly, God Siva s favourite plant vilva is held in high esteem. Therefore it is quite common to find a basil plant in the front yard of a pious Hindu and a vilva tree in his back garden. As the creatures in the world are ranked by the Hindus according to their relative purity of birth and food habits, the Brahmins rank the highest among men and a noble animal like an elephant may occupy a higher rank than a very impure caste which deals with carrion. Although it has its bad side in demeaning human dignity, this does demonstrate the Hindu concept of the basic equality of all souls. Even Gods are often conceived in theriomorphic forms. God Visnu has his Fish, Tortoise, Boar and the half lion/half human forms in which he appeared in this world to punish the bad and save the good. The Indian golden eagle is another sacred species. It is said to descend from the divine bird Garuda who first was identified with the god Visnu and later became this god s mount. The snake is held in high esteem. The entire created world is grounded on the divine snake god called Vasuki or Ananta, the mythological cobra of many hoods. Snakes are

4 also considered to be guardians of hidden wealth. There is a special type of snake regarded as the protector of homes and this type of snake is never killed. Childless women pray to the snake god for children, because snakes are associated with water and with fertility. Thus one can see that for a Hindu the natural world around him is in fact animated and in some ways divine. People need its goodwill and cooperation to live and prosper. When the earth turned away its face, disgusted by the tyrannical reign of a mythical king, the peoples on the earth were devastated, When the succeeding good monarch Prthu tamed the earth (concretized in the form of a cow), she agreed that he should milk her, and yielded grain and other food just as a cow yields milk. Before starting the annual cultivation, the Hindu peasant worships both the goddess of the river Ganges and the mother earth and invokes their blessings for a good harvest. The cow is worshipped as the goddess of prosperity and source of that most beneficial food, milk, which the Hindu regards as the fare of the gods. A bull symbolizes virility and is associated with the god Siva. Monkeys are held sacred as the descendants of thc Epic hero Hanuman, a monkey who embodies immense power and loyal devotion to Visnu in his Rama incarnation. In his battle with Ravana, Rama was specially helped by the monkeys and their chief Sugriva, Hanuman was one of the latter s courtiers. A lesson from Hanuman There is an amusing story in a late mythological text about the strength and wisdom of Hanuman. Bhima, the second brother of the five sons of the king Pandu, once was hastening to the heaven to bring some lovely flowers for Draupadi, the common wife of the five brothers, the heroes of the epic Mahabharata. But just at the gate of the heavenly garden Bhima met Hanuman, who was lying on the ground fast asleep. But Hanuman s enormous tail was standing erect, totally obstructing the entrance to the garden. Bhima politely requested Hanuman to move his tail aside. But the latter, feigning illness, asked Bhima to move the offending tail himself. Bhima was the wind-god s son and was supernaturally strong. But try as he might Bhima failed even to bend Hanuman s tail. At last Hanuman revealed to Bhima that he too was a son of the wind-god and hence Bhima s elder brother. Therefore Hanuman was even stronger than Bhima. Then Hanuman taught Bhima some cosmic history of the four aeons and the stupidity of Bhima s arrogance and impatient behaviour. Only then Hanuman moved his tail to allow Bhima passage into heaven. In fact all Hindus respect monkeys and feed them regularly as an act of piety. Monkeys are never seriously injured and they often infest Hindu temples and places of pilgrimage. Thus for the Hindus both humans and the rest of nature are God s creation, and their purpose is to carry out God s grand scheme, the cosmic law of karma. Karma means

5 action and only animate beings can act. Actions generate retribution, good or bad, and the actor must enjoy or suffer it in his subsequent births. In this scheme of life man and nature stand on equal ground. The only privilege of the human being is that by nature a man is more intelligent than others and thus has a better chance to grasp the pattern of cosmic ethics and act accordingly, so that he may find the path to wisdom, piety and salvation. S. Gupta Gombrich lectures in Indian religion in the University of Utrecht, Netherlands.