Most westerners brush aside Hinduism as a polytheistic religion with idol worship at its core.
People of Abrahamic religions pride themselves as practitioners of monotheistic faith. That they feel, makes their faith superior to ‘the rest of the Pagan’ faith systems.
If you have followed my previous posts and or many of my earlier posts, you will agree that monotheism is not some prerogative of the Abrahamic religions.
Whether it is the Mazdeism of the ancient Iranians or the Vedic system of the ancient Indians, there was always an undercurrent of monotheism. The problem is that the Ahuras of Mazdeism and the Devas of the Vedas were mistakenly taken as Gods. But they were not. Neither Mazdeism nor the Vedic religion attributes creation of the world to these Ahuras and Devas. So, they are not the Gods as understood by the Abrahamic religions.
The most ancient of Indian texts namely the Upanishads, talk about one and only God which they call as Sat or Brahma or Atma. Even the ritual parts of the Vedas, hint that the so-called Devas are just different forms of the one and only God or Brahma.
indraM mitraM varuNaM agnimAhuHu
atho divyaH sa suparNo garutmAn
ekam sadviprA bahudhA vadanti
agniM yamaM mAtarisvAnamAhuHu
That means
Whether it is Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni or even the golden winged Garutman, all of them are nothing but Sat. The same Sat is referred variously as Agni, Yama or Maatarisva by Vipra - the people who perform the Vedic rituals.
-- Rigveda 1:164:46
Upanishads even go to the extent of saying that whatever exists in this world is a form of the very same Brahma. That is monotheism to the extreme 😉
When I expressed these facts, of course with references, in one of my books namely “Ancient wisdom – Modern viewpoints”, one reader commented that my book was “un-informed”. He could not digest the fact that the so called polytheistic Indian religions can be monotheistic at the core 😉
But the Hindus today, who trace their faith to the ancient Vedas and Upanishads, are glaringly polytheistic. In some of the Hindu temples that I visited in US, I could not only see several statues of Gods, but also name plates describing the relation between these Gods as if they were a family of Gods! “This is Shiva, and this is Shiva’s wife Parvati…” and so on 😉 There are also religious scriptures called Puranas which declare each of these deities as the creators of this world making them Gods in the true sense!
If you ask a typical Hindu, he would confidently tell you that ‘all Gods are one’. But in spite of saying that, each Hindu has a favorite God and he differentiates that from other Gods. Some even visit shrines of specific Gods on specific day of the week, as part of their religious practice.
Even the same God may have more than one temple in almost the same locality. The God in one of these temples is considered to be more ‘jaagrta’ or responsive as compared to the same God in other nearby temples! Some would prefer to visit a specific temple even when the same God is worshipped in other temples.
The fact is that unlike the Abrahamic religions, Hinduism is not derived from one or a small group of prophets who could commune directly with the God. Nor is it based on any single book! It is something that grew over a long period of time and in more or less democratic way without any centralized authority, be it God or a prophet.
India was known for freedom of expression. People with rivalling points of view coexisted without forcing individual views on one another. Diversity, and not homogeneity, was celebrated as a virtue. Differences were sorted out through debates and not at the point of sword. Ancient India saw minimum aggression in the name of faith, though there were always differing views.
All these are fantastic in a way. But sometimes too much of openness gives rise to chaotic conditions. There were attempts to reform Hinduism at different times of history by different great thinkers. Guru Nanak founded the Sikhism, Maharshi Dayanand brought his Arya Samaj, Basavanna propagated SharaNa Parampara, each within the framework of Vedic Hinduism, ironing out the lacunae that had crept in over a period of time. Most recent attempt may be that of ISKCON started by Prabhupada.
Probably, idol worship and the concept of temples did not exist before the time of Buddha. The most ancient temples that exist in India today have no specific idols, nor well defined ritual practices.
Many of the current practices started hardly a millennium ago. Though there are temples attributed to the Advaitic philosopher Sankara in many parts of India, it is not clear whether it was the same Sankara who installed them. The problem is that all the descendants of Sankara are also called Sankara in the Indian tradition!
In southern parts of India where temple worship is more systematized, worship is governed by Agama rules. Agamas are texts that elaborate temple rituals. Though traditionals assign great antiquity to these texts, it is likely that they were composed post Sankara when temple worships were gaining popularity and when there was a resurgence of Hinduism post Buddhist era.
These practices have a more devotional touch, with a personified God at the center. The idol in a temple is seen as an Arcaavataar – an avatar of God in the form of an idol, for the sake of worship. Elaborate procedures were developed to do PraaNapratiShta – installing the power of God in the idol. The consecrated idol is treated as the real presence of God for all practical purposes. An idol without consecration is just treated as an idol – a mere symbol.
These changes brought the religion closer to the common man. He could easily relate to a concrete form rather than the abstract notion of God in the Upanishads.
So, what we see today as Hinduism, is a faith system that has gone through several phases of transformation. What is interesting is that each transformation was not dictated by any one superhuman, but it was accumulation of various pre-existing ideas remolded to suite the changed times.
But as I said, too much of openness has its own problems. It could lead to proliferation of mechanical rituals rather than focused practice. It could also lead to rivalry among different practitioners, each claiming superiority of his version of God and faith. This applies to almost any religion and not just Hinduism.
I always toyed with the idea of ‘democratizing’ the religion. Instead of fighting over ‘my religion’ vs ‘your religion’, how nice it would be if we could pick good things from all world religions and put them together as ‘the religion’.
A group of specially elected representatives can sit together and formulate a religious book much like our democratic constitution, picking good things from every other religion of the world. This book should be amenable to changes depending on the needs of the time, of course through a democratic process much like the constitutional changes, keeping it in sync with the needs of the people at large.
Well, like any democratic setup, success of such a system depends very much on the maturity of the people at large. Or else, it could be misused like our current political systems. So, constant education of the masses is a must to make the system self-governing.
I hope such a system would evolve someday, before we ruin ourselves in the name of religions, in the name of God. Amen 😉
No comments:
Post a Comment