The Children of the Immortal: A Quest into the Hindu Identity

Index

Introduction

This book is an attempt to define who the Hindus are and what makes them Hindu.

Growing up, I looked for a book which would help me understand my Hindu identity, but I did not find it. Books on Hinduism related topics mostly explained Hindu philosophy and rituals and did not dwell upon the Hindu identity as a theme. Some made oblique references, or discussed it in the margins; and what was there was not adequate. It was a long search for me and ultimately it went beyond the books on Hinduism.

Later in life, I found myself explaining the Hindu identity to various groups of people. It would happen in India where I live, and also in countries like USA and the UK, which I visited regularly either for professional work or for seeing family and friends. The queries came from the Hindus, the younger generation in particular, as well as from the non-Hindus. I would also be asked to recommend some readings on the topic. I searched for the book again but still could not find it.

Accepting frequent suggestions, I finally decided that I would write it myself.

* * *

Those brought up in the traditions of organized religions, which include the majority of non-Hindus, perceive Hinduism to be vague and not precisely defined. It does not fit what, in their view, ought to be the rational mould of a religion. The Hindu identity, consequently, confuses and eludes them - why do the Hindus have so many gods? Why do they worship mountains, rivers, even trees, and yet discuss a formless god? What do they really believe in? And why is there no common system of worship? They wonder if there is a unifying thread that binds all Hindus. For them, a distinct Hindu identity possibly does not exist, and may not be taken for granted.

The Hindus, on the other hand, do not have any doubts as to their distinct identity.

But a lack of clarity and a sense of uncertainty nag most young Hindus who have grown up away from their roots, and educated under the Western system in the English medium, and who have generally missed out on living in a traditional Hindu society. For them, it is more a matter of asserting their self-identity than of real understanding; the questions that I have listed above bother them and they also look for satisfactory answers.

With the Indian society predominantly being Hindu, a Hindu child growing up in India comes to accept Hindu traditions as the way of life. He¹ may occasionally come across children growing up in the traditions of other religions, and he tacitly accepts them to be different. But for those living outside India, the circumstances are totally different. In USA, for instance, the Hindu child grows up amongst an overwhelming Christian majority and spots himself to be the different one. Moreover, Christianity is an organized religion with a clearly defined faith and having uniformity in religious practices, whereas Hinduism, in sharp contrast, is not so. This puts a greater burden on the Hindu child to understand and explain to himself what makes him Hindu; he faces a crisis of identity.

I am often asked the questions I have listed above, and more of them, which broadly fall under Why Hindus do or do not do certain things? Each of them is a simple query by itself, but none can be satisfied by a simple explanation; the reply always invites more questions. What is really being enquired into is the Hindu identity - what makes one Hindu?

Little work has been done in this field or is available for reference. I have pointed out earlier that the books on Hinduism cover the topic only by implication and that too, not adequately.

I try to answer these questions and explain the rationale behind the rituals and the philosophy behind the beliefs. The core of Hinduism is built on sound logical foundations. It is easily grasped by the rational minds, more so when presented in modern terminology and context. So my dialogues have generally gone well and my interactions have been fruitful.

Suggestions arose out of these interactions that I write down what I have been explaining.

* * *

While accepting the task, I was aware that the issues concerning the Hindu identity went beyond these questions and there were wider dimensions to the Hindu identity which the book ought to cover.

The modern reader, Hindu or non-Hindu, while exploring the Hindu identity, also seeks to assess how far it conforms to the values and ethics that the Western civilization highlights, and that gives rise to an altogether different set of questions. A frequently asked question is, "Does the Hindu society not assign a lower status to women and Sudras²? This question arises out of the western concept of the equality of individuals in society, which also stresses on gender equality. Another question based on the concept of free will is, Are the Hindus not fatalists who accept and justify misery and injustice as ways of life?"

A book on the Hindu identity has to examine and address these issues and concerns too. I have adopted a canvas that is broad enough to accommodate them all.

So, this book is essentially a search for the Hindu identity – what does it mean to be a Hindu? What are the attributes that identify him? The search then goes to explore how those attributes have arisen – what historical events, thoughts and philosophy crafted them? It is a wide and detailed search.

* * *

Hinduism, as it is seen today, has been molded by the evolution of the Hindu society over a long period of time that spans at least seven millennia. Much of its long history is documented and available for reference. The book explores the heritage, and the search goes through Hindu scriptures, history and other documents. It also draws from Hindu folklore, which is very much a living tradition.

The search points out that Hinduism, unlike other major religions - Christianity, Islam or Buddhism - does not present any convergence of faith on a central icon or uniformity of religious practices. The Hindus do not have compulsions of any ritualistic worship, or acceptance of a central religious authority - temporal or divine. As a result, there is no visible thread of identity running through the Hindus, but let me hasten to add that the issue is with visibility, not with the absence of unifying beliefs.

The Hindu identity runs deeper and wider. There are underlying core beliefs to which all Hindus subscribe and submit. These obviously are not apparent and visible to outsiders. On the other hand, what are visible, let us call them identifying features, are not universal and not reflected in each individual; the features though are uniquely Hindu: may be a practice of wearing ash marks on the forehead or a string of ‘Tulsi’ seeds around the neck; devotion to a particular god; allegiance to certain streams of philosophy etc. In fact, there are too many of them and, to make matters worse, some appear overlapping or even contradictory. To link or correlate each to a central theme is not possible and such an attempt would be futile, but it is possible to organize them into a few distinct groups or categories; putting them in different folders, so to say. And these folders are interlinked and constitute different facets of Hinduism: the unity of Hinduism lies there, and beyond that.

* * *

This book presents the exploration and its outcome in six chapters. It takes the reader through the evolution of the Hindu identity from the very early years to the modern times.

The First Chapter titled ‘The Hindu and his Dharma’ begins with the search for visible symbols or attributes of the Hindu identity. The search, though not very fruitful, takes the reader to the concept of Dharma, and that gives him the first glimpse of what he has been looking for.

Dharma is the basic belief and foundation of Hinduism. And what is more significant is that Dharma demands to be translated into living, and it has to be lived. A firm belief in the concept of Dharma, and the observance of Dharma in all activities, is at the root of the Hindu identity.

And there are other beliefs too - the Law of Karma, the immortal soul, reincarnation and the ultimate goal of human life- which are just as important. The First Chapter, in its latter part, presents and discusses these beliefs.

The Second Chapter ’The Reference Books: scriptures and other base texts’, traces scriptures and other ancient books of the Hindus that describe their history, mythology, philosophy, society etc. They contain the answers to the queries.

Among the base texts, the Vedas, the Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata have a more pronounced influence on the Hindu culture which is clearly visible. I have included brief contents of these texts in this chapter to let the reader know what these books are about, so as to remove the fog that surrounds them. There shall be reasons to refer to these texts and to recall specific passages during later discussions.

Chapter Three, ‘The Hindu Worldview’, presents what may be called the quintessential Hindu perspective of life - how he sees and perceives the phenomenon of existence, the world at large and the place and role of the individual in it.

It includes a discussion on the Hindu society, which has a rather complex structure on account of its caste system, and how it has influenced the Hindu concept of inter-personal relationships. It also presents the Hindu view on how the endeavors of life should be organized, and what should be the norms of personal conduct. The overall impact of the world view has much say on the Hindu identity, possibly as much as those of basic beliefs.

Perception of divinity is another unique feature of Hinduism. Religions generally believe in God, and so does Hinduism. But what sets the Hindus apart is that the Hindu gods have a living presence in his life; a Hindu literally lives amongst them. Chapter Four titled ‘Living with Divinity: the Hindu God family’ presents the Hindu gods. The gods are numerous and the pantheon of gods has not been static; it has continued to evolve from the Vedic times.

The chapter also contains a brief sketch of each of the popular gods; how their persona is visualized by the masses. In his insistence on living with the divine family, the Hindu needed to define his relationship with the gods and that is interlinked to the persona of the gods. The chapter explores the myriad relationships between the Hindu and his gods, and the distinct and visible imprints that they have left on his identity.

The Hindus have pursued the quest of reality as they pursued nothing else, ‘What is that knowing which nothing else remains to be known’³. They did succeed in discovering a lot and that is their most valuable contribution to world civilization.

It is their philosophy, more than anything else that defines the Hindus. Philosophy for them is for living, not for musing or contemplation alone. Hindus have even identified themselves with the stream of philosophy that they followed, and such groups later consolidated as a distinct sub–caste in the Hindu caste system.

‘Hindu Philosophy’ is the theme of Chapter Five. The chapter presents the main streams of Hindu Philosophy - Vedanta, Yoga, Samkhya, Mimamsa, Vaisheshika and Nyaya and Tantra - and discusses how each has added to the Hindu identity.

The Hindus had lived in virtual isolation from the outside world during the first six millennia of their history, facilitated by India’s unique geographical location. They rarely experienced outside influences. What the book has explored in the five chapters relates to this period and thus brings out the identity that the Hindus created for themselves, through their own perception and thinking.

The last millennium changed it. The country was invaded by outsiders who ruled over large parts of it for a long time. There were major and violent intrusions on the Hindu society and its religion and culture. The followers of Islam, called Muslims, were the first to arrive. They destroyed Hindu temples and centres of learning and began converting Hindus to Islam by force. They were followed by the Europeans who arrived as traders, but gradually fought for political dominance; and ultimately the British replaced the Muslim rulers. They too promoted conversions of the Hindus to their religion, - Christianity.

But contact with the Europeans had another dimension too, one that was positive; it exposed the Hindus to the Western Civilization. The British rule introduced the English language and the Western system of education in India - this opened the door to the knowledge that had developed in the West. The exposure had a significant impact and it led to a gradual transformation of the Hindu society.

Chapter Six titled ’The Making of the Contemporary Hindu’, describes the external influences on the Hindu society. It begins with the interactions of the Hindu society with Jainism and Buddhism, which has not been analyzed so far, and then goes to describe the events of the second millennium and the changes those forced on the Hindu society.

The chapter later describes how the society worked for its revival and moved on to the path of modernity. The monumental work done by the social reformers (Ram Mohan Roy, Dayananda and Vivekananda) and the political leaders (Tilak and Gandhi) has been discussed in detail. The last three hundred years were very eventful and redefined the Hindu identity significantly

* * *

While on its quest to discover the Hindu identity, the book explores Hinduism in depth and covers a lot of ground, but the exploration is selective; it confines itself, in coverage as well as in presentation, to what is relevant to the Hindu identity, but includes what is essential. The expositions on the Hindu God family and Hindu Philosophy in the chapters four and five for instance may appear too detailed, but it was essential to present them to demonstrate how some of the attributes of the Hindu identity had arisen.

This book is not about Hinduism, which would be another theme and a much wider one at that: it is about the Hindu identity and is focused on what identifies a Hindu and, equally importantly, what a Hindu identifies himself with. How the book makes the distinction between Hinduism and the Hindu identity may require an explanation.

I shall do so by making references to the Ramayana, the epic written in Sanskrit by Sage Valmiki, and to its protagonist, Rama. These two, arguably, are the most prominent icons of Hinduism today. While this book narrates the story of the Ramayana in Chapter Two, and returns to it again and again, it does not discuss questions like: when was the Ramayana written? Was it composed by Valmiki alone, or did others also contribute to it? Was Rama a historical figure, a mortal who was subsequently deified? Are there evidences, archaeological or others, to support the story? Is modern day Sri Lanka the island where Sita (Rama’s wife) was kept in captivity? This book leaves these questions for the scholars of Hinduism; these do not concern the Hindu identity.

The Hindus accept Valmiki’s Ramayana, and all the other Ramayanas composed in various Indian languages, as a narration of their history, differences in these texts notwithstanding. They also accept Rama as an incarnation of god. So, in this book, Rama is the ever shining model whom the Hindus emulate and revere as they have done throughout the ages. His is a living presence. In North India, even today a Hindu may greet another uttering ‘Rama, Rama’ and be acknowledged by the other also saying ‘Rama, Rama’. The Ramayana and Rama shape the Hindu identity considerably and that alone is relevant to this book.

* * *

This book is essentially for the general reader and is not a scholarly book, so I have avoided polemics. On issues where scholars have divergent views, the book presents the common or the most widely accepted view, and I have made no attempt to join any viewpoints on the issues. No lengthy excerpts or quotations appear in the book; references have been kept to the very minimum.

Quotations from Sanskrit texts are given in their English translation only and references to the original have been given in the footnotes. A few popular quotations though, usually one liners, have been quoted in Sanskrit also, because those are familiar, and commonly appear in writings, even in conversations. I have adopted this approach to avoid losing focus on the theme of the book and to maintain fluid readability.

The subject matter being what it is, the book could not have escaped complex and dense concepts; in fact, there are several of them. I have often taken recourse to storytelling to explain them. Storytelling is an ancient Hindu tradition. My sources of stories are the reference books, which have been presented in Chapter two and the Mahabharata, in particular, and folklore.

In treatment of the theme, the Hindu point of view has been highlighted and given prominence; the objective is to keep the focus on the Hindus’ own traditions and present an insider’s view; how does the Hindu perceive his own identity? I have accordingly depended on original texts in Sanskrit, with translations and commentaries in Hindi or English. These, supplemented by the original works of Hindu thinkers and philosophers, form my primary source material.

Literature, being a mirror on the society, brings out its thinking and customs very truthfully. The literature in Sanskrit and other Indian languages have, for this reason, been another valuable source of material for the book.

The exploration also draws from Hindu folklore and current traditions. These are not fully compiled or recorded in print, and moreover, these are evolving all the time. The book describes how even new gods have emerged through folk perception.

The work done by the Western scholars on Hinduism, most of which is available in the English language, is considerable and exhaustive. It is valuable for any modern reader because it presents concepts and facts in modern perspective and familiar terminology. I have liberally drawn from these sources.

Here, I would like to make amends for what I had earlier commented - on the vague impressions that a non-Hindu in the Western world may carry about Hinduism. It is a general comment and does not refer to the Western society as a whole. The contribution of the West, on the other hand, in presenting Hinduism before the world, and in bringing out its essence through research and analysis, is monumental and gratefully acknowledged by the Hindus: it, in fact, helped the Hindus to rediscover their past.

And finally, I have depended on what I saw and experienced while growing up as a Hindu in India.

* * *

The book has gone beyond the questions that were asked. But it is only natural. The questions were specific and together, they touched on several facets of the Hindu identity, but not all of them. Answering the questions necessarily required an overall view, and it was my task to present the complete foundation on which the Hindu identity rests. Otherwise some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle would be missing and the full picture would not emerge; the explanations would remain incomplete. So I have tried to fill the gaps.

It is my hope that the book would be able to define the Hindu identity satisfactorily and would answer all related queries.

Those having a deeper interest in Hinduism may also find the book useful, maybe as a primer available for ready reference. But they, of course, need to undertake a longer journey.

* * *

Chapter One

The Hindu and his Dharma

Who Hindus are

May all the sons of the Immortal listen

Even those who have reached their heavenly abode.⁴

These lines from Yajur Veda, one of the holiest books of the Hindus, were written more than three thousand years ago. The sage, who composed it, gives a call to all human beings; he calls them sons of the immortal and, and to emphasize the point further, he includes even those who have died and gone to heaven.

The Hindus believe they are made of immortal stuff. Who are they?

The world has known them as Hindus, but it was not a name they gave themselves. They called themselves ‘Arya’. The word ‘Hindu’ appeared nowhere in their Scriptures or literature; it found a mention for the first time in their country, India, only about seven hundred years ago. So we begin our narration by calling them Arya, (‘Aryan’ in English).

It was their westerly neighbors, living in Persia (modern Iran), who coined the word ‘Hindu’ to point out that Hindus were the people living on the banks of the river, Sindhu. In fact, the Persians pronounced the word ’Sindhu’ as ‘Hindu’. As the western world came to know the Aryans through their neighbors, it adopted their terminology, and the name has stuck.

The name Arya meant much to them. Being Arya was their history; it was their civilization and their culture. They took great pride in being Arya and the values it stood for. Being Arya indicated one who was noble and worthy of its great tradition. They addressed their elders and superiors as Arya; one would address one’s teacher or elder brother as Arya. A son would address his father as Arya. The mother or an older woman was addressed as Aryaa. A woman would address her husband as Aryaputra (son of Arya).

The word ‘Arya’, used as an adjective, denoted ‘noble’. Buddha, who was born an Arya about five hundred years before the beginning of the Common Era, had used it to underscore the significance of the fundamental principles of his path. He discovered a different path for himself and taught it to others, the path which later came to known as Buddhism. He called the great truths that he had discovered the ‘Arya Satya’ or the noble truths, and the path that he preached, the ‘Arya Astang Path’, or the noble eightfold path.

Anarya (non-Aryan) stood for the opposite and referred to non-Aryan tribes; when used as an adjective, it meant ‘not noble’, a qualification to be avoided in deeds and thoughts.

The Aryas called the land where they lived ‘Aryavarta’, which means land of the Aryas. Later, it was also called Bharatvarsha after the name of an illustrious king, Bharata.

The term ‘Hindu’ was introduced in India by the Muslims, who arrived there towards the end of the first millennium of the Common Era. They used this word to designate the inhabitants of the country. It appeared in writing for the first time in the fourteenth century in an official document of a Muslim kingdom that ruled over parts of what is now the state of Andhra Pradesh⁵. The name slowly gained currency. Its usage in literature during the later period confirms its acceptance.

The British, who arrived subsequently, also called them Hindu, often spelling it as ‘Hindoo’. They introduced their system of education in India, with the English language as the medium of education. It was during the British rule, and through the English language, that Hindus were introduced to the western world which, in turn, was exposed to Hindu history, culture and philosophy. Consequently, the western world also came to know them as ‘Hindus’. By this time, their identification with the term ‘Hindu’ was complete. But the link to the Sindhu River was not lost in the English language; the Sindhu River was called Indus and the country India. The word ‘Indus’ came from ‘Indos’, the name given by the Greek to the river.

Acceptance of ‘Hindu’ as a name was, however, passive at best; there was opposition and reluctance which has continued on to modern times. One occasionally comes across views that adoption of the term ‘Hindu’ was a fall from the Aryan traditions, resulting in the degradation of Aryan values.

Nostalgia for Aryan identity never really vanished. Social reform movements in India have, from time to time, tried to revive it. An example is the ‘Arya Samaj’ movement started by Swami Dayananda in the nineteenth century. The movement worked for the revival of ‘Aryan’ traditions and thoughts. Followers of the Arya Samaj movement call themselves Arya and adopt the ancient Vedic approach towards rituals and worship. Ceremonies associated with marriage and deaths are illustrative examples where Arya Samaj rituals are clearly simpler and shorter in duration because they are based only on the Vedic mantras. The Arya Samaj movement made a deep impact on the society and introduced many reforms.

Hindus, in general, respect their Aryan identity and recall it with pride whenever there is an occasion. Even today, at the onset of any formal worship, a Hindu takes a pledge to go through the process and complete it; he says, among other things, that he is performing the worship in Aryavarta.

Historians are not unanimous in their views whether the Indian subcontinent is the original habitat of the Hindus or whether they migrated from elsewhere. While some believe they had originally lived in Central Asia and slowly moved south, reaching India through Persia (modern Iran), others consider India to be their original habitat. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the well-known political leader and Indian scholar of the nineteenth-twentieth century, held an entirely different view. He believed that the Arctic was where the Aryas had lived. And with the advent of the Ice Age, around 8000 BCE, they had migrated south and eventually came to India⁶. Hindus, on the other hand, have believed India to be their original home. This belief receives corroboration from the fact that they had lived there throughout the recorded history; also all their Scriptures were composed there.

The first noticeable migration of the Hindus out of India took place during the second or the third century, before the beginning of the Common Era, when they travelled to the Java and Sumatra islands (modern Indonesia) in South East Asia. They went mostly from South India, looking for trade and for making settlements. They carried their religion and culture with them. Buddhism arrived almost simultaneously and the whole region soon adopted either Hinduism or Buddhism. Many Hindu Kingdoms were established, mostly by local people, in present day Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand besides, of course, Indonesia. Hindu civilization thrived in South East Asia till about the end of the fifteenth century. The Hindu temple complex at Angkor Vat in Cambodia, the largest temple complex in the world, bears testimony to Hinduism’s sustained presence.

Today South East Asia is primarily Buddhist and Muslim; only the Bali Island in Indonesia remains almost totally Hindu. But Hindu temples and relics, as well as Hindu influences on the culture, are found all over the region. The story of the Hindu god, Rama, is very popular in all these countries and Ram Lila, a dance drama based on Rama’s life, is performed with an enthusiasm that borders on devotion.

Trade took the Hindus to the other countries of Asia and coastal Africa too, but they went in small numbers and made no significant settlements.

Large scale migration of Hindus to the other parts of the world took place in the nineteenth century. The British, who ruled India at that time, lured and coerced poor and uneducated Hindus to distant British colonies, to work as indentured laborers. Mauritius, in Africa, was the first country where they were sent, after which they went and populated several other countries, such as Fiji in the Pacific and Guyana and the Indies in the Americas. The forced migration continued for the rest of the nineteenth century and also extended to lands colonized by other imperial powers, namely the French and the Dutch, to Surinam, for example, which was a Dutch colony. The last batch of indentured labor went to the West Indies in 1916.

They were followed by smaller groups, who were neither necessarily poor nor without education, but chose to go out to look for trade and other prospects. Many landed in the UK, USA and Canada but a sizable number from the western coast of India preferred to settle in Africa.

After India gained independence in 1947, the number of Hindus going to developed countries in the West gradually increased. They went seeking better educational, more lucrative employment and professional opportunities. They settled in many parts of the world, the largest number choosing the UK and USA.

Thus came into being the Hindu Diaspora, with the scattering of the Hindus all over the globe.

A Hindu, and his way of life are no longer unfamiliar to the world. Living outside India, he tries to live the way he had lived in India. He eats his own style of food, often with an emphasis on vegetarianism; so he establishes his own grocery stores and eating places. This is interesting because the majority of Hindus in India are not vegetarians. He likes to pray in Hindu temples, so he constructs them wherever possible. He values his customs and likes to celebrate his festivals with enthusiasm.

Like any other ethnic or religious group living in a minority away from its homeland, the Hindus like to distinguish themselves by taking their traditions seriously. The descendants of the first Hindus who went out as indentured laborers, nearly two hundred years back, still follow the customs of their forefathers and perform rituals as their ancestors had done when they first settled on foreign shores.

Defining the Hindu

Hindu, thus, was