How to Tell Hinduism to Your Child? K. Aravinda Rao Download PDF here
Contents
1. Need for the Book.05
2. Who are Hindus?.09
3. Religion - A Set of Beliefs.13
4. Hinduism - Evolved from a Philosophical
Base.16
5. The Sacred Texts of Hindus.20
6. Introducing the Idea of God.26
7. How did Universe Come About?.30
8. Man and Creator from the Absolute Point of
View.35
9. Who am I?.44
10. Why do We Worship Several Gods?.52
11. Gods and Demons.59
12. Do We Worship Idols?.69
13. Enjoy Your Temple Visit.73
14. Are We Asked to Work Without Desiring the
Fruit?.. 77
15. Does Hinduism Advocate Fatalism?.82
16. Are We a Caste Bound Society?.85
17. The Four Human Goals.94
18. Bhagavad Gita.102
19. Yoga.112
20. Customs and Beliefs.116
21. To Sum Up.120
22. A Word on Sanskrit.124
23. A Word to Parents.132
Need for the Book
1. Need for the Book
1.1. Globalized
Children
I write this book for the parents of today’s
globalized children. Students of higher classes can read it on their own. The subject
is old but it has to be told in modern terms.
Perhaps, about fifty years ago, this book was
not quite necessary, particularly as we grew up in rural India. We were credulous
children, never doubting anything that our parents or grandparents told about
gods, heaven, hell and all such stuff.
We celebrated all festivals joyously and
boisterously, worshiping which ever was the deity concerned. We would worship
Sri Rama on the day of Rama Navami, worship the mighty god Shiva on the night
of Shiva Ratri or goddess Durga on the day of Durgashtami. It never occurred to
us to question why we had different gods and goddesses. We were willing to
believe and admire when we were told about the demons slain by Rama or Krishna
or Durga. Our childish curiosity was only about which god was more powerful -
Whether it is Hanuman or Rama. Whatever answer was given by our elders was
quite alright for us.
Social change has brought about a great
disconnect with the traditional life style, the rituals and festivals
associated with them. Our school education is not giving any exposure to the
child about religion and parents too are isolated in a working environment. The
modern child in India grows in an economically competitive environment without
any idea about cultural heritage.
This may appear good, because a child will grow
up with a scientific, questioning spirit. But as we see around, religion has become
a globalized subject like all other aspects of human life and the other
religions are seen marketing their religions in an intelligent but aggressive
way This is done at the community level by people who go about telling about
their religion, at the level of media through debates questioning several
traditional festivals, at the level of films by ridiculing Hindu manners and in
a number of other ways. A modern child is unwittingly exposed to all this and
he starts doubting whatever little religion he sees at home. There are
questions about why we have several gods, as to whether we worship idols and so
on. It is a testing time for the parents. They have to update themselves if
they have to answer their kids.
1.2.
Competing Religions
It is also an unfortunate development that the
secular nations of the west are turning to be active defenders and propagators of
their religion. This is the result of the conflict between two dominant
religions of the world. Sociologists observe that while the 20th century was
the century of secularism, the 21st century is emerging as the century of
religious revival. The twentieth century saw communism, Maoism, rivalry between
communism and capitalism and such ideological issues. This scene has changed
and we now see religious extremism and civil wars between religious groups in
several countries.
Indian children growing abroad do face strange
troubles. Schools abroad do give some introduction to major world religions,
including Hinduism. While other religions can be easily understood and
explained in a simple way, Hinduism is found to be difficult because of several
religious texts and several traditions of worship. As such, it is likely to be
improperly explained. Children sometimes get totally negative impressions by
such presentations and sometimes get depressed because of ridicule from peer
groups. The parents at home are ill-equipped to handle such challenges.
1.3. Two
Types of Questions
There can be two types of questions on Hinduism.
There are primary questions like - ‘why do we worship several gods?’, ‘are we
idol worshippers?’, ‘are we asked to do work without expecting the fruit of it?’,
‘is everything destined by our karma?’ and such type.
There can be secondary questions like - ‘what is
the significance of Vermillion or tilak on the forehead?’ ‘what do we do harati
or circumambulation in a temple?’, ‘what is the significance of the sacred
thread?’ and such type.
1.4. In
This Book
In this book I have tried to answer the
questions of first type, which are more fundamental and important. The first
type can be answered only if we understand the basic philosophy of the
Upanishads. The latter type is related to religious practice.
Hence a few chapters on philosophy have become
inevitable and I apologize to the readers for the difficulty caused. They have to
be digested slowly. I will present the basic facts based on the primary texts -
the Vedas, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. This would cover the
philosophical queries.
All other books such as purana-s, Mahabharata
and Ramayana are secondary texts, based on the philosophy of the primary texts.
These relate to religious practices, rituals, festivals and ethical life. I
have also explained certain social issues like caste and untouchability.
You may not straight away start teaching the
contents of the book, but may wait for the query from your child. The children are
bound to ask the questions discussed in this book. It will be good to tell them
when they do ask about it.
I have used the IAST transliteration key for the
Sanskrit terms, for parents who have some idea about it. It is my request to
parents that they may get the pronunciation right or skip the Sanskrit lines if
they so wish.
* * *
2. Who are Hindus?
2.1. Our
Name and Spread
A commonly accepted derivation for the word
‘Hindu’ is like this. The ancient Persians, in their texts, referred to the
river Sindhu as ‘Hindu, as it was their way of pronouncing the sound ‘s’. They
also referred to the people who lived around the river as Hindus. This name was
adopted by various others who came to India either as invaders or visitors and
the name got attached to us. This word is not in the Vedas or major purana-s.
Some scholars do say that the word ‘Hindu’ is found in the puranas and also
give a derivation, but this is debated.
It is estimated that nearly one-seventh of the
world’s population are Hindus, who are followers of the most ancient religion
alive today. It is the fourth largest religion in the world after Christianity,
Islam and Buddhism. Both Buddhism and Hinduism originated in India, but
Buddhism spread to China and other South Asian countries, while Hinduism is now
mostly confined to India, though at one time it had spread to other countries
too.
2.2.
Sanatana Dharma
The real word for Hinduism is ‘sanatana dharma.
This was the word used to denote the religion and culture before the British popularized the word ‘Hindu’.
‘Sanatana’ is that which is permanent in nature and dharma’ is that which holds
the society together. It means the code of conduct which holds for all times for
social harmony and integration. Religion and religious rituals were part and
parcel of this dharma.
Sometimes it is said that Hinduism is not a
religion but a way of life. It means that Hinduism is not like other religions.
In other religions, there is only one book and one belief system about god,
heaven and the devil. Hinduism has a number of belief systems under the
umbrella of one single philosophy, as we shall see in great detail.
If you look at the map of the present day India,
Himalayas are in the north-east, bordering China. Pakistan is on the
north¬west. At the time of origin of what we call Hinduism, the name of the
country was ‘Bharata-varsha’, covering areas right up to the present day
Afghanistan on the north-west and up to Myanmar in the east. The sister of the
King of Kandahar (Gandhara) was the grand old lady Gandhari, the mother of the
hundred Kauravas whom we see in the great Indian epic Mahabharata. All this
land from Afghanistan to Kerala was the land of sanatana dharma. We had very
friendly relationship with another mighty empire of olden days, that is, China.
A large contingent of Chinese soldiers, a golden sea of people, fought on the
side of the Kauravas in the epic battle of Mahabharata.
2.3.
Cultural Unity of India
Historically, the whole of Indian continent was
one cultural unit. All our prayers and rituals show this. See our daily prayer:
garige ca yamune caiva godavari sarasvati.
narmade sindhu kaveri jalesmin sannidhimkuru ..
This is recited by all those who do their daily
prayers anywhere in the country It is an invocation to all the rivers of the country
invoking their holy waters into the chalice. The prayers also refer to the
whole of Bharata-varsha. We do pilgrimage to the twelve famous shrines of Shiva
(Jyotirlingas), the eighteen shrines of Shakti (sakti-pithas) wherever we may reside.
Even an unlettered Indian, located anywhere in the country, would owe
allegiance to all these shrines, which have become part of the Indian psyche.
One has to listen to the mahasankalpam (a long hymn to our mother land) which
is recited at the time of marriage, in order to understand the glorious vision
of our country.
Mahabharata and Ramayana contain several
descriptions of the geography of Bharata-varsha, as it was then called. There are
details of several small kingdoms and their geographical details. Mahabharata
describes the kings who took part on behalf of Kauravas or Pandavas in the war.
Sanskrit abounds in such description of kingdoms. All these underline the
cultural oneness of India.
The cultural unity of all tribes with the
mainstream population has also to be noted. The great epic Mahabharata describes
how the five exiled princes stayed with the tribes and took their help while
staying in the forest. Yudhishtira sends them as spies to observe the
governance by Duryodhana. Similarly, Ramayana describes how the chiefs of
several tribes were invited on the eve of proposed coronation of Rama. Later,
when Rama was in exile, he moved with the chiefs of tribes and took their help.
There is a famous episode in which Rama held discussion on dharma with Sabari,
a tribe’s woman. All this shows that the tribes were an integral part of Indian
culture.
Prof. Stephen Knapp notes how Indian culture
spread to several East-Asian countries because of its sheer greatness of culture
and not by military might. Extensive research has been done by him about how
merchants were responsible for the spread of Hinduism in Cambodia, Thailand,
Malaysia and such countries. The languages and diction of these countries bear testimony
to the cultural connections.
Parents
may see: • See “Proof of Vedic
Culture’s Global Existence” and other books by Stephen Knapp
3 Religion
- A Set of Beliefs
3.1. Social Need : We see two aspects in any
religion. The first is the usefulness of religion in bringing about social
harmony and compliance to a moral code. The very word religion is from a Latin
root ‘ligare’, to bind. It binds people to certain common norms. This is what is
called the utilitarian view.
The second is about the content of teaching. We
have to see as to what is the degree of truth or probability in various things told
by religion, and how far is it compatible with the rational thinking and the
scientific world view. If what religion tells is like a school boy’s tale, the
school boys of today are unwilling to suspend their reason.
Some refute the utilitarian view and argue that
religion is also the cause for great massacres and genocides on earth. Glaring examples
can be seen if we look into the history of genocide. There are also claims of
superiority of one religion over the other. These claims can never be settled.
They were only settled by wars, conquests and conversions. This book does not
discuss these.
3.2.
Religion: A Set of Beliefs or Postulations
I hope you will not dispute that no one has seen
either heaven or hell and come back to us to tell what it is. We have to admit
that any religion, as we see now, is structured round a set of beliefs -
beliefs regarding creation of the universe by God, about heaven which is the
God’s abode and where good people go after death, about hell where the bad
folks go and suffer for their bad deeds. Such beliefs existed all over the
world and different religions visualized their own God forms, their own versions
of heaven and hell, and their own norms about good or bad in society.
A majority of people take the belief system as
the absolute truth and even now they do. This gives a lot of importance to the
religious structure and the people in charge of that structure. Votaries of
religion have always held that religion instills good values, social discipline
and order. Religion served the purpose of binding the society as a culturally
homogenous unit.
3.3. Philosophy versus Religion
Throughout history, there have been a lot many
people who questioned such belief system. No one has seen God or heaven or hell
but the books so solidly talk about these things. Hence, the non-believers or
atheists had their own postulations about creation and about the human beings
role in the universe.
We assume that scientific spirit is a product of
modern times. It is not so. Logical thinking is as old as human mind. The
ancient Indians (Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and others) had developed elaborate
systems of logic. So did the Greeks, Romans and others. These thinkers were
called philosophers, the lovers of truth. But quite often, the philosophical
thought had nothing to do with religious structure. People of religion talked
of a personal god in all grandeur while the philosophers tried to reason out
and postulate. We can notice this among the western philosophers who,
sometimes, talk almost on the same lines as the Upanishads but they were like
rebels, and some were excommunicated by the clergy. Religion and philosophy
were on a course of clash.
3.4. Two
Levels of Truth
The Vedas talked of two levels of truth, one
called para, the supreme level and the other was called apara, the lower level.
The higher level corresponds to philosophy and the lower level to religion.
Indian sages examined the human mind and senses,
the way they cognize the universe, the limitations of such cognitions and the
nature of Supreme Reality. We find that the sages (we call them rsi-s in
Sanskrit) who gave Upanishads used elaborate reasoning in trying to know what
is the ultimate reality, or God, as we call. They also realized that religion
is a social need and that only a tiny minority indulges in philosophical quest.
Hence the sages endorsed religion at the level of the common man in the early
portions of Vedas and discussed philosophical issues toward the end of the
Vedas. The belief system relating to rituals was accepted as a lower level of
truth while the philosophical inquiry was regarded as the absolute level of
truth. Hence we find stories of gods, demons and rituals at one level, and
about human mind and its intricacies at another.
A distinct feature of these stories is that they
are symbolic or allegorical tales, conveying the Vedic teaching to the common man.
We shall see this in good detail in the forthcoming chapters.
* * *
4 Hinduism
- Evolved from a Philosophical Base
What distinguishes the Vedanta philosophy from
all other philosophies is that it is at the same time a religion and a philosophy.
-Max Muller
4.1. Our
Interface with Religion
When we go to a temple we have the priest
chanting some prayers, breaking a coconut which we offer and giving us some delicious
snack which was earlier offered to the god. The priest chants prayers which are
composed in Sanskrit which most of us do not know. (Sanskrit was once known to
everyone in society and hence the prayers were in Sanskrit). We go to different
temples and see priests chanting different prayers. We do not know what the
prayers mean but we have a good feeling of listening to some awe-inspiring
sounds and an impressive ritual. We hardly realize that the prayers contain
deep philosophical ideas.
Religion can be presented in two ways.
1) It can be told as a myth about the God, the
demons (Satan, as called in western religions), heaven, hell and related structures.
The god has given some commandments and one
has to obey. This will satisfy an innocent believer.
2) Religion can be an honest enquiry about the
nature of Supreme Being. We have to keep in mind that it is the man who is
trying to know what is god. For that we have to know how far our instruments of
knowledge are useful. The instruments we have are the five senses and the mind
which coordinates them. Someone who wants to propose a religion has to keep
this in mind and postulate an idea of god, demons, heaven and hell.
If we look at the world religions, a majority of
them fall under the first category. Religions have a sacred book which is said
to contain the word of god. All people have to obey unquestioningly. There can
be description of heaven with gold pavements, fabulous mansions and heavenly
damsels. In contrast, there is a dark dungeon with hellish fires to punish the non-believers.
Hinduism approaches this subject at two levels,
as I said above.
1) At the level of philosophy it talks of the
human being (all living beings in general) and his senses and mind. In an episode
in Taittiriya Upanishad, a son goes to his father (who is a sage) and asks him
to tell about the Supreme Reality. The father says - you have got a body with
flesh and blood, the five senses and mind. You have also got the vital force
which is enabling the body to live. Meditate on these and try to know truth’.
The son starts thinking about them and finally arrives at the truth. We shall
see in a later chapter. The idea here is to show that the sages had a logical approach
to reality.
2) At the level of common man the sages did not
prescribe a single belief system or mode of worship to a single deity. Whatever
human mind can conceive is only a partial truth, says the Kena Upanishad. No
one can say ‘this is what is god, this is the way heaven is’. Hence the sages
permitted different modes of worship which are all accepted as tentative or interim
level of truth. This is the reason we find several gods being worshiped. We
will see more about this in a later chapter.
4.2. No
Single Prophet in Hinduism
Hinduism was not propounded by a single prophet.
It did not originate in troubled times. There was no political power enforcing
it and suppressing dissent. The basic texts like the Vedas evolved over a
period of a few centuries. Sages who renounced the world and speculated over
the mysteries of the universe have given to us certain observations or
‘revelations’ in the form of Vedas. These books talk about both religion and
philosophy.
The Vedas thus talk at two levels, as we learnt.
From the point of an ordinary man, they tell about various rituals and the fruit
of such rituals. The common man is happy with them. At some point of time
people start wondering about the nature of god. Vedas talk about the second
level too. The end portions of the Vedas are totally devoted to this. The
uniqueness of Vedas is that both philosophy and religion are described in the
same texts by the same sages. They took a comprehensive view of society and
addressed persons of different maturity levels.
Religion and belief system are accepted as a
lower level of truth or empirical reality (vyavaharika satyam) for the purpose of
social guidance and harmony. Logical contemplation on the nature of reality is
accepted as the absolute level of truth (paramarthika satyam). The latter was
told to persons trained in rigorous self-discipline, while the former was for
everyone. Most people are usually happy with the lower level, conducting
rituals, seeking boons from different gods and seeking forgiveness. Very few
are normally seen to be bothered about the higher level of truth.
This book, of course, tries to give a simple
account of this philosophical stuff, as that is the only way we can answer the questions
of skeptics. Questions about religion will be discussed in greater detail.
* * *
5 The Sacred Texts of Hindus
In the whole world there is no study so
beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace
of
my life; and it will be the solace of my death.
They are the product of the highest wisdom.
- Arthur Schopenhauer, the German Philosopher
If you visit a bookstore where religious books
are sold and look for books on Hinduism, you will find a number of divergent books.
You may not know as to which one is the main text and which is not. Hence, it
is necessary to know which are primary and which are secondary. We do not have
a single text attributed to a single prophet, as in other religions. Instead,
we have several works which were revealed by sages over a period of time.
5.1.
Primary texts:
As I mentioned in the introduction, Hindus
regard three texts as their primary texts - the Vedas, the Brahma Sutras and the
Bhagavad Gita.
The
Vedas: The most ancient and primary
texts for the Hindus are the Vedas. The time of their composition is uncertain.
Traditionalists even today maintain that the Vedas are directly revealed from
the Supreme Being, called Brahman. But it can be reasonably established that
they were revelations of several rsi-s who had left their families, retreated
to jungles and contemplated about the mysteries of the universe with an
unbiased mind. It was a time when there were no rigid boundaries for the
countries as we see now, and it appears that they were composed at five to six
thousand years ago. It is undisputed that the Rigveda is the oldest human
document available. The language used is Vedic Sanskrit which is fairly
distinct from the classical Sanskrit.
The antiquity of Vedas was never in question
till the Europeans came to India. Several European scholars started studying
Vedas in addition to the whole mass of Sanskrit literature. Their writings had
profound impact on the European thought process. A recent book, American Veda’
by the American writer Phillip Goldberg makes an interesting reading. It traces
the impact of Indian philosophy on the West starting from Schopenhauer (the
German philosopher of seventeenth century) till modern day. (The book is a
compulsory reading for every Indian scholar).
The European scholars like Max Muller were
bewildered by the sheer volume and depth of Indian philosophical thought. It
was not similar to what they encountered in other colonial countries. Their
first problem was to fix the time of composition of the books. They could not
accept the Indian view that the Vedas were composed thousands of years ago, as
the Biblical scholars and religious heads like Bishop Ussher had established
that God created the Universe in 4004 B.C. and nothing on earth could be dated
prior to that. They accepted the Biblical chronology and so they had to map all
other cultures and societies on the Biblical time scale. With all this, there
is some agreement now amongst scholars that they were composed during the
period between 2000 and 1500 B.C.
The initial portions of these Vedas contain
lyrical eulogies for different deities. Along with these are described certain
rituals called ‘yajna in order to propitiate these deities. In addition, there
are forms of meditation on various deities. All these are at one level which is
traditionally called the karma kanda, i.e. the portion of Veda which deals with
Gods and rituals and what we now call religion. This is what is referred to as
the lower level of truth or empirical reality.
It is the end portions of Vedas which were the
cause of serious interest among philosophers all over the world. These end
portions are called Upanishads, and their teaching is called ‘Vedanta’ - ‘anta
meaning ‘the end’ or the final word of the Vedas. This is what is referred to
as the higher level of reality or absolute reality.
These portions of Vedas are deliberations in
what is now called philosophy. The subject matter is not social philosophy or political
philosophy as we see in the West, but the deliberation is on the nature of the
Supreme Being, the nature of creation, the nature of human, mind and senses.
The final startling conclusion of the Vedas is that the individual and the
Supreme Being are essentially one and the same.
Brahma
Sutras: Vedas, we know, were composed
over a period of a few centuries in different parts of the country. Though the
central philosophy is the same, the language and expression differ in them. It
was necessary to explain certain apparent contradictions and demonstrate a
unity of thought in the Vedas. The Brahma Sutras do this job. These are
aphoristic statements (sutra-s) discussing important issues in philosophy and
also religion. For instance, they discuss whether god can be a personal god or
impersonal entity. They also discuss whether there are several gods or one and whether
we have to worship all gods or any one. This book is for rather advanced
students as it has serious philosophical discussions.
Bhagavad
Gita: This is the most important for
Hindus. The first thing we have to know about it is that it is not an independent
text, but a small portion (700 verses) of the mighty epic Mahabharata (100,000
verses). This epic deals with the great battle between two groups of royal
kinsmen, ‘Kauravas’ and ‘Pandavas’. It is encyclopedic in nature. It has
several long passages about statecraft, about morality, about religion and about
philosophy. Bhagavad Gita is one philosophical passage. It is a compulsory
reading for every Hindu, if one desires to have an idea of the central doctrine
of the Vedas. A traditional verse has metaphorically compared all the
Upanishads (the end portions of Vedas) to cows, Lord Krishna, the narrator to
the milkman and Arjuna, the listener, to the calf. While the calf is the
immediate beneficiary of the nectar called Gita, we are all the incidental beneficiaries.
We are going to know about Gita in an exclusive
chapter.
5.2.
Secondary texts: -Iitihasa and Purana.
The Vedic sages had a scheme for transmission of
knowledge. They gave the core texts in the form of Vedas. As the philosophy of
Vedas (Vedanta) is not easily understood by all, they wrote popular texts to
spread the message of Vedas. These popular texts are the itihasa and purana-s.
These are the secondary texts.
Sage Vyasa’s line from the first canto of the
great epic Mahabharata defines the framework of these texts:
‘itihasa puranabhyam vedam samupabnnhayet’.
‘The message of the Vedas has to be popularized
through the itihasa and purana texts’, it says. If Veda were to be compared to
a text of law, the above secondary texts can be compared to the studies in case
law. For instance, if the Veda says ‘satyam vada (speak truth), the secondary
text gives several examples of people who implemented this injunction, and how
they came out successful in spite of facing several problems during the course of
such implementation.
The Upanishads are called the sruti while the
secondary texts are called sm/tz. The latter follows the former like a faithful
follower, says Kalidasa, poetically (Raghuvamsha 2-2).
The primary texts can be compared to the software
of religion and the secondary texts its hardware. It is these secondary texts which
were followed by the society and which created the ethical edifice of religion.
The epics like Ramayana, Mahabharata were called
as itihasa (closer to historical narrations) and the mythological tales were
called pur an a-s. Rama of Ramayana and Pandavas of Mahabharata could have been
historical characters whose history was glorified in the epics called itihasa.
They were called avatara-s, the reincarnation of God. The purana-s, however, are
many in number and they belong to different traditions of worship. Some extol
Shiva as Supreme, some extol Vishnu as the Supreme and some others extol
Shakti. They give a picture of various deities who were being worshipped in different
parts of the country, as we saw above.
Later day sages of pur an a times seem to have
brought the belief systems popular in different parts of the country under the
umbrella of Upanishadic thought. They did a great job of harmonizing different
systems. They also blended the mythological symbolism with the philosophy of
the Upanishads.
The mythological tales called purana-s have
something more to offer. The Vedas and Upanishads postulate the philosophical concepts.
These concepts are told in the form of allegorical tales by the purana-s.
Though secondary in nature, these are very
important from the point of view of value building in society The family values
and social values are still intact in the Indian society because of the
hundreds of stories from Ramayana, Mahabharata and the purana-s, which have
gone into the collective memory of even illiterate villagers. These secondary
texts played an important role in keeping the society together even when the
Hindu society was under severe attacks in the last one thousand years.
However, in case of doubt on any philosophical
concept, we have to go to the primary texts and not to the secondary texts.
Parents
may see:
• ‘The American Veda’ by Philip Goldberg • Google search - ‘Ussher chronology’
* * *
6 Introducing
the Idea of God
6.1. An
Exercise
If we can gather a group of intelligent people
and give an assignment to come up with an idea of what could be God who would
have created this universe, they could come up with the following three
scenarios.
1) God - A cosmic super cop, with functions,
name and form: This is the basic level of thinking where God is someone who is
infinitely more powerful than everything in the Universe, that he is having a
form like Vishnu, Rudra or Durga and that his or her abode is up above in the
skies, or that he or she would punish the wrong doers and reward the good and
so on. Here, the God is having a form and some attributes, in other words, some
functions. Vedanta calls it ‘sakara (‘with form’) and saguna ’ (‘with functions’)
level.
2) God - formless, but with functions of
controlling the universe: This is a slightly improved level. Here God is
someone for whom we cannot think of any shape, but he is an infinitely powerful
being and he has the functions of rewarding the good and punishing the bad. In
other words, he is a ‘nirakara (formless) but saguna (with functions). This is
the level at which all religions end. The western religions talk of a formless
God, but of one who has all the above functions. Among the Indian schools of philosophy,
the logicians (called tarkika-s), the ‘sankhya-s’ and the Patanjali yogis
believed in such a concept of God.
3) A nameless, formless, functionless entity: The
third group which says so, is thinking on the lines of the sages of the Upanishads.
Upanishads say that what we call the Supreme Being (God) cannot be something
saddled with the mundane supervisory activity of the world. They further say that
the Supreme Being cannot be something which can either be called a male or a
female or that it is in a human form. This being, whatever it is, cannot even
be the something which is creating and maintaining the universe, drawing up
some rules and regulations for all the celestial bodies to move in their
orbits, and rules for humans to follow. If that entity were to have all these
duties, then it would be somewhat like a cosmic super-cop. God cannot be
someone who is fond of a chosen tribe and who is punishing the other tribe like
a group leader.
6.2. God
is Infinite Existence of Consciousness
This is the level called nirakara (formless) and
nirguna (attribute-less). Apart from the Upanishads no other religious text in
the world talks of this level. God is Existence, Consciousness and Infinitude
(satyam, jhanam anantam Brahma), as the Taittiriya Upanishad says. It is not a
Being or a person as we conceive at the first two levels. These three words
need some explanation.
Satyam is something whose existence cannot be
negated or denied in past, present and future. All things in the world undergo change
and decay. The human life is for mere hundred years and the life of the planet
earth is only for a few more million years. This universe itself was not there
a few billion years ago. But this principle called existence was always there
even prior to the origin of the universe. In fact, the concept of time is
associated with events and hence time is an appearance in that Existence, which
precedes time. Existence of all beings and things is only a reflection of this
Supreme Existence.
Jnanam means consciousness or intelligence. It
does not mean that God is all knowing, but it means that it is of the nature of
intelligence, whose intelligence is reflected in all beings.
Anantam is infinitude. There is nothing which
can be outside of it. The nearest example is space, which pervades the whole universe.
Vedanta says that even space is an appearance in that Supreme Being, which is
here denoted by the word infinitude. What all we see is pervaded by It and not
apart from It.
It is thus clear that as per Vedanta the
ultimate reality is neither a man nor a woman nor is it in a human or any
living form. It is of the nature of existence, consciousness and infinitude. The
principle of existence is all over the cosmos. Everywhere we see things and say
‘this exists’ ‘this exists’ and so on endlessly. There is a principle of
existence which is underlying all things we see.
Likewise, the whole cosmos is permeated by
consciousness, in other words, intelligence. Consciousness is manifesting along
with existence in all things we see whether they are sentient or insentient.
The human mind is said to be a smart ‘reflector’ of this consciousness in
comparison with all other things. In fact, the human being himself is called a
reflector of this consciousness.
The next attribute for the ultimate reality is
infinitude. Existence and consciousness are all pervading. What all we can conceive
and beyond that too is that ultimate entity.
For the purpose of usage we have to give some
name to this Supreme Being. Vedanta calls this entity Brahman. The word literally
means ‘infinitely expanding’. This Brahman is referred to in neuter gender. We
refer to it as ‘It’. What all universe we see should obviously be the creation
of this entity, one naturally presumes.
If Brahman is such formless and nameless entity,
what is the status of Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti and other deities? This we shall know
in the following chapters.
If we look at the world religions, they usually
talk of a formless god, but the god is a male, so human, so partisan to his chosen
tribe and so jealous that he punishes those who worship any other deity. He
also creates man in his own image. He sends believers to heaven and
non-believers to hell. It is to the credit of our ancient sages that they
analyzed this issue dispassionately and proposed the above concept of Brahman.
The parent may also see: • www.scienceandnonduality.com
* * *
7 How did
Universe Come About?
It (Hinduism) is the only religion in which the
time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run
from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion
years long, longer than the age of the earth or the sun and about half the time
since the big bang. - Carl Sagan in Cosmos We have to use a little bit of
terminology in this chapter.
7.1.
Material for the Universe
When we see any object it is natural for us to
assume the presence of a creator. The created object is called the effect and the
creator is the cause. When we take the example of an earthen jar, we see that
clay is the raw material (called the material cause ) and the potter is its
maker (called the intelligent cause). The question now is, as to what is the
cause of the universe we see, who is its maker and wherefrom the material has
come?
Different religions give different versions of
creation of Universe by God. Upanishads give a different picture. A passage from
Taittiriya Upanishad (2-1) of Krishna Yajurveda tells like this:
The all pervading space emerged from the eternal
Consciousness.
From space, emerged air.
From air, emerged fire,
And from fire, emerged water
Earth as we see, has emerged from these waters.
The plant kingdom originated thereafter.
Plants became the food for the living beings,
And thus, all the living beings emerged.
We are concerned about us. The above passage
says that all living beings, including humans came from the plant kingdom, which
is called ‘annam, the food, because they eat and get eaten. We too are called
food. The sage, on discovering that he is nothing greater than ‘fodder’ cries
out ‘I am food, I am food, I am the eater, I am the eater’.
The above description by the Upanishad is almost
close to the scientist’s view of the origin of earth. It is the hot airs or the
nebulae which condensed to become fluid and thereafter to solidify in order to
become all the stars and planets. Vedanta is not saying that there is a creator
who is sitting high above in skies and creating the cosmos from out of some material.
The idea of ‘all illumining’ akasa i.e. space,
which was the origin of all, is something surprising at a time when all other cultures
accepted only four elements i.e. earth, water, fire and air. These five
elements are like the raw material for all the living beings as we shall see
later.
What is the material with which Brahman created
the universe and where did it come from? Let us try to follow what Vedanta
says.
In the earlier chapter we saw that Brahman is
Existence, Consciousness and Infinitude. In other words, it is consciousness existing
infinitely around. It is not of the nature of a personal God. There cannot be
anything un-pervaded by It.
In such case if we accept any material outside
what we have called Brahman, then, Brahman would be a limited entity, however
powerful it may be. Therefore the material should be from the Brahman itself.
If we agree that the material is from the
Brahman, then, we would be assuming that Brahman is an entity with limbs or
parts in it. It is facile to say that Brahman took out a part from itself and
fashioned the cosmos. Brahman having limbs or parts would also make it a very
limited entity. It would hit the definition ‘infinitude’ which we noted above.
If we think that Brahman changed itself into the
cosmos just as milk changes into curd, then Brahman no longer exists having transformed
itself into the universe. This cannot be the situation. Brahman would become a
changing and impermanent entity. This would again hit our conception of
Brahman.
The only option which remains is to say that it
is the Brahman which is ‘appearing’ as the universe, while itself not
undergoing any change. It is the unchanging material cause and also the
intelligent cause of the universe. (Vedanta calls this the abhinna nimitta
-upadana - karanam).
7.2. The Concept of Maya.
The Brahman has no doer-ship, we saw. It cannot
be having the duty of being the creator. How is it that space, the other
elements and universe emerged from that? The scriptures introduce a sort of interface
called ‘maya. This is described as a sort of enveloping and manifesting power
in Brahman. It envelopes the real nature of Brahman and makes it appear or manifest
as the universe. In other words, you and I are the same consciousness,
appearing as individual entities. All the animals, plants and all inanimate
things we see are all manifestations of the same consciousness.
We have landed in a situation where we say that
the cosmos is appearing’ all appearances are not real. This is a question which
has perplexed the minds of the sages who revealed the Upanishads. Science, till
recently, maintained that consciousness has come out of matter. Vedanta on the
other hand, says that matter is appearing from consciousness. Science appears
still undecided about the issue. The Vedantins too are undecided, and hence,
they said that the existence or otherwise of the universe cannot be asserted.
It is neither real nor unreal (neither sat nor asat).
Vedanta says that this creation is a temporary
appearance in maya. It appears and disappears. It is not a one-time activity of
God. In fact, what we call creator is only a function in maya.
Western Religions talk of only one creation. The
Vedas talk of recurring cycles of creation. There is a creation, sustained for some
time and then which resolves into the above said maya.
All the above discussion may not be easily
understood by the common man. Hence the later texts, called purana-s, told the
above in a figurative way. The power of creation was called Brahma, a four
headed god, whose consort is Saraswati (symbolizing wisdom). The power of
sustenance was called Vishnu, whose consort is Lakshmi (symbolizing wealth).
The power of resolving the universe was called Rudra, whose consort was Shakti
(symbolizing the power of destruction). We will know about these god forms in
later chapters.
The parent may also see:
• Taittiriya Upanishad (2-1) any translation
with a traditional commentary.
Google search for ‘Ussher chronology’ for a
comparative understanding.
Google search Carl Sagans series on Cosmos.
www.wikiquote.org for Ervin
Schrodinger’s remarks on Vedanta.
X- X- X-
8 Man and
Creator from the Absolute Point of View
8.1.
Understanding Consciousness
We saw above that god did not abruptly stand
in the space and create the whole universe. We merely saw a phenomenon called
creation and that Brahman (consciousness) had no direct activity called
creation. The question follows as to what is the human being (and other beings)
and who is the creator?
Let us take the example of the ocean. What all
you see is water, but in different shapes like giant waves, small waves, bubbles
and foam. We see them all collectively as ocean. Waters do not undergo any
change whether it is a giant wave, a petty wave or mere froth.
Take another example of space. The space in a
room, the space in a vessel, the space in a huge building and the infinite space
outside are all but space. The space does not undergo any change because of its
apparent limitations like vessel-space, room-space or a building-space.
The Supreme Being was called Brahman, as we
recall. It is consciousness existing infinitely all around. Upanishads say that
there cannot be anything other than consciousness. In such case where do we map
the human being or the creator?
In the above chapter we saw the lines from the
Upanishad about the emergence of the universe. It told that all living beings have
come out of the plant kingdom. All these beings (both animals and plants)
starting from a blade of grass to mighty trees and starting from an ant to a
dinosaur do have some intelligence. This is to feed themselves, protect
themselves and also propagate themselves. It means that all these beings seem
to be a mixture of intelligence plus some other raw stuff. It is flesh, blood
and bones in the case of mobile beings (called jahgama) and fibrous stuff in non-mobile
beings (called sthavara).
8.2.
Individual Mind and Consciousness Animating It
Upanishads say that what we call mind in the
living beings is merely an insentient material, but very sensitive material
capable of reflecting the consciousness (Brahman). It is somewhat like a mirror
reflecting the consciousness. It is capable of interacting with the world
around it by the senses and mind activated by the same consciousness. Thus we
note that the living beings are associated with some bit of consciousness,
which we call it intelligence. This tiny bit of intelligence is called the
individual self, jlva (it includes plants and all animals). We may compare this
with a tiny wave in the ocean of consciousness or a mere pot-space in the space
like consciousness.
8.3.
Cosmic Mind - Iswara
If we visualize all the beings in the universe
collectively and look at it at a cosmic level, we can call it the cosmic mind.
The cosmic mind has certain additional abilities like governing the heavenly
bodies like the stars, sun and the moon. In other words, the cosmic mind is in
charge of the cosmic order. This cosmic mind is called Iswara, the Lord and
creator of the universe. We may compare this cosmic mind with the giant wave or
with the building-space. What we noted as Brahman is not limited to the
universe. Universe is a temporary manifestation in the Brahman consciousness.
This can be compared to the ocean or the space in terms of the above examples.
All living beings have limitations of space and
time. They live and die for a specific time in a specific place. Even the
cosmic mind, is a limited entity compared to Brahman consciousness.
The jlva consciousness and the Iswara
consciousness are said to be delimited, while the Brahman is infinite.
Iswara is called the creator, and he is as much
a limited being as the jlva, though he pervades the universe.
Consciousness cannot be taken as a substance
which can be divided into parts but the expressions such as ‘pot-space’ are only
for the sake of illustration. Another example given is that of the same sun
getting reflected in different water bodies and appearing as different.
Shankaracharya uses these comparisons in different places to illustrate the
point the consciousness is one and the same in all beings whereas the
delimiting factors (the mind in which it gets reflected) can be different.
Iswara, the empirical god at the cosmic level is
a manifestation in the Supreme Consciousness called Brahman, due to the power called
maya as we noted earlier. An ocean is a manifestation of water and so too a
wave. The ocean is called the cause and the wave is called the effect, though
they are both water. Even so, the Supreme Consciousness manifesting as Iswara
is the cause and manifesting as jlva is the effect.
Vedanta has to take into consideration the
requirements of human society. At all times, human beings thought of a God form
and submitted himself to His or Her will. This was a convenient and happy
arrangement. It is a sort of utilitarian view of religion. The ancient seers
did not want to dismiss this and hence, accepted different God forms but then
treated them as a lower level of truth (vyavaharika satyam) i.e. which is true at
a transactional level (as we noted earlier). The higher level of truth, or the
real truth, at the absolute level, is that Brahman has nothing to do with
creation as we understand.
For the purpose of devotees, God or Iswara who
is accepted at an empirical level can be a man or a woman. Thus we see a number
of Gods and Goddesses in our religion.
God is ‘intelligent’ (in the sense that he has
the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance and dissolution) and Brahman is
intelligence, i.e. consciousness.
The functions of creation, sustenance and
dissolution are functions which we attribute to the cosmic mind Iswara but not to
Brahman. These functions are given various names, Whatever you call it, it is
the cosmic being with different functions and different names. It is the cosmic
being Iswara who has functions like creation, sustenance and dissolution of the
universe. Each cosmic function is visualized as a God. The function of creation
is called Brahma (different from the Supreme Brahman which we saw above), a
four-headed deity who keeps on creating the universe. He requires intelligence
for creation and that power of intelligence is visualized as his consort named Saraswati.
The function of sustaining the universe is visualized
as Vishnu, a male deity and a powerful one. All resources are required for
sustenance of the universe and these resources are visualized as a female deity
named Lakshmi, who is said to be the consort of Vishnu. Similarly, the function
of dissolution of universe is visualized as Rudra, or Shiva and his power of dissolution
is visualized as a female deity named Shakti, who is the consort of Shiva.
The Sanskrit word for power is sakti, which is
in feminine gender. Hence these powers are visualized as wives of the Gods. It
is not as though these Gods have many wives and live a polygamous life. When we
say that the popular god Lord Venkateswara has two wives it means that he has
two types of power - the resources (Lakshmi) to sustain the universe and the power
to restore dharma on earth (Bhudevi, the goddess of earth).
8.4. All
Forms are One
While talking at two levels, and writing
different prayers for different deities, the sages left enough hints in the
mantras to show that all god forms were, indeed, one.
When you go to any temple and perform worship,
you find the priests chanting the mantra from the Narayanopanishad - sa brahma sa sivahsa harih sendrah soksarah
paramah svarat.
“What we call Brahma (the creator) is the same
as Shiva, it is the same as Hari, (the sustainer), Indra, and the non-perishing
Brahman”. All these are the same as one’s own self because the consciousness is
the same in one and all. We find several other mantras in the same vein. (Note
the difference between Brahman and Brahma. The former is the infinite and the
latter is the finite. The former is in neuter gender and the latter is in
masculine gender).
There are several minor deities, like the fire
god, the rain god, the lord Yama (who is the one that awards the fruit of karma
to a person) and so on. These have to be understood as universal or cosmic
functions visualized as gods. When the creation itself is a temporary
appearance in Brahman, it follows that all these deities are temporary appearances.
Hence they are like tenure posts, valid as long as a particular cycle of
creation appears in Brahman.
There is no uniform description of the trinity
in the Vedantic texts because the function of Vedanta is to show that Brahman is
all pervasive and what we think as a human being is nothing but Brahman itself.
Vedanta does not attach much importance to the description of deities. This
resulted in a number of belief systems and stories of god under the broad
philosophy of the Upanishads, as we shall see.
8.5.
Debate about Consciousness and Matter
This discussion is about advaita (non-dualism),
visistadvaita (qualified non-dualism and dwaita (dualism). These are difficult concepts
to be introduced to the students. It is difficult to discuss these in a primary
text like the present one. However, a brief idea is needed for the parents who
may be belonging to one of those traditions. Most of us, happily, do not belong
to any tradition and so look at this issue without bias.
We see the world around us, with all its
variegated gifts to man. We see the beautiful rivers, mountains and forests
which we freely exploit. Not only the humans but also the animals do this. The
trees too, have intelligence to some extent and they know how to survive. Thus,
we identify two aspects in nature -one intelligent and the other
non-intelligent; one is the enjoyer and the other is the enjoyed; one is the
knower and the other is the known; in other words, one is sentient and the
other is insentient. The body is made of matter, but somehow it is also having
intelligence.
Are these two things or are they one? This is a
question which engaged the sages who gave us the Upanishads. In chapter 7 we
were examining as to what could be the matter for creation and we saw one view
that consciousness itself manifested as the jagat, the universe, in other
words, as matter. But this is only one view This view is contested by other
equally learned sages. We may briefly see their points of view.
The first view (predominant view) is that there
is only one entity, consciousness, which is manifesting as all the things which
we see. How is it done, is inexplicable. That is why the idea of maya was
postulated and maya, the creative or manifesting power in consciousness is
something inexplicable (anirvacanlya). The consciousness itself has no
attributes and no activity in it. This is the Brahman we saw in chapter 7.
The second view is that there are two aspects -
sentient (cit), and insentient (jada), but both exist in the body of the
Supreme Being Vishnu. This Supreme Being is with all glorious attributes -
omniscience, omnipotence and so on. He is a personal god who is closer to
religion than the attribute-free Brahman.
The third view is that the two aspects -
sentient and insentient, and they are two distinct things. Materialist philosophers
of all types held this view. All diversity which we see is real. All sentience
is from the Supreme Being Vishnu, and the universe is his creation. All
differences - that between one individual and another, that between jlva and
the world, that between jlva and Iswara - are all real and irreducible. The god
is a personal god, as in the above case.
The first view is what is called the non-dualism
(advaita), the second view is known as qualified non-dualism (visisXadvaita) and
the last view is known as dualism (dwaita). The prominent exponent of the first
school is Sri Shankaracharya, that of the second is Sri Ramanujacharya and that
of the third is Sri Madhwacharya. It is also the chronological order of the
three masters.
All the three teachers based their arguments on
the basic texts, the Upanishads, because the Upanishads spoke of a god with
attributes and also about a Brahman who is attribute-free. Sri Shankara called
them two levels of reality, one at the level of religion, to guide the common
man and the other at the level of absolute reality. The god with attributes is
for upasana, and through such upasana, the Brahman without attributes has to be
realized.
It may be relevant to see that the changing
times could also have impacted the thinking of these teachers. During the time of
Shankara, the very existence of Brahman was questioned by Buddhists and others
who advocated nihilism. Shankara was able to dispel the arguments of the
nihilists and establish religion with a philosophy.
There was considerable social ferment in the
Hindu society by the time of Sri Ramanuja and hence he had to give more importance
to a personal god and social harmony. He introduced bhakti, devotion to Vishnu,
as a means to unite all sections of society. Thus we see the religious
teachers, called Alwars, even from the lowest castes in society.
By the time of Sri Madhwa, India was already
under the ruthless invasion by the Muslims and hence, perhaps he had no great
inclination to call the world as an appearance. He was a wrestler who is also
said to have taken part in fighting the invaders. His followers consider him to
be the reincarnation of Vayu, the strongest among the gods. Madhwa, like
Ramanuja considered Vishnu as the supreme deity and as a personal god.
This book has broadly adopted the non-dual
approach, as it is the oldest way of interpreting the texts and also because we
can answer all criticism relating to the multitude of gods, idol worship and
many other questions at the philosophical level. Besides, it is able to cover
all forms like Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesha, Shakti or any other form or formless
god.
It is interesting for us to know that this
debate about consciousness and matter is also the most important debate in science
and the issue is yet undecided. Several modern physicists seem to be closer to
the non-dualist way of understanding the universe.
Parents may see: • Erwin Schrodinger on Vedanta
in www.wikiquote.org
* * *
9 Who Am
I?
The perennial philosophy is expressed most
succinctly in the Sanskrit formula - ‘tat twam asifThat art thou); the Atman, or
the immanent eternal Self is one with Brahman, the Absolute principle of all
existence; and the last end of every human being, is to discover the fact for
himself - Aldous Huxley
9.1.
Social Identity
Most of us have an identity card or a social
security card. In addition we carry a visiting card mentioning our status, qualifications
and job details. When we come home we belong to a particular religion, maybe a
sub-division of that religion. In addition we are also male or female, father
or son and husband or wife. Our identity depends on the relationships we have
with various persons or institutions. All our interactions with fellow humans
are deeply influenced by our understanding of the above identifications.
Vedanta says that this is not your real
identity. When a person is stripped of all the above identities, he is merely a
human being. He is equal to any other living being. Like all living beings he
exists, he experiences the world with his senses and feels happy or unhappy. He
has a physical body, supported by some energy system based on intake of food,
five senses perceiving five different things and transmit to mind where these
impressions are processed and collated and the ‘I’ in him is happy about it.
9.2. Evolution of the Body-Mind Complex
Our Vedic sages speculated on the formation of
the physical body and told interesting facts. In the earlier chapter on
creation we learnt that it is consciousness which is manifesting in different ways,
starting from a blade of grass to mighty animals. We saw the lines from the
Upanishad saying that the five elements - space, air, fire, water and earth
appeared from the Supreme Being. Ironically, the Supreme Brahman has no
doer-ship, we saw. A manifestation in Brahman, called maya was the material cause
for all the creation. Maya cannot be anything other than consciousness. It is
in fact, comparable to the giant wave, which we saw in an earlier example. This
was called Iswara, the over lord of the universe.
The actual process of evolution of body is like
this.
The creative power maya is said to have three
characteristics or tendencies in it. They are called gun a-s which are called
sattva, rajas and tamas. This is a postulation based on a lot of empirical observation.
If we observe human nature we find three tendencies. Some are quiet, contented, peaceful and contemplative
type. Some are aggressive, acquisitive and dominating type. Some others are lazy,
slothful, lacking in initiative and dull type. The psychologists may call them
personality types, but this is the observation of the ancient sages. All human
activity - good, bad and ugly - is the result of the three gun a-s.
This can be seen in animals too. Some are quiet
and bovine, some are aggressive and some are lazy (python).
It is also observed that the food we eat
influences our minds because of the three above noted characteristics in that.
Some types of food cause quietness and contribute to health. Some cause heat in
the body and related changes while some others cause dullness of mind. The
depressants are derivatives of such food types only.
The sages observed the three dispositions or
tendencies in everything in the universe. The Bhagavad Gita says that there is nothing
in the universe which is not a product of the above three tendencies (18-40).
Maya, otherwise called prahti is the source for
everything in the universe. The above three guna-s intermix in infinite number of
combinations and produce the diversity in the universe. The first fall out of
this is the five elements which we know - earth, water, fire, air and space.
These five elements too have the three guna-s in them, which lead to further
evolution. All living and non-living things are products of the five elements
only.
The sattva component of the elements evolves
into the mind and senses of all animals, including man.
The rajas component of the elements evolves into the organs of action
(hands, feet and other limbs) of all animals.
The tamas component of the elements evolves into
the gross elements around us.
We have five senses, each sense able to cognize
only one sense object. The nose can only notice smell, the eye can only notice
form of an object and so on. The mind is able to cognize all the five sense
objects. Senses and mind are said to evolve as follows.
The sattva component of space is said to evolve
into the sense of hearing.
The sattva component of air is said to evolve
into the sense of touch.
The sattva component of fire is said to evolve
into the sense of sight (fire also gives light).
The sattva component of water is said to evolve
into the sense of taste.
The sattva component of earth is said to evolve
into the sense of smell.
The collective sattva component of all the five
elements is said to evolve into mind. The mind is able to collate the five
types of sensory signals presented to it by the five senses.
Vedanta analyzes the stages of mind in four
levels. The stage of simple cognition in the mind is called manas and the stage
of analyzing that cognition is called buddhi. At this stage there is a notion
of‘I’, that ‘I have known this’. This stage is called ahankara, the notion of
T. When an experience is recalled and relived at a later stage it is called
cittam.
Bhagavad Gita summarizes the above discussion in
the chapter relating to the connection between the corporeal body and
consciousness (13:5-6). The Upanishads and subsequent texts of Vedanta discuss
the above topic in great detail but it has been very briefly mentioned here.
We are aware that in addition to the mind and
senses we have another important component, the life force. This is called prana-sakti.
The living beings cannot survive without breathing. The air system in the body
is said to be the life force.
9.3. Layers of Personality
If we contemplate on all the above, we see that
there are several layers in the personality of any living being. The first
layer is that of the gross body with flesh, blood and bones (Vedanta calls it
annamaya sheath). The next level is that of life force (called prana sheath).
These two are of no use unless there is intelligence. Hence the mind and senses
are said to be the next higher level (mind sheath). The next higher level is
that of the self which is the experiencer (the ‘I’), and it is called
vijhanamaya sheath. The next level is the level of bliss which is experienced
in deep sleep and which is said to be close to the bliss of Brahman.
The body-mind complex is not you and if you wish
to know who you are, you have to start analyzing the different levels and try
to know what your real self is. This is shown as an episode from the Taittiriya
Upanishad.
9.4.
Bhrigu’s Episode
The episode talks of a young man called Bhrigu
who approaches his father Aruni and asks him to tell the nature of the Supreme
reality, which, the scriptures say, is the same as the nature of the living
being too. His father tells him - ‘you have the following data, you have a
body, you have the life force called prana, you have the five senses and a
mind. You contemplate on these and find out which exactly is your real self’ –
tapasa brahma vijijhasasva - know the truth by contemplation.
This is the procedure adopted in the Upanishads.
Everyone has to contemplate and discover the reality for himself.
Bhrigu contemplates on what his father said. His
first understanding is that the body is the real self. He then realizes that
the body is of little use if there were to be no life force. Even life force is
of no use if there were no mind in order to direct the activities of sense
organs. Bhrigu then identifies with this mind-self but later realizes that in
deep sleep even when the functions of the mind were absent he was very much
experiencing the blissful sleep he had, which means that his real self is not
even the mind. He thus discards one layer after the other. Vedanta tells about
five such layers - the body layer, the life force layer, the mind layer, the
ego layer and the layer of bliss in deep sleep.
Bhrigu, by peeling off different layers by such
reasoning, realizes that his real self is the principle of existence,
consciousness and bliss which is also the nature of Brahman, the Supreme reality.
Vedanta does not talk in terms of individual
souls which are created by God and which once created never die and linger on
in several places like purgatory. On the other hand, Vedanta says that what is
called the individual self, jlva’, is nothing but consciousness which is
reflected in the mind. We saw the example of pot space above. The mind,
according to Vedanta, is only a reflecting medium. An individual considers his
self a jlva, a limited entity, so long as he identifies himself with the body-mind
complex. Once he overcomes this identification, he realizes that he is the same
as the Supreme Self. The difference is only due to the perception.
Vedanta says that jlva is not only a human being
but all living beings. All living beings are by definition, the same as
Brahman.
Gita (5:) says - suni caiva svapake ca panditah
samadarsinah.
“The wise persons see Brahman everywhere, be it
in a learned person, a cow, an elephant, a dog or a dog-eater”. This is the
reason why Hinduism does not say that animals are created as a food for man.
(It is also the reason why animal sacrifice was only permitted during yajna-s
but the general rule was ahimsa, avoiding killing of any animal).
9.5. Does the Self Die?
The so called self’ is like pot space, we saw.
Consciousness looks as though limited in the body-mind complex like space in
the pot. Consciousness is never created, it exists at all times. Hence, Vedanta
says that the jlva is never created, never born and it never dies. There is no
birth or death for consciousness (Gita 2-20). Jlva in the form of a living
being is only an appearance in consciousness. The gross body is a product of
the five elements - earth, air, fire, water and space. Here, Vedanta accepts
the religious postulate of rebirth and talks of a subtle body, (the mind, ego,
the five senses and the life force). It is this subtle body which transmigrates
into a new body when the old body falls off. Such transmigration continues till
a person remains ignorant of the nature of his self.
Man gets rid of this subtle body only when he
realizes that he is nothing other than the supreme consciousness. It is
somewhat like the wave realizing that it is the ocean itself or the pot-space realizing
that it is the infinite space. The gross body and subtle body are merely the
limiting factors for the consciousness.
Hinduism does not say that a jlva is born with
sin. But he has the baggage of his past karma, both good and bad. If there is
more good karma to his credit, he would enjoy good things in this life and if
he has bad karma pending, he would suffer in this life.
This is not fatalism. It is only a result of
fruit of action and a human being has a free will to rectify himself by self
purification as told in the scriptures and get on to a higher level.
A human being is not expected to end up at the
human level only but he is exhorted to do sadhana, that is, to undergo
spiritual discipline along with contemplation and thus attain the status of Brahman.
Vedanta makes an emphatic statement that the knower of Brahman becomes Brahman.
This knowledge of Brahman is not an intellectual appreciation of Brahman but
undergoing an internal transformation and shedding of his total identity belonging
to caste, class, sex and so on and lose his identity in the identity of
Brahman.
This can happen in this life itself and not
after life. Every human being has the potential to realize the Supreme Being
and become that being. This is called jivan mukti, that is, liberation from the
limited self while being alive.
This is not a stage which is the preserve of one
class of people like the Vedic scholars or persons of some castes, as it is now
misunderstood. This is a spiritual discipline recommended for every human
being. Our history and literature abound in examples of such realized persons
from every class. It is the highest goal set for a person, as we shall see when
we study the human goals.
The parents may see the following YouTube videos
• Influence of Vedanta on the West
• ‘American Veda by Philip Goldberg
10 Why do
We Worship Several Gods?
10.1. The
Spirit of the Vedas
Vedas postulated the Supreme Reality as infinitely
existing consciousness. It is a formless, functionless entity This is for a serious
student. But the ordinary man needs a religion. He needs a god to cry on his
shoulder and to pour his requests on him. The Vedic sages did not prescribe or
mandate one single god form for the common man, but instead, admitted all
existing forms of worship in different parts of the land as valid. To say that
only one god form as correct is against the basic principle of Vedas. How then,
can they dictate that one form is right and one form is wrong?
Vedas do not dictate so and hence we have
different forms of worship.
10.2. A
Saint Who Established Six Religions
Can we think of a religious leader who can
establish six religions? The idea appears crazy. But what Shankaracharya did in
India was just the same. He earned the title ‘the establisher of six religions’
- s anmata sthapakacarya. We have to know how it happened.
Shankaracharya was a saint born in Kerala
sometime in the early eighth century AD. He wrote commentaries on all the
primary texts of Hindus and toured all over the country. It was a practice for
the saints (and also for sanyasi-s, those who enounced their worldly pursuits),
to travel all over the land and have scholastic discussions.
The Indian sub-continent had different practices
in different parts. Different Gods were worshipped according to local practices.
The most prominent Gods were, Shiva, Vishnu, Shakti (in several names such as,
Durga, Kali, Ambika), Surya (the Sun God), Vinayaka (also called Ganesh),
Murugan, just to mention a few. When Shankaracharya toured all over the
country, having discourses with the learned scholars of the day, he noticed several
sects and cults all broadly owing allegiance to the Vedas, but no uniformity in
worship. There were also certain non-Vedic practices like drunken orgies in
grave yards, wearing garlands of skulls etc., in the name of worship.
Shankaracharya disapproved such practices and validated six prominent systems
which were compatible with the Vedic vision of the Supreme Being.
How did he reconcile all? He chose six popular
systems and explained in philosophical terms how the deities of those systems
were merely manifestations of the one and the only Supreme Reality. The six
deities were Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, Ganesha, Murugan, and the Sun. What
Shankaracharya did was to harmonize the existing religions and tell people that
all the deities should be worshipped with equal regard. Even today we find that
except for the hardcore followers of Vishnu or Shiva, all of us go to all
temples and show equal regard.
Shankaracharya composed hymns praising all the
above deities and brought them under the umbrella of the Upanishadic thought.
To a lay devotee, these hymns appear like praises for his favorite deity, but
one who is familiar with Vedanta would see that they are referring to the
impersonal Brahman. This was one strategy to bring the seeker from a lower
level of understanding to the right understanding.
Thus Hinduism as we see now can be understood as
a cluster of religious beliefs under the umbrella of Upanishadic thought.
10.3.
What Does Gita Say?
The Bhagavad Gita has this to say, which every
Hindu has to memorize.
yo yo yam yam tanum bhaktah
sraddhayarcitumicchati.
tasya tasyacalam sraddham tameva vidadhamyaham
..
(Whoever desires to worship a deity in whatever
form, I, the Supreme Reality, will confirm to his devotion in that very form. 7-21)
The Supreme reality is the same for one and all
whether one is in Alaska or in Timbuktu. One can worship the Supreme in any
form or without any form. All prayers are answered by one and the same deity.
We notice certain important points from a study of Gita. The points that can be
derived are like this:
• Hinduism is a cluster of religious beliefs
under the umbrella of the Upanishads. Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shakti worship and
so on are all the religions validated by the Upanishads.
• At the level of religion it describes God as
someone who rewards good and punishes evil, for the common man whereas Vedanta
describes it at a different level for the seeker of truth.
• Hinduism does not say that one has to worship
only one form of deity. There is freedom for the individual to choose his own
deity and also worship all deities at a time.
• Gita says that people visualize deities
according to their own nature and their own desires. Righteous people visualize
deities with righteous qualities whereas unrighteous visualize and worship
deities for earthly results and for harming others.
• Different God forms are tools for meditation
and concentration of mind. Meditation on such God forms is prescribed for
purification of the mind of the seeker.
• Similarly the idol is only a tool which
facilitates concentration of mind. It is idea behind the idol which is being
contemplated upon, and not the idol as such. It is wrong to assume that we are
idol worshippers.
• It is wrong to assume that one particular God
gives wealth, another gives wisdom and another gives valor. We are invoking the
one and only Brahman in different manifestations. It is merely a convention
that we worship Ganesha when start of any project, worship Goddess Saraswati
when we appear for an examination and so on.
• If we closely see the Ganesha Vratam or
Saraswati Vratam or any other specific worship relating to a deity, we find that
the same deity is worshipped at two levels, one as the Supreme Being and the
other as a functional God awarding a particular boon. It depends on the
maturity of the worshipper to realize the philosophical view.
10.4. Is
the Student of Vedanta an Agnostic?
No. All the above discussion may appear like a
non-believer’s version. The fact that Vedanta accepts a personal god as a lower
level of reality does not mean that Vedanta is atheistic or agnostic. A student
of Vedanta continues to worship the traditionally handed god-form with all the
love, in order to achieve purity of thought, to take support of the god to get
rid of his weaknesses and bad tendencies. It is also as a matter of duty as
prescribed by dharma and to set an example for the unenlightened ones. His worship
is not a pretentious act or a condescending act. He uses this as a means to
attain self-realization.
10.5. Vaishnavism and Saivism :
Vishnu and Shiva are two prominent deities
mentioned in the Vedas and they became more popular than other Vedic deities in
different parts of the country. Shiva worship was popular in the north western
parts - Kashmir and beyond todays Afghanistan. Worship of Vishnu was more in
some other parts. Kashmir Saivism is a form of monotheism which accepts the
above Vedantic thought but calls the Supreme Being as Shiva (instead of
Brahman) and gives some attributes and an exclusive abode (Kailasa) of his own.
The same was done by the worshippers of Vishnu who treated him as the Supreme
Being and gave some attributions to him besides describing his special abode
Vaikuntha. Each one has a hierarchy of attendant gods, divine musicians and so
on.
Once we understand the above spirit of the
Upanishads about Brahman (Consciousness) at the level of Supreme Reality and a
functional god at the level of religion (vyavaharika satyam), we will
understand all other forms of worship like Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti (Durga),
Ganesa, Sun and so on and have no difficulty in accommodating all of them in
that framework. The uniqueness of Hinduism is that it accommodated and
harmonized all of them. Hence, these are not being discussed in detail. It is
enough to know that each of these forms has developed a theological system in
consonance with the Upanishadic thought and treated its own god as the Supreme
Brahman. The mythological tales surrounding these schools can be understood
accordingly.
10.6.
Historical Reasons for Multiple Gods:
• There appears to be a historical reason too,
which we have to note, for the existence of multiple gods. The Indian sages did
a peaceful and harmonious integration of different systems and permitted all
systems to coexist. This is in sharp contrast with what happened in rest of the
world.
• History shows that when the new religions
originated in the West, they wiped out all existing religions with varying degrees
of bloodiness by calling them pagan or barbaric. The religious leaders took the
help of the kings or emperors and physically eliminated religions like
Mithraism (a religion of the Roman Empire). The same happened in the Arabian Peninsula.
• There is no organizational structure for
Hinduism, unlike the western religions. The hierarchical structure in the
western world could wield enormous influence on the political system. This did
not happen in India as the approach of the sages was to engage in discussions
and harmonize traditions. There was no teaming up (like church and the state)
with the political power as in the western world.
• The priestly structure of western religions
has consolidated over the ages. There are global structures now. An order can
be given by the religious high command and it will be obeyed down the line up
to a remote parish in Alaska or a remote village in India. Hinduism has no such
structure and hence never had the bargaining power with the political structure.
A Hindu child is occasionally ragged by others
when he says that Ganesha with an elephants head is a god or when
Hanuman, a monkey king is a god. A Hindu parent
has to take some additional pain to explain the egalitarian Hindu view to a child
so that the child will not fall in self-esteem, thinking that it is from an
inferior culture. The child will realize that the Hindu texts are most
compatible with science and cosmology and are more open minded. Parents may
also be careful not to make their kids argumentative and aggressive about
religion.
Parents may suggest the following book to kids:
• ‘The Story of Mankind’ by Hendrik van Loon
(Google search) to see how religions spread by violence.
***
11 Gods
and Demons -11.1. The View of the Upanishads
‘The battle between gods and demons is a
symbolic description of the battle between good and bad in our own minds’.
I am not sure whether any religious text can
give such honest interpretation. But Vedanta gives this startling
interpretation for the idea of Gods and demons. Shankaracharya, the great
Vedantin, wrote commentaries on all the Upanishads, on Gita and on the Brahma
Sutras. In his commentary on Chandogya Upanishad, he makes the above remark
that the fight between Gods and demons should not be seen as though two warring
groups are present in the sky, fighting against one another. Gods are merely
our own behavioral patterns purified by the study of scriptures and pursuit of
righteousness. Demons are our behavioral patterns driven by sensual desires.
These two are engaged in constant battle in the human mind. The battle between
Gods and demons is a battle in human mind. ( Chandogya 1-2-1). It is a
adhyatmika-sangrama, an inner battle in every human being, which has been going
on perennially. Shankaracharya repeats this idea in other works too.
11.2.
Heaven and Hell
The heavenly worlds are not some three
dimensional places hanging out in space but they are different states of
experience. A miserable state of mind is one of the hellish worlds and a pure
and happy mind is one of the heavenly worlds. As Shankaracharya says ‘lokyate
iti lokah that which is experienced due to result of one’s own action is a loka
or a world. Villainous actions lead to miserable states of mind and benevolent
actions lead to pleasant states of mind. He says that loka-s can also be the
rebirths in a happier or miserable condition depending on actions in this life.
Lokyante bhujyante iti janmani - happy or unhappy lives, which are experienced
are themselves loka-s - says Shankaracharya. We do not clash with other
religions for space in heaven.
11.3.
Mythological Stories
The Lordly, the Friendly and the Books from
the Beloved: Indian tradition calls the Vedas as the commanding or lordly
(prabhu-sammita) texts, the mythologies as advisory and friendly
(mitra-sammita) and the religious poetry as the counsel of the beloved (kanta
sammita). As the names indicate, the first type is commanding in nature, the
second type gives friendly illustrations and the third type counsel as a
beloved would do to her lover.
We may recall that In the Vedic scheme of
transmission of knowledge Vedas were considered the primary texts. The epics like
Ramayana, Mahabharata were considered as itihasa (closer to historical
narrations) and the mythological tales were known as puranas.
The Vedas and Upanishads contain philosophical
reasoning where the Supreme Brahman is postulated. Such reasoning is beyond the
understanding of the lay devotee and hence these ideas are retold in the form
of allegorical tales by the purana-s.
11.4. The
Symbolism
For instance, Vedanta says pure consciousness is
the substratum on which may a, its creative energy, manifests. Purana presents
consciousness as Shiva as lying on a couch and presents Maya/ energy as a
goddess sitting over Shiva. The philosophical concepts consciousness (chit) and
creative power (sakti) are allegorically shown as male and female deities.
11.5. The
Story of Elimination of Desire
A popular tale about the marriage of Shiva and
Parvati has an episode about Shiva turning Kama (Indian version of Cupid) to
ashes by his angry looks blazing fire. Shiva has a third eye on his forehead,
symbolizing knowledge. In the story, gods stand vanquished by the demons and
are looking for some strategy to regain their kingdom. They are told by the
creator god that the son born to Shiva and Parvati would be able to destroy the
demon king. But Shiva is in deep meditation and would not be disturbed for
several ages. The gods have to disturb his meditation and ensure that he gets
married. They find a lovely bride, Parvati, who also falls in love with Shiva,
and starts serving him, though Shiva takes no notice of her. The gods plan to
do so by sending Kama, otherwise called Manmatha (literally, one who churns the
mind). When Kama disturbs Shiva by shooting his flower arrows and draws his
attention to lovely Parvati, Shiva grows angry and looks around for the cause
of such disturbance. He sees Kama, the culprit and opens his third eye, and the
flames emanating from that eye burn Kama to ashes.
The symbolism is clear. The fire of knowledge
kills Kama, which, in Sanskrit means desire and lustfulness. This is the
message of Gita too. Action without desire, performed for universal good is the
karma yoga. In the present tale, a combination of knowledge (Shiva) and action
(sakti) without desire (Kama) is shown as producing a child who has the power of
restoring the good forces, in other words, gods. This is what is advised to the
newlyweds too. Love, not lust, should play the major role in order to have
children with good character.
Most of the characters in the purana-s have
names which symbolize some human folly such as arrogance, avarice, cruelty, rapaciousness,
lust and so on. When these demons are shown as being killed by the deities, we
have to understand that the particular folly is cured and not that the God is
fond of killing. Bhagavat Purana is a book where almost all characters are allegorical
representations of human characteristics.
11.6. The
Happy Boy Prahlada
We know the story of the boy Prahlada who was
tormented by his father Hiranya-kasipu, the demon king. Hiranya-kasipu means
the man on a golden mattress and Prahlada means one enjoying the bliss of
Brahman. The earlier story goes that two attendants Jaya and Vijaya, who served
Lord Vishnu, got a curse when they behaved arrogantly with sages. They were
cursed to go to earth forever, leaving Vishnu’s abode. When they repented, Vishnu
gave them the option that they would return to heaven if they take three births
as demons and after their arrogance was destroyed by Vishnu they would come
back to heaven. Accordingly they took birth and one of them is Hiranyakasipu, who
represents greed, avarice and arrogance of wealth. He is unaware of his earlier
heavenly status, and hence defies Lord Vishnu, (representing the cosmic dharma)
and decrees that all gods and demons should worship him. His son Prahlada, a devotee
of Vishnu, does not do so. The demon king grows angry and starts tormenting
Prahlada. Finally he has to be vanquished by Vishnu who comes in the avatar of
Nrisimha, the lion-man, to save his devotee Prahlada. Here too, the symbolism
is clear. Greed and arrogance of power do not coexist with the bliss of
Brahman. Hiranyakasipu merges in the Lord and attains liberation.
11.7. The
Buffalo Demon
Another popular story is that of the
Mahishasura, the buffalo demon. He is the personification of cruelty, lust and ignorance.
Goddess Durga is shown as killing him in the text Devi Bhagavatam. It is the
abominable qualities which are being ‘killed’ and not a person and hence we
should not construe that the goddess is fond of killing. It is a long
allegorical tale where the subalterns of the demon king are vanquished by the
attendants of the goddess and finally the goddess ‘kills’ him.
The slaying of the demon Vritra by Indra, the
king of gods is a Vedic story. The word Vritra means that which envelopes or
covers a thing. It symbolizes ignorance because ignorance envelopes our right
understanding and makes us perceive things wrongly. The gods were once over
powered by Vritra. A sage named Dadhichi sacrifices himself and offers his back
bone (the vertebral column) as a weapon to be used against Vritra. Back bone
symbolizes a nerve named sushumna passing through that and that symbolizes the
kundalini energy. This is the yogic power which the yogi-s yearn for. Indra
slays the demon with the weapon acquired
from the sage.
Another symbolic story is that of the demon king
Bah. As the name indicates, he is one with enormous strength, both physical and
spiritual. However, he is arrogant about his powers. His sense of egotism and
defines of gods (the good forces of the world) is his flaw. As he is a mighty
demon he defeats the gods and drives them away from heaven. The gods approach
Vishnu to restore the kingdom to gods. Vishnu appears in the form of a boy sage
Vamana and approaches Bah who happened to be doing a yajna. It is customary for
the kings to grant boons to sages at the time of yajna. Vamana makes a strange
request and seeks space measuring three foot lengths. The king grants
accordingly. Vamana then grows in size, occupies the whole universe and covers
the whole earth (which was earlier lorded by Bah) with one foot, covers the
whole heavenly worlds (which were also conquered by Bali) with another foot. He
needs space to put his foot again and finds no space. Bah realizes that the
visitor was Vishnu and suggests to Vamana to keep his foot on his head. Vishnu
places his foot on the head of Bah. There are several long chapters in
Bhagavatam, relating the above story. The symbolism is also explained there.
Bah symbolizes egotism. Vedanta says that the individual self (jlva) is a mere
reflection of the Brahman consciousness and it is by sheer ignorance that jlva
assumes his self to be the doer. This sense of ownership in action has to be eliminated
and that is the moral of the story.
11.8. The
Weapons of Gods
In almost all stories the gods and demons do
have weapons like swords, bows, arrows, maces and such others. Even
these symbolize certain human characteristics.
For instance, the weapons of Vishnu are described in a few verses in the Bhagavatam
(Book 12- chapter 11). The name Vishnu means ‘all pervading’ entity. The life
force in the universe is said to be the mace of Vishnu and this is said to
symbolize the intellect in the humans. The waters (one of the five elements) is
said to be the conch and this is said to symbolize the ego principle in the
living beings. The fire element becomes the circular disc weapon in the hand of
Vishnu and this is said to symbolize the mind in living beings. While offering
prayers to Vishnu, the devotees mention this symbolism and recite mantras
saying - ‘we bow to the disc symbolizing the speed of mind, we bow to the conch
symbolizing ego’ and so on.
When Vishnu took the avatara of Rama, his
weapons the conch and the disc took birth as Rama’s two younger brothers. The
snake god on which Vishnu reclines tookbirth as Lakshmana.
In the thousand names of Lalita, the weapons are
described in the very beginning. Sometimes, the symbolism is explained by the
text itself, as it is done here. The names say – rdgasvarupa pdsddhyd
krodhdkardnkusojvala - which means that desire is the snare which the goddess
has in one hand and anger is the spur, the sharp iron prod (which controls the
elephant) in another hand. It means that desire is permitted to a limited
extent and anger (which is associated with knowledge) controls the desire.
The goddess has two more weapons - bow and
arrows. The sugar cane bow represents mind (manorupeksu kodanda). Like the
sugar cane, it is filled with savory juice presented by the five senses. The
five flowery arrows represent the five senses (pancatanmatra say aka) which go
after all beautiful things we see. This is a hymn on Lalita, the Goddess
(representing maya) that we see in a purana. Millions of people, perhaps recite
this every day, little realizing the philosophical meaning, but feeling extremely
rewarded by the prayer itself. Lalita is praised here as the deity who would
fulfill desires and also as the Supreme Being.
Stories relating to all deities indicate that
the so called weapons are not actually weapons but some of the characteristics associated
with the cosmic being, whether it is called Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesha or any other
name.
Such tales abound in our purana-s. Some purana-s
extol Vishnu as the Supreme Being, some extol Shiva as the Supreme Being and
some others extol Shakti, Ganesha and others as Supreme Being. This should not
be taken as a serious contradiction because these could have been composed by
supporters of the respective sects. (Tradition has it that it was sage Vyasa
alone who composed all the eighteen purana-s, to bring together different
belief systems. Some moderns say that the name Vyasa was more a title than
reference to a single person.) These could have originated in different parts
of the country where that particular tradition or sect was prevalent. However,
we see that all these broadly follow the philosophical framework of Vedanta,
while presenting various characters and stories in their narrative.
11.9. No
Concept of Devil in Hinduism
In order to explain the evil in the world,
religions normally portray God as representing good and devil representing
evil, as polar opposites. God throws the devil and his team into hell.
We do not have the concept of devil in Hinduism.
If we accept devil as distinguished from God, God would be a delimited entity
howsoever powerful he may be. God will be in heaven and the devil will be
reigning in hell and there will be constant tussle between God and devil.
We noted that there are three guna-s, sattva,
rajas and tamas in maya, the power of revelation that is in the Brahman. This power
is otherwise called ‘prakriti’. What we call bad or evil is a product of these
guna-s only and it gets resolved by the cosmic design of an avatara which is
the means to restore the balance among the guna-s and restore dharma in the
universe.
Gita says that whenever there is ascendance of
evil and suppression of the good, the cosmic being manifests in some form to
restore order and protect the good ( Gita 4-7 & 8). The commentators have
explained that the cosmic being takes birth with the power of maya and this
birth is not like the birth of all other humans, though the activities of this
avatara will closely resemble the activities of humans. Lord Rama and Lord
Krishna are examples of this.
There is an interesting discussion in Bhagavatam
(1st chapter, 7th canto) between sage Suka and king Parikshit. “How can
God have enmity with the demons, when He is supposed to be equally kind to
all?” questions the king. The sage replies that in reality, the Supreme Being
is above all this. It is the maya which is a manifestation in the Supreme
Being, and what we see as evil is only an interplay of the three guna-s. The
empirical god, whom we call the creator is but consciousness delimited by maya.
When there is upsurge of tamas, it is the cosmic design to control it by unleashing
the sattva guna. Thus the empirical god appears as though he is the vanquisher
and the vanquished (.Bhagavatam 7-1-6).
That is why it is seen that the demons
vanquished by the God merge in the same cosmic being. The same text in
Bhagavatam gives examples of demons and other evil persons who were killed by
different avatars of Vishnu and how they merged in the same avatar-person after
they got killed. Hiranya-kasipu, the demon king merges in the avatar of
Nrisimha (the man-lion), and Sisupala, the evil king merges in the
avatar-person Krishna. It means that evil is something which gets subsumed in
the cosmic being.
Good and evil cannot be different from the
cosmic being, as they are manifestations in the same consciousness. The Supreme
Consciousness is untouched by all this.
11.10.
Distorted Presentation of Hindu Culture
Parents generally are not aware of this subtle
but pervasive phenomenon.
In 5.2 we saw sage Vyasa explaining the
framework of itihasa and purana. They were designed to convey the complicated
message of the Vedas to the lay devotee in terms of understandable tales.
Some of the Western writers, followed by the
Indian communists, have deliberately ignored the ancient commentaries and also
the framework in which these texts have to be understood. Some have given
racist interpretations with an intention to divide the Indian society (for
political or evangelical reasons) and some others have superimposed the western
ideas of abnormal psychology which are alien to Indian psyche and culture. It
is a grave hurt to the sentiments of millions of Hindus to say that Ganesha had a lustful eye on his mother
Parvati or that Lakshman in Ramayana had lusted for Sita (as Paul Courtright says).
These writers have chosen to take pur an a-s as
the primary texts, though it is not the Vedic scheme of things. Puranas have to
be studied in the light of philosophical perspective of the Upanishads but not
from any anthropological or racist perspective as some of the modern writers,
ignorant of the philosophical tradition, have done.
* * *
12 Do We
Worship Idols?
12.1. The Idea of God Becomes the Idol of God Vedas
(Upanishads) talk of meditations of different types. One can meditate on god as
though god is seated in one’s heart. One can meditate on the Supreme Being as
located in the sun or moon or any other object. The major Upanishads are silent
about idol worship, which shows that this practice is of later origin.
We saw above how the mythological tales give
symbolic
description for the philosophical concepts.
These concepts are given a shape and form by seekers for easy recapitulation
and practice of meditation. This can be in the shape of a diagram called
yantra, or a drawing which is a pictorial representation or a three-dimensional
representation of the same, which is an idol. Thus we seeyantra, mantra (sacred
chanting with chosen words), pictures and idols, all forming aide-memoire for
the seeker. (Such symbolic representation is seen in all ancient religions).
A verse from Rama-Tapaniya Upanishad (a minor Upanishad)
explains thus:
cinmayasyadvitiyasya niskalasyasaririnah .
upasakanam karyartham brahman o riipakalpana .
(The Brahman, the Supreme Reality, is of the
nature of cit, that is, intelligence, and it is non-dual. It has no parts in It
and no body. The visualization of some shape for It is merely to facilitate the
meditators).
Another well known verse from a smrti says this:
agnirdevo dvijatlnam munlnam hrdi daivatam .
pratima sthulabuddhlnam sarvatra viditatmanam ..
(It is the Agni, the fire God, who is worshipped
by dwija-s; the saints visualize god in their own hearts. The laymen need an idol
or a symbol for devoting their attention. The wise persons see divinity
everywhere).
12.2. Emergence of Idols
Buddhists perhaps sculpted the largest idols in
the world (eg, Buddha’s statues in the Bamiyan caves in Afghanistan) though
Buddha himself did not advocate the idea of God or idol worship. The Buddhist
practice could have influenced the Hindus or the practice could have co-existed
in both.
Hindus, as we noted above, worshipped different
deities and had visualized certain belief systems around the idea of that
deity. For instance, the worshippers of Vishnu held that Vishnu resided in
Vaikunta with his consort Lakshmi. Worshippers of Shiva held that Shiva resided
in Kailasa with his consort Parvathi. Other minor systems too existed in the
same way.
The Indian sages appear to have done an
ingenious thing by establishing relationship among these deities. Shakti,
otherwise known as Parvathi, was treated as wife of Shiva by the followers of
Shiva. A different power or Shakti, known as Lakshmi, was treated as wife of
Vishnu by followers of Vishnu. Ganesha was made the son of Shiva and Parvathi.
It was a very harmonious integration of deities under the umbrella of
Upanishads, without harming the basic philosophical doctrine of the Upanishads.
Vedanta treated the above three major deities,
that is, Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra as associated with the three guna-s, rajas,
sattva and tamas respectively, corresponding to the three cosmic functions of
creation, sustenance and dissolution. They are not three different ‘persons’
but three aspects of the same functional god.
Worship of some type of symbol is seen in all
religions. As we noted above, the emergence of new religions led to destruction
of all temples and idols both in Christianity and Islam. Yet all religions hold
several symbols as sacrosanct and inviolable. The Christians worship Cross,
Muslims hold the Quran with great reverence. They also hold physical structures
of Mosques or Churches as inviolable and any perceived insult would result in street
protests and violence.
12.3. Do
we worship the cow?
We do respect the cow, of course, but not
worship it. Cow is the most important participant in a yajna because of its
milk, butter and all other products from the cow. Several cows are also given
as gift at that time. Hence the tradition of treating it as a sacred animal has
started. All Indian religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism advocated
ahimsa - non-violence to animals. There was a limited exception to this,
permitting sacrifice of animals during certain rituals but non-violence was the
rule. We may also know that our religion does not say that God created all
animals as food for man.
The daily practices of Hindus (which we may
still see in rural India) reveal the respect for nature around. When a person
gets up he mutters a small prayer to mother earth seeking permission to set his
foot on her. When a person takes dip in a river (all rivers are considered
holy) he seeks forgiveness of the river for polluting it with his bodily dirt.
When a person builds a house and starts digging the earth, he seeks pardon, as
he is hurting the earth as well as the worms which may be there in the soil. The
Vedic sage seeks permission of the tree to break a twig from it for performance
of a ritual. A healthy respect for nature is built into the psyche of a Hindu,
which can be seen in the rural India even today.
* * *
13 Enjoy
Your Temple Visit
13.1.
Temple Symbolism
We had earlier noted that philosophical
reasoning is like the software of Hinduism whereas rituals, festivals and other
practices are like the hardware.
It is not certain whether there were temples in
the Vedic times. The Vedas talk about yajna-s, which did not need the presence
of a temple. The middle portions of the Vedas talked about upasana-s, (as noted
earlier) which were meant for concentration of mind and meditating on the
nature of a particular deity. Upanishads like Chandogya talk about several such
upasana-s. These involve visualizing a deity in some object in front of the
devotee. A special stone named salagrama can be used to visualize Vishnu,
another oval shaped stone can be used to visualize Shiva and so on. This
visualization can be in a diagram (called yantra) or merely in a verbal form (
mantra ) or as an object in front of the devotee.
It is generally presumed that these symbols
gradually became more elaborate depending on the imagination of the devotee or the
person who prepared the object for concentration of mind. Gradually the person
who made such objects started making these objects in a human form and became a
professional sculptor. An elaborate science called agama-sastra came into
existence. These books derived the basic doctrine from the Vedas and elaborated
on that. Thus we find different agama-s of different schools. We have agama-s
relating to Shiva, Vishnu and Shakti. These books give meticulous details about
the construction of the temple. The temple becomes a symbolic representation of
the philosophy.
Every temple has the sanctum sanctorum, called
the garbha grha (the womb-house) where the lord is located. Around this there
may be three or more perimeter walls on all four sides. The number of walls is
also symbolic. Three walls represent the three guna-s, indicating that we have
to go beyond the three guna-s. Five walls represent the five sheaths in the
body, indicating that we have to go beyond the five sheaths and seek the lord. Quite
often, the temple priest is the best guide to tell about this, depending on
their tradition.
If you see the ancient temples of south India,
you find a system called pahcayatana - worship of five deities. If a Vishnu follower
were to build a temple, he would keep the idol of Vishnu as the main deity and
keep four other deities - Shiva, Shakti, Sun and Ganesha in the four corners.
If a Shiva follower were to build a temple he would place Shiva’s idol in the
center and keep the others in the four corners. This system was perhaps influenced
by Shankaracharya who was called the establisher of six systems of worship (see
10.2).
We saw the symbolism of gods, goddesses and
their weapons in the earlier chapter. If Lord Venkateswara is standing with one
wife on each side, your child should understand that one wife represents wealth
(Lakshmi) and the other wife represents the world (Bhudevi). Similarly, other
gods and wives have to be understood.
Sometimes the god is seen having four hands.
Generally, these four hands represent the four human goals - dharma, artha (prosperity),
kama (desire) and moksa (liberation). Dharma is social order, and this is
normally shown as a weapon in one hand. The palm of another hand which gives
boons, is shown pointing downwards (called varada mudra ), symbolizing that it gives
the desired boons. Another hand, usually having a flower, symbolizes desire.
The fourth hand is called abhaya mudra, symbolizing knowledge. As per Vedanta,
knowledge alone gives fearlessness. In other words, this hand represents liberation.
13.2. Our Frame of Mind
Gita says that four types of people seek god -
those who are in distress, those who needs prosperity, those who are seekers and
lastly the realized persons (jhdni). Most of us fall under the first two
categories. We visit temples when we need blessings for a particular need. With
great devotion we convey our anxieties and desires to the god and find solace.
Krishna says that seeker is interested in god
because he wants to get rid of the impurities of mind and become eligible for
the knowledge of Brahman. Devotion to god keeps him away from impure
associations and it is known to be the best means for purification of mind. Similarly, a jhdni too
participates in worship like any other person though he has no desire, no anxiety
whatsoever. He realizes his self as not different from Brahmanbut yet he
worships a deity as a continuance of earlier habit and also to be a role model
of others.
We are not expected to be ostentatious devotees.
Lord Krishna says that a trifling of a present, like a flower or a fruit or
even a leaf given with dedication is enough for the Lord 0 Gita 9-26). However,
temples have evolved different types of worship.
Unfortunately the system is commercialized in several places. There is a type
of worship which sixteen types of services (sodasa-upacdra-pujd). This is
similar to inviting an honored guest to
your house, make him seated in a respectable seat, offer water, food and
several such services till you see him off This type of worship can be done in
a simple way and also in a very ornate and lavish way In fact Shankaracharya
has written about manasapuja (silent worship within the mind) of the
attribute-less Brahman.
The real darsanam, vision, of the Lord is to
understand the divine nature and not merely see the Lord’s idol from close quarters
or touch it or be there for a long time. The real prasadam is to attain
tranquility of mind and not to eat some delicious offering given to the lord.
You may have a look at Shankaracharya’s composition called nirguna manasa puja
in this context.
Temples have served the great purpose of being
the religious, cultural and educational centers. They were the centers for
dance, music and sculpture, besides being places of religious discourses.
Ancient temples have elaborate architectural details. Each temple is unique and
each tradition is unique. It will be quite interesting if you can take a guide
to explain various sculptures in the temples you see. We need not be in a hurry
to rush into the sanctum sanctorum and have a mere glimpse of the Lord.
Appreciation of the whole temple is a rewarding spiritual experience.
* * *
14 Are We
Asked to Work Without Desiring the Fruit?
Yes, but it is for the person who wants to get
out of the cycle of birth and death and attain liberation. It is only commended
but not mandated for all.
14.1. The
Meaning and Framework of Karma
It is a common accusation against the Hindu
system because of the off quoted statement which confounds a superficial
reader.
The Gita says:
‘ karmanyeva-adhikaraste maphalesu kadacana\
2-47).
Krishna asks Arjuna to perform the duty enjoined
on him without expecting the fruit of that action. “Do not become the cause for
the fruit of that action and likewise, do not give up your enjoined duty”, he
adds.
This has to be understood in the overall context
of the meaning of karma. Though the word ‘karma’ literally means action, in
Vedanta it refers to the actions prescribed or permitted for a person. The line
from Gita is not referring to secular duties like attending office, performing
duty of a technical employee in a multinational, and not expecting his pay
slip. It is talking of the religiously enjoined duties on different categories
of people.
There are three types of actions described in
the scriptures.
Daily and compulsory duties,
Occasional but obligatory duties
Desire-driven actions
The first is a compulsory duty, called
nitya-karma, which consists of self-purifying actions such as contemplation of the
Gayathri mantra, giving food to guests, feeding the poor, feeding animals etc.
(called the five-fold yajha) which have to be performed every day The second
type of duty is connected with special occasions like new moon day, or a
festival day There are also special rituals for occasions like birth,
initiation to Vedic study, marriage and so on. Sociologists call them rites of
passage. These involve certain cooperative practices like giving food to the
people, making different types of donations ( danam ) during such rituals.
The third type of action is not exactly a duty,
but an action motivated by the individual’s desire to achieve more prosperity in
this world or in the other world (heaven) by performing rituals recommended in
the scriptures. This would result in some result, and to enjoy this, a person
may have to take up another birth.
We may know two words here - punyam and papam. Punyam
is a sort of spiritual merit accruing to a person because of the above said
rituals and other good deeds performed. Papam is a demerit accruing to a person
because of some bad deeds (adharma). These punyam and papam may give result
either in this life or in the later births.
The nitya-karma (compulsory rites) and the
obligatory rites on special occasions do not result in punyam, though their non-performance
leads to papam.
The third type of activity, noted above,
motivated by individual desire, produces a spiritual merit called punyam.
Performance of an evil deed or prohibited action
causes spiritual demerit. Thus, a person normally accumulates a mixed baggage of
merit and demerit over a period of time. This gets exhausted only by
experiencing the fruit of the action. If it is not possible in the current life
to exhaust this, he has to take up another birth to exhaust it.
Rebirth implies further activities, good or bad,
and further accrual of the fruit of such actions. Further rebirths are needed to
exhaust such accumulated baggage of good and bad. A person is said to
transmigrate from body to body as we noted above. This unending cycle of transmigration
is called samsara.
14.2.
Desire-free Action
We shall now see what is called desire-free
action or work done without expecting result. In Vedanta, it is called niskama karma.
Desire-free karma is mandated for the person who
wants be on the path of knowledge 1) in order to attain purity of mind and 2)
in order to get out of the cycle of birth and death. It is not for the one who
does not bother for realization.
Karma cannot be avoided by any of us, as it is
the driving force for the very existence of human society. Moreover, not doing
karma is itself karma, that is, the action of avoidance of duty, and so it
entails demerit. Hence, the person who wants to get rid of the cycle of
transmigration has to think of an intelligent way to do karma and still get out
of the cycle of births. For this, Gita suggests karma-yoga.
If the baggage of karma causes rebirth, the
intelligent way to avoid rebirth is to do karma but not claim the result. Do it
with an attitude that you are doing it as your duty to society, as an offering to
the Lord, and as your contribution to the collective good ( loka-sangraha, as
Gita calls it). Then you will not be touched by the result of that karma, says
Gita. This attitude to work is called niskama karma, a desire-free action. (
Kama means ‘desire’ and niskama means ‘desire-free’).
The important result of desire-free action is
that it leads to purity of mind, which is essential for self-realization. A
person with a bundle of desires can hardly do any self-enquiry. There is a
principle of inter-dependence in the whole cosmos and everyone has to play his
role. This person engaged in niskama karma does his portion of duty as the
individual’s contribution to the cosmic order. This makes his mind pure and
eligible for study of scriptures.
Niskama karma, by itself, will not lead to
realization and avoidance of the cycle of birth and death. Why? It is because
it can merely ward off the result of karma done in this birth but cannot
neutralize the pending baggage of karma-s, good and bad, of previous births.
In order to neutralize the pending baggage there
is only one way prescribed in the scriptures. One is asked to pursue scriptural
studies and go through the three stages - called sravanam (grasping the meaning
of Upanishidic statements like ‘that you are’, at an intellectual level),
mananam (logically analyzing the subject and internalizing it) and
nididhyasanam (to be firm in that state of awareness). It is this three level
spiritual exercise which finally results in realization of self.
Niskama karma is thus a strategy and the first
step for those who are in the path of self-realization. It is a step in the
long process of self-purification.
A person who has this attitude to work is called
a karma yogi. It is called yoga because it is a means to unite the individual with
the universal self and this karma yoga is a preparatory step for such union.
This is what Bhagavad Gita is all about.
14.3.
Dead-lines and Desire-free Action
How is a modern man bogged down with dead-lines
related to this desire-free action?
This idea had a particular relevance for Arjuna
who was about to plunge into war. However, it does not mean that it cannot be
applied to present day secular work. In secular work too, one can be a better
performer if one works not merely for the pay slip, but for the good of the
organization, which is ultimately for the good of society.
Gita says that even day-to-day activities can be
done with the awareness of the divine in us and as an offering to the
collective (5-9). This attitude becomes more relevant and applicable where the
action has a public interface and where one is capable of doing more service.
This is possible both in a private sector functioning and in the government
departments.
One who merely does this niskama-karma is surely
avoiding the fruit of actions done in this life, but the karmas of previous lives
may be pending. If he wants to get rid of them, he has to attain knowledge of
the self, through the three-level discipline of study, affirmation and bringing
it to experience.
To sum up, you may like to leave the fruit of
action if you want to come on to the path of knowledge, that is, if you are a seeker.
But if you want to enjoy, you may do so and continue to stay in a
transmigrating existence.
X- X- X-
15 Does
Hinduism Advocate Fatalism?
15.1. What Vedanta Says
This is a common misconception about Hinduism.
Fatalism is the belief that everything is predetermined by the unseen hand of
God and that man has no role in shaping himself. This is not what Hinduism
says.
Our actions give results, good, bad or mixed, as
we have seen above. These results may befall either in this very birth or in a
later birth. A person who is born is thus a result of a previous action. This
rule applies right from an ant to the largest living animal and from a blade of
grass to the tallest tree. (In our tradition animal life and plant life are
also due to the karma of an individual during this human existence).
Animals and trees have no chance of doing
yajna-s, upasana-s or karma-yoga. It is only the human who can do these.
Scriptures exhort a person to do good deeds and
neutralize the bad effects of earlier deeds. Scriptures talk about purusakara, human
effort in order to get rid of the effects of bad karma and progress
spiritually. All scriptures would lose their relevance if we do not accept that
the human being can change the course of his life.
15.2.
Human Being - A Doer and Enjoyer Both
Thus while being born as a lower animal or as a
human being, a living being is experiencing the fruit of previous action.
It is called bhokta, the one who is eating the
fruit of action. The human being, on the other hand, is a karta, actor too. He
has got the liberty, intelligence and guidance from the scriptures to choose
his course of action.
When a person is born, he or she is born with
some inbuilt tendencies, predispositions called vasana-s in Vedanta. This is like
an arrow shot from a bow and which cannot be taken back. It has given a particular
result. As the human being grows, his exposure to scriptures will give him an
opportunity to change the course of his earlier dispositions. All spiritual
discipline described by various systems of Yoga and Vedanta relate to this purification
of dispositions. Human effort for betterment is like an arrow which is cocked
on a bow and kept ready for release. He may release it in whatever manner he
wants.
Why someone is born poor and someone rich? Is
god partial to some? Scriptures have proposed the idea of karma in order to
explain the diversity in the world we see. Some are born in a royal family,
some in a poor hutment, someone is born with a sound body but some other is
born lame and so on. We have to say that god is partial in his creation if the
idea of karma were not to be accepted. Diversity shows that the human being is responsible
for his actions.
Scriptures also say that actions like karma
yoga, devotion to god, meditation and other practices of Yoga will lead to purification
of mind. This becomes meaningful only when we accept that the human being has a
free will to choose his action. Scriptures repeatedly say that a person has to
strive for the highest goal. In fact Gita enumerates several paths (actions) to
attain that goal. A person can choose a path which is ideal to him.
15.3. Karma Bhumi
There is a general misconception that the
landmass of India is karma bhumi, a sacred place where alone all our rituals
and prayers fructify. No doubt our land is sacred because of so many sages who have
taken birth, so many sacred places and rivers existing in it. However, it is
only an idea from the purana-s to extol the greatness of our land.
The student of Vedanta knows that the human
being alone is capable of performing actions, good or bad. All yajha-s, austerities,
penances and charitable activities can be done in the human life only. Vedanta
says that it is the human life which is the karma bhumi. We need not, however,
dispute with those calling India as a karma bhumi, but such contenders have to
recall that what was called Bharata varsha is not the delimited India we see today.
Bharata varsha extended up to Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Burma. People of these
lands may not bother to call their land karma bhumi.
Do our rituals give result outside India?
Hindus living abroad are in a dilemma about this
sometimes. When we understand that the human life (and not India) is the karma
bhumi, we will also realize that rituals, worship and meditation would give
result anywhere in the world. A proper study of Gita would dispel all our
doubts.
Coming back to the topic of fatalism, we see
that scriptures recommend karma-s to get rid of the bad effects of earlier
karma. This is nothing but free will. To start with we see the operation of
fate but later we see the operation of free will to steer in one’s own way. In
other words, we have a mixture of what we may call determinism and free will in
our tradition.
* * *
16 Are We
a Caste Bound Society?
Upanishads talk only of varna, which, in later
times, got fossilized as caste. Hindu society suffered a great deal and
continues to be under great attack mainly on this issue. We have to see what
the primary scriptures talk about this.
16.1. Vedas - Varna Based on Qualities
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (of Shukla
Yajurveda) gives this account. “In the beginning there was only one varna, that
is, Brahmin. It was not able to fulfill the needs of society and so it created
ksatriya, the warrior wing” (Br.U 1-4-11). “Even this was not adequate and so
it created the trading wing called vysya. When this too was not complete, it
created the wing of the working class which was called sudra and also Pushan,
which means one who feeds and nourishes the society. (Br.U 1-4-12 &13).
We studied the idea of the cosmic being in an
earlier chapter. The Rig Veda visualizes the whole cosmos as a living being
(v/rat) and says this:
“Brahmin became the mouth (spokesperson for the
society), ksatriya, the warrior became the shoulders, the vysya became the
thighs (the support structure) and sudra formed the feet (for different
services)” (Rig Veda 10-).
This is the normal division of work in any
present day society It is the so-called intelligent minority who become the spokespersons
and policy makers. These positions are attained by the individual aptitude and
caliber.
The oft quoted line from the Bhagavad Gita says
this: caturvarnyam may a srstam gun akarma vibhagasah (4-17).
Krishna says clearly that the categorization
into varna and allocation of duties is according to gun a-s. This is repeated
by Krishna in the eighteenth chapter (18-41) where he says that the duties
ofpersons are decided by their guna-s, thebuilt-in aptitudes and qualities. The
commentators, particularly, Nilakantha is very emphatic about the guna-s. He
says that if a Brahmin does not possess the qualities as defined for him, he
should be deemed a non-Brahmin and put in the appropriate category. If a siidra
has the merit and qualities expected of a Brahmin, he should be categorized as
Brahmin.
This was the arrangement as we find in the Vedic
texts. The division of people into different varnas was based on their basic
aptitudes, tendencies or dispositions called guna-s. We saw this word ‘ guna ’
above. The three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas which are the building blocks
of prakrti (maya), are also the building blocks of every sentient and
insentient thing on earth.
The gunas mix in infinite number of proportions
to evolve into the world of diversity we see. There is predominance of one guna
or the other in all things in nature (which is the basis of the Ayurveda - the
Indian system of medicine). In the case of human beings, those who have
predominance of sattva are those who will be truthful, righteous, humble,
compassionate, generous and contented. These are the persons who are the
intellectualmentors of a society. Those who have predominance of rajas have two
distinct tendencies i.e. (a) aggressive, valorous, bold, violent and dominating
tendency and (b) acquisitive, creating wealth, trading nature. These were called
ksatriya and vysya respectively. Lack of initiative, sloth and dullness are the
characteristics of tamas. Those who had such qualities were called sudra- s.
16.2. Clarified in Mahabharata Too
In the beginning, categorization of people into
different varna-s was decided basing on the innate tendencies of persons due to
interplay of gun a-s in them.
The problem arose when the descendants of these
persons claimed to be in those categories whether they had merit or not.
Society cannot agree for a bureaucrats son claiming to be a bureaucrat and an
army general’s son claiming to be a general.
Mahabharata, the great epic, has several
passages (particularly in Shanti Parva) supporting the above points. Itappears
that even by that time there was dilution in the character of Brahmins and they
became pleasure seekers and power mongers. Such people became ksatriya-s. By
their unbecoming and uncleanly conduct, they also became sudra (Shanti Parva, Ch
188, 11-18). The commentator Nilakantha, on the authority of the Vedas,
concludes emphatically that conduct and qualities define varna.
16.3. Concept of Dwija
One word which has to be correctly
understood is ‘dwija’, meaning ‘the twice born. Out of the four varna-s, the
first three, that is, the Brahmin, ksatriya and vysya were collectively called ‘dwija’,
because they all underwent the initiation ritual, which was treated as a second
birth for them and they studied Vedas.
Gita defines vysya (who is also a dwija ) as
follows:
krsi goraksa vanijyam vaisyakarma svabhavajam
It means that all those who are involved in
agriculture, cattle rearing and any type of trade, were called vysya-s. All
these were called dwija-s, the twice born. Most of the present day lower castes
are really to be called dwija-s.
Hindus worship Lord Krishna as one of the
highest deities. He was a cattle-herd and was a dwija. However his descendents consider
themselves as sudra-s because some time during history they have given up Vedic
learning just as most of the Brahmins have done now.
Sage Vyasa, born to a fisher woman is worshipped
as the reincarnation of Vishnu. He re-organized the Vedas, wrote Mahabharata,
wrote several pur an a-s and is treated as the first Guru of mankind. His
birthday celebrated as the Guru’s day ( guru-purnima ) in India. Similarly sage
Valmiki, the author of Ramayana, belonged to the hunting tribe, but he is
revered as a great sage by all the pundits. Suta, the narrator of all our puran
a-s and writer of the Vedanta text Suta Samhita is a person of lower caste. His
book was read by Shankara before writing the commentary on the Brahma Sutra.
We also see that till recent years, most of
these persons wore the sacred thread and performed the daily rituals just like Brahmins.
Social change in modern India has been so fast that these castes are gradually
forgetting their traditional learning and are distancing themselves from the
mainstream.
16.4.
Varna and Caste - Examples of Later Teachers
Varna is not the same as caste. Varna is
mentioned in Upanishads b ut not the caste. Varna is because of the manifestation
of characteristics of sattva, rajas and tamas, whereas, caste is because of the
trade with which a person or a group of persons were involved. India, till
recently, was mostly a rural society and a village was an economically
self-contained unit where the weaver produced the cloth, the ironsmith produced
implements, goldsmith gave ornaments and so on. Expertise in these trades consolidated
in the form of castes and resulted in marriages within those groups to preserve
and promote such expertise.
Various occupations and trades are mentioned in
Sri Rudram, the most ancient portion from Rigveda. However, all
those trades come under the definition of Vysya.
By the time of Mahabharata castes seem to have come into existence, because of
transformation of varna into caste because of inter-marriages among different
varna-s. The Manusmriti and other Smritis give some details of these castes.
The most controversial subject is untouchability
of the so called can d ala-s. Great sages like Shankara, Ramanuja and others have
always approached the issue truthfully and honestly. There is an episode of
Shankaracharya which runs as follows.
Once, when Shankaracharya was walking in the
streets of Varanasi (Benaras), a candala, a person of the lowest caste came across
his way. Shankara seems to have initially asked him to give way and move aside,
as it was the practice in those days. The candala seems to have questioned
Shankara to clarify as to whether the body has to move away or the consciousness.
Shankara realized his mistake and then bowed
before the candala
and said “ candalo’stu sa tu dwijo’stu
gururityesa manlsa mama\
‘When a person realizes that he is none other
than the Supreme Consciousness it is irrelevant whether he is a candala or a
dwija (the body mind complex is irrelevant) and he has to be revered as a guru’
- said the acharya.
Sage Ramanuja, in a similar vein, taught the
Narayana mantra from the rooftop of the temple when all the priestly class held
that it was a blasphemy to reveal the mantra to people of all castes. He seems
to have said - “If I have to go to hell by revealing the mantra to all, I would
happily go, but all others would attain heaven by knowing the mantra”. Such has
been the approach of all thinkers.
The core ideal in Hinduism is collective good
and hence it provides for changes in social customs which are the external
aspects of dharma. The Taittiriya Upanishad (1-11) refers to the standard
behavior of wise, impartial, self-less and truthful persons as the ideal to be
emulated. This becomes the ideal for all others whenever there is a doubt.
Largest good for the largest number is the idea implied. Shankaracharya
himself, in his commentary on Brahma Sutra mentions that whatever is deemed
right at a particular time, context and place may not be right in another time,
context and place. What is truth and what is right are to be distinguished.
Truth remains changeless hereas what is
perceived as right changes according to context. Untouchability which was held
right at some time is definitely not right at all times. It conflict with the
truth of equality of all beings.
The upper varna society seems to have developed
a vested interest in perpetuating the discrimination. In some cases it was due
to ignorant notion that their superiority was god-given. There was no economic
exploitation as in the case of slavery in the western world. There was no
buying or auctioning of persons and no one was kept in chains. The study of
scriptures was denied to them and certain menial and unclean jobs were assigned
and physical segregation was practiced.
Social inequality and spiritual inequality
existed simultaneously Hindu society
rectified the mistake of social and political inequality by prohibiting
untouchability and making it a seriously punishable offence. This was done as
soon as the Hindu polity came to power after thousand years of social turmoil
due to foreign invasions and rule. Political and social equality was thus
ensured.
Spiritual inequality is as undesirable as social
inequality. This has now disappeared in practice, as the Governments have introduced
study of scriptures for all castes and it is not objected to by the Hindu
leaders. However, the Hindu religious leadership has not formally come out
actively supporting this. This could not be done as the Hindu religion does not
have any organizational structure like other religions. There is no decision
making body in order to address this issue. It is, however, possible for Hindu organizations
to evolve a credible body of religious heads and put an end to this stigma on
our noble and egalitarian dharma.
Admission of spiritual equality should not cause
fears in the orthodox, as it does not mean that the orthodox have to give up study
of scriptures and disinherit themselves from tradition. It only implies that
the knowledge would be willingly shared by all and better synergy is built up
in society. As we saw above in the comment of Nilakantha, all those who have
the qualities mentioned for a Brahmin should be treated as such.
Critics of Hinduism took great advantage of this
fault-line and denigrated Hinduism. A great deal of guilt is heaped on the
so-called upper castes of Hindu society, forgetting human conduct throughout
the world.
16.5.
What History Shows
History would show that the burden of guilt has
to be shared by the whole of humanity for atrocities on fellow citizens throughout
the ages.
The ancient Greek and Roman societies had
slavery as an established institution. In fact the spread of Christianity in the
initial days was among the slaves in the Roman Empire. During the middle ages
the western society was divided into three classes - workers, soldiers and the
clergy. Some form of stratification existed in China, Japan, Egypt and such
ancient cultures.
History shows how the Spanish inquisition
initiated one of the most hideous crimes perpetrated in the name of religion.
The most pious religious leaders invented the most horrible torture mechanisms
and killed hundreds and thousands of people from middle ages down to 18th
century.
Over centuries, the Africans were physically
abducted, chained, turned into slaves and auctioned in open markets throughout
Europe and America till 19th century. Abraham Lincoln had to lay down his life
for this cause. The blacks did not have even voting rights till 1960s in
enlightened western countries whereas voting rights were given to all in India
the moment India got freedom in 1947. There have been black churches and white churches
in the western society till recent years.
Gandhiji was thrown out by a white British,
while he was travelling by train in the first class in South Africa. Non-whites
were prohibited from travelling in the first class. Millions of Jews were
killed in the enlightened twentieth century in Europe by highly religious
persons.
In contrast, we find that there was no slavery
whatsoever in India and there was no torture of the untouchables from any account
of history The so-called upper castes merely went home, bathed and muttered a
few mantras if they touched a candala, but there was never any persecution.
The reformation of Hindu society will be
possible by evolving a religious authority by educated Hindus and reiterate the
spirit of the Upanishads in order to bring about harmony in society
Parents may be aware of:
• World History
• The History of Slavery,
• History of Genocide
• Spanish Inquisition
* * *
17 The
Four Human Goals
17.1. The
Ambit of Human Activity
A modern student is aware of the hierarchy of
human needs, explained by Maslow. As a social animal, the human being has certain
basic bodily needs and certain emotional needs. Society gives scope for
everyone to achieve his potential while satisfying his needs and fulfilling his
ambitions.
The ancient Hindu tradition (right from the
Vedic times) had identified four human goals or objectives - called
purusartha-s. The word purusartha means that which is desired by a person and
that which is to be achieved by a person. These are:
dharma - universal ethical and social norms to
be followed,
artha - wealth needed for fulfilling economic
needs,
kama - sexual needs, by way of marriage,
moksa - enquiry into the nature of the Supreme
Reality leading to liberation.
The first three relate to worldly advancement.
The last one is the highest goal, which is freedom from the worldly actions and
this is attained by the path of knowledge.
The first three are mandatory for all persons in
society. The last one, liberation, is only commended to all but not mandated.
We may note that artha and kama are sandwiched between dharma and moksa. It
means that the most fundamental requirement is dharma, without which there
cannot be social order.
The word dharma cannot be easily translated into
English because it is a highly comprehensive word including three aspects -
religion, philosophy and ethics. The word literally means ‘that which holds the
society from falling apart’ (dharanat dharma ucyate). This is a comprehensive
code of conduct evolved from the teaching of the Vedas, arising from an
awareness of the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm (as we noted
earlier). It is the cosmic law of harmony. There is a famous adage - ‘Dharmo
raksati raksitah” which means that dharma, if protected, will protect us all.
How does it protect us?
Dharma is not like law, which is enforced by the
state. If you do not follow the road rules or some other rule or law you can be
prosecuted. It is not so in the case of dharma. Our body falls sick if unhealthy
food is taken but there is no rule that we have to avoid fatty foods. There is
no rule that we should not abuse nature, but if we do so, it will lead to
ecological disorders. Similarly, social harmony would deteriorate if dharma is
not followed. If you do not respect your parents or your elders, no law can
punish you, but the dharma will retaliate in the long run. We can see the collapse
of family values, particularly in the western societies, and the consequent
social and economic problems. This is due to neglect of dharma.
The concept of ‘dharma’ is central to Hinduism.
The four human goals are so designed that the human being is allowed to pursue
his needs in accordance with dharma, while being on the path of moksa. That is
the reason why dharma is mentioned first. The central theme of Mahabharata is
dharma. Its hero is Dharma-Raja, born to Kunti by the boon of the god of
Dharma. Throughout the text we find several discussions on dharma.
Hinduism has prescribed certain duties ( karma-s
) for all people, as we saw in an earlier chapter. Social behavior will be erratic
if there is no direction. Hence the religious texts have prescribed certain
compulsory duties and other activities like yajha. All these come under the
fold of dharma.
An important lesson in the Upanishad is that you
have to obey the law of the land wherever you go. ‘Whenever in doubt, follow
what the righteous, self-less and enlightened men do in a society’, says the
Taittiriya Upanishad (1-11) to the student at the time of graduation.
The second objective is artha, wealth. This is
essential for any society. Our texts say that one should pursue wealth and knowledge
with the notion that one has no old age and death; thereafter, one has to
follow dharma with the notion that death can overtake him in any minute. This
tells us that acquiring wealth is very important but at the same time it has to
be in accordance with dharma.
Wealth is not an obstacle in the path of
self-realization. We saw the examples of philosopher kings earlier. They were
kings, having enormous wealth, but they were wise persons with no sense of
clinging or attachment to wealth.
It is wrong to assume that Hindus did not give
importance to artha. In fact, Hindus were the best traders till middle ages (till
the invaders ravaged the land) and they spread Hindu culture in the whole of
South East nations. All our literature tells about the importance of generation
of wealth. The well known text Subhashita of Bhartrihari devotes a whole
chapter on the importance of wealth. Lord Krishna asserts that wealth is a manifestation
of the divine ( Gita 10-23).
This rule holds for kama, desire (including
sexual desire). No religion can frown on sexual desire which is natural to any living
being but this too should be in accordance with dharma. Krishna says - ‘I am
kama which is in accordance with dharma’ ('Gita 7-11). Desire is divine when it
follows dharma.
The Hindu tradition has given the most
pre-eminent place to the fourth objective moksa, liberation. The human mind is
full of anxieties, bondages, love, hate, pride about one’s own achievements -
all of which perpetually bind a person. Liberation is to become free from all
these things. Mere renunciation is not the remedy but it is renunciation
associated with knowledge of the Supreme. Knowledge alone liberates a person
from his notions of limited self.
The first three goals have to be properly
followed by the human being as they involve self-discipline and purification of
mind. They are needed for social stability. Thereafter, a person becomes
eligible for pursuing the highest goal. He would be having adequate spiritual
maturity to pursue the path of knowledge. One cannot directly appreciate the
path of knowledge without the preparatory discipline.
17.2. Difference between Heaven and Moksa
Religions usually talk of heaven and stop with
that, but Hindu texts talks of moksa. What is the difference?
Hinduism too talks of different heavenly worlds,
such as Vaikuntha (the abode of Vishnu, attained by the devotees of Vishnu),
Kailasa (the abode of Shiva, attained by his devotees), Swarga (the abode of
Indra) and so on. The abode of Indra is the heaven generally referred to. It is
the result of good deeds like yajha or charitable activities. Vedanta says that
heaven is an idealized experiential state where all your desires are satisfied.
You have good food, drinks and all sensual
pleasures you can imagine. In short, it is an extension of sensual pleasures.
But according to Vedanta, this is a reward for the righteous life led in this
world. Like all rewards, it has a time limit. One who goes to heaven has to
return to earth after the exhaustion of th epunyam, which we saw in an earlier
chapter.
Moksa, on the other hand, is the state of
realization that the individual is not different from Brahman. It is not a
place to attain, but it is a frame of mind. At this stage there are no desires,
as the individual has no sense of inadequacy in him. He is the all-pervading
consciousness in which all heavens manifest as petty achievements. This stage
is due to knowledge of Self and so it is eternal.
Heaven which is defined in religion is limited
in time, but moksa is eternal. The path of dharma leads to heaven, but it can lead
to moksa only when associated with jhana or self-enquiry.
Religions normally tell a person to be a
believer, a follower of faith, a defender of faith and a soldier of God who is
advocated by a religion. This idea is alien to Hinduism as the Vedas do not advocate
any particular god form or belief system but permit all god forms as a lower
level of truth and admit the Supreme Consciousness as the absolute level of
truth. The individual is told to know truth, which is Brahman.
17.3. The
Realized Person
The Vedas advocate a religious life to start
with. After a person is disciplined in religion and after attaining spiritual discipline
like restraint of senses, truthfulness, equanimity etc. he is asked discover
his Self through a process of enquiry.
How is this done? We noted above that the jtva
is nothing but consciousness and existence, appearing as though delimited by
the body mind complex. When a person identifies himself with the body mind
complex and develops an identity such as belonging to a caste, a race,
religion, sex, etc., he develops so many binding factors around him. Vedanta
asks him to know his real self by negating all these imposed identities. He has
to first get rid of the external identities like caste, religion etc., and then
slowly get rid of the internal identities such as the body, mind, and so on.
This knowing is through a long process of self-purification and contemplation,
described in texts.
Getting rid of identities will leave him as
nothing but existence-consciousness principle, which is the same as Brahman. Just
as Brahman has no doer-ship in it, so is the jhani who has no doer-ship in him.
He may be performing some duty, but he does it as an actor in a play.
For him, religion, caste, sex, nationality, etc,
(which define our identity) are only details of a temporary address. His real address
is that he is none other than the existence-consciousness principle.
Such a person is said to have gone beyond the
Vedas - ‘ yatra veda aveda bhavanti’ - says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Vedas
cease to be relevant at that stage because they talk more of the worldly man. A
realized person has gone beyond worldly attachments. Bhagavad Gita tells the
same. Krishna tells Arjuna -‘Vedas are like a small puddle of water to a person
settled in the knowledge of Self, which is like the huge sea’ (Gita, 2-46).
Vedas exhort a person to become a jnani, the realized one. Krishna calls him a
sthita-prajha, one with right understanding.
Vedanta also says a jnani is equal to Brahman
itself. A person who knows a pen does not become a pen and one who knows a book
does not become the book but the scripture asserts that one who knows Brahman
becomes Brahman.
17.4. He
Goes Beyond Caste and Creed
It is natural that he goes beyond social
identities. That is why Brihadaranyaka Upanishad calls him ‘ativarnashrami’. He
is the one who transcends the varna and asrama. He is neither a Brahmin nor a
person of any other varna or caste. He goes beyond the asrama-s - the four
stages of life. Though he is not bound by the duties enjoined on these
categories, he may still perform those
duties in order to set an example for others. Krishna calls it ‘loka sangraha.
If a wise man does not perform actions, all others would follow suit, and there
will be chaos in society. Hence though the jnani transcends the level of
religion, he still performs rituals etc., for the sake of others, to be a role model
for others. In other words , jnani is one for whom morality and discipline are
his very nature.
A jnani may cease to perform rituals when he
takes up the position of a monk, and renounce all worldly activities. This stage
is called samnyasa.
Vedanta also says that jnani goes beyond good
and evil. It does not mean that he can do anything and get away. It only means
that his actions are so purified that he will never do any prohibited action
and for all other actions he will not be attracted by the fruit of those
actions.
Does the result of actions affect a jnani? In
cases where he has a societal role to play, as in the case of king Janaka, he
may perform action. Krishna exhorts Arjuna to emulate Janaka, who was a jnani. What
happens in such case?
In the case of jnani, there is action, but there
is no actor, says Vedanta. He has no sense of ownership in whatever actions he
does. He is well established in the idea that he is nothing but mere
existence-consciousness (which is Brahman), and that all activity is that of
the body-mind-complex, which is a product of prakrti. Hence, a jnani may be
fully engaged in activities, but the fruit of actions do not stick to him. The
difference between a karma yogi and a jnani is that the sense of doer-ship
(idea that ‘I am the doer’) exists in the case of the former but does not exist
in the latter.
This is what Krishna tells about the tradition
of philosopher kings who had realized Brahman but at the same time conducted their
worldly duties for the welfare of humanity {Gita, 4-2). A modern example is
that of Nisargadatta maharaj who was said to have lived by running a petty shop
while being a great jnani. Throughout Indian history, the realized persons were
revered by the society and mighty kings bowed before them.
* * *
18 Bhagavad
Gita
“It (Gita) calls upon us to dedicate ourselves
body, mind and soul to pure duty and not become mental voluptuaries at the mercy
of chance desires and undisciplined impulses” .... Mahatma Gandhi
“In the philosophical teaching of the Gita,
Krishna has all the attributes of the full-fledged monotheistic deity and at
the same time the attributes of the Upanishadic Absolute” .... Ralph Waldo
Emerson
“Ihe Bhagavad Gita is the most systematic
statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. The Gita is one
of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the spiritual thoughts ever
to have been made” .... Aldous Huxley, the British writer
18.1. The
Divine Charioteer
Bhagavad Gita has been acclaimed by several
philosophers all over the world as the most comprehensive religious and philosophical
text of mankind. This is a single text which can clarify most of our primary
questions.
Most of us have seen the portrait of the
teaching of Gita. Arjuna is seen sitting at the base of chariot, having dropped
his bows and arrows. Krishna, the chariot driver is seen standing and giving
the message of Gita. Kathopanishad has a mantra which describes this in a
symbolic manner. The jiva, traversing in this world is the master of the
chariot. The chariot itself is the body; the intellect is the driver whereas
the mind is the reins. The five senses which pull any being towards external
objects are the five horses. The goal of every human being is to attain knowledge
and for this the intellect (chariot driver) has to be competent. In the case of
Gita Lord Krishna is himself the driver who is leading Arjuna to his goal.
18.2. The
Context of Gita
In all the above chapters, I have been citing
from the Gita. As we know, Gita is a conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna,
the Pandava prince, who was in a dilemma about his duty. It is a tiny portion
of only about 700 verses out of 100,000 verses
of Mahabharata, written by sage Vyasa. During the course of conversation,
Krishna gives a comprehensive picture of human activity (karma), the fruit of
that karma and the spiritual disciplines which one has to undergo to graduate
to the level of knowledge. Krishna’s main teaching is that every person, placed
in any varna or asrama (a stage of life such as, bachelor, householder,
spiritual seeker and renunciate) has a duty enjoined by dharma and that duty
has to be performed. Thereafter, it is also his duty to strive to know the
Supreme Reality.
The word ‘Gita literally means ‘that which is
sung’. It is metaphorically used to any passage in the ancient texts like Mahabharata,
Srimad Bhagavatham or purana-s where the nature of jiva, Iswara and Brahman are
discussed in a comprehensive way. There are several Gitas in our tradition such
as, Uddhava Gita, Dattatreya Gita, Ashtavakra Gita, Parasara Gita, Sruti Gita and
so on. Of all these, the most comprehensive is the Gita we are talking about.
Gita is not a book for the old and retired
persons. It does not advocate pessimism or withdrawal from action or total renunciation.
It does not also advocate war.
The teacher and the pupil in Gita are
householders both, warriors and men of action. The place of discussion is the
war field. It is about a dilemma which everyone has about performance of one’s
duty or dharma. Most of us are persons of the world and whatever we read should
be relevant to us. Krishna takes care of this and tells about the pravrtti
dharma, human activity for a successful worldly life. Arjuna is merely an incidental
character, but the message is intended for all of us. Many other issues relating
to nobler aspects of life - like pursuit of jnana path, the nature of divine,
exercises in self-purification and so on are told in pursuance of answering
some of the doubts and queries raised by Arjuna. Thus the book covers two paths
- the path of action and the path of renunciation.
The context of Gita, as we saw, is Arjuna’s
despondency. He sits in his chariot, totally grief-stricken, having put down
his weapons. He gets into a moral dilemma that he had to face a bloody war
which would result in a lot of bloodshed of his own kith and kin besides death
of several others. But it was Arjuna who took the lead in making all
preparations for war, personally requested Krishna to help him in the war and
to be his chariot driver. Krishna has merely come on Arjuna’s request only.
Hence, Arjuna’s despondency perplexes Krishna who starts reminding him about
his dharma.
In the course of conversation, he had to give a
large picture of the nature of dharma, the nature of Divinity and duties of human
beings in different situations. Krishna’s teaching is a sort of counseling.
While doing so, Krishna is not encouraging war but is only reminding Arjuna of
his forgotten duty. Sri Shankaracharya, while commenting on Gita, clarifies
this - ‘in this passage Krishna is not prescribing war but merely removing the
delusion in Arjuna’s mind about his duty’ (2-16).
18.3. An
Outline of Gita
The seven hundred verses of Gita are divided in
eighteen chapters. The first chapter is about Arjuna’s grief as shown in the
above paragraphs. Arjuna represents everyman and hence his grief and dilemma
are universal.
Krishna starts giving a philosophical picture of
the nature of self. This forms the second chapter. This is also called the path
or yoga of knowledge. One may wonder why Krishna started telling Vedanta in the
battle field. We have to know that Arjuna belonged to a warrior clan and his
study included Vedas besides statecraft. A comprehensive picture of dharma was
known to him at least theoretically. Hence Krishna teaches him on the same
level. He says ‘atman is neither born nor dies. It is eternal. Perform your
duty as a warrior and fight’. In this context we see the most popular passage
of Gita, that which relates to sthita-prajha, a person of equanimity.
The third chapter tells another important
concept – karma yoga. It talks about desire free action. We read about this in
an earlier chapter. This is the most relevant message to all of us.
• Karma yoga is a strategy to avoid the fruit of
action, that is, rebirth.
• It is a surrender of the individual effort
(vyasti) to the welfare of the collective ( samasti )
• Krishna calls it loka saftgraha, preventing
normless behavior in society by being a good role model.
• This involves a proper understanding of the
cosmic scheme of inter dependence.
• Karma yoga does not mean that the person
performs duty in a perfunctory manner. A karma yogi does his duty with
greater zeal and vigor.
• Karma yoga is a means to purify the mind and
prepare a person for the next higher level, the path of knowledge.
In any social set-up, it is the duty of the
state to establish order. This is told by Krishna in the beginning of the
fourth chapter. From the time of creation, this eternal philosophy is being
transmitted through a long lineage of philosopher-kings (rajarsi). The
commentators say that the objective of this yoga is to invigorate the ksatriya
dharma which is essential for the protection of the whole world.
This chapter also interprets the word yajna in a
broader sense to include any noble activity done for the betterment of society.
Yajna is not a mere fire sacrifice organized by a group f Vedic scholars. Whatever karma that is done for the
welfare of humanity is called ‘yajna’. Krishna talks of different types of yajna
-s - those involving charity, welfare activities, exercises in self-purification,
enquiry into nature of divine. Yajna is an activity for social good. One who
has not attained the maturity for self¬enquiry will have to initially perform
socially useful actions for self-purification. The highest yajna, however, is
knowledge.
Chapters five and six give more details of the
path of knowledge and of the path of action. Spiritual practices of self discipline,
concentration, meditation and Patanjali yoga are discussed in these.
The six chapters starting from seven to twelve
describe the nature of god at two levels - the level of Brahman without attributes and the level of a god with name
and form. We learnt about these two levels in the earlier chapters. Human being
is comfortable with a god with attributes, a god who listens to his prayers and
answers them.
The tenth chapter tells that whatever magnificent
manifestation we find in the world is merely a glimpse of the magnificence of
Brahman. The seekers can worship these forms in order to understand the glory
of Brahman.
The eleventh chapter describes visvarupa, the
cosmic form, which is familiar to most of us. This is quite symbolic. Arjuna sees
gods, demi-gods, demons, humans and all living beings in that cosmic form. The
cosmic form is symbolic of the function of dissolution ( laya ). To symbolize
dissolution, the cosmic form is shown as having innumerable mouths devouring
all the beings. All beings are seen being crushed under the mighty teeth of
that cosmic form. This is similar to the dance of Shiva or the dance of Kali at
the time of dissolving creation.
In the twelfth chapter, Krishna makes an important
point. Those who follow the path of knowledge attain Brahman on their own,
whereas those who follow the path of devotion to a god form are assisted and
helped by god to attain the Supreme goal.
Study of Vedanta is not an intellectual exercise
but it is an exercise in self-transformation. Vedanta says that thejfvn becomes
Brahman by understanding Brahman. This understanding is explained from chapter
thirteen onwards. These chapters tell us how to distinguish the real from the
unreal, the sentient from the insentient. In modern terms they tell about
matter versus consciousness.
Gita devotes a whole chapter (fourteen) to
describe the three guna-s sattva, rajas and tamas and their interplay which creates
the whole universe. Later we also find the divine versus demonical nature in
the subsequent chapter. Chapters fourteen to seventeen are of great interest to
a student of psychology who would like to know different traits of human
behavior, personality types and personality improvement.
The final chapter reviews all the concepts
relating to the path of action and the path of knowledge and urges Arjuna to follow
the dharma enjoined on him.
All the eighteen chapters of Gita bear the name
‘yoga’. This should not be mistaken for the eight-limbed yoga of Patanjali (which,
of course, is the subject-matter of the sixth chapter). The word ‘yoga’ means
‘to yoke’ or ‘to unite’. The purpose is to unite the jiva with the divine and
in this sense all the disciplines told in the Gita are an endeavor towards that
union.
In this text, there are several places where
Krishna refers to Himself. In all these, whenever he says ‘I’, the ‘I’ does not
refer to the Krishna, the Yadava king. It refers either to the Supreme Brahman
(which we discussed in the beginning of the book) or to Iswara, the saguna form
of Brahman.
Krishna is an avatara or a special manifestation
of the divine for a larger social purpose. The meaning of avatara is also mentioned
in chapter four. Manifestation of divine is to restore social order whenever evil
overwhelms and undermines the good. It is a cosmic design to restore order.
18.4. What is Spiritual Learning?
There are three stages in what we call spiritual
learning. The first level is to understand what the primary texts (Upanishads) tell
about the nature of jiva, Iswara and Brahman. In Vedanta this is called
‘sravanam. The next step is to logically evaluate this with the help of a
teacher. This level is called ‘mananam. The third and final level is the
internalization and assimilation of what is learnt. For instance, the Upanishad
says - ‘that you are’ and ‘I am Brahman. Assimilation means to experience these
statements. One has to achieve self-purification of highest level in order to
experience this. The seeker has to come out of his identification with the
body-mind complex and identify with the Supreme Consciousness which is the main
illumining factor in the whole universe.
Gita is like a how-to-do-it guide for these
spiritual practices. To start with, one has to purify one’s actions through karma-yoga.
This has to be followed up by other techniques of mind-discipline. Karma yoga
leads to purification of mind, to some degree only and hence it has to be
followed up by meditation. Such meditation can be on a saguna form of god or on
the nirguna Brahman. A person gradually gives up karma yoga before he gets on
to this module of meditation. Meditation involves controlling the base impulses
of mind and withdrawing sense organs from sense objects. Karma yoga gives the
internal strength to move on to this level. Controlling of impulses is possible
only by proper discrimination ( viveka ) and understanding what is real and
what is unreal, what is eternal and what is ephemeral.
At the primary level, when a person is in karma
yoga, he is the doer, though he is not the enjoyer of the fruit of karma. The next
level is that of devotion to some god-form, where a devotee surrenders his acts
to the God and works merely as an instrument. At the final level, the jnani, a
realized person, knows that he is one with the Supreme Consciousness which is
untouched by any activities of the body mind complex. He is neither the doer
nor the enjoyer. He knows that it is the body mind complex which is the doer of
all actions and whatever such a realized man does is for the welfare of the
cosmic order or dharma. Gita gives examples of philosopher kings like Janaka.
Controlling the mind is the toughest task.
Concentration of mind is focusing the mind on a particular thought just like focusing
a beam of light through a convex lens. The body and mind are interdependent and
a conscious control of body will be useful for control of mind. This is the
secret of yoga. This helps us to move on to the next level, which is meditation
on Brahman. Meditation is a flow of similar thoughts and avoidance of all dissimilar
thoughts. In this process, the physical habits of the eeker also play an important part and hence Gita gives
several tips about what type of posture one has to adopt, what food to be eaten
and how long to sleep. The aim is to get into a harmonious way of life,
conducive to dissolve the ego-mind and remain as Consciousness Supreme.
Gita makes a brilliant analysis of human nature.
Human nature is one which does not change with change in technology or
globalization. Behavioral patterns and social institutions may change but not
the essential qualities of mind - love, hate, desire, determination, fear,
courage, anxiety and such. These are determined by the three guna-s - sattva,
rajas and tamas, which are the constituents of every being. Gita makes a study
of all these. Krishna gives a call to come out of the influence of the three
guna-s. One who comes out is a jhani.
Similarly, fortitude and application to duty
depends on the guna of a person. Some are sattvic, pursuing noble objectives while
some are rajasa, pursuing material achievements in an aggressive way. Some
others who are in tamasa nature may be pursuing ignoble activities and
following ignoble methods. All human behavior is determined by the
predominating guna-s in a person. A persons spiritual achievement is also
determined by the same. Gita makes an
analysis of the divine wealth which is harmonious with yoga and the demoniac
wealth which is an obstacle to yoga. It works as a hand-holding guide to
spiritual progress.
Gita portrays a vast canvass, addressing people
of all walks of life. A selfish person may continue to do selfish actions but Gita
warns that such a person is eternally caught in the cycle of transmigration. It
advises him to perform action as an offering to the collective.
Thus, Gita tells about the nature of the
absolute and the nature of the jiva and shows the unity of both. The highest
human goal, liberation is a state of internal transformation which is achieved by
removing the dross of the mind, the notion of ego and the factors of identity
which a person superimposes on himself. Gita is thus not something to be known
at the intellectual level, but that which attempts to change our personality.
It is to discard our lower self and identify with a higher self.
Parents may see:
• The author’s articles under the series
“Learners’ Guide to Gita” in the website - www.advaita-academy.org
Gita along with Shankara’s commentary
* * *
19 Yoga
19.1.
Yoga is Universal
An important aspect of Indian culture which has
now become universal is Yoga. Yoga is as old as the Vedas. We have
seen that the Vedas talk of upasana, meditation,
as a preparatory step for inquiry on Brahman. Other schools of Indian
philosophy - such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sankhya had their own versions of Yoga.
The most exclusive Yoga tradition is that of Patanjali, whose classic work
Yoga-Sutra is now universally known. Patanjali’s system accepts the authority
of Veda whereas the Buddhist and Jain systems do not accept. Thus both the
pro-Veda and anti-Veda schools have acknowledged the usefulness of yoga. Yoga seems
to have travelled to China and other south Asian countries through the Buddhist
monks who spread Buddhism in those countries. All these countries have their
own Yoga traditions now.
Our normal understanding of Yoga is that it
involves flexing the body in several odd shapes and control breathing in
several odd manners. It is, however, a more serious and philosophical issue
than we think. The word ‘Yoga’ comes from a Sanskrit root yuj which means ‘to
yoke’ or ‘to unite’. It means a process of uniting the individual self (about
which we read in earlier chapters) with the universal self.
19.2.
Body and Mind Work Together
Yoga works on the understanding that the body
and mind interact on each other. If the mind is brought under discipline, the
body too will be good. Likewise, deliberate control of bodily actions and
impulses will have an impact on the mind too. This leads to a habit formation.
The mind is required to have proper dispositions in order to receive the
knowledge of scriptures. The sages of old have discovered that a conscious
control of our sense organs would lead to controlling the tendencies and
dispositions of the unconscious mind. It is a slow process but a very effective
process.
This process of uniting the individual self and
the universal self is not through any activity like yajna, but by a mental
process of realization. We saw that according to Vedanta the jlva is not
different from Brahman but we are unaware of this. If we want to become aware
of it there are two levels - 1) knowing at intellectual level by study of
scriptures and 2) experiencing the same. The first level is possible if we
seriously sit on it. The second level demands a lot of internal transformation.
Yoga helps in achieving this internal transformation.
The body is like a chariot for you and me who
are the masters, the five senses are horses which are dragging the chariot to
whatever is attractive outside and the mind is the reins, controlling the
horses. We saw this imagery in an earlier chapter on Gita. But this mind itself
is like a monkey, the books warn, and we too know. It moves all around.
Controlling the mind is a difficult task. This is the subject matter of Yoga.
The body and mind are constantly after several
external objects and hence drive a person to take up several activities. Letting
loose our sense organs leads a person to his downfall. There is a need to
control them.
19.3. The
Cleaning Process
If we have to clean a dirty pond, we need to
flush it with a lot of pure water. An impure mind is a flow of unrestrained
thoughts, like a flow of dirty water. Some noble thoughts have to be introduced
in the mind and these thoughts should continue as a permanent stream. The
thoughts should also be single pointed and focused, like the light waves in a
laser beam.
How to achieve this level? We have to start with
deliberate control of the body and mind. Patanjali gives a step by step
guidance on how to control the external organs, how to control the sense organs
and the mind and how at a later step, bring the wandering mind to focus on a
single object.
Patanjali has given what is known as
eight-limbed Yoga –a system with eight progressive steps, each leading to a
higher level. Conscious control of the body and mind, placing the body in
several postures etc., are the initial stages which are the external steps.
Success in these stages will gradually lead to higher stages like meditation
which are the internal steps.
The first internal step is concentration of mind
on an object. This can be on an object in front of us or on some part of our
own body like heart or the center of eyebrows (chakra-s as they are called) or
on a yantra or an idol. This has to be combined with pranayama, regulation of
breath.
The next step is meditation. This implies a
continuous stream of thoughts on a particular idea. The commentator Vyasa
called it a citta-srota, a stream of consciousness. It should be a stream of
similar thoughts, undisturbed by dissimilar thoughts. The statements of the
scriptures, such as ‘That you are’, ‘all this is Brahman, and such others are
the subject matters for meditation.
What we noted above as upasana comes under this
type but that was on a particular deity, quite often with the objective of
seeking a boon. This is because meditation can be on a god with attributes or
on Brahman devoid of attributes. The seeker of self-knowledge, however, does
meditation on the Brahman devoid of attributes.
19.4.
Howto Start
Yoga has to be learnt through someone who knows
the tradition, a teacher who knows not only the physical aspects of yoga but
the philosophy of yoga. To start with, it may be enough for your child to
practice the physical aspect of the Yoga. However, at least a theoretical
knowledge of Patanjali’s text will be of great use for the parents. We know
that the highest goal for Yoga is self realization through internal
transformation. A modern man is usually content with the simple objective of
attaining better health and overcoming anxieties. Psychology has adopted
several ideas from the Yoga systems and has achieved good results in the field
of medicine.
* * *
20
Customs and Beliefs
20.1. The Secondary Questions We have now come
to the secondary questions. As I said in the introduction, the primary
questions were about the number of gods, idol worship and such. The secondary
questions are about day to day customs and beliefs. What is the significance,
we ask, whenever our elders ask us to put on a dot of Vermillion on the
forehead, when you are asked to wear a sacred thread, when you are asked to go
round the temple or follow some such custom.
Several things in the world cannot be
scientifically validated. However, their usefulness is seen. For thousands of
years and all over the world human ancestors had observed nature and natural phenomena
and discovered certain useful practices. There is a lot to learn from the
tribal culture, which we usually look down on. There is a lot of medical
knowledge there unexplored. All these are empirical truths. This is similar to
the modern practice of experimenting the new medicines on rats and pigs before
giving them to humans. This is also an empirical method.
Customs and beliefs are common to all societies
and not merely to Hindus. The Hindu beliefs can be broadly categorized as those
connected with a religion, those connected to give strength of mind, those
connected with good habits and those which have medical value.
20.2.
Rationale
People observe customs more willingly if they
are told as part of religious practice. Some examples are - the age old practice
of massage of body with oil on festival days, applying turmeric paste (by
women) on face, hands and feet, use of neem leaves during festivals, storing
and drinking water from copper vessels, wearing the garland of beads, eating
the basil leaves and using them during worship and so on. Orthodox people take bath
thrice a day and do their compulsory prayer ( sandhya-vandan), associated with
regulation of breath ( pranayama ). This contributes to good health.
Some customs have a philosophical meaning. For
instance, a sacred thread around the body is worn by the dwija-s (the three communities,
as we saw in the chapter on caste). This contains three long threads joined as
a loop and worn by people. The three threads symbolize the three guna-s. A person
is expected to meditate on the Gayatri mantra and transcend the three guna-s.
Another practice relates to the monks of the
dualist order. They carry three thin sticks tied as a bundle. This is called
tridanda and the person who carries is called a tridandi. The stick symbolizes control.
The person who is a tridandi is said to have controlled his mind, speech and
the body, which are the three important organs to be controlled by a saint.
Another practice is about the vertical Vermillion lines on the forehead by
people of one sect and the horizontal white lines by people of another sect.
This has philosophical meaning. The red Vermillion dot is to be put on the
forehead by both men and women. The point at which the dot is placed is said to
be an important chakra (djnd chakra) as per the Yoga system. Lord Shiva is said
to have his third eye – the knowledge eye - at this place.
Some other beliefs are meant to give confidence
and courage to a person. For instance worshipping Lord Hanuman leads to sankata
mocan - release from all troubles. Worship of Lord Ganesa removes all
obstacles. You are advised to read the Sundara kanda (a part of Ramayana) for
smooth success in any endeavor. In case of drought people perform the worship
of Shiva or recite the Virata-parva (a part of Mahabharata). This may result in
rain or not but the community is engaged in some form of worship without
getting disheartened. Our texts say -yud’Csl bhavana yatra siddhirbhavati
tad'Csl - the result of prayer will depend on the strength of your prayer.
Some other customs are meant for good conduct in
society. Some are mere eulogies, meant to praise a particular habit. You will
have a long and healthy life if you wake up before sunrise. Intercourse during
the day will result in evil minded children. Salutations to Sun
(Surya-namaskara) along with the mantra will result in spiritual merit. There
are six different asana-s in the above practice. They contribute to good
health.
Hindus have sixteen samskara-s - purifying
rituals - starting from the time a person enters the mothers womb till death.
The first ritual starts even when a child is in the womb. There are rituals
after child birth, ritual when the child undergoes initiation into studies,
ritual relating to marriage and so on till the last ritual relating to death of
a person. The sociologists call these rituals the rites of passage. There may
be some regional variations in different parts of the country but the mantra-s
are drawn from the same Vedic passages. All variations should be taken as
equally valid. A person can follow a tradition which is handed down to him by
his parents.
For Hindus the daily dinner has to be visualized
and performed as a yajna. The cosmic being (Virat, which we saw in an earlier
chapter) is present in the form of fire in all living beings. The food we eat
is like the offering to that fire. The air we breathe has five different
functions in the body and they are said to be associated with the fire in the
body. When we start our dinner, we offer
five small morsels to the five different airs in the body, reciting mantras
like pranaya-svaha, apanaya- svaha and so on. These are like the oblations put
into the fire during the yajna.
There is a general impression growing in present
times that all Hindus are vegetarians. It is not so. In the Vedic rituals there
was a practice of offering animals during the yajna. Meat eating was restricted
to such occasions only. In the story of sage Agastya, we see that goat meat was
offered to him as part of a ritual. Lord Rama is said to have given up eating
meat during the absence of Sita. Hanuman tells Sita about this when he meets
her.
Bhima, (the Pandava prince in Mahabharata)
distributes meat to his brothers and to his wife Draupadi. There are several
such examples. Ayurveda, the science which draws its spirit from the Vedas,
advocates meat eating for bodily strength. The Manusmriti devotes a whole
chapter on what can be eaten and what should not be eaten. In the light of all
this, one can safely follow the family tradition without any notion of guilt.
Sacrifice of animals during the yajna-s seems to
have been given up sometime after the advent of Shankaracharya. This was
also due to the criticism from the Buddhists.
Brahmins in most parts of the country became vegetarians and led a very
restrained life. They can continue the same without looking down on others.
* * *
What all I have presented in this book is from
the teaching of Vedanta by renowned teachers of the mainstream traditions.
Those familiar with Hindi may listen to the talks of Swami Akhandananda
Saraswati in www.maharasjshri.net.
Those who wish to know through English may
listen to Swami Paramarthananda in www.vedantavidyarthisangha.org or
www.avgsatsang.org or any other teacher learned in the scriptures.
We saw the following as the broad features of
Hinduism.
• It is the most ancient surviving religion in
the world, dating back to at least five thousand years.
• It was not started by a single prophet. The
ancient seers, whose practice was to renounce the world and spend their time in
contemplation, had revealed certain eternal truths.
• It did not originate in a strife situation. It
evolved in a peace situation, in a well developed civilization when philosopher
kings ruled.
• As someone put it, Hinduism is not comparable
to a building built by one person but it is like a banyan tree which grew up
over a period of time with several branches and aerial roots.
• It is a unique religion (apart from Buddhism
and Jainism) where religion has evolved from philosophical reasoning.
• Unlike any other religion it talks of the
evolution of universe, formation of the living beings and the formation of mind
and senses.
• We do not agree with the view of Biblical
scholars that the universe was created in 4004 BC. Instead, our texts talk in
terms of billions of years and several cycles of creation.
• It is probably the only religion which urges a
person to go beyond religious texts and discover one’s self.
• Hindu child can be proud that as per Hinduism
all religions are equally valid and there is no blasphemy if someone visualizes
one’s own deity in any manner.
• God can be worshipped in any form i.e. in the
shape of a yantra (a diagrammatic representation on a metallic sheet), mantra
(spoken words), idol or symbol of any type. These are only a medium for
achieving concentration and purification of mind, and for contemplation.
• We do not worship different Gods but
contemplate on the same truth in different forms.
• God is not vindictive or jealous, and does not
have any favorite race or tribe.
• Hinduism does not stop at a mere intellectual
level of understanding of reality but it involves internal transformation,
total negation of the ego and becoming Brahman oneself. At the philosophical
level it says that the individual is nothing else than the Supreme Brahman.
• Religion and ritual are accepted as a lower
degree of reality whereas philosophical doctrine and knowledge of the Self are
the highest degree of reality.
To Sum Up
Dharma, though called eternal ethics, is not
inflexible. There are certain unchanging aspects of dharma like truth,
compassion, non-violence, etc., but there are changing aspects in human
behavior in different situations. This was explained in the context of
untouchability.
Hindu society had different texts of dharma for
different periods. The Manu smriti (code) was for the earliest times called
kritayuga and it was not even followed in the last several centuries. The
British highlighted some of the portions of it in order to portray a negative
picture of Hinduism. The smriti for kali yuga is known as ‘Parasara smriti’ and
even this is subject to change. The eternal doctrine of Vedanta about jiva,
Iswara and Brahman are untouched by these changes in dharma which relate to
social conduct.
We are not a converting religion, because the
Vedas admit of different forms of worship. Hence we never invaded any land nor
forced our religion on them.
A Hindu child can be proud to say that Hinduism
can never be fundamentalist in nature. It does not claim to be the only path
for liberation. (To say that one’s own faith or belief leads to liberation is
mere ignorance or fundamentalism. It would mean that before such religions
originated, those billions of people who were born and died did not have
salvation. Imagine how peaceful the world would be if all religions said that
there can be different paths to the same goal).
It is a religion (along with other Indian
religions Buddhism and Jainism) which does not have confrontation with any
other religion.
Parents may see: ‘All about Hinduism’ by Swami
Sivananda, at www. swamisivananda.org
• www. maharajshri. net for the talks of Swami
Akhandananda Saraswati Maharaj
* * *
A Word on
Sanskrit
Two years spent in the study of Sanskrit under Charles
Lanman, and a year in the mazes of Patanjali’s metaphysics under the guidance
of James Woods, left me in a state of enlightened mystification - T.S.Eliot in
After Strange Gods
The Sanskrit language, whatever may be its
antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more
copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than the either - Sir
William Jones, Chief Justice of India under the British and founder of the
Royal Asiatic Society.
If I was asked what is the greatest treasure
which India possesses and what is her greatest heritage, I would answer
unhesitatingly that it is the Sanskrit language and literature and all that it
contains. This is a magnificent inheritance, and so long as this endures and
influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India
continue. - Jawaharlal Nehru in ‘Discovery of India.
22.1.
Sanskrit - Once the Link Language of India
Very rarely do we realize that Sanskrit was the
link language in the entire Indian subcontinent for millennia. It was the
language of all educated people just as English is today in India. The whole
culture of ancient India is known only through Sanskrit.
Just as the word English does not mean
Christianity, Sanskrit does not mean Hinduism. Hence, it was not merely the
religious texts, but all works in sciences, astronomy, mathematics, literature
and arts were written in the same language. It was the lingua franca, staying
side by side with the mother tongue of the region.
All the scriptures of all Indian religions
(Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism) are written in Sanskrit, not for the reason
that the common man should not know them, but for propagating their ideas all
over the country and for preserving them for posterity.
Vedas, the basic texts of Hinduism were studied
by all scholars from Kashmir to Kerala. The Buddhists, who disagreed with the
Vedas, had initially tried to write in Pah, a regional language, in order to
reach out to masses, but their sphere of influence was getting narrow. Hence
they switched over to Sanskrit in order to spread their message. Thus we find
Buddhism spreading all over the country in later years. Hundreds of volumes of
Buddhist and Jain works are thus found written in Sanskrit.
Interaction of scholars all over the country was
naturally in Sanskrit just as it is in English now. We saw the example of
Shankaracharya, the noted teacher from Kerala, who moved all over the country
up to Kashmir, held discussions with the scholars, and propagated the
Upanishadic doctrine. Many scholars from all over the country have commented on
what Shankara has written. The universities of Nalanda, Takshasila, and the
traditional schools of Kashi and Kanchi had scholars from different parts of
the country. The books of Kalidasa were commented upon by Mallinatha Suri, a
scholar from Telengana. Jagannatha Pandita of Godavari region was the
pre-eminent scholar in the Moghul court. The works of the Buddhist writer
Aswaghosha were discovered during the British rule in Afghanistan. One can
enumerate several such examples.
Sanskrit continued to be the link language even
after the middle ages in spite of Muslim invasions. However, social change has
been more rapid ever since the Europeans arrived. This coincided with
industrialization and consequent modernization. Added to this, the colonial
masters had an agenda of denigrating and ‘uprooting’ (to use the word of Max
Muller) the local cultures in the countries they ruled. Modernization has
brought positive social change in several fields, but growing dissociation with
Sanskrit is producing a culture lacking in self-confidence and a culture
disinherited from its roots.
22.2.
Antiquity and Uniqueness
Vedic Sanskrit existed at least three thousand
years prior to Christ. Rig Veda is acknowledged to be the oldest written
document of mankind. The language is clearly distinct from the later day
Sanskrit, which was called classical Sanskrit. The language of the Mahabharata
is known as classical Sanskrit.
The uniqueness of Sanskrit is its unchanged
structure over the millennia. If you take a text of 10th century English, you
cannot make head or tail of it. Even Chaucer s English is fairly inscrutable.
It is so with all languages including Indian languages. Languages do change
over a period of time, but miraculously Sanskrit has been preserved in an
absolutely unchanged form for the last at least three thousand years.
The great grammarian Panini who lived around 600
B.C. (near a village named Shalatura near Lahore, in present day Pakistan)
composed certain rules of grammar in his book ‘Ashtadhyayi’, which means a book
in eight chapters. He has noted that prior to him there were several other
grammarians whose rules he cites, but those books are lost for us now. It was
the greatness of Indian scholars that they meticulously followed the rules of
grammar, rules regarding formation of words and sentences and preserved the
language till date. The Ramayana and Mahabharata which were written about three
thousand years ago can be understood by the present day student of Sanskrit if
only he learns the language.
Vedic Sanskrit is a bit different. The language
is much older and the teaching was through oral tradition. Some portions of
Vedas would have been totally inscrutable but for the commentaries of sage
Vidyaranya of 15th century.
22.3. Sanskrit and Indian Languages
Some have a wrong understanding that Sanskrit
was the language of the priestly class only. It is totally incorrect. It was
the language of the whole society. A story goes that King Bhoja had declared
that whoever could not compose poetry in his land had to leave the land.
Soldiers looked around and took a weaver to the king saying that he was one
unlettered person in the land. When questioned, the weaver came out with a poem
and the king was happy. It is a mere story to illustrate how prevalent Sanskrit
was. Most of the writings on matters of science, astronomy, astrology,
language, medicine, architecture, statecraft and other science were obviously
written by professionals in those fields and not by the priests.
Till recent years we saw renowned scholars in
Sanskrit from all sections of society Social change has made people to switch
over to English and other modern studies. As a result, only those who are
connected to priestly work are now seen reciting Sanskrit. This is the reason
for our wrong idea that it is the language of the Brahmins. A look at the
Sanskrit catalogues would open our eyes to the wealth of knowledge in Sanskrit.
Almost all Indian languages, except the
Dravidian languages, have originated from Sanskrit. The diction of even
Dravidian languages is of Sanskrit origin to a good extent (up to about 50%).
Several stone inscriptions in Sanskrit are found in several places in the
entire country. All regional religious literature is derived from the Sanskrit
texts with some minor changes. If you know Sanskrit, you will have better
knowledge of literature in your own mother tongue, be it a north Indian
language or a Dravidian language.
However, all regional languages like Hindi,
Telugu or Gujarati have undergone a lot of change over the centuries and the
old books are now intelligible only to native scholars. A serious student who
wants to know the Indian or Hindu or Buddhist or Jain tradition will know more
through the books in Sanskrit than through the regional language works, which
are translations or adaptations of the Sanskrit works, the language of which
has undergone a lot of change in time. The easier and appropriate way for a
modern scholar is to study Sanskrit in order to know the primary sources of our
religion and culture.
22.4.
Sanskrit, Around the World
Hundreds of western scholars have studied
Sanskrit in the last four centuries alongside Latin and classical Greek,
because of the similarity in structure and diction. It gave birth to a new discipline
called linguistics, the roots of which can be seen in Panini’s grammar. Even
today, several European and American scholars are continuing the study of
Sanskrit, treating it as a language of international heritage. If you know
Sanskrit, you can also know any of the European languages in a much thorough
way, as they are mostly derived from Latin. Japanese scholars too are
proficient in Sanskrit as a lot of the Buddhist literature is in Sanskrit.
Social change has given an unexpected advantage
to Sanskrit. We all want that our children should know something about our
culture but we presume that our kids have to know our mother-tongue in order to
know our culture. But the present day literature or media in our regional
languages hardly represent our culture. In fact, they are poor imitations of
the western social norms, and are thus far removed from our culture. Our
culture, no doubt, was preserved in regional languages by writers a few
centuries ago, but that literature is pretty old by now. Tulsidas or Surdas in
Hindi or Kamban in Tamil cannot be understood by a modern child, as the
languages have undergone a lot of change. The only Indian language which
remains unchanged is Sanskrit.
Besides, when we visit a temple, whether in
India or USA or UK or any other place, the priest would chant the prayers in
Sanskrit. The chants are common whether it is a south-Indian temple or a
north-Indian one. You may be a Bengali, or a Tamil or a Gujarati, but the
chants are the same. A simple course in Sanskrit would enhance your temple
visit or enrich your knowledge of our religion and tradition.
Parents may see:
• Samskrita Bharati, an organization dedicated
for modern methods of teaching Sanskrit. (Google search and see Wikipedia)
• You Tube videos produced by Rashtriya Samskrit
Samsthan, New Delhi.
• “Empires of the Word - A Language History of
the World” (2005), by the British scholar Nicholas Ostler. The book is
available in pdf form in Google search, and it is a compulsory reading to know
the glorious and peaceful spread of Sanskrit throughout South East Asia.
• Sri Sripada Abhayankar is doing extraordinary
work in teaching Sanskrit.
His sites are:
upanishat.wordpress.com/ slez-musings.blogspot.com/•d -t
Rhttp://sanskritapras-ruti. wordpress.com/ tUcH simplesanskrit.wordpress.com/'HE! c
£d-<^l c M u l'H^
• A few other Sanskrit/Hinduism related
websites:
arshavidya.org
atributetohinduism.com
chinmaya.org
hinduismtoday.com
himalayanacademy.com
a library of Sanskrit texts
online Sanskrit dictionary
online Sanskrit documents
sivananda.org
sanskrit.org
Sanskrit on the radio chitrapurmath.net “Learn
Samskritam Step by step”
* * *
23.1.
Understanding Social Change
It is a truism to say that social change is
going on at an accelerated pace. Religious and cultural institutions are under
pressure because of this change and because of the advent of social media and
other technological changes.
We cannot stop social change, but we should only
learn to cope with it while preserving the basics of our religious tradition
and values associated with that. Inability to cope with technological change
will have impact on our culture. The western society has been talking about
coping with social change for a long time. Alvin Toffler wrote a book named ‘Future
Shock’ about fifty years ago on this subject and what he observed is relevant
even now. The western societies too seem to be grappling with the issue.
As I said in the introduction, there is a
competitive environment between the two dominant religions for global
domination. They have been aggressively trying to defeat each other. The
struggle is seen in several forms like terrorism or fundamentalism across the
world. The European nations are worried about demographic change which is
likely to hurt their culture. They are intent on spreading their religion in
free and liberal societies like India. The most civilized way to proselytize is
to portray the targeted religion wrongly, misrepresent the religious texts and
create divisions in society I had briefly referred to this in the earlier
chapters.
Religion, like all other issues, is thus
globalized. While other religions are fighting for domination, Hinduism is
fighting for survival. We are not a converting religion. There can only be
outflow from Hinduism. Hence, as Swami Chinmayananda once remarked, the Hindus
should be first converted as Hindus.
What the swami means is that Hindus in general
do not bother to know about the religion. Most of us are innocent followers of
rituals. We wifi be able to survive only when we know our roots properly and
feel proud about it.
Hindu texts are like an ocean and I have given a
mere glimpse of them. My effort is to give a perspective to the modern parent
and student.
23.2. What We Can Do
• The parents have to gain knowledge of the
fundamentals of Hinduism. This is essential to answer our kids. Books like ‘All
about Hinduism’ by Swami Sivananda are to be read. Such books are available on
the Internet.
• We have to be aware that a lot of adverse
literature is being produced by writers (particularly western writers)
vulgarizing Hinduism. Hence it is needed for parents to have some idea of the
secondary texts too.
• Let religion be not a burden on your child. It
can be fun. Visiting a temple, listening to some stories etc., can be done in a
casual and natural way. The idea is to build up the right samskara-s. The word
samskara, besides meaning a purifying ritual, also means a disposition or
tendency This is built over a period of time.
The child need not be burdened with knowledge of
names of characters in Ramayana or Mahabharata. Let them know about them slowly
You may have some introductory books like the books written by Rajagopalachar
for children.
Children imitate the parents. It follows that we
too should have some religious regimen at home. Hindu houses normally do have a
prayer corner. At least a few minutes a day can be earmarked for prayer.
We may not be good in chanting prayers and
mantra-s. Still we may keep the booklets which we normally get from the Ramakrishna
Mission, Chinmaya Mission or T.T.D., and try to know them.
Every household can have (at least in prose
texts) Ramayana, Bhagavatam and Mahabharata. Children will look into it at some
point of time if there is no conscious pressure on them.
While watching programs on TV we may watch
devotional programs at least for sometime so that the children too may watch by
default. Likewise a couple of devotional journals can be on your table.
It is also good for parents to practice some
yoga and pranayama. In the long run the children will try to follow.
It will also help if you can teach some verses
(from the sataka literature) to children. They may not immediately know them
fully but in course of time these verses will help in building a strong
character.
• We need not introduce too many tales from
purana-s. They are allegorical and the children may not appreciate them.
Instead, the stories from Panchatantra can be told in order to introduce the
idea of symbolism.
• Children will grow with self confidence when
they know the basic philosophical ideas of our religion. A modern child will
understand philosophical ideas more easily than the stories.
• Too much of orthodoxy on our part may create
negative tendencies in the child. We need not be too strict about religion.
• Know your child. The impact of fellow students
and the teachers will be high. The child will trust us and share with us only
when we are friendly. This friendly relation will help us in giving proper
advice.
• A broad study of world history is also helpful
to know the evolution of different religions and to realize the glorious
tradition of Hinduism.
• Knowledge of Sanskrit will enable the child to
understand our egalitarian tradition.
Parents may see
• The Wonder that was India - by A.L. Basham
• All about Hinduism - by Swami Sivananda
• Breaking India - by Rajiv Malhotra and
Aravindan Neelakandan. The talks of the writers are found on You Tube.
* * *
The author. Dr. Aravinda Rao, who holds a Ph.D
in Sanskrit, formerly worked in the security establishment in the Government.
After retirement he has been teaching and
writing on Vedanta. The present booklet is to give the the modern students and
parents an appreciation of the astute philosophical inquiry, universal values,
and pluralism of Hinduism and enable them to look at their own religion with
esteem in the present competitive environment.
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