Books on Hinduism will easily fill a library. Yet when confronted with the question ‘What is Hinduism’ even scholars tend to fumble and give long answers. In this article we will try to keep it simple, accessible to everyone.
What is Hinduism?
A simple answer is ‘the religion of the people of India’. The Sangh Parivar or the Hindutva lobby defines it as ‘Religions born in India’. This effectively excludes Christianity and Islam but keeps Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Lingayats and the tribals under the Hindu fold. We will tend to agree with this definition except that the tribal society and their belief system cannot be included.
What is Religion?
To exclude tribals from this definition we define the word religion, which will make our meaning clear.
Tribal society is not based on the concept of state. A state implies: 1. Collection of taxes, 2. A paid bureaucracy and 3. A paid standing army. Now a State is an instrument of the ruling class to serve its interests and keep the ruled classes under control. This control is rarely done by force, although it is always there. Most of the time however, this control is done through a set of cultural processes which legitimise or justify the system of State power. Among them, religion is one of the most important ones. In modern times democracy and elections also perform this role. In ancient India, Arthashastra by Chanakya and Dharmashastra or Manusmriti by Manu helped legitimise the State and consolidate Hinduism. With this understanding most tribal belief systems cannot be called religion. Many tribal groups, especially in Jharkhand have a movement which claims that they are not Hindus and that their religion is ‘Sarana dharma’,
Hinduism
The words Hindu, Hinduism and Hindu Dharma are not from the Indian tradition. They are of Western origin and all relate to the river Sindhu (Hindu) or Indus (India). They refer to the region and people generally east of this river. The Muslim rulers called all non-Muslims as Hindus in India. The British called all non-Muslims and Christians as Hindus!
The term Dharma does not mean religion in the Indian tradition. The term for religion in the Indian tradition is ‘Sampradaya’ or sect. But the word Hinduism has acquired a meaning which signifies a set or a group of Sampradayas or sects in India. How do we define this ‘Hinduism’?
Hinduism consists of two basic divisions: 1. Vedic Sampradaya: Those Hindu sects who believe in the authority of the Vedas and 2. Ved Bahya Sampradaya: Those sects who do not accept the authority of the Vedas.
The Vedic group is called ‘Sanatan Dharma’. The Ved Bahya Group can be divided into two further groups: 1. Buddhists and Jains – Sampradayas who do not believe in God 2. Among the remaining Sampradayas, Sikhs and Lingayats call themselves religions. Other groups mainly are based on saints like Kabir Panthis.
Sanatan Dharma
In practical terms Sanatan Dharma has Brahmin caste on top and they are called for every ritual – birth, marriage, death, starting a house and so on. They also have temples in which Brahmins are the priests and the temple accepts gifts and has well decorated gods. Sanatan Dharma includes all the 3 upper castes such as Brahmins, Kshatriya (warrior castes), Vaishya (trading castes) and peasant castes.
Sanatan Dharma Hinduism is the ruling group in India. How has it acquired this status? Buddhism and Jainism had considerably weakened the power of Vedic Brahmins. They regained this power by anointing kings. In fact, the birth of Sanatan Dharma begins by anointing Pushyamitra Sung, the Army Chief of Magadh Empire in second century B. C. He murdered his Buddhist king and was anointed a king by Brahmins. Then on, the Indian king became a protector of ‘cows and Brahmins’. These kings gave large village grants to the temples and sects. They collected rent from the peasants and became very rich.
India was invaded by a large variety of tribes from the West before Islam like the Huns. These Brahmins converted them to Kshatriyas and anointed them as kings. Thus, they gave them legitimacy in Indian/Hindu society. In return these kings gave large villages as grants to the temples. Thus, early medieval feudalism in India was born.
In addition, Manusmriti made rules in which Brahmin was the supreme caste and got all sorts of privileges. Thus, the whole Brahmin community became the most privileged community.
The wealth of the temples also supported Gurukuls where Sanskrit was taught to Brahmin children and a new generation of scholars and priests were created.
Buddhism and Jainism
Historically Buddhism and Jainism represented trading casts/communities and they spread extensively all over the country through trade routes. While traditional Buddhism no longer exists in India, one can still see the Jain community all over India. Although Jainism originated in Bihar, today important Jain communities are from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The religious elite are full time bachelor communes. They are called Shraman and traditionally the religions are also often called Shramanik. They live only on alms!
The other Ved Bahya Paramparas
They all arose around 10th century A. D. And later and are part of the Bhakti Movement. Within the Bhakti movement there are two trends: Nirgun (without qualities) and Sagun (with qualities). They all started with saints. The Sagun saints were normally Brahmins, part of the Vedic/ Sanatan tradition.
The Nirgun tradition believed in a God who had no form. These consist mainly of artisan castes – weavers, carpenters, cobblers and so on. In practice, they do not call Brahmins for their rituals; they do not have expensive temples or rich Gurus. Although they do believe in God, their Guru/founder Saint is equally important. For rituals they have their own priests and they usually have an annual festival celebrating the death of their founder Guru/Saint. They have rich traditions of religious poetry and music in modern languages. In fact, the literary tradition of modern Indian languages was born with compositions of these saints.
Sub Sects
Each of these major groups has subsects. One major reason is of course, that India is a large and rich country and can support a large number of these religious groups. So over time each sect becomes rich and powerful and inevitably splits sharing wealth and power. But this is often hidden behind theological differences and hence a huge tradition has come of these theological debates known as Shastrarth. This is particularly true of Sanatan tradition. Since the Sanatan sect represents the richest group, the debates here also are profound and often contain some philosophical elements about the nature of reality etc. Three major trends emerged –Advait of Shankaracharya (8th c.), Vishishtadvaita of Ramanujacharya (12th c.) and Dvait of Madhvacharya (13th c.) Today each of them represents powerful Mathas (Religious Organisations) with important and very rich temples. The gurus themselves are also very rich. In fact, they are so rich, that they have further split into subgroups, without theological differences!
The Buddhists have two major sub sects – Mahayana and Hinayana. Jains also have two major subsects – Digambar and Shwetambar. Most other Sampradayas have subsects due to geographical spread.
A Word about Sikhism
Although Sikhs call themselves a religion it is a sect of Nanakpanthi Nirgun tradition. Sikhism as a religion emerged only during Guru Govind Singh’s time with their militant outfit, and a lot of aspects resembling Islam – like Granth Sahib and Quran. Nanak himself was a very pious person and preached of love and mercy. He travelled a lot – China to Iran and in South India up to Bidar! He interacted a lot with Sufis. Even today there are Nanakpanthis who do not regard themselves as part of the Sikh religion with its markers of 5 Ks –Kesh, Kada, Kripan etc.
So, what is Hinduism?
Now we are in a position to bring all the threads together.
The great scholar Rahul Sankrityayan defined Hinduism as having three characteristics which all the sects (except Buddhists and Jains) share:
1. Belief in the Karma theory and rebirth
This answered the classic question that all religions must grapple with: Why do good people suffer? And why does the ruling class get away with all the injustice and corruption? The answer in Hinduism is that you are born in a particular caste and you get what you deserve because of the Karma or deeds you did in the past birth. If you behave well, that is, obey, follow ethics etc., then in the next birth you will have a better life/be born in a higher caste. The idea of rebirth came from Buddhism as Vedic Aryans did not believe in rebirth. The Karma theory was developed as both Buddhism and Hinduism developed into full fledged religions.
2. Creation of the caste system
The caste system is obviously related to Karma theory as explained above. It is especially Hindu as Vedic Arya, Buddhism and Jainism had no caste system. It was a master stroke to combine the two since it has lasted all these years! This was the Arthashastra’s and the Manusmriti’s way of consolidating peasant society. What is so special about the caste system? After all, some kind of hierarchy exists in many societies. Ambedkar defined caste as ‘enclosed class’. That is, endogamy (marrying within the caste) is compulsory and exogamy (marrying outside the caste) is prohibited. This effectively curbed unity of the oppressed classes. Even today if a lower caste man marries a woman from upper caste ‘honour’ killing can occur where the man and sometimes woman is also murdered.
Many tribal communities were probably forced out of their habitat to clear land for agriculture and later were absorbed into Hindu society as Shudras and Panchamas (literally the fifth caste, untouchables). Untouchability was the Indian form of slavery which continued unhindered till Independence in 1947. It was Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and the Hindu reformers who finally managed to abolish it legally through the Indian Constitution. However, Ambedkar’s dream of abolishing caste probably cannot be realised because caste is quintessentially a Hindu phenomenon. Abolish caste and you abolish Hinduism itself!
3. Taboo on cow slaughter and beef eating
This was a classic case of a totem turning into a taboo. Earlier the totemic food for the cattle herding communities was beef and cow sacrifices were a major Vedic ritual. This transformation occurred due to agriculture becoming more important. Buddhism and Jainism also contributed to it. This also distinguished Hindus from the tribals.
To conclude, Hindus are those people who have belief in 1. Karma theory and rebirth, 2. Caste system 3. and taboo on cow slaughter and beef eating.
The Future
Religions tend to survive. However, with the protest of the oppressed groups some of their oppressive and exploitative tendencies vanish. This is called the reform movement. All religions go through it and succeed to some extent. This is true for India also. The pace of reforms depends on other socio-economic changes. A revolution brings changes faster. We have yet to have a revolution. So, Inquilab Zindabad!
T. Vijayendra (1943- ) was born in Mysore, grew up in Indore and went to IIT Kharagpur to get a B. Tech. in Electronics (1966). After a year’s stint at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, he got drawn into the whirlwind times of the late 60s. Since then, he has always been some kind of political-social activist. His brief for himself is the education of Left wing cadres, so he almost exclusively publishes in the Left wing journal Frontier, published from Kolkata. For the last few years, he also has been publishing in online journals like, Countercurrents and Mainstream. For the last twelve years, he has been active in the field of ‘Peak Oil’ and is a founder member of Peak Oil India and Ecologise. Since 2015, he has been involved in Ecologise Camps.
In 2016, he initiated Ecologise Hyderabad. Vijayendra has been a ‘dedicated’ cyclist all his life, meaning that he has never taken a driving license, nor driven a fossil fuel-based vehicle. 2017, was the Bicentenary year of the Bicycle and Ecologise Hyderabad, decided to celebrate it in a big way. They had a film show, bicycle rallies and meetings. They also ran a Face book page and published four books. Since then, he has been writing regularly about the bicycle in several journals and posting on bicycle Face book pages. The bicycle again got a boost during the pandemic and he wrote a series of articles for Countercurrents, Frontier Magazine and Mainstream Magazine.
Today, he divides his time between an organic farm at the foothills of the Western Ghats where he watches birds and writes fiction, and Hyderabad. He has published a book dealing with resource depletions, three books of essays, three collections of short stories, a novella, an autobiography and a book on the Transition Town Movement (with co-authors: Usha Rao and Shreekumar).
Email: [email protected]
