A Common Man’s Prism View of “Hindu”

Historical research is a time consuming and back paining exercise – no one knows when or how much money would be sucked up – without reaching nowhere. So, I am trying to be wiser with the purse and avail of what is available without spending a penny ?  I checked  up NCERT which reflects the version of ancient Indian history acknowledged by the eminent historians sitting in the panel of Government of India.

For a common man who do not live his livelihood out of Hinduism or any other ism, this peek into contemporary historian’s diary would be enough like a curtain-raiser.

·        The origin of the name owes to the practice of a particular faith by the people who settled east of the river Sindhu alias Indus. The Arabs and  the Iranians called these people as Hindu. So, the term meant to include people belonging to all faith. But with the evolution of centuries, and arrival of new religions, the term Hindu began to be referred to the narrowed down meaning , implying those people only who follows Vedas. As the Indus civilization became a dead civilization and the tributaries of Ganges and Yamuna became the hot bed of the followers of Vedas, Hindus began to be identified with new region.

·        First traces of Indus civilization dates back to 4500 years and last traces of the civilisation discovered till now dates back to 3900 years . But no concrete traces of Vedic Hindu religion found in the excavated sites.

·        Then for a period of 1400 years since last trace of Indus civilisation, a complete black-out of the history of the subcontinent.

·        Around 3500 years ago( around 2500 BCE) the Hindus's first scripture by the name of  Rig Veda appeared. It was composed by Rishis and/or Rajas - offerings  to river Betul and Sultez (tibutary of Sindu or Indus river now in Pakistan )

·     But no archaeological history of the evolution of the religion is available for the next 1000 years . Archaelogists found traces of new civilisations in the tributaries of Ganges and Yamuna around 2500 years ago. The next three scripture on worship, and community rules - Sam, Yagur and Atharva Vedas were written while settlements were started in Ganga-Yamuna and its tributaries.

·        No cause of destruction of Indus civilization is conclusively proved. Whether Aryans ( those who wrote Vedas) were aborigines or came on horse-back through North-West borders from  the Europe/ WestAsiacarrying Indo-Eropean languages – no conclusive proof is established. But certain commonalities of religious symbols like Swastika etc., pagan fesitivites etc. still practiced in the west give an indirect hint to the commonality of human civilisation.  

·        Now the other way of corelating human history is through the language spoken by people in those times. It is now established that the Sanskrit used by the narrators of the Vedas is a language belonging to Indo-European segment. Hindi, Asamese, Marathi etc. also falls under Indo-European language along with many other European languages like English, Greek, Roman, German etc. That is one of the logical basis of locating the people from the origin of language - i.e. Europe. In contrast, Tamil, Telegu and Malayalam are classified as Dravidian language and are not bracketed with other Indian languages of Indo-European origin.

·      In order to make Hindusim more appealing to the masses, the next line of scriptures - Upanishads and Puranas -  appeared 2000 years ago at the time when Budhuism and Jainism were spreading like wild fire. But still, no fundamental change were forthcoming in the religion other than making worship more people-friendly.

·        Hindu system's best invention "Varna  or division of labour" in course of time became the sole cause of mass exodus to other religion. In Vedas, Varna was statuted as occupational . What were the type of Varnas ? Highest status to the Brahmins( priest and teaching Vedas), Second in order were the Kshatriyas( rulers and the front-line of fighters), the third in order were the Vaishyas( traders, herders, collectors, hunters). Brahmins offered sacrifices to God. Kshatriyas and Vaishya were allowed to offer sacrifices to God. The fourth and lowest rung Varna was for the Sudras ( includes a poor section of farmers, herders,hunters, cleaners) were used to assist the other three Varnas to maintain a comfortable community living. But priests did not allow Sudras to offer sacrifices and they were not allowed to study Vedas. Sometime later, a new section of the community was declared asUntouchable – from whom the community of all the Varnas accepted social services but they were made out-caste of the society. Anybody crossing their shadow was considered inauspicious and they were not invited to any social gatherings. These people were identified as related to specific tools craft, and involved in some other cleaning work. Un-touchables of Hindu civilizations were more like slaves of the society who were fed with the belief that Karma of past life has made them un-touchables in this life and there would be a better life in the next birth. A few exceptions like Satyakama were mere exception rather than the rule.

·        The Varnas were explained in Vedas to be occupational, it is never explained in scriptures how it turned hereditary in course of time. In absence of historical evidence, it can logically be deduced that the beneficiaries of the Varna system – the first two castes who used to weld tremendous social power to influence and control the rest of the community had,  some point of time, acquired vested interest in the process of wealth generation and sharing of the same. Some bloggers put the blame of hereditary Varna  as an outcome of western influence. But where priest welded so much power and for whom Vedas was the guiding divine book, it is unlikely the priests were influenced by the western system.  

·        Originally the prayers of Vedas were for the omnipresent God – it wasformless. But the religion evolved and God and Goddesses weredeified.As the north-west and northern region of Indian sub-continent faced attacks from various aggressors and these rulers settled down and with them, they brought the new culture of other world and hot boiled cultural mixing were apparent as in those days, it was the customs and practices of rulers that the mass tried to follow to lead a safe life. Various races merged into the stream of human civilization. With the intermingling of culture, the customs-rituals of non-Aryans got absorbed. Hindu religion began to expand with new Gods and Goddesses erstwhile unheard of. Non-Aryan God and Goddesses were accepted to expand the base of Hindu followers. Hindu religion was like a open religion, not hurting other religion's sentiments. 

·        In course of time in the system of Vedic prayers , another stream of worship added by the name of Tantra which became a dominant constituent of Hindu religious philosophy.

·        However, the oppression of Hindu priests and social unrest within  the Hindu community led to formation of new religions which denounced inequity. At the same time Hindu religion also branched into various sects according to the desire of the followers – some of the sects likeVaishnavites began to propagate equity amongst disciples irrespective of sex and occupation.  

·        However, Hinduism despite the reforms remained substantially a Varna-based inequal society. The moral backbone of Sudras and untouchables were so broken through fatalist preachings, that a large section of the population continued to rot within the periphery of Hindu religion as no great leaders were born within the lowest rung hierarchy who could influence the religion with  a positive reform of the religion like Gandhiji did in modern India. 

·        Similar to Sudras, the women  were also a victim of the priestly injunctions – as usual they were also barred from studying Vedas, offering sacrifice and entering temples. A few exceptions like Gargi were mere exception rather than the rule.

·        When the cultivation based living became a social order and villages were formed, the structure of settlements were decided by the Priests to maintain the social divisions. In village context Raja was replaced by big landlord. The chief of the village was the one having largest control of land similar to present day Jamindars, on whom the rulers of Kingdom depended for collection of taxes. And the priests looked after the community’s religious practices being followed and they lived on the collection of gifts and produce share of others. There were also the small time farmers, the landless farmers  who paid taxes to the Jamindar and gift to the priests. Depending on the interpretation of the priests, a section of the Sudras - those who were of certain tool specialist and the cleaners were declared as Untouchables and were not allowed to join the local community functions. There houses were earmarked in a area at the outskirt of the villages and other followers of Hindu religion were prohibited to visit their houses or walk on the roads used by them or accept meal servings from them. These practices with the passage of time created social unrest and bad blood amongst fellow followers of the same religion and created a fertile ground for preachers of other religions to poach ever willing prey.

·        While with the spread of Christianity, Islam, Budhism, Jainism and many other off-shoots of various religions, the concept of equality of human beings began to settle down in the minds of the Indians. When the Hindus began to get western influence during British/Dutch/Portugese occupation, the people of these lower strata were lured by the preachers of other religions where all followers were  tempted to enjoy equal status at par with any other human beings and live a life of dignity - that is normal human aspiration.

·        The outcome: Ironically, the region marked as Aryabartha covering UP, Bihar and upper Bengal where Hindusism was the only religion,  now display large followers of Islam in crores. It is a sad tale of the mental injury inflicted by Hindusim which can only be compared to the slave practices of the west.

·        Apart from lower strata of Hinduism, Budhists (Ex-Hindu converts) were also wooed away by Islam only because of the life of Sanaysins that Budhists offered people to adopt to for realisation of life, increasingly felt by the masses as a harsh practice for ordinary masses.Jainism also dwindled for the same reason. Added to that, the Jain stricture against killing any form of life to its followers,  found to be in conflict with a large section of the population in river basins whose livelihood depended vitally on fishing, and survival on eating any form of food.

·        Now coming to modern India of the new millennium,  and the world at large, it is interesting  to observe that in modern India, only preachers of one religion is crying hoarse against forceful conversions against other religion. It is not the Christians, not even the Islamist Mullahs. These are the political wings of certain Hindu religious organizations.

·        One Question on Conversion:  Why these religious heads have so little faith in the people who get converted, that after every conversion, cry hoarse in the media. It is difficult to comprehend  that a religion which has such depth in spirituality and faith in its preachings , have to take recourse to legal force to retain its lower strata of political vote bank.History of mankind is a history of conversions. Religions die, but civilizations survive and move ahead adopting new religion if the adopted religion become too archaic to the necessities of modern people.

  

    Even if we take for granted, that some of the conversions are formonetary lure, can the crying Hindu religious leaders not ask those newly converts , to get re-converted back to Hinduism  out of their own free will? Accepting religion is a matter of choice, not of compulsions. And naturally the herd will move to a concept with which the family can identify with and which has greater appeal in their strata of society.

·   Final Question on Re-conversion: A religion which had in earlier millennium spread to far east, and to the far south-east for its appeal of spirituality and became known for its discourse on life’s equation with the universe, had lost its rightful place - first to Budhism and Jainsim, later to Islam, and finally to Sikhism and Christiantity on its arrival in Indian sub-continent.

A few soul-searching questions:

·        Whom Hindus will blame?   If the people in the lower rung of the Varna begin to feel the dignity of life through exercising choice of other religion?

·          Whether Hindu religion has kept door open for people of other religion coming back to Hindu fold? Can Hinduism open its folded arm?

·         If yes, my curiosity is - where will they be placed in the system of Varnna? Can they enjoy equal respect as a priest or a Kshatriya do enjoy?

·         Which institution will decide that?

 Finally, like other religions, Hinduism needs reform cause a divided Hindu society is a threat for the nation where majority of people are Hindu and as in the past, the toxic vices is an apparent impediment to the road for national progress and establishment of futuristic India with PEACE UNLIMITED.