‘What is Hinduism’?

 

‘What is Hinduism’?

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s classic The Discovery of India, written from the prison in Ahmednagar Fort, is a treatise on Indian civilization and history. It is remarkable that he could write such a gripping account of his country from a British jail, without access to library and reference works, in a most lucid and moving language. The book is translated into many Indian and foreign languages. No other book recaptures 5000 years history of India, from its beginning to the Indian independence in 1947. It reveals that, though he was an atheist, Pandit Nehru had profound knowledge of Hinduism and the Hindu scriptures the Vedas and the Upanishads. The iconic film maker Sham Benegal made a captivating historical classical drama Bharat Ek Khoj, running into 53 episodes, based on his book.

 

I have pleasure in reproducing excerpts of a subtheme What is Hinduism from The Discovery of India. This is relevant in the present context of India where the right-wing political establishment turned a noble faith Hinduism on its head:  

 

"The word ‘Hindu’ does not occur at all in our ancient literature.  The reference to it in an Indian book is in a Tantric work of the eighth century A.C. where ‘Hindu’ means a people and not the followers of a particular religion.  But it is clear that the word is very old one, as it occurs in the Avesta and in old Persian. It was used then and for a thousand years or more later by the peoples of western and central Asia for India, or rather for the people living on the other side of the Indus River. The word is clearly derived from Sindhu, the old, as well as the present, Indian name for the Indus. From this Sindhu came the words Hindu and Hindustan, as well as Indus and India.

 

The famous Chinese pilgrim I ‘Tsing, who came to India in the seventh century A.C., writes in his record of travels that ‘Hindu’ was not at all a common name… and the most suitable name for India is the Noble Land (Arya Desha). The use of the word ‘Hindu’ in connection with a particular religion is of very late occurrence. The old inclusive term for religion in India was Arya dharma. Dharma means something more than religion. It is from a root word which means to hold together; it is the in most constitution of a thing, the law of its inner being. It is an ethical concept which includes the moral code, righteousness, and the whole range of man’s duties and responsibilities.  Arya dharma would include all the faiths (Vedic and non-Vedic) that originated in India. The expression Vedic dharma was used in ancient times to signify more particularly and exclusively all those philosophies, moral teachings, ritual and practices, which were supposed to derive from the Vedas.

 

Sanatana dharma, meaning the ancient religion, could be applied to any of the ancient Indian faiths (including Buddhism and Jainism), but the expression has been more or less monopolized today by some orthodox sections among the Hindus who claim to follow the ancient faith.  Buddhism and Jainism were certainly not Hinduism or even the Vedic dharma. Yet they arose in India and were integral parts of Indian life, culture and philosophy.  A Buddhist or Jain in India is a hundred per cent product of Indian thought and culture, yet neither is a Hindu by faith. It is, therefore, entirely misleading to refer to Indian culture as Hindu culture.  In later ages this culture was greatly influenced by the impact of Islam, and yet it remained basically and distinctively Indian.

 

Hinduism, as a faith, is vague, amorphous, many-sided, all things to all men. It is hardly possible to define it, or indeed to say definitely whether it is a religion or not, in the usual sense of the word. In its present form, and even in the past, it embraces many beliefs and practices, from the highest to the lowest, often opposed to or contradicting each other. Its essential spirit seems to be to live and let live. Mahatma Gandhi has attempted to define it: ‘If I were asked to define the Hindu creed, I should simply say: Search after truth through nonviolent means. A man may not believe in God and still himself a Hindu. Hinduism is a relentless pursuit after truth… Hinduism is the religion of truth. Truth is God.  Denial of God we have known. Denial of truth we have not known’… truth left by itself as the distinguishing mark of Hinduism. That, of course, is no definition at all. 

 

It is, therefore, incorrect and undesirable to use ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hinduism’ for Indian culture, even with reference to the distant past, although the various aspect of thought, as embodied in ancient writings, were the dominant expression of that culture.  So long as the old faith and philosophy were chiefly a way of life and an outlook on the world, they were largely synonymous with Indian culture; but when a more rigid religion developed, with all manner of ritual and ceremonial, it became something more and at the same time something much less than that composite culture  A Christian or a Moslem could, and often did, adapt himself to the Indian way of life and culture, and yet remained in faith an orthodox Christian or Moslem. He had Indianized himself and become an Indian without changing his religion. 

Whatever the word we use, Indian or Hindustani, for our cultural tradition, we see in the past that some inner urge towards synthesis, derived essentiality from the Indian philosophic outlook, was the dominant feature of Indian cultural, and even racial, development. Each incursion of foreign elements was a challenge to this culture, but it was met successfully by a new synthesis and a process of absorption. This was also a process of rejuvenation and new blooms of culture arose out of it, the background and essential basis, however, remaining much the same."

 

Pandit Nehru met the definition of a true Hindu - one doesn't have to be a ritualistic and temple going to be a Hindu. That is how, many of us, qualify to be Hindus, by accident of birth, without practicising Hinduism. That is the beauty of Hinduism - neither organised nor monolithic - allowing a Hindu to worhsip any god, from a pantheon of gods, and not worship any god at all.  Prime Minister Nehru,  in his later years, used to have sessions with President Radhakrishnan to discuss and enhance his knowlede of Upanishads.