The question always puzzled me no end.
Initially when I was a child I thought Hinduism was merely idol worship which
we do in temples and the mantras that were chanted at rituals. I was brought up mostly in the house of my paternal
great grandmother where I studied till my Intermediate as my parents were at
Vizag. Great granny was a pious lady and throughout the day she read and re
read both Ramayana and Mahabharata one after the other in succession throughout
the year again and again. She had very comprehensive works on both the epics
running into some 15 volumes each and of course I read them as well when I came
of age.
She used to send me and my younger brother to
the nearby Shiva temple (despite she herself being a Vaishnavaite) accompanied
by one ayah named Ramachandramma who brought us up as my parents stayed ay
Vizag. However, those trips to the temple did not really make me religious.
After sometime I started reading Astronomy, and the more I read it, the more I
was convinced that a humanlike God just did not exist.
The fountainhead of Hinduism lies in the Vedas.
As you well know they are 4 in number 1) Rik, 2) Sama, 3) Yajur &
4)Atharva. In fact a Veda itself consists of 4 portions; 1) Samhita, 2)
Brahmana, 3) Aranyaka & 4) Upanishads.
Vedas worship the Nature and were the source
books of Hinduism. The Samhita & Brahmana portion mostly extolls various
gods by defining and praising them despite having a philosophical streak here
and there. They also set forth a number of sacrifices and rituals to be
followed along with the procedure for performing them.
The Aranyakas mark a transition from
ritualistic to philosophical thought and they try to interpret and fuse the
rituals to the relevant philosophical thought. Thereafter come the Upanishads
which are the concluding portion of the Vedas. These are intensely
philosophical. They take back the age of the Earth to some 432 crore years
which happens to be amazingly close to the actual figure calculated by
astronomers which is 450 crore years.
No other religion in the world even remotely
approaches Hinduism on the longevity of the Earth. A day for Lord Brahma who is
the creator of the Universe is known as the “Kalpa” and is equal to 864 crore years which is just
one day for Brahma. His day consists of half of that or 432 crore years, during
which he creates the Universe and his night is the time of “Pralaya” when the
Universe gets destroyed completely. Next day of his (after 864 crore years)
Brahma restarts producing the Universe all over again.
Every Kalpa or 1 day of Brahma has 1000 cycles
of the 4 Yugas; Satya, Treta, Dwapara & Kali. Satya Yuga lasts for
17,28,000 years, Treta for 12,96,000
years, Dwapara for 8,64,000 years and Kali for 4,32,000 years. Thus a Mahayuga lasts for
43,20,000 years.
Each Kalpa is divided into 14 Manvantaras or
periods each lasting for 71 cycles of the 4 Yugas. The title ‘Manu” is given to
each person that presides over the Manvantara. Thus, there are 14 different
Manus.
The Upanishads are highly sceptical and allow
many streams of thought. Such scepticism allows Hinduism to be very tolerant to
other ways of thinking. The Hindu orthodox Brahmins certainly did oppose
Buddhism & Jainism when they came in and criticised them, but that
opposition was merely confined to heated debates and never went on to become
any type of physical threat to another person. In its tolerance, Hinduism went
ahead and accepted Buddha as the 9th reincarnation of Vishnu.
The Rigveda itself was supposedly started
forming in about 1500 BC and it concluded probably by 1200 BC. The other 3 Vedas
were composed later between 1200 and 900 BC. However, India had no script then,
and the Vedas were carried by oral rendition and byhearting by certain families
of Rishis. They are passed down orally from generation to generation when
finally they were written down in Sanskrit in the Brahmi script between 1000
and 500 BC. Today, the Vedas are found in the Devanagari script.
To support and protect the purity of the Vedas
as they were then orally being passed down due to lack of script, the 6
Vedangas emerged to create a rigid system for passing them down. They are 1
Siksha –Phonetics, 2. Vyakarana-Grammar, 3. Chandas-Meter, 4.
Nirukta-Etymology, 5. Kalpa-Ritual & 6. Jyotisha-Astrology/Astronomy.
The Rigveda consists of 1028 hymns known as
Suktas. Following is the list of Gods to whom the maximum number of hymns are
addressed:
Indra 250, Agni 200, Soma 123, Ashvins 56, Varuna
40, Maruts 38, Mitra 28, Ushas 21, Vayu 12,Vishnu
12, Savitr 11 and so on.
What are the most important Gods of Hinduism as
we practice today? They are Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara. Amazingly both
Vishnu and Rudra were just minor Gods in the Vedas and only a few hymns were
addressed to them. The Brahman of the Vedas does not denote the Brahma, the
creator, but Brahman the Absolute. That was because the Vedas were pure nature
worship and gives precedence over everything to Brahman which is Brahman the
Absolute. The Brahman is said to be beyond all thought and can never be defined
by anyone. One can only say this is not Brahman, that is not Brahman only by
negation but never by affirmation. The moment anyone starts defining Brahman,
they only end up with Ishwara or the Personal God and never Brahman.
The mightiest God of the Vedas was Indra and
Rigveda extolls him in 250 hymns out of its 1038 hymns. Then come Agni, Soma(
God of drink), then come the Ashwins who are gods for sunrise & sunset, then
Varuna the god of Sky and Oceans, then the Maruts or wind gods and so on. As
you can see, the Vedas are unfettered pure nature worship. In the Rigveda, Vishnu
gets only 12 hymns, and Rudra gets 7 hymns.
The early Vedic society was egalitarian and
believed that everyone is equal. The political unit was then “Jana” headed by a
“Rajan” who was a protector and not a hereditary ruler. He was assisted by the
tribal assemblies of Sabha (Council of Elders) and the Samiti (Peoples
Assembly), However, the kingship became hereditary and all powerful during the
later Vedic age and elaborate rituals like Aswamedha and the Rajasuya were
performed to affirm his authority.
The Varna system came into Hindu society depending
on the type of work being done by different classes and was not rigid initially,
but later it developed into a rigid class system that actually discriminated
based on the work done by a class.
There was some gender equality in early Vedic
society, with women participating in rituals and even in war in a few cases. However,
social restrictions on women were slowly enforced during the later Vedic
period.
A number of women appear in the Rigveda;
Indrani, Urvasi, Apala Atreyi, Godha, Ghosa Kaksivati, Romasa, Lopamudra,
Visvavara Atreyi, Sachi Paulomi, Saswati Angirasi, and these women were quite
outspoken and confident and were not diffident to express themselves. Of
course, this outspokenness disappeared in the later Vedic age.
The following Rishis are prominently mentioned
in the Vedas; Vasishta, Vishwamitra, Bharadvaja, Agastya, Kashyapa, Angiras and
Bhrigu.
