MUSINGS ON HINDUISM.

 

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 9^th 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.