In order to understand the Hindu view of life it is essential to grasp the fundamental presuppositions which Hindus accept as self-evident truths and facts of existence. These are:
The eastern end of the Ganges Valley was an area of intellectual ferment in the 6th century B.C. It was the scene of a ravaging and wide-spreading heterodoxy called “Charvaka and Lokayata” based on hedonic ethic. The intellectual, religious and social leaders of this geographic regions (which also later nurtured the Jains and the Buddhists) rejected the Vedas and all teachings. The so-called knowledge offered in the vedic literature was described by them (the materialists as they came to be known) as “The vomit of Brahmin”.
The Charvaka philosophers operated in two directions: negatively they sought to destroy confidence in Shruti, and positively they sought to offer an alternative to brahminic teachings. Their favourite weapon of destruction was ridicule. If the sacrificial animals ascend to heaven as the brahmins say, they asked, then why do not sacrificers offer their own parents and children? The Vedas themselves were authored by “buffoons, knaves, and domons,” and they are trained with “un-truths, self-contradictions, and tautologies”. The Vedas, those “incoherent rhapsodies” are but cheats, and the priests who perform the sacrifices, read the Vedas, conduct penances, and rub their bodies with ashes are ignorant men with no manliness nor sense who have discovered that the value of the ceremonies is a means of self-support the ceremonies have no other fruit1.
According to the Charvakas the only realities are physical objects, i.e., objects which can be sensed. Whereas other philosophers recognised five primary elements – earth, air, fire, water and ether – the Charvakas held that only the first four exist; the later is unperceivable, therefore unreal they claimed that at death the human being without remainder is dissolved back into the primary elements. According to them, the only “god” is “The earthly monarch whose existence is proved by all the world’s eyesight”. There is no after-life and no reincarnation. “Soul” and “God” are words – and only words. Sacrifices and good works confer no merit; sins and evil works bring no punishment. Hell is physical pain, e.g. stepping on a thorn, and heaven is eating delicious food, keeping company of young women, using fine clothes, perfumes, gralands, sandal poste, etc.,”. Religion in all its forms is foolishness. Only the fool wears himself out in penances and fasts.
In the ancient Hindu world view, the lord of the cosmos was not a god but the cosmic law (rita) and the moral law of causation (karma), which regulate the cosmic processes of continuous generation and destruction. Thus at the very time when the ancient Hindus believed in the reality of millions of gods they also believed in one cosmic order (rita). This order was operative not only in the realm of natural events but also in morality. Causality in the moral realm, known as karma, is frequently defined as “the law of the deed.”
Karma is “action” or “doing” and is a moral interpretation of the natural law of causation which states that any action is the effect of a cause and is in its turn the cause of an effect. The law of karma is the extension of this physical law to the realm of the spirit and to life, past, present and future. It is a principle of moral reaction applied to both good and evil actions. As a man sows, so shall he reap. Bad actions reap suffering and bondage to human existence. Good actions lead to freedom from this bondage. Just as the law of causation is unalterable in nature, so the law of karma is fixed in the spiritual realm.
Inextricably bound up with karma is the assumption of Samsara, rebirth or transmigration of the soul. According to Hindu belief, those who lead a miserable existence in this life are paying for the wrongs they did in a previous existence. Those who are born into a happy life are being rewarded for the good they did in a former life. He who continues to do bad things will, in each life, be born as something worse: a dog, a hog or an untouchable. He who continues to live a good life may be reborn as a Brahmin, a Kshatriya or a Vaishya. The individual soul thus seems about in reincarnation according to its deeds. This living over and again is called Samsara Rebirth or transmigration of the soul1. All individuals are involved in this cyclic time-process of samsara, the state of each individual in any particular life being dependent on the good or evil actions of preceding lives!
According to “Gita” acts done from a sense of duty use up Karma without creating new Karma. If one’s goal is to terminate the series of incarnations, as Hinduism assumes it is, then the aim is to exhaust karma. The Hindu expression is “to eat up one’s karma”. When all karma is “eaten up”, there are no causes of another incarnation.
The doctrine of karma was well established by the time of Buddha. Charvakas and Ajivakas attempted to defend the concept of fate against karma, but not many Hindus since the 6th century have doubted the law of karma or offered alternatives to it. and its correlative the theory of reincarnation is for most Hindus a received assumption which does not depend upon empirical evidence or rational argument. It is a remarkable fact that none of the classical philosophers of India attempted to examine the validity of the doctrine of reincarnation. A learned Hindu once rekarked in private conversation, “It is an irrational idea, but no more irrational than the Christian conception of immorality.”.
However, with the spread of education in the 20th century, few Hindu doctrines have remained unchallenged. The modern Hindu reformers like Aurobindo Ghose, Tagore, Gandhi and others were keenly conscious of the shortcomings of Hinduism and Hindu society and were also acutely conscious of social evils that had been perpetuated in the name of religion. Some of them even rejected the authority of Vedas and advocated the abolition of widow-burning, idol-worship, and the caste system. They also expressed willingness to draw inspiration and examples from other cultures as they felt that the progress of modern India had been hindered by conservative Hinduism, mass illiteracy, technological progress, and by a lack of organic relationship between the government and the people.
Although the drift towards westernization continues in India, the burning question that still agitates the minds of educated and thinking Hindus is:
“How to find release from Karma, bring the never-ending round of rebirths to a halt and guarantee men immorality?”