HINDUISM IN THEORY & PRACTICE
HINDUISM IN THEORY & PRACTICE
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When the fair-skinned Indo-European race, who called themselves Aryans, entered India from the north-west in a series of migrations, they gradually suppressed the dark-skinned Dravidians. Many tribal groups such as the Gonds were able to retain their self-identity by retreating to the forests and hill country. Today they continue to occupy the less accessible parts of India. By the beginning of the first millennium B.C there was a notable fusing of Aryan and non-Aryan religious ideas and practices. The religion of the conquered people was re-emerging, transforming the religion of the conqueror into a new synthesis. A clear example of this is phallus worship, which the early invaders described as belonging to the enemies of Aryans. In later Hinduism the phallus reappears as the principal symbol of the god Shiva. Figurines probably representing the mother goddess have also been found at Mohenjodaro and Harappa – The two sites of ancient Indus valley civilisation which had then developed a highly advanced urban culture comparable with the contemporary Mesopotamia. These are conspicuously absent from early Aryan Religion, but in later literature the mother goddess appears in the form of Durga or Kali, the consort of Shiva. Other excavated figures suggest a knowledge of Yoga, which again, reappeared in later Hinduism.
Thus the Hindus have an extraordinary wide selection of beliefs and practices to choose from: they can be monotheists, pantheists, polytheists, agnostics or even atheists. They may follow a strict or loose standard of moral conduct, or they may choose instead an amoral emotionalism or mysticism. They may worship regularly at a temple or may not go there at all. Their only universal obligation (if they are orthodox) is to abide by the rules of their caste, and trust that by so doing their next birth will be a happier one.
The Vedic Indians worshipped many gods; one rishi said the number was 330,000,000! India from times immemorial is said to have been a land of temples and gods, many of which are represented in idols. Probably, there are more idols in India today than in all the rest of the world put together.
An Indian scholar, Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, Describes the ever-increasing gods in India in his book Islam and the World as follows:
In the sixth century A.D idolatry had reached its lowest ebb in India. The Vedas give the number of Hindu gods as 33. During this period as many as 33 million gods were worshipped among the Hindus. Almost everything that possessed any attractiveness or utility had been vested with divine attributes. Stones and minerals, trees and plants, rivers and mountains, animals and even organs of procreation were adored as gods. Thus, this ancient religion was turned into a heap of mythical traditions, beliefs and rites. Dr. Ghostave Le Bon says in Les Civilisations de l’Inde, “The Hindu, of all people, stands most unavoidably in the need of visible objects for religious worship, and although at different times religious reformers have tried to prove monotheism in the Hindu Faith, it has been an unavailing effort. From the Vedic Age to the present day, the Hindu has been worshipping all sorts of things. Whatever he cannot understand or control is worthy of being adored as divine in his eyes. All attempts of Brahmans and other Hindu reformers in the direction of monotheism or in limiting the number of gods to three have been utterly unsuccessful. The Hindus listened to them, and sometimes even accepted their teachings in principle, but in practice and three gods went on multiplying till they began to see a god in every article and phenomenon of nature”.
Two phenomena with respect to Hindu gods are puzzling, for the outsiders. One is that the gods became – and still are in the last analysis – Super numeraries. The universal order was not the order of their will; the universe could function quite well without them. One by one they slipped into oblivion as they were perceived to be rooted in human subjectivity. The second phenomenon puzzling to outsiders is a tendency to deify almost anything: a stone, a tree, a river, a human, a cow, etc., to describe something as a god in Hinduism means that it is worthy of respect, honour, even veneration, not that it is an agent who can wilfully violate natural law. Hinduism is not a god – oriented religion but a man-centred religion with its attendant faults and follies.
The Modern Hindu Arya Samaj, a nineteenth century movement which still continues, has shared with Islam an antipathy towards idols. The Arya Samaj was also opposed to the Westernization and the Christianization of India.
An Indian Scholar Comments on the state of affairs then prevailing in Ancient India:
Nowhere do subjects objects and sexual themes occupy such a conspicious place in religion as they did in Ancient India. Extremely revolting and shameless accounts of the sexual misdeeds of gods and goddesses by way of explaining the occurrence of important mythological events and the creation of things are found in the ancient Indian religious books. It requires no great strength of imagination to picture what indencent practices must have gone in the name of religion. The worship of the Lingum (the sexual organ) of Shiva was prevalent throughout the land. To quote Gustave le Bon once more.
“The Hindus are deeply devoted to images and symbols… Their temples are full of these, chief among them being the lingam and the yoni, as symbolising the generative power in nature. Even the pillars of Asoka are regarded by Hindus as images of lingam. All vertical and conical objects are held in veneration by them.”
