A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA'S CULTURAL HISTORY.
The "animistic" and "polytheistic" Indian subcontinent is home to tens of thousands of local cults that have native shamanic roots, that perhaps reminds one of civilizations described in the African continent or resemble the Pscythian tribes of Eurasia.
- However, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism are four main spiritual traditions that rank among the global religions.
- As a result, India's contribution to global spirituality is unparalleled.
More than any other race, Indians have shown great versatility in spiritual issues, inspiring many other countries and resulting in a much-needed spiritual enrichment of our spiritually sick Western civilisation in our century.
- For millennia, Hinduism has been the main tradition of the Indian subcontinent, with more than 1.2 billion followers worldwide.
There are about 967 million Hindus in India, about 80% of the population which today stands over 1.4 billion people.
- Muslims, are the second biggest religious group, followed by Christians and Sikhs.
- In India, Buddhists make up a tiny minority, although they are well-represented in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), Tibet, and Southeast Asia.
The word "Hinduism" is a bit of a misnomer.
- It is often used to refer to the whole culture of all Peninsula residents, excluding those who adhere to clearly recognized faiths like as Buddhism and Christianity.
- More precisely, the term refers to a number of traditions that are historically and ideologically linked to the ancient Vedic civilization of more than 6,000 years ago, and which took on its distinctive shape around the turn of the first millennium c. E.
NOTE: The term "Hinduism" is used on this site in the broadest meaning possible.
Hinduism is a philosophy as well as a religion just as much as it can be a universal identity today.
- It is a complete civilization with its own particular lifestyle, defined by a distinctive social structure: the caste system, much like the other global religions.
For thousands of years, Hindu society has been divided into four estates (varna), which are incorrectly referred to as castes:
- the priestly or briihmana estate or class;
- the warrior or kshatriya class;
- the "common people" or vaishya class (comprising farmers, traders, and artisans);
- and the servile or shudra class.
This arrangement is believed to have its origins in the heavenly order.
- The primal being or macranthropos is depicted as giving birth to the four estates as follows in the RigVeda's "Hymn of Man" (purusha-sfi.kta) (1 0. 90. 1 2):
- The brahmin is His lips; the warrior is made of His arms; the merchant is made of His thighs; and the servant is made of His feet.
- Members of the slave estate were systematically barred from acquiring holy knowledge, and they ultimately became outcasts.
- The feet are metaphorically "filthy," and the shudras' assignment to the Cosmic Man's lower limbs denotes their poor social position.
- However, since the feet are an essential component of a fully functioning human person, the servile estate is also vital to society's well-being.
- However, the shudras are karmically predestined for menial labor rather than intellectual, leadership, or creative activity, according to Vedic beliefs, since their awareness is of a darker color (varna).
It is a common misconception that the word varna ("color") relates to skin color and that the four states are divided by ethnic lines.
- All four estates, however, are part of the Vedic Aryan social body, which, according to the Rig-Veda, valued the hue of the soul above ethnic traits.
- Only the top three estates are regarded "twice-born" (dvija), meaning they have been "born again" via appropriate Vedic initiation.
- Boys and girls from the priestly, military, and agricultural/mercantile estates were customarily married at the ages of eight, eleven, and twelve, respectively.
- They were then given a holy thread (yajna-upavita, spelled yajno pavita) to wear permanently over the left shoulder, hanging diagonally across the chest, as part of the investiture (upanayana) ceremony.
Allowing marriages between members of different estates resulted in the formation of social groupings known as castes (jati).
- As a result, a growing number of subcastes emerged.
- The conduct and actions of members of various castes are tightly regulated by complex rules that control this social order.
- This stratification very certainly resulted in marginalized people being labeled "outcasts" or "untouchables."
Visionaries and reformers have often questioned this enormous social superstructure.
- The founder of Buddhism, Gautama, was one of the first to reject it.
- Despite this, it has persisted throughout the ages and has had a strong effect on all other subcontinental cultures.
- Social innovators who opposed the caste system in general had to oppose the Vedic revelation that legitimized it as well.
- The caste system, with its social inequalities, is as natural to the devout Hindu as democracy is to us.
- The caste system is justified by citing the law of karma, much as we defend democratic principles by emphasizing the value of the individual.
- Because of previous decisions and acts, each individual has a certain station in life.
- Brahmins are brahmins because of their past lives' moral and spiritual endeavors.
- Outcasts are outcasts for a variety of reasons, including a lack of desire for a better life or serious crimes.
Although the caste system offends our modern Western sensibilities, our forefathers formerly had beliefs and ideals that were comparable to those of traditional Hindus.
- The old social order, which was clearly hierarchical, was only questioned, contested, and eventually destroyed with the development of a strong individualism during the Renaissance.
- Even our modern so-called egalitarian countries, with a super-wealthy elite at one end and a large number of impoverished people at the other, are not without social stratification.
The caste system's rigidity has been counterbalanced by a considerable ideological flexibility.
- As a result, Hinduism has shown an incredible ability for absorbing even the most diametrically opposed elements inside itself.
- For example, at one end of the spectrum is Shankara's extreme non dualist school, and at the other end is Classical Samkhya's rigorous dualist school, which, despite its atheism, is nevertheless considered one of Hinduism's six main philosophical systems (darshana).
- The "cool" contemplative approach of nondualist Jnana-Yoga of the Upanishads on the one hand, and the passionate emo tionalism of certain schools of monotheistic Bhakti Yoga on the other, is another example of such radically divergent philosophical views.
- The medieval way of devotionalism (bhakti-marga) is very syncretistic, including aspects from Islamic Sufism, for example.
- The Allah-Upanishad, a late book written under Muslim influence, exemplifies Hinduism's all-inclusive ethos.
- Even a well-defined religious tradition like Christianity fell prey to Hinduism's spongelike absorptive capacity, and had to be saved from Hinduization by Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The inclusive nature of Hinduism is often misconstrued as universal tolerance, which is not the case.
- There have been many examples of intolerance between different schools or factions of Hinduism throughout India's history, such as the long-standing conflict between the Vaishnavas and the Shaivas.
- Hinduism is best understood as a complex sociocultural process that has evolved via the dynamics of continuity and discontinuity, or the survival of ancient forms and the incorporation of new cultural and religious manifestations.
- Thus, Hinduism may be considered to have begun with Vedic civilization from one perspective (possibly as early as the fi fth millennium B . C. E. ).
- From another perspective, the Vedic sacred culture and Hinduism as we know it now have genuine and significant contrasts.
- Nonetheless, the general consistency has been remarkable, perhaps more so than the shifts that have occurred through time.
Most Western and Indian academics, until recently, emphasized the discontinuity in India's cultural development.
- They perceived a conflict between the Indus Valley civilisation and the Vedic "Aryan" culture, which they believed originated outside of India.
- However, this long-held Aryan invasion hypothesis is currently being actively contested.
- A increasing number of academics in India and the West view this historical model as a scientific fiction that was created without sufficient evidence and has had a negative impact on our knowledge of ancient India's history and culture.
- The book In Search of the Cradle of Civilization documents this significant shift in scholarly thinking.
All evidence suggests that the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans who wrote the Vedas were not barbaric nomads who arrived from outside India and wreaked havoc on the local people.
Rather, the available evidence suggests that they were genuine Indian natives.
Furthermore, there are compelling grounds to believe that the Vedic civilization, as represented in the Rig-Veda and the other three Vedic Samhitiis, was substantially, if not entirely, similar to the so-called Indus civilization.
You may also want to read more about Hinduism here.
Be sure to check out my writings on religion here.
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