Hinduism: Origins, Evolution and the Present

PREFACE

A surgeon I know had to give a presentation about Hinduism in his Church. He had bought several books to study the subject, and often asked me questions. In an effort to help him, I sat at my PC one weekend and wrote this essay. This is not meant to be a 'reference tome' for Hinduism; the fact that it took me over two days to write it was because I was always was in a dilemma what NOT to include. My attempt was to make the concept of 'Hinduism' comprehensible to the Western mind, and provide corollaries that they could grasp. My friend had already done his homework and was armed with a lot of knowledge; I hope this work made his presentation easier.

The history of Hinduism is entwined with the history of India, and I feel that one cannot be fully comprehended without the other. Westerners are equally ignorant of both, and therefore it becomes even more important to discuss why Hinduism of today is the way it is. Around the time Alexander of Macedonia came to northwest India in the fourth century BCE, the Greeks felt that India was a land of mystery, mystique and intrigue; unfortunately, many in the West still have this notion.

With the world 'flattening', and India on the threshold to become the third largest economy in the world and a regional superpower, more and more coverage of this South Asian juggernaut will be seen in the West. It then becomes imperative to provide an average person a glimpse of the culture, ethos and the way of life in India.

One could argue that an understanding of one religion could not do justice to to a billion plus people, many of whom have different faiths. True, India is a secular democracy, and as in the US, there is a separation of 'church and state'. However, while one is free to practice any religion they want, there is an overlay of the dominant one that affects the national tradition; just as in US it is the Judeo-Christian.

Further, Hinduism is neither just a religion, nor it is closed to foreign ideas. True, there are Hindus who would like to declare India a Hindu Kingdom, nominate a King and give everyone a choice to become a Hindu or leave. Fortunately, they are a very small minority, and can say what they say because India is a secular democracy. For the rest of its followers, Hinduism is an open and dynamic faith, ever changing and evolving.

For me, this is the reason why I think Hinduism is a great philosophy; I can believe in the teachings of Jesus and yet be a Hindu. And since I have spent as many years in India as I have in the US as of today, I felt I have a unique understanding of both countries and I could make Indian concepts more comprehensible to the American reader.

I plan to expand this work. I don't know how and when I will do it, and where will it lead me. If you find any inaccuracies, please let me know. If there is something you want to add, let me know as well.

The Origins

In Chicago in 1893, Swami Vivekananda, the first Hindu sage to venture to the West, referred to Hinduism as a way a life. Others see it as a religious tradition of India. The truth is that it is a bit of both, and its beginning can be traced to before its followers entered ‘India’. Evolving over 4-5 millennia, modern Hinduism is an amalgamation of different philosophies and sects, and can vary from region to region. Certainly, there are some central unifying tenets, like Christians of all denominations believe in the Trinity and that Jesus is the son of God. To use an analogy for the Western mind, Hinduism is like a big tent where all Protestants, Catholics and even atheists can belong to one single entity.

Another conception difficult to grasp is that since Hinduism has a lot of ‘gods’ and so Hindus have to be idolaters. However, Hindus believe in ONE Supreme Being, who is abstract and infinite. A French Indologist has called Hinduism a “monotheistic polytheism”. Hinduism has no single founder, and so it has no single holy book that is above all, like the Bible or the Quran. Instead, it has a number of holy texts, and interestingly, they often contradict each other.

Further, the earliest known text on Hinduism, the Rig Veda¹, is said to have been compiled circa 1500 BCE. The actual ‘religion’ is older than that, probably before the Aryans walked over through the Hindu Kush Mountains (in Afghanistan) from Persia into north-western India circa 1500 BCE. To have a better understanding of this complex, it is important to trace its evolution from the very beginning.

The Aryans are believed to have spread from the Caucasus Mountains region (hence their descendents are also called as Caucasians), around 4000 BCE. Some of them traveled south-west to Persia, though their arrival date there is disputed. However, it is more certain at around 1500 BCE, a handful of these Persio-Aryans moved eastward. Why they did is not known, though the earlier notion that they invaded has now been dismissed. The original Aryans were nomads and pastoralists. The current thinking is that those who moved to India were a disaffected band of people who wanted to move away from their clansmen. They moved where their bovines led them.

They carried their belief systems with them. Scholars have noted similarities between the Rig Veda and earliest works of Zoroastrians (Avesta), the religion of the early Persian Aryans, in the gods worshiped and the rites observed.² These early Aryans worshiped the elements: the gods of wind, fire, earth, water. At that time, one of the higher gods in the pantheon was Indra, the god of rain and thunder; in modern Hinduism, he is one of the minor ones.

¹‘Veda’ means knowledge in Sanskrit. The study of Indian Medicine, for example, is called ‘Ayurveda’. The Vedas form the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism.

²As Islam spread into Persia, the residents were forced to embrace it. To escape persecution, the Zoroastrians escaped, and took refuge in India, landing on its west coast. The modern name for Zoroastrians is Parsis.

The Early Stages

We know from archeological digs that they must have encountered the residents of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, located along the river Indus. The natives were darker than the Aryans, who were fairer, with lighter colored hair and eyes (blue-eyed blondes?). To differentiate themselves from the natives, they therefore used color (of the skin), and a system of ‘Varna’ (caste) was born. They called the natives ‘Dasa’³ which at that time meant a person who is not familiar with the language and culture of the Aryans.

As these foreigners elbowed their way into the settlements of the natives, they also began to overpower them because of their superior technology (spears, chariots, etc.)⁴. However, this took several generations, and during that time there occurred a lot of intercourse between the belief systems of the aliens and the natives. New gods entered the line-up of existing Aryan gods. One of the major ones was Shiva, who is said to travel on a bull. Artifacts unearthed in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro show seals of the god and his ride.

As these new arrivals settled in north-western India, some of them moved further east. It is estimated that it took them several centuries to move east across the subcontinent, some settling down and others, moving again and the story kept on repeating. As they moved, they took in more and more of the local flavor, but kept on adding that to their beliefs rather than replacing them. At that time, there only were regional power centers, or city-states, and so each area would have its own gods and a belief system which was a mixture of the local thinking as well as the one brought in by the nomadic Aryans. This explains why Hinduism has so many different philosophies, and so many gods.

The first major empire in India was around the time when Alexander of Macedonia arrived in India, c 3^rd century BCE. All the four major Vedas, were composed by this time⁵, and the Mauryan Empire⁶ helped create some uniformity in this variegated belief system. However, around this time, there were other rising sects that were challenging the established orders. Many did not last long, but two are still being practiced, Jainism and Buddhism.

³At present, ‘Dasa’ means one in servitude, a servant or a slave!

⁴The story of the Caucasians! They always best the natives with superior technology. In the 17^th century, it was gunpowder.

⁵The four Vedas are, in order of composition, the Rig, Yajur, Sam and Atharva. Michael Witzel gives a time span of c. 1500 BCE (Rig Veda) to c. 500-400 BCE (Atharva)

⁶Mauryan Empire was contiguous from the Hindu Kush mountains in the west to the Gangetic delta in the east; from the Himalayas in the north to the Deccan Plateau in the south. It occupied the whole of north India, but not the peninsular part of it.

The Challenges

For that time, these sects were heretical. However, as Buddhism⁷ started to get state patronage, its monasteries and followers swelled, while the influence of Hinduism declined. The third great emperor in the Maurya dynasty, Ashoka, converted to Buddhism, and sent missionaries across the known world at that time, but mostly to the south and east.

Now, Hinduism was in a siege. Not only was it losing followers by conversion, the priestly class (the Brahmins) was suffering from not getting enough royal money to sustain themselves. They had no choice but to react.⁸ After the death of Ashoka, they helped the son who promised that he will follow the directives of Hinduism. Fortunes changed, and soon these Brahmins were well funded once again. But by now, Buddhism had become a force to reckon with. So they did what Hinduism had done all along: assimilate most of the teachings of Buddhism.⁹ The philosophy of ‘Ahimsa’ or non-violence, which is such a central tenet of Hinduism¹⁰, is Buddha’s gift.

Jainism did not fare as well as Buddhism. Only a few kings endorsed it, but having limited influence, they were not able to propagate it as intensely as Ashoka. Nonetheless, it gave another tenet to Hinduism: of not killing animals or eating their meat.

By this time, we are reaching the start of the Common Era. Hinduism has enlarged its belief system by incorporating different teachings and philosophies, has been able to attain some uniformity, and the Vedas and Upanishads are compiled and written. This is a time when there is a lot of philosophical commotion in the air. The Great Maurayan Empire has disintegrated into smaller regional entities. It is not until almost three centuries when another great dynasty comes to the scene: The Gupta Empire, heralding India’s ‘Golden Age’.

⁷Gautama Buddha was a Hindu who was unhappy with human sufferings that the prevalent belief system had no answers for. He meditated for years and found an eight-fold path. He declared that if one follows this, the ‘middle way’, he will be able to overcome his miseries. He also asserted that he is no god; anyone who puts effort, like he did, could attain the same bliss.

⁸Some texts compiled during that time imply that Buddha is an anti-god, sent to earth to test the faith of the populace!

⁹This ‘join them if you can’t beat them’ maneuver by the Hindus has such political overtones. As a consequence Buddhism, which was born in India and was once popular, has been almost extinguished in that country. The majority of Buddhists in India came with the Dalai Lama, who was given asylum in India after the Chinese overran Tibet in 1959. However, in present day India, there is a resurgence of this religion, as the former ‘untouchable’ class (to regard someone as ‘untouchable’ is banned in the Indian Constitution) convert to Buddhism in droves.

¹⁰Mahatma Gandhi used the philosophy of ‘Ahimsa’ to free India from British rule. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also inspired by Gandhi to use this during the Civil Rights Movement.

A State of Flux

During the intervening period between the Maurya and Gupta periods, Hinduism continues to evolve. Having been put to test by alternate religions, it had learnt its lesson: it will not allow any dissident sects to take shape. So it adjusts, absorbs and moves on. To this day, Hinduism is accepting of various beliefs that arise over time.¹¹ With the arrival of the Guptas, Hinduism begins to consolidate. We find major works written during this time as well as formation of a more rigid caste system and other dogmas. From this time to the end of the first millennium of the Common Era, Hinduism enjoys the uncontested attention of the kings and their subjects. Except for making itself more consistent while absorbing any dissident teachings, it does not change much. Then the Muslims arrive. First they come as traders to India’s shores, and then around the turn of the millennium, they invade. Some loot and go back, others settle and rule.

Interestingly, the religion is not known as Hinduism until now. It is called as ‘Sanatan Dharma’ or Eternal Religion. It is the Muslims who gave this name.¹² The Brits did not care for religion. The main purpose of the East India Company was to make profits and they found that it is easier to divide and rule the Hindus and Muslims, rather than try to convert them to Christianity.¹³

¹¹The only exception is Islam. First, Islam was not ‘born’ in India. Second, in the early second millennium of the Common Era, several Muslim invaders looted and desecrated Hindu temples and went back. Many Muslim kings who stayed on to rule either honored the beliefs of their subjects or had a benign neglect for them, but some were bent upon carrying the ‘will of Allah’ by imposing poll-tax on Hindus, destroying their temples and forcing conversions under the threat of the sword. The last king of the Mogul dynasty, Aurenzeb, belonged to the latter class. Since he is fairly recent (17^th century CE), Hindus still have a bitter taste in their mouths. Finally, Islam is a ‘cut-and-dry’ religion in the Hindu worldview: it believes that there is only one God and that only Prophet Muhammad is His messenger (Hindus believe that God sends messengers - as His avatars - from time to time). Also, there is no hierarchy in society (unlike the caste system) or during prayer (the priestly class, Brahmins, don’t want to lose out). Christianity is more acceptable. There is a going to be a second coming of Christ, it has idols (of Virgin Mary and Jesus) and rituals (every day in the Hindu calendar has some minor or major observance).

¹²India is named so because the land east of the river Indus (now in Pakistan) was India. Indus is called as “Sindhu” in Sanskrit, so the Muslim conquerors in the second millennium AD referred to this land as “Hindustan” and the populace “Hindus”. “Istan” is the root for “place” or “country” in Arabic, so Hindustan is the place where Hindus live.

¹³Most of the missionaries in India are American Evangelicals.

The Basic Philosophy

This brings us to modern times. Hinduism is the world's oldest major religion that is still practiced¹⁴ and the third largest in the world.¹⁵ Due to its ‘habit’ of allowing dissent,¹⁶ it retains its identity while continuing to evolve. However, after about five thousand years of existence, it has now some core beliefs, tenets and dogmas; the changes are only at the periphery.

Hindus believe in one omnipresent and omnipotent God who is without form or shape. He is merciful and just. There is no Hindu ‘Hell’ in the Christian sense. For him, earth itself is a place which has miseries and suffering. To keep from coming back (reborn) he has to live a life of perfection and commit no wrongs, not cause hurt or harm to any living being, always speak the truth, etc.; in a sense, he has to follow the ‘Ten Commandments’ all his present life. He will then attain bliss: he will become a part of this Supreme Entity and get rid of the cycle of births and rebirths. This is ‘moksha’, the ultimate goal of a Hindu.¹⁷

¹⁴Though Zoroastrians pre or ante-date Hindus, they are not a major religion. The majority live in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and surrounding areas and a very few still reside in Iran.

¹⁵Had China not become an atheist society under Communism, Buddhism would have been the most popular religion in the world. Presently, the most followed is Islam, and then Christianity. Buddhism is the fourth most popular religion.

¹⁶Unlike Catholics, Hindus do not believe in a confessional (of sins) or in redemption thereafter. If one has committed a wrong (sin is exclusively a Christian concept), one has to pay for it. He can do penance or take other measures to right it (like related community service, fasting, giving alms, etc.) but there is no escape from responsibility. Prayer can alleviate some of the consequences, but there is never a complete forgiveness.

¹⁷It is the same as the Buddhist concept of ‘nirvana’, a term Westerners are more familiar with.

The story of Hindu ‘Genesis’ does not have Adam and Eve, whom God has sent to earth to be fruitful and multiply. Instead there is lotus that sprouts from the Cosmic Sea and its flower holds a Cosmic Egg. God¹⁸ emerges from this Egg and splits Himself into two: a male and a female.¹⁹ By their union, man is born (and later a woman too). Then the male He turns himself into a deer, and his female counterpart into a doe; so deer are born. This is repeated until all the flora and fauna come into existence.

Because of the multi-sourced origins of Hinduism, the addition of gods as it evolved, and their rising and falling in rank over time, there is no clear-cut account of the origins of the Hindu Trinity. The most acceptable explanation is that all three are manifestations of the ONE Supreme. They are: Brahma, the originator of life; Vishnu, who preserves life on earth; Shiva, the destroyer.²⁰

In this present world,²¹ Brahma’s work is done, while Shiva has eons to go before he would need to destroy it. It is Vishnu who is busy now, trying to ensure that everything is moving along as planned. Generally, as He surveys His realm, things run with the usual ebb and flow and He is content. At times, however, there are people and situations that need His intervention. On these instances, He comes to earth as a human to correct the situation. He may have to usurp a wicked king, slay an evil demon, or otherwise return peace and prosperity to people. All these occurrences have one thing in common: someone somewhere is not following his ‘dharma’.

¹⁸God in this form (who has come to earth to create life) is called a ‘Purusha’. A human being is also called as a ‘purusha’.

¹⁹Since God has divided Himself into a male and a female for purposes of Creation, one is not complete until there is a union of male and female. For this reason, instead of being regarded as a taboo or a filthy act, sex is seen as a necessary, rewarding and blissful act. In addition, a man is incomplete without a female counterpart and sexual union is divine. Also, there is no mention of sodomy or homosexuality (though it is certain that they have existed in society through the ages) because under the Hindu dogma, a gay man (or woman) is a persona non grata. However, with the coming of Muslims rulers who enforced their own value systems, these attitudes changes. The British who followed imposed their own Victorian standards. Consequently, present day India has become a very orthodox and hypocritical society on sexual issues.

²⁰Though Shiva is a destroyer, he is no demon or devil. This is because like life itself, everything must come to an end, including this earth and the civilization it holds. For only then can regeneration start. Shiva helps with this so Brahma can start things anew.

²¹For Hindus, everything is cyclical: the culture and society that we are living in today will one day end, all of it; then there will be a new beginning. Hindus also believe that this is not the first world we are living in right now; many worlds have been created, inhabited and destroyed in the past.

‘Dharma’ can be translated into English as ‘religion’, but that is not the entire meaning of this word. In fact, it has no equivalent word in our language. ‘Dharma’ implies duty, ethics, morals, propriety and of course, religion. Doing or following your ‘dharma’ entails that you are doing what you are supposed to do following all tenants and commandments; if not, you are committing ‘adharma’.

The lifespan of a Hindu is divided into four stages. The first is when he is supposed to obtain all knowledge he can. As a student, he is supposed to go to a Guru (teacher) and stay unmarried. At this stage, he has to avoid all luxuries. After he has completed his studies, he is supposed to marry, have children, provide for his family and look after their well being. During this second phase of life, he must be gainfully employed and certain vices and luxuries are permitted. When his children are grown up, married and settled, he must retire to a place away from the city with his wife, give up a lot of creature comforts, meditate, pray and live a life of peace and harmony with nature. In the final stage of his life, he should become an ascetic and roam the countryside and forests as a hermit.

Hindus cremate their dead. The thinking is that a living person has a soul, which is a part of the Supreme Being, which, on death either becomes one with God, or is born again. The physical body is but a shell, which is like a garment draped over one’s body. Since this shell is useless without the soul, there is no reason to preserve it.²²

The Hindu society is divided into four castes.²³ Started off as a way to distinguish the Aryans from the native ‘dasas’ circa 1500 BCE, it morphed into a stratification system within the Aryan society itself by 300 CE. The top of the heap were the priests, the Brahmins. The second tier was of the warriors and rulers, the Chatriyas. The last Aryan section belonged to the commoners, the Vaishyas; they were traders, farmers, etc. The fourth level was composed of non-Aryans, the Shudras.²⁴ They were laborers, artisans, etc.

²²Another reason for not burying the body is that Hindus don’t believe in Judgment Day. For them, decision is made after every death whether a soul needs to be sent back to earth as another living being, or spared from this cycle of rebirths and join the Supreme Being.

²³In India, using caste as a consideration for employment or other official matters is unconstitutional. Sadly, India is far from becomes a casteless society. For such a great, indeed a ‘democratic’ religion, this is a scourge. Fortunately, as more Indians become educated and capitalistic, this is becoming less of an issue.

²⁴Shudras were the natives Aryans encountered when they came to India, though there has been a rare mention of some ‘undesirable’ Aryan individuals being demoted to this caste. However, not all non-Aryans were Shudras. There have been reports of groups of non-Aryans being accepted into one of the three Aryan tiers. Often when foreigners were accepted into the fold, the priests among them became Brahmins, the soldiers Chatriyas and the commoners Vaishya.

As time passed, another layer was added to the bottom of the heap, those of the untouchables.²⁵ They were the lowest of the lowest, performing menial and undesirable functions such as cleaning toilets, skinning animals, burning dead bodies, making shoes, etc.²⁶

Though Hindus believe that the soul (ātmaņ) is a part of God (Brāhmaņ) Himself, there yet are two schools of thought. One believes that the ātmaņ and Brāhmaņ (not to be confused with the priestly class, the Brahmins) are one. This is the ‘Adviata’ or ‘non-dualist’ philosophy. The Upanishads²⁷ state that whoever becomes fully aware of the ātman as the innermost core of one's own self realizes their identity with Brāhmaņ and thereby reaches ‘Moksha’. This thought encourages meditation and introspection.

The other believes that the ātman is dependent on God while Moksha depends on love towards God and on God's grace. These ‘dualist’ schools also arose as alternates to ‘classic’ Hinduism in the early centuries of the Common Era. The ‘Dviata’ (q.s. Adviata or non-dual) school recognizes a distinct Supreme Being that must be worshipped to obtain His grace. The other major ‘dual’ school is that of ‘Bhakti’ (devotion); it believes that worship is not enough, but that one has to immerse himself or herself completely in Him or Her,²⁸ and by only by showing such love will the Magnanimous One will elevate the worshipper to Him.

²⁵The actual lineage of this group of people that were put below the four castes is unclear. They were certainly not Aryans, but then, all non-Aryans were lumped below the top three Aryan castes as Shudras. Could they have been the natives when the ‘Shudras’ came to India from somewhere else? It is not known as to who were the earliest inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent, though some skeletons of Proto-Australoid men have been unearthed.

²⁶After India gained its independence from Britain in 1947, it became a secular democracy and ‘untouchability’ was banned in its new Constitution. This has taken a longer time to take effect in areas outside the cities, and some instances of this practice surface every now and then. However, the community that once belonged to this lowest of the lowest class has made a lot of progress in all fronts. In 2007, a woman of this community became the Chief Minister (like a US state Governor) of the most populous state in India. In addition, members of this group hold powerful positions in the government and businesses. Though they are still numerically underrepresented, the tide is turning.

²⁷The Upanishads are Sanskrit scriptures of Hindus, compiled after the Vedas, c. 800-300 BCE. With the Vedas, the Upanishads form the corpus that is held at the highest authority of Hindu thought and tradition. Buddha and Mahavir (founders of Buddhism and Jainism) rejected their authority, though most tenets in either religion are same or similar to that of Hinduism. For example, though the concept of the cyclical nature of life, in birth/rebirth and ultimate moksha, was laid down in the Upanishads, it forms an integral part of both these religions.

²⁸Apart from the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, Shakti is worshipped by Hindus. She is commonly a consort of Shiva and has appeared through the ages, like avatars of Vishnu, in different forms but for similar purposes. The consort of Vishnu, Laxmi, is the goddess of wealth and is also worshipped almost universally by Hindus

Finally, there are those who deny the existence of one Supreme Being, and are called ‘Nastiks’ (atheiststs; the thesists are the ‘astiks’). Such ideas are not very common now, though the ‘Samkhya’ school does have atheistic leanings.²⁹

Just as there is no ‘Hell’ in the Christian sense, there is no ‘Heaven’ either, because the Hindu soul has only two choices: to be either re-born and be back in this earth, or become a part of God. The Hindu Heaven is the abode of gods, who have powers that no mortal does, but still have to abide by some Supreme Cosmic rules. It sure is a place of peace and plenty, where one never ‘dies’ and enjoys all the pleasures there can be had. Though denied to mere mortals, there are instances where one of the gods, if pleased enough, may bring someone from earth for a visit.

The enemies of these gods are demons. They are not the Devil, though they are prone to do bad things. Some of them have even acquired boons from God and attained special powers to rival the gods; their rivalries are part of folklore. They reside not in Hell, but in ‘Pataal’ which is below this earth.

Then there are ‘Avatars’ (reincarnations) of God. As mentioned before, God visits this earth from time to time to rectify things. He usually takes a human form, and therefore has to go through the same joys and sorrows of human life as other mortals. There have been nine ‘avatars’ of Vishnu³⁰, with the tenth still to come. He will come here at the end of the present age, when there will be a lot more of corruption, wars, immorality, etc. and the world will end.³¹

There are four goals one should follow while living in this world. The first is ‘Kama’, which is sensual pleasure and enjoyment. Sex is not bad, but an essential part of one’s existence. The second is ‘Artha’ or the attainment of material prosperity and success. Unlike biblical teachings where being rich is not seen as a desirable trait, Hinduism allows one to be ambitious and make as much money as one can³² (with clean means, of course).

29 Buddhism is a non-theistic philosophy, one whose tenets are not especially concerned with the existence or nonexistence of a God or gods. The question of God is largely irrelevant in Buddhism, though some sects (notably Tibetan Buddhism) do venerate a number of gods drawn in from local indigenous belief systems. (Wikipedia)

³⁰Interestingly, Buddha is said to be an ‘avatar’ of Vishnu!

³¹The existence of and on earth is cyclical, as well. Every time a new civilization is started on earth, it goes through four eras, called as ‘yugas’. Each yuga is hundreds of thousands of years long. The first one, Satyuga (‘Satya’ means truth) is the purest in thought, action and deed; there is no misery or suffering. We are in the last yuga, Kaliyuga, where pain and despair are endemic. As the conditions worsen, Vishnu will appear as ‘Kalki’ his 10^th and final avatar to announce the end of this civilization as we know it. Shiva will then have to do the destruction and will be followed by Brahma, who will start it anew. This is not the first time this process has been undertaken; such identical worlds have existed before. The reason for this is that God creates and hopes that all will be well and good, but humans have a propensity to foul and when the world gets ‘out-of-hand’, as it is heading towards, there comes a time to end it. It is like an overgrown forest, which the fire has to burn down to the ground so that new plants can take root and grow.

³²I wonder if this allowance is because the more you make the more you can donate!

The third goal of life is ‘Dharma’. As I have explained above, it is the proper or correct action one must take all his life, in accordance with one’s particular duty³³ and ethics. It also has to be sanctioned by the laws of the scriptures, and moral as decreed by one’s station in life. And finally, one has to strive to attain Moksha, to be liberated from the cycles of ‘Samsara’.³⁴

The central theme of a Hindu life is ‘karma’ ³⁵(action). One has to be continuously performing it, as one tries to achieve the goals of life mentioned above. There is no escape, because life cannot exist without it. While doing his ‘karma’ one has to follow his ‘dharma’, for if one doesn’t, there are no excuses. Hinduism literally ordains the consequences: one is responsible for his own ‘karmas’; no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Being a religion that has been cobbled together with diverse thoughts, Hinduism is full of rituals. Some vary from region to region, but many are universal. Many Hindus observe them on a daily basis. However, the difference from Christianity and Islam is that they are often performed at home, either singularly or with one’s family. In fact, one doesn’t have to go to a Church on a regular basis or perform prayers five times a day to be a devout Hindu.

Similarly, pilgrimages and festivals are not a must to undertake. Like rituals, they can be either private or public. Festivals are celebrated by the majority, because they are fun. Unlike in Islam, pilgrimage is not a life’s goal. Many go on them, however, because they feel it’s a good thing to do.

There is no concept of conversion in Hinduism; there is no evangelization or proselyzation.³⁶ Like in Judaism, one has to be born a Hindu. The main deterrence to these practices was the caste system. If you become a Hindu, what caste will you end up in? Traditionally, it has been easier when people (tribes, invaders, etc) were converted en masse; it was easier to assign the castes depending on their function in their pre-conversion society. However, in the modern times, willing people are accepted more freely.

In summary, as long as you follow the basic tenets, you can call yourself a Hindu. Almost everything is optional, even the recognition of a God.

³³Dharma of one person could be different from another, and is different in different stages of life. When one is in his first stage of life, a person is supposed to be a student, and ‘Kama’ and ‘Artha’ are not his dharma. When he is in the second stage of life, his dharma is to be a householder; he has to marry and have kids, be successful and make money. Similarly, if you are a king, your dharma is to be just, even if you have to pronounce an execution. If a king goes to war, it is expected that he will take human life, but if you are a Brahmin, for instance, killing is not your dharma and you will be punished (by God) should you do so; it may delay your attainment of ‘moksha’!

³⁴’Samsara’, literally translated means ‘world’. It is, however, synonymous with cycle of reincarnation or rebirth in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Depends on how you have led your present life, and what have you made of the first three goals of life, will not only determine whether or not you will attain the final goal or moksha, but also how will you be reborn. If you have been really bad, you could be an animal or incest in your next life, but if you have committed only minor wrongs, you could be eligible to be reborn as a human being. Again, the severity of your wrongs would also establish your caste in the next birth. This notion has been used very conveniently by Brahmins to exploit the system. Since they are at the top of the heap they tell others: You are a lower caste (Chatriya, Vaisha, Sudra, Untouchable) because of the sins of your prior life. If you live according to the ‘dharma’ of your present station in life, you could attain moksha or have the next best thing: be reborn as a Brahmin! It amazes me that this institutionalized apartheid has continued unchallenged for over two thousand years. It is only after India gained independence in 1947, did things started to correct themselves, albeit at a snail’s pace.

³⁵In English, ‘karma’ means fate. Its actual meaning, in a sense, is quite the opposite.

³⁶Buddism is a very evangelical religion. The prime example is Ashoka, the Mauryan king, who in the 3^rd century BCE, sent his sons and daughters as missionaries to convert people in foreign lands.