Hinduism

HINDUISM. - It is the common name for those religions of medieval and modern India that arose from the fusion of popular beliefs and forms of worship, Aryan and non-Aryan, with orthodox Brahmanism. Several causes contributed to this religious syncretism, among which mention should be made of the military expansion toward the east and toward the south, which brought the Aryans into contact with new and numerous aboriginal peoples, and the foreign invasions of northern India, which brought about that mixture of races, customs, religious and philosophical doctrines from which a new civilization arose, called neo-Brahmanic. One will not be far from the truth in assigning to this slow transformation a period of time extending from the first centuries of the common era up to 1500.

I. BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM

The contribution of Brahmanism to the formation of H. is evident in the dogmatics of the Hindu religions, which, while they differ in the forms and often in the object of worship, all acknowledge an absolute and eternal cosmic principle, which preserves the character, if not the name, of the ancient Brahman (v.); they generally admit the supernatural origin of the Veda (v.) and have in common the belief in the migration of souls through the effect of karman (v.) until the attainment of liberation (v. MOKSA).

As for respect for the caste system, it was so deeply rooted in the Indian conscience that even when the founders of new religions proclaimed the way of salvation open to all castes, they meant to speak of a religious, not a social, equality. In practice social inequalities were admitted and justified with the argument that they were the effect of karman, of merit or demerit acquired in a previous existence.

Not all the deities of the Vedic pantheon passed into H. There are found Agni, Varuna, Indra, Sūrya, Vāyu, Soma, Yama, associated with the god of wealth Kubera, already mentioned in the Atharvaveda, VIII, 10, 28, and made guardians of the world. But Indra is no longer the god of battles; the task of destroying the demons is now entrusted to Viṣṇu, his faithful ally in the victorious struggle against Vṛtra (RV, I, 32; VIII, 100). Viṣṇu and Śiva, the ancient Rudra, who had secondary importance in the R̥gveda, acquire in H. the primacy over all the other gods, and both are identified by their worshipers with the Supreme cosmic Principle. Hence the attempt, inspired by monotheistic tendencies, to associate the two deities in a unitary conception, personified in Hari-Hara, a synonym of Viṣṇu-Śiva, which appears for the first time in the Harivamīa or "Genealogy of Hari," an appendix of the Mahābhārata. Subsequently, as it seems, around the 5th or 6th century A.D., the dyad becomes a triad: Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva, and represents another attempt to compose into unity the triple manifestation of the divine power, creative in the form of Brahmā, respectively conservative and destructive in that of Viṣṇu and Śiva (Mahābhārata, III, 256, 35). But the attempted unification of the three gods (Harivamīa, st. 10662) was not, in practice, respected because the primacy was attributed to Viṣṇu or to Śiva according to the sectarian preferences of the devotees of one or the other deity. The Śivaites believe that the triad is the manifestation of Śiva in his three forms of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Bhava (another personification of Śiva), and the Viṣṇuites, followers of Vallabha Ācārya (15th cent.), affirm the same thing of Kṛṣṇa (incarnation of Viṣṇu), trimūrti or three-formed in the triad Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva. As for Brahmā, his importance in the triad was always secondary. The episode of the Harivamīa (chaps. 184-90) in which he acts as peacemaker in the conflict between Śiva and Viṣṇu, proclaiming their unity, corresponds well to the part assigned to him in the triad, which is that of a link between the two major deities.

The different importance of the three gods in H. excludes any relation, even merely analogical, of the triad with the Trinity of Catholic theology, formed of three Persons whom dogma defines as equal, though distinct. Moreover the attempt to reduce to three, a perfect number, the gods of the Vedic pantheon, precedes Christianity by several centuries. The idea of the triple manifestation of a single God goes back to the R̥gveda (ca. 2000 B.C.) which speaks of Agni (v.) one and threefold, celestial (sun), atmospheric (lightning) and terrestrial (fire). In the first books of the Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa (ca. 1000 B.C.) various triads are proposed until Sūrya, Vāyu and Agni are defined as the hearts, that is the intimate essence, of all the gods (IX, 1, 1, 23). But this triad is nothing but the threefold manifestation of Agni (VI, 7, 4, 4), and Agni is Prajñpati (VI, 8, 1, 4), the "father of creatures," god of priestly speculation, who, not being bound, like fire, to any natural substratum, was better suited to represent the cosmic principle. These precedents exclude that the trinitarian conception of the divine, prevailing in H., is of Christian inspiration.

II. VIṢṆUISM

Unlike Śiva, venerated because feared, Viṣṇu is loved by his devotees for the helpful goodness that led him several times to become incarnate in order to save the human race from some danger. Two of his incarnations or avatāra (literally "descents," from heaven to earth) are particularly important for the history of Viṣṇuism: the incarnation in Rāma, during the second cosmic age, to free Lanka from the tyranny of the demon Rāvaṇa, and the avatāra in Kṛṣṇa (v.) in the third age, to spread a doctrine of redemption founded on love (bhakti) for a single god.

The gospel of Kṛṣṇaism is the Bhagavadgītā (v.), where Kṛṣṇa is called twice Viṣṇu (XI, 24; 30) and four times Vāsudeva (VII, 19; X, 37; XI, 50; XVIII, 74). This name is not, as was believed, a patronymic; Vāsudeva was the name of a popular deity, with whom Kṛṣṇa was identified when divine essence was attributed to him. Once the identification with Viṣṇu, the supreme deity, was reached, Kṛṣṇa was, by his devotees, also identified with other gods: Nārāyaṇa, the "alter ego" of Viṣṇu, Brahmā, Soma, Sūrya, Agni, Yama (Mahābhārata, III, 13, 19). The cult of Vāsudeva was already widespread in north-western India in an age prior to the Christian era, as inscriptions assigned to the 2nd century B.C. attest. The devotees of this god were called bhāgavata from Bhagavat, "the blessed," an epithet of Vāsudeva. No date can be assigned to the identification of Kṛṣṇa with "the blessed," which must be later than the Christian era because the oldest work treating of the incarnation of Kṛṣṇa and of the prodigies of the divine child, the Harivamīa, belongs to ca. the 3rd century A.D., and the Puranic legends are still later. The cult of the miraculous child was instituted by Vallabha Ācārya (1479-1530), founder of a religion that does not ask its followers for mortifications of the senses, but only love (bhakti) and joy. These Epicureans of Viṣṇuism, numerous among the rich merchants of Bombay and Gujarat, who maintain the sanctuaries of the sect and the guru or masters who preside over them, make no sacrifice other than that of money. The sect possesses no temples open to the public; the sanctuary is annexed to the dwelling of the master, who treats the image of Kṛṣṇa as a living child; every day he bathes him, dresses him, offers him various kinds of food, and places him on the throne, exposed to the veneration of the faithful together with Radhā, the favorite of Kṛṣṇa at the time of his youthful loves in Vṛndavāna. In north-eastern India the cult of Radhā and Kṛṣṇa greatly increased through the work of Caitanya (1485-1533), a contemporary of Vallabha. But while the latter attributed capital importance to ceremonial, Caitanya condemned the exterior forms of worship, repudiated caste divisions, and taught that fervent love for Kṛṣṇa and Radhā sufficed to confer salvation. In the meetings of the sect, Caitanya used to increase the fervor of his followers with passionate songs in praise of Hari (Viṣṇu), during which it happened that he himself or one of his disciples fell into a swoon. This was considered a sign of special favor on the part of the god. After his death, Caitanya was considered an incarnation of Hari, and temples were dedicated to him which are still a destination of pilgrimages.

Rāma is the national hero of India, already considered an incarnation of Viṣṇu in the first centuries of the common era, before being raised to the honors of worship, around the 11th century. The Rāmāyaṇa, or "deeds of Rāma," by Vālmāki, and the Rāmācārimānas, or "lake of the deeds of Rāma," by Tulsidās, are the sacred books of Ramaism. The second, written in hindi, a dialect widely understood in continental India, has become the Bible of ninety million faithful. The fundamental principles of Ramaism, which is based on the philosophy of Rāmānuja (11th century), are common to all Ramaites, but the northerners disagree with the southerners regarding the question of divine grace, from which temporal goods and mokṣa derive. The followers of the "northern doctrine" (vaḍakala) believe that grace is granted by Rāma-Viṣṇu to those who make themselves worthy of it through the exercise of religious practices, while the adherents of the "southern doctrine" (tenkalai) consider grace a gift spontaneously made to one who, distrusting his own strength, seeks refuge in God and in His infinite mercy. To make their doctrine evident, the two sects resort to strange similes. The northern Ramaites maintain that the man is saved who clings to God as the little monkey clings to its mother to be carried to a safe place; the southerners compare the chosen one to the kitten which, seized with the teeth by its mother, is carried to safety without any cooperation on its part.

III. ŚIVAISM

Śiva is the successor of the Vedic Rudra, the malevolent god of disease and death, greeted, by euphemism, with the epithet "benign" (śiva) in one of the three hymns (X, 9a, 9) that the R̥penda dedicates to him. When Rudra-Śiva began to be identified with other deities of a malignant character, such as Bhava and Śarva, personifications of the destructive power of fire, his figure was augmented with names, attributions, and new and often contradictory aspects because of the imperfect fusion of the constituent elements of his complex personality. A god of fertility, like Priapō, and therefore represented by the phallus, he sits upon a corpse and wears a necklace of human skulls when he personifies Mahākāla, time that destroys everything. He represents the destructive element also in the triad. He is Śaṅkara, "the beneficent," who, urged by his consort Umā, daughter of the Himalaya, calls back to life the dead son of a brahman, and he is also Bhairava, "the terrible," husband of the inaccessible Kālī, the goddess who takes pleasure in blood sacrifices. Multiform (bahurūpa) is he called in the Mahābhārata, and polymorphism is one of his characteristics.

In continental India the devotees of Śiva are not the majority, although they prevail among the non-Muslim Kaśmīri and the non-Buddhists of Nepal; in the Dekkan, Vishnuites and Śivaites are in balance. Both of these religions welcome a great number of ascetics who, by means of devotion to Viṣṇu or to Śiva and of a spiritual and moral discipline of their own, aspire to mystical union with the preferred deity. The mendicant ascetics, included in the generic designation of yogin, or "followers of Yoga," are divided into many sects, among which the Śivaite one of the Lingayāt, or "bearers of the phallus," whose emblem they have hung around their necks, stands out for importance. Better known by the name of Jangama, "wanderers," they pass from one temple to another to beg on the occasion of religious festivals, and they also have monasteries where the so-called Dispassionate (virakta) devote themselves to the contemplative life and are held in honor by their coreligionists.

The limited space allows no more than a mention of the two major philosophical-religious systems of Śivaism. The older, founded by Lakulin (ca. 2nd century B.C.), is that of the Pāśupata, or "devotees of Pāśupati," that is, Śiva in the capacity of "master of animals." The animal (paśu) which, held prisoner, yearns to be reunited with Śiva, its master (pati), symbolizes in the system the individual soul, which, bound to matter, is stained with sin and is subject to expiation. In order that this may take place, Śiva creates the world, where the retribution of harman occurs. The body of Śiva is pure energy; it has nothing in common with the transitory body of individual souls, which, once liberated, acquire knowledge and unlimited powers. According to the śaiva system, the liberated soul becomes identical with Śiva, but without the faculty of creating. The principles of this second system differ little from those of the Pāśupata, but while the devotees of Pāśupati abandon themselves to absurd practices, such as smearing their bodies with ashes three times a day, simulating madness with laughter, songs and dances, imitating the bellowing of the bull (which is the mount of Śiva), the śaiva pay homage to the deity in the customary forms: morning and evening worship, sacrificial offerings and recitation of prayers making use of the crown of 84 beads, which is the rosary of Śivaism. Practices of Yoga, which differ only in method, are common to both systems.

IV. ŚAKTISM

Śiva is also represented in union with his consort Durgā (v.) in the form of Ardhanārīśvara, "the lord half woman," that is, androgynous. Durgā occupies the left part, in accordance with the precept of the Śatapathabrahmana, VIII, 4, 4, 11: "the woman has her place at the left of the man." In this combination the goddess also personifies the creative power (śakti) of the god, which is an object of veneration on the part of the śakta, or "devotees of the śakti," an important Śivaite sect. The śakta are divided into dakṣināśāriṇa, or "of the right hand," and vāmātarin, or "of the left hand." The former render to the śakti a cult that consists of the customary honors; the latter, on the other hand, practice in secret orgiastic rites, which among the Śivaites of eastern Bengal and Assam degenerate into debaucheries.

The sacred books of Śaktism are the Tantra, or "books" par excellence, perhaps no older than 700 A.D., although they refer to more ancient forms of worship, ca. the 5th century. In the form of dialogues between Śiva and his divine consort, the Tantra set forth esoteric doctrines in relation to the cult of Durgā and of her various forms, to each of which particular honors are rendered. Meditations of a mystical character alternate with descriptions of magical rites and norms for carrying them out. Mysterious powers are also attributed to the ritual formulas (mantra) and to the mystical syllables, which accompany the invocations to Durgā.

V. DEISTIC SECTS

Vishnuism, a religion of love, nurtured benevolent feelings toward all things, even the most despised, but it respected caste privileges, including the one that promised to the first three castes liberation from rebirth within the brief span of a single existence, while the śūdra, as a reward for a virtuous life, obtained only to be reborn in a higher form of existence, from which it was possible to attain mokṣa. Rāmānanda, a Brahmin of Prayāga (Allahabad), who professed the cult of Rāma, proclaimed the religious and social equality of the castes, and introduced into the sect other innovations such as the use of dialects to spread his reform, and the substitution of the cult of Rāma and Sita for the sensual one of Kṛṣṇa and Radhā. Reliable data are lacking regarding the life of Rāmānanda, who is said to have lived 115 years! (d. 1411). His followers came from all social classes; one of them, Kabīr, a Muslim weaver, became in turn the founder of a new sect, called the kabīrpanthi or "followers of Kabīr."

The uncertainty of the chronological data does not permit us to assert that Kabīr (d. 1518) was a personal disciple of Rāmānanda. Perhaps the tradition of his discipleship is to be understood in the sense that he belonged to the sect of Rāmānanda before carrying out his reform. Kabīr did not set out to reconcile the religious principles of Islam with those of Vishnuism. The substance of his reform was the tearing down of all ritual and dogmatic barriers which divided the followers of the two religions, all brothers in God, even if invoked under different names. Kabīr condemned idolatry and every kind of external cult, extending to the two religions the equality that Rāmānanda had established among the castes. He said that both the Purāṇa and the Qur'an contain "empty words," and taught that only he attains immortality who observes the moral precepts, does not cling to the goods of the world, and loves all living beings as himself. The Kabīrpanthi today number no more than nine or ten thousand among Indians and Muslims, scattered throughout northern and central India; they have their most important seat at Benares. Following in Kabīr's footsteps, Nānak (1469-1538) worked to consolidate the union between Indians and Muslims, and faith in the one God, Hari-Allah (v. SIKH and SIKHISM).

Other attempts at religious syncretism, this time between Hinduism and Christianity, were made in the modern age by Rām Mohan Ray and his successors (v. BRĀHMA SAMĀJ). The Christian tendency prevailed when Keshab Chandra Sen reformed, in 1881, the "Brāhma Samāj of India," which had been abandoned by most of the congregations, and instituted the "new rule" (naba bidhan), spread by 12 missionaries, in imitation of the 12 Apostles. Keshab acknowledged the superiority of Christianity and admitted the divinity of Christ, but as for ceremonies, he took from the two religions what he believed most suited to stir the imagination of the people. Nevertheless, congregationalism did not take hold among the people; it remained limited to the educated classes and was little diffused in India itself, outside its native land, Bengal. One will not be far from the truth in calculating that at present barely more than ten thousand congregants, between full members and adherents, belong to the various Samaj (v. also ARVA SAMAJ).

Ferdinando Belloni Filippi