Notes on Hinduism

(from Fenton et al, ch. 2)

As we shall see in the context of discussing India's stability, Hinduism is defined in its origins by an entirely different set of concerns and questions than are the biblical religions with which you are familiar. It is not, as our authors point out, that Hinduism represents a different set of answers to the same sorts of questions asked by biblical religions; rather, "the beliefs on which Hindus insist relate to problems that are especially acute in the Indian environment and ... the hopes of Hindus are shaped by what seems desirable and possible under the special conditions of Indian life." While Hindus seek superhuman help -- their problems are ones posed essentially by the Indian land and climate.

Add here discussion of the shift from hunting culture to horticulture as shift from male-oriented society to female-oriented society; still later shift to male-dominated society with development of agriculture.]

Geography -- agriculturally rich; farming as central way of life --> "minds constantly aware of the germination of plants and the reproduction of domestic animals. Nature itself is seen as feminine, and female deities have a prominent place in classical Hindu mythology."

Importance of water -- and of monsoon rains, which occasionally fail to come --> "Most of the goddesses have a clear connection with the fertility of the earth..." -- and the ambiguous character of the forces controlling agricultural production:

"In their worship of these deities, Hindus attempt to establish better relations with a generative force conceived as a usually generous mother who can sometimes be moody and is capable of violent tantrums. The ambivalence of this power is recognized in the beliefs that the goddess appears in different forms and moods and that the divine mother is not only the affection Sita or Parvati, but also the dangerous Kali, an irritable parent who sometimes destroys her children in inexplicable rages." (38)

Isolation and stability -- Contrast this isolation and stability with the events crucial to Judaism: anxiety regarding the survival of a loved tradition; disruptive events like the Israelites' bondage in Egypt, Babylonian Exile, Holocaust

As a stable -- and thus, from our standpoint, confining society -- the primary problems are faced by individuals: they find themselves placed in an inherited occupation and caste; in a society whose "demands on its members are extremely heavy."

It is not characteristic of Hindus to blame their problems on society or to demand that their discontents be remedied by social changes in their favor. It has been a axiom of Hinduism that the responsibility for resolving one's tensions with the world lies squarely with oneself: inner adjustment is the way to tranquillity and contentment. (40)

1. raise question here about a judgment involved here of a static society seen from the standpoint of a "progressive," dynamic society i.e., is this an emic or etic comment? (My view is that it is an etic comment which is also prejudiced or biased in the direction of progressive, dynamic society as paradigmatic.)]

"One distinguishing mark of Hinduism is its intense interest in techniques of self-examination and self-control that can enable individuals to attain peace of mind and harmony with the world. At the most ordinary level, these methods of inducing tranquillity take the form of moral teaching. The Hindu literature presents as ideal the person who through mastery of impulse preserves his emotional stability and mental balance." (40)

Hence the typical focus on setting aside desires (Bhagavadgita) and on techniques in yoga and meditation for "dissolving desires, stilling the passions"

--> compare with Western heroes

--> cf. the self-sufficient man as ideal in the post-Socratic period --> the apocalyptic hero

Indus Valley Civilization (apex -- 2400 B.C.)

"First planned cities known to history" -- with a grid of thoroughfares crossing each other at right angles; houses supplied with water from wells; paved bathrooms and hand-flushed toilets draining out to covered sewers.

Social control -- likely by way of control over food than by extensive use of military force

Also a rigid, hierarchical society -- "complete avoidance of innovation"

Feeling for water --"Quite obviously, the Indus people believed that water either contained a power or liberated and preserved a power of such importance to human life that it had to be handled with great care." (42) --> comment on hypotheses -- need for evidence, argument

"In later Hindu philosophical speculation, water is often the figure for the formless primary substance of original creation." (cf. Tiamat)

[Hunting culture] Carvings of male animals -- "special attention to their mighty horns and flanks and with obvious awareness of their extraordinary strength." "The people whose minds dwelt on these creatures apparently perceived in them a superhuman power that they admired and wished to activate on their own behalf." (43)

[Horticulture] Comparable power in plants -- e.g., India's sacred fig tree, one never cut down by Hindu villagers. --> Western attitudes towards nature: can the students trace these back to Genesis creation material?

"The divine force seen in the tree was sometimes conceived in other forms." (43) -- i.e., feminine fertility figures --> comment on seal with grain crop or tree emerging from female genitalia? That is -- why couldn't such a seal portray a holy, sacred truth in our tradition?

[Warrior culture] Arrival of the Aryans (1900-1600 B.C.E.; 1000-500 B.C.E. -- reemergence of cities; after 500 B.C.E., "Aryan" culture becomes syncretistic)

Vedas (composed and compiled between 1200-800 B.C.E.) four collections established by 800 B.C.E. "vedic age" -- 1200-600 B.C.E. (I'm not especially concerned that you memorize the four vedas and their origins)

The Vedic World View

1. Humanity "when breath goes, life goes" - "airy" words for the basic animating principle (e.g., Vata, the world wind; prana, "an internal aerial current of the body" [47]). "favorite" -- atman-- "a subtle substance existing within the human body, yet separable from it...At death this subtle life-breath leaves the body and rises in the updraft of the funeral pyre to Svarga, the heaven above the atmosphere."(47)

Somewhat "Judeo-Christian" -- e.g., ruah (pronounced with gutteral h), pneuma (spirit), along with: relatively late development of the notion of an afterlife (place of the dead -- Sheol) still later development of idea of reward in heaven for proper behavior

BUT -- unlike dualistic notions of Western Christianity -- Hindus "did not, however, dislike their earthly bodies or long to leave the earth. On the contrary, worshipers often petitioned the gods for life spans of a hundred years and for permanent life in a similar body in an ideal but comparable world. The vedic religious practices were meant to maximize the earthly life, not to replace it with existence on a different level of being."(47) 2. Universe In vedic times, "the substance, structure, and origin of the universe did not receive...any extended systematic discussion like that of later times. The philosophical satisfaction of understanding the essence of the universe was not so important...as the practical satisfaction of being able to control it." (47)

Nonetheless, three basic cosmological principles:

3. The triloka --

Stress here that this is a "good/better/best" schema -- not a dualistic scheme such as we frequently find in the Christian west. // with attitudes towards life, heaven under Humanity, above

4. Rta, the basis of order

"All natural actions in this three-layered universe are governed by an impersonal principle called rta . Rta enables natural bodies to move rhythmically and in balance without undergoing the disorganizing and destructive effect otherwise implicit in motion. Because of rta we have a cosmos, an ordered universe that undergoes change without becoming chaos. By adhering to rta the sun follows its daily path, setting, but rising again and continuing to support the world with its light. The stars fade at dawn but twinkle again at dusk. Rta is a dynamic principle of order, manifesting itself in change, not in rigidity. In social affairs, rta is the propriety that makes harmony possible in the actions of all living beings. In human speech rta is truth, and in human dealings it is justice. When rta is observed by human beings, order prevails and there is peace among individuals. In worship, rta is the pattern of correct performance. Right ritual maintains harmony between humanity and the gods, humanity and nature, and one person and another. Rta is not thought to be the command of any divine being. The great vedic deity Varuna, the guardian of the cosmic order, is the special guardian of rta. He punishes those who do not speak the truth or who commit improper actions. Not even Varuna, however, created the rta All the gods are subject to it. Rta is a philosophical principle, an extremely ancient Indo-European abstract idea that from the beginning was independent of theology In India the word rta was eventually replaced by the term dharma, and the conception was modified somewhat, but the principle Indian orthodoxies still retain the original impersonality of Indian ethical theory. In no other aspect of thought are the Indian religions more different from the Semitic religious traditions than in this one." (pp. 68ff.) (It will be of interest to compare this principle to the conception of the Tao in Taoism.)

5. The ultimate source of things

Only a "casual" concern with the problem of the world's origin and final substance. [WHATdoes this say about the nature of religious story/Myth as an effort to "explain" the world along the lines of scientific accounts? Just that such "explanation" is not the primary concern -- at least not for the Hindu tradition]

Various accounts offered -- most accounts use the gods and some material stuff. (a) "Rigveda 10.90 [the hymn of man we read earlier] traces the main features of the world back to a great primeval sacrifice performed by the gods in which the body of a victim called Purusa (primal man) was dismembered, his limbs and organs being used to form the parts of the human and natural world. Whence this Purusa may have come and what he was are not explained." --> what does this say about the importance of offering a coherent account of creation? --> // with the myths which Joseph Campbell sees as marking the transition from hunting society and horticultural society

(Need for brief introduction to cultural materialist view of society?)

(b) analogy of sexual procreation -- sky-father/earth/mother -- or by single potent creator

Overall-- a "negative" accomplishment, i.e., the insight that "the devas, or gods, as [the vedic writers] conceived them, could provide no answer. Each of the gods was understood to exist somewhere in nature, and many or most were defined by their association with some natural power. Conceptualized as part of the natural world, the gods could not reasonably be understood to include the creator of the world of which all gods were parts...." (48)

"A monotheistic solution to the problem of creation was not possible within the existing ideas about divinity. So when the question of ultimate origins was at last pursued seriously in some of the latest of the vedic hymns, the Indian mind turned from personal creators to impersonal processes. At that point a necessary conclusion was drawn: If the gods could not have preceded and created the essence of things, then the essence of things must have preceded and given rise to the gods. After this conclusion was reached, impersonal treatments of the question of world origin became characteristic of Indian thought." (49)

A hymn of creation (Rigveda 10.129)

(Leading question for next day's reading: Compare as carefully as you can the Rigveda creation hymn with the material in Genesis 1-3)

[Have you noticed that the Vedas are pluralisticin their approach -- i.e., there are many different accounts, not just one?

* * *

[Comments from Kohler] Conceptions of origins -- The Vedas point away from especially a mythic conception of the origin of the universe (cf. the Genesis stories). As the "Creation Hymn" quoted by Koller on pp. 23f. suggests, there seems to be here the recognition that the individuals gods of the Hindu polytheism are themselves only part of the universe: none could be properly understood to be the source of it. Fenton comments that gods/goddesses are associated with natural powers and a spatial location (cf. the God appearing to Moses in the burning bush, reflecting an earlier Semitic belief in spirits inhabiting specific places.) As such, the gods/goddesses are themselves limited- as is every other "thing" in the universe. Given the structure of explanation which insists that the origin/cause of a thing be different from the thing caused (in this case, the universe), - the source of a universe of limited things cannot itself be just one more limited thing. At the same time, language apparently refers precisely to limited things. If this is the nature of language, then there can be no language for the origin, as itself something essentially unlimited. And, as Koller points out, ordinary conceptual thought involves such distinctions as that mentioned in the "Creation Hymn" between is and is not. But this distinction, while perhaps at the root of logical thought, is likewise seen to be appropriate only to the created order - not the origin of the created order. And so, the original, originating unity pointed to in the "Creation Hymn" can only be pointed to: as the origin of the universe to which logic and language apply, it is itself beyond the distinctions of logic and language.

The "Creation Hymn" further tentatively explores love - what Plato calls eros- as a possible source of creation. Such love, "... a power that unites opposites into a new, creative whole" (Koller, pp. 24f.) is a reasonable candidate for creation: cf. eros as a primordial force in the Greek story of creation given by Hesiod. BUTagain, love/eros can function in this way only after distinctions are made: what we're after is what comes before distinction.

So there emerges here a strong sense of the origin of things as a whole which is only subsequently divided and distinguished - out of its own energy and intention. Instead of, then, a sense of the universe dominant in Western religions - a universe which is somehow distinct and separate from its Creator - the Vedic tradition begins with a sense of the origin of the universe as distinct but not separable from the universe. Rather, the universe is in some sense contained within its sacred origin. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of Eastern religions thus results: an assumption that wholeness is both the origin and goalof life. As Koller puts it: "Undivided and unnameable, That One constitutes the ground and energy of all existence. Coupled with the insight that this primordial reality functions in an essentially orderly way, according to rita, this discovery enabled the Vedic people to see themselves as part of a well-ordered universe. By participating in this divine order through the ritual actions of sacrificial celebration (yajna), they found a way to share in the continuous renewal of existence.(p. 25)

Other points to emphasize regarding That One:

The Co-rulers: Indra, Varuna

In general, these gods are not important because of a connection with the natural world. Varuna's place, for example, is the vault of the sky, and he is conceived as being present in bodies of water. But he is not a personification of the sky - nor are his acts mythologizations of natural occurences in the sky (cf. Zeus as sky-god of thunder, lightning). Rather, Varuna is a force for order who defends the rita and guards the harmony of internal social life. Varuna will accept only truthful speech and upright behavior. The antagonist of people's anarchic tendencies, Varuna is the celestial patron of earthly kings and the legitimizer of their authority.

Indra, while successful in a battle against Vrtra (stealer of rain) is not a rain-giving god. He is perhaps the oldest Aryan god: he is explicitly and exclusively a military god, a total warrior. Indra was a ruffian from birth, an disrespectful son, a lecherous youth, and a gluttonous, drunken, and boastful adult. After consuming offerings of thousands of buffalo and after steeling his courage by drinking lakes of intoxicants, Indra lurches off to the wars and there assists his people in their wars with foreign foes and protects them from demons from which other gods flee in terror. He is immensely strong and makes the warrior class effective on the battlefield - which is what is needed, not moral insight.

Natural danger is hence not the focal problem in the worship of either Indra or Varuna. Rather, these two deal - each in his own area - with the dangers raised by the turbulence of human beings: that is, it is human beings who are seen to be the source of difficulty, as they threaten social order either internally or externally. Again, a typically Eastern view is apparent here: human beings are the primary danger - not the wrath of gods/goddesses. And the primary danger is to the well-ordered wholeness of the human/natural community: it is the disruption of this wholeness that causes problems - not, as in Western religious views, any violation of divinely-decreed moral codes because of a presumably sinful human nature. In fact, notice the contrast between Western religions, in which personal morality is a high priority - and what we have seen so far, which suggests that moral codes are not important: Varuna is moral in some sense, where Indra is totally immoral. The focus on personal morality as a religious issue arises only later with the dharmasutras of the 6th-2nd ct. B.C.E.

This period of Hinduism peaks ca. 6th ct. B.C.E.. Pre-Aryan religious views regain cultural influence; "...Jainism and Buddhism arise as independent religions. The followers of these new religions rejected the materialistic goals and the bloody sacrifices of the vedic rituals....[Along with this loss of interest in the "this-worldly" goals of the vedic rituals] many members of the priestly guilds lost interest in the rites as they became increasingly fascinated by the mystical contemplation of Brahman as an omnipresent and omnipotent power."(Fenton, p. 78)

(Brahman and Atman, as Koller discusses them, belong more properly to a later period.)