Hinduism means literally “the
belief of the people of
Hinduism is the predominant faith
of
Hinduism arose among the people who had no significant contact with the biblical religions. Hindu teachings do not consist of alternative answers to the questions asked by western faiths. For instance, Hinduism does not insist on any particular belief about God or gods. Those reared in religious holding firmly to definite beliefs regarding God are often baffled by Hinduism’s relaxed attitude in theology. We need to realize that the beliefs on which Hindus insist relate to problems that are especially acute in the Indian environment and that the hopes of Hindus are shaped by what seems desirable and possible under the special conditions of Indian life. Hindus, like others, seek superhuman resources to help preserve life and achieve its highest conceivable blessedness, but they perceive life’s threats and promises as those posed by the Indian land and climate. (John Y. Fenton, Norvin Hein, etc. 1983. Religions of Asia. Pages 55-56)
In the sixth century B.C. Indian society entered a period of great transformation. The Aryans, who now occupied the entire Ganges valley, had cleared away the once dense thickets and plowed the fertile plains. Local chieftains ruling loosely over scattered groups of herders were replaced by kings governing from fortified cities, and over the next four centuries these regional kingdoms increasingly gave way to vast empires. The lightly populated world of the Vedic period existed no longer.
In this more settled world the dominant tensions and stresses of life also changed. As the people became dependent on their fields for their livelihood, the military and social controls exercised over them tightened, and economic and political relationships hardened into rigid patterns. The new constraints generated in individuals’ new distresses, which led to alteration in religious life, the old sacrifices of the Vedic age were all but swept away, though curiously, the Brahmans did not disappear as a priestly class, despite some resentment of the pride and greed displayed by many of them. Eventually, in fact, the Brahmans emerged from the centuries of transition more honored and more influential among the Hindus than ever before.
In the midst of these changes was born
classical Hinduism, the religious orthodoxy that has provided a framework for
the life of most Indians for well over two thousand years. Indeed, despite
innovations introduced by reformers in the last two centuries, classical
Hinduism continues to be the dominant religious tradition of
*New Literary Forms
SUTRAS
Between the sixth and second centuries B.C. the Vedic guilds developed a new literary form, called the sutra. A sutra (literally, a “thread”) contains a comprehensive discussion of a subject, expressed in a series of clipped prose sentences intended to be memorized by students in the Brahman schools. Students used these topical outlines to achieve rote mastery of a branch of learning. First, they learned to recite the sutra accurately, and the next they were taught its meaning through informal lectures.
The earliest of these post-Vedic compositions were the Srauta Sutras, which contained instructions for performing the Vedic rites. Their appearance in this period shows that some Brahmans were continuing to maintain the old Vedic sacrifices. Another kind of sutra appearing at this time were the Grihya sutras (sutras on domestic rites) which recorded for the first time the ceremonies performed by Aryans in their own homes. By teaching the correct way to conduct family rites, the Brahman authors were assuming the responsibility of showing how persons other than professional priests should perform rites.
The Caste System
For over two thousand years, the caste system has provided the pattern of Hindu society. Castes-called in Sanskrit jatis, or “births” – are hereditary occupational groups that are arranged in an ascending ladder according to the popular estimation of the purity and dignity of each group’s traditional work.
Firmly hereditary occupational distinctions did not exist
among the Aryans prior to their migration to
Origin of Social Classes
The earliest indication of a turn toward complex ranking and strong class feeling is seen in Rigveda 10.90. This creation hymn tells of a sacrifice in which the giant Purusa, a cosmic man with a thousand eyes and feet, became the victim from whose limbs and organs all the prominent features of the world were formed. The social classes of the late Vedic time also thought to have been created from Purusa’s body:
His two arms became
the Rajanya,
The Brahman was his mouth,
His thighs are what the Vaisya is;
From his feet the Sudra was produced.
We should note in this verse the appearance of a new,
distinctly Indian order of class precedence. In Aryan societies of the Middle
East and Europe, the warrior class always occupied the highest level of
leadership, but in
Scholars still have not determined the reasons for this development. It may have been a way to justify the Aryans’ control of a largely indigenous serf population. But the four-class theory of Rigveda 10.90 may be only the first hint of the rising influence of surviving pre-Aryan social practice. The new hierarchal tendency may reflect social discriminations long established among the conquered indigenous population. (John Y. Fenton, Norvin Hein, etc. 1983. Religions of Asia. Page 83)
The Four Stages of Life
Even within the Varnas and the Jatis recognized in traditional Hindu society, there is further distinction of rank on the basis of sex and seniority. According to the dharmasastras, life is an upward development through four stages of effort called the four asramas, which are the formal age groups for males of three upperclasses. (Sudra, outcastes, and women are not admitted to the asramas). Persons situated in each asrama are expected to defer to those who have preceded them into a higher stage. The four stages are as follows:
The Student Stage. Between the ages of eight and twelve a boy of any of the three upper Varnas is expected to enter the stage of studentship by applying to a teacher and submitting to a rite of initiation into the study of the Vedas. The student is to live with his teacher, and the teacher is to instruct the boy in the recitation of the sacred texts. The pupil must obey every command of his teacher, rendering such personal services as bringing fuel and water, and serving his food. He should show great respect to his teacher. According to The Laws of Manu (2.199), “let him [the pupil] not mimic his [the teacher’s] gait, speech, and deportment.
The Householder Stage. When the young man concludes his studies, he should marry. In doing so he enters the second asrama, that of the householder. He must beget sons, and earn a living for himself and his family by work appropriate to members of his caste. In addition, he must give alms to those who have passed into the higher asramas. The ideal relations between husband and wife are described in The Laws of Manu (5.147-158). The householder should provide the family’s livelihood and should try to make his wife happy. His kindness, however, is not a precondition of his wife’s lifelong obligation to show loyalty and subordination to her husband. As long as he lives, she must recognize his dominion over her and must do nothing that that displeases him. After his death, she must devote herself to his memory and never even utter the name of another man. “In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, and when her lord is dead, to her sons; a woman must never be independent” (Manu 5.148). Since women are not understood to have entered into any asrama or stage of spiritual effort, the dharmasastras say little about rules governing their conduct.
Forest Dwellers and Ascetics. When has fulfilled his duties as the head of his family and sees that his skin is wrinkled and his hair is white (Manu 6.2), he may leave his home and community, and proceed into the higher asramas of the forest dwellers and ascetics and thus into religious practices to be carried out in the seclusion of the forest. The move is actually made by only a very small percentage of men of any generation. Forest dwellers and ascetics; the use of two names merely recognizes that hermits pass through several stages in renouncing the life of the world and understanding the mythical truth. ((John Y. Fenton, Norvin Hein, etc. 1983. Religions of Asia. Pages 84-86)
Karma and Rebirth
The intimate connection between Hindu doctrine and Hindu society is illustrated dramatically in the case of this foremost article of Hindu belief. The idea that human beings are reborn again and again to lives of varied fortune in course controlled by the moral quality of their accumulated deeds is central to Hinduism.
In its most rudimentary sense, karma means “an action”. In ethical discussions it means an action that is morally important because it is an act required or prohibited by the codes of dharma. Karma is believed to exert itself with particular force at those times in our individual careers when we are about to be reborn into the world. The determination of our rebirth is such an important function of karma that the Bhagavadgita, which was composed after the Upanishads, described it as “the creative force that causes the rise of the conditions of beings” (8.3). At the moment of our conception in the womb, the moral force of our past deeds is believed to move us, with perfect justice, into a new family and a new caste.
The Hindu belief in rebirth according to karma has convinced the people of Krishnapur that their places in society are appropriate and advantageous. The Bhagavadgita warns:
Better one’s own duty, poorly done,
That the duty of another, well- performed.
Doing the work natural to one’s self,
One incurs no guilt. (18.47)
Through such explanations, Hinduism has won general acceptance to the caste system’s strict controls and has made its culture a lasting one. (John Y. Fenton, Norvin Hein, etc. 1983. Religions of Asia. Pages 89-90)
