The "HINDUISM"

What does being a Hindu mean? 

Many of us began having to interrogate ourselves in the late 1980s, when the world media first began to speak and write of ‘Hindu fundamentalism’. This was odd, because we knew of Hinduism as a religion without fundamentals: no founder or prophet, no organised church, no compulsory beliefs or rites of worship, no uniform conception of the ‘good life’, no single sacred book.

 In many languages, French and Persian amongst them, the word for ‘Indian’ is

‘Hindu’. Originally, Hindu simply meant the people beyond the River Sindhu, or Indus.

Due to linguistic barriers, they could not pronounce the letter "S" correctly in their native tongue and mispronounced it as "H." Thus, for the ancient Persians, the word "Sindhu" became "Hindu."

 But the Indus is now in Islamic Pakistan; and to make matters worse, the word ‘Hindu’ did not exist in any Indian language till its use by foreigners gave Indians a term for self-definition. Hindus, in other words, call themselves by a label that they didn’t invent themselves in any of their own languages, but adopted cheerfully when others began to refer to them by that

word. (Of course, many prefer a different term altogether—Sanatana Dharma,

or eternal faith).

A Catholic is a Catholic because he

believes Jesus was the Son of God who sacrificed himself for Man; a Catholic

believes in the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth, offers confession, genuflects in church and is guided by the Pope and a celibate priesthood. A Muslim must believe that there is no God but ALLAH and prophet Muhammad is his last messenger. A Jew cherishes his Torah or Pentateuch and his

Talmud; a Parsi worships at a Fire Temple; a Sikh honours the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib above all else. There is no Hindu equivalent to any of these beliefs. There are simply no binding requirements to being a Hindu. Not even a belief in God.

I am happy to describe myself as a

believing Hindu: not just because it is the faith into which I was born, but for

a string of other reasons, though faith requires no reason.

One reason is cultural: as a Hindu I belong to a faith that expresses the ancient genius of my own people. I am proud of the history of my faith in my own land: of the travels of Adi Shankara, who journeyed from the southernmost tip of the country to Kashmir in the north, Gujarat in the west

and Odisha in the east, debating spiritual scholars everywhere, preaching his beliefs, establishing his mutths (monasteries). 

But another ‘reason’ for my belief in Hinduism is, for lack of a better phrase, its intellectual ‘fit’: I am more comfortable with the tenets of Hinduism than I would be with those of the other faiths of which I know. To accept people as one finds them, to allow them to be and become what

they choose, and to encourage them to do whatever they like (so long as it

does not harm others) is my natural instinct. Rigid and censorious beliefs have

never appealed to my temperament.

 Hinduism is, in many ways, predicated on the idea that the eternal wisdom of the ages and of divinity cannot be confined to a single sacred book; we have many, and

we can delve into each to find our own truth (or truths). As a Hindu I can claim adherence to a religion without an established church or priestly papacy, a religion whose rituals and customs I am free to reject, a religion that does not oblige me to demonstrate my faith by any visible sign, by subsuming my identity in any collectivity, not even by a specific day or time or frequency of worship. (There is no Hindu Pope, no Hindu Vatican, no Hindu catechism, not even a Hindu Sunday.) As a Hindu I follow a faith that offers a veritable smorgasbord of options to the worshipper of divinities to adore and to pray to, of rituals to observe (or not), of customs and practices to honour (or not), of fasts to keep (or not). As a Hindu I subscribe to a creed that is free of the

restrictive dogmas of holy writ, one that refuses to be shackled to the

limitations of a single volume of holy revelation.

A Hindu can be astika (pious) or nastika (impious): the terms are said to relate more to orthopraxy (action) rather than orthodoxy (belief), but action proceeds from a set of convictions. As an astika he can accept the sacredness of the Vedas, the existence of atman (the soul) and belief in God, or he can reject one or more of these credos and still be Hindu, an adherent of the nastika variant of Hindu philosophy. As an astika Hindu he can subscribe to any of the six major schools of philosophy, the Shad Darshanas; as a nastika Hindu he can declare allegiance to one of five schools, including Buddhism and Jainism. Or the nastika can attach himself to the materialist Charvaka School, whose followers denounced most religious practices and devoted themselves to wealth and profit. 

And while I am, paradoxically, listing my ‘reasons’ for a faith beyond

understanding, let me cite the fundamental point: above all, as a Hindu I

belong to the only major religion in the world that does not claim to be the

only true religion. I find it immensely congenial to be able to face my fellow

human beings of other faiths without being burdened by the conviction that I

am embarked upon a ‘true path’ that they have missed. Hinduism asserts

that all ways of belief are equally valid, and Hindus readily venerate the saints, and the sacred objects, of other faiths. I am proud that I can honour the sanctity of other faiths without feeling I am betraying my own.