The Pack
Hashir
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Ronak R.
abhipathak
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savita
KK
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madhavareddydonapati
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simplyafs
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Anu Menon
kumarsankar
smallcapdreamer
I want to add / point-out few things here. While it was definitely a well-written post by Deepak (and my personal Kudos to him!), I would like to put forth some of the facts-behind too here. Please note, it is NOT a counter-argument, rather a collection of information as a sequel to Deepak’s post.
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On ‘Hinduism is not a religion’ - Only if we can define what a religion is. A religion comprises of way of prayers, traditions, and rituals that address to a godly force, and that impacts of several things of our daily life – such as interpersonal communication, behaviour, language, appearance, etc. In fact, I would a religion is a big set of habits and beliefs and nothing else.
In that way, if we say Hinduism is not a religion, other so-called religions can also be defined in that way. Islam is another pure example of that. It is again a big set of habits and beliefs, to say exactly – it is a way of living life.
In my opinion, all religions originated to cultivate people’s behaviour and habits of life as part of civilizations. And all religions were necessary for the mankind – to feel comfortable and soothe one self – when things go out of our control (Man got fear of some invisible force after he saw – Lightning, Fire, etc. He/She thought they are all controlled by someother invisible force, and hence started to pray to escape from natural disasters). We comfortably believe – something happened because of a godly force or a pre-written rule, and so we don’t have to be overwhelmed by stress of loss / happiness of benefit. The same got extended to crimes – that is – a preset rule has made one to commit the crime – which is purely an escapism.
Only in the mid of time immemorial, people used their own tactics to redefine ‘religion’, in a way that it would benefit these “power centers”.
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On Mispronounciation of the word ‘Sindhu’ – It is not a mispronounciation but a variation. Every language has its variation of a word – like in Hindi it is ‘Bharath’ and in tamil it is ‘Bharatham’. Like it is ‘English’ for English people, ‘Angilam’ in Tamil. Like in Greek it is ‘Sandrocottus’ and Hindi it is ‘ChandraGupta’. Like it is ‘Lo-tsa-lo-tsa Chu-lien’ for chinese, ‘Raja Raja Cholan’ in Tamil. It is latinization of Sindhu. Sometimes Mispronounciations can lead to variations – but they are not same. Variations may follow the grammatical patterns and available alphabets of the language.
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On Preachers and Founders - Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) is NOT considered as the one who founded Islam religion. He is considered as the restorer of the original religion. Even Jesus christ is an messenger (/son) of god. They all preached the ways of living a good life. They did not mean to start a religion. In that way, Lord Krishna (and many others) can be considered as a Preacher.
[Even their preachings get interpreted in different ways over a course of time. The timeframe / situation / culture under which they offered these preachings must be taken care into consideration. For ex., Krishna frequently references about four 'varnas' in Gita. The classification is entirely based on the the jobs/responsibilites of the people in the society. Castes should not be attributed to birth. In fact, if Krishna offered it today, Software-engineers would be a caste.]
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On ‘We don’t have a single book’ – this fact has something to do with the time frame of the civilization and location. Researchers say there have been definitely adjustments between North-South in terms of religious practices – to integrate both into a single religion. That, people of Indus valley civilization and native Dravidians of the southmost had some common practices of worshipping and that got merged into single practice. For ex., Sanskrit and Ancient-Tamil (Not contemporary Tamil) exchanged words of languages, Lord Muruga of Tamilnadu became Subramanya in sanskrit thus emerging into an all-india god. The “Lingam” was considered as Lord Shiva. Still if you see in some parts of India, they worship Shiva as an idol, and some other parts mostly idol-less (Lingam). In that process of integration and refreshment, there was not a single scripture to define Hinduism as they allowed differences to exist.
Hinduism embraces many priniciples from other religions too – another reason for the difficulty in defining a script. When Buddhism and Jainism emerged as religions, Hinduism accepted and adopted good practices from them. And since it was somewhat difficult to pursue those religions in a daily life, some people started returning who brought the concepts also along with them. Like English language which accepted other languages’ words and grew, Hinduism adopted the same technique to grow. And Hinduism accepted the oneness of God in the very later stage of ancient period, I believe. The idea of seeing God in every thing around us – was also borrowed from other religions such as Jainism – which insisted to show kindness to each organism, as everything is God’s creature. When I give birth to a child, I see myself in the child, and the same principle got applied to every creature.
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On Communities – Communities always emerge – when there is a change of practices for the sake comfortability / changed beliefs / self-benefit of pursuing a religion [ultimately, any reason fall in any of these categories]. One of the reasons for Protestantism – was simplicity of practicing the religion. Like that, we have many communities in Hinduism. For ex., “Shaivas” [People who worshipped Shiva as main God] and “Vaishnavas” [People who worshipped Vishnu as main god]. It is just countless.
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On ‘The priest is not the shepherd of his flock’ – No. He / she was. This existed in almost every religion. As a connecting arm between God and men, there were several examples of priests acting as superiors and governing element in the history. In the modern day scenario, it has reduced a lot.
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Will write more later..as I have to leave Office now.
Filed under: General, India, Personal, Society Tagged: | Hinduism
hey thanks a lotttt Boo.. you made my task a lot simple by noting these points down.. other I have written as comment in Deepak’s original post..
as always.. you rock man!!!
Happy Blogging!!!
Hey I don’t know much about Hinduism but I know quite a lot about Islam being a muslim myself. Here i beg to differ on Boo’s line that ‘Islam is another pure example of that. It is again a big set of habits and beliefs, to say exactly – it is a way of living life.’ Islam is indeed a way of life but it is certainly NOT a ‘set of habits & beliefs’.
The word “Islam” means “Submission to Allah.” The religion of Islam is not named after a person as in the case of “Christianity” which was named after Jesus Christ, “Buddhism” after Gutama Buddha , “Marxism” after Karl Marx, and “Confucianism” after Confucius.
Similarly, Islam is not named after a tribe like “Judaism” after the tribe of Judah and “Hinduism” after the Hindus. The Arabic word “Islam” means the submission or surrender of one’s will to the will of the only true god worthy of worship, “Allah” (known as God “the Father” in Christianity).
Anyone who does indeed submit to the will of Allah as required by Islam is termed a “Muslim,” which means one who has submitted to the will of Allah.
Religion itself is derived from the word ‘religio’ which means to bind. It is that which binds man to the truth. As such every religion possesses ultimately two essential elements which are its basis and foundation: a doctrine and a method.
These two elements, the doctrine and the method, the means of distinguishing between what is Real and what appears to be real, exist in every orthodox and integral religion and are in fact the essence of every religion. No religion, whether it be Islam or Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, can be without a doctrine as to what is absolute and what is relative. Only the doctrinal language differs from one tradition to another. Nor can any religion be without a method of concentrating on the Real and living according to It although the means again differ in different traditional climates.
Every religion believes in a transcendent Reality that stands above the world of change and becoming. The doctrine is thus a discrimination between the Absolute and the relative, between grades of reality, degrees of universal existence. And the method is precisely the means of attaching the relatively real to the absolutely real once one realizes that the reality of the soul and the world that surrounds it is not absolute but relative, that both the soul and the world derive their sustenance from a Reality that transcends both the soul and the world.
This relation between man and God, or the relative and the Absolute is central in every religion.
The Islamic perspective is based upon the consideration of the Divine Being as He is in Himself not as He is incarnated in history.
There are certain religions which emphasize a particular incarnation of the Divinity or various manifestations of the Absolute.
Islam is a religion based not on the personality of the founder but on Allah Himself.
I suggest you watch Concept of God in Major Religions- Debate between Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Dr. Zakir Naik. If u guys want i’ can send u the pdf file.
I agree to all your points, Shafat. Thanks.
And want to clarify on the point – “It is again a big set of habits & beliefs”.
The statement is not be taken as it sounds. Point is that – religion cant be defined – yet it is represented by human’s habits, beliefs, behaviours, practices, traditions, culture and rituals. I generalized behaviours, practices, culture, traditions, and rituals into one word – habits.
Well, I read both the topics….I still feel there is a lot of differences and things that needs to be rewritten in the way of putting thoughts.
As far as religion is considered it is an said form of belief and the belief is what is keeping us glued to the aspect called RELIGION!
Some evolution of theories and practices by early settlement had coined the words as Islam and Christianity and if you see they both got divided at the same point of time and people restricted themselves and followed things by their conscious.
Where as the Indian Subcontinent, is the only place where we have something called as HINDUISM and well some other places in Asia covered by the same belief.
Though Hinduism being the 3rd largest religion in the world after Christianity and Islam. There is no coherent and written evidences of it cause, it wasn’t off with preaching and practise. It was there and started and before it could spread it has been through a lot of cultural and territorial invasions by the other two religions of the world.
That is why we fell short when it comes to Hinduism! By habit nobody becomes a Hindu, Christian, or Islam!!!
It is the belief, which guides you through….there are lot of conversions happening from one religion to another, but have you ever heard anybody adopting or turning to HINDUISM!?
The weakness exhibited or the flexibility that Hinduism adopts!?
I firmly believe that there is no necessity for a Preacher or a Holy Book or a Prophet to tell you to do something good to yourself and other sin the society. It comes by practise…all that matters is the belief you carry within yourself to follow a path.
It is just like writing a piece of code because you want something to run for long!
This is a wonderful topic …..and I appreciate Deepak and Boopalan to have written about this! I had sometime wanted to reply to Deepak on his points of disclosure, Boopalan took over!!
I am gald, he did coz, there is a certain degree of indulgence to a topic, we carry when we discuss things!
I want to write more, but I restrict here! Thanks for making me participate. I loved the topics…makes me kicking and living!
Well…I will also definitely elaborate on my points…it will take a little more time…and would hope to be a little more satisfactory!
your right. hinduism is not a religion but an umbrella of a series of beliefs. it’s not possible to define hinduism within the prism of “religion”. hence, many prefer to(and it would be right) call it a “way of life” instead of a religion.
btw, some commenter has recommended a discussion by zakir naik and sri sri ravi shankar. understand that the zakir fellow is nothing but a fundamentalist and does nothing but stereotype muslims even further. many muslims saw the bangalore debate as a victory but what actually happened was that the entire muslim community was further marginalized.
recently in a TV debate on homosexuality on cnbc tv18, a muslim preacher argued that homosexuality was illegal because islam says so. the host reply by asking him whether hinduism was illegal because they prayed to multiple gods which islam prohibits.
what’s happening here is that islam is being given a platform to express it’s views and hence it gets further judged. it is there fate i suppose. you cannot censor things with the internet around.
Dear Peace
Can you be more specific….are u talking about zakir naik?? Hinduism??? Homosexuality??? Islam?? or Fundamentalism??? For people like you, whoever sticks to basics of Islam is a fundamentalist…whoever sports a beard is a fundamentalist….. if preaching islam and following islam is fundamentalism then I am proud to be one. FYI… Fundamentalism is the fastest growing religion in the US from where this term was coined.