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ARTICLE : Subhash Kak: Hinduism At Century's End
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Hinduism Today. vol. 12. April 1990
Hinduism At Century's End
Subhash Kak
I
For two centuries Hinduism has exercised a powerful inhuence on the
West through its philosophy and literature. And tnrough Western writers
impired by India, many aspects of its vision have been integrated into the popular belief system. Having emerged from the salons of the intellectuals and philosophers in the West, Hinduism is now truly a world
religion. Hindu migrams from India and Indonesia, as well as new
converts, are to be found in all countries of the world. And the universal message of the Eternal Law, together with the parallel scientific method,
have led to the ascendancy in Asia and the West of a rational world-view
that is commonly called secular humanism. Meanwhile Hindu scientists,
engineers and philosophers have become a major force in the West,
especially in the U.S., where according to the last census report Indians
were the most successful community. One would now expect the interaction between Hinduism and other religions to become more
complex. Thus, it appears to be an appropriate time to do stock-taking
and review the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
II
The first issue that confronts the modern Hindu is that of self image.
Due to an unfortunate posturing Hindus often claim that theirs is not a
religion but rather a way of life and that Hindus do not believe in
conversion. Both these premises are false and indefensible, Hinduism is a
religion based on the illuminations of the Vedic rishis, as expressed in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Shaivic agamas. With its emphasis on self-knowledge the Hindu tradition celebrates diversity,
but the unity underlying this diversity is apparent to each Hindu and any
objective outsider. Even going beyond Hinduism an argument can be
made that there is less distance between Hinduism and its sister religions of Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism that exists between Catholicism and
Protestantism or even within some varieties of Prorestantism.
For all experiential systems the problem of definition is a complex
one. Thus while the grammar of English language has exceptions it does
not follow that such a language does not exist. Likewise, science deals
with a variety of models that may be deterministic or random or have
fundamental uncertainty, and it is the sum of all such investigations that
constitutes the enterprise of science. Analogously, what joins the Hindus
is their belief that there exists an underlying unity behind ordinary
reality and it is possible to comprehend its meaning.
The claim about not wishing to convert others betrays insincerity if not
irrationality, for if one believes in the correctness of ones views why
should not one wish to spread them? And why not take inaction to its
extreme and even bother to teach Hinduism to one's children? This claim
is not validated by the history of Hinduism, otherwise how would it have
spread from Palestine (remember the Mitannis in the second millennium
B.C.) to East and Southeast Asia? This false interpretation was fostered by
the orthodoxy of the fractured Hindu society of thc nineteenth century
and it has led to an aloofness and self-absorption that is morally and
ethically wrong besides being against its own tradition. Hinduism has had
a rich history of conversion through persuation, debate, and shastrartha.
It is also common nowadays for certain Hindu gurus to take inclusiveness
beyond tne realm of reason and claim Jesus to be an avatara. How
anybody call make this claim without personal knowledge or without
regard to history is beyond reason. If the idea is to get Christians to
become Hindus by deceit that should be roundly condemned. It smacks
of the way many Christian missionaries are masquerading as sannyasis in ashramas in India. Likewise one should not accept the inclusion of the
names of prophets of other religions in ones bhajans solely to make non-
Hindus feel more comfortable. Attempts to gain followers through any
devious device is morally wrong. The insincerity of this attitude is
obvious which is why such gurus have not been able to retain
their followers. It is essential to remember that the way of Hinduism is
different from that of Christianity and Islam and not to acknowledge this
is not being truthful. And that ultimately in the Hindu way what is more
imporunt than gaining converts is to maimain truth.
III
An urgent problem that Hindus, especially those in India, need to deal
with at century's end is a rationalization of their customs. The Hindu
elites have not faced their social problems squarely hoping that those
would just go away. It has been argued in tbe past that the caste system
was illusory since anyone could claim to be of whatever caste one chose.
This is how foreigners have generally been integrated in the Indian
framework. According to this view the real tyranny related to the caste
system lay in the economic and political powerlessness of the
traditionally deprived. Even if this view were correct it is time now to go
back to the spirit of the Vedic message according to which all
people are equal. Perhaps the most important reform now needed is to introduce the yajnopavit ceremony, which is a beautiful rite of passage,
for all Hindus. Temples and cultural and social associations need to take
an initiative in this matter. If temples refuse to go along, then new reform temples should be established. A misinterpretation of the
Purusha Sukra of the Rig Veda has been sometimes used to justify the
caste system. If man is made in the image of the cosmic person from
different parts of whose body the various castes emerged, then clearly
each human being has an element of each caste in him. Now an individual
may have a predilection towards a certain kind of activity but that does
not mean that he does not possess other traits in him at the same
time. In fact the ancient philosophy of samkhya proclaims that each
individual has elements of three different kinds of qualities. In our
modern times of universal education and the promise that machines will
do many of the labour oriented tasks for society, the only rational slogan
now, as in the past, is that each person is simultaneously a brahman, a
kshatriya, a vaishya, and a shudra. This slogan is in consonance with the
essence of Vedic wisdom. A common set of samskaras for all Hindus
would also make the Indian religion more understandable to the non-
Hindu.
It should be emphasized that the inflexible division of society into four or
five castes was never true and it was imagined by the recent Western
observer and 'confirmed' to his satisfaction by circular logic. No doubt the
misunderstanding sprang from the theory, repeated in religious books,
that in an ideal society there exist four principal divisions of labour. A
theoretical division into three or four groups is also seen in ancient Iran,
Greece and Rome. Very easily we see Megasthenes talks of seven castes
(social divisions) in India. He listed them as philosophers, husbandmen
(farmers), herdsmen, artisans, military caste (kshatriya), overseers,
councillors. This is not very different from how other societies are
structured. In modern India as well nowhere can one see a simple
division into four groups. Even to a casual observer there exist
hundreds of groups distinguished by ethnic origin, language, and nature
of work. One sees precisely the same thing in Western countries. Of
course there existed until a few decades ago the unfortunate and
indefensible practice of untouchability with groups who were considered
outside the mainstream of society. But one should remember that it was
not unique to India and we see that a similar practice existed in other
Asian countries. In Japan the burakumin are still so discriminated against
that they are compelled to hide their identities and are therefore called
the invisible people. In all these countries untouchability was originally
related to occupations that were considered polluting such as
those of killing animals, or scavenging. Fortunately, this aberration is behind us.
Even in the normative caste system of theory, early books talk of just
three castes: brahman, kshatriya, vaishya (the general public); or
brahman, rajan, shudra. Later at other places we have brahman, rajanya, shudra, arya; or deva, raian, shudra, and arya; and all these castes are
allowed to perform the various rituals. That these castes were only
notional is shown by other evidence which indicates that a group could claim to enter the system as whatever caste it chose. Even for individuals
we have stories from Upanishads and Puranas that establish that a
person doing philosophy would be a brahman no matter what his
parentage, and likewise a soldier would be a kshatriya.
IV
A tradition needs to be invented with each generation and this requires
teaching and learning by books, instruction, and example. Modern
Hinduism is yet to develop insritutions that will preserve and propagate
its vast storehouse of knowledge and wisdom. The modern Hindu is often
misinformed or uninformed about his tradition and consequently relates
to it in a confused manner. This lack of anchor leads, is the famous
phrase of Milan Kundera, to an unbearable lightness of being. In India we
have produced two generations of elites who are alienated and
marginalised. The violence and lack of direction we see amongst the youth there may be partly blamed on this situation.
V
Another issue that we need to keep in mind is that the world is coming
together. The unprecedented spread of science and technology in the past
half century bas brought different cultures and civilizations face to face
on an equal basis for the first time. Clearly the old ideologies of physical
conquest and enslavement are meaningless now. In the past this course
was partly motivated by the desire to obliterate the past of the
vanquished people. Religion was then a struggle between histories.
Modern technologies have rendered this goal to be unnecessary since, we
can now save as many varieties of the past as we choose by storing
unlimited amounts of information.
The end of the cold war has created a potential for new disasters and
ethnic and religious conflict. This is where India's universal message can
be especially valuable. Bertrand Russell was a champion of the view that
the Wetern acceptance of Indian, and other Oriental thought was crucial
for further progress.
It is perhaps not too much to expect that once the passions of societics
that are just emerging from the world view of the Middle Ages are
played out mankind would enter a new golden age where the emphasis
would be on knowledge and for every human being to realize his creative
potential. It is to bring in that new millennium that the universal philosophy of Hinduism can play a significant role.
