I finally have enough to talk about for a new post. But before that, updates on my intriguing life: Poor Arthi has the swine flu :( and is therefore being quarantined in her and Moksha's room. Thus, Moksha is rooming with us for the next week or so. So now I have two roommates! Last night we took Arthi to the hospital and she seems to be on the mend.
Last weekend was great in that I didn't do much work. A highlight was the prog outing to Chili's on Saturday where I had a Molten Lava Chocolate Cake for the first time after my arangetram. I'm not going to try and describe eating one, but I urge you to try eating one yourself.
Okay, so today I am going to talk to you about Hinduism. If you're like me, you've grown up in a Hindu household where we have gods, rituals, flowers, and other things without much explanation attached. You've been to temples, stood in front of a statue with your hands together, offered coconuts, been part of the occasional archana, put kumkum or vibhuti on your face, swallowed theertham, and took prasadam after the whole affair was finished. You can name gods and have seen/read the Ramayana and Mahabharata through comic books, TV serials, or black and white movies. But you've also heard in your Balvihar class that the point of life is to leave the cycle of birth and death and achieve liberation, done by renouncing all material life (Huh??). Basically, you know enough about being a Hindu to call yourself a Hindu, but you're not quite sure what that means and you're aware that some things don't quite make sense or fit together. I am obviously not going to explain what being a Hindu means, but I will offer a historical perspective into our religion, and an objective outsider's view into all the rituals, philosophy, and whatnot. Through this, you may be able to understand why we do what we do and why some things we do contradict other things we do. And hopefully this will prepare me for my test on Thursday (eep!) for HIST 176.
I'm going to try to be as concise as possible, but that might be difficult with the history of one of the oldest religions in the world. There are no two points in time when Hinduism has ever been the same, but historians like to divide the development of Hinduism into four separate phases:
1. Formative Stage - Involved very elaborate rituals involving fire, mantras, and priests. The mantras came mainly from the Rig Veda, which is the oldest part of the Vedas. The modern day equivalent would be the yagnam. This was a time when the purpose of praying to gods was simply to improve the well being of the material world. For example, make a sacrifice so that it will rain and your crops will grow. We still do this.
2. Philosophical Stage - This was a time where there was much more philosophical discussion and speculation about nature and god were introduced. This arose mainly from the Upanishads, another section of the Vedas. What did they talk about?
They decided that there was a Brahman, or universal, all-pervading soul that the Atman, or individual soul, aimed to join. As determined by your actions, or karma, the atman was born into different bodies and only when it exited this cycle of birth and rebirth, the individual could achieve ultimate spiritual liberation (Moksha). It was pretty abstract and complex stuff, and a far cry from what they had during the formative phase. You can also consider this the development of the monotheistic aspect of Hinduism. And we still have this too.
3. The epic/classical phase was one that saw the production of fantastic stories, namely the great epics: Ramayana and Mahabharata (a part of which was the Bhagavad Gita). They also produced law books, the Dharmashastras, which tried to lay down the principles of social life, kind of like a constitution but not really. An interesting part that came out of the Dharmashastra was a theory about the stages of life: basically, when you are young, you should pursue learning and a career so that you can be a productive member of society. But once you start to get old, you should leave society and enter the forest, where you can begin a life of meditation, yoga, and austerities while you ponder the ultimate truths.
Note that the two previous phases of Hindu history kind of went against each other. One was about gaining material wealth by praying to gods, while the other was all about renouncing it. This phase was an attempt to reconcile the two.
4. The Medieval Phase was probably where you see most of the features of modern Hinduism. At this time was the emergence of Bhakti, or devotionalism. It was at this time that the idea of closeness and intimacy with god became more prominent. Here, the gods of the Vedas (Indra, Varuna, etc.) merged into the background while the classical gods took greater form: Vishnu (and his incarnations), Shiva, and Devi. Temple construction became more common and people started doing pujas, which were a more personal form of worship than great fire sacrifices that priests and lots of money.
So as you can see, the history of Hinduism suggests that it can be both monotheistic and polytheistic, both material and spiritual, both opulent and austere. It's really hard to try to explain all of this religion at one go. It's just so complex. I shall also talk about the caste system.
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