________________ is a major world religion that is neither monotheistic nor polytheistic.

Hinduism

© Franz Lemmens/SuperStock

First Encounter

The plane that you have taken to Benares circles in preparation for landing at the Varanasi

airport. Looking down from your window seat, you can see the blue-white Ganges River, quite

wide here. Everything else is a thousand shades of brown. Beyond the coffee-colored city, the

beige fields spread out, seemingly forever.

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At the small airport, a dignified customs inspector with a turban and a white beard asks, “Why

have you come to India?” Before you can think of an appropriate response, he answers his own

question. “I know,” he says with a smile and a wave of the hand. “You people who come to

Benares are all the same.” He shakes his head from side to side. “You have come for

spirituality.” After pausing briefly, he adds, “Haven’t you!” It sounds more like a statement than

a question. It takes you a second to understand his quick pronunciation of that unexpected

word—spirituality. In a way, he is right. You have come for that. You nod in agreement. He

smiles again, writes something down on his form, and lets you through.

As you take the small black taxi to your hotel, you realize that you have just accepted—willingly

or not—the ancient role that the customs inspector has bestowed upon you. You are now just one

more pilgrim who has come to Mother India for her most famous product: religious insight. You

are now a Seeker.

After unpacking at your hotel, you walk out into the streets. It is dusk. Pedicab drivers ring their

bells to ask if you want a ride, but you want to walk, to see the life of the streets. Little shops sell

tea, and others sell vegetarian foods made of potatoes, wheat, beans, and curried vegetables.

Children play in front of their parents’ stores. Down the street you see a “gent’s tailor” shop, as a

thin cow wanders past, chewing on what looks like a paper bag. Another shop sells books and

notepaper, and others sell saris and bolts of cloth. From somewhere comes a smell like jasmine.

As night falls, the stores are lit by dim bulbs and fluorescent lights, and vendors illuminate their

stalls with bright Coleman lanterns. Because you will be rising long before dawn the next day to

go down to the Ganges, you soon return to your hotel. You fall asleep quickly.

The telephone rings, waking you out of a dream. The man at the front desk notifies you that it is

four a.m. Being somewhat groggy, you have to remind yourself that you are in Benares. You get

up and dress quickly.

At the front of the hotel you wake a driver sleeping in his pedicab. You negotiate the fare, climb

onto the seat, and head off to the main crossing of town, near the river, as the sky begins to

lighten. The pedicab drops you near the ghats (the stairs that descend to the river), which are

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already full of people, many going down to the river to bathe at dawn. Some are having

sandalwood paste applied to their foreheads as a sign of devotion, and others are carrying brass

jugs to collect Ganges water.

As you descend to the river, boat owners call to you. You decide to join the passengers in the

boat of a man resembling a Victorian patriarch, with a white handlebar mustache. Off you go,

moving slowly upstream. Laughing children jump up and down in the water as men and women

wade waist-deep and face the rising sun to pray. Upstream, professional launderers beat clothes

on the rocks and lay them out on the stones of the riverbank to dry.

The boat turns back downstream, passing the stairs where you first descended to the river. In the

bright morning light you see large umbrellas, under which teachers sit cross-legged, some with

disciples around them. Who, you wonder, are these teachers? The area near the shore is crammed

with people and boats. On a nearby boat, people shout, Ganga Ma ki Jai—“Victory to Mother

Ganges!”

The boat continues downstream. On the shore, smoke rises from small pyres, where bodies

wrapped in red and white cloth are being cremated. The boatman warns, “No photos here,

please.” The boat pulls in to shore downstream of the pyres, and everyone gets off. Walking up

the stairs, you see small groups of people quietly watching the cremations. At the pyres, a man

tends the fires with a bamboo pole, and a dog wanders nearby.

Later, as you make your way back to the center of town, you notice a pedicab with a covered

body tied onto the back. It cycles past women sitting beside the road, selling plastic bracelets and

colored powders. The pedicab must be on its way to the pyres, you think. The blend of opposites

fills your mind; on the banks of the very same river, laundry is washed and bodies are burned; in

the streets, life and death appear side by side—yet no one seems to notice the contrasts. Here, the

two are one.

The Origins of Hinduism

Looking at a map of India (Figure 3.1, p. 76) you can see that this subcontinent, shaped like a

diamond, is isolated. Two sides face the sea, while the north is bounded by the steep Himalaya

Mountains. There are few mountain passes, and the only easy land entry is via the narrow

corridor in the northwest, in the vicinity of the Indus River, where Pakistan now lies. It is the

relative isolation of India that has helped create a culture that is rare and fascinating.

Figure 3.1 India, Bali, and the area of Hindu influence.

India’s climate, except in the mountain regions, is generally warm for most of the year, allowing

people to live outdoors much of the time. Indeed, some people may even claim that the climate

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has helped promote religious values that, at least for some, minimize the importance of material

goods such as clothing, housing, and wealth.

Although hot and dry in many parts, India has many rivers and streams. Most important is the

Ganges, which flows out of the Himalayas and is enlarged by tributaries as it moves east toward

the Bay of Bengal. By the time the Ganges has reached the town of Benares (also known as

Varanasi and Kashi), the river is enormous; in fact, after the summer monsoons, the river

becomes so wide that often one cannot see to the other side. Because the water of the Ganges is

regular and dependable, it has enabled civilization to flourish across much of northern India. It

has also given Indian culture a sense of security, protection, and even care, which has led to the

popular name for the river, Ganga Ma (“Mother Ganges”).

The religious life of India is something like the river Ganges. It has flowed along for thousands

of years, swirling from its own power but also from the power of new streams that have added to

its force. Hinduism, the major religion of India, has been an important part of this flowing

energy. Many influences—early in digenous religion and influences from later immigrants—

have added to its inherent momentum. It has no one identifiable founder, no strong

organizational structure to defend it and spread its influence, nor any creed to define and stabilize

its beliefs; and in a way that seems to defy reason, Hinduism unites the worship of many gods

with a belief in a single divine reality. In fact, the name Hinduism can be misleading. Hinduism

is not a single, unified religion; it is more like a family of beliefs.

But the limitations of Hinduism may also be its strengths. It is like a palace that began as a two-

room cottage. Over the centuries, wings have been built on to it, and now it has countless rooms,

stairs, corridors, statues, fountains, and gardens. There is something here to please and

astonish—and dismay—almost everyone. In fact, its beliefs are so rich and profound that

Hinduism has greatly influenced the larger world, and its influence continues to grow. In this

chapter we will explore the various elements of this religion’s foundation and the stages in which

additions were made to the sprawling house of Hinduism.

The Earliest Stage of Indian Religion

In the early twentieth century, engineers who were building a railroad discovered the ruins of an

ancient culture in the Indus River valley. Today, most of the Indus River lies in Pakistan, but it

traditionally formed the natural border of northwestern India—in fact, the words India and Hindu

derive from Indus. The culture that archeological workers uncovered there flourished before

2000 BCE and is named the Harappa culture, after one of its ancient cities (Timeline 3.1).

TimeLine 3.1

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Timeline of significant events in the history of Hinduism.

Archeologists were amazed by the type of civilization they found. The cities contained regular

streets and solid brick houses. Pots and coins were discovered, as well as evidence that running

water was used for toilets and baths. As one historian remarks, “no other ancient civilization

until that of the Romans had so efficient a system of drains” 1 —a genuine sign of technical

development. This complex culture had also invented a writing system, which scholars are still

working to decipher.

Property owners marked their belongings with seals bearing the images of animals, such as the

bull, tiger, and rhinoceros, as well as images of men and women. Three seals show a male, sitting

in a yogic meditation posture, with horns on his head. 2 Small pillars that suggest male sexuality

were also found. Because many of these same symbols still appear in contemporary Indian

culture, we can assume that some current religious practices have survived from the distant past.

For example, the male with the horns on his head may be a deity and an early form of the god

Shiva, and the pillars resemble the low columns that some contemporary Indians worship in

honor of Shiva. It is also quite possible that the present-day worship of the divine Great Mother

and of tree spirits goes back to this early time.

The Religion of the Vedic Period

The ancient scriptures of India are called the Vedas. They give a great deal of information about

gods and worship during what is often called the Vedic period, generally thought to cover about

2000 to 500 BCE. The origin of the Vedas and of the religion they describe, however, is

uncertain.

In the late eighteenth century, Western scholars recognized that Sanskrit—the ancient language

of India and the language of the Vedas—was related to Greek and Latin. They also realized that

many of the gods mentioned in the Vedas were the same gods who had been worshiped in

Greece and Rome; they discovered, as well, that gods of similar names were mentioned in

Iranian sacred literature. Later scholars theorized that a single people, who called themselves

Aryans, moved from present-day southern Russia about 2000 BCE in two directions—westward

into Europe and eastward into Iran and India. Entering new lands, these people were thought to

have carried their language and religion with them. Scholars initially believed that in India the

outsiders imposed their social order quickly and violently on the older culture. According to this

theory, called the “Aryan invasion theory,” the Vedas were believed to be the religious writings

of this invading people.

Next, a variant on the older theory arose: instead of speaking of a single invasion, the newer

theory held that there were repeated waves of migrations into Pakistan and northern India, and

that from these contacts between foreign and indigenous cultures the religion of the Vedas

emerged. More recently, however, this second theory, called the “Aryan migration theory,” has

been questioned. The migration theory is still commonly held, but some scholars view any theory

that assumes influence from outside India to be a continued relic of Western cultural

imperialism. Archeological, linguistic, and genetic investigations continue to offer more clues,

but their interpretation has not resolved the issue.

No matter what its origins, the religion described by the Vedas seems to have consisted of the

worship of mostly male gods, who were believed to control the forces of nature. The father of the

gods was Dyaüs Pitr, whose name means “shining father.” (He is clearly the same god as the

Roman god Jupiter and the Greek god Zeus Pater.) The god Indra, god of storm and war,

received great attention because of the strength his worshipers hoped to receive from him. He

was possibly the memory of a military ancestor, deified by later generations. The god of fire,

Agni (whose name is related to the English word ignite and to the Latin word for fire, ignis),

carried sacrifices up to the world of the gods. Dawn and renewal were the charge of the goddess

Ushas, one of the few female deities. The god Rudra brought winds. Varuna was the god of the

sky and justice; Vishnu was a god of cosmic order; and Surya was the major sun god. The god

Soma was thought to cause altered states of mind and to expand consciousness. He worked

through a ritual drink, possibly made from a psychedelic mushroom that had the same name

(soma) and allowed contact with the realm of the gods. The god Yama ruled the afterlife.

Vishnu is mentioned in the Vedas, Hinduism’s ancient scriptures, as a god of cosmic order. This

sculpture, at Bangkok’s very modern Suvarnabhumi Airport, illustrates the same god Vishnu in a

tale that is still told today.

© Thomas Hilgers

Worship of the gods took place at outdoor fire altars. Priestly specialists set apart a square or

rectangular space, purified it with water, and constructed one to three low altars inside the space

for sacrifice. The usual offerings were milk, clarified butter (called ghee), grains, and sometimes

animals. A special horse sacrifice, believed to confer great power on a king, occurred on rare

occasions.

Sacred chants, which the priests knew from memory, were an essential part of the ceremonies;

and because they believed that the chants had power of their own, the priestly class protected

them and handed them down orally from father to son. It is these chants, in written form, that

make up the core of the earliest Hindu sacred literature, the Vedas. Although many of the Vedic

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gods are no longer worshiped, elements of the Aryan religion—such as the use of fire and some

of the ancient chants by a priestly class—continue to be of great importance to Hindus today.

The Vedas

The Vedas, which originally were preserved only in oral form but eventually were written down,

are the earliest sacred books of Hinduism. The name means “knowledge” or “sacred lore,” and

related words in English are vision and wisdom. Although scholars date the earliest versions of

the Vedas to about 1500 BCE, Hindus consider them to be far more ancient. They say that the

Vedas were revealed to rishis (holy men of the distant past), who did not create the Vedas but

heard them and transmitted them to later generations.

There are four basic sacred text collections that constitute the Vedas. The Rig Veda 3 (“hymn

knowledge”) is a collection of more than a thousand chants to the Aryan gods; the Yajur Veda

(“ceremonial knowledge”) contains matter for recitation during sacrifice; the Sama Veda (“chant

knowledge”) is a handbook of musical elaborations of Vedic chants; and the Atharva Veda

(“knowledge from [the teacher] Atharva”) consists of practical prayers and charms, such as

prayers to protect against snakes and sickness.

The Rig Veda, the most important of the Vedas, has an account of the origin of the universe. The

universe is said to have emerged from a division and cosmic sacrifice of a primeval superperson,

Purusha. But the account includes an admission of uncertainty: “Who knows it for certain; who

can proclaim it here; namely, out of what it was born and wherefrom his creations issued? The

gods appeared only later—after the creation of the world. Who knows, then, out of what it has

evolved?” 4

The term Vedas sometimes indicates only these four collections. In its more common use, it also

refers to some later material as well. Detailed ceremonial rules, called Brahmanas and

Aranyakas, were added by later generations to each of the four Vedic collections. The

Brahmanas, named for the priests who would use them, give details about the proper time and

place for ceremonies, the preparation of the ground, ritual objects, and purification rites. The

Aranyakas (“forest books”) allowed the rituals to be understood and practiced in nonliteral,

symbolic ways by men who had left society and become ascetics in the forests. The four Vedas

end with even later works, called the Upanishads, which express philosophical and religious

ideas that arose in introspective and meditative traditions.

The Upanishads and the Axis Age

Around 500 BCE, Indian civilization experienced such widespread and important changes that

the period is known as the Axis Age, meaning that everything turned in a new direction at this

time. Interestingly, great changes were taking place in other religions and cultures as well: it was

the time of the Buddha, Confucius, major Hebrew prophets, and early Greek philosophers.

After many centuries, questioning of Vedic religious beliefs and practices began to emerge with

strength. It is possible that earlier religious disciplines reasserted themselves, and there may have

been resentment against the priestly class. Some critics questioned the value of the Vedic

sacrifices, and we know from the Aranyakas that certain people abandoned social life to live

alone in the forests, giving themselves much time for thought and religious experimentation.

Thinkers questioned the ancient belief in many gods, seeking instead a single divine reality that

might be the source of everything. 5 Some went even further and saw all things as being

mystically united. And a few rejected religious ritual altogether.

During this period there seems to have been interest in all sorts of techniques for altering

consciousness, such as sitting for long periods in meditation, breathing deeply, fasting, avoiding

sexual activity, practicing long periods of silence, going without sleep, experimenting with

psychedelic plants, and living in the darkness of caves. People of any social class—not just

priests—could do all of these things. Evidence of this intellectual ferment and the practice of

spiritual disciplines is recorded in the Upanishads.

The Origin of the Upanishads

The Upanishads comprise about a hundred written works that record insights into external and

internal reality. Although several interpretations of the name Upanishads have been proposed, it

is commonly thought to derive from words that mean “sitting near.” 6 If the term’s derivation is

correct, it suggests disciples sitting nearamaster, learning techniques for achieving religious

experience. In any case, primary to the Upanishads is the notion that with spiritual discipline and

meditation, both priests and nonpriests can experience the spiritual reality that underlies all seem

ingly separate realities. Unlike much of the earlier Vedic material, which dictates that only

hereditary priests can be religious masters, the Upanishads tell us that a person who has the

necessary experience can be a spiritual master. The Upanishads thus possibly continue the

religious interest of the forest dwellers of the Aranyakas.

The Upanishads are written primarily in dialogue form, appearing both as prose and as poetry.

Because they were produced over many hundreds of years, dating them is not easy. It is

generally thought that those in prose form (such as the Chandogya, Brihadaranyaka, Taittiriya,

and Kena Upanishads) may be earlier works than those in poetic form (such as the Katha and

Mandukya Upanishads). About a dozen Upanishads are especially popular.

Important Concepts of the Upanishads

The most important notions in the Upanishads are Brahman, Atman, maya, karma, samsara, and

moksha. 7 These primary concepts, which would become essential notions in much later Hindu

spirituality, continue to be taught today.

Brahman and Atman

The term Brahman originally stood for the cosmic power present in the Vedic sacrifice and

chants, over which the priest had control. (The Sanskrit word Brahman is neuter and comes from

a stem meaning “to be great.”) In the Upanishads the word Brahman was expanded to mean a

divine reality at the heart of things. One of the most famous dialogues appears in the Chandogya

Upanishad. It involves a priestly father and his son in discussion. The young man, Shvetaketu,

has been away, studying with a specialist for many years. He has memorized chants and learned

priestly rituals. The young man’s father questions him about what he has learned, and the son

proudly recites the formulas he knows. The father then asks him what he knows about Brahman,

the Supreme Spirit; but the young man knows nothing. Trying to assist the son’s understanding,

the father asks his son to fill a glass with water, put salt in it, and leave it overnight. The next day

he asks his son to find the salt:

Many Hindu concepts are complex, and serious Hindus often seek guidance from a priest as they

try to improve their practice and understanding.

© Thomas Hilgers

 “Bring me the salt you put into the water last night.”

 Shvetaketu looked into the water, but could not find it, for it had dissolved.

 His father then said: “Taste the water from this side. How is it?”

 “It is salt [salty].”

 “Taste it from the middle. How is it?”

 “It is salt.”

 “Taste it from that side. How is it?”

 “It is salt.”

 “Look for the salt again and come again to me.”

 The son did so, saying: “I cannot see the salt. I only see water.”

 The father then said: “In the same way, O my son, you cannot see the Spirit.

 But in truth he is here.

 “An invisible and subtle essence is the Spirit of the whole universe. That is Reality. That

is Truth. Thou art That.” 8

The Upanishads insist that Brahman is something that can be known—not simply believed in.

The Shvetasvatara Upanishad, for example, says “I know that Spirit whose infinity is in all, who

is ever one beyond time.” 9 Brahman, the Divine Spirit, is so real that it may be known directly,

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and, as the boy Shvetaketu learned, knowledge of it can be as immediate as tasting the flavor of

salt.

What is it to know Brahman? The Upanishads insist that it cannot be put fully into words, but

they give hints. Brahman is the lived experience that all things are in some way holy because

they come from the same sacred source. It is also the experience that all things are in some way

ultimately one. This is an experience that seems to defy common sense, since the world appears

to be divided into many objects and types of reality. Nevertheless, when we consider reality

more deeply, we recognize many unities: a piece of wood can become a boat or a house or fire or

ash; water can turn into a cloud or a plant. So, on closer inspection, all apparent separations and

divisions blur. To experience Brahman is to know, firsthand, that every apparently individual

reality in the world is actually a wave of the same sacred ocean of energy. Brahman, according to

the Upanishads, “is the sun, the moon, and the stars. He is the fire, the waters, and the wind.” 10

Brahman is “the God who appears in forms infinite.” 11

Brahman is also referred to by three words that help describe its nature as perceived by the

knower: Brahman is sat, reality itself; chit, pure consciousness; and ananda, bliss. And although

Brahman can be experienced within our everyday world of time and space, those who speak of

their experience say that Brahman is ultimately beyond time and beyond space. Thus the

Upanishads often add that experiencing the timelessness of Brahman can bring an end to

everyday suffering and to the fear of death.

The notion of Atman is related to Brahman and is an equally important term in the Upanishads.

Although Atman is sometimes translated as “self” or “soul,” the notion of Atman in the

Upanishads is different from the notion of an individual soul. Perhaps the term Atman would be

better translated as “deepest self.” In Hindu belief, each person has an individual soul (jiva), and

the individual soul confers uniqueness and personality. But Hinduism asks this question: At the

very deepest level, what really am I? I am clearly not just my body—my height and weight and

hair color, all of which are subject to alteration. But am I then my tastes, thoughts, and

memories? Or is there more? Is there not in me a reality more fundamental than those changing

individual characteristics? According to the Upanishads, at the deepest level of what I am is a

divine reality, a divine spirit that everything shares. The Upanishads teach that it is true to say

that I am God, because, for the person who understands reality at the deepest level, everything is

God. Atman, when experienced fully, is identical with Brahman. Atman, like Brahman, is divine,

holy, and timeless. Often the term Brahman refers to the experience of the sacred within nature

and the external universe, while Atman refers to the experience of the sacred within oneself.

However, the same divine nature simply has two names, and both terms may be used

interchangeably.

Maya

The Upanishads speak of the everyday world as maya, which is usually translated as “illusion”. 12

This translation, though, needs explanation. Its root suggests illusion and mystery (as in

“magic”), but it also has a more positive, objective connotation that suggests the original stuff of

which something is made (as in “material”). The word maya thus contains both meanings:

“magic” and “matter.” To say that all reality is “maya” is not to say that the world does not exist

or that the world is a totally false perception. The world is real, but not in quite the way most

people assume. For one thing, human beings view the world as consisting of individual things

and people, all separate. In reality, the world is one basic holy reality that takes on many

different forms. The Shvetasvatara Upanishad advises us to “know therefore that nature is Maya,

but that God is the ruler of Maya; and that all beings in our universe are parts of his infinite

splendour.” 13

People also assume that the world is solid and permanent. In reality, the outside world is more

like the inner world of thoughts and dreams—it shifts and changes, just as thoughts and dreams

do. People assume that time is real, that it advances at a regular rate, and that past, present, and

future are distinct divisions. In reality, time is relative.

The model of reality set forth by the Upanishads is less like a machine made of individual

moving parts; it is more like a great consciousness. This view also produces a sense of

amazement at the forms and shifts that the universe takes—it is all, ultimately, unexplainable

magic.

As I look out at reality from my own individual standpoint, I may see the end of my life as the

end of everything. The Upanishads see things differently. First, individuals are not as individual

as they suppose. Rather, they are all manifestations of the Divine Spirit, which does not end

when the individual dies. They are also the continuation of earlier forms of life that have simply

taken new forms. Hinduism, from about 500 BCE, generally adopted the belief that everything

living has its own life force and that every life force, when it loses one form, is reborn into

another. This process is known as reincarnation.

Karma

The general Hindu notion of rebirth assumes that human beings have at one or another time

existed as a “lower” form, such as animal, insect, and possibly even plant. Hinduism also

recognizes grades of human life, from …