The power or essence of a deity is believed to be in the murti, either temporarily or permanently.

59

Your Visit to Varanasi, India

I magine that you’re on a visit to the city of Varanasi (vuh-RAH-nuh-see) as a part of a tour of India. You know that Varanasi, located on the Ganges (GAN-jeez) River in north India, is unique among the cities of the world, but nothing can

quite prepare you for its sights, sounds, and smells. Your visit begins with a pre-dawn boat ride on the

Ganges. As your rowboat glides along the river, you see Hindu pilgrims on the western shore of the river descending the wide steps—two miles of them at Varanasi— leading down to the water. They wash themselves physically and spiritually, and pray toward the rising sun. A man dressed only in a loincloth and his sacred thread fi lls a small copper kettle with river water and then pours it out in a small stream while saying a prayer in the ancient Sanskrit language. After the boat ride, you walk to the Golden Temple, the most sacred of the city’s many shrines dedicated to Shiva (SHEE-vuh), the patron deity of Varanasi. You see Hindus making off erings of fl owers to the black stone emblem of Shiva. You also visit the newer Hindu temple inau- gurated by Mohandas Gandhi, the father of modern Indian indepen- dence. You return to the hotel for breakfast before taking a guided tour of Varanasi.

As you walk with your group through the narrow, twist- ing streets down to the river, you pass several cows wandering freely, and even a bull sacred to Shiva. You notice many small

temples and even smaller shrines that seem to be everywhere. You also notice many old, frail people, some in the doorways of ashrams and others living on the street, who have come to die in Varanasi in the hope of achieving liberation from the cycle of endless reincarnation. You see human bodies, wrapped and propped up on rickshaws, on their way to the water. As

you get close to the Ganges, you notice three men with wild hair, squatting on a stone platform overlook- ing the river. You can’t tell if they are wearing anything at all, and your tour guide explains that their bodies are smeared with ash and dried cow dung. They are smoking hashish in a pipe, praising Shiva loudly as they draw on the pipe. (You wince

when one of your tour mates makes a pun about “ganja on the Ganges.”) On the right you see a

large group of women bathing fully clothed in the water near the steps, and in a separate but close-by area a

group of men in Indian loincloths. Both the men and the women have come

to wash away their sins, and perhaps even the necessity of reincarnation. The river seems polluted to you, but this means nothing to the thousands of

Hindus who worship in it.

“Encountering Hinduism is like your fi rst visit to an Indian buffet. You can’t sample everything, but if you choose a good variety you’ll have a good introduction.”

Hinduism is mostly about escaping this material world.

Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

What Do YOU Think?

A man who has renounced the world to devote himself to Shiva smokes a drug.

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< The Hindu god Shiva is often portrayed as the Lord of the Dance.

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Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

60 C H A P T E R 3 E N CO U N T E R I N G H I N D U I S M : MA N Y PAT H S TO L I B E R AT I O N

As you keep walking up the river, you notice a cluster of large fi res and hundreds of large logs stacked up behind them, and you real- ize with a bit of a shock that you’ve reached Varanasi’s open-air cremation area. In a scene that you’ll remember for a long time, you see the steps of the Hindu funeral: piling wood into a pyre, lay- ing on the wood a body that has just been dipped into the Ganges, a son light- ing a pyre, priests intoning ancient scriptures as a body begins to burn, members of the Dom group gently tend- ing a body over three hours of burning to burn it as fully as possible, and Doms pushing cre- mated remains into the river to fl oat away. To die and be cremated in Varanasi is thought to bring automatic liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. Your group must stand respect- fully at the top of the steps, where you happily realize that you have a better view and the odor is better, too.

In the evening, you join your guide at the shore of the Ganges to witness the happy Aarti ceremony that is part of the evening religious devotions to Shiva. The celebrative music and dancing, and small candles lit on miniature “boats” and put into the river to memorialize the dead, soothe your spirits and make for a good, inspiring end to a challenging day.

If this is your fi rst encounter with the Hindu religion, you may become bewildered by all its varied beliefs and practices. Calling something a “religion” usually implies a unifi ed system of belief and practice, but Hinduism has little obvious unity. It has no personal founder, defi ned core beliefs, common scripture that guides all Hindus, standardized worship practice, or central authority. This diversity has led to what you may consider contradictions. For example:

● Hinduism has literally millions of gods, but many Hindus typically see one god behind them all, and some see only an impersonal Oneness in and beyond the universe.

● Hindus often control their bodies to pursue a hidden spiritual reality behind all physical things, seeking liberation from the endless cycle of

reincarnation and pursuing the peace that liberation brings here and now. At the same

time, they joyously affi rm bodily existence with a striking affi rmation of sexuality, for example with erotic statues in some temples.

● Many Hindus are strict vegetarians for religious reasons, but others eat meat on occasion, and some even sacrifi ce animals at Hindu temples.

● Hinduism teaches personal duties tied to one’s place in a rather rigid social structure but allows some people to “drop out” of ordinary life com- pletely to pursue individual religious goals.

● Hindus number around 900 million today in India, a number that includes some 220 million Indian “outcastes.” The modern Indian state now considers these 220 million as Hindus, but they are not considered as such by most other Hindu castes, nor do they often call themselves Hindus.

● Hinduism has a long history of at least three thousand years but constantly combines old tradi- tions with new elements to produce a richer, more diverse faith and culture that bring ancient tradi- tions into the twenty-fi rst century.

In light of all this obvious diversity, what is the hidden unity of Hinduism that binds it together? Scholars have argued about this for more than one hundred years, and it’s not an easy question to answer. The most common answer is this: Hinduism, and faithful Hindus, have a rev- erence for the ancient Hindu scriptures called the Vedas and perform their caste duties. But this may seem a bit

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You realize, with

a bit of a shock,

that you’ve reached

Varanasi’s open-air

cremation area.

Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

61T H E N A M E H I N D U I S M

vague to you, and you should keep the question open as you study this chapter. In sum, encountering Hinduism is a bit like going to an Indian restau-

rant for the fi rst time. When you see a wide variety of exotic dishes on the menu, or even if you go to an Indian buffet, you realize that you can’t taste them all. But at the end of the meal, you know that your experience in the restaurant gave you a good introduction to Indian cuisine.

Religion usually implies a unified system

of belief and practice, but Hinduism has

little obvious unity.

LO1 The Name Hinduism Like the names of a few other world religions, the for- mal name of Hinduism came from outside the faith. Hindu fi rst appears around 500 B.C.E. as the ancient

Persian word for the Indus River and the inhabitants of its val- ley. From the 1300s C.E., invading Muslim rulers of northern India used “Hindu” for all non-Muslim Indians, whatever religion they were, to distinguish them from Indian converts to Islam. Beginning in the 1500s, European colonizers coming to India used it in its current sense to mean the members of the supposedly single religion to which all Indians other than groups like Muslims, Christians, and Zoroastrians belonged. Then, from about 1800 on, Hinduism gradually became accepted by most Hindus in India as a valid name for their religion, especially to distinguish their religion from others. Thus, Hinduism is an umbrella term gradually imposed on Hindus and then accepted by them.

The approximately 2 million Hindus living in North America and the sizeable Hindu communi- ties in other parts of south Asia (especially Bali, Indonesia), a few parts of Africa, and Great Britain also embrace this name. However, more-upper-class

Om (Aum) [OHM] Spoken syllable symbolizing the fundamental hidden reality of the universe

Symbols of Hinduism

Om Although Hinduism has no offi cial symbol, the religious symbol most sacred to most Hindus is the mystical syllable Om. You will also fi nd the spelling “Aum,” and in fact the symbol is composed of the equivalent of our letters a, u, and m. Although as a syllable it has no literal meaning, Om symbolizes the fundamental hidden reality of the universe and is the basic spiritual sound the universe makes, particularly the sound of the world soul. Om is writ- ten daily in formal contexts and often pronounced at the beginning of religious reading or meditation. Many Hindus wear this symbol in jewelry, and it is found in family shrines and in temples. Pronounced in a deep, lengthy way, it can resonate throughout the body and the sound of Brahman can penetrate to one’s center of being.

The Swastika You may be surprised, even shocked, to encounter the swastika as a common, ancient symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Svastika (SWAHS-tee-kuh) is an ancient Indian word meaning “sign of good fortune,” and this symbol is widely used as a good-luck charm. The swastika has “crooked” arms facing in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction (both direc- tions are common in Asia). Its arms extend in all directions, suggesting to Hindus the universal presence of the world soul. It is continually rotating like the wheel that it resembles, symbolizing the eternal nature of ultimate truth. This symbol is often found on Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist temples, and it is worn on neck pendants. In 1935, the Nazi Party of Germany adopted the swastika known in Europe, with no historical connection to the Indian svastika, as its symbol of the party and the nation—of course with no intent to endorse Hindu teachings. It is still used today by some neo-Nazi groups. So we have an odd situation: For people of many Asian religions, the swastika is a much-loved symbol; for people in the Western world, the swastika is much despised.