Some of the fellow members told me that they know very little about Hinduism or the position of faithless people like me in Hinduism. I wish to touch upon these points in this thread. Feel free to question me on this topic. I will try my best to inform you. But let me put a disclaimer first. I am NOT evangelizing here. Information or my personal opinions regarding Hinduism should not be treated as an apologetic view of a believer. There should be no misunderstanding in this regard.
It is pointless to discuss basics of Hinduism as you can easily wiki or google them out. I will only talk about some of the interesting faith related concepts in Hinduism and Indian society in general.
First, the non-believers.There is a sect recognized in Hinduism known as 'Nastiks'. They are the people who do not accept Veda(a holy scripture in Hinduism) as the final authority. In loose terms, the term means the non-believers or the atheists. If the history books are to be believed, they were recognized in ancient Hindu civilizations and had separate position in the society. 'Cārvāka', a branch of the Hindu philosophy, deals with the question of faith, rituals and the importance of materialistic view over spirituality. There are many school of thoughts in Hindu philosophy with extensive analysis of question of faith. But most importantly, the nastiks were not considered as apostates but as a part of the society. At one point of time, this troubled me a lot. Does that mean i am still a hindu even after a complete rejection of my faith? I pondered over that a lot and came to the conclusion that this is more like "If he is a bastard, at least he is our bastard" attitude. It is more politics than faith in work here. Just confine the loose cannons to the barracks with iron fences. Control the apostates rather than killing them.
Now, monotheism vs polytheism. Hinduism, to most people in the world, is a polytheist religion. They worship idols, pray to deities and believe in numerous gods and goddesses. But, quite surprisingly, there are passages in vedas where the monotheist philosophies are clearly indicated. A number of offshoots of Hindus around India clearly pledge their believes to a single deity and refuse any one else. Hindu concepts of origin of Universe(the usual hocus pocus) quite prominently carry a monotheist theme. On one hand, the numerous gods and goddesses in Hinduism resemble the ancient Greek and Roman mythologies, on the other hand, there are enough evidences to prove its monotheist roots.How do you explain this bizarre juxtaposition? I feel the answer lies in the diverse ethnicity of the Indian subcontinent. The ancient pagan tribes combined their distinct culture and rituals with Hinduism
which was really a school of philosophy. This is the reason why you see such a vast difference in rituals and customs in India from region to region. Sometimes you feel they don't follow the same religion at all! A perfect analogy will be the open source software. People take it and modify according to their needs. Following the same process, Hinduism went on to grow into a complex superstructure of intermingling faith, philosophy and rituals as diverse as India itself. Local stories of war and family feud transformed into religious epics, with versions having their own regional flavors. Social hierarchy build for political purposes changed into the evil caste system. When it is true that Hinduism offers a lot of freedom, there has been plenty of instances when this freedom is suitably used to oppress people, legitimizing that as divine throughout the history of India.
Thats all for now. Will post more based on the feedbacks.
It is pointless to discuss basics of Hinduism as you can easily wiki or google them out. I will only talk about some of the interesting faith related concepts in Hinduism and Indian society in general.
First, the non-believers.There is a sect recognized in Hinduism known as 'Nastiks'. They are the people who do not accept Veda(a holy scripture in Hinduism) as the final authority. In loose terms, the term means the non-believers or the atheists. If the history books are to be believed, they were recognized in ancient Hindu civilizations and had separate position in the society. 'Cārvāka', a branch of the Hindu philosophy, deals with the question of faith, rituals and the importance of materialistic view over spirituality. There are many school of thoughts in Hindu philosophy with extensive analysis of question of faith. But most importantly, the nastiks were not considered as apostates but as a part of the society. At one point of time, this troubled me a lot. Does that mean i am still a hindu even after a complete rejection of my faith? I pondered over that a lot and came to the conclusion that this is more like "If he is a bastard, at least he is our bastard" attitude. It is more politics than faith in work here. Just confine the loose cannons to the barracks with iron fences. Control the apostates rather than killing them.
Now, monotheism vs polytheism. Hinduism, to most people in the world, is a polytheist religion. They worship idols, pray to deities and believe in numerous gods and goddesses. But, quite surprisingly, there are passages in vedas where the monotheist philosophies are clearly indicated. A number of offshoots of Hindus around India clearly pledge their believes to a single deity and refuse any one else. Hindu concepts of origin of Universe(the usual hocus pocus) quite prominently carry a monotheist theme. On one hand, the numerous gods and goddesses in Hinduism resemble the ancient Greek and Roman mythologies, on the other hand, there are enough evidences to prove its monotheist roots.How do you explain this bizarre juxtaposition? I feel the answer lies in the diverse ethnicity of the Indian subcontinent. The ancient pagan tribes combined their distinct culture and rituals with Hinduism
which was really a school of philosophy. This is the reason why you see such a vast difference in rituals and customs in India from region to region. Sometimes you feel they don't follow the same religion at all! A perfect analogy will be the open source software. People take it and modify according to their needs. Following the same process, Hinduism went on to grow into a complex superstructure of intermingling faith, philosophy and rituals as diverse as India itself. Local stories of war and family feud transformed into religious epics, with versions having their own regional flavors. Social hierarchy build for political purposes changed into the evil caste system. When it is true that Hinduism offers a lot of freedom, there has been plenty of instances when this freedom is suitably used to oppress people, legitimizing that as divine throughout the history of India.
Thats all for now. Will post more based on the feedbacks.
