Hinduism fascinates me …

Gandhi Ji's Favourite Piece

For years in my writing blogs - often at times on religion and other beliefs - I have always found the Hindu belief system - now being 'demolished' by the idiotic Hindutva ideology (they think!) - has been a very strong favorite of mine. 

To say that Hinduism is thousands of years old as a religion is falsifying the fact. Imagine a thousand or more years ago: No eMail, no TV, no Internet; no means of sending your religious beliefs from say Bombay to Calcutta and back were difficult.

The way they all learnt about each other's beliefs (which had demi-gods and goddesses) was best done when travelers and business people visited these different sides. Several Hindus accepted that and added him along their belief system.

When the Calcutta people had Kali and the Bombay people had Ganesh, both sides added this into their beliefs: Hindus were very accommodating. Only a few years ago I found out about a group that accepted Hazrat Ali as a godsent person and even had 2 bhajans with his name.

The French and Persians call India as Hindu in their languages. The Arabs also once called them Hindus (some say that it meant those outside Arabia) and their beliefs - many as they were - were those outside Abrahamic Religions.

Unlike Abrahamic Religions where one believes that their God is the only true God, Hindus never had a God,  or a Prophet or a book.* You could believe in some but not all; you could be an Atheist; you could believe in Abrahamic faiths. You would still be a Hindu. You could even add others as demi-gods and leave some. You could still be a Hindu. 

(*Religious books, like Vedas etc., have came about later and Statues meant as GodSymbols came even much later.)

Going through their books (I did read many translations) might be fairly difficult. But if you are interested in Hinduism and it's current (mis)role I would suggest you buy Shashi Tharoor's Book …

It gives you a fairly interesting look at Hinduism and it's range of ideas, the differences among various groups (though they all accept that others are just as good) and include many quotes that are interesting in themselves to many people of Abrahamic religions.

Let me add a small piece from his book

The first challenge, of course, was definitional. The name 'Hindu' itself denotes something less, and more, than a set of theological beliefs. In many languages, French and Persian amongst them, the word for 'Indian' is 'Hindu'.

Originally, Hindu simply meant the people beyond the River Sindhu, or Indus. But the Indus is now in Islamic Pakistan; and to make matters worse, the word 'Hindu' did not exist in any Indian language till its use by foreigners gave Indians a term for self-definition.

Hindus, in other words, call themselves by a label that they didn't invent themselves in any of their own languages, but adopted cheerfully when others began to refer to them by that word. (Of course, many prefer a different term altogether- Sanatana Dharma, or eternal faith, which we will discuss later.)

'Hinduism' is thus the name that foreigners first applied to what they saw as the indigenous religion of India. It embraces an eclectic range of doctrines and practices, from pantheism to agnosticism and from faith in reincarnation to belief in the caste system. But none of these constitutes an obligatory credo for a Hindu: there are none.

We have no compulsory dogmas. This is, of course, rather unusual. A Catholic is a Catholic because he believes Jesus was the Son of God who sacrificed himself for Man; a Catholic believes in the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth, offers confession, genuflects in church and is guided by the Pope and a celibate priesthood. A Muslim must believe that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is His Prophet. A Jew cherishes his Torah or Pentateuch and his Talmud; a Parsi worships at a Fire Temple; a Sikh honours the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib above all else. There is no Hindu equivalent to any of these beliefs. There are simply no binding requirements to being a Hindu. Not even a belief in God.

I grew up in a Hindu household. Our home always had a prayer-room, where paintings and portraits of assorted divinities jostled for shelf- and wall- space with fading photographs of departed ancestors, all stained by ash scattered from the incense burned daily by my devout parents. I have written before of how my earliest experiences of piety came from watching my father at prayer. Every morning, after his bath, my father would stand in front of the prayer-room wrapped in his towel, his wet hair still uncombed, and chant his Sanskrit mantras. But he never obliged me to join him; he exemplified the Hindu idea that religion is an intensely personal matter, that prayer is between you and whatever image of your Maker you choose to worship. In the Hindu way, I was to find my own truth.

Shashi has a personal deity (as do many Hindus). His favourite is Ganesh, his Ista-Devta (his personal god). He talks about a few different stories he heard as a child and I find them most amusing. (If I were a Hindu and had to have a personal god, it would be Saraswati)

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My own experience was that when I was in Calcutta (in my Merchant Navy days) I passed  a shop that had a huge glass front from which you could see inside. From the window I could see several deities. I saw Ganesh had fallen down and was lying with his head on the carpet. So I went right in and told the shop owner to put that right.

He laughed and said to me that he had put him in that pose. Although this is not verbatim, but his message (partly in Urdu/English) was roughly this:

"I have bought this shop 3 years ago and put Ganesh as the giver of money and grace the right side up. In 3 years I just manage to make enough to keep the shop but no fortune comes my way. So I put him upside down. If he realizes that he owes me success and sends me shoppers, I will put him upright again. Until then he stays with his head down on the carpet."

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Many of you will remember the song that talks of all the gods/Gods, sung by Lata and many others (Mohammad Rafi, for example). 

Lata Mangeshkar

Lata sang with many Muslims - Talat Mahmood and Mohammad Rafi to name just two, Now, sadly, she finally turned into a BJP supporter a bit before her death! A friend who knew her said that to me in a message after she visited her from Pakistan. Another person in India, a strong Hindu, said that she and her sister (Asha Bhosle) had become strong BJP supporters.

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There may be many here who are not necessarily interested in the belief systems of the Hindus, but very upset about Modi's Hindutva taking over India's masses. Muslims, mainly, but Christians also face the threats. Others will follow soon, it seems.

Shashi sahab is a strong opponent of Hindutva and I suggest that you buy this book and read more about about how Hindutva became what it is now. Most important: Read about V D Savarkar and M S Gowalkar … and how they brought this idea into the fold. Worth reading, too, is Deeendayal Upadhyaya who disagreed on some points withe previous two, but eventually believed in Hindutva.

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In Why I Am A Hindu the 2nd Chapter (Pages 131 to 245) is Political Hinduism - and offers, apart from details of the above people, the trouble that Muslims face as Hindutva moves forward. Babri Mosque and many other pieces, including lynchings, murders, and humiliation are described here … and they will increase for other minorities, too. 

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Here is a wonderful young girl singing the same song today.

Sniti Mishra