LECTURE NOTES

LECTURE NOTES

The Hindu World View

Dr Clinton Bennett

GEOGRAPHY

Sub-Continent

North - World's Highest Mountains

Sub-Continent includes several States

East - alluvial flood plain

South - hills, plains, RIVERS.

Name - from INDUS valley. Aryans - SINDHU, Persians HINDU (thus HINDUISM).

Continuous (assimilative) civilization - sense of timelessness, peace (4 YUGAS)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

3,000 - 1,500 HARAPPA CIVILIZATION (INDUS VALLEY): Mohenjo Daro (archeological excavations)

Female goddess Figurine (right) found in the Valley

DRAVIDIAN/towns well developed, water tanks, water-wheels, drains, irrigation,trunk roads

burnt or sun dried brick buildings

towns zoned (wide, laid out at right angles.

weaving, sewing, embroidery, bronze and copper, jewelry

Religion
Seals with early writing have also been discovered

Worshipped mother goddesses - sexually explicit (prototype for Shiva and Sakti. No temples survive.

Civilization "assimilated" - by Aryan invasion (from 1,500 BCE).

Note Some Indian historians reject the Aryan invasion as a European 'invention' and argue for continuity between the Indus Valley and the Vedic civilizations. In this view, the Indus Valley culture was Vedic. See Distortions in Indian History .

CONTACTS WITH WEST: Cyrus of Persia (6th century BCE)

Alexander the Great (326BCE).

THE ARYAN/VEDIC AGE

Light skinned invaders/Vedic hymns date from circa 1, 500 - 1,000 BCE

Response to Alexander led to first strong central government/Empire under Chandragupta (Mauryan Empire) in 321 BCE. His son, Bindusara (succeeded 297 BCE) pushed Empire South as far as Mysore. He was succeeded by the great king, Ashoka (272 BCE) renowned for his support of Buddhism and after early military victories adoption of non-violence. Following Ashoka, seven kings reigned in a period of 50 years until the Mauryas lost power to the Sungas in about 180. During this period, rule at the top was autocratic but at local level, councils of eleders exercised considerable authority.

For a fictionalized representation of this period, see Ashoka directed by Shantosh Sivan (Action Movies, 2001). This is a Hindi movie with English sub titles.

pushed Dravidians south

male gods displace female

Vedas = knowledge (revered, not understood; eternal. Breathed out by the Gods).

Believed to contain all "knowledge", Source of all Indic thought (embryonic concepts developed in later literature).

Term "Hinduism" a nineteenth century English invention

SANATANA DHARMA (eternal truth: often used by "Hindus"

Wilfred Cantwell Smith

Hinduism is, in my judgement, a particularly false conceptualization, one that is conspicuously incompatible with any adequate understanding of the religious outlook of the Hindus. Even the term Hinduism is, in my judgement, a particularly false conceptualization, one that is conspicuously incompatible with any adequate understanding of the religious outlook of the Hindus, Even the term ‘Hindu’ was unknown to classical Hindus … the mass of religious phenomena we shelter under that name … is not a unity (The Meaning and End of Religion, 1978, London, SPCK p 63).

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 - 1966), India's first Prime Minister: "Hinduism is all things to all men", Hindus "live and let live' (1946, The Discovery of India New Delhi, OUP.)

THE VEDAS (Sanskrit)

RIGVEDA (hymns)

YAJURVEDA (sacrificial formulas)

SAMVEDA (chants)

ATHARVEDA (incantations)

feature Gods, demons (their frolics); creation stories, human origins.

each Veda has a Brahmana (priests' manuals).

Gods require sacrifices (grain, milk, flesh - worshippers eat; these are also 'gods'). Later, when belief in atman as soul in all life forms developed, most Hindu's become vegetarian. Yet sacrifices real purpose is to maintain cosmic balance, on which the gods depend as much as people!

The 'that' is the Self-Existent singularity from which the many proceed; shristi, translated as creation, is the projection of what already is. The deities are 'this side', so can not answer our questions about origins.

soma gives them immortality

no images/temples (mountains?)

HUMAN LIFE?

Multiple creation narratives; from the 'golden egg' that emerged from a lotus bloom floating on water; from the sacrifice of the primordial man; by 'being' emerging from 'non-being'

THAT, the One, Unfathomable (unnamed in Vedas/Prajpati (Brahman in Upanishads)

the self in gods, man/woman, bird, beast

the self wanted other ‘selves’

rishis (seers) born BEFORE the gods

Manu (seer, first man, lawgiver, devotee of Agni)

classes (varna = color) from a Rig-Veda creation story (Purusha’s head, shoulders, thighs, feet).

Basic concepts/terms (in place by 4th century - many post-Vedic (in place by Buddha's timer)

Samsara - cycle of creation/decay/re-creation

Dharma (righteousness, cosmic law: specific to gender, class, stage in life)

Varna - four classes, Brahman (head), Ksatriya (shoulders), Vaisya (thighs), Shudra (feet)

Ashrama (stages of life)

Vedic God’s resemble Greek

Varuna (sky) is replaced as king by Indra (war)

Agni (fire) associated with sacrifice, he is both the fire of the sacrifice and the God who carried the fruit of the sacrifice to the Gods

Vac (speech); Divine Word, the word spoken by the priests during rituals. Brahmansapati - the prayer or 'breath' of the priest's rituals, also the God who personifies 'prayer'.

Soma - substance that keeps God’s immortal (and a Deity)

Rudra (proto-Shiva, distant, mysterious).

Yama (death). Usha - dawn (female)

Also view that creation results from the fusion of the eternal male and female principles (purusa/prakriti or Vac - Speech). The intimate relationship between the Vedic deties and the natural order leads some scholars to speculate an animist origin for Hindu beliefs.

Four Aims: kama (pleasure), artha (wealth), dharma (duty), moksa (liberation)

MARGA: way to moksa, multiple eg Yoga, Bhakti, Dharma. In the Upanishads, it is jnana or knowledge of the true nature of the self that leads to liberation. Here, the sacrifices are sometimes ridiculed, as is Indra

Rita (cosmic order) duties/debts: to gods, teachers, parents, all living creatures.

Vedic God's recede in popularity: Brahma = creator (consort Saraswati, speech, education), Vishnu = preserver (consort Lakshmi, wealth, fortune), Shiva = destroyer (consort Parvarti, the arts, dance). Known as the Trimurti - three-images, each expresses quality/qualities of the ineffable brahman. Unknowlable in its totality, brahman discloses aspects of itself in the form of a personal god, or Isvara.

Rivalry developed between devotees of the three. For each tradition, each god assumes functions of all three. Here is a site with lots of information on the Vedic deities go to Vedic Religion

Image of Brahma click here for Brahma. image. The oldest images of the deities are probably those in the caves of Elephanta island, off Mumbai. Here is a picture taken during my visit there:

This lectures is used with extracts from either Volume 1 of Ainslee T Embree's Sources of Indian Tradition, NY, Columbia University Press, 1988 or from chapter 3 of Ian Markham's A World Religious Reader (2nd ed, 2000), Oxford, Basil Blackwell.