Hinduism Essay Research Paper The word Hindu

Hinduism Essay, Research Paper

The word `Hindu’ originally meant `those who lived on the other side of the river Indus (in Sanskrit, Sindhu)’. Alternate names for the people following the religion can be `Vaidikas’, followers of the Vedas, or `Vedantists’, followers of the Vedanta. So, let us have a brief overview of the Vedas.

The Vedas is not the utterance of persons. The Vedas do not owe their authority to anybody, they are themselves the authority, being eternal — the knowledge of God. They were never written, never created, they have existed throught time; just as creation is infinite and eternal, without beginning and without end, so is the knowledge of God without beginning and without end. And this knowledge is what is meant by `the Vedas’ (`Vid’ — to know). The mass of knowledge called the Vedanta was discovered by personages called Rishis. The Rishi is a seer of thought. He is the discoverer of the eternal Vedas. The Rishis were spiritual discoverers.

The Vedas are divided into two principal parts, the Karma Kaanda and the Jnaana Kaanda — the work portion and the knowledge portion, the ceremonial and the spiritual. The Karma Kaanda consists of the duties of man, duties as a student, duties as a householder, duties as a recluse, and the various duties of the various stations of life. The spiritual portion of the religion is the second part, the Jnaana Kaanda. This is called `Vedanta’ — the end of the Vedas, the gist, the goal of the Vedas. The essence of the knowledge of the Vedas was called by the name of Vedanta, which comprises the Upanisads. All sects of India which comes within the fold of Hinduism must acknowledge the Upanisads of the Vedas. They can have their own interpretations, but they must obey the authority. All the various symbols used for worship come from the Vedanta. They are all present in the Vedanta as ideas, which these symbols represent.

Next come the Smritis. These are books written by the sages. These are subordinate to the Vedanta. The Smritis have varied from time to time. As essential conditions changed, as various circumstances came to have their influence on the race, manners and customs had to be changed, and these Smritis, as mainly regulating the manners and customs of the nation, had also to be changed from time to time. But the basic principles in the Vedanta, like the dynamics of the soul, which are eternal do not change.

Then there are the Puraanas. They deal with history, cosmology, symbolic illustrations of philosophical principles, and so forth. They were written to popularise the religion of the Vedas. They give the lives of saints and kings and great men and historical events, etc. The sages made use of these to illustrate the eternal principles of religion.

There are still other books, the Tantras. These are very much like the Puranas in some respects, and in some of them there is an attempt to revive the old sacrificial ideas of the Karma Kaanda.

All these books constitute the scriptures of the Hindus. When there is such a mass of sacred books in a nation and a race ehich has devoted the greatest part of its energies to the thought of philosophy and spirituality, it is quite natural that there should be so many sects. These sects differ very much from each other in certain points. But there are some essential principles which are common to all sects and which constitute the core of Hinduism.

First is the question of creation. The idea of Hinduism is that this nature, Prakriti or Maayaa is infinite, without beginning. The creative energy is ever active. There never was a time when that energy did not work. The Sanskrit word for creation, properly translated, should be `projection’. There is the law of cycles. The whole of this nature exists, it becomes finer, subsides; then the whole thing is again projected forth, only again to become finer and finer, until the whole thing subsides, and again comes out. Thus it goes on backwards and forwards with a wave-like motion throughout eternity. Time, space and causation are all within this nature. To say, therefore, that it had a beginning is utter nonsense. No question can occur as to its beginning or its end. Therefore, wherever in the Hindu scriptures the words beginning and the end are used, it means the beginning and the end of one particular cycle; no more than that.

What makes this creation . Brahman. There is no suitable word in English. He is eternal, eternally pure, eternally awake, the almighty, the all-knowing, the all-mercifull, the omnipresent, the formless, the partless. If this is so, then why is there partiality in the world . Why is one person happy and another person unhappy . Who makes it . Vedanta says: We ourselves. There is a cloud shedding its rain on all fields alike. But it is the field that is well cultivated is the one that takes the best advantage of it. The fault is not on the cloud. The mercy of God is eternal and unchangable. It is we who make the difference. We reap what we have sown in several previous births.

This leads to the next concept. Life is eternal. It is not that it has sprung out of nothing. That cannot be. Each one of us is the effect of the infinite past. Each one comes to work out his own past deeds. This is the law of Karma. Each one of us is the maker of our own fate. We, and none else are responsible for what we enjoy or suffer. We are the effects, and w