(Mar 3,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – What is Hinduism by Swami Krishnananda

What is Hinduism

Divine Life Society Publication: - What Is Hinduism? by Swami Krishnananda

If you ask all the Hindus, “Tell me what is Hinduism,” they cannot tell you. They will say, “We are Hindus.” “But tell me what is Hinduism.” That they cannot answer because they are floating on the surface of religious outer performance and ritual, and the in-depth significance of it has not gone into their minds. You will find this problem everywhere. You will find it perhaps in every religion. He is a Muslim; he is a Christian; he is a Hindu; he is a Buddhist. If you ask him, “What essentially is the essence of your religion?” he cannot give a reply. They will never be able to answer that question because they have not given time to think properly.

What proof have you got that you are a Hindu? If you say, “I believe in the Vedas,” does it mean that whoever believes in the Vedas is a Hindu? There are great German scholars who believe in the value of the Vedas. Do you call them Hindus? So, that definition is not good. “I pray to Narayana.” Then, whoever prays to Narayana becomes a Hindu? There are Muslim saints who worship Lord Krishna, and yet they are not Hindus, so that definition is also not good. You will find it is such a comprehensive interrelated complex that any straightjacket answer will not be sufficient.

In Hinduism you will find the essentials of every other religion also, in some level. There are levels of Hinduism; it is not one compact thing. At one level, you will find the idea of Christianity is correct. At another level, you will find even Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism or Taoism is correct. It all depends upon the layers of religion; and all the levels, Hinduism accepts. The only thing is, it will not consider any level as final. This is why it is a very comprehensive religion and, therefore, you cannot even call it by the name Hinduism. It has no name at all. They call it Sanatana Dharma. Sanatana Dharma means eternal religion.

Hinduism is only a post-European concept. Europeans have given that name. We do not call ourselves by that name. ‘Hindu’ comes from the word ‘Sindhu’. When Greeks and Persians came to India some years before Christ – Alexander and Jerious, and other Persian kings and Greek invaders came – they crossed the Sindhu, and they wanted to know who these people staying in this country are. They did not know their name. They said that river is called Sindhu, and all those people who are on the other side are Sindhus. In Persian,‘s’ is pronounced as ‘h’, so ‘Sindh’ becomes ‘Hind’, so they pronounce it as ‘Hindu’; and in Greek it has become ‘Ind’. The word ‘India’ has come from the word ‘Sindhu’ only. ‘Sindh’ becomes ‘Hind’, ‘Hind’ becomes ‘Ind’. So the words ‘Hindu’ and ‘India’ have both been created by these historical conditions, historical circumstances.

Really, this is Bharatvarsh. We call it Bharatvarsh. Even now they say ‘Bharat’. It is not India. ‘India’ is a historical exigency. Similarly, the word ‘Hinduism’ – there is no such thing as that. It is Sanatana Dharma – eternal religion. It is eternal religion because it accepts every level of religious thought. It does not reject any level, but it does not consider any level as final. That is the whole point.

Excerpts from:

What Is Hinduism? by Swami Krishnananda

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What is Hinduism? by Swami Krishnananda

The word ‘Hindu’ is of foreign origin. It has no association with the principles which are psychologically compounded by habit and tradition with what one vaguely feels when the word ‘Hindu’ is uttered. The history behind this word seems to go back to the time when the Greeks and the Persians came to India, maybe somewhere around the time when Alexander, king of Macedon, invaded India. The barrier which these people from outside India had to cross was the river Sindhu, which today goes by the name of Indus. The letter ‘S’ gets transformed into ‘H’ when it passes through the Persian tongue, and into ‘I’ in the Greek tongue. The word ‘Sindhu’, which is actually the name of the river, got somehow associated with the very people who lived across the river, and ‘Sindhu’, dropping the letter ‘S’, got converted into the word ‘Hindu’, and further on into the word ‘Ind’ in Greek. Thus, even the word ‘India’ has its roots in the word ‘Sindhu’. From this one can gather how both the words, ‘Hindu’ and ‘India’, do not have any real connection with either the beliefs and faiths of the people so called or even the original name of the country itself. The country is traditionally known as ‘Bharatavarsha’ or, simply, ‘Bharata’. This is something about the name itself.

Now, what does one really mean by the word ‘Hindu’, whatever be its origin? To state simply and plainly, it would mean a person who follows or lives according to the canons and principles of the religion known as ‘Hinduism’. But this would raise the question, "What is Hinduism?"

Many definitions have been given by stalwarts like Lokamanya Tilak, and such leaders of Hinduism. The area which the religion called Hinduism covers is so large that it is not easy to give an off-hand definition of it at one stroke, as any such attempt is likely to carry with it a flaw of inadequate characterisation. However, broadly speaking, a Hindu is one who holds and lives according to some of the following essential principles:

• that the ultimate reality of the universe is one and not more than one
• that the nature of this reality is spiritual in the sense of Intelligence or Consciousness
• that therefore this reality is Universal, Omnipresent, and hence at once Omniscient and Omnipotent
• that creation is a veritable Body of this All-pervading Almighty Omnipresence
• that the relationship between this reality, which is called God, and the created universe is intrinsic, organic and vital, and not external or mechanistic
• that there are several planes in this creation, broadly classified into fourteen realms known as ‘Lokas’, all which are inhabited by different categories of beings, right from the lowest level of the physical elements up to the Region of the Creator Himself
• that in the sense stated above, the whole universe and all beings are vehicles of divinity and radiant with the immanent Godhead, all potentially having the birthright of attaining union with the Supreme Almighty through gradual evolution
• that the human being is one such created species among the many others which are said to run to 84 lakhs in number
• that man, thus, occupies a stage in the process of a still higher ascent and he is not the end of creation or evolution
• that human life is to be organised by the integrating principles of Dharma (moral value), Artha (material value), Kama (vital value) and Moksha (spiritual value), the last one mentioned being in fact the infinite value of existence
• that society is also to be brought into a united force of hierarchy through mutual cooperation by the application of what is known as Varnasrama-Dharma, which means the arrangement of society into the classes of spiritual power, political power, economic power and man-power, known usually as Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra, and the order of life into the levels of education, the performance of the duties of life, withdrawal from personal attachments and attainment of spiritual illumination, which stages go usually by the names of Brahmacharya, Garhasthya, Vanaprastha and Sannyasa
• that every faith, cult, creed, belief, religion or outlook represents a facet or phase of the evolving consciousness in the process of the universe, thus transforming life in the world, nay, life in the universe itself into a wide family of internally related and mutually co-operating members who have all a system of obligations and duties, excluding nothing but including everything, finally with the purpose of universal spiritual realisation.

There is no necessity to go into further elaborate details of what the word ‘Hinduism’ may suggest, because it would be clear that what is stated above would be enough to provide necessary guidelines to draw the requisite conclusions in matters of detail.

However, it has to be added that the religion known as Hinduism accepts the supernatural origin and final authority of the Word of the Veda, which consists of the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. Hinduism also accepts the validity of the ethical and legal codes known as the Smritis, the Epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Puranas, the Agamas and Tantras, and also the six schools of philosophy known as Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. The word ‘Vedanta’ suggests and includes also its variations known as the Advaita, Visishta-advaita, Dvaita, Dvaita-advaita, Suddha-advaita, and Achintya-bheda-abheda. It also includes the religious doctrines of the different schools of Vaishnavism, Saivism and Saktaism. Hinduism accepts and provides for the worship of the accepted Divinities of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Ganesa, Durga, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Surya and Skanda among many others which are all included in the all-embracing pantheon.