Is Hindu a nationality or a religion? Can it be both?
This is one issue that seems to unite people from across the board - communal or secular, atheist or believer, Indians and foreigners. Most people seem to believe that Hindu with the suffix -ism is a religion. The worst part is that the justification given to support this assertion is that b'coz most people believe so. So, did most people believe once that the Earth is flat and that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Does that make that true.
Nothing could be farther from the truth in the depiction of Hindu as religion.. Here are the 5 BIG untruths that seems to have nearly universal acceptance among modern Hindus that need to be brought to light for our own good.
This is one issue that seems to unite people from across the board - communal or secular, atheist or believer, Indians and foreigners. Most people seem to believe that Hindu with the suffix -ism is a religion. The worst part is that the justification given to support this assertion is that b'coz most people believe so. So, did most people believe once that the Earth is flat and that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Does that make that true.
Nothing could be farther from the truth in the depiction of Hindu as religion.. Here are the 5 BIG untruths that seems to have nearly universal acceptance among modern Hindus that need to be brought to light for our own good.
1. Hindu-ism is a religion : This is like saying American-ism and China-ism are religion. Hindu is a nationality of people living in the land of River Sindhu - which becomes Hindu in Prakrit like Hafta for Saptah. Greeks corrupted the word Sindhu to Indus and hence the name India. Swami Vivekananda despite his prolific intelligence made this silly and severely flawed mistake to accept and propagate Hindu-ism as a religion. The result is that Hindus are getting increasingly cornered in Hindustan by other religionists, who refuse to accept the Hindu "religion" as theirs. Partition of Hindustan on the basis of "religion" set a precedence for several such partition to follow till the Hindu nation itself is wiped out. To add fuel to the fire, Narendra "khoon mein vyapar" Modi will accelerate the process of disintegration of the Hindu Nation, not only by his misguided belief in Hindu "religion" but by his mercenary land grabbing and poison peddling that is alienating a large section of Hindus against him. Just as the money-minded baniyas brought Jainism to ruins, after the Brahmins and Kshatriyas deserted it, same fate belies the Hindu "religion".
2. Dharma is religion: "Organized religion demands adherence of the followers to the Book and the Prophet. Anything outside the boundaries of a faith is considered irreligious, if not downright sinful. It is believed that salvation lies only through the body of the Prophet or His words. History of mankind is often a gory testament of destruction wrought by the zealots in pursuit of faith. It is a testament of dividing people and converting them, of persecution, intolerance and subjugation, or of burning at the stakes: of the contest between the ecclesiastical and the temporal, the doctrine of two swords and of intrigues. Religion has been one of the most potent divisive forces in all history.
Dharma is different because it unites. There can never be divisions in dharma. Every interpretation is valid and welcome. No authority is too great to be questioned, too sacred to be touched. Unlimited interpretative freedom through free will is the quintessence of Dharma, for Dharma is as limitless as truth itself. No one can ever be its sole mouthpiece.
The Western cultural traditions, on the other hand, are built around religions. The emergence of the nation-state in the 16th and 17th centuries was the product of religious conflicts of the secular State with the Church. Much of what we call modern political vocabulary emerged and acquired meaning during those turbulent periods. Much of this vocabulary was directed at defining spheres - of the individual, of the State, of the Church as well as their inter-se relationship. The concepts of identity, ethnicity and autonomy are the products of this separation between the Church and the State. The emergence of science as a discipline made the issue of identity vis-a-vis religion more acute." Source: http://veda.wikidot.com/dharma-and-religion
3. Sanskrit is another language: The language in its original expression is Sanskrit. Every other language stems from the language as Sanskrit. William Jones paraphrases this while searching for roots of Sanskrit in some other ancient language:
"The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists."
4. Bharat is a nation bounded by geography: Bharat as Vishwa Guru is about a world that gives more than it takes and is thus sustainable. The origin is in the Hindu Peninsula b'coz this has the greatest potential to give and is hence called Devabhumi or what Japanese call as Tenjiku or Heavenly abode. In other areas hostile to human habitation, survival and then greed tends to drive societies to take more than what they give and thus become Danav. Manav are those who give and take in equal measure. Having thrown Earth's natural balance out of gear due to incessant greed embellished by the modern religion of consumerism that has accelerated the process of extraction and poisoning of land, water, air, space and fire or Panch Mahabhoot, Bharat will once again emerge as Vishwa Guru or as a Knowledge Leader to restore the natural balance.
The bedrock of this new global Bharatiya culture will be the self-reliant village that Gandhi called as Gram Swaraj. The ideal of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam or World as a family works at 2 levels. At one level, there is so much abundance in every village that all the daily needs can be met with local resources even as it spares people enough time to travel around the world. But the travel on foot or with animal traction allows them to connect with places along their journey with elaborate arrangements by every passing village to host the travellers. Yet, rather than moving goods, they would just collect samples of useful or aesthetic artifacts from around the world and make them with local resources. Global was truly local. In other words, they lived and practised the motto of Think Global, Act Local since eternity. This is the essence of the worldwide Bharatiya culture and civilization.
5. Vedas is another body of knowledge: Knowledge is Vedas. I cite this from an essay by Swami Vidyanand "Videh".
"सृष्टि प्रवाह से अनादि है, और कल्प से सादि. प्रत्येक कल्प के आदि में प्राप्त होने वाला होने से वेद आगरा कहा गया है. प्रत्येक कल्प के अग्र (आदि) में उसका आविष्कारण होता है.
कल्प के आदि में जिन ऋषिओं पर वेदज्ञान का अवतरण हुआ वे मानवों की प्रथम नस्ल के थे. मानवों की प्रथम नस्ल अमैथुनी होती है. अतः वह सर्वतः और सर्वथा श्रेष्ठ और निर्विकार होती है. ऐसा इसलिए क्योंकि निर्विकार ब्रह्म से अवतरित, निर्विकार ज्ञान का आधान निर्विकार मानवों में ही किया जा सकता है. निर्मल अमृत का आधान निर्मल पात्र में ही किया जाता है. ब्रह्म ज्ञान वेद का रहस्य ब्राह्मी स्थिति में ही जाना जाता है.
अग्नि ऋषि ने ऋग्वेद का, वायु ऋषि ने यजुर्वेद का, आदित्य ऋषि ने साम वेद का और अंगिरा ऋषि ने अथर्ववेद का ज्ञान गुहधान करके अन्तःस्फुरण द्वारा उच्चारा. ब्राह्म प्रेरणा से उनके अन्तःकरण में जो जो वेदज्ञान निहित हुआ वह वह उन्होंने स्वयं गाया, प्रथमजात मानवों को गवा-गवाकर कंठाग्न कराया. तभी से वेदों को कंठाग्न करके उनके गान की परिपाटी चली आ रही है.
संसार के जितने भी ग्रन्थ हैं उन सबमें जितना जितना सत्य और यथार्थ है वह सब वेदों से प्रवाहित होकर वहाँ गया है. विश्व की सकल भाषाओँ में वेद का वांङ्मय रूपांतरित होकर आपूर भरा हुआ है. अतः सभी भाषा-भाषियों को वेद बड़ी सरलता से पढाया और समझाया जा सकता है."
