Hinduism
includes a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but has
no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no
governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can
choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic,
agnostic, atheistic or humanist.
... The west has no single word for "Dharma" .
You can call yourself , what you want , that is the freedom of being on this soil and land. What is essential is that you believe that there is a link between your infinite inner space and the cosmic space , between your being and the nature that surrounds you . That life is a journey to be discovered , with or without a concept of God .
... The west has no single word for "Dharma" .
You can call yourself , what you want , that is the freedom of being on this soil and land. What is essential is that you believe that there is a link between your infinite inner space and the cosmic space , between your being and the nature that surrounds you . That life is a journey to be discovered , with or without a concept of God .
And that no one else
has a right to impose their path on you . We keep having dialogues and
communion " Satsang" and we also fight and war on our understanding of
the various interpretations . We influence powers that be to follow our
path but in the long cycle of the times , what we vanquished can rise
again , and what won can go into hibernation .
But nothing that has been founded on this soil, has ever believed that its path is the sole truth and the only truth. From Rigveda and even before that , our nature is multiple pathways and multiple seekers .
But nothing that has been founded on this soil, has ever believed that its path is the sole truth and the only truth. From Rigveda and even before that , our nature is multiple pathways and multiple seekers .
Vedic ? Sramana ? Sanatan Dharma ? Hindu ? Sampradaya ? Hindutva ? Arya Samaj ? Lingayat ? Ramakrishna Mission ?
Anyone living on this land , forget anyone outside gets confused by
actually what to call oneself as an "religious" identity compared to ,
lets say a Christian or Muslim or Jewish . According to our land's
understanding these are Sampradaya , a lineage of a school started by a
single Guru/Messenger/Messiah .
The Rigveda itself indicates that Truth is one - "ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti agnim yamam matariswanam ahuh" (meaning Truth is one, but the learned refer to it in different names like agni, yama, matariswan).
So we are not a "religion" , we are a system of knowledge and experience that celebrates seekers of eternal cosmic truth/s . And there are many "sampradaya" or "ways" . Vaishnava , Shaiva , Shakti, Tantra , Buddh , Jain are all sampradaya . They compare to the Semitic ways .
The west has no single word for "Dharma" .
You can call yourself , what you want , that is the freedom of being on this soil and land. What is essential is that you believe that there is a link between your infinite inner space and the cosmic space , between your being and the nature that surrounds you . That life is a journey to be discovered , with or without a concept of God .
And that no one else has a right to impose their path on you . We keep having dialogues and communion " Satsang" and we also fight and war on our understanding of the various interpretations . We influence powers that be to follow our path but in the long cycle of the times , what we vanquished can rise again , and what won can go into hibernation .
But nothing that has been founded on this soil, has ever believed that its path is the sole truth and the only truth. From Rigveda and even before that , our nature is multiple pathways and multiple seekers .
Veer Savarkar has his own socio-political understanding like "Hindutva" , just as Gandhi has his "Satyagraha" , or Ambedkar his , or Periyar his own .
For me all political thought is like a social-power "sampradaya " , ultimately all come under an understanding of "Eternal Cosmic Order" which is way above any sect , spiritual, political or ideological .
For me " Sanatan Dharma" is the concept. The Eternal, from forever to forever , the search for the experience that is the deepest foundation of our being . Everything else is bound to a "sampradaya" .
The history of wandering monks in ancient India is partly untraceable. The term 'parivrajaka' was perhaps applicable to all the peripatetic monks of India, such as those found in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism.
Śramaṇa (Sanskrit: श्रमण, Samaṇa in Pali) means "seeker, one who performs acts of austerity, ascetic" .
The Vedic people see Sramanas as parallel to them. It is very possible that many mystic and ascetic spiritual traditions thrived which were pre-Vedic .
One of the earliest recorded use of the word Śramaṇa, in the sense of a mendicant, is in verse 4.3.22 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad composed by about the 8th century BCE.
The concept of renunciation and monk-like lifestyle is found in Vedic literature, with terms such as yatis, rishis, and śramaṇas. Early Vedic literature from about 1000 BCE, mentions Muni (मुनि, monks, mendicants, holy man), with characteristics that mirror those of Sramanas. Rig Veda, for example, in Book 10 Chapter 136, mentions mendicants as those with Kesin (केशिन्, long haired) and Mala clothes (मल, dirty, soil-colored, yellow, orange, saffron) engaged in the affairs of Mananat (mind, meditation).
Rigveda, however, refers to these people as Muni and Vati (वति, monks who beg).
केश्यग्निं केशी विषं केशी बिभर्ति रोदसी । केशी विश्वं स्वर्दृशे केशीदं ज्योतिरुच्यते ॥१॥
मुनयो वातरशनाः पिशङ्गा वसते मला । वातस्यानु ध्राजिं यन्ति यद्देवासो अविक्षत ॥२॥
He with the long loose locks (of hair) supports Agni, and moisture, heaven, and earth; He is all sky to look upon: he with long hair is called this light.
The Munis, girdled with the wind, wear garments of soil hue; They, following the wind's swift course, go where the Gods have gone before.
— Rig Veda, Hymn 10.136.1-2
The Śramaṇa movements arose in the same circles of mendicants in ancient India that led to the development of Yogic practices, as well as the popular concepts in all major Indian religions such as saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death) and moksha (liberation from that cycle).
The Śramaṇic traditions have a diverse range of beliefs, ranging from accepting or denying the concept of soul, fatalism to free will, idealization of extreme asceticism to that of family life, wearing dress to complete nudity in daily social life, strict ahimsa (non-violence) and vegetarianism to permissibility of violence and meat-eating.
Buddhist commentaries associate the word's etymology with the quieting (samita) of evil (pāpa) as in the following phrase from the 3rd century BCE Dhammapada, verse 265: samitattā pāpānaŋ ʻsamaṇoʼ ti pavuccati ("someone who has pacified evil is called samaṇa").
The word śramaṇa is postulated to be derived from the verbal root śram, meaning "to exert effort, labor or to perform austerity".
The śramaṇa refers to a variety of renunciate ascetic traditions from the middle of the 1st millennium BCE.The Shramanas were individual, experiential and free-form traditions.
The term "Śramaṇas" is used some Indian texts to contrast them with "Brahmins" in terms of the their religious models.
Part of the Śramaṇa tradition retained their distinct identity from Hinduism by rejecting the epistemic authority of the Vedas, while a part of the Śramaṇa tradition became part of Hinduism as one stage in the Ashrama dharma, that is as renunciate sannyasins.
Sanātana Dharma (Devanagari: सनातन धर्म meaning "eternal dharma" or "eternal order") has been proposed as an alternative, "native" name for Hinduism (Hindi Hindu Dharm हिन्दू धर्म) "Hindu religion".
The term was mentioned and explained in depth in Vedic literature (Rig Veda) (4-138) and was used during the Hindu revivalism movement in order to avoid having to use the term "Hindu" which is of non-native (Persian) origin.
In current-day usage, the term Sanatana Dharma is used to emphasize an "orthodox" or sanatani ("eternalist") outlook in contrast to the socio-political Hinduism embraced by movements such as the Arya Samaj.
The phrase dharma sanātana does occur in classical Sanskrit literature, e.g. in the Manusmrti (4-138) and in the Bhagavata Purana, in a sense akin to "cosmic order".
Dharma ([dʱəɾmə]; Sanskrit: धर्म dharma, Pali: धम्म dhamma; Tamil: அறம் Aram) is a key concept with multiple meanings in the Indian religions Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. There is no single word translation for dharma in western languages.
In Hinduism, dharma signifies behaviors that are considered to be in accord with rta, the order that makes life and universe possible, and includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and ‘‘right way of living’’.
In Buddhism dharma means "cosmic law and order", but is also applied to the teachings of the Buddha.In Buddhist philosophy, dhamma/dharma is also the term for "phenomena".
In Jainism dharma refers to the teachings of the Jinas and the body of doctrine pertaining to the purification and moral transformation of human beings. For Sikhs, the word dharm means the "path of righteousness".
The Classical Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, which has a meaning of "to hold, maintain, keep".
The word "dharma" was already in use in the historical Vedic religion, and its meaning and conceptual scope has evolved over several millennia.The antonym of dharma is adharma.
In the Rigveda, the word appears as an n-stem, dhárman-, with a range of meanings encompassing "something established or firm" (in the literal sense of prods or poles). Figuratively, it means "sustainer" and "supporter" (of deities). It is semantically similar to the Greek ethos ("fixed decree, statute, law"). In Classical Sanskrit, the noun becomes thematic: dharma-.
According to the authoritative book History of Dharmasastra, in the hymns of the Rigveda the word Dharma appears at least fifty-six times, as an adjective or noun. According to Paul Horsch, the word Dharma has its origin in the myths of Vedic Hinduism.
The Brahman (whom all the gods make up), claim the hymns of the Rig Veda, created the universe from chaos, they hold (dhar-) the earth and sun and stars apart, they support (dhar-) the sky away and distinct from earth, and they stabilize (dhar-) the quaking mountains and plains.
The gods, mainly Indra, then deliver and hold order from disorder, harmony from chaos, stability from instability - actions recited in the Veda with the root of word dharma.
In hymns composed after the mythological verses, the word dharma takes expanded meaning as a cosmic principle and appears in verses independent of gods. It evolves into a concept, claims Paul Horsch, that has a dynamic functional sense in Atharvaveda for example, where it becomes the cosmic law that links cause and effect through a subject. Dharma, in these ancient texts, also takes a ritual meaning.
The ritual is connected to the cosmic, and ‘‘dharmani’’ is equated to ceremonial devotion to the principles that gods used to create order from disorder, the world from chaos.
Past the ritual and cosmic sense of dharma that link the current world to mythical universe, the concept extends to ethical-social sense that links human beings to each other and to other life forms. It is here that dharma as a concept of law emerges in Hinduism.
धर्मः तस्माद्धर्मात् परं नास्त्य् अथो अबलीयान् बलीयाँसमाशँसते धर्मेण यथा राज्ञैवम् ।
यो वै स धर्मः सत्यं वै तत् तस्मात्सत्यं वदन्तमाहुर् धर्मं वदतीति धर्मं वा वदन्तँ सत्यं वदतीत्य् एतद्ध्येवैतदुभयं भवति ।।
Nothing is higher than Dharma. The weak overcomes the stronger by Dharma, as over a king. Truly that Dharma is the Truth (Satya); Therefore, when a man speaks the Truth, they say, "He speaks the Dharma"; and if he speaks Dharma, they say, "He speaks the Truth!" For both are one.
— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 1.4.xiv
In Hinduism, a sampradaya can be translated as ‘tradition’ or a ‘religious system’. It relates to a succession of masters and disciples, which serves as a spiritual channel, and provides a delicate network of relationships that lends stability to a religious identity.
Sampradaya is a body of practice, views and attitudes, which are transmitted, redefined and reviewed by each successive generation of followers. Participation in sampradaya forces continuity with the past, or tradition, but at the same time provides a platform for change from within the community of practitioners of this particular traditional group.
A particular guru lineage is called parampara. By receiving diksha (initiation) into the parampara of a living guru, one belongs to its proper sampradaya. One cannot become a member by birth, as is the case with gotra, a seminal, or hereditary, dynasty.
Nevertheless, there are also examples of teachers who were not initiated into a sampradaya, Ramana Maharshi being a well-known example.
A sannyasin belonging to the Sringeri Sharada Peetham once tried to persuade Ramana to be initiated into sannyasa, but Ramana refused.
The word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit word Sindhu, the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent (modern day Pakistan and Northern India).
According to Gavin Flood, "The actual term 'Hindu' first occurs as a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu)", more specifically in the 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I (550–486 BCE).
The term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is a geographical term and did not refer to a religion.Among the earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text Record of the Western Regions by Xuanzang, and 14th-century Persian text Futuhu's-salatin by 'Abd al-Malik Isami.
Thapar states that the word Hindu is found as heptahindu in Avesta – equivalent to Rigvedic sapta sindhu, while hndstn (pronounced Hindustan) is found in a Sasanian inscription from the 3rd century CE, both of which refer to parts of northwestern South Asia.
The Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus.This Arabic term was itself taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū, which refers to all Indians.
By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as a popular alternative name of India, meaning the "land of Hindus".
The term Hindu was later used occasionally in some Sanskrit texts such as the later Rajataranginis of Kashmir (Hinduka, c. 1450) and some 16th- to 18th-century Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts including Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagavata.
These texts used it to contrast Hindus from Muslims who are called Yavanas (foreigners) or Mlecchas (barbarians), with the 16th-century Chaitanya Charitamrita text and the 17th century Bhakta Mala text using the phrase "Hindu dharma".
It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th-century to denote the religious, philosophical, and cultural traditions native to India.
Hinduism includes a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but has no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist.
The religion "defies our desire to define and categorize it". Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and "a way of life."
From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion. In India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the western term "religion". Hindu traditionalists prefer to call it Sanatana Dharma (the eternal or ancient dharma).
Hindutva, or "Hinduness", a term coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923, is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The Bharatiya Janata Party adopted it as its official ideology in 1989. It is championed by the Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliate organisations, notably the Vishva Hindu Parishad, along with the older term Hindu Rashtra .
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, an Indian independence movement activist interned in Ratnagiri prison in the 1920s, sought to disassociate the term Hindu from Hinduism.
His tract, Essentials of Hindutva, better known under the later title Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?, defined a Hindu as one who was born of Hindu parents and regarded India as his motherland as well as holy land. The three essentials of Hindutva were said to be the common nation (rashtra), common race (jati) and common culture/civilisation (sanskriti).
Hindus thus defined formed a nation that had existed since antiquity, Savarkar claimed, in opposition to the British view that India was just a geographical entity.
This notion of Hindutva formed the foundation for Savarkar's Hindu nationalism, which included in its fold the followers of all Indian religions including Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, but excluded the followers of "foreign religions" such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
Savarkar's formulation of Hinduness was regarded in his time as akin to a scientific discovery, a "revelation".
K. B. Hedgewar, another Indian independence activist in Nagpur, who was concerned with the perceived weaknesses of the Hindu society against foreign domination, found Savarkar's Hindutva inspirational.
He visited Savarkar in Ratnagiri in March 1925 and discussed with him methods for organising the Hindu nation.
In September that year, he started Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Society) with this mission. However, the term Hindutva was not used to describe the ideology of the new organisation; it was Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation). . The official constitution of the RSS, adopted in 1948, used the phrase "Hindu Samaj" (Hindu Society).
In the words of an RSS publication, "it became evident that Hindus were the nation in Bharat and that Hindutva was Rashtriyatva .
Both the terms "Hindutva" and "Hindu Rashtra" were used liberally in the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, a party Savarkar became the president of in 1937. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who served as its President in 1944 and joined the Jawaharlal Nehru Cabinet after Independence, was a Hindu traditionalist politician who wanted to uphold Hindu values but not necessarily to the exclusion of other communities.
He asked for the membership of Hindu Mahasabha to be thrown open to all communities. When this was not accepted, he resigned from the party and founded a new political party in collaboration with the RSS. He understood Hinduism as a nationality rather than a community but, realising that this is not the common understanding of the term "Hindu," he chose "Bharatiya" instead of "Hindu" to name the new party, which came to be called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.
Thus, yet another term "Bharatiya" came into parlance with rough resemblance to Hindutva, which continues to be used in the successor party Bharatiya Janata Party to this day.
According to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Hindutva is an inclusive term of everything Indic. He said:
Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with the other cognate term Hinduism, but a history in full. Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva. ... Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole Being of our Hindu race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampradaya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San%C4%81tan%C4%AB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Arama%E1%B9%87a
The Rigveda itself indicates that Truth is one - "ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti agnim yamam matariswanam ahuh" (meaning Truth is one, but the learned refer to it in different names like agni, yama, matariswan).
So we are not a "religion" , we are a system of knowledge and experience that celebrates seekers of eternal cosmic truth/s . And there are many "sampradaya" or "ways" . Vaishnava , Shaiva , Shakti, Tantra , Buddh , Jain are all sampradaya . They compare to the Semitic ways .
The west has no single word for "Dharma" .
You can call yourself , what you want , that is the freedom of being on this soil and land. What is essential is that you believe that there is a link between your infinite inner space and the cosmic space , between your being and the nature that surrounds you . That life is a journey to be discovered , with or without a concept of God .
And that no one else has a right to impose their path on you . We keep having dialogues and communion " Satsang" and we also fight and war on our understanding of the various interpretations . We influence powers that be to follow our path but in the long cycle of the times , what we vanquished can rise again , and what won can go into hibernation .
But nothing that has been founded on this soil, has ever believed that its path is the sole truth and the only truth. From Rigveda and even before that , our nature is multiple pathways and multiple seekers .
Veer Savarkar has his own socio-political understanding like "Hindutva" , just as Gandhi has his "Satyagraha" , or Ambedkar his , or Periyar his own .
For me all political thought is like a social-power "sampradaya " , ultimately all come under an understanding of "Eternal Cosmic Order" which is way above any sect , spiritual, political or ideological .
For me " Sanatan Dharma" is the concept. The Eternal, from forever to forever , the search for the experience that is the deepest foundation of our being . Everything else is bound to a "sampradaya" .
The history of wandering monks in ancient India is partly untraceable. The term 'parivrajaka' was perhaps applicable to all the peripatetic monks of India, such as those found in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism.
Śramaṇa (Sanskrit: श्रमण, Samaṇa in Pali) means "seeker, one who performs acts of austerity, ascetic" .
The Vedic people see Sramanas as parallel to them. It is very possible that many mystic and ascetic spiritual traditions thrived which were pre-Vedic .
One of the earliest recorded use of the word Śramaṇa, in the sense of a mendicant, is in verse 4.3.22 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad composed by about the 8th century BCE.
The concept of renunciation and monk-like lifestyle is found in Vedic literature, with terms such as yatis, rishis, and śramaṇas. Early Vedic literature from about 1000 BCE, mentions Muni (मुनि, monks, mendicants, holy man), with characteristics that mirror those of Sramanas. Rig Veda, for example, in Book 10 Chapter 136, mentions mendicants as those with Kesin (केशिन्, long haired) and Mala clothes (मल, dirty, soil-colored, yellow, orange, saffron) engaged in the affairs of Mananat (mind, meditation).
Rigveda, however, refers to these people as Muni and Vati (वति, monks who beg).
केश्यग्निं केशी विषं केशी बिभर्ति रोदसी । केशी विश्वं स्वर्दृशे केशीदं ज्योतिरुच्यते ॥१॥
मुनयो वातरशनाः पिशङ्गा वसते मला । वातस्यानु ध्राजिं यन्ति यद्देवासो अविक्षत ॥२॥
He with the long loose locks (of hair) supports Agni, and moisture, heaven, and earth; He is all sky to look upon: he with long hair is called this light.
The Munis, girdled with the wind, wear garments of soil hue; They, following the wind's swift course, go where the Gods have gone before.
— Rig Veda, Hymn 10.136.1-2
The Śramaṇa movements arose in the same circles of mendicants in ancient India that led to the development of Yogic practices, as well as the popular concepts in all major Indian religions such as saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death) and moksha (liberation from that cycle).
The Śramaṇic traditions have a diverse range of beliefs, ranging from accepting or denying the concept of soul, fatalism to free will, idealization of extreme asceticism to that of family life, wearing dress to complete nudity in daily social life, strict ahimsa (non-violence) and vegetarianism to permissibility of violence and meat-eating.
Buddhist commentaries associate the word's etymology with the quieting (samita) of evil (pāpa) as in the following phrase from the 3rd century BCE Dhammapada, verse 265: samitattā pāpānaŋ ʻsamaṇoʼ ti pavuccati ("someone who has pacified evil is called samaṇa").
The word śramaṇa is postulated to be derived from the verbal root śram, meaning "to exert effort, labor or to perform austerity".
The śramaṇa refers to a variety of renunciate ascetic traditions from the middle of the 1st millennium BCE.The Shramanas were individual, experiential and free-form traditions.
The term "Śramaṇas" is used some Indian texts to contrast them with "Brahmins" in terms of the their religious models.
Part of the Śramaṇa tradition retained their distinct identity from Hinduism by rejecting the epistemic authority of the Vedas, while a part of the Śramaṇa tradition became part of Hinduism as one stage in the Ashrama dharma, that is as renunciate sannyasins.
Sanātana Dharma (Devanagari: सनातन धर्म meaning "eternal dharma" or "eternal order") has been proposed as an alternative, "native" name for Hinduism (Hindi Hindu Dharm हिन्दू धर्म) "Hindu religion".
The term was mentioned and explained in depth in Vedic literature (Rig Veda) (4-138) and was used during the Hindu revivalism movement in order to avoid having to use the term "Hindu" which is of non-native (Persian) origin.
In current-day usage, the term Sanatana Dharma is used to emphasize an "orthodox" or sanatani ("eternalist") outlook in contrast to the socio-political Hinduism embraced by movements such as the Arya Samaj.
The phrase dharma sanātana does occur in classical Sanskrit literature, e.g. in the Manusmrti (4-138) and in the Bhagavata Purana, in a sense akin to "cosmic order".
Dharma ([dʱəɾmə]; Sanskrit: धर्म dharma, Pali: धम्म dhamma; Tamil: அறம் Aram) is a key concept with multiple meanings in the Indian religions Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. There is no single word translation for dharma in western languages.
In Hinduism, dharma signifies behaviors that are considered to be in accord with rta, the order that makes life and universe possible, and includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and ‘‘right way of living’’.
In Buddhism dharma means "cosmic law and order", but is also applied to the teachings of the Buddha.In Buddhist philosophy, dhamma/dharma is also the term for "phenomena".
In Jainism dharma refers to the teachings of the Jinas and the body of doctrine pertaining to the purification and moral transformation of human beings. For Sikhs, the word dharm means the "path of righteousness".
The Classical Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, which has a meaning of "to hold, maintain, keep".
The word "dharma" was already in use in the historical Vedic religion, and its meaning and conceptual scope has evolved over several millennia.The antonym of dharma is adharma.
In the Rigveda, the word appears as an n-stem, dhárman-, with a range of meanings encompassing "something established or firm" (in the literal sense of prods or poles). Figuratively, it means "sustainer" and "supporter" (of deities). It is semantically similar to the Greek ethos ("fixed decree, statute, law"). In Classical Sanskrit, the noun becomes thematic: dharma-.
According to the authoritative book History of Dharmasastra, in the hymns of the Rigveda the word Dharma appears at least fifty-six times, as an adjective or noun. According to Paul Horsch, the word Dharma has its origin in the myths of Vedic Hinduism.
The Brahman (whom all the gods make up), claim the hymns of the Rig Veda, created the universe from chaos, they hold (dhar-) the earth and sun and stars apart, they support (dhar-) the sky away and distinct from earth, and they stabilize (dhar-) the quaking mountains and plains.
The gods, mainly Indra, then deliver and hold order from disorder, harmony from chaos, stability from instability - actions recited in the Veda with the root of word dharma.
In hymns composed after the mythological verses, the word dharma takes expanded meaning as a cosmic principle and appears in verses independent of gods. It evolves into a concept, claims Paul Horsch, that has a dynamic functional sense in Atharvaveda for example, where it becomes the cosmic law that links cause and effect through a subject. Dharma, in these ancient texts, also takes a ritual meaning.
The ritual is connected to the cosmic, and ‘‘dharmani’’ is equated to ceremonial devotion to the principles that gods used to create order from disorder, the world from chaos.
Past the ritual and cosmic sense of dharma that link the current world to mythical universe, the concept extends to ethical-social sense that links human beings to each other and to other life forms. It is here that dharma as a concept of law emerges in Hinduism.
धर्मः तस्माद्धर्मात् परं नास्त्य् अथो अबलीयान् बलीयाँसमाशँसते धर्मेण यथा राज्ञैवम् ।
यो वै स धर्मः सत्यं वै तत् तस्मात्सत्यं वदन्तमाहुर् धर्मं वदतीति धर्मं वा वदन्तँ सत्यं वदतीत्य् एतद्ध्येवैतदुभयं भवति ।।
Nothing is higher than Dharma. The weak overcomes the stronger by Dharma, as over a king. Truly that Dharma is the Truth (Satya); Therefore, when a man speaks the Truth, they say, "He speaks the Dharma"; and if he speaks Dharma, they say, "He speaks the Truth!" For both are one.
— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 1.4.xiv
In Hinduism, a sampradaya can be translated as ‘tradition’ or a ‘religious system’. It relates to a succession of masters and disciples, which serves as a spiritual channel, and provides a delicate network of relationships that lends stability to a religious identity.
Sampradaya is a body of practice, views and attitudes, which are transmitted, redefined and reviewed by each successive generation of followers. Participation in sampradaya forces continuity with the past, or tradition, but at the same time provides a platform for change from within the community of practitioners of this particular traditional group.
A particular guru lineage is called parampara. By receiving diksha (initiation) into the parampara of a living guru, one belongs to its proper sampradaya. One cannot become a member by birth, as is the case with gotra, a seminal, or hereditary, dynasty.
Nevertheless, there are also examples of teachers who were not initiated into a sampradaya, Ramana Maharshi being a well-known example.
A sannyasin belonging to the Sringeri Sharada Peetham once tried to persuade Ramana to be initiated into sannyasa, but Ramana refused.
The word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit word Sindhu, the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent (modern day Pakistan and Northern India).
According to Gavin Flood, "The actual term 'Hindu' first occurs as a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu)", more specifically in the 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I (550–486 BCE).
The term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is a geographical term and did not refer to a religion.Among the earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text Record of the Western Regions by Xuanzang, and 14th-century Persian text Futuhu's-salatin by 'Abd al-Malik Isami.
Thapar states that the word Hindu is found as heptahindu in Avesta – equivalent to Rigvedic sapta sindhu, while hndstn (pronounced Hindustan) is found in a Sasanian inscription from the 3rd century CE, both of which refer to parts of northwestern South Asia.
The Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus.This Arabic term was itself taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū, which refers to all Indians.
By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as a popular alternative name of India, meaning the "land of Hindus".
The term Hindu was later used occasionally in some Sanskrit texts such as the later Rajataranginis of Kashmir (Hinduka, c. 1450) and some 16th- to 18th-century Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts including Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagavata.
These texts used it to contrast Hindus from Muslims who are called Yavanas (foreigners) or Mlecchas (barbarians), with the 16th-century Chaitanya Charitamrita text and the 17th century Bhakta Mala text using the phrase "Hindu dharma".
It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th-century to denote the religious, philosophical, and cultural traditions native to India.
Hinduism includes a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but has no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist.
The religion "defies our desire to define and categorize it". Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and "a way of life."
From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion. In India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the western term "religion". Hindu traditionalists prefer to call it Sanatana Dharma (the eternal or ancient dharma).
Hindutva, or "Hinduness", a term coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923, is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The Bharatiya Janata Party adopted it as its official ideology in 1989. It is championed by the Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliate organisations, notably the Vishva Hindu Parishad, along with the older term Hindu Rashtra .
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, an Indian independence movement activist interned in Ratnagiri prison in the 1920s, sought to disassociate the term Hindu from Hinduism.
His tract, Essentials of Hindutva, better known under the later title Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?, defined a Hindu as one who was born of Hindu parents and regarded India as his motherland as well as holy land. The three essentials of Hindutva were said to be the common nation (rashtra), common race (jati) and common culture/civilisation (sanskriti).
Hindus thus defined formed a nation that had existed since antiquity, Savarkar claimed, in opposition to the British view that India was just a geographical entity.
This notion of Hindutva formed the foundation for Savarkar's Hindu nationalism, which included in its fold the followers of all Indian religions including Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, but excluded the followers of "foreign religions" such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
Savarkar's formulation of Hinduness was regarded in his time as akin to a scientific discovery, a "revelation".
K. B. Hedgewar, another Indian independence activist in Nagpur, who was concerned with the perceived weaknesses of the Hindu society against foreign domination, found Savarkar's Hindutva inspirational.
He visited Savarkar in Ratnagiri in March 1925 and discussed with him methods for organising the Hindu nation.
In September that year, he started Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Society) with this mission. However, the term Hindutva was not used to describe the ideology of the new organisation; it was Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation). . The official constitution of the RSS, adopted in 1948, used the phrase "Hindu Samaj" (Hindu Society).
In the words of an RSS publication, "it became evident that Hindus were the nation in Bharat and that Hindutva was Rashtriyatva .
Both the terms "Hindutva" and "Hindu Rashtra" were used liberally in the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, a party Savarkar became the president of in 1937. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who served as its President in 1944 and joined the Jawaharlal Nehru Cabinet after Independence, was a Hindu traditionalist politician who wanted to uphold Hindu values but not necessarily to the exclusion of other communities.
He asked for the membership of Hindu Mahasabha to be thrown open to all communities. When this was not accepted, he resigned from the party and founded a new political party in collaboration with the RSS. He understood Hinduism as a nationality rather than a community but, realising that this is not the common understanding of the term "Hindu," he chose "Bharatiya" instead of "Hindu" to name the new party, which came to be called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.
Thus, yet another term "Bharatiya" came into parlance with rough resemblance to Hindutva, which continues to be used in the successor party Bharatiya Janata Party to this day.
According to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Hindutva is an inclusive term of everything Indic. He said:
Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with the other cognate term Hinduism, but a history in full. Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva. ... Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole Being of our Hindu race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampradaya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San%C4%81tan%C4%AB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Arama%E1%B9%87a
No comments:
Post a Comment