Daily Times

I lived most of my life with misconceptions about different religions and sects, but since I got back from Hajj some 10 years ago, I have spent most of my time reading about misconceptions and unanswered questions.

May I take your permission to clear the misconceptions about Hinduism; it may help to respect people without judging their religious beliefs. I always believed as I was told that Hindus don’t believe in one God, they worship idols but God, this is why Muslims are not allowed to consume food cooked by Hindus. There are thus many more misconceptions about Hinduism.

Hindu simply meant the people beyond the River Sindhu, or Indus. The word Hindu didn’t exist in any Indian language till its use by foreigners gave Indians a term for self-definition. It embraces a range of doctrines and practices, from pantheism to agnosticism and religious belief in reincarnation to belief in cast system. But there are no compulsory dogmas in Hinduism.

A religion with no single sacred book but many. Hinduism believes that there are various ways of reaching the ultimate truth. Hinduism recognizes that the truth is plural, that there is no one correct answers to the big question of creation. Hinduism manifests no desire to universalise itself. The central thing about Hinduism is that it is a religion without fundamentals. But Hinduism as a religion without fundamentals; no oracle, no founder, no compulsory beliefs, no single sacred book. A Catholic is a Catholic because he believes Jesus was the Son of the God, and in the conceptions of virgin birth. A Muslim must believe that there is no God but God and Muhammad is his Prophet. A Jew cherishes his Torah; simply there is no Hindu equivalent to any of these beliefs.

In Hinduism, Brahman connotes the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality in the cosmos. In major schools of Hindu philosophical system, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists

The Bible holds the words; I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Quran declares that there is no God but God and Muhammad his Prophet, denying unbelievers all possibility of salvation. Hinduism maintains that all ways of belief are equally valid. Hinduism incorporates almost all varieties of belief and worship within it, there is no need to choose or reject others.

The Hindu thought of God is both simpler and more complicated. God to Hindu is everywhere, a bearing and an absence, within us and outside us. God transcends both time and distance. God has no beginning and no end, but equally has no form and no form. God can thus be imagined, since there in nowhere that God is not, and nowhere that God cannot be. The most eminent form of God is the Brahman, the Absolute, the Universal soul that suffuses all creations.

In Hinduism, Brahman connotes the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality in the cosmos. In major schools of Hindu philosophical system, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists. It is the pervasive, genderless, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes. Brahman as a metaphysical concept is the single binding unity behind diversity in all that subsists in the universe.

A Sadhu or Sage is a religious ascetic, any holy person in Hinduism who has renounced the worldly spirit. It literally means one who keenly follows a course of spiritual discipline. The Sadhu is solely devoted to achieving liberation, through meditation and contemplation of Brahman.

In the beginning everything was Brahman. He was One, and infinitive; infinitive in the East, in the South, in the West, infinitive in the North, above and below and everywhere infinite. In Hindu thought, the universe has no beginning and no end, but only experiences endless repetitive cycle of time.

At some stage of time the Sages realised that it would be difficult for the average human being to encompass. The Brahman was a philosophical concept at the essence of Hinduism, but people needed to worship something they could imagine and visualise. Hence the thought of Brahman, the Absolute given form, qualities and attributes, also known as Ishwar or Bhagavan. Ishwar is the best translation of God in the Christian religion and Allah in Muslim faith. Only the Hindu Ishwar takes multiple forms; there is the trinity of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver), and Shiva (the Destroyer), all different manifestations of the God Principle, and their myriad manifestations, plus their consorts and companions, who may all be worshipped depending on the preferences of the devotee. The avatar or companion doctrine under which these gods manifested themselves in different recognisable human-like forms, such as Ram or Krishna. The unknowable Brahman, after all, becomes the more knowable when it assumes human form as an avatara; the abstraction of Hindu philosophic thought becomes more accessible in the form of a recognisable figure.

Some speak simplistically of the holy triad of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva as three separate gods, but all three are in fact three sides of on complex being; the perfect personality. Hinduism, therefore, has given birth to symbolic representation to images, varying according to the specific divine form and further according to the character in which that divinity is depicted, whether at a peaceful moment or in an attack upon evil.

The Brahma, the almighty, is always shown with four heads, facing all four directions, as befits the Creator of the universe; he holds the Vedas in his hand, a prayer vessel beside him, and sits on a lotus, since it remains pure and unsoiled by the mud and dirt from which it emerges. His consort is Sarasvati, goddess of learning and wisdom, holding the musical instrument, symbolising the music of the world, the inner sound of Om from which the universe emerged. She has rosary beads in one hand to signify the importance of prayer and meditation. She also sits on a lotus, but sometimes on a peacock, a symbol of the ego that should be supressed in the pursuit of true knowledge.

Hinduism cannot entirely be absolved of gender bias, but its reverence for the female principle in the godhead is exemplary. The goddess in the form of Shakti, which means strength, the ability of the life force that creates, nurtures, sustains and also destroys the world. The goddess is seen as a source of energy, without which the male aspect of the godhead would be ineffectual. As Sarasvati she embodies learning; as Lakshmi, wealth and prosperity. As Kamakashi or Rajarajeshwari, she is the Great Mother. As Durga, she rides a tiger, carrying weapons to fight the eight evils of humankind; greed, hate, envy, contempt for others, passion, vanity, jealousy and illusion. In her most frightening form she is Kali, the personification of time, dark, angry and armed, her body dripping with blood, wearing the skulls of her victims.

Hindus therefore understand that all worship of God reflects an attempt to reach out to that which cannot be touched or seen; since God is, in that sense, literally unknowable, one may imagine Him/Her/It in any form, since each form may be just as valid as another and none can be guaranteed to be more accurate than the next one. Hinduism is not reduced to the Bhagavad Gita, or any single holy book. Hinduism is not a definite dogmatic creed, but a huge complex, subtly unified mass of spiritual thought and realisation.

I hope sanity prevails in this world and we learn to respect all religions.

The writer is a traveller and freelance