At one of our weekly discussions a while back, we touched on the idea that Hinduism may not be a religion. We seem to lack a specific set of instructions, a central text, and a central teacher figure that seem to ground most other religions — if this is the case, can we really call ourselves practitioners of the Hindu religion? As someone brought up during discussion, perhaps “religion” is just a label certain Indians gave themselves in order to conform to to the Western idea of organized religion; perhaps there really is no such thing as the Hindu religion.
The discussion reminded me of a lecture Swami Tyagananda had given on “What Vedanta is Not.” Below, I have summarized the main ideas I got from the lecture.
Swami Vivekananda, once gave a lecture about the three things necessary to make a religion. Here was his analysis:
1. A book — and an identity through the book: In Swamiji’s words, perhaps this identity, conferred on those practicing Judaism, through their reliance on the Torah and Old Testament, is how Jews were able to preserve themselves despite so much persecution over the course of history.
2.A teacher: Most religions derive some authority from human figures through whom truth is revealed. Most religions (except “tribal” religions) have a founder around whom they base their identities- i.e. Buddha for Buddhists, Christ for Christians, Abraham and Moses for Jews, Muhammad for Muslims; they seem to all tie their new ideas back to that founder
3. Sense of Exclusivity: Based on Swami Vivekananda’s lecture, it seems as though most religions either have a clause claiming that “we are right,” (or, in more liberal traditions, the idea that their ideas are right for them, and that regardless of what others do, at least they can rejoice in the fact that they are doing the right thing) or a reliance ethnic exclusivity (i.e. China as the middle kingdowm), or a reliance on teaching exclusivity (based on the idea that “we’ve got possession of the truth.”)
Vedanta, and Hinduism in general, has none of these! More specifically:
1. Book: Upanishads themselves say that it is impossible to get to the inifinite truth solely based on any book. In other words, spiritual knowledge cannot be restricted to a book.
2. Teacher: Vedanta (and Hinduism) has no one person as the founder. The Vedas and Upanishads seem to have been there since prehistoric times; in fact, many of the sages who recorded the Vedas and Upanishads didn’t even write their names! The reason behind this is quite interesting — the idea seems to be that the truths these sages discovered aren’t conditionally true (they aren’t only true because those sages discovered them, just like gravitation isn’t true just because Newton discovered it). These sages didn’t record their names because they simply wrote about universal truths, based on principles.
3. Sense of Exclusivity: Vedanta completely denies the exclusivity of truth. Rather, it embraces the idea that truth is universal, and thus, it cannot be denied to others! Of course, there were periods in history where exclusivity was practiced, but that was a distortion of what Vedanta/Hinduism really taught.
Then, is Vedanta (and Hinduism) really a religion?
In the Vedanta center, Swami Tyagananda explained it like this: religion (with a lowercase ‘r’) is one thing, and therefore, there are many ways to practice it (the Christian way, the Buddhist way, the Muslim way etc). Vedanta/Hinduism has this incredible ability to absorb and amalgamate various aspects of these smaller religions, which allows us to see various religions as just different paths to reach the same truth.
In that sense, perhaps Hinduism is more of an overarching Religion (note the capital ‘R’), one that serves as a lens through which we can view the other paths to reach the same truth. As Swami Tyagananda said,
“By its very nature, Vedanta breaks down the limits of religion, and to point of the principles of Religion itself.”
What do you think? Is Hinduism a religion? Is it a symbol of conformity to Western boundaries? Is it an overarching thought that can serve as a way for us to reconcile the differences among the many religions? What is Hinduism?
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2 Comments
Hi Sonali,
What an interesting question you have posed! Well, I definitely see how Hinduism can be considered not a religion according to Swami Vivekananda’s definition of Hinduism consisting of a book, a teacher and sense of exclusivity. But I do not entirely agree with his definition and find it limited because his definition emphasizes the singularity of each of these three requirements. If we ignore the singularity, then Hinduism can certainly be considered a religion as there are books that beliefs are based off of, and there have historically been many human beings (even relatively ordinary ones) who have assumed roles as teachers of Hinduism. Also, according to Vivekananda’s definition, Hinduism wouldn’t be entirely exclusive as the “we are right” is not a prevalent message. I guess I believe in a much looser definition: that religion is simply a medium for human beings to attain spirituality. There may not be one book or one teacher; there may be many as in Hinduism. Also, I think that religion need not be exclusive; many of the boundaries that have been created are more social than religious. I may even argue that a book and teacher is not necessary as the core of religion to me is simply belief in some form of higher entity or spiritual energy, which one can become closer to by acts of morality; although religious practices are also usually developed.
Finally, I do not think that the use of the term religion is a source of conformity to Western boundaries. Boundaries have been present in India, long before Westerners were there, like in the Mughal period in which certainly Hindu and Muslims understood that they were of different religious beliefs. Although Western influence has heightened religious tension, such as through the partition of India and Pakistan, I do believe that regardless of Western influence, religion has been a concept that has been instilled in society for a while.
It seems to me that understanding the context under which Vivekanda made these “rules” would help us understand the category that Hinduism falls into.
Also, I do agree with the idea that Hinduism is an overarching religion. From what I have learned (and I believe Krishna says this in the Bhagavad Gita) is that all people are considered Hindus. A Christian or Muslim who has reached an understanding of divinity will reach Moksha as much as a Hindu will. This, however, can be a very controversial statement. Like Saketh said in a post very early on, how would we feel if we were told that everybody is inherently Christian?
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