Understanding the Evolution of Hinduism :Defining Hinduism from Gandhian perspectives

Some recent remarks by respected individuals, even those familiar with Hindu traditions, appear casual and lack historical grounding. The word Hindu refers to a religious and cultural tradition that largely developed within the Indian subcontinent. Over centuries, Hinduism has absorbed practices from smaller communities, regional cultures, and different political formations, making it an evolving and layered tradition rather than a fixed one.

Broadly, Hinduism can be understood as consisting of three overlapping strands:

• Ritualistic practices
• Philosophical and spiritual practices
• Socio-cultural practices

Ritualistic Hinduism

In Hindu thought, the very idea of God has been questioned, reimagined, or even set aside at various times. Yet ritual worship has remained a constant feature. For example, in the Rigveda, Rudra (a form of Shiva who came into existence at a later date) is mentioned only twice, and Vishnu appears sparingly in one slokha. Yet today, both are central deities in Hindu worship, while most other Vedic gods are no longer actively worshipped—except in limited Agamic traditions.

This reveals a clear pattern: older gods may fade away, while new deities and practices emerge. The continuity lies not in which gods are worshipped, but in the act of ritual worship itself.

Hinduism has repeatedly absorbed local gods, forms of worship, and practices from across regions. As a result, some older practices were abandoned, while newer ones took root. Even within major traditions like Shaivism and Vaishnavism, there is no single way of worship. Instead, thousands of variations exist, often contradicting one another.

For example:

• Rudra/Bhairava, two fierce forms of Shiva, are associated with rituals that may include animal sacrifice and intoxicants.
• Dakshinamurthy, another form of Shiva, is revered as a teacher and healer, with rituals that are more restrained and ascetic.

These contrasting forms reflect the diversity within ritual practice itself.

Categories of Deities

Traditionally, deities in ritualistic Hinduism have often been grouped into three broad categories, reflecting human qualities:

• Rajasic (active, fierce, destructive)
• Satvic (gentle, sustaining, benevolent)
• Tamasic (dark, wrathful, harmful, or associated with occult practices)

Communities organised their beliefs and practices around one or more of these divine types, shaping their culture and social structures accordingly.

Although Ritualistic Hinduism may have borrowed elements from Vedic rites, its foundations are more closely tied to local cultural units, Adivasi traditions, Tantric practices, as well as influences from Jainism and Buddhism. In fact, it often moved away from classical Vedic rituals, such as yajna, embracing instead temple-based and regional forms of worship.

Why a Single Definition Is Problematic

It is therefore misleading to define Hinduism solely by the worship of a few deities such as Shiva, Vishnu, or Shakti, or by practices like caste. To do so is to ignore the broader and evolving nature of the tradition.

Such simplification would be like denying the existence of Islam because Sunnis and Shias practice it differently, or questioning Christianity’s validity because Catholics and Protestants worship in distinct ways. Hinduism, similarly, is not a monolith but a vast, adaptive, and ever-changing tradition.

note on Caste system

The Brahminical "chaturvarna Hindu caste" system is a categorization of Indian Hindu society into four broader categories. However, within these categories, there are numerous sub-castes, each with its own identity, practices, and power structures. The cultural identities of these sub-castes are so distinct that even inter-community marriages or interactions are prohibited or restricted within the four divisions of chaturvarna. Despite the Brahminical hegemony over the other three divisions, each one of them has hundreds of thousands of sub-castes that discriminate against each other or even marginalize many such sub-castes within their chaturvarna caste category.

However, these discriminatory practices did not originate solely from the Brahminical chaturvarna system. Instead, the chaturvarna system was a later formulation that assimilated pre-existing communities with discriminatory practices and a social hierarchy already in place within the society. Therefore, the discriminatory social practices of the Hindu society are much deeper and more complicated than the mere chaturvarna system of Brahminical hegemony.

 Ambedkar and Gandhi had a showdown on the Poona pact regarding constituency reservation. However, later on, Ambedkar encountered ruptures and discrimination within the oppressed communities that made him realize that challenging the Brahminical hegemony-led chaturvarna system alone was not enough for the upliftment of the downtrodden. Instead, the entire social structure of the Hindu society had to be abandoned for a new egalitarian social system.

 Ambedkar found possibilities for this in Buddhism, which already had wider traction in the country in terms of its existence and democratic religious structure. By discarding the entire Hindu community structure in favor of Buddhism, Ambedkar believed that caste hierarchy among the oppressed class might not be a possibility. It is worth noting that his interpretation of Buddhism was not the Buddhism of the period.

 In conclusion, the Brahminical chaturvarna system is just a broader categorization of Indian Hindu society. The sub-castes within the four divisions of chaturvarna discriminate against each other and even marginalize some sub-castes. Discriminatory practices did not originate solely from the chaturvarna system but were pre-existing within the society. Ambedkar abandoned the entire Hindu community structure in favor of Buddhism, believing that it might offer an egalitarian social system. However, his interpretation of Buddhism was not the Buddhism of the period.

The image of a God is what Islam misses.

The Renaissance not only taught Europe the profitability of travel and trade but also unleashed the violence of colonization upon the earth and its civilizations. As businessmen embarked on their conquests, they carried the cross, symbolizing their faith, to the lands they conquered. Centuries earlier, Islamic businessmen had been on similar missions. However, a notable difference emerged in the processes of these two colonizations and the violence associated with trade. Europeans, with a sympathetic image of Crucified Jesus, used it to conceal the memories of their violence, while the Islamic invaders, lacking an image of their God, Allah, left behind lasting memories of gruesome violence and destruction wherever they went. Throughout human history, trade and greed have caused immense tragedies, often veiled by religious justifications. Visual narratives played a pivotal role in the war of propaganda, where those with an image of a compassionate and empathetic God successfully swayed public opinion in their favor. In contrast, those without such an image struggled to conceal their crimes. By using a crucified Jesus as their facade, Christianity fashioned itself as a religion of compassion, making its traders appear relatively less sinister. On the other hand, Islam's prohibition on depicting God led to a loss in the game of perception, with images of violence and destruction becoming ingrained in the memory of Islamic invaders. This pattern of using images as facades extends beyond Christianity and Islam to Hinduism and its traders. Images play various roles, evoking emotions and attracting different groups. From images depicting the Childhood of the Gods to evoke motherly and paternal love, to images of God's family to evoke a sense of responsibility and social structure, each has a purpose. Additionally, images portraying interactions between male and female love and sacrifice attract young adults, while prophetic saviour postures confirm the holiness and larger-than-life stature of the Gods. Images of animals with the Gods tell stories of compassion for animal lovers, while images of singing, dancing, and playing Gods create a sense of ease in the association. Lastly, images of tragedy or meditation invoke sympathy, peace, or sacrifice, reaffirming responsibility, God's grace, and worship. These images are not arbitrary but carefully chosen, funded, created, and promoted as facades for business purposes. Throughout history, faith has proven to be an effective icebreaker to intrude into societies, fostering easy associations and lasting bonds. Additionally, it serves as a cover for guilt and crime, as penance and repentance are integral facets of every religion. Regarding images of consensus manufacturing, Judaism, like Islam, lacks images of Gods to cover up their deeds. Instead, they have faced challenges using images of one of the worst human atrocities, like the Holocaust, for similar purposes. These haunting images hold symbolic power, akin to the crucified Jesus, meditating Shiva, Buddha, Mahavira, or flute-playing Krishna next to a cow and calf. In conclusion, in the game of perception and consensus manufacturing, Islam needs to consider flexibility and allow an image of its God. Without such adaptation, it risks losing the battle of perception among other religious communities and, particularly in the age of information dissemination, among its own members. While the rest of the world's businessmen project compassionate, merciful, and tragic images of their deities, Islam may inadvertently leave space for images of barbarism, violence, and terrorism to dominate. Instead of blaming Islamophobia, addressing the absence of a compassionate image of their God becomes crucial for reshaping public perception and understanding. Until Islam embraces this need, it may be remembered for the actions of figures like bin Laden, Mullah Omar, ISIS, and the Taliban whenever its name is mentioned.

advaita

 part-3

The second set of Hindu society is the one that follows philosophical schools and spiritualism. Unlike the Ritualist Hindus, this segment of Hindu society places a higher value on cognition above ritualistic practice. For them, the text is valued for its meaning and content than for its rendition value. They attributed a higher value to the meaning of possessing and experiencing worldly possessions than actual possessions. In the process, while ritualists pray to their God for material benefits and favours, the Philosophical and spiritual Hindu, uses logic, reason and analysis to gain a meta-cognition of reality. They assume value as a cognition that is independent of reality. In simple terms, they argue, the written words coming out of a pencil have nothing to do with the pencil, it emanates from the individual mind that using the pencil. So, they follow the path of searching for the author of the text than stopping at the pencil. In other words, unlike the first category of worshippers who worship God in the visible world, the second category believed that the visible world is only a story written by God and seen by us as the visible and tactile material world. As an author, the actual God lies beyond them. To unravel this God requires human effort with an approach of logical and analytical reasoning of the text to understand the material world, and thereby the discovery of the God, who wrote that story of the visible and tactile world.

They argued

-God doesn't exist in the visible and physical world. Like in the case of a story, the author doesn't exist in the story. The author exists outside.

-So, one set of schools of thought, for instance, Advaitis argued that there is no point in searching for God in the material world as it doesn't reside in it.

-Hence, worshipping in the material world through prayers to a non-existing God in there has no meaning.

-Like in the case of written story, the author manifests in the text through their construct of language, grammar and methods, God manifest in the world through its order of construct than the world itself

-So, instead of praying, one should study the grammar and structure of the world to discover God.

-It is an indirect method by the application of knowledge-logical analysis.

-If one makes any mistake in that logical analysis, one would also make a mistake in his understanding. So, the parameters of true knowledge are important. In other words, not only knowledge is important, but it also has to be uncorrupted knowledge by its means and methods.

-So, they stipulated a strict regime of education to inculcate that uncorrupted knowledge.

-Further, they argued, unlike the worshipping community assumes, there are no separate Gods that exist for one purpose or the other. As in the case of stories, one author alone can write many stories. So, there is only one God who exists as the author of many constructs of this universe.

-Since this Author God is single, there can not be a comparison in terms of qualifying traits, habits or performance for that God. So, we can not attribute our comparable qualifications of traits and habits of performance to that single entity. It has to be un-qualifiable by our standards of the benchmark. As far as we are concerned, it has to be nirguna.

-Also, like in the case of writing, where the story doesn't exist in the pencil, it is an illusion to believe the drama of life is coming from the materiality of this world. There is an author behind it and a mind.

In totality, Advaita Vedantic completely rejects the first category of Hindu society, their practice, culture and their Gods.

ഒരൊറ്റപ്പെടുന്നവരുടെ ലോകമാണവരുടേത്.

 ഞാൻ ജീവിച്ച നഗരങ്ങളിൽ നിന്നെല്ലാം കേട്ടിട്ടുള്ളതാണ്, നഗരങ്ങളിൽ വന്നാൽ ബന്ധുക്കളിൽ നിന്നും നാട്ടുകാരിൽ നിന്നും ഉള്ള ഒരു രക്ഷപെടലിനെക്കുറിച്ച്. തന്റെ കഴിവും കഴിവുകേടുകളും ആരും അറിയില്ലല്ലോ എന്ന സമാധാനമാണ് എല്ലാവരും അതിനു പറയുന്ന ന്യായീകരണം. എങ്കിലും ഒന്ന് കൈ നീട്ടിയാൽ, കാലു നീട്ടിയാൽ അപരനെ തട്ടി തടയുന്നത്ര ജനപ്രവാഹമൊഴുകുന്ന ഇന്ത്യയിലെ തെരുവിലാരായുന്ന ഈ ഒറ്റപ്പെടൽ ഒരിക്കലും അന്ന്യം നിന്നുപോകലല്ല. മനുഷ്യരെന്നും ചുറ്റിലുണ്ട്. ഒരു വിളിപ്പാടകലെ ഒരു കൈത്താങ്ങിന് ആരൊക്കെയോ ഉള്ളത് പോലെ ഒരു തോന്നലെന്നും ബാക്കിയുണ്ട്. എന്നാൽ ജീവിതം കെട്ടിപ്പടുത്താൻ ഗൾഫ് രാജ്യങ്ങളല്ലാത്ത വിദേശരാജ്യങ്ങളിൽ അഭയം തേടുന്ന ഒട്ടുമുക്കാലും ഇന്ത്യക്കാരുടെയും കാര്യമതല്ല. ഒരൊറ്റപ്പെടുന്നവരുടെ ലോകമാണവരുടേത്.

ഒഴിഞ്ഞ തെരുവുകളിൽ

ഒറ്റപ്പെട്ട കോളോണികളിൽ

തന്റെ അയൽവാസികളായ വെള്ളക്കാരോടോ കറുത്തവരോടോ സാംസ്കാരികമായിടപെടാൻ കഴിയാതെ, നേടെണ്ട ഗ്രീൻ കാർഡിനെയോ പി ആറിനേയോ ഭയന്ന് , കേവലം "ഒഫീഷ്യലായുള്ള -മാറ്റർ ഓഫ് ദി ഫാക്ട് " ബന്ധങ്ങളും വർഷത്തിലൊരിക്കലോ രണ്ടുവട്ടമോ പോകുന്ന യാത്രകളിലെ ഫോട്ടോആഘോഷങ്ങളിലും ഒതുങ്ങുന്ന ഒറ്റപ്പെടലുകളാണ് യൂറോപ്പിലെയും അമേരിക്കയിലെയും ഒട്ടു മിക്ക ഇന്ത്യക്കാരുടെയും ജീവിതങ്ങൾ.

ലോകപ്രശസ്തമായ ഒരു യൂറോപ്യൻ ശാസ്ത്ര സംഘടനയിൽ വലിയ നിലയിലുള്ള എന്റെ സുഹൃത്തിന്റെ ഇമെയിൽ എനിക്ക് കിട്ടിയതിലിങ്ങനെ എഴുതിയിട്ടുണ്ട് "ജനാലയ്ക്കു പുറത്തു തണുപ്പ് നിറഞ്ഞു തുടങ്ങി. അതിനുമെത്രയോ മുന്നിൽ തണുത്തു മരവിച്ചു പോയ മനസ്സിന് അതെല്ലാം ഇനിയെത്ര കാര്യമൊന്നുമല്ല. പണ്ട് ചെറുപ്പത്തിൽ അന്പലപ്പറന്പിൽ നാളെയെന്തെന്നറിയാതെ ആരുമടുത്തില്ലാതെ സന്ധ്യാ സമയത്ത് മലർന്നു കിടക്കുന്പോൾ ഒരൊറ്റപ്പെടലുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. എന്നാലിന്നത്തെയെന്റെ ഒറ്റപ്പെടലിന്റെ മുന്നിൽ അതൊക്കെ സ്വർഗ്ഗമായിരുന്നു. ഈ കഴിഞ്ഞ മുപ്പതുകൊല്ലത്തിനുള്ളിൽ പ്രൊഫഷണൽ ബന്ധങ്ങളല്ലാതെ നാട്ടിലെനിക്കാരെയുമറിയില്ല. ഇവിടെയും. എല്ലായിടത്തും ഞാൻ അന്യപ്പെട്ടുകഴിഞ്ഞു. വേണ്ടിയിരുന്നില്ലെടാ ഒന്നും. നിന്നെപ്പോലെയൊക്കെ അവിടെയെന്തെങ്കിലും ചെറിയ ജോലിയൊക്കെ ചെയ്തു ജീവിച്ചാൽ മതിയായിരുന്നു. മരിക്കുന്പോൾ അമ്മയെ കാണാൻ കൂടി കഴിഞ്ഞിട്ടില്ല എനിക്ക്."

എന്ത് തിരിച്ചെഴുതുമെന്നറിയാതെ ആ മെയിൽ ഇപ്പോഴും അവിടെ മറുപടിയില്ലാതെ കിടപ്പുണ്ട്. ഒരു വിളിപ്പാടകലെയുള്ള അച്ഛനേയുംഅമ്മയെയും കാണാൻ പോകാത്ത മക്കളും കൂടിയുള്ള നാടാണെങ്കിലും ഇവിടെ മനുഷ്യർ ഒറ്റപ്പെട്ടാലും അന്ന്യം നിന്ന് പോകാറില്ലെന്ന അവന്റെ ദുഃഖത്തിനോട് ഞാൻ എന്ത് മറുപടിയെഴുതാൻ !