Hinduism: A Short History (2 page)

History writing in a more narrow sense is not unknown to India: the Buddhists chronicled the progress of their missions,
⁶
and the famous
Rājatarangiṇī
documents several centuries of Kashmir’s history. The Upanisads maintained lists of
guru-paraṃparās
, containing scores of genealogies of teacher-disciple successions. But they give no dates and no references that allow precise dating by comparison with historic figures or events elsewhere. The Purāṇas contain many lists of dynasties and attempts have been made to identify these names and to relate them to datable rulers outside India and to historic events.
⁷
There are
Digvijayas
, records of the encounters of great teachers with their opponents, temple-chronicles, like the
Koil Olugu
, that faithfully describes the history of Śrīraṅgam, and undoubtedly there are still many undiscovered manuscripts with historical information on many persons and places in India.

However, history in the modern sense, a chronological write-up of past events, the recording of “facts, nothing but facts,” was never popular with Hindus.
⁸
They were seeking meaning in their religious texts, not résumés of past events. Mahatma Gandhi once said, when doubts about the historicity of the person of Jesus were expressed, that even if it should be proven that Jesus never lived, the Sermon on the Mount would still be true for him.

Until recently Hindus had found it rather unnecessary to prove the historicity of
avatāras
like Rāma and Kṛṣṇa. Should endeavors of recent Hindu scholarship to find such proof be successful, that would probably not change anything for those who had always considered Rāma and Kṛṣṇa manifestations of the divine, their teaching a revelation, and their myths profoundly symbolically meaningful. It might, however, fuel competition between Hinduism and Christianity, pitting a historical Rāma and Kṛṣṇa against a historical Christ, and possibly worshipers of the one against worshipers of the other in an attempt to prove one to be the “only true god.”

On a philosophical level, Hindus always made a distinction between appearance and reality, rating the waking consciousness, in which we note “facts,” lower in comparison to other states of awareness, in which we note “ideas.” Hinduism is a state of mind rather than an assembly of facts or a chronological sequence of events. The re-interpretations of scriptural texts, which Hindu
ācāryas
have undertaken throughout the ages, and the freedom with which contemporary Hindu teachers modify traditional teachings and modernize ancient symbolisms, should caution us not to expect much enlightenment concerning the essentials of Hinduism from a “history of Hinduism” in the modern sense.

Most Hindus believe that the series of events which we call “history” repeats itself endlessly in a never-ending cycle. It is quite significant that some major Hindu schools of thought identify this self-repeating factual world
(saṃsāra)
with
māyā
(deception), or
avidyā
(ignorance). A kind of “higher ignorance” can well be assumed to be the basis of a “history” that is content with documenting appearances and describing surface events.

One of the favorite images in South Indian Vaiṣṇava temples shows Viṣṇu resting on
śeṣa
, the coiled up world-snake representing eternity. The philosophy associated with this image opens up a new horizon for the philosophy of history; there is not only one human history and one universe, there are – in succession – many universes and many histories rolled up underneath the deity! What would be the meaning of these, in their totality, and what would be the purpose of the many universes?

A HISTORY OF HINDUISM?

In the light of the foregoing, it appears that history in the modern sense may not be the best approach to understand Hinduism. That point can also be proven by examining attempts to write histories of Hinduism. A history of Hinduism does not work as a history of Christianity or even a history of Buddhism works for understanding the content of these traditions. In Hinduism the momentous event of a foundation at one point in time, the initial splash in the water, from which concentric circles expand to cover an ever-wider part of the total surface, is absent. The waves that carried Hinduism to a great many shores are not connected to a central historic fact nor to a common historic movement.

The idea of a “History of Hinduism,” short or long, is almost a contradiction in terms. Hindus call their tradition
sanātana dharma
, the eternal law, and everything of religious importance is termed
anādi
, beginningless. Hinduism has never consciously given up anything of its large heritage that accumulated over the centuries. It appropriated many ideas and practices from many quarters, brought forth many creative minds, developed a large number of traditions that differ from each other in many respects but which collectively form what became known as “Hinduism.”

Given all the discussion about “Hinduism” and the fact that the word “Hindu” has become a loaded term in today’s India as well as in Indological writing, a clarification may be appropriate before setting out to introduce the reader to this short history of Hinduism. The term Hinduism has been fully accepted by today’s “Hindus” and is hardly replaceable by any other designation to describe the religious culture of the majority of the inhabitants of India. The acceptance of the term Hindu by the adherents of this tradition makes it advisable to apply it when dealing with their beliefs and customs. While an extension of the term Hinduism to the earliest sources of the Hindu tradition is clearly an extrapolation, it appears justifiable. There are, after all, historical parallels that have been accepted unquestioningly by scholars and the general public alike.
⁹

There is little justification for the divisions found in much western scholarly writing between “Vedism,” “Brahmanism,” and “Hinduism.” If the term “Hinduism” is found problematic in connection with the Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, which certainly do not use the term, it is equally problematic in its application to the Epics and the Purāṇas, who do not use it either. Inversely, today’s Hindus call their living religious traditions “vedic,” defining “Hinduism” as
vaidika dharma
, and making acceptance of the Veda as scripture the criterion of “orthodoxy.” It would hardly find the approval of those who are critical of the term “Hinduism” to replace it by “Vedic Religion.”

In this book “Hinduism” is used as an umbrella designation for all traditions that declare allegiance to the Veda, however tenuous the actual connection with that body of writing might be, and however old or recent the particular branch might be. While speaking of “Hinduism,” without qualifying the term each time by a hundred caveats, it will also be made quite clear that Hinduism is not one homogeneous “religion” (in the biblical sense) but a “family of religions,” a vast and heterogenous tradition without a common leader, a common center or a common body of teachings.
¹⁰

Hinduism has continually been developing new expressions. It has aptly been compared to a Banyan tree that constantly sends forth new shoots that develop into trunks from which other roots originate to form other trunks, and so forth. The Banyan tree simile not only illustrates the diversity but also the interconnectedness of the countless forms under which “Hinduism” appears. While Hinduism may be lacking a definable doctrinal unity or uniformity in worship and ritual, it surely has a distinct shape of its own when set over against Islām or Christianity.

PROBLEMS IN CONSTRUCTING A HISTORIC SCHEMA OF HINDUISM

In the absence of a general common denominator and of an authoritative institution it is impossible to construct a schema for a history of Hinduism that provides a clear and commonly accepted periodization. While there certainly has been development, and innovation is not unknown to Hinduism, the situation was always complex and not amenable to being fitted into “time lines,” suggesting a progressive movement from a point A in the remote past via a point B in recent history to a point C today.

India has been called a “living museum” and Hinduism is as good an example to demonstrate the truth of this statement as any other facet of Indian culture. Side by side with naked Hindu
sādhus
practicing archaic forms of penance and living a life of utter contempt for comfort and hygiene, there are jet-set Hindu gurus who move among millionaires and surround themselves with every luxury imaginable. One still can see Vedic altars being built in today’s India and observe Vedic sacrifices being offered accompanied by the muttering of Vedic hymns – rites and compositions that may be six thousand or more years old. One can also see temples built in a futuristic style where worshipers offer obeisance to images of still living teachers accompanied by rock music and the latest in electronic sounds. There are Hindus who find their faith best expressed in the theology of medieval masters, and there are Hindus who have rejected everything from the past for the sake of a complete reinterpretation of traditional beliefs.

The periodization offered in the following pages must be taken with more than just a grain of salt. Although Western scholars, since the early nineteenth century, have labored hard to stick labels with historic dates on the written sources of Hinduism, many of these dates are far from established (the dates given by the experts often vary by thousands of years!) and even when and where they are certain, they may be of limited relevance to a history of Hinduism as a whole.

Accepting, hypothetically, the claim made by many Hindus that Hinduism is “vedic,” i.e. based on the collections of books called Veda, we could postulate an initial period of “Vedic religion” that represents the “beginnings” of Hinduism. Apart from the questionable nature of this assumption – there is a counterclaim established by tradition and supported by some scholars, that the Purāṇas are older than the Vedas, and “mainstream Hinduism” alive in Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism, Śāktism, and others contains a large heritage of un-vedic and possibly pre-Vedic beliefs and practices – the problem about dating the “Vedic period” has given rise to one of the most enduring and most hotly conducted scholarly debates of our time, summarized in chapter 3 of this book.

In the so-called post-Vedic period, the development of Hinduism proper, instead of one, there is a multitude of fairly exclusive, frequently intertwining traditions, whose history is difficult to trace, because of many local variants of each. Things are made more complicated through the appropriation of particular philosophical schools by specific religious traditions, the formation of parallel teaching lines, and the emergence of new sects.

ATTEMPTING A PERIODIZATION OF INDIAN HISTORY

In Joseph E. Schwartzberg’s
A Historical Atlas of South Asia
¹¹
the following periodization of the history of India, and within it, the history of Hinduism, is given:

     I.   Prehistory, comprising everything from the early Stone Age to the Indus Civilization (“Harappan Era”).

   II.   The Vedic Age.

  III.   The Age of the Epics (Rāmayāṇa and Mahābhārata).

   IV.   The Pre-Mauryan Age.

    V.   The Mauryas.

  VI.   The Post-Mauryan Period.

 VII.   The Imperial Guptas and the Classical Age.

VIII.   Kingdoms and Regional Cultures of the 8th through the 12th Centuries.

   IX.   The Period of the Delhi Sultanate.

    X.   The Mughal Period.

  XI.   The Contest for Power and the Establishment of British Supremacy 1707–1857 [The only period with precise years given for events and persons mentioned].

 XII.   Imperial India and the growth of National Identity, comprising also the “Indian Renaissance” and Hindu Reform Movements.

XIII.  Post-Independence India.

Jan Gonda, until his death in 1997, was for many decades the acknowledged doyen of European Indology and a prolific writer on many aspects of Hinduism. He contributed two volumes on Hinduism for a comprehensive series on “The Religions of Mankind.”
¹²
His major divisions are as follows:

     I.   Veda and Older Hinduism

1.   Vedic (and Brāhmaṇic) Hinduism

2.   Epic (and Purāṇic) Hinduism

   II.   Younger Hinduism

1.   Major Phases of Post-epic Hinduism

2.   Vaiṣṇavism

3.   Śaivism

4.   Hinduism in the 19th and 20th Centuries

In his Chronology he provides the following dates for the key periods:

2600–1600

B.C.E.

Indus-Civilisation.

From 1200

B.C.E.

Āryan immigration to India: Development of Vedas.

From 600

B.C.E.

The Oldest Upanisads.

c.200

B.C.E.

The Bhagavadgītā.

From 4th century

B.C.E.

to 2nd century

C.E.

Development of Rāmāyaṇa.

From 4th century

B.C.E.

to 4th century

C.E.

Development of Mahābhārata.

From the 2nd to the 6th century

C.E.

Expansion of Hinduism into Southeast Asia.

320

C.E.

to 6th century

C.E.

the Gupta Dynasty.

3rd to 5th centuries

C.E.

Origin of

.

7th century

C.E.

Flowering of Vedānta.

8th century

C.E.

Origin of Saṃhitā literature; Pāñcarātra.

After 7th century

C.E.

Development of

Movements.

7th to 9th centuries

C.E.

Period of Brahmanic Reconstruction.

With great reluctance I am offering my own very tentative periodization of the “History of Hinduism.” Most Western experts will probably object to the first half – its rationale will be provided in the text itself.