Hinduism: A Short History (4 page)

With the development of popular
bhakti
movements, which replaced much of traditional Brahminism and its ritual, compositions in the vernaculars of India also became part of religious ritual. The Hindī re-creation of the
Rāmāyaṇa
, Tulsīdāsa’s
Rāmcaritmānas
all but eclipsed Vālmīki’s Sanskrit original and the inspired poetry of singers in many tongues became the preferred hymns sung by groups of devotees meeting for
bhajan
singing. The religious literature created by hundreds of saint-singers is enormous.
¹⁸

In addition, contemporary leaders and poets add to the volume. For the devotees of a particular guru his or her words are usually inspired and worth recording and repeating. Thus the recorded conversations of saints like Rāmakrishna Paramahaṃsa, Ramaṇa Maharṣi, Ānandamayī Mā, and many others are treated as “Gospels” by their followers and read out in religious gatherings. There is, quite literally, no end to producing ever more religious literature and there is no hope that any single person could read all of it.

NOTES

1.

   “Indian Islam” did develop some peculiarities that were frowned upon by Islamic authorities elsewhere, and from the sixteenth century onwards there was considerable interest in upper-class Muslim circles in becoming familiar with and even accepting certain aspects of the Hindu tradition. Sufism, as it developed in India, incorporates many Buddhist and Hindu features.

2.

   The “St. Thomas Christians” in India trace their origins back to a direct disciple of Jesus, whose tomb they believe to be in St. Thome, near Cennai (Madras). They probably originated from a group of Syrian merchants who settled in India in the fourth century. They still use Syriac as liturgical language and until recently their bishops came from the see of Edessa.

3.

   Richard E Young,

, Vienna: Indologisches Institut der Universität Wien, 1981

4.

   The term “Hindu-dharma” occurs for the first time in Sanskrit literature in Chapter 33 of the

(date unknown, but certainly fairly recent, because it refers already to the English foreigners and their capital London).

A comprehensive encyclopedic description of Hinduism in Hindī authored by Ramdas Gaur and published in Samvat 1995 (1938 C.E.) carried the title

. It was planned to be paralleled by similar volumes on all other major religions.

Vir Savarkar’s seminal 1938 English essay “Essentials of Hindutva” attempts to differentiate between Hindutva as “Hindu culture” shared by all who live in India, and Hinduism, as a religion, which is not shared by all. This is usually the interpretation given today by the advocates of a “Hindu India” and Hindutva.

5.

   The Indian expression “Hindu-dharma” is used over against “Isāī-dharma,” or “Islām-dharma”.

6.

   Tāranātha’s

, Buston’s

, the

and the

, are the best-known examples.

7.

   Cf. A. D. Pusalker, “Historical Traditions,” in

, vol. I, Bombay,

1965, pp. 271–336.

8.

   Whereas the rulers in most other countries had their court-chroniclers, singing the praises of their masters and immortalising their great deeds, such a custom was curiously absent in ancient India. Possibly the Indian tradition of considering kings as but one element of the state, and not the raison d’être of it, prevented them from having their deeds recorded by a court historian. The Muslims, who ruled India, left voluminous records of their activities.

9.

   I am following the same logic by which historians of Christianity apply the term “Christians” to the immediate followers of Jesus, while the term “Christianoi” was coined by outsiders at a later time and it took centuries before becoming universally accepted by the “Christians” as self-designation.

10.

   In this respect Hinduism is not that different from today’s Christianity either. While “Christianity” is considered one “religion,” all of whose followers are supposed to accept the New Testament as their scripture and Jesus of Nazareth as their saviour, in reality there have been from the very beginning many independent and mutually exclusive “Christian Churches” whose interpretations of the New Testament as well as customs and forms of worship have hardly anything in common. Still, nobody objects to using the term “Christianity” in connection with works on the “History of Christianity.”

11.

   Joseph E. Schwartzberg,

, New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, second impression, with additional material, 1992.

12.

, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960–63.

13.

   Śaṅkara commented on sixteen.

14.

   Hundreds of these have been published with English translations by the Adyar Library.

15.

   So far no translation into a Western language exists of this text, which was published in 1953 at Śrīraṅgam.

16.

   Sanskrit text with French translation by H. Brunner-Lachaux, published by the Institut Français d’Indologie at Pondicherry in two volumes, 1963 and 1968.

17.

   Govinda Krishna Pillai,

, Kitabistan: Allahabad, 1959.

18.

   Some idea of its range can be gained from J. N. Farquhar,

, originally published by Oxford University Press in 1920, Indian reprint 1967 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass). Since then much more has been printed and produced.

2

A SHORT HISTORY OF TWO CITIES:

A Microcosm of Hinduism

One of the most noteworthy features of Hinduism is its strong linkage to the physical geography of India, its “Holy Land,” whose mountains, lakes, rivers and forests, cities and temples are considered seats of particular deities or a physical manifestation of the Divine itself. Local traditions and mythologies that developed around particular places have strongly molded Hindu practice and beliefs. Actually, Hinduism is a mosaic composed of a large number of such local traditions, conjoined with the pan-Indian practices of the major religious orders
(saṃpradāyas)
.

In the Purāṇas there is a frequently mentioned list of seven holy cities, places of pilgrimage that possess special sanctity and whose visit conveys release from rebirth. As the old saying goes: “These seven cities provide liberation: Āvantī (Ujjain), Mathurā, Māyā (Haridwār), Kāśī (Vārāṇasī), Kāñcī (Kāñcīpuram), Purī and Dvārakā.” While there are, in addition, literally thousands of places of pilgrimage in India to which millions of Hindus flock every year, the seven ancient cities mentioned above -situated either on sacred rivers or on the sea – are especially sought after, and many people are known to retire to them to spend the eve of their lives surrounded by the sacred atmosphere they convey. Since time immemorial these places have attracted the teachers of various schools of Hinduism; and to this very day, these places of pilgrimage are centers of Hindu learning.

Despite the apparently rural character of the Vedas, cities have always played a crucial role in the history of Hinduism. As places of pilgrimage,
tīrthas
, “fords” or “crossings,” they became all but indispensable to the religious practice of the Hindus. While some are actually located on rivers, marking shallow spots that could easily be forded, the term
tīrtha
soon acquired a transcendental significance as a place at which emancipation could be found and from which the “other shore” could be reached. In the same way in which the mediation of Brahmins was considered indispensable for obtaining ritual purity, so the mediation of the sacred place, the
tīrtha
, became essential to Hindus desirous of liberation from rebirth.

All these numerous sacred cities have a rich history and an even richer mythology, often set out in
Sthala Purāṇas.
¹
They are eulogized in
Māhātmyas,
²
“glorifications” of the place, which highlight the important events associated with it. Since it is not possible to go into the history of all the great Hindu
tīrthas
, and not even feasible to deal with the seven ancient holy cities mentioned above (there are many other holy cities which lay claim to equal antiquity and fame), I shall select just two:
³
Mathurā on the Yamunā, of specific importance to Vaiṣṇavas, because of its historico-mythical association with Kṛṣṇa; and Vāraṇāsī (or Banaras, also known as Kāśī) on the Gaṅgā, specially sacred to Śaivas, who consider it Śiva’s favourite abode. By sketching out the history of these ancient cities we shall get glimpses of the entire history of Hinduism over several thousand years, its ups and downs, as well as an impression of the co-existence of a great number of different traditions and schools of thought within their walls.

MATHURĀ

Situated in the center of the Hindu heartland, the ancient
Madhyadeśa
, in today’s Uttar Pradesh, on the river Yamunā, Mathurā, the largest city of the Braj-maṇḍala, has always been associated with the birth, childhood, and youth of Kṛṣṇa. Those Hindu historians who reckon the Mahābhārata war to have taken place in 3002 B.C.E. would set the date for (the historical) Kṛṣṇa at that time too. Others assign a date of c.1500 B.C.E. to him.
⁴
As the received tradition has it, Mathurā even then was an old city, one of the largest in India, filled with magnificent temples and palaces. Kṛṣṇa, fulfilling a prophecy associated with his birth, killed Kaṃsa, the tyrant of Mathurā, and gave freedom to the people of Vraja.
⁵

If the historicity of the Kṛṣṇa tradition is still an object of scholarly controversy, resting largely on the testimony of the Epics and Purāṇas,
⁶
we are on historically firm ground with the records of Buddhist and Jain establishments in Mathurā from the fifth century B.C.E. onwards. According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha himself visited Mathurā several times during his life-time. The Jainas claim that the Tīrthaiikaras Parśvanātha and Mahāvīra visited Mathurā. This sounds quite plausible. The teachers of new paths to salvation expected to find their most receptive audiences in the big cities, where thousands of seekers would be congregated. Mathurā’s fame as a city of religious learning and a place of pilgrimage was the reason why Buddhist and Jain monks and nuns settled there. Mathurā is also mentioned as an important city and trading center in the writings of ancient Greek travellers, such as Megasthenes and Arrian.
⁷

Mathurā became the capital of the Śaka kingdom in the first century B.C.E. and of that of their successors, the Kuśānas, in the first century C.E. The Kuśānas were adherents of Buddhism and under their patronage in the second century C.E. an important school of Buddhist art developed in Mathurā, whose sculptures became renowned all over India (and are now famous all over the world).
⁸
A Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Fa-Hsien, who visited the holy places associated with the Buddha’s life in India around 400 C.E., still speaks of Mathurā as a Buddhist city, with twenty Buddhist monasteries in which lived more than three thousand monks and nuns.
⁹
He mentions also six large stūpas, dedicated to Sariputra, Ānanda, and Mudgalaputra as well as to the Tripitaka Abhidharma, Sutta, and Vinaya. Another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Hiuen Tsiang, who visited Mathurā about two hundred years later, still reports the existence of twenty Buddhist monasteries, the presence of two thousand monks and nuns and the practice of worshiping at a number of different stūpas. However, he also notes the existence of five large Hindu temples and the reemergence of Brahmanism in Mathurā.
¹⁰

In the following centuries most of the Buddhist and Jain establishments were abandoned and destroyed, and Mathurā became known again as one of the strongholds of Hinduism – filled with large temples and ashrams. Numerous Śiva liṅgas have been found in and around Mathurā as well as images of Sūrya. On the place on which according to an old tradition Kṛṣṇa was born – the prison-house of Kaṃsa – an enormous temple was erected.

No wonder that Mathurā became a prime target for the Muslim marauders that were advancing from the north-west from the tenth century onwards. Mahmud of Ghazni raided Mathurā in 1017 C.E. His own chronicler described it as “a very large city full of magnificent temples.”
¹¹
Strangely, it had been left undefended and so “the Sultan’s army plundered the whole city and set fire to the temples. They took immense booty, and by the Sultan’s order they broke up a golden image which was 98,300 miskals in weight; and there was also found a sapphire weighing 450 miskals.”

Hurtful as the raid certainly had been, it did not inflict permanent damage. Alberuni, a Muslim scholar and traveller, visiting Mathurā a few decades after the event, describes it as “a holy place crowded with brahmins.”
¹²
During the next century the whole of North India came under the domination of the Muslim invaders who later established their capital at Agra, about 50 kilometers south of Mathurā. While the Muslims systematically razed Hindu temples and built mosques over them, Hindus succeeded even under Muslim rule to build new temples in Mathurā. An inscription dated 1150 C.E. records the erection of a Viṣṇu temple “brilliantly white and touching the clouds” at the site of Kṛṣṇa’s putative birthplace.
¹³
It did not stay in place, however, for long, and was destroyed by the fierce and fanatical Sikander Lodi (ruled 1488–1517).