Eternal India Encyclopedia

RELIGIONS

Eternal India encyclopedia

* Marriage, containing elements going back to the remote past, has as its central rite the circumambulation of a sacred fire by the couple, their garments tied together. * Normally the dead are cremated. The funeral rites ( Shraddha ) in- volve the daily offering of balls of rice ( Pinda ) for the welfare of the departed soul for a period usually 12 days after the cremation. It is thought that seven generations of ancestors as well as the dead man for whom the ceremony is performed, benefit from Shraddha , which can only be carried out by a son. * Veneration of the cows. CLASS & CASTE * The society is divided into 4 classes (varaa): Brahmins (priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors), Vaishyas (traders and businessmen) and Shudras (workers who serve the other three classes). * Division by class (Varna) and by caste ( Jaathi ), though tradition- ally linked, seem to have arisen quite independently of one another. * As the social divisions became more strict and rigid with time a fifth group, the untouchables, formed the lowest level of society. * Hinduism's sanyaasi parampara is the world's oldest continuing ascetic order founded some 5000 years ago by Rishi Yajnaval- kya. Sanyaasis, who are the highest point of spiritual evolution, have no caste at all. SECTS * The Shaivaites (worshippers of Shiva, the Vaishnavaites (worshippers of Vishnu) and the Shaktas (worshippers of a female God Shakti, the wife of Shiva). THE GODS * (For the Hindu) God evolved the cosmos from his own being. Divinity, therefore, inheres in every portion of the Universe. * God manifests himself in an infinite number of forms which are the unreal reflections of the single glory pervading all things. * The Shaivaites maintain that Shiva created the world, maintains it through his divine asceticism, and will destroy it at the end of this age. * For the Vaishnavaites the world appears when the God Vishnu awakes at the end of the cosmic night, and creation is the work of Brahma, the first being to emanate from Vishnu. Vishnu pre- serves the universe throughout the cosmic day, occasionally in- carnating himself as an avatar in order to save it from the attacks of demons. * When the night begins, the ultimate God will once more with- draw and the universe will be destroyed and merged into his being, until he wakes again at the next cosmic dawn. * The Shaktas, on the other hand, have for their chief object of wor- ship a goddess, the wife of Shiva. * The God is transcendent, withdrawn, inaccessible, and therefore insignificant: it is the goddess, personifying Mother Nature, who produces the world, who sustains it with loving care for the righteous and terror for the sinner, and who will ultimately destroy it. She is the Shakti, the personified power of the supreme divinity.

* Shiva is often worshipped in the form of an upright post with rounded top, the linga , a phallic symbol showing his original character as a fertility God. He often appears as the divine dancer and in many other forms. * Vishnu is less often worshipped in his supreme form than in that of one of his incarnations, especially Rama and Krishna * As Krishna he appears as a handsome young man playing a flute and symbolizing the call of God to the human soul to draw near and rejoice in his presence. * In her gentler forms as Parvathi or Uma, the Mother Goddess is portrayed as a beautiful woman, young, but very matronly in appearance. In her fiercer aspects she appears as Kali, a terrible ogress, and Durga, a stern-faced beautiful girl riding a lion. * Other gods include Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvathi, a figure with an elephant’s head. He is the patron of all practical enterprises and is reverenced at their commencement; he also takes a special interest in learning and literature. * A very popular folk divinity in many parts of India is Hanuman, the monkey helper of Rama — the seventh incarnation of Vishnu. He symbolizes the active power of God in the world, always ready to help his worshippers in trouble. * The most popular goddesses, after the Mother Goddess, are Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu and the bestower of wealth and prosperity, and the beautiful Saraswati, Goddess of music, art, and learning. * In Eastern India the tutelary deity of snakes, Manasa, who is also thought of as a daughter of Shiva, is worshipped for protection against snakes. Shitala, the goddess of smallpox, is worshipped both to avoid this disease and to cure it when it occurs. * Other very ancient Gods have lost their popularity, and though often referred to play but a small part in religious life. Among these is Brahma, who was little worshipped after the 4th C A.D. * Indra the war-God of the Aryan invaders, is now largely ne- glected, and Varuna, the great sky-God of the Rig-Veda, has become the God of the sea. * Surya the old sun-God, to whom splendid temples were erected less than 1,000 years ago, is still sometimes wor- shipped, whereas Agni, the fire-God of the Vedas and inter- mediary between gods and men, has lost much of his im- portance. He is, however, still remembered when ceremonies such as weddings, involving the use of a sacred fire, are performed. * There are also numerous lesser gods. SHANKARA * "Brahman — the absolute existence, knowledge and bliss - is real. The world is not real. It is an illusion (Maya). Brahman and Atman are One." In these words, Shankara sums up his philosophy. * Shankara, the unrivalled propounder of Advaita vedanta, the non-dualistic aspect of the Vedic teachings. * He was born in or around the year AD 686, at Kaladi, Malabar in Kerala. By the age of 10, he was already an intellectual prodigy. Not only had he read and memorized all the scriptures, but he had written commentaries on many of them. * Shankara persuaded his mother to let him take the monastic vow,