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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,