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Transformation in Hinduism

Dr. M. V. Kamath

My dear Gauri,

Around the time of the Buddha and Mahavira, Hinduism, or shall we call it the Vedic religion, had fallen upon bad times. There were too many rituals, too much emphasis on sacrifice and cows were slaughtered in their thousands. Today Hindus – especially orthodox and fanatic Hindus – recoil at the thought of cow slaughter. But in those times that was taken for granted. The non-violence preached by Buddha and Mahavira was a reaction to the prevailing social and religious mores and customs.

Ashoka, especially, put a full stop to animal slaughter, and the Vedic religion fell into disrepute. Buddhism began to spread, especially among the lower classes who, in any event, did not care for the casteist society. There was no caste among Buddhists and among Jains. All are equal.

The only trouble with the two religious offshoots of Hinduism was that there were no Gods to worship and no religious tamasha to attend. It was all very well to prescribe a moral code and to ask people to the moderate in everything, but howsoever much such exhortations were admirable, a certain amount of fun had been taken out of life. Noticing this, the Hindu social structure swung into action.

In an earlier letter I must have told you how the Vedic religion spread through assimilation and acceptance of many tribal gods without diluting the hard core Vedic concepts. Hinduism never made a frontal attack on other religions. It tried to absorb them. Thus Hindus accepted that cow slaughter was bad and gave that up. So Buddhism and Jainism did not have much to complain about. The Buddha himself was accepted as an avatar. That was another prop knocked off from under Buddhism. In later centuries, of course, there were some regular wars against Buddhist monarchs and Jain rulers. Hinduism was not always totally nonviolent.

Then again Hinduism permitted greater freedom of thought to its priesthood in order to cope with Buddhist and Jain challenges. Such a thing would have been unheard of in Christianity and Islam. Hinduism gave up its rigidity. This enabled it to contain both Buddhism and Jainism.

Then Hinduism went further. It encouraged the Bhakti cult which had a tremendous appeal to ordinary people. It brought out the best in them. The cult of Krishna grew and Krishna became a popular God and a very attractive one in bargain. The Brahmin saw to it that old tribal customs were preserved. Few things were ever destroyed and the minimum violence was used. In this way Hinduism stood its ground and faced the challenge of its tow offshoots, Jainism and Buddhism. In a popularity contest, Hinduism won hands down.

But Hinduism had to pay a very heavy price for this. It became a kichadi religion in which everything – or almost everything – was accepted and nothing was rejected. If, in this manner, the Brahmins retained their hold on the people, it also contributed to numerous castes and subcastes, sects and subsects. Toleration was the order of the day. There was no single unified religion.

Had Hinduism refused to compromise, it is possible that Buddhism would have prevailed in the land and spread all over the country. But that was not to be. In the battle for minds of people, Hinduism won because it was all things to all people. The disadvantage to this system was that Hindus would not unite to fight a common enemy. There was just no sense of unity among all the people.

The advantage, of course, was that while politically India came under the subjugation of foreign forces, most notably Islam, Hinduism could not be conquered, no matter how hard Islam tried. Hinduism was elastic, accommodative and could adjust itself to changed circumstances. That is why it could survive and even thrive. That is its special strength.

Any other lesser religion would have gone down as result of the onslaught of alien religions. Islam was only one of them. Then came Christianity. And while both, under the patronage of the rulers, made some marginal inroads into Hinduism – Islam more deeply – in the end Hinduism prevailed.

Christianity spread all over Europe and tribe after tribe succumbed to its influence. Islam similarly spread from Arabia to Palestine in the north, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and other parts of Africa south of the Mediterranean, took over Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, parts of Central Asia and came to India. Hinduism resisted the early onslaughts, but when it could not do so, it curled into itself as a measure of self-preservation. Islam could go thus far, but no further.

In my next letter I must tell you something about that extraordinary religion, Islam and Mohammad, its Prophet.

Your loving 

Ajja