Extracts and synthesis from Abraham Eraly’s book, “The First Spring – The Golden Age of India” – a study of ancient Indian civilization
Notes on Hindu Philosophy (Part 1)
Notes on Hindu Philosophy (Part 2)
Early centuries of the Common Era saw a complete transformation of the religious landscape of India. Buddhism virtually disappeared from the subcontinent, and Jainism, which was once a prominent all-India religion, became a minor sect. And Puranic Hinduism emerged as the religion of India. Puranic Hindusim rose by absorbing into Vedic Hinduism numerous folk cults and infusing itself with their devotional fervor.
The distinctive and wholly unique characteristic of ancient Indian religions is that none of them subscribed to the concept of god as an omnipotent, omniscient creator-ruler. It was only with the rise of Puranic Hinduism that gods emerged from the shadows to gradually occupy the centre stage. And it was still later, in the middle of the first millennium, that the fervently devotional bhakti sects with their innumerable gods and godesses surged up, and eventually, by the end of the millennium, swamped the land.
Puranic Hinduism
The supreme gods of Puranic Hinduism are Shiva and Vishnu, but they were very minor gods in Vedic times. They were probably Dravidian deities originally, who entered the Aryan pantheon from the Indus Civilization in the Rig-vedic age. Vishnu and Shiva are entirely dissimilar gods. Shiva is a remote and mysterious god, but Vishnu, with his many incarnations, is a genial, accessible god, close to the lives of the people and active in the affairs of the world.
- Vishnu is primarily the preserver and protector of the world, and in that role he appears again and again as various incarnations, whenever he is needed to set things right in the world. And because he has many incarnations, and each in a different form, he can be anything to anybody. Vishnu is commonly worshipped in his two main avatars, Rama and Krishna.
- Krishna is a multi-faceted god – a charmingly naughty child, irresistible lover, peerless political strategist, heroic warrior, benevolent protector, and so on
- Unlike the adorable but artful Krishna, Rama is the very embodiment of probity, nobility and chivalry, the ultimate human ideal in every respect.
- Shiva is the strangest of all the gods in the world, a complex and enigmatic deity, containing in himself several polarities. His name means ‘benign’ and ‘auspicious’, but his other name, Rudra, means ‘howling’ and ‘dreadful’. Shiva thus embodies both the benign and the malign aspects of nature. He is the creator and preserver as well as the destroyer of the world; the lord of death as well of rebirth, of decay as well as of regeneration; he is a great ascetic sage as well as a wild debauchee; a compassionate saviour as well as a wrathful avenger. Austere and reclusive, Shivas is a redoubtable god of unpredictable behaviour. Unlike Vishnu, what he inspires is awe, not love.
Bhakti cults
Faith in God is a compelling psychological need of man, to reconcile himself to his mortality, and to make the travails of life bearable with the balm of belief that everything that happens is by divine will, and that by god’s grace he would be able to surmount all adversities here on earth, and enjoy heavenly bliss in the hereafter.
The Bhakti mystics saw god as immanent in everything in the world, and everything under his control. This view, though similar to Upanishadic pantheism in some respects, is also radically different from it.
- In both systems ‘god’ is everything in the cosmos, but while the Upanishadic sages conceived of ‘god’ as Brahman, the impersonal, indefinable, changeless essence of the universe, and the world as an automatic unfolding of that essence, Bhakti mystics viewed god as a person who, by a deliberate act, created the world and rules over it according to his will
- Upanishads regard man as essentially identical with Brahman, the Bhakti cults view god as a creator and man as his creation.
- Upanishads conceive of salvation as a mystical realization by man that he is identical with Brahman, but the Bhakti movement sees salvation as the attainment of heaven by man by the grace of god.
- In the Bhakti tradition, unlike in Vedanta, the phenomenal world is not maya, and god is not a myth. The world is real, the individual is real, and gods are real persons, with whom devotees can have real relationships. This relationship is direct, intimate and personal, as in the parent-progeny relationship. God belongs to man as much as man belongs to god. This relationship does not require any rituals or priestly meditation, but only immense faith and love
- Bhakti is a religion of the heart, not of the head. God reveals himself not to the sage or scholar but to the simple soul thirsting for divine grace. The belief in attaining salvation by divine grace, the basic belief of the Bhakti cults, violates the concept of karma that is integral to Hinduism. In karma, the consequences of actions follow automatically and inexorably, leaving no room for any external intervention. Gods have no role in its workings.
