Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College.

The first religion that we will learn for quite a deal in the course of Comparative Religion: Eastern is Hinduism. This order of learning is not only because Hinduism, as one of the most affiliated traditions in the world, is also the eldest living one. More importantly, the complexity and richness of Hinduism would just highlight every purpose of religious studies in college, which we discussed in my last video, to an unprecedented extent.

The first and foremost thing we need to know about “Hinduism” is that “Hinduism” is a somewhat misleading term. If we call some religious phenomenon as “-ism,” the term seems to suggest that there must be a central authority, a set of settled scriptures, a clearly articulated body of doctrines, and an authorized series of personal and communal ritual-performance for the thing that is called such a “-ism,” just like Catholicism or other kinds of established Christianity. However, none of these assumptions work in the case of “Hinduism.” The term “Hindu” derives from the Sanskrit “Sindhu,” which means “a large body of water.” Originally, it was used in Arabic to refer to the people who lived in the Indus Valley, which is indeed covered by a large body of rivers and waters. It was not until the arrival of European colonizers that “Hinduism” was coined up by European scholars as a collective term for the religious beliefs and practices of some of the people who live in India, notably not including the people who lived in India but practiced religions not deemed as indigenous (such as Islam). In other words, since the term “Hindu” was originally a geographic term, and then, used by aliens to designate vaguely everything that was thought of religiously as being indigenous to the people living in that area, an immediate question we can ask is that: did those indigenous people practice the same religion?

The trickiness of this question is that, as partly argued by the assigned reading (p.42), there are strong reasons for both the “yes” and “no” answers to the question.

For the No side, scholars may cite that for each stance advocated by religious practitioners in the so-called “Hinduism,” you can always find a contradictory or simply different stance in the same tradition, and in general, these diverse views of religion are abundantly tolerated and lavishly practiced throughout the entire Hindu history. This is not only true to varying views within the so-called Hindu tradition; the toleration is also applicable to apparently non-Hindu traditions. For instance, in history, non-Hindu traditions such as Islam and Christianity all once had a strong hold on certain portions of the Hindu population; however, as a Hindu practitioner, one can easily see Jesus or Allah as a legitimate God who serves the specific need of the people who worship them, but ultimately, in the eyes of this Hindu practitioner, these Gods, together with varying Gods and Goddesses worshiped by Hindu people in villages and cities, are just the many manifestations of the same Ultimate Reality, the same God, Brahman or whichever name you would like to choose to call it. Oddly, even for indigenous traditions that deny such an existence of ultimate reality, such as Buddhism, the founders of these traditions, such as Siddhartha Gautama in the same case, can still be seen as a holy person that reveals certain features of Ultimate Reality, and thus, serves the specific need of their followers. As a consequence, the statue of Buddha can be readily observed in India which is worshiped by devotees with their special religious dispositions. In a word, the so-called Hindu tradition really indicates an extremely accommodating, tolerating and inclusive nature that we can describe it as a gigantic melting pot which leaves out nothing that would like to get in and does not abandon anything that has already arrived.

Nevertheless, for the “Yes” answer, you’ll also find many scholars, particularly Hindu scholars, who may strongly advocate that “Hinduism” can be used as a collective name to refer to the long-standing cultural and religious legacy of the Hindu nation. For these scholars, the seemingly ultra-diverse feature of Hinduism is a strength, rather than a weakness. It speaks to the extraordinarily vibrant and dynamic nature of Hinduism, and therefore, provides a rich resource to solidify a Hindu identity in the modern world. More importantly, if we learn details of the Hindu history, we’ll frequently find cases where religious thinkers and practitioners would intend to synthesize all available religious sources before them, although the authenticity of these syntheses themselves succumbed to constant debate, contestation and adaptation. Since “synthesis” is not a totally unfamiliar phenomenon to the so-called Hindu tradition, we cannot deny the possibility of the unity of Hinduism either.

So, what is my take on this question, the one about the unity vs diversity of the so-called Hindu tradition?

In my view, the unity of Hinduism is best understood as a long lineage of human trials and endeavors to grapple with shared both local and large-scaled questions, rather than any read-made, closed system of answers. Since the lineage is essentially a dynamic process of grappling with conundrums, rather than dictating answers to them, we can also understand that the unity of Hinduism is a fluid, evolving, and essentially kinematic unity.

In more concrete terms, I would indicate this dynamic, unfolding unity of Hinduism in three of its foundational texts, which we will focus upon in our later learning. And these texts are the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.

The central concern of Vedic Hinduism, as it lies at the very early beginning of the Hindu civilization, is how to maintain social order and increase social welfare of all humans. The solution the Vedas provides is to assign roles and duties to each class of the society, and a class of priesthood will take charge of presiding over the performance of varying rituals so as to maintain the social order. A notable instance in this regard is the creation of a caste system and its cosmological justification in the Vedas, through which the highest class, the priesthood, is charged with performing rituals so as to maintain the harmonized order between human society and the entire cosmos.

However, humans have their intrinsic individual needs of spiritual transformation regardless of classes and social roles. Therefore, in the Upanishadic Hinduism, we find a strong individualistic element of Hindu spirituality which defies any non-egalitarian prescription of religious life. Here, the essential goal of human life is thought of as rediscovering one’s genuine self, which is called Atman, and its liberation consists in a union with Brahman, the ultimate reality which creates and sustains the entire universe. Accordingly, the practice of Upanishadic Hinduism is very ascetic. One is encouraged to become a renunciate to abandon one’s household so as to enter a forest for a prolonged period of spiritual practice in order to achieve Moksha, the final spiritual liberation in terms of the union between Atman and Brahman.

However, the path to religious asceticism is philosophically complicated and practically arduous, which is not fit for every human being. More importantly, if all humans abandoned their civilization and went to forests, the flourishing of human society would become inconceivable. Therefore, in the time of the composition of the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism developed a strong “devotional” dimension to re-develop a this-worldly oriented ethics and spirituality. Its solution to the tension between individual liberation and social welfare is that as long as individuals fulfill their duties regardless of consequences, they can achieve Moksha outside of the forest, here and now. Individuals are encouraged to choose whatever God they find intimacy with to worship, and their devotion to such a worship will help them to live a religiously liberating life without undergoing all those harsh, ascetic disciplines.

The text of Bhagavad Gita was written before the common era, and after that, Hinduism continually evolved, and indicated the extraordinary diverse nature which we analyzed before. However, the lineage of thinking and practice as indicated by the sequence of Vedas – Upanishads – Gita in terms of “social welfare” – “individual liberation” – “liberation in society” provides a shared body of terms, themes and questions for all later development of Hinduism to inherit, unpack, enrich, and diversify.

Honestly, although I have taught Hinduism for several times before, I still feel greatly fascinated by the endless story about the evolution of the so-called Hindu tradition. I am amazed by its spiritual depth, philosophical rigor, and diverse and colorful religious practices. I believe this is among the traditions you can get the most out of from the perspective of college religious studies, and I look forward to hearing your learning experience of it during the course.