Hinduism

/hin"dooh iz'euhm/, n.

the common religion of India, based upon the religion of the original Aryan settlers as expounded and evolved in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, etc., having an extremely diversified character with many schools of philosophy and theology, many popular cults, and a large pantheon symbolizing the many attributes of a single god. Buddhism and Jainism are outside the Hindu tradition but are regarded as related religions.

Also, Hindooism.

[1820-30; HINDU + -ISM]

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Oldest of the world's major religions.

It evolved from the Vedic religion of ancient India. Though the various Hindu sects each rely on their own set of scriptures, they all revere the ancient Vedas, which were brought to India by Aryan invaders after 1200 BC. The philosophical Vedic texts called the Upanishads explored the search for knowledge that would allow mankind to escape the cycle of reincarnation. Fundamental to Hinduism is the belief in a cosmic principle of ultimate reality called Brahman and its identity with the individual soul, or atman. All creatures go through a cycle of rebirth, or samsara, which can only be broken by spiritual self-realization, after which liberation, or moksha, is attained. The principle of karma determines a being's status within the cycle of rebirth. The greatest Hindu deities are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. The numerous other Hindu gods are mostly viewed as incarnations or epiphanies of the main deities, though some are survivors of the pre-Aryan era. The major sources of classical mythology are the Mahabharata (which includes the Bhagavadgita, the most important religious text of Hinduism), the Ramayana, and the Puranas. The hierarchical social structure of the caste system is important in Hinduism; it is supported by the principle of dharma. The major branches of Hinduism are Vaishnavism and Shaivism, each of which includes many different sects. In the 20th century Hinduism blended with Indian nationalism to become a powerful political force in Indian politics.

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▪ religion

Introduction

      the beliefs and practices of Hindus, as expressed in a series of characteristic doctrinal, ritual, social, narrative, and poetic forms.

Introduction

The term Hinduism

      The English term Hinduism was coined by British writers in the first decades of the 19th century and became familiar as a designator of religious ideas and practices distinctive to India with the publication of books such as Hinduism (1877) by Sir Monier Monier-Williams, the notable Oxford scholar and author of an influential Sanskrit dictionary. Initially it was an outsiders' term, building on centuries-old usages of the word Hindu. Early travelers to the Indus valley (Indus River), beginning with the Greeks and Persians, spoke of its inhabitants as “Hindu” (Greek: ‘indoi), and, in the 16th century, residents of India themselves began very slowly to employ the term to distinguish themselves from the Turks. Gradually the distinction became primarily religious rather than ethnic, geographic, or cultural.

      Since the late 19th century, Hindus have reacted to the term Hinduism in several ways. Some have rejected it in favour of indigenous formulations. Those preferring Veda or Vedic religion want to embrace an ancient textual core and the tradition of Brahman learning that preserved and interpreted it. Those preferring sanatana dharma (“eternal law”) emphasize a broader tradition of belief and practice (such as worship through images, dietary codes, and the veneration of the cow) that is not necessarily mediated by Brahmans (Brahman) (members of the highest social class who are usually priests). Still others, perhaps the majority, have simply accepted the term Hinduism or its analogues, especially hindu dharma (Hindu moral and religious law), in various Indic languages.

      Since the early 20th century, textbooks on Hinduism have been written by Hindus themselves, often under the rubric of sanatana dharma. These efforts at self-explanation have been intended to set Hinduism on a par with other religious traditions and to teach it systematically to Hindu youths. They add a new layer to an elaborate tradition of explaining practice and doctrine that dates to the 1st millennium BCE. The roots of this tradition can be traced back much farther—textually, to the schools of commentary and debate preserved in epic and Vedic writings from the 2nd millennium BCE; and visually, through artistic representations of yakshas (luminous spirits associated with specific locales and natural phenomena) and nagas (cobralike divinities), which were worshipped from about 400 BCE. The roots of the tradition are also sometimes traced back to the female terra-cotta figurines found ubiquitously in excavations of sites associated with the Indus valley civilization (3rd–2nd millennium BCE) and sometimes interpreted as goddesses. In recognition of this ancient tradition of self-explanation, present-day Hindus often assert that theirs is the world's oldest religion.

General nature of Hinduism

      More strikingly than any other major religious community, Hindus accept—and indeed celebrate—the organic, multileveled, and sometimes internally inconsistent nature of their tradition. This expansiveness is made possible by the widely shared Hindu view that truth or reality cannot be encapsulated in any creedal formulation, a perspective expressed in the Hindu prayer “May good thoughts come to us from all sides.” Thus, Hinduism maintains that truth must be sought in multiple sources, not dogmatically proclaimed.

      Anyone's view of the truth—even that of a guru regarded as possessing superior authority—is fundamentally conditioned by the specifics of time, age, gender, state of consciousness, social and geographic location, and stage of attainment. These multiple perspectives enhance a broad view of religious truth rather than diminish it; hence, there is a strong tendency for contemporary Hindus to affirm that tolerance is the foremost religious virtue. On the other hand, even cosmopolitan Hindus living in a global environment recognize and value the fact that their religion has developed in the specific context of the Indian subcontinent. Such a tension between universalist and particularist impulses has long animated the Hindu tradition. When Hindus speak of their religious identity as sanatana dharma, a formulation made popular late in the 19th century, they emphasize its continuous, seemingly eternal (sanatana) existence and the fact that it describes a web of customs, obligations, traditions, and ideals ( dharma) that far exceeds the Western tendency to think of religion primarily as a system of beliefs. A common way in which English-speaking Hindus often distance themselves from that frame of mind is to insist that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life.

The five tensile strands

      Across the sweep of Indian religious history, at least five elements have given shape to the Hindu religious tradition: doctrine, practice, society, story, and devotion. These five elements, to adopt a typical Hindu metaphor, are understood as relating to one another as strands in an elaborate braid. Moreover, each strand develops out of a history of conversation, elaboration, and challenge. Hence, in looking for what makes the tradition cohere, it is sometimes better to locate central points of tension than to expect clear agreements on Hindu thought and practice.

Doctrine

      The first of the five strands of Hinduism is doctrine, as expressed in a vast textual tradition anchored to the Veda (“Knowledge”), the oldest core of Hindu religious utterance, and organized through the centuries primarily by members of the learned Brahman class. Here several characteristic tensions appear. One concerns the status of the One in relation to the Many—issues of polytheism, monotheism, and monism. Another tension concerns the disparity between the world-preserving ideal of dharma and that of moksha (release from an inherently flawed world). A third tension exists between individual destiny, as shaped by karma (the influence of one's actions on one's present and future lives), and the individual's deep bonds to family, society, and the divinities associated with these concepts.

Practice

      The second strand in the fabric of Hinduism is practice. Many Hindus, in fact, would place this first. Despite India's enormous diversity, a common grammar of ritual behaviour connects various places, strata, and periods of Hindu life. While it is true that various elements of Vedic ritual survive in modern practice and thereby serve a unifying function, much more influential commonalities appear in the worship of icons or images (pratima, murti, or arca). Broadly, this is called puja (“honouring [the deity]”). It echoes conventions of hospitality that might be performed for an honoured guest, especially the giving and sharing of food. Such food is called prasada (Hindi, prasad: “grace”), reflecting the recognition that when human beings make offerings to deities, the initiative is not really theirs. They are actually responding to the generosity that bore them into a world fecund with life and possibility. The divine personality installed as a home or temple image receives prasada, tasting it (Hindus differ as to whether this is a real or symbolic act, gross or subtle) and offering the remains to worshipers. Consuming these leftovers, worshipers accept their status as beings inferior to and dependent upon the divine. An element of tension arises because the logic of puja and prasada seems to accord all humans an equal status with respect to God, yet exclusionary rules have often been sanctified rather than challenged by prasada-based ritual. Specifically, lower-caste people and those perceived as outsiders or carriers of pollution have historically been forbidden to enter certain Hindu temples, a practice that continues even today.

Society

      The third strand that has served to organize Hindu life is society. Early visitors to India from Greece and China and, later, others such as the Persian scholar and scientist al-Bīrūnī (Bīrūnī, al-), who traveled to India in the early 11th century, were struck by the highly stratified (if locally variant) social structure that has come to be called familiarly the caste system. While it is true that there is a vast disparity between the ancient vision of society as divided into four ideal classes (varnas) and the contemporary reality of thousands of endogamous birth-groups (jatis, literally “births”), few would deny that Indian society is notably plural and hierarchical. This fact has much to do with an understanding of truth or reality as being similarly plural and multilayered—though it is not clear whether the influence has proceeded chiefly from religious doctrine to society or vice versa. Seeking its own answer to this conundrum, a well-known Vedic hymn (Rigveda 10.90) describes how, at the beginning of time, a primordial person underwent a process of sacrifice that produced a four-part cosmos and its human counterpart, a four-part social order comprising Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (nobles), Vaishyas (commoners), and Sudras (servants).

      The social domain, like the realms of religious practice and doctrine, is marked by a characteristic tension. There is the view that each person or group approaches truth in a way that is necessarily distinct, reflecting its own perspective. Only by allowing each to speak and act in such terms can a society constitute itself as a proper representation of truth or reality. Yet this context-sensitive habit of thought can too easily be used to legitimate social systems based on privilege and prejudice. If it is believed that no standards apply universally, one group can too easily justify its dominance over another. Historically, therefore, certain Hindus, while espousing tolerance at the level of doctrine, have practiced intolerance—i.e., caste discrimination—in the social realm. Responding to such oppression, especially when justified by allegedly Hindu norms, lower-caste groups have sometimes insisted, “We are not Hindus!” Yet their own communities may enact similar inequities, and their religious practices and beliefs often continue to tie them to the greater Hindu fold.

Story

      Another dimension drawing Hindus into a single community of discourse is narrative. For at least two millennia, people in almost all corners of India—and now well beyond—have responded to stories of divine play and of interactions between gods and humans. These stories concern major figures in the Hindu pantheon: Krishna and his lover Radha (Rādhā), Rama and his wife Sita (Sītā) and brother Lakamana, Shiva and his consort Parvati (Pārvatī) (or, in a different birth, Sati), and the Great Goddess Durga, or Devi as a slayer of the buffalo demon Mahisasura. Often such narratives illustrate the interpenetration of the divine and human spheres, with deities such as Krishna and Rama entering entirely into the human drama. Many tales focus in different degrees on genealogies of human experience, forms of love, and the struggle between order and chaos or between duty and play. In generating, performing, and listening to these stories, Hindus have often experienced themselves as members of a single imagined family.

 Yet, simultaneously, these narratives serve to articulate tensions. Thus, the Ramayana (Rāmāyaṇa), traditionally a testament of Rama's righteous victories, is sometimes told by women performers as the story of Sita's travails at Rama's hands. South Indian performances may emphasize the virtues of Rama's enemy Ravana (Rāvaṇa) as equal to or even surpassing those of Rama himself. And in North India lower-caste musicians present religious epics such as Alha or Dhola in terms that reflect their own experience of the world rather than the upper-caste milieu of the great Sanskrit religious epic the Mahabharata, which these epics nonetheless echo. To the broadly known pan-Hindu, male-centred narrative traditions, these variants provide both resonance and challenge.

Devotion

      There is a fifth strand that contributes to the unity of Hindu experience through time: bhakti (“sharing” or “devotion”), a broad tradition of a loving God that is especially associated with the lives and words of vernacular poet-saints throughout India. Devotional poems attributed to these inspired figures, who represent both genders and all social classes, have elaborated a store of images and moods to which access can be had in a score of languages; bhakti verse first appeared in Tamil in South India and moved northward into other regions with different languages. Individual poems are sometimes strikingly similar from one language or century to another, without there being any trace of mediation through the pan-Indian, distinctly upper-caste language Sanskrit (Sanskrit language). Often, individual motifs in the lives of bhakti poet-saints also bear strong family resemblances. With its central affirmation that religious enthusiasm is more fundamental than rigidities of practice or doctrine, bhakti provides a common challenge to other aspects of Hindu life. At the same time, it contributes to a common Hindu heritage—even a common heritage of protest. Yet certain expressions of bhakti are far more confrontational than others in their criticism of caste, image worship, and the performance of vows, pilgrimages, and acts of self-mortification.

Central conceptions

      In the following sections, various aspects of this complex whole will be addressed, relying primarily on a historical perspective of the development of the Hindu tradition. This approach has its costs, for it may seem to give priority to aspects of the tradition that appear in its earliest extant texts. These texts owe their preservation mainly to the labours of upper-caste men, especially Brahmans, and often reveal far too little about the perspectives of others. They should be read, therefore, both with and against the grain, with due attention paid to silences and absent rebuttals on behalf of women, regional communities, and people of low status—all of whom nowadays call themselves Hindus or identify with groups that can sensibly be placed within the broad Hindu span.

Veda, Brahmans (Brahman), and issues of religious authority

      For members of the upper castes, a principal characteristic of Hinduism has traditionally been a recognition of the Veda, the most ancient body of Indian religious literature, as an absolute authority revealing fundamental and unassailable truth. The Veda is also regarded as the basis of all the later shastra texts, which stressed the religious merits of the Brahmans—including, for example, the medical corpus known as the Ayur Veda. Parts of the Veda are quoted in essential Hindu rituals (such as the wedding ceremony), and it is the source of many enduring patterns of Hindu thought, yet its contents are practically unknown to most Hindus. Still, most Hindus venerate it from a distance, and groups who reject its authority outright (such as Buddhists ([ref dict="Britannica Book of the Year"]Religion) and Jains (Jainism)) are regarded by Hindus as deviating from their common tradition.

      Another characteristic of much Hindu thought is its special regard for Brahmans as a priestly class possessing spiritual supremacy by birth. As special manifestations of religious power and as bearers and teachers of the Veda, Brahmans have often been thought to represent an ideal of ritual purity and social prestige. Yet this has also been challenged, either by competing claims to religious authority—especially from kings and other rulers—or by the view that Brahmanhood is a status attained by depth of learning, not birth. Evidence of both these challenges can be found in Vedic literature itself, especially the Upanishads (speculative religious texts that provide commentary on the Vedas), and bhakti literature is full of vignettes in which the small-mindedness of Brahmans is contrasted with true depth of religious experience, as exemplified by poet-saints such as Kabir (Kabīr) and Ravidas.

Doctrine of atman-brahman (brahma)

      Most Hindus believe in brahman, an uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent, and all-embracing principle. Brahman contains in itself both being and nonbeing, and it is the sole reality—the ultimate cause, foundation, source, and goal of all existence. As the All, brahman either causes the universe and all beings to emanate from itself, transforms itself into the universe, or assumes the appearance of the universe. Brahman is in all things and is the self ( atman) of all living beings. Brahman is the creator, preserver, or transformer and reabsorber of everything. Hindus differ, however, as to whether this ultimate reality is best conceived as lacking attributes and qualities—the impersonal brahman—or as a personal God, especially Vishnu, Shiva, or Shakti (these being the preferences of adherents called Vaishnavas, Shaivas, and Shaktas, respectively). Belief in the importance of the search for a One that is the All has been a characteristic feature of India's spiritual life for more than 3,000 years.

karma, samsara, and moksha

      Hindus generally accept the doctrine of transmigration and rebirth and the complementary belief in karma. The whole process of rebirth, called samsara, is cyclic, with no clear beginning or end, and encompasses lives of perpetual, serial attachments. Actions generated by desire and appetite bind one's spirit (jiva) to an endless series of births and deaths. Desire motivates any social interaction (particularly when involving sex or food), resulting in the mutual exchange of good and bad karma. In one prevalent view, the very meaning of salvation is emancipation (moksha) from this morass, an escape from the impermanence that is an inherent feature of mundane existence. In this view the only goal is the one permanent and eternal principle: the One, God, brahman, which is totally opposite to phenomenal existence. People who have not fully realized that their being is identical with brahman are thus seen as deluded. Fortunately, the very structure of human experience teaches the ultimate identity between brahman and atman. One may learn this lesson by different means: by realizing one's essential sameness with all living beings, by responding in love to a personal expression of the divine, or by coming to appreciate that the competing attentions and moods of one's waking consciousness are grounded in a transcendental unity—one has a taste of this unity in the daily experience of deep, dreamless sleep.

dharma and the three paths

      Hindus disagree about the best way ( marga) to attain such release. The Bhagavadgita (“Song of the Lord”; c. 100 CE), an extremely influential Hindu text, presents three paths to salvation: the karma-marga (“path of duties”), the disinterested discharge of ritual and social obligations; the jnana-marga (“path of knowledge”), the use of meditative concentration preceded by long and systematic ethical and contemplative training ( Yoga) to gain a supraintellectual insight into one's identity with brahman; and the bhakti-marga (“path of devotion”), love for a personal God. These ways are regarded as suited to various types of people, but they are interactive and potentially available to all.

      Although the pursuit of moksha is institutionalized in Hindu life through ascetic practice and the ideal of withdrawing from the world at the conclusion of one's life, many Hindus ignore such practices. The Bhagavadgita states that because action is inescapable, the three paths are better thought of as simultaneously achieving the goals of world maintenance (dharma) and world release (moksha). Through the suspension of desire and ambition and through a taste for the fruits (phala) of one's actions, one is enabled to float free of life while engaging it fully. This matches the actual goals of most Hindus, which include executing properly one's social and ritual duties; supporting one's caste, family, and profession; and working to achieve a broader stability in the cosmos, nature, and society. The designation of Hinduism as sanatana dharma emphasizes this goal of maintaining personal and universal equilibrium, while at the same time calling attention to the important role played by the performance of traditional religious practices in achieving that goal. Because no one person can occupy all the social, occupational, and age-defined roles that are requisite to maintaining the health of the life-organism as a whole, universal maxims (e.g., ahimsa, the desire not to harm) are qualified by the more-particular dharmas that are appropriate to each of the four major varnas: Brahmans (Brahman) (priests), Kshatriyas (Kshatriya) (warriors and kings), Vaishyas (Vaishya) (the common people), and Sudras (Sudra) (servants). These four categories are superseded by the more practically applicable dharmas appropriate to each of the thousands of particular castes (jatis). And these, in turn, are crosscut by the obligations appropriate to one's gender and stage of life (ashrama). In principle then, Hindu ethics is exquisitely context-sensitive, and Hindus expect and celebrate a wide variety of individual behaviours.

ashramas: the four stages of life

      European and American scholars have often overemphasized the so-called “life-negating” aspects of Hinduism—the rigorous disciplines of Yoga, for example. The polarity of asceticism and sensuality, which assumes the form of a conflict between the aspiration for liberation and the heartfelt desire to have descendants and continue earthly life, manifests itself in Hindu social life as the tension between the different goals and stages of life. For many centuries the relative value of an active life and the performance of meritorious works (pravritti), as opposed to the renunciation of all worldly interests and activity (nivriti), has been a much-debated issue. While philosophical works such as the Upanishads emphasized renunciation, the dharma texts argued that the householder who maintains his sacred fire, begets children, and performs his ritual duties well also earns religious merit. Nearly 2,000 years ago these dharma texts elaborated the social doctrine of the four ashramas (“abodes”). This concept was an attempt to harmonize the conflicting tendencies of Hinduism into one system. It held that a male member of any of the three higher classes should first become a chaste student (brahmacharin); then become a married householder (grihastha), discharging his debts to his ancestors by begetting sons and to the gods by sacrificing; then retire (as a vanaprastha), with or without his wife, to the forest to devote himself to spiritual contemplation; and finally, but not mandatorily, become a homeless wandering ascetic (sannyasin (sannyasi)). The situation of the forest dweller was always a delicate compromise that remained problematic on the mythological level and was often omitted or rejected in practical life.

      Although the householder was often extolled—some authorities, regarding studentship a mere preparation for this ashrama, went so far as to brand all other stages inferior—there were always people who became wandering ascetics immediately after studentship. Theorists were inclined to reconcile the divergent views and practices by allowing the ascetic way of life to those who were entirely free from worldly desire (owing to the effects of restrained conduct in former lives), even if they had not gone through the traditional prior stages.

      The texts describing such life stages were written by men for men; they paid scant attention to stages appropriate for women. The Manu-smriti (Manu-smṛti) (200 BCE–300 CE; Laws of Manu), for example, was content to regard marriage as the female equivalent of initiation into the life of a student, thereby effectively denying the student stage of life to girls. Furthermore, in the householder stage, a woman's purpose was summarized under the heading of service to her husband. What we know of actual practice, however, challenges the idea that these patriarchal norms were ever perfectly enacted or that women entirely accepted the values they presupposed. While some women became ascetics, many more focused their religious lives on realizing a state of blessedness that was understood to be at once this-worldly and expressive of a larger cosmic well-being. Women have often directed the cultivation of the auspicious life-giving force (shakti) they possess to the benefit of their husbands and families, but, as an ideal, this force has independent status.

The history of Hinduism

      The history of Hinduism in India can be traced to about 1500 BCE. Evidence of Hinduism's early antecedents is derived from archaeology, comparative philology, and comparative religion.

Sources of Hinduism

Indo-European sources

      The earliest literary source for the history of Hinduism is the Rigveda, consisting of hymns that were composed chiefly during the last two or three centuries of the 2nd millennium BCE. The religious life reflected in this text is not that of Hinduism but of an earlier sacrificial religious system, generally known as Brahmanism or Vedism (Vedic religion), which developed in India among Indo-European (Indo-European languages)-speaking peoples. This branch of a related group of nomadic and seminomadic tribal peoples, originally inhabiting the steppe country of southern Russia and Central Asia, brought with them the horse and chariot and the Sanskrit language. Other branches of these peoples penetrated into Europe, bringing with them the Indo-European languages that developed into the chief language groups now spoken there.

      Before they entered the Indian subcontinent (c. 1500 BCE), the Vedic people were in close contact with the ancestors of the Iranians, as evidenced by similarities between Sanskrit and the earliest surviving Iranian languages. Thus, the religion of the Rigveda contains elements from three evolutionary strata: an early element common to most of the Indo-European tribes, a later element held in common with the early Iranians, and an element acquired in the Indian subcontinent itself after the main Vedic migrations. Hinduism arose from the continued accretion of further elements derived from the original non-Vedic inhabitants, from outside sources, and from the geniuses of individual reformers in all periods.

      Present-day Hinduism contains few direct survivals from its Indo-European heritage. Some of the elements of the Hindu wedding ceremony, notably the circumambulation of the sacred fire and the cult of the domestic fire itself, are rooted in the remote Indo-European past. The same is probably true of some aspects of the ancestor cult. The Rigveda contains many other Indo-European elements, such as ritual sacrifices and the worship of male sky gods, including the old sky god Dyaus, whose name is cognate with those of Zeus of ancient Greece and Jupiter of Rome (“Father Jove”). The Vedic heaven, the “world of the fathers,” resembles the Germanic Valhalla and seems also to be an Indo-European inheritance.

Indo-Iranian sources

      The Indo-Iranian element in later Hinduism is chiefly found in the ceremony of initiation, or “second birth” ( upanayana), a rite also found in Zoroastrianism. Performed by boys of the three “twice-born” upper classes, it involves the tying of a sacred cord. Another example of Indo-Iranian influence is the Vedic god Varuna (Varuṇa). Although now an unimportant sea god, Varuna, as portrayed in the Rigveda, possesses many features of the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazdā (“Wise Lord”). Indo-Iranian influence can also be seen in the hallucinogenic sacred drink soma, which corresponds to the sacred haoma of Zoroastrianism.

Indigenous sources

      Even in the earlier parts of the Rigveda, however, the religion displays numerous specifically Indian features. Some of the chief gods, for example, have no clear Indo-European or Indo-Iranian counterparts. Although some of the new features may have evolved entirely within the Vedic framework, it is generally presumed that many of them stem from the influence of the indigenous inhabitants. The Vedic people may never have been in direct contact with the civilization of the Indus valley in its prime, but the religion of the valley's culture undoubtedly influenced them.

Non-Indo-European sources

The Dravidian (Dravidian languages) hypothesis

      Features of Hinduism that cannot be traced to the Rigveda are sometimes ascribed to the influence of the original inhabitants, who are often vaguely and incorrectly referred to as “Dravidians,” a term that refers to a family of languages and not an ethnic group. Some scholars have argued that the ruling classes of the Harappa (Harappā) culture (c. 2500–1700 BCE), or the Indus civilization, spoke a Dravidian language (Dravidian languages) and have tentatively identified their script with that of a Dravidian language. But there is little supporting evidence for this claim, and the presence of Dravidian speakers throughout the whole subcontinent at any time in history is not attested. Thus, although many aspects of Hinduism are traceable to non-Vedic influence, not all of these aspects are borrowed from “Dravidians.”

Other sources

      The Central Asian nomads who entered India in the two centuries before and after the beginning of the Common Era might have influenced the growth of devotional Hinduism out of Vedic religion. The Classical Western world directly affected Hindu religious art, and several features of Hinduism can be traced to Zoroastrianism. In more recent centuries, the influence of Islam (Islām) and Christianity on Hinduism can be seen.

The process of “Sanskritization”

      The development of Hinduism can be interpreted as a constant interaction between the religion of the upper social groups, represented by the Brahmans, and the religion of other groups. From the time of the Vedas (c. 1500 BCE) the indigenous inhabitants of the subcontinent tended to adapt their religious and social life to Brahmanic norms. This development resulted from the desire of lower-class groups to rise on the social ladder by adopting the ways and beliefs of the higher castes. The process, sometimes called “Sanskritization,” began in Vedic times, when non-Vedic chieftains accepted the ministrations of Brahmans and thus achieved social status for themselves and their subjects. It was probably the principal method by which Hinduism spread through the subcontinent and into Southeast Asia. Sanskritization still continues in the form of the conversion of tribal groups, and it is reflected by the persistent tendency of low-caste Hindus to try to raise their status by adopting high-caste customs, such as wearing the sacred cord and becoming vegetarians (vegetarianism), even though the castes have been officially abolished.

      If Sanskritization has been the main means of spreading Hinduism throughout the subcontinent, the converse process, which has no convenient label, has been one of the means whereby Hinduism has changed and developed over the centuries. The Vedic people lived side by side with the indigenous inhabitants of the subcontinent. The phallic emblem of the god Shiva arose from a combination of the phallic aspects of the Vedic god Indra and a non-Vedic icon of early popular fertility cults. Many features of Hindu mythology and several of the lesser gods—such as Ganesha, an elephant-headed god, and Hanuman, the monkey god—were incorporated into Hinduism and assimilated into the appropriate Vedic gods by this means. Similarly, the worship of many goddesses who are now regarded as the consorts of the great male Hindu gods, as well as the worship of individual unmarried goddesses, may have originally incorporated the worship of non-Vedic local goddesses. Unorthodox circles on the fringes of Brahmanic culture (probably in southern India) were one of the important sources of the system of ecstatic devotional religion known as bhakti. Thus, the history of Hinduism can be interpreted as the imposition of orthoprax custom upon wider and wider ranges of people and, complementarily, as the survival of features of non-Vedic religions that gained strength steadily until they were adapted by the Brahmans.

The prehistoric period (3rd and 2nd millennia BCE)

Indigenous prehistoric religion

      The prehistoric culture of the Indus valley (Indus civilization) arose in the latter centuries of the 3rd millennium BCE from the metal-using village cultures of the region. There is considerable evidence of the material life of the Indus people, but its interpretation remains a matter of speculation until their writing is deciphered. Enough evidence exists, however, to show that several features of later Hinduism may have had prehistoric origins.

      In most of the village cultures, small terra-cotta figurines of women, found in large quantities, have been interpreted as icons of a fertility deity whose cult was widespread in the Mediterranean area and in western Asia from Neolithic (Neolithic Period) times (c. 5000 BCE) onward. This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that the goddess was apparently associated with the bull—a feature also found in the ancient religions farther west.

Religion in the Indus valley civilization

 The Harappa culture, located in what is now Pakistan, has produced much evidence of what may have been a cult of a goddess and a bull. Figurines of both occur, female figures being more common, while the bull appears more frequently on the many steatite seals. A horned figure, possibly with three faces, occurs on a few seals, and on one seal he is surrounded by animals. A few male figurines, one apparently in a dancing posture, may represent deities. No building has been discovered at any Harappan site that can be positively identified as a temple, but the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro may have been used for ritual purposes, as were the ghats (bathing steps on riverbanks) attached to later Hindu temples. The presence of bathrooms in most of the houses and the remarkable system of covered drains indicate a strong concern for cleanliness that may have been related to concepts of ritual purity but perhaps merely to ideas of hygiene.

      Many seals show what may be religious and legendary themes that cannot be interpreted with certainty, such as seals depicting trees next to figures who may be divinities believed to reside in them. The bull is often depicted standing before a sort of altar, and the horned figure has been interpreted overconfidently as a prototype of the Hindu god Shiva. Small conical objects have been interpreted as phallic emblems like those that are also connected with Shiva in later Hinduism, though they may have been pieces used in board games. Other interpretations of the remains of the Harappa culture are even more speculative and, if accepted, would indicate that many features of later Hinduism were already in existence 4,000 years ago. The fact that Harappans buried their dead (death rite) with grave deposits, a practice not followed by the later Hindus, suggests that they had some belief in an afterlife.

Survival of archaic religious practices

      Some elements of the religious life of current and past folk religions—notably sacred animals, sacred trees (especially the pipal, Ficus religiosa), and the use of small figurines for cult purposes—are found in all parts of India and may have been borrowed from pre-Vedic civilizations. On the other hand, these things are also commonly encountered outside India, and therefore they may have originated independently in Hinduism as well.

The Vedic period (2nd millennium–7th century BCE)

      The people of the early Vedic period left few material remains, but they did leave a very important literary record called the Rigveda. Its 1,028 hymns are distributed throughout 10 books, of which the first and the last are the most recent. A hymn usually consists of three sections: an exhortation; a main part comprising praise of the deity, prayers, and petition, with frequent references to the deity's mythology; and a specific request.

      The Rigveda is not a unitary work, and its composition may have taken several centuries. In its form at the time of its final edition, it reflected a well-developed religious system. The date commonly given for the final recension of the Rigveda is 1200 BCE. During the next two or three centuries it was supplemented by three other Vedas and still later by Vedic texts called the Brahmana (Brāhmaṇa)s and the Upanishads (see below Vedas (Hinduism)).

Challenges to Brahmanism (6th–2nd century BCE)

      Indian religious life underwent great changes during the period 550–450 BCE. This century was marked by the rise of breakaway sects of ascetics who rejected traditional religion, denying the authority of the Vedas and of the Brahmans and following teachers who claimed to have discovered the secret of obtaining release from transmigration. By far the most important of these figures were Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha, and Vardhamana, called Mahavira (“Great Hero”), the founder of Jainism. There were many other heterodox teachers who organized bands of ascetic followers, and each group adopted a specific code of conduct. They gained considerable support from ruling families and merchants. The latter were growing in wealth and influence, and many of them were searching for alternative forms of religious activity that would give them a more significant role than did orthodox Brahmanism or that would be less expensive to support.

      The scriptures of the new religious movements throw some light on the popular religious life of the period. The god Prajapati (Prajāpati) was widely believed to be the highest god and the creator of the universe; Indra, known chiefly as Shakra (“The Mighty One”), was second to him in importance. The Brahmans were very influential, but there was opposition to their large-scale animal sacrifices—on both philosophical and economic grounds—and to their pretensions to superiority by virtue of their birth. The doctrine of transmigration was by then generally accepted, though a group of outright materialists—the Carvakas (Carvaka), or Lokayatas—denied the survival of the soul after death. The ancestor cult, part of the Indo-European heritage, was retained almost universally, at least by the higher castes. Popular religious life largely centred around the worship of local fertility divinities ( yakshas), cobra spirits ( Nagas), and other minor spirits in sacred places such as groves. Although these sacred places were the main centres of popular religious life, there is no evidence of any buildings or images associated with them, and it appears that neither temples nor large icons existed at the time.

      About 500 BCE asceticism became widespread, and increasing numbers of intelligent young men “gave up the world” to search for release from transmigration by achieving a state of psychic security. The orthodox Brahmanical teachers reacted to these tendencies by devising the doctrine of the four ashramas, which divided the life of the twice-born after initiation into four stages: the brahmacharin (celibate religious student); the grihastha (married householder); the vanaprastha (forest dweller); and the sannyasin (wandering ascetic). This attempt to keep asceticism in check by confining it to men of late middle age was not wholly successful. Thereafter Hindu social theory centred on the concept of varnashrama dharma, or the duties of the four classes ( varnas) and the four ashramas, which constituted the ideal that Hindus were encouraged to follow.

      The first great empire of India, the Mauryan empire, arose in the 3rd century BCE. Its early rulers were heterodox; Ashoka (reigned c. 265–238 BCE), the third and most famous of the Mauryan emperors, was a professed Buddhist. Although there is no doubt that Ashoka's patronage of Buddhism did much to spread that religion, his inscriptions recognize the Brahmans as worthy of respect. Sentiments in favour of nonviolence ( ahimsa) and vegetarianism, much encouraged by the heterodox sects, spread during the Mauryan period and were greatly encouraged by Ashoka. A Brahmanic revival appears to have occurred with the fall of the Mauryas. The orthodox religion itself, however, was undergoing change at this time, as theistic tendencies developed around the gods Vishnu and Shiva.

      Inscriptions, iconographic evidence, and literary references reveal the emergence of devotional theism in the 2nd century BCE. Several brief votive inscriptions refer to the god Vasudeva (Vāsudeva), who by this time was widely worshipped in western India. At the end of the 2nd century, Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador of King Antialcidas of Taxila (in Pakistan), erected a large column in honour of Vasudeva at Besnagar in Madhya Pradesh and recorded that he was a Bhagavata (Bhāgavata), a term used specifically for the devotees of Vishnu. The identification of Vasudeva with the old Vedic god Vishnu and, later, with Vishnu's incarnation, Krishna, was quickly accepted.

      Near the end of the Mauryan period, the first surviving stone images of Hinduism appear. Several large, simply carved figures survive, representing not any of the great gods but rather yakshas, or local chthonic divinities connected with water, fertility, and magic. The original locations of these images are uncertain, but they were probably erected in the open air in sacred enclosures. Temples are not clearly attested in this period by either archaeology or literature. A few fragmentary images thought to be those of Vasudeva and Shiva, the latter in anthropomorphic form and in the form of a linga, or phallic emblem, are found on coins of the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE.

Early Hinduism (2nd century BCE–4th century CE)

      The centuries immediately preceding and following the dawn of the Common Era were marked by the recension of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana (Rāmāyaṇa) and the Mahabharata (the latter incorporating into it the Bhagavadgita). The worship of Vishnu, incarnate as Krishna in the Mahabharata and as Rama in the Ramayana, developed significantly during this period (see below Epics and Puranas (Hinduism)), as did the cult of Shiva, who plays an active role in the Mahabharata.

The rise of the major sects: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism

      The Vedic god Rudra gained importance from the end of the Rigvedic period. In the Svetashvatara Upanishad, Rudra is for the first time called Shiva and is described as the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe. His followers are called on to worship him with devotion (bhakti). The tendency for the laity to form themselves into religious guilds or societies—evident in the case of the yaksha cults, Buddhism, and Jainism—promoted the growth of devotional Vaishnavism and Shaivism. These local associations of worshipers appear to have been a principal factor in the spread of the new cults. Theistic ascetics are less in evidence at this time, though a community of Shaivite monks, the Pashupatas, existed by the 2nd or 3rd century CE.

      The period between the fall of the Mauryan empire (c. 185 BCE) and the rise of the Gupta dynasty (c. 320 CE) was one of great change, including the conquest of most of the area of Pakistan and parts of western India by a succession of invaders. India was opened to influence from the West as never before, not only by invaders but also through flourishing maritime trade with the Roman Empire (Roman Republic and Empire). The effects of the new contacts were most obvious in art and architecture. The oldest freestanding stone temple in the subcontinent has been excavated at Taxila, near Rawalpindi, Pak. During the 1st century BCE the Gandhara (Gandhāra art) school of sculpture arose in the same region and made use of Hellenistic and Roman prototypes, mainly in the service of Buddhism. Hindu temples of the period probably were made of wood, because no remains of them have survived; however, literary evidence shows that they must have existed.

      By the time of the early Gupta empire the new theism had been harmonized with the old Vedic religion, and two of the main branches of Hinduism were fully recognized. The Vaishnavas had the support of the Gupta emperors, who took the title paramabhagavata (“supreme devotee of Vishnu”). Vishnu temples were numerous, and the doctrine of Vishnu's avatars (incarnations) was widely accepted. Of the 10 incarnations of later Vaishnavism, however, only two seem to have been much worshipped in the Gupta period (4th–6th century). These were Krishna, the hero of the Mahabharata, who also begins to appear in his pastoral aspect as the cowherd and flute player, and Varaha (Varāha), the divine boar, of whom several impressive images survive from the Gupta period.

      The Shaivites were also a growing force in the religious life of India. The sect of Pashupata ascetics, founded by Lakulisha (or Nahulisha), who lived in the 2nd century CE, is attested by inscriptions from the 5th century; it is among the earliest of the sectarian religious orders of Hinduism. Representations of the son of Shiva, Skanda (also called Karttikeya, the war god), appeared as early as 100 BCE on coins from the Kushan dynasty, which ruled northern India, Afghanistan, and Central Asia in the first three centuries of the Common Era. Shiva's other son, the elephant-headed Ganesha, patron deity of commercial and literary enterprises, did not appear until the 5th century. Very important in this period was Surya, the sun god, in whose honour temples were built, though in modern times he is little regarded by most Hindus. The solar cult had Vedic roots but later may have expanded under Iranian influence.

 Several goddesses gained importance in this period. Although goddesses had always been worshipped in local and popular cults, they play comparatively minor roles in Vedic religion. Lakshmi (Lakṣmī), or Shri, goddess of fortune and consort of Vishnu, was worshipped before the beginning of the Common Era, and several lesser goddesses are attested from the Gupta period. But the cult of Durga, the consort of Shiva, began to gain importance only in the 4th century, and the large-scale development of Shaktism (devotion to the active, creative principle personified as the mother goddess) did not take place until medieval times.

The development of temples (temple)

      The Gupta period was marked by the rapid development of temple architecture. Earlier temples were made of wood, but freestanding stone and brick temples soon appeared in many parts of India. By the 7th century, stone temples, some of considerable dimensions, were found in parts of the country. Originally, the design of the Hindu temples may have borrowed from the Buddhist precedent, for in some of the oldest temples the image was placed in the centre of the shrine, which was surrounded by an ambulatory path resembling the path around a stupa (a religious building containing a Buddhist relic). Nearly all surviving Gupta temples are comparatively small; they consist of a small cella (central chamber), constructed of thick and solid masonry, with a veranda either at the entrance or on all sides of the building. The earliest Gupta temples, such as the Buddhist temples at Sanchi (Sānchi), have flat roofs; however, the sikhara (śikhara) (spire), typical of the North Indian temple, was developed in this period and with time was steadily made taller. The massive and tall tower of the Buddhist temple of Bodh Gaya, which was in existence in the 7th century, represents the culmination of Gupta temple architecture.

      The Buddhists and Jains had made use of artificial caves for religious purposes, and these were adapted by the Hindus. Hindu cave-temples, however, are comparatively rare, and none have been discovered from earlier than the Gupta period. In the Pallava site of Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram), south of Chennai (Madras), a number of small temples were carved in the 7th century from outcroppings of rock; they represent some of the oldest religious buildings in the Tamil country.

The spread of Hinduism in Southeast Asia and the Pacific

      Hinduism and Buddhism exerted an enormous influence on the civilizations of Southeast Asia and contributed greatly to the development of a written tradition in that area. About the beginning of the Common Era, Indian merchants in comparatively large numbers settled there, bringing Brahmans and Buddhist monks with them. These religious men were patronized by local chiefs, who converted to Hinduism or Buddhism. The earliest material evidence of Hinduism in Southeast Asia comes from Borneo, where late 4th-century Sanskrit inscriptions testify to the performance of Vedic sacrifices by Brahmans at the behest of local chiefs. Chinese chronicles attest an Indianized kingdom in Vietnam two centuries earlier. The dominant form of Hinduism exported to Southeast Asia was Shaivism, though some Vaishnavism was also known there. Later, from the 9th century onward, Tantrism, both Hindu and Buddhist, spread throughout the region.

      The civilizations of Southeast Asia developed forms of Hinduism and Buddhism that incorporated distinctive local features and in other respects reflected local cultures, but the framework of their religious life was essentially Indian. Stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata became widely known in Southeast Asia and are still popular there in local versions. The people of Bali (in Indonesia) still follow a form of Hinduism adapted to their own genius. Versions of the Manu-smriti (Manu-smṛti) were taken to Southeast Asia and were translated and adapted to indigenous cultures until they lost most of their original content.

      Claims of early Hindu contacts farther east are more doubtful. There is little evidence of the influence of Hinduism on China and Japan, which were primarily affected by Buddhism.

Indian religious influence in the Mediterranean world

      Nearly as dubious as the question of Hindu influence on the religious life of East Asia is its influence on that of the ancient Mediterranean world. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras (c. 580–c. 500 BCE) may have obtained his doctrine of metempsychosis (transmigration, or passage of the soul from one body to another; see reincarnation) from India, mediated by Achaemenian (Achaemenian Dynasty) (6th–4th century BCE) Persia, but similar ideas were known in Egypt and were certainly present in Greece before the time of Pythagoras. The Pythagorean doctrine of a cyclic universe may also be derived from India, but the Indian theory of cosmic cycles is not attested in the 6th century BCE. Nevertheless, it is known that Hindu ascetics occasionally visited Greece. The most striking similarity between Greek and Indian thought is the resemblance between the system of mystical gnosis (Gnosticism) (esoteric knowledge) described in the Enneads of the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus (205–270) and that of the Yoga-sutras attributed to Patanjali (Patañjali), an Indian religious teacher sometimes dated in the 2nd century CE. The Patanjali text is the older, and influence must be suspected, though the problem of mediation remains difficult because Plotinus gives no direct evidence of having known anything about Indian mysticism. Several Greek and Latin writers (an example of the former being Clement of Alexandria (Clement of Alexandria, Saint)) show considerable knowledge of the externals of Indian religions, but none gives any intimation of understanding their more recondite aspects.

The rise of devotional Hinduism (4th–11th century)

      The medieval period was characterized by the growth of new devotional religious movements centred on hymnodists who taught in the popular languages of the time. The new movements probably began with the appearance of hymns in Tamil (Tamil literature) associated with two groups of poets: the Nayanar (Nāyanār)s, worshipers of Shiva, and the Alvar (Āḷvār)s, devotees of Vishnu. The oldest of these date from the early 7th century, though passages of devotional character can be found in earlier Tamil literature.

      The term bhakti, in the sense of devotion to a personal god, appears in the Bhagavadgita and the Shvetashvatara Upanishad. In these early sources it represents a devotion still somewhat restrained and unemotional. The new form of bhakti, associated with singing in the languages of the common people, was highly charged with emotion and mystical fervour, and the relationship between worshiper and divinity was often described as analogous to that between lover and beloved. The Tamil saints, South Indian devotees of Vishnu or Shiva from the 6th to the 9th century, felt an intense love (Tamil: anbu) toward their god. They experienced overwhelming joy in his presence and deep sorrow when he did not reveal himself. Some of them felt a profound sense of guilt or inadequacy in the face of the divine. But the dominant emotion in these poems is one of joy, often expressing itself in song and dance. The poems have a strong ethical content and encourage the virtues of love, humility, and brotherhood. The ideas of these poets, spreading northward, probably were the origin of bhakti in northern India.

      The devotional cults further weakened Buddhism, which had long been on the decline. From time to time Hindus, especially Shaivites, took aggressive action against Buddhism. At least two Shaivite kings—the Hephthalite invader Mihirakula (early 6th century) and the Bengal king Sasanka (early 7th century)—are reported to have destroyed monasteries and killed monks. The philosophers Kumarila (Kumārila) and Shankara (Śaṅkara) were also strongly opposed to Buddhism. In their journeys throughout India, their biographies claim, they vehemently debated with Buddhists and tried to persuade kings and other influential people to withdraw their support from Buddhist monasteries. Only in Bihar and Bengal, because of the patronage of the Pala dynasty (Pāla Dynasty) and some lesser kings and chiefs, did Buddhist monasteries continue to flourish. Buddhism in eastern India, however, was well on the way to being reabsorbed into Hinduism when the Muslims invaded the Ganges valley (Ganges River) in the 12th century. The great Buddhist shrine of Bodh Gaya, the site of the Buddha's enlightenment, became a Hindu temple and remained as such until recent times.

      At the end of its existence in India, Buddhism developed in a way that had some effect on Hinduism. Among the Buddhist Tantrists appeared a new school of preachers, often known as siddhas (“Those Who Have Achieved”), who sang their verses in the contemporary languages, early Maithili and Bengali. They taught that giving up the world was not necessary for release from transmigration and that one could achieve the highest state by living a life of simplicity in one's own home. This system, known as Sahajayana (“Vehicle of the Natural” or “Easy Vehicle”), influenced both Bengali devotional Vaishnavism, which produced a sect called Vaisnava-Sahajiya (Vaiṣṇava-Sahajiyā) with similar doctrines, and the Natha (Hinduism) yogis (mentioned below), whose teachings influenced Kabir (Kabīr) and other later bhakti masters.

Hinduism under Islam (Islāmic world) (11th–19th century)

The challenge of Islam and popular religion

      The advent of Islam in the Ganges basin at the end of the 12th century resulted in the withdrawal of royal patronage from Hinduism in much of the area. The attitude of the Muslim rulers toward Hinduism varied. Some, like Fīrūz Tughluq (India) (ruled 1351–88) and Aurangzeb (ruled 1658–1707), were strongly anti-Hindu and enforced payment of jizya, a poll tax on unbelievers. Others, like the Bengali sultan Ḥusayn Shāh ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn (Ḥusayn Shah ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn) (reigned 1493–1519) and the great Akbar (reigned 1556–1605), were well-disposed toward their Hindu subjects. Many temples, however, were destroyed by the more fanatical rulers. Conversion to Islam was more common in areas where Buddhism had once been strongest—Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Kashmir.

      On the eve of the Muslim occupation, Hinduism was by no means sterile in northern India, but its vitality was centred in the southern, Dravidian-speaking areas. Throughout the centuries, the system of class and caste had become more rigid; in each region there was a complex hierarchy of castes strictly forbidden to intermarry or dine together, controlled and regulated by secular powers who acted on the advice of the court Brahmans. The large-scale Vedic sacrifices had practically vanished, but simple domestic Vedic sacrifices continued, and new forms of animal, and sometimes vegetable, sacrifice had appeared, especially connected with the cult of the mother goddess.

      By that time, the main divinities of later Hinduism were worshipped. Rama, the hero of the epic poem, had become the eighth avatar of Vishnu, and his cult was growing, though it was not yet as prominent as it later became. Similarly, Rama's monkey helper, Hanuman, now one of the most popular divinities of India and the most ready helper in time of need, was rising in importance. Krishna was worshipped with his adulterous consort, Radha. Strange syncretic gods had appeared, such as Harihara, a combination of Vishnu and Shiva, and Ardhanarishvara (Ardhanārīśvara), a synthesis of Shiva and his consort Shakti.

temple complexes

 From the Gupta period onward, Hindu temples became larger and more prominent, and their architecture developed in distinctive regional styles. In northern India the best remaining Hindu temples are found in the Orissa region and in the town of Khajuraho in northern Madhya Pradesh. The best example of Orissan temple architecture is the Lingaraja temple of Bhubaneswar, built about 1000. The largest temple of the region, however, is the famous Black Pagoda, the Sun Temple (Surya Deula) of Konarak (Konārak), built in the mid-13th century. Its tower has long since collapsed, and only the assembly hall remains. The most important Khajuraho temples were built during the 11th century. Individual architectural styles also arose in Gujarat and Rajasthan, but their surviving products are less impressive than those of Orissa and Khajuraho. By the end of the 1st millennium CE the South Indian style had reached its apogee in the great Rajarajeshvara temple of Thanjavur (Tanjore).

      In the temple the god was worshipped by the rites of puja (reverencing a sacred being or object) as though the worshipers were serving a great king. In the important temples a large staff of trained officiants waited on the god. He was awakened in the morning along with his goddess; washed, clothed, and fed; placed in his shrine to give audience to his subjects; praised and entertained throughout the day; and ceremoniously fed, undressed, and put to bed at night. Worshipers sang, burned lamps, waved lights before the divine image, and performed other acts of homage. The god's handmaidens (s (Devadasi)) performed before him at regular intervals, watched by the officiants and lay worshipers, who were his courtiers. These women, either the daughters of devadasis or girls dedicated in childhood, may have also served as prostitutes (prostitution). The association of dedicated prostitutes with certain Hindu shrines can be traced back to before the Christian era. It became more widespread in post-Gupta times, especially in South India, and aroused the reprobation of 19th-century Europeans. Through the efforts of Hindu reformers, the office of the devadasis was discontinued. The role of devadasis is best understood in the context of the analogy between the temple and the royal court, for the Hindu king also had his dancing girls, who bestowed their favours on his courtiers.

 Parallels between the temple and the royal palace also were in evidence in the Rathayatras (Chariot Festivals). On festival days, when the king issued from his palace and paraded around his city, escorted by courtiers, troops, and musicians, the god also was paraded in a splendid procession, together with the lesser gods of the minor shrines. The god rode on a tremendous and ornate moving shrine (ratha), which was often pulled by large bands of devotees. Rathayatras still take place in many cities of India. The best-known is the annual procession of Jagannatha (Jagannātha) (“Juggernaut”), a form of Vishnu, at Puri, Orissa.

      The great temples were (and still are) wealthy institutions. They were supported by the transfer of the taxes levied by kings on specific areas of the nearby countryside, by donations of the pious, and by the fees of worshipers. Their immense wealth was one of the factors that encouraged the Ghaznavid (Ghaznavid Dynasty) and Ghūrid (Ghūrid Sultanate) Turks to invade India after the 11th century. The temples were controlled by self-perpetuating committees—whose membership was usually a hereditary privilege—and by a large staff of priests and temple servants under a high priest who wielded tremendous power and influence.

      In keeping with their wealth, the great walled temple complexes of South India were (and still are) small cities, containing the central and numerous lesser shrines, bathing tanks, administrative offices, homes of the temple employees, workshops, bazaars, and public buildings of many kinds. As some of the largest employers and greatest landowners in their areas, the temples played an important part in the economy. They also performed valuable social functions, serving as schools, dispensaries, poorhouses, banks, and concert halls.

      The temple complexes suffered during the Muslim occupation. In the sacred cities of Varanasi (Benares) and Mathura, no large temple from any period before the 17th century has survived. The same is true of most of the main religious centres of northern India but not of the regions where the Muslim hold was less firm, such as Orissa, Rajasthan, and South India. Despite the widespread destruction of the temples, Hinduism endured, in part because of the absence of a centralized authority; rituals and sacrifices were performed in places other than temples. The purohitas, or family priests who performed the domestic rituals and personal sacraments for the laypeople, continued to function, as did the thousands of ascetics.

Sectarian movements

      Before the Muslim invasion of the subcontinent, the new forms of South Indian bhakti had spread beyond the bounds of the Dravidian south. Certain Vaishnava (Vaishnavism) theologians of the Pancharatra (Pāñcarātra) and Bhagavata schools gave the growing Vaishnava bhakti cults a philosophical framework that also influenced some Shaivite schools.

      Several Vaishnava teachers deserve mention, including Ramanuja (Rāmānuja), a Tamil Brahman of the 11th century who was for a time chief priest of the Vaishnava temple of Srirangam, near Tiruchchirappalli (Trichinopoly), and Nimbarka (Nimbārka), a Telugu Brahman of the 12th or 13th century who spread the cult of the divine cowherd and of Radha (Rādhā), his favourite gopi (cowherdess, especially associated with the legends of Krishna's youth). His sect survives near Mathura but has made little impact elsewhere. More important was Vallabha (Vallabhacarya (Vallabhācārya); 1479–1531), who emphasized the erotic imagery of the Vaishnava doctrine of grace and established a sect that stressed absolute obedience to the guru (teacher). Early in its existence the sect was organized with a hierarchy of senior monks (gosvami), many of whom became very rich. The Vallabhacarya (Vallabhācārya) sect, once very influential in the western half of North India, declined in the 19th century, in part because of a number of lawsuits against the chief guru, the descendant of Vallabha.

      The Shaiva (Shaivism) sects also developed from the 10th century onward. In South India there emerged the school of Shaiva-siddhanta, still one of the most significant religious forces in that region and one that, unlike the school of Sankara, does not accept the full identity of the soul and God. A completely monistic school of Shaivism appeared in Kashmir (Kashmir Śaivism) in the early 9th century. Its doctrines differ from those of Shankara chiefly because it attributes personality to the absolute spirit, who is the god Shiva and not the impersonal brahman.

      An important sect, founded in the 12th century in the Kannada-speaking area of the Deccan, was that of the Lingayats (Liṅgāyat), or Virashaivas (“Heroes of the Shaiva Religion”). Its traditional founder, Basava, taught doctrines and practices of surprising unorthodoxy: he opposed all forms of image worship and accepted only the lingam of Shiva as a sacred symbol. Virashaivism rejected the Vedas, the Brahman priesthood, and all caste distinctions. It also consciously rejected several religious and social conventions, such as the ban against the remarriage of widows, and practiced burial rather than cremation of the dead.

      Shaivism underwent significant growth in northern India. In the 13th century Gorakhnath (also known as Gorakshanatha), who became leader of a sect of Shaivite ascetics known as NathaNathas (“Lords”) from the title of their chief teachers, introduced new ideas and practices to Shaivism. The Gorakhnathis were particularly important as propagators of Hatha Yoga, a form of Yoga that requires complex and difficult physical exercises and that has become popular in the West. These yogis, who are still numerous, influenced the teachings of several of the bhakti poets.

bhakti movements

      The poets and saints (highly respected ascetics who were at times believed to be incarnations of a deity) of medieval bhakti appeared throughout India. Although all had their individual genius, the bhakti lyricists shared a number of common features. Unlike Sanskrit authors, mainly well-educated members of the Brahman class whose learning and status shaped their outlook, bhakti poets were not restricted to a single language or class. They brought to their poetry a familiarity with folk religion unknown or ignored in the Sanskrit texts. The use of the spoken language, even though it was formalized, made possible the expression of an unmediated vision that needed no further context; thus, the lyrics are short, intensely personal, and precise. These works illustrate the localistic and reformist tendency evidenced throughout India in the vernacular literatures, especially in Tamil, Bengali, and Hindi. (See below Vernacular literatures (Hinduism).)

      Some of the new forms of Hinduism have been attributed to the influence of Islam (Islāmic world), including popular emotional bhakti, since the practice of singing ecstatic hymns in the current local language began in South India at a time when the sea trade brought many Arab Muslims there. Moreover, the presence of rulers of alien faith and the withdrawal of royal patronage from the temples and Brahmanic colleges may have encouraged the spread of new, more popular forms of Hinduism. The psychological effect of the Muslim conquest may also have predisposed the people to accept the powerful teachings of the poets.

      Much has been said about the synthesis of Hinduism and Islam in the period of Muslim dominance. Numerous Muslim social customs were adopted, and Persian and Arabic words entered the vocabularies of Indian languages. The teachings of such men as Basava and Kabir may have been influenced by Muslim observances and social customs. A still greater synthesis took place among the Muslims, most of whom were Indian by blood. In Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Marathi there is much poetry, written by Muslims and commencing with the Islamic invocation of Allah, which nevertheless betrays strong Hindu influence. Thus, there are texts that proclaim Krishna as being in the line of the prophets of Islam and as the teacher of the unity of God. Much mystical poetry, though written by authors with Muslim names, uses Hindu imagery and Hindu terminology. This literature originated in the accommodating character of early Indian Sufism (Ṣūfism), which, well before Kabir, proclaimed that Muslim, Christian, Jew, Zoroastrian, and Hindu were all striving toward the same goal and that the outward observances that kept them apart were false. Some Indian Sufis were greatly influenced by Hindu customs. For example, a school of Kashmiri Sufis—whose members call themselves rishis, after the legendary Hindu sages of the same name—respect and repeat the verses of Lal Ded, a 14th-century poet and holy woman from Kashmir, and are strict vegetarians.

      Tolerant Muslim rulers encouraged syncretic tendencies, which reached their zenith in the reign of Akbar (1556–1605). Taking a great interest in the religion of his Hindu subjects, Akbar tried to establish a single, all-embracing religion for his empire. Although his efforts failed, they influenced India for more than 50 years after his death. Orthodox Muslim theologians complained about the growth of heresy, however, and the emperor Aurangzeb (reigned 1658–1707) did all in his power to discourage it. Popular Muslim preachers throughout the 18th and 19th centuries worked to restore orthodoxy. Thus, syncretic tendencies were somewhat reduced before the imposition of British power in the mid-18th century. Furthermore, British rule emphasized the distinctions between Hindu and Muslim and did not encourage efforts to harmonize the two religions.

The modern period (19th–21st century)

      From their small coastal settlements in southern India, the Portuguese promoted Roman Catholic (Roman Catholicism) missionary (mission) activity and made converts, most of whom were of low caste; the majority of caste Hindus were unaffected. Small Protestant (Protestant Heritage) missions operated from the Danish factories of Tranquebar in Tamil Nadu and Serampore in Bengal, but they were even less influential. The British East India Company, conscious of the disadvantages of unnecessarily antagonizing its Indian subjects, excluded all Christian (Christianity) missionary activity from its territories. Indeed, the company continued the patronage accorded by indigenous rulers to many Hindu temples and forbade its Indian troops to embrace Christianity. The growing evangelical conscience in England brought this policy to an end with the renewal of the company's charter in 1813. The company's policy then became one of strict impartiality in matters of religion, but missionaries were allowed to work throughout its territory. Thus, Christian ideas began to spread.

Hindu reform movements

Brahmo Samaj

      The pioneer of reform was Ram Mohun Roy (Roy, Ram Mohun). His intense belief in strict monotheism and in the evils of image worship began early and probably was derived from Islam, because at first he had no knowledge of Christianity. He later learned English and in 1814 settled in Calcutta (Kolkata), where he was prominent in the movement for encouraging education of a Western type. His final achievement was the foundation of the Brahmo Samaj (“Society of God”) in 1828.

      Roy outwardly remained a Hindu, wearing the sacred cord and keeping most of the customs of the orthodox Brahman, but his theology was surprisingly non-Indian. He was chiefly inspired by 18th-century Deism (rational belief in a transcendent Creator God) and Unitarianism (Unitarianism and Universalism) (belief in God's essential oneness), but some of his writing suggests that he was also aware of the religious ideas of the Freemasons (Freemasonry) (a secret fraternity that espoused some Deistic concepts). Several of his friends were members of a Masonic lodge in Calcutta. His ideas of the afterlife are obscure, and it is possible that he did not believe in the doctrine of transmigration. Roy was one of the first higher-class Hindus to visit Europe, where he was much admired by the intelligentsia of Britain and France.

      After Roy's death, Debendranath Tagore (Tagore, Debendranath) (father of the greatest poet of modern India, Rabindranath Tagore (Tagore, Rabindranath) [1861–1941]) became leader of the Brahmo Samaj, and under his guidance a more mystical note was sounded by the society; Tagore also promoted literacy and vigorously opposed idolatry and the practice of suttee. In 1863 he founded Santiniketan (Shantiniketan) (“Abode of Peace”), a retreat in rural Bengal. The third great leader of the Brahmo Samaj, Keshab Chunder Sen, was a reformer who completely abolished caste in the society and admitted women as members. As his theology became more syncretistic and eclectic, a schism developed, and the more conservative faction remained under the leadership of Tagore. Keshab's faction, the Brahmo Samaj of India, adopted as its scripture a selection of theistic texts gathered from all the main religions; at the same time, it became more Hindu in its worship, employing the sankirtana (devotional singing and dancing) and nagarakirtana (street procession) of the Caitanya (Caitanya sect) sect, an intensely devotional form of Hinduism established by the Bengali mystic and poet Caitanya. In 1881 Keshab founded the Church of the New Dispensation (Naba Bidhan) for the purpose of establishing the truth of all the great religions in an institution that he believed would replace them all. When he died in 1884, the Brahmo Samaj began to decline.

Arya Samaj

      A reformer of different character was Dayanand Sarasvati (Dayananda Sarasvati), who was trained as a yogi but steadily lost faith in Yoga and in many other aspects of Hinduism. After traveling widely as an itinerant preacher, he founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, and it rapidly gained ground in western India. Dayanand rejected image worship, sacrifice, and polytheism and claimed to base his doctrines on the four Vedas as the eternal word of God. Later Hindu scriptures were judged critically, and many of them were believed to be completely evil. The Arya Samaj did much to encourage Hindu nationalism, but it did not disparage the knowledge of the West, and it established many schools and colleges. Among its members was the revolutionary Lala Lajpat Rai (Lajpat Rai, Lala).

New religious movements

Ramakrishna Mission

      The most important developments in Hinduism, however, did not arise primarily from the new samajs. Ramakrishna, a devotee at Daksineshvar, a temple of Kali north of Kolkota (Calcutta), attracted a band of educated lay followers who spread his doctrines. As a result of his studies and visions, he came to the conclusion that “all religions are true” but that the religion of a person's own time and place was for that person the best expression of the truth. Even idolatry met the needs of simple people and was not to be disparaged. Ramakrishna thus gave educated Hindus a basis on which they could justify the less rational aspects of their religion to a consciousness increasingly influenced by Western values.

      Among the followers of Ramakrishna was Narendranath Datta, who became an ascetic after his master's death and assumed the religious name Vivekananda. In 1893 he attended the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, where his powerful personality and stirring oratory deeply impressed the gathering. After lecturing in the United States and England, he returned to India in 1897 with a small band of Western disciples and founded the Ramakrishna Mission, the most important modern organization of reformed Hinduism. Vivekananda, more than any earlier Hindu reformer, encouraged social service. Influenced by progressive Western political ideas, he set himself firmly against all forms of caste distinction and fostered a spirit of self-reliance in his followers. With branches in many parts of the world, the Ramakrishna Mission has done much to spread knowledge of its version of Hinduism outside India.

Theosophical Society

      Another movement influenced in part by Hinduism is the Theosophical Society. Founded in New York City in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky (Blavatsky, Helena) of Russia, it was originally inspired by Kabbala (Jewish esoteric mysticism), Gnosticism (esoteric salvatory knowledge), and other forms of Western occultism. When Blavatsky went to India in 1879, her doctrines quickly took on an Indian character, and from her headquarters at Adyar she and her followers established branches in many cities of India.

      After surviving serious accusations of charlatanry leveled against its founder and other leaders, the society prospered under the leadership of Annie Besant (Besant, Annie), a reform-minded Englishwoman. During her tenure the many Theosophical lodges founded in Europe and the United States helped to acquaint the West with the principles of Hinduism, if in a rather idiosyncratic form.

Aurobindo Ashram

      Another modern teacher whose doctrines had some influence outside India was Shri Aurobindo (Aurobindo, Śrī). He began his career as a revolutionary but later withdrew from politics and settled in Pondicherry, then a French possession. There he established an ashram and achieved a high reputation as a sage. His followers saw him as the first incarnate manifestation of the superbeings whose evolution he prophesied, and apparently he did not discourage this belief. After his death, the leadership of the Aurobindo Ashram was assumed by Mira Richard, a Frenchwoman who had been one of his disciples.

Other reform movements

 Numerous other teachers have affected the religious life of India. Among them was the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (Tagore, Rabindranath), who was influenced by many currents of earlier religious thought, both Indian and non-Indian. Tagore was particularly popular in Europe and the United States about the time of World War I, and he did much to disseminate Hindu religious thought in the West.

      Less important outside India but much respected in India itself, especially in the Dravidian south, was Ramana Maharshi, a Tamil mystic who maintained almost complete silence. His powerful personality attracted a large band of devotees before his death in 1950.

      In 1936 Swami Shivananda, who had been a physician, established an ashram and an organization called the Divine Life Society near the sacred site of Rishikesh in the Himalayas. This organization has numerous branches in India and some elsewhere. His movement teaches more or less orthodox Vedanta (Vedānta), one of the six schools of Indian philosophy, combined with both Yoga and bhakti but rejects caste and stresses social service.

The struggle for independence

      The Hindu revival and reform movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries were closely linked with the growth of Indian nationalism and the struggle for independence. The Arya Samaj strongly encouraged nationalism, and, even though Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Mission were always uncompromisingly nonpolitical, their effect in promoting the movement for self-government is quite evident.

      Religion and politics were joined in the career of Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Tilak, Bal Gangadhar), an orthodox Maharashtrian Brahman who believed that the people of India could be aroused only by appeals couched in religious terms. Tilak used the annual festival of the god Ganesha for nationalist propaganda. His interpretation of the Bhagavadgita as a call to action was also a reflection of his nationalism, and through his mediation the scripture inspired later leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand).

      Hindu religious concepts were also enlisted in the nationalist cause in Bengal. In his historical novel Anandamath (1882), the Bengali writer Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra) described a band of martial ascetics who were pledged to free India from Muslim domination under the Mughal empire (Mughal Dynasty). They took as their anthem a stirring devotional song written in simple Sanskrit— "Bande Mataram" (“I Revere the Mother”)—whose title referred both to the fierce demon-destroying goddess Kali and to India itself. This song was soon adopted by other nationalists. Vivekananda emphasized the need to turn the emotion of bhakti toward the suffering poor of India. During his short career as a revolutionary, Shri Aurobindo made much use of "Bande Mataram," and he called on his countrymen to strive for the freedom of India in a spirit of devotion. The bhakti of the medieval poets was thus enlisted in the cause of modern independence.

Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand)

 Much influenced by the bhakti of his native Gujarat and fortified by similar attitudes in Christianity and Jainism, Mahatma Gandhi, the most important leader in the movement for independence, appeared to his followers as the quintessence of the Hindu tradition. His austere celibate life was one that the Indian laity had learned to respect implicitly. Gandhi's message reached a wider public than that of any of the earlier reformers.

      Gandhi's doctrine of nonviolence can be found in many Hindu sources, although his beliefs were much strengthened by Christian ethical literature and especially by the later writings of Leo Tolstoy (Tolstoy, Leo). His political technique of passive resistance, satyagraha, also has Indian precedents, but here again he was influenced by Western writers such as the American Henry David Thoreau (Thoreau, Henry David). The chief innovations in Gandhi's philosophy were his belief in the dignity of manual labour and in the equality of women. Precedents for both of these can be found in the writings of some 19th-century reformers, but they have little basis in earlier Indian thought. In many ways Gandhi was a traditionalist. His respect for the cow—which he and other educated Indians understood as the representative of Mother Earth—was a factor in the failure of his movement to attract large-scale Muslim support. His insistence on strict vegetarianism and celibacy among his disciples, in keeping with the traditions of Vaishnava asceticism, also caused difficulty among some of his followers. Still, Gandhi's success represented a political culmination of the movement of popular bhakti begun in South India early in the Christian era.

      Gandhi's mantle fell on Vinoba Bhave (Bhave, Vinoba), one of the Mahatma's most devoted Maharashtrian supporters. For some years after independence, Vinoba led a campaign of social service that culminated in the Bhudan Yanja, a land-giving movement, which persuaded many landowners and wealthy peasants to give fields to landless labourers. This movement had some success in rural areas but gradually lost momentum. Although the memory of Gandhi continues to be revered by most Indians, his policies and principles carry little weight. The great bulk of social service is performed by government agencies rather than by voluntary bodies, whether Gandhian or other.

The religious situation after independence

      Increasing nationalism, especially after the division of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, led to a widening of the gulf between Hindus and Muslims (Islāmic world). In the early 1970s Indian scholars painted the relations of the two religions in earlier centuries as friendly, blaming alien rule for the division of India. In Pakistan the tendency has been to insist that Hindus and Muslims have always been “two nations” and that the Hindus nevertheless were happy under their Muslim rulers. Neither position is correct. In earlier times there was much mutual influence. But the conservative element in Indian Islam gained the upper hand long before British power was consolidated in India.

      One of the pioneers of nationalism, Tilak, glorified the Maharashtrian hero Shivaji (Śivājī) as the liberator of India from the alien yoke of the Mughals; and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's militant ascetics, who pledged to conquer and expel the Muslims, sang a battle hymn that no orthodox Muslim could repeat. British rulers of India did little or nothing to lessen Hindu-Muslim tension, and their policy of separate electorates for the two communities worsened the situation. Many leaders of the Indian National Congress movement, such as Jawaharlal Nehru (Nehru, Jawaharlal), carried their Hinduism lightly and favoured a secular approach to politics; the majority, however, followed the lead of Gandhi. Although to the right of the Congress politically, the Hindu Mahasabha, a nationalist group formed to give Hindus a stronger voice in politics, did not oppose nonviolence in its drive to establish a Hindu state in India.

      The transfer of power in 1947 was accompanied by slaughter and pillage of huge proportions. Millions of Hindus left their homes in Pakistan for India, and millions of Muslims migrated in the opposite direction. The tension culminated in the assassination of Gandhi by a Hindu fanatic in January 1948.

      The policy of the new Indian government was to establish a secular state (church and state), and the successive governments have broadly kept to this policy. The governments of the Indian states, however, have not been so restricted by constitutional niceties. Some state governments have introduced legislation of a specifically Hindu character. On the other hand, the Congress governments have passed legislation more offensive to Hindu traditional prejudices than anything the British Indian government would have dared to enact. For example, all forms of discrimination against “untouchables” (untouchable) (now usually referred to by euphemisms such as “Harijans,” or “people of God,” instead of the British euphemism “scheduled castes”) are forbidden, although it has been impossible to enforce the law in every case. A great blow to conservatism was dealt by legislation in 1955 and 1956 that gave full rights of inheritance to widows and daughters, enforced monogamy, and permitted divorce on quite easy terms. The 1961 law forbidding dowries (dowry) further undermined traditional Hinduism. Although the dowry has long been a tremendous burden to the parents of daughters, the strength of social custom is such that the law cannot be fully enforced.

      The social structure of traditional Hinduism is slowly crumbling in the cities. Intercaste and interreligious marriages are becoming more frequent among the educated, although some aspects of the caste system show remarkable vitality, especially in the matter of appointments and elections. The bonds of the tightly knit Hindu joint family are also weakening, a process helped by legislation and the emancipation of women. The professional priests, who perform rituals for laypeople in homes or at temples and sacred sites, complain of the lack of custom, and their numbers are diminishing.

      Nevertheless, Hinduism is far from dying. Mythological films, once the most popular form of entertainment, are enjoying a renaissance. Organizations such as the Ramakrishna Mission flourish and expand their activities. New teachers appear from time to time and attract considerable followings. Militant fundamentalist Hindu organizations such as the Society for the Self-Service of the Nation (Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh; RSS) are steadily growing. Such movements can be seen as the cause or the result, or both, of persistent outbreaks of communal religious violence between Hindus and Sikhs in North India, between Tamil Hindus and Sri Lankan Buddhists in Sri Lanka, between Tamil extremists and moderates in Tamil Nadu, and between Hindus and Muslims everywhere.

      The adaptability of Hinduism to changing conditions is illustrated by the appearance in the Hindu pantheon of a new divinity, of special utility in an acquisitive society. This is the goddess Santosi Mata, first worshipped widely by women in many cities of Uttar Pradesh and now worshipped throughout India, largely as the result of a popular mythological film about her birth and the origin of her worship. The new goddess was unheard-of a few years ago and has no basis in any Puranic myth. Propitiated by comparatively simple and inexpensive rites performed in the home without the intervention of a priest, Santosi, it is believed, grants practical and obvious blessings, such as a promotion for an overworked husband or a new household appliance. News of Santosi's blessings is passed from housewife to housewife, and even moderately well-educated women have become her devotees.

      On both the intellectual and the popular level, Hinduism is thus in the process of adapting itself to new values and new conditions brought about by mass education and industrialization. In these respects it is responding to 21st-century challenges.

Hinduism outside India

      Since the latter part of the 19th century, large Hindu communities have been established in East Africa, Malaysia, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, and some islands of the West Indies. Members of these communities have adhered to their religion faithfully for several generations. In the late 20th century they were aided by Hindu missionaries, chiefly from the Arya Samaj or the Ramakrishna Mission. Since World War II many Hindus have also settled in the United Kingdom, and after 1965 many began settling in the United States. Although the earliest migrants were comparatively uneducated, many of the émigrés of the late 20th century were highly skilled and well-educated professionals.

      Contemporary Western culture is ready to accept Eastern religious ideas in a way that is unprecedented since the days of the Roman Empire. A recent manifestation of the spread of Indian religious attitudes in the Western world is the Hare Krishna movement, officially known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), with its principal office in Los Angeles. This is essentially a bhakti movement, broadly following the precedents of Caitanya (1485–1533), a mystic poet and worshipper of Krishna whose practices have influenced devotional Hinduism. Since its foundation by a Hindu sannyasin (wandering ascetic), A.C. Bhaktivedanta (Bhaktivedanta, A(bhay) C(haranaravinda)) (Prabhupada), in 1965, its growth has been surprising, and sankirtana (devotional singing and dancing) can be seen in the streets of New York City and London, performed by young men and women from Christian or Jewish homes wearing dhotis (dhoti) and saris (sari). These manifestations are part of a process that began in 1784 with the first English translation of a Hindu religious text, Charles Wilkins's version of the Bhagavadgita.

      Hinduism is not by nature a proselytizing religion, however, in part because of its inextricable roots in the social system and the land of India. In the late 20th century many new gurus, such as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree) and Satya Sai Baba, were successful in making converts in Europe and the United States. The very success of these gurus, however, has produced material profits that many people regard as incompatible with the ascetic attitude appropriate to a Hindu spiritual leader; in some cases, the profits have led to notoriety and even legal prosecution. That Hinduism is flourishing in India is obvious; that it has made, and can continue to make, a genuine contribution to Western religious thought is undeniable; that the invasion of the gurus is a part of that contribution is highly debatable.

      In the early 21st century the Hindu diaspora in the United States has greatly increased in a number of cities, and wealthy Hindu communities have built large temples and endowed chairs in South Asian studies at major universities. Local Hindu organizations have brought pressure on schools to change the presentation of Hinduism in history textbooks. Internet listserves and blogs have forged ties between Hindus throughout the country, and globalization (globalization, cultural), which once meant the influence of American culture on Hindus in India, has now reversed its flow, with Yoga teachers, Bollywood movies, and a new generation of gurus such as Anandamayi Ma bringing a particular brand of Hinduism to the United States.

Arthur Llewellyn Basham J.A.B. van Buitenen Wendy Doniger

Sacred texts (Indian literature)

Vedas (Veda)

Importance of the Vedas

      The Vedas (“Knowledge”) are the oldest Hindu texts. Hindus regard the Vedas as having been directly revealed to or “heard” by gifted and inspired seers (rishis) who memorized them in the most perfect human language, Sanskrit. Although most of the religion of the Vedic texts, which revolves around rituals of fire sacrifice, has been eclipsed by later Hindu doctrines and practices, even today, as it has been for several millennia, parts of the Vedas are memorized and repeated as a religious act of great merit: certain Vedic hymns (mantras) are always recited at traditional weddings and at ceremonies for the dead.

The components of the Vedas

      The Vedas represent the particular interests of two classes of ancient Indian society, the priests (Brahmans) and the warrior-kings (Kshatriyas), who together ruled over the far more numerous peasants (Vaishyas).

      Vedic literature ranges from the Rigveda (c. 1500 BCE) to the Upanishads (c. 1000–600 BCE) and provides the primary documentation for Indian religion before Buddhism and the early texts of classical Hinduism. The most important texts are the four collections (Samhitas) known as the Veda or Vedas: the Rigveda (“Wisdom of the Verses”), the Yajurveda (“Wisdom of the Sacrificial Formulas”), the Samaveda (“Wisdom of the Chants”), and the Atharvaveda (“Wisdom of the Atharvan Priests”). Of these, the Rigveda is the oldest.

      In the Vedic texts following these earliest compilations—the Brahmana (Brāhmaṇa)s (discussions of the ritual), Aranyaka (Āraṇyakas)s (“Books of the Forest”), and Upanishads (secret teachings concerning cosmic equations)—the interest in the early Rigvedic gods wanes, and these deities become little more than accessories to the Vedic rite. Polytheism begins to be replaced by the sacrificial pantheism of Prajapati (Prajāpati) (“Lord of Creatures”), who is the All. In the Upanishads, Prajapati merges with the concept of brahman (brahma), the supreme reality and substance of the universe (not to be confused with the Hindu god Brahma), replacing any specific personification and framing the mythology with abstract philosophy.

      The entire corpus of Vedic literature—the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads—constitutes the revealed scripture of Hinduism, or the Shruti (Śruti) (“Heard”). All other works—in which the actual doctrines and practices of Hindus are encoded—are recognized as having been composed by human authors and are thus classed as Smriti (“Remembered”). The categorization of the Vedas, however, is capable of elasticity. First, the Shruti is not exactly closed; Upanishads, for example, have been composed until recent times. Second, the texts categorized as Smriti inevitably claim to be in accord with the authoritative Shruti and thus worthy of the same respect and sacredness. For Hindus, the Vedas symbolize unchallenged authority and tradition.

The Rigveda

 The religion reflected in the Rigveda is polytheistic and mainly concerned with the propitiation of divinities associated with the sky and the atmosphere. Of these, the Indo-European sky god Dyaus was little regarded. More important were such gods as Indra (chief of the gods), Varuna (Varuṇa) (guardian of the cosmic order), Agni (the sacrificial fire), and Surya (the Sun).

 The main ritual activity referred to in the Rigveda is the soma sacrifice. Soma was a hallucinogenic beverage prepared from a now-unknown plant; it has been suggested that the plant was a mushroom and that later another plant was substituted for that agaric fungus, which had become difficult to obtain. The Rigveda contains a few clear references to animal sacrifice, which probably became more widespread later. There is some doubt whether the priests formed a separate social class at the beginning of the Rigvedic period, but, even if they did, the prevailingly loose boundaries of class allowed a man of nonpriestly parentage to become a priest. By the end of the period, however, the priests had come to form a separate class of specialists, the Brahmans, who claimed superiority over all the other social classes, including the Rajanyas (later Kshatriyas), the warrior class.

      The Rigveda contains little about birth rituals but does address at greater length the rites of marriage and disposal of the dead, which were basically the same as in later Hinduism. Marriage was an indissoluble bond cemented by a lengthy and solemn ritual centring on the domestic hearth. Although other forms were practiced, the main funeral (death rite) rite of the rich was cremation. One hymn, describing cremation rites, shows that the wife of the dead man lay down beside him on the funeral pyre but was called upon to return to the land of the living before it was lighted. This may have been a survival from an earlier period when the wife was actually cremated with her husband.

      Among other features of Rigvedic religious life that were important for later generations were the munis, who apparently were trained in various magic arts and believed to be capable of supernatural feats, such as levitation. They were particularly associated with the god Rudra, a deity connected with mountains and storms and more feared than loved. Rudra developed into the Hindu god Shiva, and his prestige increased steadily. The same is true of Vishnu, a minor solar deity in the Rigveda, who later became one of the most important and popular divinities of Hinduism.

      One of the favourite myths of the Vedas attributed the origin of the cosmos to the god Indra after he had slain the great dragon Vritra, a myth very similar to one known in early Mesopotamia. With time, such tales were replaced by more-abstract theories that are reflected in several hymns of the 10th book of the Rigveda. These speculative tendencies were among the earliest attempts of Indian philosophers to reduce all things to a single basic principle.

Elaborations of text and ritual: the later Vedas

      The chronology of later Vedic developments is not known with any precision, but it probably encompasses the period from 1000 to 500 BCE, which are the dates of the Painted Gray Ware strata in the archaeological sites of the western Ganges valley. These excavations reflect a culture still without writing but showing considerable advances in civilization. Little, however, has been discovered from sites of this period that throws much light on the religious situation, and historians still must rely on the following texts to describe this phase of the religion.

The Yajurveda and Samaveda

      The Yajurveda and Samaveda are completely subordinate to the liturgy. The Yajurveda contains the lines, usually in brief prose, with which the executive priest (adhvaryu) accompanies his ritual activities, addressing the implements he handles and the offering he pours and admonishing other priests to do their invocations. The Samaveda is a collection of verses from the Rigveda (and a few new ones) that were chanted with certain fixed melodies.

The Atharvaveda

      The Atharvaveda stands apart from other Vedic texts. It contains both hymns and prose passages and is divided into 20 books. Books 1–7 contain magical prayers for precise purposes: spells for a long life, cures, curses, love charms, prayers for prosperity, charms for kingship and Brahmanhood, and expiations for evil actions. They reflect the magical-religious concerns of everyday life and are on a different level than the Rigveda, which glorifies the great gods and their liturgy. Books 8–12 contain similar texts but also include cosmological hymns that continue those of the Rigveda and provide a transition to the more-complex speculations of the Upanishads. Books 13–20 celebrate the cosmic principle (book 13) and present marriage prayers (book 14), funeral formulas (book 18), and other magical and ritual formulas. This text is an extremely important source of information for practical religion, particularly where it complements the Rigveda. Many rites are also laid down in the Kausika-sutra (the manual of the Kausika family of priests) of the Atharvaveda.

The Brahmanas (Brāhmaṇa) and Aranyakas (Āraṇyakas)

      Attached to each Samhita was a collection of explanations of religious rites, called a Brahmana, which often relied on mythology to describe the origins and importance of individual ritual acts. Although not manuals or handbooks in the manner of the later Shrauta-sutras (Śrauta-sūtra), the Brahmanas do contain details about the performance and meaning of Vedic sacrificial rituals and are invaluable sources of information about Vedic religion.

      In these texts the sacrifice is the centre of cosmic processes, human concerns, and religious desires and goals. Through the merit of offering sacrifices, karma is generated that creates for the one who sacrifices a rebirth after death in heaven (“in the next world”). Ritual was thought to have effects on the visible and invisible worlds because of homologies, or connections (bandhus), that lie between the components of the ritual and corresponding parts of the universe. The universalization of the dynamics of the ritual into the dynamics of the cosmos was depicted as the sacrifice of the primordial deity, Prajapati (“Lord of Creatures”), who was perpetually regenerated by the sacrifice.

      The lengthy series of rituals of the royal consecration, the rajasuya, emphasized royal power and endowed the king with a divine charisma, raising him, at least for the duration of the ceremony, to the status of a god. Typical of this period was the elaborate ashvamedha (aśvamedha), the horse sacrifice, in which a consecrated horse was freed and allowed to wander at will for a year; it was always followed by the king's troops, who defended it from all attack until it was brought back to the royal capital and sacrificed in a very complicated ritual.

      Vedic cosmic-sacrificial speculations continued in the Aranyakas (“Books of the Forest”), which contain materials of two kinds: Brahmana-like discussions of rites not believed to be suitable for the village (hence the name “forest”) and continuing visions of the relationship between sacrifice, universe, and humanity. The word brahman (brahma)—the creative power of the ritual utterances, which denotes the creativeness of the sacrifice and underlies ritual and, therefore, cosmic order—is prominent in these texts.

Vedic religion

Cosmogony and cosmology

      Vedic literature contains different but not exclusive accounts of the origin of the universe. The simplest is that the creator built the universe with timber as a carpenter builds a house. Hence, there are many references to gods measuring the different worlds as parts of one edifice: atmosphere upon earth, heaven upon atmosphere. Creation (creation myth) may be viewed as procreation: the personified heaven, Dyaus, impregnates the earth goddess, Prithivi, with rain, causing crops to grow on her. Quite another myth is recorded in the last (10th) book of the Rigveda: the "Hymn of the Cosmic Man" (Purushasukta) explains that the universe was created out of the parts of the body of a single cosmic man (Purusha) when his body was immolated and dismembered at the primordial sacrifice. The four classes ( varnas) of Indian society also came from his body: the priest (Brahman) emerging from the mouth, the warrior (Kshatriya) from the arms, the peasant (Vaishya) from the thighs, and the servant (Sudra) from the feet. The Purushasukta represents the beginning of a new phase in which the sacrifice became more important and elaborate as cosmological and social philosophies were constructed around it.

      In the same book of the Rigveda, mythology begins to be transformed into philosophy; for example, “In the beginning was the nonexistent, from which the existent arose.” Even the reality of the nonexistent is questioned: “Then there was neither the nonexistent nor the existent.” Such cosmogonic speculations continue, particularly in the older Upanishads. Originally there was nothing at all, or Hunger, which then, to sate itself, created the world as its food. Alternatively, the creator creates himself in the universe by an act of self-recognition, self-formulation, or self-formation. Or the one creator grows “as big as a man and a woman embracing” (Brihadalanyaka Upanishad) and splits into man and woman, and in various transformations the couple create other creatures. In one of the last stages of this line of thought (Chandogya Upanishad), the following account became fundamental to the ontology of the philosophical schools of Vedanta: in the beginning was the Existent, or brahman, which, through heaven, earth, and atmosphere (the triadic space) and the three seasons of summer, rains, and harvest (the triadic time), produced the entire universe.

      As indicated in these accounts, the Vedic texts generally regarded the universe as three layers of worlds (loka): heaven, atmosphere, and earth. Heaven is that part of the universe where the sun shines and is correlated with sun, fire, and ether; the atmosphere is that part of the sky between heaven and earth where the clouds insert themselves in the rainy season and is correlated with water and wind; earth, a flat disk, like a wheel, is here below as the “holder of treasure” (vasumdhara) and giver of food. In addition to this tripartite pattern, there is an ancient notion of duality in which heaven is masculine and father and earth is feminine and mother. Later texts present the conception that the universe was formed by combinations and permutations of five elements: ether-space (akasha), wind (vayu), fire (agni), water (apas), and earth (bhumi).

Theology

      Generally speaking, Vedic gods share many characteristics: several of them (Indra, Varuna, Vishnu) are said to have created the universe, set the sun in the sky, and propped apart heaven and earth. All the gods are susceptible to human praise. Some major gods were clearly personifications of natural phenomena, and these deities assumed no clearly delineated personalities.

 The three most frequently invoked gods are Indra, Agni, and soma. Indra, the foremost god of the Vedic pantheon, is a god of war and rain. Agni (a cognate of the Latin ignis) is the deified fire, particularly the fire of sacrifice, and Soma is the deified intoxicating or hallucinogenic drink of the sacrifice, or the plant from which it is pressed; neither is greatly personified.

      The principal focus of Vedic literature is the sacrifice, which in its simplest form can be viewed as a ritualized banquet to which a god is invited to partake of a meal shared by the sacrificer and his priest. The invocations mention, often casually, the past exploits of the deity. The offered meal gives strength to the deity so that he may repeat his feats and give aid to the sacrificer.

      The myth of Indra killing the dragon Vritra has many levels of meaning. Vritra prevents the monsoon rains from breaking. The monsoon is the greatest single factor in Indian agriculture, and thus the event celebrated in this myth impinges on every Indian's life. In the social circles represented in the Rigveda, however, the myth is cast in a warrior mold, and the breaking of the monsoon is viewed as a cosmic battle. The entire monsoon complex is involved: Indra is the lord of the winds, the gales that accompany the monsoon; his weapons are lightning and thunderbolt, with which he lays Vritra low. To accomplish this feat, he must be strengthened with soma. Simultaneously, he is also the god of war and is invoked to defeat the non-Vedic dasyus, the indigenous peoples referred to in the Vedas. These important concerns—the promptness and abundance of the rains, success in warfare, and the conquest of the land—all find their focus in Indra.

      Because the Vedic gods were not fully anthropomorphic, their functions were subject to various applications and interpretations. In the view of the noble patrons of the Vedic poets, Indra, the greatest and most anthropomorphic god of the early Vedas, was primarily a warrior god who could be invoked to bring booty and victory. Agriculturalists and hunters emphasized Indra's fecundity, celebrating his festivals to produce fertility, welfare, and happiness. Indra, however, was essentially a representative of useful force in nature and the cosmos; he was the great champion of an ordered and habitable world. His repeated victories over Vritra, the representative of obstruction and chaos, resulted in the separation of heaven and earth (the support of the former and the stabilization of the latter), the rise of the sun, and the release of the waters—in short, the organization of the universe.

      Although morality is not an issue in Indra's myth, it plays a role in those of the other principal Vedic deities. Central to ancient morality was the notion of rita, which appears to have been the fidelity with which the alliances between humans (and between humans and the gods) were observed—a quality necessary for the preservation of the physical and moral order of the universe. Varuna (Varuṇa), an older sovereign god, presides over the observance of rita with Mitra (related to the Persian god Mithra). Thus, Varuna is a judge before whom a mortal may stand guilty, while Indra is a king who may support a mortal monarch. Typical requests that are made of Varuna are for forgiveness, for deliverance from evil committed by oneself or others, and for protection; Indra is prayed to for bounty, for aid against enemies, and for leadership against demons and dasyus.

      Distinct from both is Agni, the fire, who is observed in various manifestations: in the sacrificial fire, in lightning, and hidden in the logs used in fires. As the fire of sacrifice, he is the mouth of the gods and the carrier of the oblation, the mediator between the human and the divine orders. Agni is above all the good friend of the Vedic people, who prayed to him to strike down and burn their enemies and to mediate between gods and humans.

      Among other Vedic gods, only a few stand out. One is Vishnu, who seems more important perhaps in retrospect because of later developments associated with him. He is famous for the three strides with which he traversed the universe, thus creating and possessing it. This pervasiveness, which invites identification with other gods, is characteristic of his later mythology. His function as helper to the conqueror-god Indra is important.

      Impersonality is increased by the prevalence of pairs and groups of gods. Thus, Varuna and Mitra are members of the group of Adityas (sons of Aditi, an old progenitrix), who generally are celestial gods. They are also combined in the double god Mitra-Varuna. Indra and Vishnu are combined as Indra-Vishnu. There is also Rudra, an ambivalent god who is dreaded for his unpredictable attacks (though he can be persuaded not to attack); Rudra is also a healer responsible for 1,000 remedies. Although there are many demons (s (rakshasa)), no one god embodies the evil spirit; rather, many gods have their devil within, inspiring fear as well as trust.

      Among the perpetually beneficent gods are the Ashvins (horsemen), helpers and healers who often visit the needy. Almost otiose is the personified heaven, Dyaus, who most often appears as the sky or as day. As a person, he is coupled with Earth (as Dyava-Prithivi) as a father; Earth by herself is more predominantly known as Mother (Matri). Apart from Earth, the other goddess of importance in the text of the Rigveda is Ushas (Dawn), who brings in the day and thus brings forth the Sun.

      In the later Vedic period the significance of the Rigvedic gods and their myths began to wane. The peculiar theism of the Rigveda—in which any one of several different gods might be hailed as supreme and the attributes of one god could be transferred to another (called “kathenotheism” by the Vedic scholar Max Müller (Müller, Max))—stressed godhead more than individual gods. In the end this led to a pantheism of Prajapati, the deified sacrifice or the ritualized deity, who, with his consort Vach, the speech of ritual recitation, is said to have begotten the world.

      During the Vedic period, Purusha fused with the figure Narayana (“Scion of Man”) and with Prajapati (“Lord of Creatures”). In the speculative thought of the ritualists, Prajapati emerged as the creator god and in many respects as the highest divinity—the One, the All, or Totality. He was the immortal father even of the gods, whom he transcends, encompasses, and molds into one complex. By a process of emanation and self-differentiation (by dividing himself), Prajapati created all beings and the universe. After this creation, Prajapati became the disintegrated and differentiated All of the phenomenal world and was exhausted. By means of a rite, he then reintegrated himself to prepare for a new phase of creativity. Because the purpose of a sacred rite is the restitution of the organic structural norm, which ensures the ordered functioning of the universe, Prajapati's rite was regarded as the prototype for all Vedic and Hindu rites. Thus, by performing the rite, those offering sacrifice to Prajapati may temporarily restore oneness and totality within themselves and within the universe.

Ethical and social doctrines

      In Vedic times, sin (enas) or evil (papman) was associated with illness, enmity, distress, or malediction; it was conceived of as a sort of pollution that could be neutralized by ritual or other devices. An individual could incur sin by improper behaviour, especially improper speech. Thus, one could be guilty of anrita—i.e., infidelity to fact, or departure from what is true and real or from what constitutes the established order—whether or not one had deliberately committed a crime. Other transgressions included making mistakes in sacrifices and coming into contact with corpses, ritually impure persons, or persons belonging to the lower classes of society. These acts were only rarely considered to be misdeeds against a god or violations of moral principles of divine origin, and the consciousness of guilt was much rarer than the fear of the evil consequences of sin, such as disease or untimely death. Sometimes, however, a god (Agni, the evil-devouring fire, or Varuna, the god of order, whose role included punishing and fettering the “sinner”) was invoked to forgive the neglect or transgression or to release the sinner from its concrete results. More usually, however, these results were abrogated by means of purifications, such as the ceremonial use of water, and a variety of expiatory rites.

      The pure who earned ritual merits hoped to win a safe world (loka) or condition. The meticulous effort to purify oneself from every evil also involved shanti, the observance of various customs regarding the avoidance of inauspicious occurrences. Ritual purity was the principal concern of the compilers of the manuals of dharma (religious law), which have contributed much to the special character of Hinduism. According to the authorities on dharma, ritual purity is the first approach to dharma, the resting place of the Vedas (brahman), the abode of prosperity (shri), the favourite of the gods, and the means of clearing (soothing) the mind and of seeing (realizing) the atman in the body.

The sacred: nature, humanity, and God

      The Vedic poets were convinced that the world is an organized cosmos governed by order and truth and that it is always in danger of being damaged or destroyed by the powers of chaos (asat). This conviction inspired the performance of rituals to preserve the order of the universe, and it found mythological expression in the continual conflict between gods ( devas) and antigods ( asuras).

      Gods were conceived as presiding over certain provinces of the universe or as being responsible for cosmic or social phenomena. Their deeds are timeless and exemplary presentations of mythic events replete with power and universal significance. To retain their vitality and efficacy, mythical events need to be repeated—that is, celebrated and confirmed by means of the spoken word and ritual acts.

Vedic and Brahmanic rites

      Vedic religion is primarily a liturgy differentiated in various types of ritual, which are described in the sacred texts in great detail and are designed for almost any purpose. In these rites, theoretically, no operation, no gesture, no formula is meaningless or left to an officiant's discretion. The often complicated ritual technique, based on an equally complicated speculative system of thought, was devised mainly to safeguard human life and survival, to enable people to face the many risks and dangers of existence, to thwart the designs of human and superhuman enemies that cannot be counteracted by ordinary means, to control the unseen powers, and to establish and maintain beneficial relations with the supramundane sacred order. Belief in the efficacy of the rites is the natural consequence of the belief that all things and events are connected with or participate in one another.

      Another characteristic of Vedic religion is the belief that there is a close correspondence between sacred places—such as the sacrificial place of many Vedic rites, a place of pilgrimage, or a consecrated area—and provinces of the universe or even the universe itself. In such places, direct communication with other cosmic regions (heaven or underworld) is possible, because they are said to be at the point of contact between this world and the “pillar of the universe”—the “navel of the earth.” The sacred place is understood as identical to the universe in its various states of emanation from, reabsorption into, integration with, and disintegration from the sacred. This idea has as its corollary the possibility of ritually enacting the cosmic drama and, thus, of influencing those events in the cosmos that continuously affect human weal and woe.

      The Vedic ritual system is organized into three main forms. The simplest, and hierarchically inferior, type of Vedic ritualism is the grihya, or domestic ritual, in which the householder offers modest oblations into the sacred household fire. The more ambitious, wealthy, and powerful married householder sets three or five fires and, with the help of professional officiants, engages in the more complex shrauta sacrifices. These require oblations of vegetable substances and, in some instances, of parts of ritually killed animals (mostly goats but also sheep, cows, horses, and perhaps at one time human beings as well). At the highest level of Vedic ritualism are the soma sacrifices, which can continue for days or even years and whose intricacies and complexities are truly stunning.

      In the major shrauta rites, requiring three fires and 16 priests or more, “the man who knows”—the person with insight into the correspondences (bandhu) between the mundane and cosmic phenomena and the eternal transcendent reality beyond them and who knows the meaning of the ritual words and acts—may, it is believed, set great cosmic processes in motion for the benefit of humanity. In these rites, Brahman officiants repeat the mythic drama for the benefit of their patron, the “sacrificer,” who temporarily becomes its centre and realizes through ritual symbolism his identity with the universe. Such officiants are convinced of the efficacy of their rites: “the sun would not rise, were he [the officiant] not to make that offering; this is why he performs it” (Shatapatha Brahmana). The oblations should not be used to propitiate the gods or to thank them for favours bestowed, since the efficacy of the rites, some of which are still occasionally performed, does not depend on the will of the gods.

The Upanishads (Upanishad)

      With the last component of the Vedas, the mystically oriented and esoteric texts known as the Upanishads (traditionally and literally “sitting near a teacher” but more commonly understood as “connection” or “equivalence”), Vedic ritualism and the doctrine of the interconnectedness of separate phenomena were superseded by a new emphasis on knowledge alone—primarily knowledge of the ultimate identity of all phenomena, which merely appeared to be separate. The beginnings of philosophy and mysticism in Indian religious history occurred during the period of the compilation of the Upanishads, roughly between 700 and 500 BCE. Historically, the most important of the Upanishads are the two oldest, the Brihadaranyaka (“Great Forest Text”; c. 10th–5th century BCE) and the Chandogya (pertaining to the Chandogas, priests who intone hymns at sacrifices), both of which are compilations that record the traditions of sages (rishis) of the period—notably Yajnavalkya, who was a pioneer of new religious ideas.

      The Upanishads reveal the desire to obtain the mystical knowledge that ensures freedom from “re-death.” Throughout the later Vedic period, the idea that the world of heaven is not the end of existence—and that even in heaven death is inevitable—became increasingly common. Vedic thinkers became concerned about the impermanence of religious merit and its loss in the hereafter, as well as about the transience of any form of existence after death—an existence that would culminate in the much-feared re-death (punarmrityu). The means of escaping and conquering death devised in the Brahmanas were of a ritual nature, but one of the oldest Upanishads, the Brihadaranyaka, emphasized the knowledge of the cosmic connection underlying ritual. When the doctrine of the identity of atman (the self) and brahman was established in the Upanishads, those sages who were inclined to meditative thought substituted the true knowledge of the self and the realization of this identity for the ritual method.

      In subsequent centuries the main theories concerned with the divine essence underlying the world were harmonized and synthetically combined. The tendency of these theories was to extol one god as the supreme lord and originator ( Ishvara)—at once Purusha and Prajapati and brahman and the self of all beings. For those who worshipped him, he was the goal of identificatory meditation, which leads to complete cessation of phenomenal existence and becomes the refuge of those who seek eternal peace. The Advaita Vedanta philosopher and theologian Shankara (Śaṅkara) (8th century CE) exercised enormous influence on subsequent Hindu thinking through his elegant synthesis of the nontheistic and theistic aspects of Upanishadic teaching. In his commentaries on several of the Upanishads, he distinguished between brahman nirguna (nirguṇa) (without attributes) and brahman saguna (with attributes). His was a monistic teaching that stressed that brahman saguna was a lesser, temporary form of brahman nirguna. He taught also that the self (atman) is identical with brahman nirguna and that through knowledge of this unity the cycle of rebirth can be broken.

      The Upanishads were composed during a time of much social, political, and economic upheaval. Rural tribal society was disappearing, and the adjustments of the people to urban living under a monarchy probably provoked many psychological and religious responses. During this period many groups of mystics, world renouncers, and forest dwellers appeared in India, among whom were the authors of the Upanishads. The most important practices and doctrines of these world renouncers included asceticism and the concept of rebirth, or transmigration.

      The Rigveda contains few examples of asceticism, except among the munis (shamans). The Atharvaveda describes another class of religious adepts, or specialists, the vratya (vrātya)s, particularly associated with the region of Magadha (west-central Bihar). The vratya was a wandering hierophant (one who manifested the holy) who remained outside the system of Vedic religion. He practiced flagellation and other forms of self-mortification and traveled from place to place in a bullock cart with an apprentice and with a woman who appears to have engaged in ritual prostitution. The Brahmans sought to bring the vratyas into the Vedic system by special conversion rituals, and it may be that the vratyas introduced their own beliefs and practices into Vedic religion. At the same time, the more-complex sacrifices of the later Vedic period demanded purificatory rituals, such as fasting and vigil, as part of the preparations for the ceremony. Thus, there was a growing tendency toward the mortification of the flesh.

      The origin and the development of the belief in the transmigration of souls are very obscure. A few passages suggest that this doctrine was known even in the days of the Rigveda, and the Brahmanas often refer to doctrines of re-death and rebirth, but it was first clearly propounded in the earliest Upanishad—the Brihadaranyka. There it is stated that the soul of a Vedic sacrificer returns to earth and is reborn in human or animal form. This doctrine of samsara (reincarnation) is attributed to the sage Uddalaka Aruni, who is said to have learned it from a Kshatriya chief. In the same text, the doctrine of karma (“actions”), according to which the soul achieves a happy or unhappy rebirth according to its works in the previous life, occurs for the first time and is attributed to the theologian Yajnavalkya. Both doctrines seem to have been new, circulating among small groups of ascetics who were disinclined to make them public, perhaps for fear of the orthodox priests. These doctrines must have spread rapidly, for they appear in the later Upanishads and in the earliest Buddhist and Jain scriptures.

s (sūtra), shastras, and smritis

The Vedangas

      Toward the end of the Vedic period, and more or less simultaneously with the production of the principal Upanishads, concise, technical, and usually aphoristic texts were composed about various subjects relating to the proper and timely performance of the Vedic sacrificial (sacrifice) rituals. These were eventually labeled Vedangas (“Studies Accessory to the Veda”).

      The preoccupation with the liturgy gave rise to scholarly disciplines that were part of Vedic erudition. There were six such fields: (1) shiksa (instruction), which explains the proper articulation and pronunciation of the Vedic texts—different branches had different ways of pronouncing the texts, and these variations were recorded in pratishakhyas (literally, “instructions for the shakhas” [“branches”]), four of which are extant—(2) chandas (metre), of which there remains only one late representative; (3) vyakarana (analysis and derivation), in which the language is grammatically described—Panni's grammar (c. 400 BCE) and the pratishakhyas are the oldest examples of this discipline—(4) nirukta (lexicon), which discusses and defines difficult words, represented by the Nirukta of Yaska (c. 600 BCE), (5) jyotisa (luminaries), a system of astronomy and astrology used to determine the right times for rituals, and (6) kalpa (mode of performance), which studies the correct ways of performing the ritual.

      The texts constituting the Kalpa-sutras (Kalpa-sūtra) (collections of aphorisms on the mode of ritual performance) are of special importance. The composition of these texts was begun about 600 BCE by Brahmans belonging to the ritual schools (shakhas), each of which was attached to a particular recension of one of the four Vedas. A complete Kalpa-sutra contains four principal components: (1) a Shrauta-sutra (Śrauta-sūtra), which establishes the rules for performing the more complex rituals of the Vedic repertoire, (2) a Shulba-sutra, which shows how to make the geometric calculations necessary for the proper construction of the ritual arena, (3) a Grihya-sutra (Gṛhya-sūtra), which explains the rules for performing the domestic rites, including the life-cycle rituals (called the samskaras), and (4) a dharma-sutra (dharmasutra), which provides the rules for the conduct of life.

      Society was ritually stratified in the four classes, each of which had its own dharma (law). The ideal life was constructed through sacraments in the course of numerous ceremonies, performed by the upper classes, that carried the individual from conception to cremation in a series of complex rites. The Grihya-sutras show that in the popular religion of the time there were many minor deities who are rarely mentioned in the literature of the large-scale sacrifices but who were probably far more influential on the lives of most people than were the great Vedic gods.

Dharma-sutras and Dharma-shastras

      Among the texts inspired by the Vedas are the Dharma-sutras, or “manuals on dharma,” which contain rules of conduct and rites as they were practiced in various Vedic schools. Their principal contents address the duties of people at different stages of life, or ashramas (studenthood, householdership, retirement, and renunciation); dietary regulations; offenses and expiations; and the rights and duties of kings. They also discuss purification rites, funerary ceremonies, forms of hospitality, and daily oblations, and they even mention juridical matters. The most important of these texts are the sutras of Gautama, Baudhayana, and Apastamba. Although the direct relationship is not clear, the contents of these works were further elaborated in the more systematic Dharma (dharmashastra)-shastras, which in turn became the basis of Hindu law.

      First among them stands the Dharma-shastra of Manu, also known as the Manu-smriti (Manu-smṛti) (“Tradition of Manu”; c. 200 CE), with 2,694 stanzas divided into 12 chapters. It deals with topics such as cosmogony, the definition of dharma, the sacraments, initiation and Vedic study, the eight forms of marriage, hospitality and funerary rites, dietary laws, pollution and purification, rules for women and wives, royal law, juridical matters, pious donations, rites of reparation, the doctrine of karma, the soul, and punishment in hell. Law in the juridical sense is thus completely embedded in religious law and practice. The framework is provided by the model of the four-class society. The influence of the Dharma-shastras of Manu has been enormous, as they provided Hindu society with the basis for its practical morality. But, for most of the Indian subcontinent, it is the commentaries on these texts (such as Medhatithi's 9th-century commentary on Manu) and, even more, the local case law traditions arising out of the commentaries that have been the law.

      Second to Manu is the Dharma-shastra of Yajnavalkya; its 1,013 stanzas are distributed under the three headings of good conduct, law, and expiation. The Mitaksara, the commentary on it by Vijnaneshvara (11th century), has extended the influence of Yajnavalkya's work.

Smriti (Smṛti) texts

      The shastras are a part of the Smriti (“Remembered”; traditional) literature which, like the sutra literature that preceded it, stresses the religious merit of gifts to Brahmans. Because kings often transferred the revenues of villages or groups of villages to Brahmans, either singly or in corporate groups, the status and wealth of the priestly class rose steadily. Living in the settlements called agraharas, the Brahmans were encouraged to devote themselves to the study of the Vedas and the subsidiary studies associated with them; but many Brahmans also developed the sciences of the period, such as mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, while others cultivated literature.

      The Smriti texts are binding to this day on orthodox Hindus, and until quite recently Hindu family law was based on them. Although there is evidence of divorce in early Indian history, by the Gupta period marriage was solemnized by lengthy sacred rites and was virtually indissoluble. Intercaste marriage became rarer and more difficult, and child marriage and the rite of suttee (or sati; ritual suicide by fire committed by widows) were already in existence, although less frequent than they later became. One of the earliest definite records of a widow burning herself on her husband's pyre is found in an inscription from Eran, Madhya Pradesh, dated 510, but the custom had been followed sporadically long before this. From the 6th century CE onward, such occurrences became more frequent, though still quite rare, in certain parts of India, particularly in Rajasthan.

Epics (epic) and Puranas

      During the centuries immediately preceding and following the beginning of the Common Era, the recension of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, took shape out of existing heroic epic stories (Indian literature), mythology (myth), philosophy, and above all the discussion of the problem of dharma. Much of the material in the epics dates far back into the Vedic period, while the rest continued to be added until well into the medieval period. It is conventional, however, to date the recension of the Sanskrit texts to the period from 300 BCE to 300 CE for the Mahabharata and to the period from 200 BCE to 200 CE for the Ramayana.

The Mahabharata

      The Mahabharata (“Great Epic of the Bharata Dynasty”), a text of some 100,000 verses attributed to the sage Vyasa, was preserved both orally and in manuscript form for centuries. The central plot concerns a great battle between the five sons of Pandu, called the Pandavas (Pāṇḍavas) ( Arjuna, Yudhisthira, Bhima, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva), and the sons of Pandu's brother Dhritarasta. The battle eventually leads to the destruction of the entire clan, save for one survivor who continues the dynasty. As each of the heroes is the son of a god (Indra, dharma, Vayu, and the Ashvins, respectively), the epic is deeply infused with religious implications. Hindus regard the Mahabharata as one of the Dharma-shastras, because many passages in it debate dilemmas posed by dharma. Religious practice takes the form of Vedic ritual on official occasions as well as pilgrimages and, to some extent, the adoration of gods. Apart from the Bhagavadgita (part of book 6), much of the didactic material is found in the Book of the Forest (book 3), in which sages teach the exiled heroes, and in the Book of Peace (book 12), in which the wise Bhishma expounds on religious and moral matters.

 The Vedic gods lost importance in these texts and survive as figures of folklore. Prajapati of the Upanishads is popularly personified as the god Brahma, who creates all classes of beings and dispenses benefits. Of far greater importance is Krishna. In the epic he is a hero, a leader of his people, and an active helper of his friends. His biography as it is known later is not worked out; still, the text is the source of the early worship of Krishna. Not everywhere, and certainly not by everyone, is Krishna considered a god, and, even as a god, he has, strictly speaking, superhuman rather than divine stature. He is occasionally, but not significantly, identified with Vishnu. Later, as one of the most important of the incarnations of Vishnu, Krishna undergoes a complex development as an incarnate god. In the Mahabharata he is primarily a hero, a chieftain of a tribe, and an ally of the Pandavas, the heroes of the Mahabharata. He accomplishes heroic feats with the Pandava prince Arjuna. Typically, he helps the Pandava brothers to settle in their kingdom and, when the kingdom is taken from them, to regain it. In the process he emerges as a great teacher who reveals the Bhagavadgita, the most important religious text of Hinduism, in which he also reveals his own status as the supreme god. In the further development of the Krishna myth, this dharmic aspect recedes and makes way for an idyllic myth about Krishna's boyhood, when he plays with and loves young cowherd women (gopis) in the village while hiding from an uncle who threatens to kill him. The influence of this theme on art has been profound. But there is a shadowy side to this idyll. Even in the Mahabharata, where it is often said that Krishna becomes incarnate in order to sustain dharma when it wanes and to combat adharma (forces contrary to dharma), he commits a number of deeds that violate the warrior ethic and is indirectly responsible for the destruction of his entire family. This adharmic shadow is also cast in the Puranic idyll, since the gopis that he woos are the wives of other men.

      More remote than the instantly accessible Krishna is Shiva, who also is hailed as the supreme god in several myths, notably the story of the five Indras, Arjuna's battle with Shiva, and Shiva's destruction of the sacrifice of Daksha. The epic is rich in information about sacred places, and it is clear that making pilgrimages and bathing in sacred rivers constituted an important part of religious life. Numerous descriptions of pilgrimages (tirthayatra) give the authors opportunities to detail local myths and legends, and countless edifying stories shed light on the religious and moral concerns of the age.

The Ramayana (Rāmāyaṇa)

 The narrative of Rama is recounted in the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana, traditionally regarded as the work of the sage Valmiki. Rama is deprived of the kingdom to which he is heir and is exiled to the forest with his wife Sita (Sītā) and his brother Lakshmana. While there, Sita is abducted by Ravana (Rāvaṇa), the demon king of Lanka. In their search for Sita, the brothers ally themselves with a monkey king whose general, the monkey god Hanuman, finds Sita in Lanka. In a cosmic battle, Ravana is defeated and Sita rescued. When Rama is restored to his kingdom, the populace casts doubt on whether Sita remained chaste while a captive. To reassure them, Rama banishes Sita to a hermitage, where she bears him two sons; eventually she reenters the earth from which she had been born. Rama's reign becomes the prototype of the harmonious and just kingdom, to which all kings should aspire. Rama and Sita set the ideal of conjugal love; and Rama and Lakshmana represent perfect fraternal love. Everything in the myth is designed for harmony, which after being disrupted is at last regained.

      The Ramayana identifies Rama as another incarnation of Vishnu and remains the principal source for the worship of Rama. Though not as long as the Mahabharata, the Ramayana contains a great deal of religious material in the form of myths, stories of great sages, and accounts of exemplary human behaviour.

      The story of Rama, like that of Krishna, also has a shadowy side. Rama's killing of the monkey king Valin (or Balin) in violation of all rules of combat and his banishment of the innocent Sita are troublesome to subsequent tradition. These problems of the “subtlety” of dharma and the inevitability of its violation, central themes in both epics, remained the locus of considerable argument throughout Indian history, both at the level of abstract philosophy and in local performance traditions. In Kerala, men of the low-ranking artisan caste worship Valin through rites of dance-possession that implicitly protest their ancestors' deaths as soldiers conscripted by high-caste leaders such as Rama. Women performers throughout India have emphasized Sita's story—her foundling infancy, her abduction by Ravana (Rāvaṇa), her trial by fire, her childbirth in exile—thereby openly challenging Rama. In the words of a Bengali women's song, “Five months pregnant, Sita was in the royal palace, and a heartless Rama sent her off to the forest!”

      Apart from their influence as Sanskrit texts, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana have made an impact in South and Southeast Asia, where their stories have been continually retold in vernacular and oral versions, and their influence on Indian and Southeast Asian art has been profound. Even today the epic stories and tales are part of the early education of all Hindus. A continuous reading of the Ramayana—whether in Sanskrit or in a vernacular version such as that of Tulsidas (Tulsīdās) (16th century)—is an act of great merit, and a popular enactment of Tulsidas's version of the Ramayana, called the Ramcaritmanas (Rāmcaritmānas), is an annual event across northern India. The Ramayana's influence is expressed in a dazzling variety of local and regional performance traditions—story, dance, drama, art—and extends to the composition of explicit “counter epics,” such as those published by the Tamil separatist E.V. Ramasami beginning in 1930.

The Bhagavadgita

      The Bhagavadgita (“Song of the Lord”) is an influential Indian religious text. In quasi-dialogue form, it is relatively brief, consisting of 700 verses divided into 18 chapters. When the opposing parties in the Mahabharata war stand ready to begin battle, Arjuna, the hero of the favoured party, despairs at the thought of having to kill his kinsmen and lays down his arms. Krishna, his charioteer, friend, and adviser, thereupon argues against Arjuna's failure to do his duty as a noble. The argument soon becomes elevated into a general discourse on religious and philosophical matters. The text is typical of Hinduism in that it is able to reconcile different viewpoints, however incompatible they seem to be, and yet emerge with an undeniable character of its own.

      Three different paths (margas) to religious self-realization are set forth. There is the discipline of action (karma-yoga): in contrast to Buddhism, Jainism, and Samkhya (Saṃkhyā) philosophy, Krishna argues that it is not the acts themselves that bind but the selfish intentions with which they are performed. He argues for a self-discipline in which people perform duties according to the dictates of prescribed tasks (dharma) but without any self-interest in the personal consequences of the acts. On the other hand, he does not deny the relevance of the discipline of knowledge (jnana-yoga), in which one seeks release in a Yogic (ascetic) course of withdrawal and concentration. Then the tone changes and becomes intensely religious: Krishna reveals himself as the supreme god and grants Arjuna a vision of himself. The third, and perhaps superior, way of release is through a discipline of devotion to God (bhakti-yoga) in which the self humbly worships the loving God and hopes for an eternal vision of God. In response to this devotion, God will extend his grace to his votaries, enabling them to overcome the bonds of this world.

      The Bhagavadgita is not a systematic theological treatise, and it combines many different elements from Samkhya and Vedanta philosophy. In matters of religion, its important contribution was the new emphasis placed on devotion, which has since remained a central path in Hinduism. In addition, the popular theism expressed elsewhere in the Mahabharata and the transcendentalism of the Upanishads converge, and a God of personal characteristics is identified with the brahman of the Vedic tradition. The Bhagavadgita thus gives a typology of the three dominant trends of Indian religion: dharma-based householder life, enlightenment-based asceticism, and devotion-based theism.

      A fairly popular text from the time of its composition, the Bhagavadgita gained much more prominence beginning in the early 18th century when British and European scholars discovered and translated it. Though many Hindus do not know it or use it, Vedanta philosophy recognizes it, with the Upanishads and the Brahma-sutras (brief doctrinal rules concerning brahman), as an authoritative text, so that all philosophers wrote commentaries on it. It continued to shape the attitudes of Hindus in the 20th and 21st centuries, as is evident from the lives of such diverse personalities as the Indian nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Tilak, Bal Gangadhar) and Mahatma Gandhi.

      The Bhagavadgita, by demanding that God's worshipers fulfill their duties—“better one's own duty ill-done than another's well-performed” (3.35)—and observe the rules of moral conduct, bridged the chasm between ascetic disciplines and the search for emancipation on the one hand and the exigencies of daily life, more particular rules of the caste system, on the other. For those who must live in the world, the Bhagavadgita gave a moral code and a prospect of final liberation. Thus, the work supported a social ethic. Because God is in all beings as their physical and psychical substratum, and because he exists collectively in human society, the wise should not see any difference between their fellow creatures. The devotee should be impartial—the same to friend as to foe. The serious endeavour of realizing God's presence in human beings obliges a person to promote the welfare of both individuals and society. Yet, by emphasizing that all humans have not only different propensities for each of the three disciplines of release but also different responsibilities because of their births in different castes, the Bhagavadgita also provided a powerful justification for the caste system.

The Puranas (Purana)

      The period of the Guptas saw the production of the first of the series (traditionally 18) of often voluminous texts—the Puranas—that treat in encyclopaedic manner the myths, legends, and genealogies of gods, heroes, and saints. The usual list of the Puranas is as follows: the Brahma-, Brahmanda-, Brahmavaivarta-, Markandeya-, Bhavisya-, and Vamana-puranas; the Vishnu-, Bhagavata-, Naradiya-, Garuda-, Padma-, and Varaha-puranas; and the Shiva-, Linga-, Skanda-, Agni- (or Vayu-), Matsya-, and Kurma-puranas. Many deal with the same or similar materials.

      With the epics, with which they are closely linked in origin, the Puranas became the scriptures of the common people. Unlike the Vedas, which were restricted to initiated men of the three higher orders, the Puranas were available to everybody, including women and members of the lowest order of society (Sudras). The origin of much of their contents may be non-Brahmanic, but they were accepted and adapted by the Brahmans, who thus brought new elements into their orthodox religion.

      At first sight the discontinuity between Vedic and Puranic mythology appears to be so sharp that they might be considered two distinct traditions. Little is learned in the Vedas of goddesses, yet they rose steadily in Puranic mythology. It soon becomes clear, however, that the two bodies of texts are in part continuous and that what appears to be discrepancy is merely a difference between the liturgical emphasis of the Vedas and the more eclectic genres of the epics and Puranas. For example, the great god of the Rigveda is Indra, the god of war and monsoon, prototype of the warrior; but, for the population as a whole, he was more important as the rain god than the war god, and it is as such that he survives in early Puranic mythology.

      While some traditionally important Vedic gods have only minor roles in the Puranas, some previously less-important figures are quite prominent. This is true, for example, of the two principal gods of Puranic Hinduism, Vishnu and Rudra-Shiva. In the Vedas, Vishnu, with his three strides, established the three worlds (heaven, atmosphere, and earth); Rudra-Shiva is a mysterious god who must be propitiated.

      Puranic literature documents the rise of the two gods as they attract to themselves the identities of other popular gods and heroes. Brahma, creator of the world and teacher of the gods, appears in the Puranas primarily to appease over-powerful sages and demons by granting them boons.

      In the Puranic literature of 500 to 1000 CE, sectarianism creeps into mythology, and individual Puranas extol one god (usually either Shiva or Vishnu) over all others. Cosmology, cosmogony, generations of kings of the lunar and solar dynasties, myths of the great ascetics (who in some respects eclipse the old gods), and myths of sacred places—usually rivers and fords—whose powers to reward the pilgrim are often cited and related to local legends, are all important themes in these texts.

Cosmogony

      Puranic cosmogony greatly expands upon the complex cosmogonies of the Brahmanas, Upanishads, and epics. According to one of many versions of the story of the origin of the universe, in the beginning the god Narayana (identified with Vishnu) floated on the snake Ananta (“Endless”) on the primeval waters. From Narayana's navel grew a lotus, in which the god Brahma was born reciting the four Vedas with his four mouths and creating the “Egg of Brahma,” which contains all the worlds. Other accounts refer to other demiurges, or creators, like Manu (the primordial ancestor of humankind).

      The Vedas do not seem to conceive of an end to the world, but Puranic cosmogony accounts for the periodic destruction of the world at the close of an eon, when the Fire of Time will put an end to the universe. Elsewhere the destruction is specifically attributed to the god Shiva, who dances the tandava dance of doomsday and destroys the world. Yet this is not an absolute end but a temporary suspension (pralaya), after which creation begins again in the same fashion.

Cosmology

      The Puranas present an elaborate mythical cosmography. The old tripartite universe persists, but it is modified. There are three levels—heaven, earth, and the netherworld—but the first and last are further subdivided into vertical layers. Earth consists of seven circular continents, the central one surrounded by the salty ocean and each of the other concentric continents by oceans of other liquids. In the centre of the central mainland stands the cosmic mountain Meru; the southernmost portion of this mainland is Bharatavarsa, the old name for India. Above earth there are seven layers in heaven, at the summit of which is the world of brahman (brahma-loka); there are also seven layers below earth, the location of hells inhabited by serpents and demons.

Myths of time and eternity

      The oldest texts speak little of time and eternity. It is taken for granted that the gods, though born, are immortal; they are called “Sons of Immortality.” In the Atharvaveda, Time appears personified as creator and ruler of everything. In the Brahmanas and later Vedic texts there are repeated esoteric speculations concerning the year, which is the unit of creation and is thus identified with the creative and regenerative sacrifice and with Prajapati (“Lord of Creatures”), the god of the sacrifice. Time is an endless repetition of the year and thus of creation; this is the starting point of later notions of repeated creations.

      Puranic myths developed around the notion of yuga (world age), of which there are four. These four yugas, Krita, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali—they are named after the four throws, from best to worst, in a dice game—constitute a mahayuga (large yuga) and, like the comparable ages of the world depicted by the Greek poet Hesiod, are periods of increasing deterioration. Time itself also deteriorates, for the ages are successively shorter. Each yuga is preceded by an intermediate “dawn” and “dusk.” The Krita Yuga lasts 4,000 years, with a dawn and dusk of 400 years each, for a total of 4,800 years; Treta a total of 3,600 years; Dvapara 2,400 years; and Kali (the current one), 1,200 years. A mahayuga thus lasts 12,000 years and observes the usual coefficient of 12, derived from the 12-month year, the unit of creation. These years are “years of the gods,” each lasting 360 human years, 360 being the days in a year. Two thousand mahayugas form one kalpa (eon), which is itself but one day in the life of Brahma, whose life lasts 100 years; the present is the midpoint of his life. Each kalpa is followed by an equally long period of abeyance (pralaya), in which the universe is asleep. Seemingly, the universe will come to an end at the end of Brahma's life, but Brahmas too are innumerable, and a new universe is reborn with each new Brahma.

      Another myth emphasizes the destructive aspect of time. Everything dies in time: “Time ripens the creatures, Time rots them” (Mahabharata 1.1.188). “Time” (kala) is thus another name for Yama, the god of death. The name is associated with Shiva in his destructive aspect as Mahakala (Mahākāla) and is extended to his consort, the goddess Kali, or Mahakali. The speculations on time reflect the doctrine of the eternal return in the philosophy of transmigration. The universe returns, just as a soul returns after death to be born again. In the oldest description of the process (Chandogya Upanishad 5.3.1.–5.3.10), the account is still mythic but displays naturalistic tendencies. The soul on departing may go either of two ways: the “Way of the Gods,” which brings it through days, bright fortnights, the half-year of the northern course of the sun, to the full year and eventually to brahman; or the “Way of the Ancestors,” through nights, dark fortnights, the half-year of the southern course of the sun, and, failing to reach the full year, eventually back to earth clinging to raindrops. If the soul happens to light on a plant that is subsequently eaten by a man, the man may impregnate a woman and thus the soul may be reborn. Once more the significance of the year as a symbol of complete time is clear.

Myths of the gods

      According to the epic Mahabharata (1.1.39), there are 33,333 Hindu deities. In other sources, that number is multiplied a thousandfold. Usually, however, the gods are referred to as “the Thirty-Three.”

      The tendency toward pantheism increased in Puranic Hinduism and led to a kind of theism that exalted several supreme gods who were not prominently represented in the Vedic corpus, while many of the Vedic gods disappeared or were greatly diminished in stature. New patterns became apparent: the notion of rita, the basis of the conception of cosmic order, was reshaped into that of dharma, or the religious-social tasks and obligations of humans in society that maintain order in the universe. There also was a broader vision of the universe and the place of divinity.

      Important myths about the gods are tied to the two principal moments in the life of the cosmos: creation and destruction. Traditionally, Brahma is the creator, from whom the universe and the four Vedas emerge. The conception of time as almost endlessly repeating itself in kalpas detracts, however, from the uniqueness of the first creation, and Brahma becomes little more than a demiurge.

      Far more attention is given to the destruction of the universe. Shiva, partly established as the agent of destruction, is in many respects an asocial god. He represents untamed wildness; he is the lone hunter and dancer, the yogi (the accomplished practitioner of Yoga) withdrawn from society, and the ash-covered ascetic. The distinction represented by the gods is not that between good and evil but rather that between the two ways in which the divine manifests itself in this world—as both benevolent and fearful, both harmonious and disharmonious.

      South Indian devotionalism produced many works in Sanskrit that contributed greatly to Hindu myth, among them are several Puranas that have exerted influence on Hinduism and are in turn reflections of trends in Hinduism. The Bhagavata-purana (“The Purana of the Devotees of the Lord [Vishnu]”) was written in South India, probably in the 10th century. It differs from the other Puranas in that it was planned as a unit and far greater care was taken with both metre and style. Its nearly 18,000 stanzas are divided into 12 books. The most popular part of the Bhagavata-purana is the description of the life of Krishna. Much emphasis is placed on the youth of Krishna: the threats against his life by the tyrant Kamsa, his flight and life among the cowherds at Gokula, and especially his adventures and pranks with the cowherd girls. The popularity of the text has led to the survival of many manuscripts, some beautifully illustrated. Much of medieval Indian painting and vernacular literature draws upon the Bhagavata-purana (Smṛti) for its themes.

      The Bhagavata-purana (Bhāgavata-Purāṇa) contains a doctrine of the avatars of Vishnu and teaches a Vaishnava theology: God is transcendent and beyond human understanding; through his incomprehensible creative ability (maya) or specific power (atmashakti) he expands himself into the universe, which he pervades and which is his outward appearance (his immanence). The Lord creates the world merely because he wills to do so. Creation, or rather the process of differentiation and integration, is his sport (lila).

      The Bhagavata-purana glorifies an intensely personal and passionate bhakti that gradually develops into a decidedly erotic mysticism. According to this text, there are nine characteristics of bhakti: listening to the sacred histories, praising God's name, remembering and meditating on his nature and salutary endeavour (resulting in a spiritual fusion of devotee and God), serving his image, adoring him, respectful salutation, servitude, friendship, and self-surrender. Meritorious works are also an element of bhakti.

      According to the Bhagavata-purana, the true Vaishnava should worship Vishnu or one of his avatars, construct temples, bathe in holy rivers, study religious texts, serve superiors, and honour cows. In social intercourse with the adherents of other religions, he should be passively intolerant, avoiding direct contact, without injuring them or prejudicing their rights. He should not neglect other gods but must avoid following the rituals of their followers. The concept of class divisions is accepted, but the idea that possession of the characteristics of a particular class is the inevitable result of birth is decidedly rejected. Because sin is antithetical to bhakti, a Brahman who is not free from falsehood, hypocrisy, envy, aggression, and pride cannot be the highest of men, and many persons of low social status may have some advantage over him in moral attitude and behaviour. The most desirable behaviour is compatible with bhakti but independent of class.

      In establishing bhakti religion against any form of opposition and defending the devout irrespective of birth, the Bhagavata religion did not actively propagate social reform; but the attempts to make religion an efficient vehicle of new spiritual and social ideas contributed, to a certain extent, to the emancipation of lowborn followers of Vishnu.

Vaishnavism and Shaivism

Vaishnavism

 Vaishnavism is the worship of Vishnu and his various incarnations. During a long and complex development, many Vaishnava groups emerged with differing beliefs and aims. Some of the major Vaishnava groups include the Shrivaishnavas and Dvaitins (philosophical or religious dualists (dualism)) of South India, the followers of the teachings of Vallabha in western India, and several Vaishnava groups in Bengal in eastern India, who follow teachings derived from those of the saint Caitanya. Most Vaishnava believers, however, draw from various traditions and blend worship of Vishnu with local practices.

      In the Vedas and Brahmanas, Vishnu is the god of far-extending motion and pervasiveness who, for humans in distress, penetrates and traverses the entire cosmos to make their existence possible. All beings are said to dwell in his three strides or footsteps (trivikrama): his highest step, or abode, is beyond mortal ken in the realm of heaven. Vishnu is also the god of the pillar of the universe and is identified with the sacrifice. He imparts his all-pervading power to the sacrificer who imitates his strides and identifies himself with the god, thus conquering the universe and attaining “the goal, the safe foundation, the highest light” (Shatapatha Brahmana).

      In the centuries before the Common Era, Vishnu became the Ishvara (immanent deity) of his worshipers, fusing with the Purusha-Prajapati figure; with Narayana, whose cult discloses a prominent influence of ascetics; with Krishna, whom the Bhagavadgita identified with Vishnu as Doomsday; and with Vasudeva, who was worshipped by a group known as the Pancharatras.

      The extensive mythology attached to Vishnu is largely that of his incarnations (avatars (avatar)). Although the notion of “incarnation” is found elsewhere in Hinduism, it is basic to Vaishnavism. Each of his incarnations, especially Krishna and Rama, has a particular mythology and is the object of devotional religion (bhakti). The classical number of these incarnations is 10, ascending from theriomorphic (animal form) to fully anthropomorphic manifestations. They are Fish (Matsya), Tortoise (Kurma), Boar (Varaha), Man-Lion (Narasimha), Dwarf (Vamana), Rama-with-the-Ax (Parashurama), King Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and the future incarnation, Kalkin. Moreover, like most other Hindu gods, Vishnu has his especial entourage: his wife is Lakshmi (Lakṣmī), or Shri, the lotus goddess, granter of beauty, wealth, and good luck, who came forth from the ocean when gods and demons churned it in order to recover from its depths the ambrosia or elixir of immortality, amrita. At the beginning of the commercial year, special worship is paid to her for success in personal affairs. Vishnu's mount is the bird Garuda (Garuḍa), archenemy of snakes (snake), and his emblems are the lotus, club, discus (as a weapon), and a conch shell, which he carries in his four hands.

      Whatever justification the different Vaishnava groups (such as the Shrivaishnavas of South India or the worshipers of Vishnu Vithoba in Maharashtra) offer for their philosophical position, all of them believe in God as a person with distinctive qualities and worship him through his manifestations and representations. God rewards devotion with his grace, through which the votary may be lifted from transmigration to release. Much of Vaishnava faith is monotheistic, whether the object of adoration be Vishnu Narayana or one of his avatars. Preference for any one of these manifestations is largely a matter of tradition. Thus, most South Indian Shrivaishnavas prefer Vishnu, Rama, or Shri (Vishnu's consort); the North Indian groups prefer Krishna.

      The avatar doctrine accommodated the cults of various divine or heroic figures within a monotheistic framework. The benevolence and beneficial activity of these figures (Rama, Krishna, et al.) is, however, occasionally in doubt. Vishnu often acts deceitfully, selfishly, or helplessly; sometimes he disguises himself as a fascinating young woman in order to trick the asuras (antigods) out of the possession of the newly produced amrita. The narratives are full of the miraculous, but their central figures give the impression of being human—sometimes all too human—characters whose actions and reactions are within the limits of ordinary understanding.

Shaivism

      The character and position of the Vedic god Rudra—called Shiva, “the Auspicious One,” when this aspect of his ambivalent nature is emphasized—remain clearly evident in some of the important features of the great god Shiva, who together with Vishnu came to dominate Hinduism. Major groups such as the Lingayats of southern India and the Kashmiri Shaivas contributed the theological principles of Shaivism, and Shaiva worship became a complex amalgam of pan-Indian Shaiva philosophy and local or folk worship.

      In the minds of the ancient Hindu, Shiva was the divine representative of the uncultivated, dangerous, and unreliable aspects of nature. Shiva's character lent itself to being split into partial manifestations—each said to represent only an aspect of him—as well as to assimilating divine or demonic powers of a similar nature from other deities. Already in the Rigveda, appeals to him for help in case of disaster—of which he might be the originator—were combined with the confirmation of his great power. In the course of the Vedic period, Shiva—originally a ritual and conceptual outsider, yet a mighty god whose benevolent aspects were readily emphasized—gradually gained access to the circle of respectable gods who preside over various spheres of human interest. Many characteristics of the Vedic Prajapati, the creator, of Indra, the god of the phallus, and of the great Vedic god of fire, Agni, have been integrated into the figure of Shiva.

      In those circles that produced the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (c. 400 BCE), Shiva rose to the highest rank. Its author proposed a way of escape from samsara, proclaiming Shiva the sole eternal Lord. Rudra-Shiva developed into an ambivalent and many-sided lord and master. His “doubles” or partial manifestations, however, were active among humankind: as Pashupati (“Lord of Cattle”), he took over the fetters of the Vedic Varuna; as Aghora (“To Whom Nothing Is Horrible”), he showed the uncanny traits of his nature (evil, death, punishment) and also their opposites.

      It is not always clear whether Shiva is invoked as a great god of frightful aspect, capable of conquering demonic power, or as the boon-giving lord and protector. Although Shiva might be the sole principle above change and variation who sometimes sides with the demons, he did not sever his connections with innumerable local deities and much-feared powers worshipped by most Hindus, who still continue to invoke him in magical rites.

      Shiva reconciles in his person semantically opposite though complementary aspects: he is both terrible and mild, destroyer and restorer, eternal rest and ceaseless activity. These seeming contradictions make him a paradoxical figure, transcending humanity and assuming a mysterious sublimity of his own. His character is so complicated and his interests are so widely divergent as to lead him in mythical narratives into conflicting situations. Yet, although Brahman philosophers like to emphasize his ascetic aspects and the ritualists of the Tantric tradition his sexuality, the seemingly opposite strands of his nature are generally accepted as two sides of one character.

      Shiva temporarily interrupts his austerity and asceticism ( tapas) to marry Parvati (Pārvatī), and he combines the roles of lover and ascetic to such a degree that his wife must be an ascetic (yogi) when he devotes himself to austerities and a lustful mistress when he is in his erotic mode. This dual character finds its explanation in the ancient conviction that, by his very chastity, an ascetic accumulates (sexual) power that can be discharged suddenly and completely, resulting in the fecundation of the soil. Various mythical tales reveal that both chastity and the loss of chastity are necessary for fertility and the intermittent process of regeneration in nature. Ascetics engaging in erotic and creative experiences are a familiar feature in Hinduism, and the element of sexuality in mythological thought counterbalances the Hindu bent for asceticism. Such sexuality, while rather idyllic in Krishna, assumes a mystical aspect in Shiva, which is why the devotee can see in him the realization of the possibilities of both the ascetic life and the householder state. His marriage with Parvati is then a model of conjugal love, the divine prototype of human marriage, sanctifying the forces that carry on the human race.

 Shiva's many poses express various aspects of his nature: as a dancer, he is the originator of the eternal rhythm of the universe; he also catches, in his thickly matted hair, the waters of the heavenly Ganges River, which destroy all sin; and he wears in his headdress the crescent moon, which drips the nectar of everlasting life.

      Shiva represents the unpredictability of divinity. He is the hunter who slays and skins his prey and dances a wild dance while covered with the bloody hide. Far from society and the ordered world, he sits on the inaccessible Himalayan plateau of Mount Kailasa, an austere ascetic, averse to love, who burns Kama, the god of love, to ashes with a glance from the third eye—the eye of insight beyond duality—in the middle of his forehead. Yet another epiphany is that of the lingam (linga), an upright rounded post, usually of stone, representing a phallus, in which form he is worshipped throughout India. And at the end of the eon, he will dance the universe to destruction. He is nevertheless invoked as Shiva, Shambhu, Shankara (“Benignant” and “Beneficent”), for the god that can strike down can also spare. Snakes seek his company and twine themselves around his body. He wears a necklace of skulls. He sits in meditation, with his hair braided like a hermit's, his body smeared white with ashes. These ashes recall the burning pyres on which the sannyasis (renouncers) take leave of the social order of the world and set out on a lonely course toward release, carrying with them a human skull.

 Shiva's consort is Parvati (“Daughter of the Mountain [Himalaya]”), a goddess most unlike the consorts of Vishnu in his various incarnations. She is also personified as the Goddess (Devi), Mother (Amba), black and destructive (Kali), fierce (Candika (Caṇḍī)), and inaccessible (Durga). As Shiva's female counterpart, she inherits some of Shiva's more fearful aspects. She comes to be regarded as the power (shakti) of Shiva, without which Shiva is helpless. Shakti is in turn personified in the form of many different goddesses, often said to be aspects of her.

Myths of culture heroes (hero)

      A culture hero can easily be assimilated to a god by identifying him with an incarnation of a god. Thus, great religious teachers are considered manifestations of the god of their devotional preaching, and stories of their lives have become part of a very rich mythology. Practically gods on earth, these ascetics, according to mythology, have amassed tremendous powers that they do not hesitate to use. The sage Kapila, meditating in the netherworld, burned to ashes 60,000 princes who had dug their way to him. Another sage, Bhagiratha, brought the Ganges River down from heaven to sanctify their ashes and, in the process, created the ocean. Agastya, revered as the Brahman who brought Sanskrit civilization to South India, drank and digested the ocean. When the Vindhya mountain range would not stop growing, Agastya crossed it to the south and commanded it to cease growing until his return; he still has not returned. Vishvamitra, a king who became a Brahman, created a new universe with its own galaxies to spite the gods.

      In myths concerning kings and princes, a prevailing theme is the trial of the son by the father. For example, the ancient king Yayati had five sons to whom he wanted to transfer his own senescence for a stipulated period. All refused except the youngest, Puru, whose reward was to become his father's successor and whose descendants became the Pauravas, the dynasty in which the heroes of the Mahabharata were later born. The latter heroes also underwent a trial when they were exiled from their newly won kingdom. Heroines undergo their own trials, usually involving a challenge to their chastity, as in the case of Sita in the Ramayana and Draupadi, the one wife of all five Pandava brothers, whose sari became endless when a lustful villain attempted to pull it off.

      Moving from myth to legend, there are also stories told of the great teachers, and every founder of a sect is soon deified as an incarnation of a god: the philosopher Shankara (Śaṅkara) (c. 788–820) as an incarnation of Shiva, the religious leader Ramanuja (Rāmānuja) (d. AD 1137) as that of Narayana-Vishnu, and the Bengal teacher Caitanya (1485–1533) simultaneously as that of Krishna and his beloved Radha.

Myths of holy rivers (river) and holy places

      Of particular sanctity in India are the rivers, among which the Ganges (Ganges River) stands first. This river, personified as a goddess, originally flowed only in heaven until she was brought down by Bhagiratha to purify the ashes of his ancestors. She came down reluctantly, cascading first on the head of Shiva in order to break her fall, which would have shattered the Earth. Confluences are particularly holy, and the confluence of the Ganges with the Yamuna at Allahabad is the most sacred spot in India. Another river of importance is the Sarasvati, which loses itself in desert; it was personified as a goddess of eloquence and learning.

      All major and many minor temples and sanctuaries have their own myths of how they were founded and what miracles were wrought there. The same is true of famous places of pilgrimage, usually at sacred spots near and in rivers; important among these are Vrindavana (Brindaban) on the Yamuna, which is held to be the scene of the youthful adventures of Krishna and the cowherd wives. Another such centre with its own myths is Gaya, especially sacred for the funerary rites that are held there. And there is no spot in Varanasi (Benares), along the Ganges, that is without its own mythical history.

Philosophical texts

      Although the details of Indian philosophy, as it has been developed by professional philosophers, may be treated as a subject separate from Hinduism (see Indian philosophy), certain broad philosophical concepts were absorbed into the myths and rituals of Hindus and are best viewed as a component of the religious tradition.

mysticism

      One of the major trends of Indian religious philosophy is mysticism: the desire for union of the self with something greater than the self, whether that is defined as a principle that pervades the universe or as a personal God. Hindu mysticism includes both these forms and a great many that lie in between. At one extreme is the realization of the identity of the individual self with the impersonal principle called brahman (brahma), the position of the Vedanta (Vedānta) school of Indian philosophy; at the other is the intensive devotionalism to a personal God that is found in the bhakti (devotional) sects.

      Most Hindu mystical thought displays four common features. First, it is based on experience: the state of realization, whatever it is called, is both knowable and communicable, and the systems are all designed to teach people how to reach it. It is not, in other words, pure speculation. Second, it has as its goal the release of the spirit-substance of the individual from its prison in matter, whether matter is considered real or illusory. Third, all the systems recognize the importance or the necessity of the control of the mind and body as a means of realization; sometimes this takes the form of extreme asceticism and mortification, and sometimes it takes the form of the cultivation of mind and body in order that their energies may be properly channeled. Finally, at the core of Hindu mystical thought is the functional principle that knowing is being. Thus, knowledge is something more than analytical categorizing: it is total understanding. This understanding can be purely intellectual, and some schools equate the final goal with omniscience, as does Yoga. But understanding can also mean total transformation: if one truly knows something, one is that thing. Thus, in the devotional schools, the goal of the devotee is to transform into a being who, in eternity, is in immediate and loving relationship to the deity. But despite the fact that these are both ways of knowing, the difference between them is significant. In the first instance, the individual has the responsibility to train and use his own intellect. The love relationship of the second, on the other hand, is one of dependence, and the deity assists the devotee through grace. The distinction is generally made by the analogy of the cat and the monkey: the cat carries her young in her mouth, and thus the kitten has no responsibility. But the young monkey must cling by its own strength to its mother's back.

      It is usual for writers on the subject, following Surendranath Dasgupta, a historian of Indian philosophy, to list five major varieties of Hindu mysticism, the five having arisen in historical order as follows:

● The sacrificial, based on the Vedas and Brahmanas.

● The Upanishadic, in which are found the beginnings of both monistic (concerned with a unitary principle of reality, immanent in the world) and theistic (concerned with a personal or suprapersonal God) systems.

● The Yogic, relating to physical and mental discipline; the earliest known text of this school is the Yoga-sutra of Patanjali, dated variously between the 2nd century BCE and the 5th century CE. According to Yogic mysticism, man realizes union by means of physical and mental control of himself, which in turn leads to control of both natural and divine forces.

● The Buddhistic, in which enlightenment is the realization of the Four Noble Truths—the fact of suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the means of arriving at these three truths: the Eightfold Path. The ultimate state, the culmination of one path of the Eightfold Path, is nirvana, “the blowing out,” the extinction of desire (see Buddhism; Buddha).

● The devotional, or bhakti, type, which comprises a range of theistic systems, with a conception of absolute dualism between humanity and God on the one extreme and a conception of qualified nondualism on the other. Although there are traces of this devotionalism throughout the history of Indian religion, it began to develop in earnest in South India in the 7th through 10th centuries CE with the hymns of the poet-saints called Alvars (Āḷvār).

Philosophical sutras and the rise of the Six Schools (āstika) of philosophy

      The systems of the Six Schools (Saddarshana) of orthodox Hindu philosophy were formulated in terse sutras from about the beginning of the Common Era through the period of the Gupta empire (320–540).

      The most important of the Six Schools is the Vedanta (Vedānta) (“End of the Vedas”), also called Uttara-Mimamsa or, later, Mimamsa. The most-renowned philosopher of this school—and, indeed, of all Hinduism—was Shankara (Śaṅkara) (traditionally dated c. 788–820, though he probably lived in the first half of the 8th century). Born at Kaladi in Kerala, he is said to have spent most of his life traveling through India debating with members of other sects. The Shankaran system has sounded the keynote of intellectual Hinduism down to the present, but later teachers founded sub-schools of Vedanta, which are perhaps equally important.

      Shankara was also responsible for the growth of Hindu monasticism, which had been in existence for more than a millennium in the form of hermit colonies. Inscriptions from Gupta times onward also refer to monklike orders of Shaiva ascetics, apparently living according to distinctive disciplines and with distinguishing garments and emblems. Shankara founded the dashnami (daśnāmī sannyāsin), a closely disciplined Shiva order, perhaps partly modeled on the Buddhist order, the sangha. The dashnami, which is still the most influential orthodox Hindu ascetic group, is composed of 10 brotherhoods (dashnami means “those with 10 names”). Orders became an established institution with wider geographic affiliations. Some of these admitted Brahmans only; others were open to all four classes or even to women; some made a practice of nudity; and all are inclined to individual asceticism. Shankara is also said to have founded the four main monasteries (matha) at the four corners of India: Sringeri in Karnataka, Badrinath in the Himalayas, Dwarka in Gujarat, and Puri in Orissa. The abbots (abbot) of these monasteries control the spiritual lives of many millions of devout Shaiva laypersons throughout India, and their establishments strive to maintain the traditional philosophical Hinduism of the strict Vedanta. In modern times, certain dashnami leaders have incurred criticism for their firm opposition to social change.

 The theologians had to assume the task of explaining the relation between God, the unaffected and unchanging cause of all things, and the universe. According to the great South Indian thinker and devotee of Vishnu Ramanuja (Rāmānuja) (c. 1017–1137), brahman (brahma) (i.e., God) is a Person as well as the object of an individual's search for the higher knowledge that is the only entrance to salvation. Because an absolute creation is denied, God is viewed as the sole cause of his own modifications—namely, the emanation, existence, and absorption of the universe. God is conceived to be essentially different from everything material, the absolute opposite of any evil, free from any imperfection, omniscient, omnipotent, possessed of all positive qualities (such as knowledge, bliss, beauty, and truth), of incomparable majesty, the inner soul of all beings, and the ultimate goal of every religious effort. The universe is considered a real transformation of brahman, whose “body” consists of the conscious souls and everything unconscious in their subtle and gross states. The karma doctrine is modified as follows: the Lord, having determined good and bad deeds, provides all individual souls with a body in which they perform deeds, reveals to them the scriptures from which they may learn the dharma, and enters into them as their internal regulator. The individual acts at his own discretion but needs the Lord's assent. If the devotee wishes to please him, God induces him, with infallible justice and loving regard, to intentions and effort to perform good deeds by which the devotee will attain him; if not, God keeps him from that goal.

      Influenced by the bhakti movement, Ramanuja had admitted a twofold possibility of emancipation: in addition to the meditative method of the highest insight ( jnana) into the oneness of soul and God, which destroys the residues of karma and propitiates God to win his grace, there is the way of bhakti. Those who prefer the former way will reach a state of isolation, the others an infinitely blissful eternal life in, through, and for God, with whom they are one in nature but not identical. They do not lose their individuality and may even meet Vishnu in his Vaikuntha heaven and enjoy delight beyond description. Among many followers of Ramanuja, however, complete self-surrender (prapatti) came to be distinguished from bhakti as a superior means of spiritual realization.

      Authors of Shaiva (Shaivism) Puranas established two ingenious and complementary doctrines to explain the nature and omnipotence of God, the existence of the world, and the identity of God and the world. A theory of five “faces,” or manifestations—each of which is given mythological names and related s (mantra)—is of great ritual significance. It associates Shiva's (Shiva) so-called creative function, by which he provokes the evolution of the material cause of the universe, with his first face, or aspect; the maintenance and reabsorption of the universe with his second and third faces; his power of obscuration, by which he conceals the souls in the phenomena of samsara, with his fourth face; and his ability to bestow his grace, which leads to final emancipation, with his fifth face. The five functions are an emanation of the unmanifested Shiva, who is the transcendent brahman.

      The faces became the central elements of a comprehensive classification system. They were identified with parts of God's body, regions of the universe, various ontological principles, organs of sense and action, and the elements. The system was used to explain how Shiva's being is the All and how the universe is exclusively composed of aspects or manifestations of Shiva. In his fivefold nature, Shiva was shown to be identical with the 25 elements or principles assumed by the prominent Samkhya school of Indian philosophy. The special significance of the number five in Shaivism can be understood as a philosophical elaboration of the time-honoured fourfold organization of the universe. (The four quarters of the sky also play a prominent part in religious practice.) According to this conception, a fifth aspect, when added to the four, is considered the most important aspect of the group because it represents each of the four and collectively unites all of their functions in itself. The system finds its complement in the doctrine of the five sadakhyas (five items that bear the name sat, “is” or “being”) representing the five aspects of that state, which may be spoken of as the experience of “there is” (sat) and which have evolved from God's fivefold creative energy (shakti). In these God “dwells” in his aspect called Sadashiva (“Eternal Shiva”), which is regarded sometimes as a manifestation of and sometimes as identical with the Supreme Being.

      Another Shaiva doctrine posits eight “embodiments” of Shiva as the elements of nature—ether, wind, fire, water, earth—and the Sun, the Moon, and the sacrificer, or consecrated worshiper (also called Atman). To each of these eight elements corresponds one of Shiva's traditional names or aspects—to the last one, usually Pashupati. The world is a product of these eight forms, consists of them, and can exist and fulfill its task only because the eight embodiments cooperate. Because each individual is also composed of the same eight realities (e.g., the light of man's eyes corresponds to that of the Sun), Shiva constitutes the corporeal frame and the psychical organism of every living being. The eighth constituent is the indispensable performer of the rites that sustain the gods who preside over the cosmic processes and are really Shiva's faculties.

      Although Shaivism is a much more coherent whole than Vaishnavism, branches with peculiarities of their own evolved in different parts of India. According to the idealist monism of Kashmir Shaivism (Kashmir Śaivism), an important religious-philosophical school, Shiva manifests himself through a special power as the first cause of creation, and he also manifests himself through a second power as the innumerable individual souls who, because of a veil of impurity, forget that they are the embodiment of the Highest. This veil can be torn off by intense faith and constant meditation on God, by which the soul transmutes itself into a universal soul and eventually attains liberation through a lightning-like, intuitive insight into its own nature. Hindus who adhere to this group consider their doctrine a manifestation of the highest reality, Knowing Consciousness, neither personal nor impersonal.

      The Shaiva-siddhanta, a prominent school of Tamil-speaking South India, assumes three eternal principles: God (who is independent existence, unqualified intelligence, and absolute bliss), the universe, and the souls. The world, because it is created by God (efficient cause) through his conscious power (instrumental cause) and maya (material cause), is no illusion. The main purpose of its creation is the liberation of the beginningless souls, which are conceived as “cattle” (pashu) bound by the noose (pasha) of impurity (mala) or spiritual ignorance, which forces them to produce karma. Members of this school see the karma process as a benefit, however, because they believe that, as soon as the soul has sufficiently ripened and reached a state of purity enabling it to strive after the highest insight, God graciously intervenes, appearing in the shape of a fully qualified and liberated spiritual guide (guru), through whose words God permits himself to be realized by the individual soul.

Tantrism

Tantric traditions and Shaktism

      Toward the end of the 5th century, the cult of the mother goddess assumed a significant place in Indian religious life. Shaktism, the worship of Shakti, the active power of the godhead conceived in feminine terms, should be distinguished from Tantrism, the search for spiritual power and ultimate release by means of the repetition of sacred syllables and phrases (mantras), symbolic drawings (mandalas), and other secret rites elaborated in the texts known as Tantras (“Looms”).

      In many respects the Tantras are similar to the Puranas. Theoretically, the Tantras deal with (1) knowledge, or philosophy, (2) Yoga, or concentration techniques, (3) ritual, which includes the construction of icons and temples, and (4) conduct in religious worship and social practice. In general, the last two subjects are the most numerous, while Yoga tends to centre on the mystique of certain sound-symbols (mantras) that sum up esoteric doctrines. The philosophy tends to be a syncretistic mixture of Sankhya and Vedanta thought, with special and at times exclusive emphasis on the god's power, or shakti. The Tantric texts can be divided into three classes: (1) Shaiva Agamas (traditions of the followers of Shiva), (2) Vaishnava Samhitas (“Collections of the Vaishnavas,” a name borrowed from the Vedic Samhitas), and (3) Shakta Tantras (“Looms of the Followers of the Goddess Shakti”). However, they all have the common bond of venerating the Goddess.

      The surviving Hindu Tantras were written much later than many of those of Tantric Buddhism, which may have heavily influenced the Hindu texts. Although there is early evidence of Tantrism and Shaktism in other parts of India, the chief centres of both in Bengal, Bihar, and Assam.

Shaiva Agamas (Agama)

      Like much other Hindu sacred literature, this literature is neither well-cataloged nor thoroughly studied. It is possible here to summarize only classes of texts within the various traditions.

      The sects of Agamic Shaivas (Shiva worshipers who follow their own Agama—“traditional”—texts) encompass both the Sanskritic Shaiva-siddhanta—i.e., those who accept the philosophical premises and conclusions of Shaivas in the north—and the southern Lingayats or Vilashaivas (from vira, literally “hero”; a lingam is the Shiva emblem that is worshipped in lieu of images). The Shaiva-siddhanta traditionally has 28 Agamas and 150 sub-Agamas. Their principal texts are difficult to date, though most of them probably were not composed before the 8th century. Their doctrine states that Shiva is the conscious principle of the universe, while matter is unconscious. Shiva's power, or shakti, personified as a goddess, causes bondage and release. She is also the magic Word, and thus her nature can be sought out and meditated upon in mantras.

      Kashmir Shaivism begins with the Shiva-sutra, or “Lines of Doctrine Concerning Shiva” (c. 850), as a new revelation of Shiva. The system embraces the Shivadristi (“A Vision of Shiva”) of Somananda (950), in which emphasis is placed on the continuous recognition of Shiva; the world is a manifestation of Shiva brought about by his shakti. The system is called trika (“triad”), because it recognizes the three principles of Shiva, Shakti, and the individual soul. Virashaiva texts begin at about 1150 with the Vacanams (“Sayings”) of Basava. The sect is puritanical, worships Shiva exclusively, rejects the caste system in favour of its own social organization, and is highly structured, with monasteries and gurus.

Vaishnava (Vaishnavism) Samhitas

      These consist of two groups of texts, Vaikhanasa Samhitas and Pancharatra Samhitas, which together include more than 200 titles, though the official number is 108. Vaikhanasa Samhitas (collections of the Vaishnava school of Vaikhanasas, who were originally ascetics) seem to have been the original temple manuals for the Bhagavatas (devotees of Vishnu), which by the 11th or 12th century had become supplanted by the Pancharatra Samhitas (collections of the Vaishnava school of Pancharatra—“System of the Five Nights”). The philosophy of the latter is largely a matter of cosmogony, greatly inspired by both Sankhya and Yoga teachings.

      Apart from their theology, in which for the first time the notion of shakti is introduced into Vaishnavism, the Vaishnava Samhitas are important because they give an exposition of Vaishnava temple and cult practices. The texts also maintain that the supreme god Krishna Vasudeva manifests himself in four coequal “divisions” (vyuhas), representing levels of creation. These gods emanate as supramundane patrons before the primary creation is started by their shakti. In the primary creation, Shakti manifests herself as a female creative force. Practically, stress is laid on a type of incarnation—“iconic incarnation”—in which a portion of the god is actually present in a stone or statue, which thus becomes an icon; therefore, the icon can be worshipped as God himself.

Shakta Tantras (Tantra)

      Shaktism in one form or another has been known since Bana (c. 650) wrote his Hundred Couplets to Candi (Candi-shataka) and Bhavabhuti (Bhavabhūti) his play Malati Madhava (early 8th century), about the adventures of the hero Madhava and his beloved Malati; both of these works refer to Tantric practices. There is no traditional authoritative list of Tantric texts, but many are extant.

      Shaktism is an amalgam of Shaivism and mother goddess cults. The Shaiva notion that Shiva's shakti, not Shiva himself, is active is taken to the extreme—without Shakti, Shiva is a corpse, and Shakti is the creator as well as creation. Another important notion (partly derived from Yoga philosophy) is that throughout the body there are subtle canals that carry esoteric powers connected with the spinal cord, at the bottom of which the Goddess is coiled around the lingam as kundalini (kuṇḍalinī) (“coil”); she can be made to rise through the body to the top, whereupon release from samsara takes place. Important among the Shakta Tantras are the Kularnava-tantra (“Ocean of Tantrism”), which gives details on the “left-handed” cult forms of ritual copulation (i.e., those that are not part of traditional Hindu practice); the Kulacudamani (“Crown Jewel of Tantrism”), which discusses ritual; and the Sharadatilaka (“Beauty Mark of the Goddess Sharada”) of Lakshmanadeshika (11th century), which focuses almost exclusively on magic.

      A temple was erected in honour of the mother goddess at Gangdhar, Rajasthan, in 423 CE. Magical rites of a terrifying kind were apparently practiced there, for the temple is described as “loud with the shouts of demonesses, crying in the thick darkness,” by the playwright Bhavabhuti, whose drama Malati Madhava contains a scene depicting human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism. The goddess cults eventually centred around Durga, the consort of Shiva, in her fiercer aspect.

Nature of Tantric tradition

      Tantrism, which appears in both Buddhism and Hinduism, influenced many religious trends and movements from the 5th century CE, but it was primarily meant for esoteric circles. Claiming to show in times of religious decadence a new way to the highest goal, Tantrism bases itself upon mystic speculations concerning divine creative energy (shakti). Tantrism is thought to be a method of conquering transcendent powers and realizing oneness with the highest principle by Yogic and ritual means—in part magical and orgiastic—which are also supposed to achieve other supranormal goals.

      Tantrists take for granted that all factors in the macrocosm and the microcosm are closely connected. The adept (sadhaka) has to perform the relevant rites on his own body, transforming its normal, chaotic state into a “cosmos.” The macrocosm is conceived as a complex system of powers that by means of ritual-psychological techniques can be activated and organized within the individual body of the adept. Contrary to the ascetic emancipation methods of other groups, the Tantrists emphasize the activation and sublimation of the possibilities of their own body, without which salvation is believed to be beyond reach.

      The Tantrists of the Vamacara (“the left-hand practice”) sought to intensify their own sense impressions by making enjoyment, or sensuality (bhoga), their principal concern: the adept pursued his spiritual objective through his natural functions and inclinations, which were sublimated and then gratified in rituals in order to disintegrate his normal personality. This implies that cultic life was largely interiorized and that the whole world was given a new and esoteric meaning.

      Tantric worship ( puja) is complicated and in many respects different from the ceremonies that it has influenced. Tantric devotees interpret their texts by means of an ambiguous “twilight” language and distinguish between the texts' “external” and their esoteric meaning. Tantrists describe states of consciousness with erotic terminology and describe physiological processes with cosmological terminology. They proceed from “external” to “internal” worship and adore the Goddess mentally, offering their hearts as her throne and their self-renunciation as “flowers.”

      According to Tantrism, concentration is intended to evoke an internal image of the deity and to resuscitate the powers inherent in it so that the symbol changes into mental experience. This “symbolic ambiguity” is also much in evidence in the esoteric interpretation of ritual acts performed in connection with images, flowers, and other cult objects and is intended to bring about a transfiguration in the mind of the adept.

      The mantras (sacred utterances, such as hum, hrim, and klam) are believed to be indispensable means of entering into contact with the power they bear and of transcending mundane existence. Most potent are the monosyllabic, bija (“seed”) mantras, which constitute the main element of longer formulas and embody the essence of divine power as the eternal, indestructible prototypes from which anything phenomenal derives its existence. The cosmos itself owes its very structure and harmony to them. Also important is the introduction of spiritual qualities or divine power into the body (nyasa) by placing a finger on the relevant spot (accompanied by a mantra).

      Tantrists who follow the “right-hand path” attach much value to the Yoga that developed under their influence and to bhakti and aspire to union with the Supreme by emotional-dynamic means. For them, Yoga is a self-abnegation in order to reach a state of ecstatic blissfulness in which the passive soul is lifted up by divine grace.

      There is also a Tantric mantra-yoga (discipline through spells), which operates with formulas, and a hatha-yoga (Hatha Yoga), (Sanskrit: “union of force”). Hatha-yoga incorporates normal Yogic practices such as abstinences; observances; bodily postures; breath control; withdrawal of the mind from external objects; concentration, contemplation, and identification with the aid of s (mudra) (i.e., ritual intertwining of fingers or gestures expressing the metaphysical aspect of the ceremonies or the transformation effected by the mantras); and muscular contractions. It also consists of internal purifications (e.g., washing out stomach and bowels), shaking the abdomen, and some forms of self-torture. The whole process is intended to “control the ‘gross body' in order to free the ‘subtle body.'”

      Some Tantrists employ laya-yoga (“reintegration by mergence”), in which the female nature-energy (representing the shakti), which is said to remain dormant and coiled in the form of a serpent (kundalini) representing the uncreated, is awakened and made to rise through the six centres (chakras (chakra)) of the body, which are located along the central artery of the subtle body, from the root centre to the lotus of a thousand petals at the top of the head, where it merges into the purusha, the male Supreme Being. Once the union of shakti and Purusha has become permanent, according to this doctrine, wonderful visions and powers come to the adept, who then is emancipated. Some of the Tantric texts also pursue worldly objectives involving magic or medicine.

Tantric and Shakta views of nature, humanity, and the sacred

      The Tantric movement is sometimes inextricably interwoven with Shaktism, which assumes the existence of one or more shaktis. These are “creative energies” that are inherent in and proceed from God and are also capable of being imagined as female deities. Shakti is the deciding factor in the salvation of the individual and in the processes of the universe because God acts only through his energy—which, personified as a goddess, is his spouse. Her role is very different in the various systems: she may be considered the central figure in a philosophically established doctrine, the dynamic aspect of brahman, producing the universe through her maya, or mysterious power of illusion; a capricious demonic ruler of nature in its destructive aspects; a benign mother goddess; or the queen of a celestial court. One form of Shaktism identifies the goddess (usually Durga) with brahman and worships her as the ruler of the universe by virtue of whom even Shiva exists. As Mahayogini (“Great Mistress of Yoga”), she produces, maintains, and reabsorbs the world. As the Eternal Mother, she is exalted in the Devimahatmya (“Glorification of the Goddess”) section of the Markandeya-purana (an important Shakta encyclopaedic text). In the Bengal cult of the goddess Kali, she demands bloody sacrifices from her worshipers lest her creative potency fail her. This cult also propounds the belief that birth and death are inseparable, that joy and grief spring from the same source, and that the frightening manifestations of the divine should be faced calmly.

      In all of his incarnations Vishnu is united with his consort, Lakshmi (Lakṣmī). The sacred tales of his various relations with her manifestations led his worshipers to view human devotion as parallel to divine love and hence as universal, eternal, and sanctified. In Vaishnava Tantrism, Lakshmi plays an important part as God's shakti. In his supreme state, Vishnu and his shakti are indissolubly associated with one another and thus constitute the personal manifestation of the supreme brahman (brahma), also called Lakshmi-Narayana. In mythical imagery, Lakshmi never leaves Vishnu's bosom. In the first stage of creation, she awakens in her dual aspect of action-and-becoming, in which she is the instrumental and material cause of the universe; Vishnu himself is the efficient cause. In the second stage, her “becoming” aspect is manifested in the grosser forms of the souls and the power of maya, which is the immaterial source of the universe. In displaying her power, she takes into consideration the accumulated karma of the beings, judging mundane existence as merit and demerit. Presented in myth as God's wife and the queen of the universe, she is always intent on liberating the incarnated souls of the devout; that is, she allows them to reenter into herself because they are really “parts,” or rather “contractions,” of her own essence. After entering her, the liberated soul takes part in the perfect embrace of the divine couple.

      Pancharatra (Pāñcarātra) Vaishnavism emphasizes that Lakshmi—who in the mythological sphere intercedes with her husband for the preservation of the world—spontaneously and by virtue of her own power differentiates herself from Vishnu because she has in view the liberation of the souls. This current of thought complicated its explanation of the relation between God and the universe—which was at the same time an attempt at assigning to God's manifestations a place in a harmonious theological and cosmological system—with an evolutionist theory of successive creations. God is assumed to manifest himself also in three other figures, mythologically his brothers, who, each with his own responsibility, have not only a creative but also an ethical function, by which they assist those who seek to achieve final emancipation.

Tantric ritual and magical practices

      The ritual of the left-hand Tantrists consisted of a kind of black mass in which all of the taboos of conventional Hinduism were conscientiously violated. Thus, in place of the traditional five elements (tattvas) of the Hindu cosmos, these Tantrists used the five m's: mamsa (flesh, meat), matsya (fish), madya (fermented grapes, wine), mudra (frumentum, cereal, parched grain, or gestures), and maithuna (fornication (sexual intercourse)). This latter element was made particularly antinomian (antinomianism) through the involvement of forbidden women—such as one's sister or mother, the wife of another man, or a low-caste woman—who was identified with the Goddess. Menstrual blood, strictly taboo in conventional Hinduism, was also used in Tantric rites. Such rituals, which are described in Tantric texts and in tracts against Tantrists, made the Tantrists notorious. It is likely, however, that the rituals were not regularly performed except by a small group of highly trained adepts; the usual Tantric ceremony was purely symbolic and even more fastidious than the pujas in Hindu temples.

      The cult of the Shaktas is based on the principle of the ritual sublimation of natural impulses to maintain and reproduce life. Shakta adepts are trained to direct all their energies toward the conquest of the Eternal. The ritual satisfaction of lust and the consumption of consecrated meat or liquor are esoterically significant means of realizing the unity of flesh and spirit, of the human and the divine. They are considered not sinful acts but effective means of salvation. Ritual copulation—which may also be accomplished symbolically—is, for both partners, a form of sacralization, the act being a participation in cosmic and divine processes. The experience of transcending space and time, of surpassing the phenomenal duality of spirit and matter, of recovering the primeval unity, the realization of the identity of God and his Shakti, and of the manifested and unmanifested aspects of the All, constitute the very mystery of Shaktism.

      The interpretation of doctrines and ritual practice is varied. Extreme Shakta communities, for example, perform the secret nocturnal rites of the shricakra (“wheel of radiance,” described in the Kularnava-tantra), in which they avail themselves of the natural and esoteric symbolic properties of colours, sounds, and perfumes to intensify their sexual experiences. Most Tantrists, however, eliminate all but the verbal ritual.

      Individual and collective Yoga and worship, conducted daily, fortnightly, and monthly “for the delectation of the deity,” are of special importance. After elaborate purifications, the worshipers—who must be initiated, full of devotion toward the guru and God, have control over themselves, be well prepared and pure of heart, know the mysteries of the scriptures, and look forward to the adoration with eagerness—make the prescribed offerings, worship the power of the Divine Mother, and recite the relevant mantras. Having become aware of their own state of divinity, they are qualified to unite sexually with the Goddess. If a woman is, in certain rituals, made the object of sexual worship, the Goddess is first invoked into her; the worshiper is not to cohabit with her until his mind is free from impurity and he has risen to divine status. Copulation with a low-caste woman helps to transcend all opposites. Union with a woman who belongs to another man is often preferred because it is harder to obtain, nothing is certain in it, and the longing stemming from the separation of lover and beloved is more intense; it is pure preman (agape, or divine love). Adoration of a girl of age 16 aims at securing the completeness and perfection of which this number is said to be the expression. However, the texts reiterate how dangerous these rites are for those who are not initiated; those who perform such ritual acts without merging their minds in the Supreme are likely to go to one of the hells.

      The esoteric Vaishnava-Sahajiya (Vaiṣṇava-Sahajiyā) cult, which arose in Bengal in the 16th century, was another emotional attempt at reconciling the spirit and the flesh. Displaying contempt for social opinion, its adherents, using the natural (sahaja, “born with”) qualities of the senses and stressing the sexual symbolism of Bengal Vaishnavism, reinterpreted the Radha-Krishna (Rādhā) legend and sought for the perpetual experience of divine joy. Based on this understanding of the legend, members of the Vaishnava-Sahajiya cult held that, after arduous training, the realization of love can be experienced, because Krishna's nature is love and the giving of love and because man is identical with Krishna. Women, as the embodiment of a theological principle, could even become spiritual guides, like Radha, conducting the worshipers in their search for realization. After reaching this state, a devotee remains in eternal bliss and can dispense with guru and ritual and be completely indifferent to the world, “steadfast amidst the dance of Maya.”

Tantric and Shakta ethical and social doctrines

      These ethical and social principles, though fundamentally the same as those promulgated in the classical dharma works, breathe a spirit of liberality: much value is set upon family life and respect for women (the image of the Goddess); no ban is placed on traveling (conventionally regarded as bringing about ritual pollution) or on the remarriage of widows. Although Tantric and Shakta traditions did not oblige their followers to deviate in a socially visible way from the established order, they provided a ritual and a way of life for those who, because of sex or caste, could not participate satisfyingly in the conventional rites.

      The ancient Tantric tradition, based on the esoteric tantra literature, has become so interwoven with orthodox Hinduism that it is difficult to define precisely. Although it recognizes an identity between the soul and the cosmos, it emphasizes the internalization of the cosmos rather than the release of the soul to its natural state of unity. The body is the microcosm, and the ultimate state is not only omniscience but total realization of all universal and eternal forces. The body is real, not because it is the function or creation of a real deity but because it contains the deity, together with the rest of the universe. The individual soul does not unite with the One—it is the One, and the body is its function.

      Tantrism, though not always in its full esoteric form, is a feature of much modern mystical thought. In Tantrism the consciousness is spoken of as moving—driven by repetition of the mantra and by other disciplines—from gross awareness of the material world to realization of the ultimate unity. The image is of a serpent, coiled and dormant, awakened and driven upward in the body through various stages of enlightenment until it reaches the brain, the highest awareness. The 19th-century mystic Ramakrishna describes the process, which is also the experience that all Hindu mystics seek:

When [the serpent] is awakened, it passes gradually through [various stages], and comes to rest in the heart. Then the mind moves away from [the gross physical senses]; there is perception, and a great brilliance is seen. The worshiper, when he sees this brilliance, is struck with wonder. The [serpent] moves thus through six stages, and coming to [the highest one], is united with it. Then there is samadhi.…When [the serpent] rises to the sixth stage, the form of God is seen. But a slight veil remains; it is as if one sees a light within a lantern, and thinks that the light itself can be touched, but the glass intervenes.…In samadhi, nothing external remains. One cannot even take care of his body any more; if milk is put into his mouth, he cannot swallow. If he remains for twenty-one days in this condition, he is dead. The ship puts out to sea, and returns no more.

Vernacular literatures (Indian literature)

      Most of the texts cited in this survey are Sanskrit (Sanskrit literature) texts, which constitute the oldest layer of extant Hindu literature. But the sacred literature of India is not as monolithic as these texts might suggest. Several other essential elements exist: independent sacred literatures in languages other than Sanskrit and material in other languages related to the Sanskrit texts either as sources of material now preserved only in Sanskrit or as new texts originating as translations of Sanskrit texts. Because Sanskrit has been in intimate contact with the mother tongues of India for such a long time, it is often impossible to determine in which of these categories a particular vernacular text belongs.

      Indologists usually emphasize the influence of Sanskritic (often called “Aryan”) culture on Dravidian culture, and indeed this influence was considerable. Sanskritic influence was already in evidence in the earliest Tamil (Tamil literature) (a principal Dravidian language) literature, perhaps dating from the 1st century CE. At this time in South India the orthodox cults were aristocratic in character and were supported by kings and chiefs who gained in prestige by patronizing Brahmans and adopting Aryan ways. The Tamils were still primarily devoted to the old cults, some of which, however, were taking on an Aryan complexion. The pastoral god Murugan (Murugaṉ) was identified with Skanda, and his mother, the fierce war goddess Korravai, with Durga. Varunan, a sea god who had adopted the name of an old Vedic god but otherwise had few Aryan features, and Mayon, a black god who was a rural divinity with many of the characteristics of Krishna in his pastoral aspect, also are depicted in Tamil literature. The final Sanskritization of the Tamils was brought about through the patronage of the Pallava (Pallava Dynasty) kings of Kanchipuram, who began to rule in the 4th century CE and who financed the making of many temples and fine religious sculptures. Similar processes took place in the Deccan, Bengal, and other regions.

      Sanskritization is a term that refers to a style of text that imitates the customs and manners of the Brahmans. But, although most sacred texts in Sanskrit were composed by Brahmans, many were composed by lower-class authors. Likewise, although some sacred texts in vernacular languages were written by authors of lower castes, many others were written by Brahmans. In addition, because Sanskrit ceased to be spoken as a primary language soon after the Vedas were composed, it is likely that most of the thoughts underlying all subsequent Sanskrit literature emerged first in some other language. Yet Indologists tend to be Sanskritists, and Sanskritists tend to assume that all texts originated in Sanskrit. Indeed, even the counterbalancing tendency to acknowledge the flow from non-Sanskrit to Sanskrit sources has often misfired; far too often it is merely asserted that anything that appears in post-Vedic Hinduism and is not attested in the Vedas is “Dravidian” or, even worse, from the Indus civilization (about whose religion virtually nothing is known). The issue is further clouded by the fact that, though Sanskrit texts tend to be written and vernacular traditions are primarily oral, there are important oral traditions in Sanskrit too (including the traditions of the two great Sanskrit epics), and there are important manuscript traditions in some of the non-Sanskritic languages (such as Bengali and Tamil). Indeed, written and oral versions of the epics and Puranas have been, from the very start, in constant symbiosis.

      Little relevance, therefore, attaches to the distinction between written and oral traditions. A myth is narrated, a process that is designated in Sanskrit by such words as purana (ancient story) and akhyana (illustrative narrative). In the oldest source, the Rigveda, myths are not so much told as alluded to; it is in the later Vedic literature of the Brahmanas that narratives are found, and these are often prejudiced by the liturgical concerns of the authors.

      The recitation of certain myths was prescribed for various rituals. The epic Mahabharata states that Vedic stories were narrated “in the pauses of the ritual,” probably by Brahmans. The sutas (charioteers and panegyrists), who celebrated the feats of great rulers, were the mythographers of the Kshatriyas (the warrior class). The sutas were popular narrators of myth and legend and developed their own bardic repertoire, which was extended to higher mythology. They—and other wanderers who found ready audiences at sacrifices or places of pilgrimage—disseminated the lore.

      Narrators continue to repeat and embroider the ancient stories of gods, sages, and kings. At an early stage their narratives were dramatized and gave rise to the Sanskrit theatre, in which epic mythic themes preponderate, and to the closely related dance, which survives in the now largely South Indian schools of bharata natyam (traditional dance) and the kathakali (kathākali) (narrative dance) of Kerala. Thus, even in Sanskrit literature, oral performance was an essential component, which further facilitated the assimilation of oral vernacular elements.

      About 1500 BCE, invaders speaking Indo-European Sanskrit entered India and encountered a population whose majority spoke languages that belonged to a major non-Indo-European linguistic group called Dravidian (Dravidian languages). These two language groups interacted from a very early period, and, although the earliest preserved specimens of Sanskrit (themselves dating from a period long after the Indo-Aryan invasions) far antedate examples of any other languages, there is good reason to believe that the other languages also produced texts at a very early period. When devotional Hinduism came into full flower, the vernacular traditions both in Dravidian languages and in languages derived from Sanskrit began to record their texts and to have a more discernible influence upon the Sanskrit tradition.

      Of the four primary Dravidian literatures—Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam—the oldest and best-known is Tamil. The earliest preserved Tamil literature, the so-called Shangam (Śaṅgam literature) poetry anthologies, dates from the 1st century BCE. These poems are classified by theme into akam (“interior,” primarily love poetry) and puram (“exterior,” primarily about war, the poverty of poets, and the deaths of kings). The bhakti movement has been traced to Tamil poetry, beginning with the poems of the devotees of Shiva called Nayanars (Nāyanār) and the devotees of Vishnu called Alvars (Āḷvār). The Nayanars, who date from about 800 CE, composed intensely personal and devout hymns addressed to the local manifestations of Shiva.

      The most famous Nayanar lyricists are Appar, Sambandar, and Cuntarar, whose hymns are collected in the Tevaram (c. 11th century). More or less contemporary were their Vaishnava counterparts, the Alvars Poykai, Putan, Peyar, and Tirumankaiyalvar; and in the 8th century the poetess Andal, as well as Periyalvar, Kulacekarar, Tiruppanalvar, and notably Nammalvar, who is held to be the greatest, composed their works. The devotion of which they sang exemplified the new bhakti movement, which sought a more direct contact between humans and God, carried by a passionate love for the Deity, who would reciprocate by extending his grace to humankind. These saints also became the inspiration of theistic systematic religion: the Shaivas for the Shaiva-siddhanta, the Vaishnavas for Vishistadvaita. In Kannada the same movement was exemplified by Basava, whose vacanams (“sayings” or “talks”) achieved great popularity.

      New Dravidian genres continued to evolve into the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Tamil Cittars (name derived from Sanskrit siddha, “perfected one”), who were eclectic mystics, composed poems noted for the power of their naturalistic diction. The Tamil sense and style of these poems belied the Sanskrit-derived title of their authors, a phenomenon that could stand as a symbol of the complex relationship between Dravidian and Sanskrit religious texts.

      The main languages derived from Sanskrit are Bengali, Hindi (with its many dialects, of which Maithili is the oldest and Urdu, heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and written in a Perso-Arabic script, is the most important), Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Assamese, Nepali, Rajasthani, and Sinhalese. Most of these languages began to develop literary traditions about 1000 CE.

      Although the earliest texts in Hindi (Hindi literature) are those attributed to the 13th–14th-century Muslim poet Amīr Khosrow, it was not until the 15th century that Hindi literature produced its own great religious lyricists. The earliest of these lyricists were the disciples of Ramananda (c. 140), who was a follower of the philosopher Ramanuja. The most famous of these lyricists is Kabir (Kabīr), a poet and mystic who was the forerunner of Sikhism. Tulsidas (Tulsīdās), apart from his Ramcaritmanas, composed Ramaite lyrics. Surdas (1483–1563), a follower of the Vallabha school of Vedanta, is known for his Sursagar (“Ocean of the Poems of Sursagar”), a collection of poems based on the stories of the childhood of Krishna found in the Bhagavata-purana. In the Marathi tradition, Namdev (1270?–1350?) celebrated Vishnu, particularly in his manifestation as Vitthoba at the Pandharpur temple; and in the 17th century Tukaram (Tukārām), the greatest poet of this literature, sang of the god of love in numerous hymns.

      The importance of these writers is not limited to literature. A small sect, the Kabirpanthis, acknowledges Kabir as its founder, but its importance is less than that of the vigorous new religion ( Sikhism) founded by one of Kabir's disciples, Nanak (Nānak).

 Although the earliest Hindu text in Bengali (Bengali literature) is a mid-15th-century poem about Radha and Krishna, texts in praise of gods and goddesses, known as mangal-kavyas, surely existed in oral versions long before then. In later Bengal Vaishnavism, the emphasis shifts from service and surrender to mutual attachment and attraction between God (i.e., Krishna) and humankind: God is said to yearn for the worshiper's identification with himself, which is his gift to the wholly purified devotee. The mystical and devotional possibilities of the Krishna legend are subordinated to religious practice; the divine sport and wonderful feats of this youthful hero are interpreted symbolically and allegorically. Thus, the highest fruition of bhakti is admission to the eternal sport of Krishna and his beloved Radha (Rādhā), whose sacred love story is explained as the mutual love between God and the human soul. Various gradations of bhakti are distinguished, such as awe, subservience, and parental affection. These are correlated with the persons of the Krishna legend; the highest and most intimate emotion is said to be the love of Radha and her girlfriends for Krishna.

      A particularly rich Bengali tradition concentrated on the love of Radha, who symbolizes the human soul, for Krishna, the supreme god. In this tradition are Candidas (Caṇḍīdās), a 15th-century poet known for his love songs, and the Maithili poet Vidyapati (c. 1400). The single most influential figure, however, was Caitanya, who in the 16th century renewed Krishnaism. He left no writings but inspired many hagiographies, among the most important of which is the Caitanya-caritamrita (“Nectar of Caitanya's Life”) by Krishna Das (born 1517).

      Caitanya had a profound and lasting effect on the religious sentiments of the people of Bengal. He propagated the community celebration (sankirtana) of Krishna as the most powerful means of bringing about the proper bhakti attitude. Caitanya also introduced the worship of God, the director of the senses, through the very activity of the senses, which must be free from all egoism and completely filled with the intense desire (preman) for the satisfaction of the beloved (i.e., Krishna).

      Another form of religious lyric are the so-called padas (verses). Govinda Das (1537–1612) is one of the greatest poets in this bhakti genre of poetry in which divine love is symbolized by human love. The songs of Ramprasad Sen (1718–75) similarly honour Shakti as mother of the universe and are still in wide devotional use. The most famous religious lyrics in Gujarati (Gujarati language) are the poems of the saint Mira Bai (Mīrā Bāī) (1503–73), who wrote passionate love poems to Krishna, whom she regarded as her husband and lover.

      The complex interaction between Sanskrit and non-Sanskrit religious classics may be seen in the development of the epics. Parts of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and many Puranas (especially the Bhagavata-purana) were translated into various vernaculars. These works were not literal translations but free versions in which the authors inserted their own emphases, which differed both from the original and from those of other authors. The oldest vernacular version of the Ramayana (Rāmāyaṇa) is the Tamil translation, the Iramavataram by Kampan (c. 12th century), a work of high literary distinction that is suffused with devotion (bhakti). A Telugu rendering was made by Ranganatha (Ranganathan, Shiyali Ramamrita) about 1300. Several translations in Bengali include some interesting and probably authentic variations from the “official” Rama story by Valmiki, the best-known translation being that of Krittibas Ojha (1450). Equally, if not more, famous is Ramcaritmanas (“Holy Lake of the Acts of Rama”).

      The Mahabharata was translated into Bengali about 1600 and into Telugu by Nannaya and Tikkana in the 13th century. The Bhagavata-purana (Bhāgavata-Purāṇa), which was translated frequently (e.g., into Bengali by Maladhar Vasu, 1480), was popular because it gave the canonical account of Krishna's life and especially his boyhood, which is the perennial inspiration of the bhakti poets.

      The teacher Jnanadeva (also known as Jnaneshvara; 1275–96) composed a commentary on the Bhagavadgita in Marathi that remains a classic in that literature. His work was continued by Eknath (c. 1600), who also composed bhakti poetry. In the 16th century the Kannada poet Gadugu produced a highly individual version of the Mahabharata. In addition to the literal or not-so-literal translations of the Sanskrit epics, the Tamils composed their own epics, notably Ilanko Atikal's Cilappatikaram (“The Lay of the Anklet”) and its sequel, the Manimekhalai (“Jeweled Girdle”). In Telugu there is the great Palnadu epic; Rajasthani has an entire epic cycle about the hero Pabuji. The remaining vernaculars have also produced many epics of their own.

      Much of the classical mythology (myth) persists today, and its stories have been conveyed to Hindus through traditional means as well as via the mass media. Mythic illustrations are favourites in Indian calendar art. Motion pictures called “mythological” are extremely popular, perpetuating the ancient stories, and so are “devotionals,” in which an example of bhakti is illustrated. Radio regularly carries bhajans (devotional songs) and classical South Indian songs, the themes of which are often mythic. Every orthodox Hindu's home has at least one corner set aside as a domestic sanctuary where representations of a chosen deity are placed, and puja (worship) is done with prayers, hymns, flowers, and incense. Richer establishments set aside entire rooms as shrines.

      Mythology has adjusted itself effortlessly to the modern world. The ashram of the 20th-century mystic and religious leader Shri Aurobindo (Aurobindo, Śrī) in Pondicherry, dedicated to the Mother Goddess (personified by this group as a single principle), was an extremely modern establishment complete with tennis courts. New temples have been constructed with modern techniques; one temple in Varanasi (Banaras) contains mirrors onto which are etched the entire Ramcaritmanas (Rāmcaritmānas). This same poem is the basis of the annual celebration of Ram Lila (the play of Rama) in northern India, in which the entire community participates. The story of Rama was evoked by Mahatma Gandhi when he set the Ram Raj (“Kingdom of Rama”) as India's governmental ideal.

      On occasion, social protesters have armed themselves with myth to make a point. For example, Karma, an antagonist in the Mahabharata who is berated for his low birth, has been extolled in intellectual circles as a truer champion than the aristocratic heroes. Anti-northern groups in Tamil Nadu revised the story of Rama, whose expedition against the demon Ravana (Rāvaṇa) is believed by some to be the Aryan invasion of South India, by reversing it to abuse Rama and to glorify Ravana.

      On a popular level, people at temples and fairs are continually reacquainted with their mythological heritage by pauranikas, tellers of the ancient stories and heirs of the sutas of 3,000 years ago, and no festival ground is complete without tents where the religious are reminded of their myths by pious speakers, modestly compensated by fees but richly rewarded by the honour in which they are held.

J.A.B. van Buitenen Edward C. Dimock, Jr. Arthur Llewellyn Basham Wendy Doniger Brian K. Smith Ed.

Practical Hinduism

      Practical Hinduism is both a quest to achieve well-being and a set of strategies for locating sources of affliction and removing or appeasing them. Characterized in this way, it has much in common with the popular beliefs and practices of many other religions. For example, Roman Catholicism as practiced in many parts of Europe or Mahayana Buddhism in Korea and Taiwan involve, as does Hinduism, petitions and offerings to enshrined divine powers in order to engage their help with all manner of problems and desires. Thus, religions which could hardly differ more vastly in their understanding of the nature of divinity, reality, and causality may nonetheless converge at the level of popular piety.

      The presumption that assigns “practical” Hinduism to peasants, labourers, or tribal peoples—while assuming that the high-born, wealthy, and educated would be concerned with spiritual enlightenment and Hinduism's ultimate aim of liberation (moksha)—is false. Hindu farmers care about their souls at least as much as do Hindu business or professional men and women (if less single-mindedly than world renouncers, who come from all ranks of life). Farmers' uncertain livelihoods, however, may influence them to dedicate more time and energy to rituals designed to obtain prosperity or to remove troubles, to bring rain to parched fields or to prevent damaging hail, to advance their children's education and careers, or to protect their families from ill health. Although rural Hindus may have little time for meditative practices, they are fully aware of ultimate truths transcending the everyday. By the same token, the pious urban elite, if more likely to pursue spiritual disciplines, frequently sponsor worship in temples or homes to ensure worldly success. At all levels of the social hierarchy, Hinduism lives through artistic performances: dance and dance-drama, representational arts, poetry, music, and song serve not only to please deities but to transmit the religion's meaningful narratives and vital truths.

      Both adherents of the faith and those who study it describe Hinduism as a way of life. Thus, they implicitly contrast Hinduism to religions that appear to be primarily located in spaces and times set apart from the everyday—such as “church on Sunday.” Although Hindus have magnificent sacred architecture and a vital tradition of calendrical festivals, the “way of life” description means that religious attitudes and acts permeate ordinary places, times, and activities. For example, bathing, dressing, cooking, eating, disposing of leftovers, and washing the dishes may all be subject to ritual prescriptions in Hindu households. Motivations for such ritualized actions are ascribed to considerations of purity—an interest that is often linked to maintaining status in a hierarchical social system.

      When Hindus interact with deities, considerations of purity may or may not be important. In some Vaishnava traditions, for example, one must remain in a relatively pure state in order to be fit to worship. A Brahman priest of a Krishna temple in the Vallabha sect might refuse food and water from the hands of non-Brahmans, not to show he is better than they are but because his work in the temple demands that he maintain such boundaries. Should he inadvertently lower his own ritual purity, he might displease or offend the deity with whom he is in regular contact, which could threaten human well-being in general.

      Vaishnava traditions, however, include an alternative perspective that is conveyed in a well-known tale about Rama. This tale, frequently portrayed in poetry and art, tells of an outcaste tribal woman named Shabari who meets Rama in the forest. Her simple-hearted love for him is so great that she offers him wild berries, which are all she has. She bites each one first to test its sweetness before giving it to her lord, and in so doing she contaminates the berries with saliva, a major source of pollution. Although the berries are highly unacceptable according to the standards of ritual purity, Rama accepts them and eats them blissfully. The message is that the polluted offerings of a lowborn person given to God with a heart full of love are far more pleasing than any ritually pure gift from a less-devout being. Purity of heart, therefore, is more important than bodily purity.

      The capacity to see both sides of most matters—cognitive flexibility rather than dogmatic fixity—is one of the most important characteristics of practical Hinduism, which lacks dogma altogether. In this regard, persistent continuities with Hinduism's ancient roots in Vedic traditions can be discerned. The elaborate sacrificial rituals of Vedic religion have often been described as being focused on obtaining the goods of life—neatly summarized as prosperity, health, and progeny—from divine powers through exacting ritual behaviours. However, in the Upanishads, the last of the Vedic texts, voices emerge that care for neither the rituals nor their promised fruits but are concerned above all with learning the nature of ultimate reality and how the human soul may recognize that indescribable essence in itself. One quest never supplants the other. In Hinduism today there remains a vital creative tension between, on the one hand, faith in the efficacy of ritual and desire for its worldly fruits and, on the other, disregard for all external practices and material results. Farmers consistently deride the notion that sins are washed away in the waters of sacred rivers, yet they spend small fortunes to travel to and bathe in them.

Devotion

      Devotion ( bhakti) effectively spans and reconciles the seemingly disparate aims of obtaining aid in solving worldly problems and locating one's soul in relation to divinity. It is the prime religious attitude in much of Hindu life. The term bhakti is derived from a root that literally means “having a share”; devotion unites without totally merging the identities of worshipers and deities. While some traditions of bhakti radically speak out against ritual, devotion in ordinary life is usually embedded in worship, vows, and pilgrimages—three major elements within practical Hinduism.

      Theistic devotion presents itself as an easy path, obliterating the need for expensive sacrificial rituals, difficult ascetic practices, and scriptural knowledge. All of these are understood as restricted to high-caste males, and in practice specifically to the rich, the spiritually gifted, or the learned. But bhakti is for all human beings, regardless of their rank, gender, or talent. Any person's chosen deity may help him obtain life's rewards or avoid its disasters. At the same time, such a chosen deity may be the subject of pure, unmotivated devotional love, recollected in a few moments of morning meditation, in prayers uttered before a shrine, or in the lighting of incense.

Deities

      As one Hindu author Sitansu Chakravarti helpfully explains in Hinduism: A Way of Life (1991),

Hinduism is a monotheistic religion which believes that God manifests Himself or Herself in several forms. One is supposed to worship the form that is most appealing to the individual without being disrespectful to other forms of worship.

      Although the specific details of ritual action and the names and appearances of deities vary vastly across the subcontinent, commonalities in ritual structure and attitude override the great diversity of ritual practices and associated mythic tales. Whether offering soaked raw chickpeas to Shiva's agent Bhairuji in Rajasthan or a buffalo to Draupadi in Tamil Nadu or water to Krishna's devoted basil plant in Bengal, Hindus approach deities through similarly structured actions. These are just as pan-Hindu as the eternal Vedas or the three important deities—Shiva, Vishnu, and the Devi, whose forms and names vary widely but are nonetheless recognizable to Hindus throughout the world.

      Ethnographies of rural Hindu practices reveal a wide variety of human relationships with multiple divine beings. These relationships are based not only on family and community affiliations but also on individual life experiences, so that individuals and families often develop idiosyncratic religiosities while remaining well within the range of normative patterns. A household of Gujars (a community associated with herding, dairy production, and agriculture) in a Rajasthani village presents one representative example. This family is particularly devoted to two deities from whom they believe they have received special blessings: Dev Narayan, a regional hero considered to be an avatar or incarnation of Vishnu, and Sundar Mata (“Beautiful Mother”), a local goddess, or village mother.

      Dev Narayan is worshipped at multiple sites throughout Rajasthan. However, each of his shrines—in Puvali, in Banjari, and so forth—has its own identity. This particular family lives a short walk from Puvali's Dev Narayan, but they believe that the more remote Banjari's Dev Narayan—located near their ancestral home—has blessed two generations with long-awaited sons. They go weekly for darshan (divine vision of a deity's image) to Puvali's Dev Narayan, as it is convenient. But when the time comes to hold a major feast of thanksgiving to the deity who granted their prayers, they go to a great deal of extra trouble and added expense to hold this feast at the more remote place of Banjari. If questioned, the adults in this family would state conclusively that there is no difference between the two places and moreover that God is ultimately singular and to be found nowhere on the face of the earth but rather in one's own body and heart. An everyday Hinduism embedded in materiality motivates the distinction between Banjari and Puvali, while a Hinduism that dissolves differences and seeks transcendent unity denies it. Most persons live their lives holding and moving between both these orientations.

      Sundar Mata has only one place, on the edge of the Gujar family's home village. She has helped them with various problems over the years. In times of trouble, devotees sometimes make inner vows to Sundar Mata (or any deity), no matter where they are. But to fulfill that vow, thankful persons must present themselves and their offerings in her particular place. Sundar Mata's shrine, like most Hindu places of worship, accumulates gifts dedicated by grateful worshipers. For example, the largest iron trident at Sundar Mata's shrine was offered by a migrant labourer who lost his suitcase on the train back from Delhi. He vowed to give his village goddess a huge trident if he got the bag back, which he miraculously did.

 Although a local deity, Sundar Mata is related to pan-Hindu goddesses such as Lakshmi, Parvati, or Durga. They are all thought to be manifestations of a single goddess; name and form are ultimately not significant. Yet again it should be noted that human worshipers attach themselves to certain images and localities, and, for those devoted to Sundar Mata, not any goddess will do.

      This family that honours Dev Narayan and Sundar Mata also worships lineage deities at home. Ritual attention to the spirits of deceased uncles and infants ensures their household's well-being, and each domestic group takes similar care of loved ones who have died. Several members of the Gujar family portrayed here have taken a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage as far as Haridwar in Uttar Pradesh, Gaya in south-central Bihar, and Puri in eastern Orissa. Mementos of these journeys—such as framed images of the sacred Ganges River's descent to earth or the central icons from the temple of Puri in Orissa—are placed in their home shrine. Home shrines in general accumulate sacred objects and images eclectically. Images are treasured and are believed to manifest miraculous powers, but images are also understood to be lifeless and dispensable—another reflection of the Hindu genius for seeing both sides.

worship

      Worship, or puja, is the central action of practical Hinduism. Scholars describe Hindu worship as a preeminently transactional event; through worship, humans approach deities by respectful interactions with their powers. At every level, from elaborate temple rituals to simple home practice, worship consists of offerings made and blessings received; reverence is rendered and grace pours down. The purpose of many rituals is to promote auspiciousness (kalyana, mangala, shri)—a pervasive Hindu concept indicating all kinds of good fortune or well-being.

      Ritual manuals in vernacular languages offer explicit instructions on exactly what should be offered and declare what benefits may be obtained through specific acts of worship. Benefits may be as general as health and prosperity or as specific as the removal of a particular illness. They also conventionally include rewards after death—thus uniting this-worldly and other-worldly blessings. Devotional songs and statements, however, persistently deny all mechanical views of divine exchanges, insisting that humans have nothing to give, that everything belongs to God, and that no truly religious action should ever be performed instrumentally. Thus, the key tension between external ritual and internal realization that originated in Vedic times and was perpetuated in devotional teachings is sustained in popular present-day ritual action.

      One key element in all worship is prasad, translated simply as “blessing” or “grace” and sometimes more literally as “blessed leftovers.” This term refers to the returned portion of a worshiper's or pilgrim's offering, which is understood as having value added by the intangible process of a deity's consumption. Prasad to be used for offerings is hawked by vendors on the road to a temple, but this food does not truly become graced until it has been given as an offering and received back. Many foodstuffs are used as prasad; bananas or other raw fruits and coconuts are particularly common, as are various candies and milk products. Fresh flowers are often included on an offering tray and may also be returned as prasad. Other substances commonly distributed at temples include the water in which icons have been ritually bathed, called charanamrit (“foot nectar”), and the ash from burnt offerings. What all these have in common is contact with the deity's power in the process of worship and service.

      Another important element of temple worship is seeing the deity: darshan. Here again, a two-way but fundamentally unequal flow takes place. An image is always enlivened and given eyes; the worshiper's delighted gaze at the deity engages the deity's awareness of the worshiper, and a channel of grace is formed. Sound and scent also alert deities to humans in their presence. Ringing bells, blowing conch shells, singing or playing instrumental music, burning incense, and pouring clarified butter onto smoldering coals are among the activities intended to alert the deity of the devotee's presence. Worshipers commonly prostrate themselves, symbolically offering respect and their own bodies. A circumambulation of the deity's altar is another physical mode of engagement with divine power. Hindu worship is accurately described as involving all the senses.

      Worship is by no means confined to temples. It may be performed at a home altar, a wayside shrine, or anywhere a devotee decides to mark off a sacred space. Actions at home may be far less elaborate than those at temples, more routinized as part of daily household life, and are performed without priestly expertise. South Indian housewives traditionally turn their thresholds into auspicious altars for the goddess each morning as they draw ritual designs, which are almost instantly trampled back into dust.

      Conceptually distinct from worship yet often conflated with it is seva, or service. This refers to regular, respectful attentions to the needs of enshrined deities, or icons (murti). Service in many temples is twice daily or more often. At shrines it may involve bathing an icon, changing its ornaments, ringing bells, and waving lights before it (arati). In temples the person who does seva is normally a ritual expert, regularly present. Although seva is never done with an aim in mind, it is understood to keep the gods beneficently inclined, and flawed seva may cause trouble. Performing seva is good for the soul of the server.

divination, spirit possession, and healing

      Simple practices of divination are common to practical Hinduism. Everyone wants to know: Will my wish be fulfilled? Will my prayer be granted? The answers to such yes-no questions may be revealed by any of a number of practices. Plucking grains between thumb and finger from a pile and counting them to see if they add up to an auspicious number, pressing flowers to the wall and waiting for them to fall, and pouring clarified butter on coals and seeing if a flame rises up are common practices in more than one region of India.

      A more elaborate mode of communicating with divine power is spirit possession (possession), in which a human being, male or female, is thought to act as a vehicle for a deity's mind and voice. This practice is also found in every geographic region where Hinduism flourishes. Although more common to rural areas, it is not absent from urban religion. A possessed priest or priestess is able to provide answers more complex than “yes” or “no.” A medium possessed by a deity may identify certain spirits of the dead who are troubling someone with symptoms of physical and mental illness. Usually these spirits are understood to cause trouble because they are not satisfied with the attention they are getting. The medium will prescribe ritual actions designed to transform the spirit from a source of affliction to a benevolent or neutral power or to send the spirit away. Purely malevolent beings, including jealous “witches” or nameless wandering ghosts, are cajoled, bullied, or even frightened into departure.

      Practical Hinduism is greatly concerned with maintaining mental and physical health. Although a possessed priest occasionally forbids resort to doctors and their remedies, in the majority of cases healing (faith healing) rituals operate in conjunction with medicines, injections, and operations. Familial problems are often untangled with the help of a possessed priest in consultations sometimes likened by observers to group therapy.

Women's religious practices

      Women's rituals comprise an important part of practical Hinduism. Some male-authored Hindu scriptures limit women's religious roles, consider women more subject than men to bodily impurities, and subordinate them to their fathers and husbands. Priests in temples and other public spaces are predominantly—though not exclusively—male. Most domestic Hindu rituals, however, lie in the hands and hearts of women. Women perform their own seva and puja at permanent or temporary domestic shrines, are the chief ritual experts at many calendrical festivals, and are responsible for many ritual aspects of weddings and other life-cycle celebrations. Women more frequently than men undertake personal vows (vrata)—individually or collectively—to ensure the well-being of their families.

      The elements of a vrata usually include a partial fast, simple worship in a domestic space temporarily purified for this purpose, and often the retelling of one or more stories honouring the deities and exemplifying the rewards or describing the origins of the ritual. The event may conclude with the consumption of special food to break the fast. Vows are often associated with calendrical cycles, whether solar, lunar, or both. For example, each day of the week is identified with a particular deity: Monday with Shiva, Tuesday with Hanuman, Wednesday with Ganesha, and so forth. If a woman undertakes a Monday vrata, she will fast and worship Shiva and tell his story every Monday. Or, a person may do an eleventh vrata, a vow for the eleventh day of the lunar calendar, which would come twice a month in the waxing and waning halves of the moon. Some vows are undertaken for the occasional potent convergence of both calendrical systems, such as somavati amavasa, a Monday dark moon.

      Women's ritually performed stories feature heroines who may be devotees of the deity being honoured, daughters of female devotees, or persons ignorant of that particular deity who then learn about its power and blessings in the course of severe tribulations. Notably, the heroines of women's devotional stories exemplify moral virtues, ritual knowledge, devotional fervour, and transformative agency. The power accumulated by women through their ritual actions should never be used exclusively for their own well-being. Selflessness is a very important virtue that is exemplified by self-denial in fasting. Nonetheless, because women's well- being is connected to familial well-being, women see their rituals as productive of better circumstances for themselves and their loved ones. For women, practical Hinduism is a space where they express their competence, self-respect, and power and see themselves as protectors of husbands, brothers, and sons. Even while critiquing the ways in which some Hindu traditions disadvantage women, Indian feminists have located important resources for women in goddess worship, in vrata narratives, and in the sense of gender solidarity and self-worth that women's rituals produce.

pilgrimage

  pilgrimage in Hinduism, as in other religions, is the practice of journeying to sites where religious powers, knowledge, or experience are deemed especially accessible. Hindu pilgrimage is rooted in ancient scriptures. According to textual scholars, the earliest reference to Hindu pilgrimage is in the Rigveda (c. 1500 BCE), in which the “wanderer” is praised. Numerous later texts, including the epic Mahabharata (c. 300 BCE–300 CE) and several of the mythological Puranas (c. 300–750 CE), elaborate on the capacities of particular sacred sites to grant boons, such as health, wealth, progeny, and deliverance after death. Texts enjoin Hindu pilgrims to perform rites on behalf of ancestors and recently deceased kin. Sanskrit sources as well as devotional literature in regional vernacular languages praise certain places and their miraculous capacities.

      Pilgrimage has been increasingly popular since the 20th century, facilitated by ever-improving transportation. Movement over actual distance is critical to pilgrimage, for what is important is not just visiting a sacred space but leaving home. Most pilgrimage centres hold periodic religious fairs called melas to mark auspicious astrological moments or important anniversaries. In 2001, for example, the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad was attended during a six-week period by tens of millions of pilgrims.

      Because of shared elements in rituals, a pilgrim from western Rajasthan does not feel alienated in the eastern pilgrimage town of Puri, even though the spoken language, the landscape and climate, the deities' names and appearances, and the food offerings are markedly different from those the pilgrim knows at home. Moreover, pilgrimage works to propagate practices among diverse regions because stories and tales of effective and attractive ritual acts circulate along with pilgrims.

      Pilgrimage sites are often located in spots of great natural beauty thought to be pleasing to deities as well as humans. Environmental activists draw on the mythology of the sacred landscapes to inspire Hindu populations to adopt sustainable environmental practices. The Sanskrit and Hindi word for pilgrimage centre is tirtha, literally a river ford or crossing place. The concept of a ford is associated with pilgrimage centres not simply because many are on riverbanks but because they are metaphorically places for transition, either to the other side of particular worldly troubles or beyond the endless cycle of birth and death.

Ann G. Gold

Rituals, social practices, and institutions

sacrifice and worship

      Although the Vedic fire rituals were largely replaced in Puranic and modern Hinduism by image worship and other forms of devotionalism, many Hindu rites can be traced back to Vedism. Certain royal sacrifices—such as the rajasuya, or consecration ritual—remained popular with Hindu kings until modern times. Other large-scale Vedic sacrifices (shrauta) have been regularly maintained from ancient times to the present by certain families and groups of Brahmans. The surviving rituals from the Vedic period, however, tend to be observed at the level of the domestic (grihya (Gṛhya-sūtra)) ritual.

Domestic rites

      The Vedic householder was expected to maintain a domestic fire into which he made his offerings. Normally he did this himself, but in many cases he employed a Brahman officiant. In the course of time, the family priest was given a large part in these ceremonies, so that most Hindus have employed Brahmans for the administration of the “sacraments (sacrament)” (samskara (saṃskāra)s). Sudras, the fourth and lowest of the social classes of India, are allowed to perform some samskaras if they do not require the use of Vedic mantras. The samskaras include all important life-cycle events, from conception to cremation, and are the main constituents of the domestic ritual.

Samskaras: rites of passage (rite of passage)

      The samskaras are transitional rites intended to prepare a person for a certain event or for the next stage in life by removing taints (sins) or by generating fresh qualities. If the blemishes incurred in this or a previous life are not removed, the person is impure and will not be rewarded for any ritual acts. The samskaras sanctify critical moments and are deemed necessary for unfolding a person's latent capacities for development.

      In antiquity there was a great divergence of opinion about the number of rites of passage, but in later times 16 were recognized as most important. In modern times most samskaras (except those of impregnation, initiation, and marriage) have fallen into disuse or are performed in an abridged or simplified form without Vedic mantras or a priest.

      The impregnation rite, consecrating the intended time of conception, consists of a ritual meal of pounded rice (mixed with various other things according to whether the married man desires a fair, brown, or dark son; a learned son; or a learned daughter), an offering of rice boiled in milk, the sprinkling of the woman, and intercourse; all acts are also accompanied by mantras. In the third month of pregnancy the rite called punsavana (begetting of a son) follows. The birth is itself the subject of elaborate ceremonies, the main features of which are an oblation of ghee (clarified butter) cast into the fire; the introduction of a pellet of honey and ghee into the newborn child's mouth, which according to many authorities is an act intended to produce mental and physical strength; the murmuring of mantras for the sake of a long life; and rites to counteract inauspicious influences. There is much divergence of opinion as to the time of the name-giving ceremony; in addition to the personal name, there is often another one that should be kept secret for fear of sinister designs against the child. The defining moment comes, however, when the father utters the nameinto the child's ear.

      A hallmark of childhood samskaras is a general male bias. In the birth ritual (jatakarman), the manuals direct the father to breathe upon the child's head, a practice transparently designed to supplant the role that biology gives to the mother. In practice, however, the mother may join in this breathing ritual.

      There is also an array of life-cycle rites that focuses specifically upon the lives of girls and women. In South India, for instance, one finds an initiation rite (vilakkitu kalyanam) that corresponds roughly to upanayana, the male initiation, and that gives girls the authority to light oil lamps and thereby to become full participants in proper domestic worship. Other rites celebrate first menstruation or mark various moments surrounding childbirth. Typically women act as officiants.

      The important upanayana initiation is held when a boy is between the ages of 8 and 12 and marks his entry into the community of the three higher classes of society. In this rite he becomes a “twice-born one,” or dvija. Traditionally, this was also the beginning of a long period of Veda study and education in the house under the guidance of a teacher (guru). In modern practice, the haircutting ceremony—formerly performed in a boy's third year—and the initiation are usually performed on the same day, the homecoming ceremony at the end of the period of study being little more than a formality.

 Wedding ceremonies, the most important of all, have not only remained elaborate—and often very expensive—but have also incorporated various elements—among others, propitiations and expiations—that are not indicated in the oldest sources. Already in ancient times there existed great divergences in accordance with local customs or family or caste traditions. However, the following practices are considered essential in the performance of the wedding rite. The date is fixed only after careful astrological calculation; the bridegroom is conducted to the home of his future parents-in-law, who receive him as an honoured guest; there are offerings of roasted grain into the fire; the bridegroom has to take hold of the bride's hand; he conducts her around the sacrificial fire; seven steps are taken by bride and bridegroom to solemnize the irrevocability of the unity; both are, in procession, conducted to their new home, which the bride enters without touching the threshold.

      Of eight forms of marriage recognized by the ancient authorities, two have remained in vogue: the simple gift of a bride and the legalization of the alliance by means of a marriage gift paid to the bride's family. In the Vedic period, girls seem not to have married before they had reached puberty. Child marriage and the condemnation of the remarriage of widows, especially among the higher classes, became customary later and have gradually, since the mid-19th century, lost their stringency.

      The traditional funeral (death rite) method is cremation. burial is reserved for those who have not been sufficiently purified by samskaras (i.e., children) and those who no longer need the ritual fire to be conveyed to the hereafter, such as ascetics who have renounced all earthly concerns. An important and meritorious complement of the funeral offices is the sraddha ceremony, in which food is offered to Brahmans for the benefit of the deceased. Many people still perform this rite at least once a year, even when they no longer engage in any of the five obligatory daily offerings discussed below.

Daily offerings

      There are five obligatory offerings: (1) offerings to the gods (food taken from the meal), (2) a cursory offering (bali) made to “all beings,” (3) a libation of water mixed with sesame offered to the spirits of the deceased, (4) hospitality, and (5) recitation of the Vedas. Although some traditions prescribe a definite ritual in which these five “sacrifices (sacrifice)” are performed, in most cases the five daily offerings are merely a way of speaking about one's religious obligations in general.

Other private rites

      The morning and evening adorations (sandhya), being a very important duty of the traditional householder, are mainly Vedic in character but have become lengthy because of the addition of Puranic and Tantric elements. If not shortened, the morning ceremonies consist of self-purification, bathing, prayers, and recitation of mantras, especially the Gayatri-mantra (Rigveda 3.62.10), a prayer for spiritual stimulation addressed to the Sun. The accompanying ritual includes (1) the application of marks on the forehead, characterizing the adherents of a particular religious community, (2) the presentation of offerings (water, flowers) to the Sun, and (3) meditative concentration. There are Shaiva and Vaishnava variants, and some elements are optional. The observance of the daily obligations, including the care of bodily purity and professional duties, leads to earthly reward and helps to preserve the state of sanctity required to enter into contact with the divine.

temple worship

 Image worship in sectarian Hinduism takes place both in small household shrines and in the temple. Many Hindu authorities claim that regular temple worship to one of the deities of the devotional cults procures the same results for the worshiper as did the performance of one of the great Vedic sacrifices, and one who provides the patronage for the construction of a temple is called a “sacrificer” (yajamana).

      Building a temple, which belongs to whoever paid for it or to the community that occupies it, is believed to be a meritorious deed recommended to anyone desirous of heavenly reward. The choice of a site, which should be serene and lovely, is determined by astrology and divination as well as by its proximity to human dwellings. The size and artistic value of temples range widely, from small village shrines with simple statuettes to great temple-cities whose boundary walls, pierced by monumental gates ( gopura), enclose various buildings, courtyards, pools for ceremonial bathing, and sometimes even schools, hospitals, and monasteries.

      Temple services, which may be held by any qualified member of the community, are neither collective nor carried out at fixed times. Those present experience, as spectators, the fortifying and beneficial influence radiating from the sacred acts. Sometimes worshipers assemble to meditate, to take part in chanting, or to listen to an exposition of doctrine. The puja (worship) performed in public “for the well-being of the world” is, though sometimes more elaborate, largely identical with that executed for personal interest. There are, however, many regional differences and even significant variations within the same community.

Shaiva (Shaivism) rites

      Ascetic tendencies were much in evidence among the Pashupatas (Pashupata), the oldest Shaiva tradition in northern India. Their Yoga, consisting of a constant meditative contact with God in solitude, required that they frequent places for cremating bodies. One group that emerged out of the Pashupata sect carried human skulls (hence the name Kapalikas (Kapalika and Kalamukha), from kapala, “skull”). The Kapalikas used the skulls as bowls for liquor into which they projected and worshipped Shiva as Kapalika, the “Skull Bearer,” or Bhairava, the “Frightful One,” and then drank to become intoxicated. Their belief was that an ostentatious indifference to anything worldly was the best method of severing the ties of samsara.

      The view and way of life peculiar to the Virashaivas, or Lingayats (Liṅgāyat) (Lingam-Bearers), in southwestern India is characterized by a deviation from common Hindu traditions and institutions such as sacrificial rites, temple worship, pilgrimages, child marriages, and inequality of the sexes. Initiation (diksa) is, on the other hand, an obligation laid on every member of the community. The spiritual power of the guru is bestowed upon the newborn and converts, who receive the eightfold shield (which protects devotees from ignorance of the supremacy of God and guides them to final beatitude) and the lingam (linga) (phallic symbol). The miniature lingam, the centre and basis of all their religious practices and observances, which they always bear on their body, is held to be God himself concretely represented. Worship is due it twice or three times a day. When a Lingayat “is absorbed into the lingam” (i.e., dies), his body is not cremated, as is customary in Hinduism, but is interred, like ascetics of other groups. Lingayats who have reached a certain level of holiness are believed to die in the state of emancipation.

      Shaivism, though inclined in doctrinal matters to inclusiveness, inculcates some fundamental lines of conduct: one should worship one's spiritual preceptor (guru) as God himself, follow his path, consider him to be present in oneself, and dissociate oneself from all opinions and practices that are incompatible with the Shaiva creed. Yet some of Shiva's devotees also worship other gods, and the “Shaivization” of various ancient traditions is sometimes rather superficial.

      Like many other Indian religions, the Shaiva-siddhanta has developed an elaborate system of ethical philosophy, primarily with a view to preparing the way for those who aspire to liberation. Because dharma leads to happiness, there is no distinction between sacred and secular duties. All deeds are performed as services to God and with the conviction that all life is sacred and God-centred. A devout way of living and a nonemotional mysticism are thus much recommended. Kashmir Shaivism (Kashmir Śaivism) developed the practice of a simple method of salvation: by the recognition (pratyabhijna)—direct, spontaneous, technique-free, but full of bhakti—of one's identity with God.

Vaishnava (Vaishnavism) rites

      The faithful Shrivaishnava (Śrīvaiṣṇava) Brahman arranges his day around five pursuits: purificatory rites, collecting the requisites for worship, acts of worship, study and contemplation of the meaning of the sacred books, and meditative concentration on the Lord's image. Lifelong obligations include the performance of sacrifices and other rites, restraint of the senses, fasting and soberness, worship, recitation of the scriptures, and visits to sacred places. Ramanuja (Rāmānuja), the great theologian and philosopher of the 12th century, recommended, in addition to these practices, concentration on God, a virtuous way of living, and insensibility to luck and misfortune. According to Madhva (c. 1199–c. 1278), faithful observance of all regulations of daily conduct—including bathing, breath control, etc.—will contribute to eventual success in the quest for liberation. Devout Vaishnavas emphasize God's omnipotence and the far-reaching effects of his grace. They attach much value to the repetition of his name or of sacred formulas (japa) and to the praise and commemoration of his deeds as a means of self-realization and of unification with his essence. Special stress is laid on ahimsa (“noninjury”), the practice of not killing or not causing injury to living creatures.

Sacred times and festivals

 Hindu festivals are combinations of religious ceremonies, semi-ritual spectacles, worship, prayer, lustrations, processions, music, dances, magical acts—participants throw fertilizing water or, during the Holi festival, coloured powder at each other—eating, drinking, lovemaking, licentiousness, feeding the poor, and other activities of a religious or traditional character. The original purpose of these activities was to purify, avert malicious influences, renew society, bridge over critical moments, and stimulate or resuscitate the vital powers of nature (hence the term utsava, meaning both the generation of power and a festival). Because Hindu festivals relate to the cyclical life of nature, they are supposed to prevent it from stagnating. These cyclic festivals—which may last for many days—continue to be celebrated throughout India.

      Such festivals refresh the mood of the participants, further the consciousness of their own power, and help to compensate for their sensations of fear and inferiority concerning the forces of nature. Such mixtures of worship and pleasure require the participation of the entire community and create harmony among its members, even if not all contemporary participants are aware of the festival's original character. There are also innumerable festivities in honour of specific gods, celebrated by individual temples, villages, and religious communities.

      An important festival, formerly celebrating Kama, the god of sexual desire, survives in the Holi, a saturnalia connected with the spring equinox and in western India with the wheat harvest. Although commemorated throughout India, the rituals associated with Holi vary regionally. Among the Marathas, a people who live along the west coast of India from Mumbai (Bombay) to Goa, the descendants of heroes who died on the battlefield perform a dance, sword in hand, in honour of their ancestors until they believe themselves possessed by the spirits of the heroes. In Bengal swings are made for Krishna; in other regions a bonfire is also essential. The tradition that accounts for the festival of Holi describes how young Prahlada, in spite of his demonic father's opposition, worshipped Vishnu and was carried into the fire by the female demon Holika, the embodiment of evil, who was believed to be immune to the ravages of fire. Through Vishnu's intervention, Prahlada emerged unharmed, while Holika was burned to ashes. The bonfires are intended to commemorate this event or rather to reiterate the triumph of virtue and religion over evil and sacrilege. This explains why objects representing the sickness and impurities of the past year—the new year (New Year festival) begins immediately after Holi—are thrown into the bonfire, and it is considered inauspicious not to look at it. Moreover, people pay or forgive debts, reconcile quarrels, and try to rid themselves of the evils, conflicts, and impurities they have accumulated during the preceding months, translating the central conception of the festival into a justification for dealing anew with continuing situations in their lives.

      Hindus celebrate a number of other important festivals, including Diwali, in which all classes of society participate, though it is believed to have been given by Vishnu to the Vaishyas (traders, et al.). It takes place in October and features worship and ceremonial lights in honour of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and good fortune; fireworks to chase away the spirits of the deceased; and gambling, an old ritual custom intended to secure luck for the coming year. The nine-day Durga festival, or Navaratri (navaratra), is, especially in Bengal, splendid homage to Shakti; in South India it is a celebration of Rama's victory over Ravana.

Ritual and social status

Social structure

      The caste system, which has organized Indian society for millennia, is thoroughly legitimated by and intertwined with Hindu religious doctrine and practice. Four social classes, or s (varna)—Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras—provide the simplified structure for the enormously complicated system of thousands of castes and subcastes. According to a passage from the Purusha hymn (Rigveda 10.90), the Brahman was the Purusha's mouth, the Kshatriya his arms, the Vaishya his thighs, and the Sudra his feet. This depiction of the Purusha, or cosmic man, gives an idea of the functions and mutual relations of the four main social classes.

      The three main classes in the classic division of Indian society are the Brahmans, the warriors, and the commoners. The Brahmans (Brahman), whatever their worldly avocations, claim to be by virtue of their birth a perpetual incarnation of the dharma, guardians and dispensers of divine power, entitled to teach the Veda, sacrificing for others and accepting gifts and subsistence. The term alms is misleading; the daksina offered at the end of a rite to a Brahman officiant is not a fee but an oblation through which the rite is made complete. Brahmans are held to be the highest of all human beings because of the superiority of their origin, their sanctification through the samskaras (rites of passage), and their observance of restrictive rules. The main duty of the nobility (the Kshatriyas (Kshatriya)) is to protect the people, that of the commoners (the Vaishyas (Vaishya)) to tend cattle, to trade, and to cultivate land. Even if a king (sacred kingship) (theoretically of Kshatriya descent) was not of noble descent, he was still clothed with divine authority as an upholder of dharma. He was consecrated by means of a complex and highly significant ritual; he was Indra and other gods (deva) incarnate. The emblems or paraphernalia of his office represent sovereign authority; the white umbrella of state, for example, is the residence of Shri-Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune. All three higher classes, claiming Aryan descent, had to sacrifice and to study the Veda, although the responsibilities of the Vaishyas in sacred matters were less demanding.

      While this tripartition seems to have been inherited from Indo-European times, the fourth class (the Sudras (Sudra)), whose sole duty was “to serve meekly” (Manava dharma-shastra 1.91), is partly descended from the subjugated non-Aryans, a fact that accounts for its many disabilities and exclusion from religious status. According to Hindu tradition, the Veda should not be studied in their presence, but they may listen to the recitation of epics and Puranas. They are permitted to perform the five main acts of worship (without Vedic mantras) and undertake observances, but even today they maintain various ceremonies of their own, carried out without Brahmanic assistance.

      Yet a distinction is often made among Sudras. Some are purer and have a more correct behaviour and way of living than others, the former tending to assimilate with higher castes, the latter to rank with the lowest in the social scale, who, often called Chandalas (caṇḍāla), were at an early date charged with sweeping, bearing corpses, and other impure occupations. Ritual purity was and is an important criterion; impure conduct and neglect of Veda study and the rules regarding forbidden food might suffice to stigmatize the “twice-born” as a Sudra. On the other hand, in later times the trend of many communities has been toward integrating all Sudras into the Brahmanic system. The Brahmans, who have far into modern times remained a respected, traditional, and sometimes intellectual upper class, were (until the 1930s) much in demand because of their knowledge of rites and traditions. Although Kshatriya rank is claimed by many whose title is one of function or creation rather than of inheritance, this class is now rare in many regions. Moreover, for a considerable time none of the four varnas represented anything other than a series of hierarchically arranged groups of castes.

Castes

      The origin of the caste system is not known with certainty. Hindus maintain that the proliferation of the castes ( jatis, literally “births”) was the result of intermarriage (which is prohibited in Hindu works on dharma), which led to the subdivision of the four classes, or varnas. Modern theorists, however, assume that castes arose from differences in family ritual practices, racial distinctions, and occupational differentiation and specialization. Scholars also doubt whether the simple varna system was ever more than a theoretical socioreligious ideal and have emphasized that the highly complex division of Hindu society into nearly 3,000 castes and subcastes was probably in place even in ancient times.

      In general, a caste is an endogamous hereditary group of families bearing a common name, often claiming a common descent, as a rule professing to follow the same hereditary calling, clinging to the same customs, especially regarding purity, meals, and marriages, and often further divided into smaller endogamous circles. Moreover, tribes, guilds, or religious communities characterized by particular customs—for example, the Lingayats—could easily be regarded as castes. The status of castes varies in different localities. Although social mobility is possible, the mutual relationship of castes is hierarchically determined: local Brahman groups occupy the highest place, and differences in ritual purity are the main criteria of position in the hierarchy. Most impure are the untouchables (untouchable), referred to as scheduled castes in the constitution of modern India and popularly called Harijans. Among the scheduled castes, however, there are numerous subdivisions, each of which regards itself as superior to others.

      Traditional Hindus maintain that the ritual impurity and “untouchability” inherent in these groups does not essentially differ from that temporarily associated with mourners or menstruating women. This, and the fact that some exterior group or other might rise in estimation and become an interior one or that individual outcastes might be well-to-do, does not alter the fact that the spirit of exclusiveness has been carried to extremes at times. The scheduled castes were subjected to various socioreligious disabilities before mitigating tendencies helped bring about reform. After independence, social discrimination was prohibited, and the practice of preventing access to religious, occupational, or civil rights on the grounds of untouchability was made a punishable offense. Despite these prohibitions, scheduled castes were barred from the use of temples and other religious institutions and from public schools. These groups also had many disabilities in relations with private persons.

      From the traditional Hindu point of view, this social system is the necessary complement of the principles of dharma, karma, and samsara. Corresponding to hells and heavenly regions in the hereafter, the castes are the mundane social frame within which karma is manifested. A low social status is the inevitable result of sins in a former life but can, by virtue and merit, be followed by a better position in the next existence.

Social protest

      For many centuries certain Indian religious communities have been dedicated in whole or in part to the elimination of caste discrimination. Many have been guided by bhakti sentiments, including the Virauaivas, Sikhs, Kabir Panthis, Satnemis, and Remnemis, all of whom bear a complicated relation to the greater Hindu fold. A major theme in bhakti poetry throughout India has been the ridicule of caste and the etiquette of ritual purity that relates to it. This element is stronger among the bhakti poets who accept the concept of nirguna (nirguṇa), which holds that brahman is to be characterized as without qualities, than the poets who advocate the idea of saguna, which maintains that brahman possesses qualities.

      Other religions have provided members of low-ranked castes with a further hope for escaping social hierarchies associated with Hindu practice. Sikhism has traditionally rejected caste, a position clearly emphasized in the gurdwaras, where access to sacred scripture, the Adi Granth (Ādi Granth), is granted without regard to caste and communal meals are served to all Sikhs. Islam played this role in Kerala from the 8th century onward and elsewhere in India since the 12th century, but some convert groups have retained their original caste organization even after embracing Islam. Christianity has exercised a similar force, serving for centuries as a magnet for disadvantaged Hindus. In 1956 B.R. Ambedkar (Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji), the principal framer of the Indian constitution and a member of the scheduled Mahar caste, abandoned Hinduism for Buddhism, and millions of his lower-caste followers eventually also converted to Buddhism. Yet many Ambedkarite Dalits (the “Oppressed”) continue to venerate saints such as Kabir, Cokhamela, and Ravidas, who figure in the general lore of Hindu bhakti. Other Dalits, especially members of the Camer caste (traditionally leather workers), have gone further, identifying themselves explicitly as Ravidasis, creating a scripture that features his poetry and building temples that house his image. Still other Dalit communities have claimed since the early 20th century that they represent India's original religion (adi dharma), rejecting caste-coded Vedic beliefs and practices as perversions introduced by Aryan invaders in the 2nd millennium BCE.

Renunciants (asceticism) and the rejection of social order

      Another means of rejecting the social order, which forms the background for significant portions of Hindu belief and practice, is renunciation (self-denial and asceticism). The rituals of sannyasa (sannyasi), which serve as a gateway to a life of religious discipline, often mimic death rituals, signifying the renouncer's understanding that he (or, less typically, she) no longer occupies a place in family or society. Other rituals serve to induct the initiate into a new family—the alternative family provided by a celibate religious order, usually focused on a guru. In principle this family should not be structured along the lines of caste, and the initiate should pledge to renounce dietary restrictions. In practice, however, some dietary restrictions remain in India's most influential renunciant communities (though not in all), and some renunciant orders are closely paired with specific communities of householders. This follows a pattern that is loosely present everywhere. Householders and renunciants offer each other mutual benefits, with the former dispensing material substance to the theoretically propertyless holy men and women while the latter dispense religious merit and spiritual guidance in return. Such an enactment of the values of dharma and moksha is symbiotic to be sure, but that does not serve to domesticate renunciants entirely. Their existence questions the ultimacy of anything tied to caste, hierarchy, and bodily well-being.

Religious orders and holy men

      Members of the various denominations who abandon all worldly attachment enter an “inner circle” or “order” that, seeking a life of devotion, adopts or develops particular vows and observances, a common cult, and some form of initiation.

Initiation

      Hindus are free to join a religious order and must submit to its rites and way of living after joining it. The initiation (diksha (dīkṣā)), a rite of purification or consecration involving the transformation of the aspirant's personality, is regarded as a complement to, or even a substitute for, the previous initiation ceremony (the upanayana that all twice-born Hindus undergo at adolescence), which it strikingly resembles. Such religious groups integrate ancient, widespread ideas and customs of initiation into the framework of either the Vaishnava or Shaiva patterns of Hinduism.

       Vaishnavism emphasizes their character as an introduction to a life of devotion and as an entrance into closer contact with God, although happiness, knowledge, a long life, and a prospect of freedom from karma are also among the ideals to which they aspire. Shaivas (Shaivism) are convinced of the absolute necessity of initiation for anyone desiring final liberation and require an initiation in accordance with their rituals. All communities agree that the authority to initiate belongs only to a qualified spiritual guide (guru), usually a Brahman, who has previously received the special guru-diksha (initiation as a teacher) and is often regarded as representing God himself. The postulant is sometimes committed to a probationary period, to training in Yoga mysticism, or to instruction in the esoteric meaning of the scriptures. The initiate receives a devotional name and is given the sacred mantras of the community.

      There are many complicated forms of initiation: the Vaishnavas differentiate between the members of the four classes; the Shaivas and Tantrists take into account the natural aptitude and competency of the recipients and distinguish between first-grade initiates, who are believed to obtain access to God, and higher-grade initiates, who remain in a state of holiness.

Yoga

      The initiate guided by a guru may practice Yoga (a “methodic exertion” of body and mind) in order to attain, through mortification, concentration, and meditation, a higher state of consciousness and thereby find supreme knowledge, achieve spiritual autonomy, and realize oneness with the Highest (or however the ultimate goal is conceived). Yoga may be atheistic or theistic and may adopt various philosophical or religious principles. Every denomination attempted to implement Yogic practices on a theoretical basis derived from its own teachings. There are many different forms of Yoga, and the practices vary according to the stage of advancement of the adepts. All serious yogis, however, agree in disapproving the use of Yogic methods for worldly purposes.

Sectarian symbols

 The typical Hindu ascetic (sadhu (sadhu and swami)) usually wears a distinctive mark (pundra) on his forehead and often carries some symbol of his religion. A Vaishnava might possess a discus (chakra) and a conch shell (sankha), replicas of Vishnu's flaming weapon and his instrument of beneficent power and omnipresent protection, or a shalagrama stone or a tulsi plant, which represent, respectively, Vishnu's essence and that of his spouse Lakshmi. A Shaiva might impersonate Shiva and carry a trident (trishula), denoting empire and the irresistible force of transcendental reality; wear a small lingam; carry a human skull, showing that he is beyond the terror inspired by the transitoriness of the world; or smear his body with apotropaic (supposed to avert evil) and consecratory ashes. These emblems are sacred objects of worship because the divine presence, when invoked by mantras, is felt to be in them.

Brian K. Smith Ed.

Cultural expressions: visual arts, theatre, and dance

      The structure of Indian (India) temples, the outward form of images, and indeed the very character of Indian art are largely determined by the religion and unique worldview of India, which penetrated the other provinces of culture and welded them into a homogeneous whole. Moreover, the art that emerged is highly symbolic. The much-developed ritual-religious symbolism (religious symbolism and iconography) presupposes the existence of a spiritual reality that may make its presence and influence felt in the material world and can also be approached through its representative symbols.

      The production of objects of symbolic value is therefore more than a technique. The artisan can begin work only after entering into a state of supranormal consciousness and must model a cult image after the ideal prototype. After undergoing a process of spiritual transformation, the artisan is believed to transform the material used to create the image into a receptacle of divine power. Like the artisan, the worshiper (sadhaka, “the one who wishes to attain the goal”), must grasp the esoteric meaning of a statue, picture, or pot and identify his or her self with the power residing in it. The usual offering, a handful of flowers, is the means to convey the worshiper's “life-breath” into the image.

Types of symbols

      If they know how to handle the symbols, the worshipers have at their disposal an instrument for utilizing the possibilities lying in the depths of their own subconscious as well as a key to the mysteries of the forces dominating the world.

yantra and mandala

      The general term for an “instrument [for controlling]” is yantra, which is especially applied to ritual diagrams but can also be applied to cult images, pictures, and other such aids to worship. Any yantra represents some aspect of the divine and enables devotees to worship it immediately within their hearts while identifying themselves with it. Except in its greater complexity, a mandala does not differ from a yantra, and both are drawn during a highly complex ritual in a purified and ritually consecrated place. The meaning and the use of both are similar, and they may be permanent or provisional. A mandala, delineating a consecrated place and protecting it against disintegrating forces represented in demoniac cycles, is the geometric projection of the universe, spatially and temporally reduced to its essential plan. It represents in a schematic form the whole drama of disintegration and reintegration, and the adept can use it to identify with the forces governing these. As in temple ritual, a vase is employed to receive the divine power so that it can be projected into the drawing and then into the person of the adept. Thus, the mandala becomes a support for meditation, an instrument to provoke visions of the unseen.

      A good example of a mandala is the shrichakra, the “Wheel of Shri” (i.e., of God's shakti), which is composed of four isosceles triangles with the apices upward, symbolizing Shiva, and five isosceles triangles with the apices downward, symbolizing Shakti. The nine triangles are of various sizes and intersect with one another. In the middle is the power point (bindu), visualizing the highest, the invisible, elusive centre from which the entire figure and the cosmos expand. The triangles are enclosed by two rows of (8 and 16) petals, representing the lotus of creation and reproductive vital force. The broken lines of the outer frame denote the figure to be a sanctuary with four openings to the regions of the universe. A “spiritual” foundation is provided by a yantra, called the mandala of the Purusha (spirit) of the site, that is also drawn on the site on which a temple is built. This rite is a reenactment of a variant of the myth of Purusha, an immortal primeval being who obstructed both worlds until he was subdued by the gods; the parts of his body became the spirits of the site.

Lingam (linga) and yoni

      One of the most common objects of worship, whether in temples or in the household cult, is the lingam (phallus). Often much stylized and representing the cosmic pillar, it emanates its all-producing energy to the four quarters of the universe. As the symbol of male creative energy it is frequently combined with its female counterpart (yoni), the latter forming the base from which the lingam rises. Although the lingam originally may have had no relation to Shiva, it has from ancient times been regarded as symbolizing Shiva's creative energy and is widely worshipped as his fundamental form.

Visual theology in icons (icon)

 The beauty of cult objects is believed to contribute to their power as sacred instruments, and their ornamentation is held to facilitate the process of inviting the divine power into them. Statues of gods are not intended to imitate ideal human forms but to express the supernatural. A divine figure is a “likeness” (pratima), a temporary benevolent or terrifying expression of some aspect of a god's nature. Iconographic handbooks attach great importance to the ideology behind images and reveal, for example, that Vishnu's eight arms stand for the four cardinal and intermediate points of the compass and that his four faces, illustrating the concept of God's fourfoldness, typify his strength, knowledge, lordship, and potency. The emblems express the qualities of their bearers—e.g., a deadly weapon symbolizes destructive force, many-headedness omniscience. Much use is made of gestures ( mudras); for example, the raised right hand, in the “fear-not” gesture (abhaya-mudra), bestows protection. Every iconographic detail has its own symbolic value, helping devotees to direct their energy to a deeper understanding of the various aspects of the divine and to proceed from external to internal worship. For many Indians, a consecrated image is a container of concentrated divine energy, and Hindu theists maintain that it is an instrument for ennobling the worshiper who realizes God's presence in it.

The arts

Religious principles in sculpture and painting

      Like literature and the performing arts, the visual arts contributed to the perpetuation of myths. Images sustain the presence of the god: when Devi is shown seated on her lion, advancing against the buffalo demon, she represents the affirmative forces of the universe and the triumph of divine power over wickedness. Male and female figures in uninterrupted embrace, as in Shaiva iconography, signify the union of opposites and the eternal process of generation. In Hindu sculpture (Indian sculpture) the tendency is toward hieratic poses of a god in a particular conventional stance (murti (pratima); image), which, once fixed, perpetuates itself. An icon is a frozen incident of a myth. For example, one murti of Shiva is the “destruction of the elephant,” in which Shiva appears dancing before and below a bloody elephant skin that he holds up before the image of his horrified consort; the stance is the summary of his triumph over the elephant demon. A god may also appear in a characteristic pose while holding in his multitudinous hands his various emblems, on each of which hangs a story. Lovers sculpted on temples are auspicious symbols on a par with foliage, water jars, and other representatives of fertility. Carvings, such as those that appear on temple chariots, tend to be more narrative; even more so are the miniature paintings of the Middle Ages. A favourite theme in the latter is the myth of the cowherd god Krishna and his love of the cowherdesses (gopis).

Religious organization of sacred architecture

 Temples (temple) must be erected on sites that are shubha—i.e., suitable, beautiful, auspicious, and near water—because it is thought that the gods will not come to other places. However, temples are not necessarily designed to be congenial to their surroundings, because a manifestation of the sacred is an irruption, a break in phenomenal continuity. Temples are understood to be visible representations of a cosmic pillar, and their sites are said to be navels of the world and are believed to ensure communication with the gods. Their outward appearance must raise the expectation of meeting with God. Their erection is a reconstruction and reintegration of Purusha-Prajapati, enabling him to continue his creative activity, and the finished monuments are symbols of the universe that is the unfolded One. The owner of the temple (i.e., the individual or community that paid for its construction)—also called the sacrificer—participates in the process of reintegration and experiences his spiritual rebirth in the small cella, aptly called the “womb room” (garbhagriha), by meditating on the God's presence, symbolized or actualized in his consecrated image. The cella is in the centre of the temple above the navel—i.e., the foundation stone—and it may contain a jar filled with the creative power (shakti) that is identified with the goddess Earth (who bears and protects the monument), three lotus flowers, and three tortoises (tortoise) (of stone, silver, and gold) that represent earth, atmosphere, and heaven. The tortoise is a manifestation of Vishnu bearing the cosmic pillar; the lotus is the symbol of the expansion of generative possibilities. The vertical axis or tube, coinciding with the cosmic pillar, connects all parts of the building and is continued in the finial on the top; it corresponds to the mystical vertical vein in the body of the worshiper through which his soul rises to unite itself with the Highest.

      The designing of Hindu temples, like that of religious images, was codified in the Shilpa-shastras (craft textbooks), and every aspect of the design was believed to offer the symbolic representation of some feature of the cosmos. The idea of microcosmic symbolism is strong in Hinduism and comes from Vedic times; the Brahmanas are replete with similar cosmic interpretations of the many features of the sacrifice. The Vedic idea of the correspondence (bandhu) between microcosm and macrocosm was applied to the medieval temple, which was laid out geometrically to mirror the structure of the universe, with its four geometric quarters and a celestial roof. The temple also represents the mountain at the navel of the world and often somewhat resembles a mountain. On the periphery were carved the most worldly and diverse images, including battles, hunts, circuses, animals, birds, and gods.

 The erotic scenes carved at Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh and Konarak in Orissa express a general exuberance that may be an offering of thanksgiving to the gods who created all. However, that same swarming luxuriance of life may also reflect the concern that one must set aside worldly temptations before entering the sacred space of the temple, for the carvings decorate only the outside of the temple; at the centre, the sanctum sanctorum, there is little if any ornamentation, except for a stark symbol of the god or goddess. Thus, these carvings simultaneously express a celebration of samsara and a movement toward moksha.

theatre and dance

      Theatrical performances are events that can be used to secure blessings and happiness; the element of recreation is indissolubly blended with edification and spiritual elevation. The structure and character of classical Indian drama (dramatic literature) reveal its origin and function: it developed from a magico-religious ceremony, which survives as a ritual introduction, and begins and closes with benedictions. Drama is produced for festive occasions with a view to spiritual and religious success (siddhi), which must also be prompted by appropriate behaviour from the spectators; there must be a happy ending; the themes are borrowed from epic and legendary history; the development and unraveling of the plot are retarded; and the envy of malign influences is averted by the almost obligatory buffoon (vidusaka, “the spoiler”). There are also, in addition to films, which often use the same religious and mythic themes, yatras, a combination of stage play and various festivities that have contributed much to the spread of the Puranic view of life.

      Dancing is not only an aesthetic pursuit but also a divine service. The dance executed by Shiva as king of dancers (Nataraja), the visible symbol of the rhythm of the universe, represents God's five activities: he unfolds the universe out of the drum held in one of his right hands; he preserves it by uplifting his other right hand in abhaya-mudra; he reabsorbs it with his upper left hand, which bears a tongue of flame; his transcendental essence is hidden behind the garb of apparitions, and grace is bestowed and release made visible by the foot that is held aloft and to which the hands are made to point; and the other foot, planted on the ground, gives an abode to the tired souls struggling in samsara. Another dance pose adopted by Shiva is the doomsday tandava, executed in his destructive Bhairava manifestation, usually with 10 arms and accompanied by Devi and demons. The related myth is that Shiva conquered a mighty elephant demon whom he forced to dance until he fell dead; then, wrapped in the blood-dripping skin of his victim, the god executed a horrendous dance of victory.

      There are halls for sacred dances annexed to some temples because of this association with the divine. The rhythmic movement has a compelling force, generating and concentrating power or releasing superfluous energy. It induces the experience of the divine and transforms the dancer into whatever he or she impersonates. Thus, many tribal dances consist of symbolic enactments of events (harvest, battles) in the hope that they will be accomplished successfully. Musicians and dancers accompany processions to expel the demons of cholera or cattle plague. Even today, religious themes and the various relations between humans and God are danced and made visual by the codified symbolic meanings of gestures and movements (see South Asian Arts: Dance and theatre (South Asian arts)).

Arthur Llewellyn Basham J.A.B. van Buitenen Wendy Doniger Ed.

Hinduism and the world beyond

Hinduism and religions of Indian origin

      Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism originated in the same milieu: the circles of world renouncers of the 6th century BCE. All share certain non-Vedic practices (such as renunciation itself and various Yogic meditational techniques) and doctrines (such as the belief in rebirth and the goal of liberation from perpetual transmigration), but Buddhists and Jains do not accept the authority of the Vedic tradition and therefore are regarded as less than orthodox by Hindus. From the 6th to the 11th century there was strong and sometimes bloody competition for royal patronage between the three communities—with Brahmans representing Hindu values—as well as between Vaishnavas and Shaivas. In general, the Brahman groups prevailed. In a typically absorptive gesture, Hindus in time recognized the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu, usually the ninth; it was often held, however, that Vishnu assumed this form to mislead and destroy the enemies of the Veda. Hence, the Buddha avatar is rarely worshipped by Hindus, though it is often highly respected by them. At an institutional level, certain Buddhist shrines, such as the one marking the Buddha's enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, have remained partly under the supervision of Hindu ascetics and are visited by Hindu pilgrims.

      Hinduism has much in common with Jainism, which until the 20th century remained an Indian religion, especially in social institutions and ritual life; for this reason, many Hindus still consider it a Hindu sect. The points of difference—e.g., a stricter practice of ahimsa (“noninjury”) and the absence of sacrifices for the deceased in Jainism—do not give offense to orthodox Hindus. Moreover, many Jain laypeople worship images as Hindus do, though with a different rationale. There are even places outside India where Hindus and Jains have joined to build a single temple, sharing the worship space.

Hinduism and Islam (Islāmic world)

      Hindu relations with Islam and Christianity are in some ways quite different from the ties and tensions that bind together religions of Indian origin. Hindus live with a legacy of domination by Muslim and Christian rulers that stretches back many centuries—in North India, to the Delhi Sultanate established at the beginning of the 13th century. It is hardly the case that Muslim rule was generally loathsome to Hindus. Direct and indirect patronage from the Mughal emperors Akbar and Jahāngīr (1569–1627), whose chief generals were Hindu Rajputs, laid the basis for the great burst of Krishnaite temple and institution building that transformed the Braj region beginning in the 16th century. Moreover, close proximity and daily interaction throughout the centuries has led to efforts to accommodate the existence of the two religions. One manifestation of such syncretism (religious syncretism) occurred among mystically inclined groups who believed that one God, or the “universal principle,” was the same regardless of whether it was called Allah or brahman. Various syntheses between the two religions that emphasize nonsectarianism have arisen in northern India.

      Yet there were periods when the political ambitions of Islamic rulers took strength from iconoclastic aspects of Muslim teaching and led to the devastation of many major Hindu temple complexes, from Mathura and Varanasi (Banaras) in the north to Chidambaram and Madurai in the far south; other temples were converted to mosques. Episodically, since the 14th century, this history has provided rhetorical fuel for Hindu warriors eager to assert themselves against Muslim rivals. The bloody partition of the South Asian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947 added a new dimension. Mobilizing Hindu sensibilities about the sacredness of the land as a whole, extremists have sometimes depicted the creation of Pakistan as a rape of the body of India, in the process demonizing Muslims who remain within India's political boundaries.

      These strands converged at the end of the 20th century in a campaign to destroy the mosque built in 1528 by a lieutenant of the Mughal emperor Babur in Ayodhya, a city that has traditionally been identified as the place where Rama was born and ruled. In 1992 Hindu militants from all over India, who had been organized by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP; “World Hindu Council”), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS; “National Volunteer Alliance”), and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; “Indian People's Party”), destroyed the mosque in an effort to “liberate” Rama and establish a huge “Rama's Birthplace Temple” on the spot. In the aftermath, several thousand people—mostly Muslims—were killed in riots that spread across North India.

Hinduism and Christianity

      Relations between Hinduism and Christianity have also been shaped by unequal balances of political power and cultural influence. Although communities of Christians have lived in South India since the middle of the 1st millennium, the great expansion of Indian Christianity followed the efforts of missionaries working under the protection of British colonial rule. Their denigration of selected features of Hindu practice—most notably image worship, suttee, and child marriage (the first two were also criticized by Muslims)—was shared by certain Hindus. Beginning in the 19th century and continuing into the 21st, a movement that might be called neo-Vedanta has emphasized the monism of certain Upanishads, decried “popular” Hindu “degenerations” such as the worship of idols, acted as an agent of social reform, and championed dialogue between other religious communities.

      Many Hindus are ready to accept the ethical teachings of the Gospels, particularly the Sermon on the Mount (whose influence on Gandhi is well known), but reject the theological superstructure. They regard Christian conceptions about love and its social consequences as a kind of bhakti and tend to venerate Jesus as a saint, yet many resent the organization, the reliance on authorities, and the exclusiveness of Christianity, considering these as obstacles to harmonious cooperation. They subscribe to Gandhi's opinion that missionaries should confine their activities to humanitarian service and look askance at conversion, finding also in Hinduism what might be attractive in Christianity. Such sentiments took an unusually extreme form at the end of the 20th century, when Hindu activists attacked Dalit Christians and their churches in various parts of India, especially Orissa and Gujarat. A far more typical sentiment is expressed in the eagerness of Hindus of all social stations, especially the middle class, to send their children to high-quality (often English-language) schools established and maintained by Christian organizations. No great fear exists that the religious element in the curriculum will cause Hindu children to abandon their parents' faith.

Diasporic Hinduism

 Since the appearance of Swami Vivekananda at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and the subsequent establishment of the Vedanta Society in various American and British cities, Hinduism has had a growing missionary profile outside the Indian subcontinent. Conversion as understood by Christians or Muslims is usually not the aim. As seen in the Vedanta Society, Hindu perspectives are held to be sufficiently capacious that they do not require new adherents to abandon traditions of worship with which they are familiar, merely to see them as part of a greater whole. The Vedic formula “Truth is one, but scholars speak of it in many ways” (“Akam sat vipra bahudhe vadanti”) is much quoted. Many transnational Hindu communities—including Radha Soami Satsang Beas (Rādhā Soāmi Satsaṅg), Transcendental Meditation, the self-realization fellowship Siddha Yoga, the Sathya Sai Baba Satsang, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON, popularly called Hare Krishna)—have focused on specific gurus, particularly in their stages of most rapid growth. They frequently emphasize techniques of spiritual discipline more than doctrine. Of these groups, only ISKCON has a deeply exclusivist cast—which makes it, in fact, generally more doctrinaire than the Gaudiya Vaisnava lineages out of which its founding guru, A.C. Bhaktivedanta (Bhaktivedanta, A(bhay) C(haranaravinda)), emerged.

      At least as important as these guru-centred communities in the increasingly international texture of Hindu life are communities of Hindus who have emigrated from South Asia to other parts of the world. Their character differs markedly according to region, class, and the time at which emigration occurred. Tamils in Malaysia celebrate a festival to the god Murukan (Thaipusam) that accommodates body-piercing vows long outlawed in India itself. Formerly indentured labourers who settled on the Caribbean island of Trinidad in the mid-19th century have consolidated doctrine and practice from various locales in Gangetic India, with the result that Rama and Shita have a heightened profile. Many migrants from rural western India, especially Gujarat, became urbanized in East Africa in the late 19th century and resettled in Britain. Like those Gujaratis who came directly to the United States from India since the liberalization of U.S. immigration laws in 1965, once abroad they are more apt to embrace the reformist guru-centred Swaminarayan faith than they would be in their native Gujarat, though this is by no means universal.

      Professional-class emigrants from South India have spearheaded the construction of a series of impressive Shrivaishnava-style temples throughout the United States, sometimes receiving financial and technical assistance from the great Vaishnava temple institutions at Tirupati. The placement of some of these temples, such as the Penn Hills temple near Pittsburgh, Pa., reveals the desire to evoke Tirupati's natural environment on American soil. Similarly, Telugu-speaking priests from the Tirupati region have been imported to serve at temples such as the historically important Ganesha temple, constructed from a preexisting church in Queens, New York, in 1975–77. Yet the population worshipping at these temples is far more mixed than that in India. This produces on the one hand sectarian and regional eclecticism and on the other hand a vigorous attempt to establish doctrinal common ground. As Vasudha Narayanan observed, educational materials produced at such temples typically hold that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life, that it insists in principle on religious tolerance, that its Godhead is functionally trinitarian (the male trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva is meant, although temple worship is often very active at goddesses' shrines), and that Hindu rituals have inner meanings consonant with scientific principles and are conducive to good health.

      Pacific and ecumenical as this sounds, members of such temples are also important contributors to the VHP, whose efforts since 1964 to find common ground among disparate Hindu groups have sometimes also contributed to displays of Hindu nationalism such as were seen at Ayodhya in 1992. As the 21st century opened, there was a vivid struggle between “left” and “right” within the Hindu fold, with diasporic groups playing a more important role than ever before. Because of their wealth and education, because globalizing processes lend them prestige and enable them to communicate constantly with Hindus living in South Asia, and because their experience as minorities tends to set them apart from their families in India itself, their contribution to the evolution of Hinduism has been a very interesting one.

      “Hinduism” was originally an outsider's word, and it designates a multitude of realities defined by period, time, sect, class, and caste. Yet the veins and bones that hold this complex organism together are not just chimeras of external perception. Hindus themselves—particularly diasporic Hindus—affirm them, continuing and even accelerating a process of self-definition that has been going on for millennia.

Additional Reading

General works

Among the many overviews of Hinduism are Sitansu S. Chakravarti, Hinduism: A Way of Life (1991); Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (1996); C.J. Fuller, The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism in India (1996); David R. Kinsley, Hinduism: A Cultural Perspective (1982); Klaus K. Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism, 2nd ed. (1994); and R.C. Zaehner, Hinduism, 2nd ed. (1966, revised 1985). Jan Gonda, Vedic Literature (Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas) (1975), and Medieval Religious Literature in Sanskrit (1977). For historical overviews, consult Vincent A. Smith, The Oxford History of India, 4th ed. (1981); and Romila Thapar and Percival Spear, A History of India, 2 vol. (1965–66).

Sacred texts

Original sources of the principal texts of Hinduism in English translation are collected in Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (ed. and trans.), Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism (1988); and R.C. Zaehner (ed. and trans.), Hindu Scriptures (1966). A useful compendium of Hindu mythology in translation is Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (ed. and trans), Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook (1975).Some of the individual textual classics of Hinduism have been translated and published in the series Sacred Books of the East: F. Max Müller and Hermann Oldenberg (trans.), Vedic Hymns, 2 vol. (1891–97, reprinted 1979), selections from the Rigveda; Maurice Bloomfield (trans.), Hymns of the Atharva-Veda: Together with Extracts from the Ritual Books and the Commentaries (1897, reissued 1973); Julius Eggeling (trans.), The Śatapatha-Brāhmana, According to the Text of the Mâdhyandina School, 5 vol. (1882–1900, reprinted 1978); Julius Jolly (trans.), The Institutes of Vishnu (1880, reprinted 1965), and The Minor Law-Books (1889, reprinted 1965); George Thibaut (trans.), The Vedānta-Sūtras, with the Commentary by Rāmānuja, 3 vol. (1890–1904, reprinted 1977); and Hermann Oldenberg (trans.), The Grihya-Sutras: Rules of Vedic Domestic Ceremonies, 2 vol. (1886–92, reissued 1973). Also of interest are Wendy Doniger and Brian K. Smith (trans.), The Laws of Manu: With an Introduction and Notes (1991); and Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (ed. and trans.), The Rig Veda: An Anthology (1981), a collection of 108 hymns. Patrick Olivelle (trans.), Upanishads (1989); and Barbara Stoler Miller (trans.), The Bhagavad-Gita (1986, reissued 1991), are excellent translations. Translations of the epics include J.A.B. van Buitenen (ed. and trans.), The Mahābhārata (1973– ); and Hari Prasad Shastri (trans.), The Ramayana, 3rd ed., 3 vol. (1976). Translations of several Puranas are available in the Purāṇas, series ed. by Anand Swarup Gupta (1968– ).Although many of the vast sources for the vernacular literatures have not been translated, there are some available in English translation, including: W. Douglas P. Hill (trans.), The Holy Lake of the Acts of Rāma (1952), a translation of the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas; Linda Hess and Shukdev Singh (trans.), The Bījak of Kabir (1983); Kenneth E. Bryant, Poems to the Child-God: Structures and Strategies in the Poetry of Sūrdās (1978); John Stratton Hawley, Sūr Dās: Poet, Singer, Saint (1984); and A.K. Ramanujan (trans.), Speaking of Śiva (1973), Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Viṣṇu (1981), and Poems of Love and War: From the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil (1985).

Early history and religion

A good introduction to tribal and Hindu folklore is provided by Verrier Elwin (trans.), Tribal Myths of Orissa (1954, reprinted 1980), Myths of Middle India (1949, reprinted 1977), and Myths of the North-East Frontier of India (1958, reissued 1968).Studies of the prehistoric period, the Indo-European background of Indian civilization, and the Indus valley civilization include Georges Dumézil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen, trans. from French (1973); Bruce Lincoln, Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction (1986); Jaan Puhvel (ed.), Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans: Studies in Indo-European Comparative Mythology (1970); and John Marshall (ed.), Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, 3 vol. (1931, reprinted 1973).The best works on the Vedic religion include the essays found in J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual (1985); Frits Staal, C.V. Somayajipad, and M. Itti Ravi Nambudiri, Agni, the Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar, 2 vol. (1983). Still useful is Louis Renou, Vedic India, trans. from French (1957, reissued 1971). Brian K. Smith, Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual, and Religion (1989), is an examination of the relations between Vedic religion and later Hinduism.

Dharma and karma

The literature and teachings on dharma are presented in Pandurang Vaman Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religions and Civil Law in India), 2nd ed., 5 vol. in 8 (1968–77), an indispensable work. A summary of dharma is found in Robert Lingat, The Classical Law of India (1973; originally published in French, 1967). The best study on Yoga is Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, 2nd ed. (1969; originally published in French, 1954). The doctrine of karma and rebirth as it is presented in the texts is examined in the essays collected in Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (ed.), Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (1980). Of the many works on the theoretical underpinnings of the caste system, the most influential has been the magnum opus by Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications, rev. ed. (1980; originally published in French, 1966). Also noteworthy is Veena Das, Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste and Ritual, 2nd ed. (1982).

Art and architecture

For a convenient summary of the Hindu practice and ideology of image worship, consult the excellent Richard H. Davis, Lives of Indian Images (1997); Diana L. Eck, Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India, 2nd rev. and enlarged ed. (1985); Susan L. Huntington and John C. Huntington, The Art of Ancient India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (1985); and the essays in Joanne Punzo Waghorne, Norman Cutler, and Vasudha Narayanan (eds.), Gods of Flesh/Gods of Stone: The Embodiment of Divinity in India (1985). The best work on Hindu temples is Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple, 2 vol. (1946, reprinted 1976). Michael W. Meister and M.A. Dhaky, Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture (1983– ), is a comprehensive work.

Deities and their sects

An overview of the sects worshipping Vishnu or one of his forms can be found in Suvira Jaiswal, The Origin and Development of Vaiṣṇavism: Vaiṣṇavism from 200 B.C. to A.D. 500, 2nd rev. and enlarged ed. (1981); and Milton Singer (ed.), Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes (1966, reprinted 1981). An excellent study on Krishna is Alf Hiltebeitel, The Ritual of Battle: Krishna in the Mahābhārata (1976). Other important works include John Stratton Hawley, Krishna, the Butter Thief (1983); and David R. Kinsley, The Divine Player: A Study of Kṛṣṇa līlā (1979).The history of Shaivism is surveyed in C.V. Narayana Ayyar (sadananda), Origin and Early History of Śaivism in South India (1936, reprinted 1974). The mythology of Shiva is discussed in Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Śiva (1973, reprinted as Śiva, the Erotic Ascetic, 1981).For the worship of the goddess in her many forms, consult the essays in John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff (eds.), The Divine Consort: Rādhā and the Goddesses of India (1982); Kathleen M. Erndl, Victory to the Mother: The Hindu Goddesses of Northwest India in Myth, Ritual, and Symbol (1993); John Stratton Hawley and Donna M. Wulff (eds.), Devī: Goddesses of India (1996); Alf Hiltebeitel, The Cult of Draupadī (1988– ); David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (1986, reissued 1997); and Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (1980). An interesting and accessible comparison of certain themes in the worship of Krishna and the goddess Kali is David Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute: Kālī and Kṛṣṇa, Dark Visions of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology (1975).

Religious and philosophical traditions

The Indian ascetic and monastic traditions are examined in Johannes Bronkhorst, The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism (1993); Robert Lewis Grosse, The Sādhus of India: A Study of Hindu Asceticism (1992); T.N. Madan, Non-Renunciation: Themes and Interpretations of Hindu Culture (1987, reissued 1996); David W. Miller and Dorothy C. Wertz, Hindu Monastic Life, rev. ed. (1996); Patrick Olivelle, Saṃnyāsa Upanishads: Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation (1992); and Wendy Sinclair-Brull, Female Ascetics: Hierarchy and Purity in an Indian Religious Movement (1997).The various devotional traditions of Hinduism are examined in David L. Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of the Rāgānugā Bhakti Sādhana (1988); Friedheim Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti: The Early History of Kṛṣṇa Devotion in South India (1983); Jeffrey J. Kripal, Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna, 2nd ed. (1998); David N. Lorenzen (ed.), Bhakti Religion in North India (1995); Paula Richman (compiler), Extraordinary Child: Poems from a South Indian Devotional Genre (1997); and Karine Schomer and W.H. McLeod (eds.), The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India (1987).The standard work on the philosophical and theological aspects of various Hindu traditions is Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, 5 vol. (1922–55, reprinted 1975). A fine series of volumes on Indian philosophy is Karl H. Potter (compiler), Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies (1977– ). The best overviews of Tantrism are Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (1965, reprinted 1977); David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (1996); and Edward C. Dimock, Jr., The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaiṣṇavasahajiyā Cult of Bengal (1966).

Practical Hinduism

Emphasizing the anthropology of popular Hinduism are the works by Lawrence A. Babb, The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India (1975); McKim Marriott (ed.), Village India: Studies in the Little Community (1955, reprinted 1986); and Milton Singer (ed.), Traditional India: Structure and Change (1958, reissued 1976). A classic case history of the process known as Sanskritization is M.N. Srinivas, Religion and Society Among the Coorgs of South India (1952, reissued 1978).Valuable studies of pilgrimage include A.W. Entwistle, Braj: Center of Krishna Pilgrimage (1987); Ann Grodzins Gold, Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of the Rajasthani Pilgrims (1988); and William S. Sax, Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage (1991).

Hinduism and other traditions

Developments in the Hindu tradition as it confronted other religions and modernity are covered in D.S. Sarma, Studies in the Renaissance of Hinduism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1944); Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding (1988; originally published in German, 1981); and Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (1994). Of special interest are the texts collected and translated by Richard Fox Young, Resistant Hinduism: Sanskrit Sources on Anti-Christian Apologetics in Early Nineteenth-Century India (1981).Wendy Doniger Brian K. Smith

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