Religion and Peacebuilding

3. Hinduism and Peacebuilding

THE NAME HINDUISM In historical terms, Hinduism is a relatively new phrase. To begin with, the word Hindu had a territorial rather than a religious connotation. It implied the Indian subcontinent. Before the start of the common era, the ancient Persians and Greeks ran into the great river Sindhu or Indus, which traversed the land mass now bearing the state of Pakistan, and called the people associated with the river Sindhus or Hindus. Centuries later, the Arabs, Central Asian Turks, Mongols, and Afghans intruding into the subcontinent and confronting the Indus also used the words “Hindu” or “Hindi” to mean a resident of India. It is by no means clear that before the nineteenth century the diverse groups living in different parts of India thought of themselves as belonging to one “religion,” as they did not, in any precise sense, see themselves as members of a single Indian polity. Their customs, beliefs, and rituals varied a good deal, and at times there were sharp doctrinal debates. If asked who they were, rather than saying they were “Hindus,” they would probably have mentioned a link to their caste, clan, or localized sect. However, a commonality in the faith of the people was suggested by the fact that pilgrims from different parts of India had been walking for centuries to holy sites in the north, east, west, and south of the subcontinent , as well as by a widespread reverence for the Mahabharata and Ramayana epics, for the Bhagavad Gita, which was seen as a part of the Mahabharata, and for older texts, the Vedas and the Upanishads. 45 3 Hinduism and Peacebuilding RAJMOHAN GANDHI Politically too there seems to have been a vague sense, right from the Mahabharata time (circa 1000 BCE), of something like an Indian nation, later thought of as “Bharat.” Hence the phrase “India that is Bharat” in the post-independence Indian constitution. When Islam and Christianity entered India (in some parts Christianity preceding, and elsewhere following, Islam), there was awareness among residents and newcomers alike of sharp differences in beliefs and customs—sharper, it appeared, than the differences between different Indian sects. The encounter of the beliefs and customs of the residents with the religions of the newcomers produced the name Hinduism1 and gave form and a measure of standardization to the religious beliefs of the residents. Henceforth “Hindus” came increasingly to mean adherents of the faith (or faiths) of “Hinduism.” The two words acquired a religious meaning. But the geographical sense never died out, and our times have witnessed a conscious and politically controversial bid, which we will shortly examine, to marry the religious and territorial meanings. It has been argued that the very idea of a “religion,” with components including uniform belief, a single or chief God, a principal sacred text, and a chief incarnation or prophet, was probably an “explanatory construct” gifted to India by European Orientalists, who could only make sense of India through the classifications and categories they were used to, and also that a Hinduism “standardized” by the Orientalists was “highly welcome” to Indian nationalists in their struggle for an independent nation.2 Long before British rule, some of the Muslims who raided or ruled India, and some scholars in their establishments, had also tried to identify the beliefs, texts, and authorities to which India’s residents, the Hindus , offered reverence. A few penetrated beyond surface impressions. Thus, the scholar al-Beruni, traveling to India early in the eleventh century with Mahmud of Ghazni’s raiding party, which demolished temples and idols, noted that some Hindu philosophers were “entirely free from worshipping anything but God alone.”3 Six centuries later, Prince Dara Shukoh, heir to the Mughal throne but not fated to obtain it,4 sponsored and possibly authored the translation into Persian of some of the Upanishads , and saw the religion of the Hindus as “a twin brother of Islam.”5 While it may be a fruit of India’s interaction with the world, the name Hinduism connotes ideas, values, and practices born and grown over the centuries in India. As a name for their ancient faith tradition, “Hinduism” is accepted by modern Hindus and by the world. Other names sometimes proposed, for example, Sanatana Dharma (the Eternal Religion) and Vedanta (the End or Acme of the Vedas), while helpful in certain contexts, have failed to supplant “Hinduism” in general usage. 46 Rajmohan Gandhi AUTHORITIES AND SOURCES Hinduism is...