Who is a Hindu?

Hindu word as we hear from historians has its roots in the name of great river of undivided India, Sindhu. The Persians started calling anyone who lived beyond Sindhu and below Himalayas as Hindu.

But for times immemorial the word and the "religion" associated with it has evoked not just confusion but also has fueled passion both for and against. 

So who is a Hindu. What does he /she believe in? Is Hindu a term defining a religion? If it does, then there is not one book which can be said to be a basis of it. There are contradicting philosophies within so called Hindu religion. Then there are people who point out that since Hindu term has come to being much later than recorded Vedic literature, Hindu is either not a religion or at-least not a Vedic religion! People who call themselves Hindus, believe in different Gods. What's more there are unbelievers who call themselves Hindus too! 

Due to this diversity of belief systems there are people who go to the extent of saying there is nothing called Hindu. It’s just a name of a group of people who happen to live in a subcontinent but have different belief systems.

While no one can deny that Hindu term is relatively new when compared to Vedic literature. In Vedic literature there was no name for the religion it preached. There are two reasons for this - 

1.     There was no name for the concept it preached because when Vedic literature was written rest of the world was trying to learn how to roast meat. So unless you need to differentiate something from other similar things, you don't need names. The literature itself has evolved few thousand years ago in a period that could well have spread across few centuries. The nearest the proponents of Vedic literature came to naming it when they called it "Sanatan Dharm". This means iternal "Dharma" (I am not using religion and the reason will be known in second point below).

2.     There is a fundamental difference between the "Dharma" which is preached by Vedic literature and that which is preached by Semitic religions like Islam, Christianity or Jewish. The difference is that Dharma defined by Vedas was an individual Dharma of a person. The duty of a person in a given situation which will take the person to the highest goal. The highest goal was defined as finding the unity of individual with the whole universe (Moksha).   The nearest universe known to the individual would always be the society he / she lives in. So the individual Moksha was always tied to larger good of society. The way of following that Dharma could be different. Vedic Dharma always believed that path to achieve Moksha was irrelevant as every path would lead to same reality. Therefore there are umpteen number of ways once can follow this Dharma. 

Any Semitic religion on other hand stresses upon salvation through prescribed way of worship and anything outside of that is a blasphemy. It goes just as far where heaven and hell are defined for good and bad deeds. The concept of unity within the universe is something not existing in these religions. 

Therefore all the confusion on the nature and ways of Hindu is a resultant of trying to fit into the framework of Semitic religion. When it does not fit this framework they try to deny the very existence of Hindu as an entity. 

So again, who is Hindu. Anyone who is born in Indian subcontinent and believes in following can claim to be Hindu - 

1. My good is associated with the good of larger society (or universe) as we all are manifestation of one reality. 

2. This land (Bharat) is my mother and its well being is my first priority

3. Whatever be the God or book i believe in, my first and only loyalty is with this land.

Anyone following these criteria is a Hindu. The culture is same across India and across religions. This culture is unmistakably same as that preached in Vedic literature. In fact the religious groups like Parasi or Jew who settled here much later have also adopted this culture. Due to geography you can call it Hindu or you can choose to call it Vedic culture or Sanatan Dharma. Calling Sun by any name does not change its brightness.

इन्द्रधनुष

आयुष्य के इन्द्रधनुष के रन्गो के प्रतिबिम्ब
जीवन के धवल प्रवाह को रन्ग देते जाते है
आत्म के शुद्ध कोरे पटल  पर
अपना प्रभाव बिख्ररा कर जमाते जाते है!

बचपन मे  गालो के चमकीले लाल रन्ग
मैदान की धूल से मिलकर
जीवन का पहला तत्व ज्ञान दे जाते है
धिरे धिरे वो लाल रंग स्थान देते जाते है
तरुनाई के गुलाबी मधुर  स्वप्नो को,
ये स्वप्न् आखो को लालिमा और गालो को सुर्खी देते है.

रोटी कमाने कि मेहनत के हर घण्टे
आन्खो कि लालिमा को और गहरा  करते है
गालो की सुर्खी को कालिमा तक गहराते है
माथे पे  सुख् स्वप्न् की जगह चिन्ता की लकिरे देते है
और मधुर स्वप्नो  का यथार्थ् कठोर पटल पर अङ्कित कर जाते है

जब् आयु के अन्तिम प्रहरो  का आरम्भ् होता है
सारे रन्ग धीरे धीरे हलके हो जाते है
ये प्रहर कदाचित जीवन के अन्तिम रन्ग के प्रतिक्षा मे
सारे रङ्गो का मोह त्याग जाते है
ये अन्तिम लाल, नीले और हरे रन्ग अग्नि के
एक नये  इन्द्रधनुष का निर्माण करते है

Why do we need a GOD?

यो सतबार पढे जो कोइ, छुटहि बन्दी महा सुख् होहि |

Meaning: Whosoever reads this hundred times, will experience great happiness and will be free of all sorrows.

Every modern religious text ends with some words to this effect. This is true across religions and countries. I am sure majority of us also follow these kind of dicta, however majority of us are still in the bounds of sorrow, day in and day out. So why do people still read these texts, go to temples / mosques or churches, knowing fully well that this may not end their sorrows. How many of us have committed money / sweets / candles / bed-sheet (चादर) at religious places for a successful exams or an operations and then had no doubt at all about success? I would say none of us. We do all that's prescribed in religion but still have our own doubts. So we do go and pray to God but still don't believe in Him! Isn't it paradoxical? 

So why do we need the God? Why we need a God is to shirk our responsibilities on someone or something more powerful and nothing else. Sounds crazy right? but it's true! Whole of our life we play blame games. For our failure in an exam we first try to put blame on syllabus, teacher, lack of time for study etc. When none of this is accepted by our consciousness we ultimately blame it to the destiny or to 'God's will'. But what we never realize is on 99% occasions it's us who failed to control the controllable events. It was us who did not study or did not pay attention to teacher. 

We blame god or destiny for even smallest of things. I am not able to find the keys while getting delayed for office. Blame God. The milk has boiled over and whole kitchen is spoiled. Blame God. Missed a train. Blame God. Did not get promotion. Blame God. For everything and anything God should be blamed!

And the funniest part is, we also give 'proofs' that God is the culprit. We quote Geeta, where God said just leave everything on to me! But we conveniently forget that Geeta says Act according to best possible option in a given situation and then, only then, leave everything on God. Issue is if we accept the first part of the message we will need to take up the responsibility of our acts, which we do not want. So best solution, leave the first part take up the second part and hold God responsible for everything that's happening to us.

And, if we start taking responsibility or our own action will we need God? It will be us who will then be the maker of our own destiny. WE will be the GOD!! Yes and then you will find the real meaning of religion and God. Then you will understand why Krishna said the soul in you and me is same. And then when he said 'I am God' he is merely saying 'you are God'.   

So stop blaming God or destiny and start taking up the responsibility of your own actions. 

The Scientific Vedas 1

Ancient India had an elaborate system of education through Gurukuls which were actually universities run by sages and learned Brahmins. Incidentally, Brahmins were the ones who had chosen teaching or priesthood as profession. While Smirits (literally the memoirs of social customs) talk about caste structure, again there are no mention of caste by birth though), Vedas mention only the Brahnmins in most places without mentioning any caste structure. However for Vedas Brahmin are the ones who have realized Brahm (God) and work for wellbeing of the society through education and research. Research word may sound a bit odd in the context of Brahmins but yes they researched in science, mathematics and medicine and added to Vedic literature, as we will see later. How and when this definition of Brahmin and caste structure got corrupted is a separate subject; however it seems to be a development of not more than last 500 years.


Coming back to our topic, the base of education in these Gurukuls was Vedic literature. When we hear Veda or Vedic literature the only thing comes in our mind is Yagna (or fire worship). We create a mental picture of small square well with fire lit in it and many bearded folks in their saffron robes chanting away Hymns. I don't know how realistic this picture is, but surely Hymns are integral part of Vedas. But Veda DO NOT deal only with chanting of Hymns. There are multiple subjects which are handled in Vedas ranging from Science to Philosophy and from tantra to medicine.

However, when one reads Veda there is hardly a well laid structure of the book and variety of subjects are spoken one after another in various parts and Suktas (divine statements). As a Shankaracharya (Chandrasekharendra Saraswati) writes, the reason for this disorganized structure is because these are revelations which came to sages and they recited these to their respective followers and the same went on as oral tradition for generations.

Later there were various efforts to put the learning from Veda into an order and Upanishads came into being. There is a group of Upanishads for each of the Vedas. These Upanishadas deal majorly in metaphysical and philosophical learning in Veda.

The science, mathematics and medicine were taken separately and researched by many sages further. Each of these streams then evolved separately as Vedangas. These are further classified into Siksha (deals in intonations, pronunciation and phonetics), Vyaakarana (Grammar), Chandas (Verse forms - deals in rules of creation of various types of verses), Niruktam (dictionary of Vedic words), Jyothisa (deals in mathematics, astronomy and astrology) and Kalpa (manual for Vedic ritual - this is probably the only place where work based caste structure is also spoken about in Vedic literature without emphasis on cast by birth).

These Vedangas are later addition to Veda. Many put 1500 BCE as the year for Vedas. Most Vedangas have come into being after 500 BCE and have been added till as late as 1500 AD (e.g. Siddhantha Shiromani, a book on Mathematics by Bhaskaracharya). Apart from these there are Upangas (sub Vedic literature) which we will talk about later.

Coming back to The Vedas, they have following three parts -

1. Samhita – Hymns
2. Brahman - Manual on how to perform various rituals and chant Hymns and written in prose structure
3. Aranyaka - Literary translated as "of forest". This deals with metaphysics and Philosophy which should be analyzed in solitude (like that of forest)

Vedas have three types of Hymns -

1. Some Hymns give explicit concepts of medicine, mathematics and astrology
2. Some are chanted to create positive energy in the atmosphere (generally used with fire rituals called Yagna)
3. Some Hymns deal with metaphysical and philosophical questions

In the next few chapters we will see some of the amazing concepts given by Atharva Veda.

The Vedas, Intelligence and Modernity

For some decades now we have seen diminished interest in study of Vedic literature. In contrast there is also increased interest in Vedic learning percolating down through various interpretations by neo-yogic and so called philosophical gurus.

The study of Veda through Sanskrit (or texts transliterated) is seen as mere religious rituals. The logic given is that we should look at only the gyaan or knowledge and leave out the rituals. There is another very opposite tendency which has been there for some centuries now. This tendency is to learn Veda / Vedangas and then leave the world and go to forest. However, these tendencies are based on various false assumptions originating from half knowledge or no knowledge of Vedic literature. While people with lot of knowledge (like B G Tilak) have followed rituals too, proponents of "Sanyasa" have done some great work for Society (like Adi Shankeracharya).

With whatever little knowledge I could gather I feel the following -

1. For people who think Vedic literature is full of funny rituals -

If we want to eat fruits we have two options, one nurture a garden and grow trees. Another option is just buy fruit from the market. The fruits from market may not be as fresh or may even be spoilt. Extending this analogy to knowledge (specially the spiritual kind of knowledge), most philosophical or spiritual writings, books on yoga etc., have their roots to Veda and other Vedangas. These interpretations may not be correct or even be misleading. Moreover it will never give anyone the first hand spiritual experience.

Veda had three bodies, Samhita, Brahamana and Aranyakas. Samhita dealt with Mantras related to Yajnas, Brahamanas contain manuals of how to perform these Yajnas and Aranyakas are more advance knowledge on metaphysics and philosophy. Upanishadas are then extracts of all these three bodies of Vedas. Making an analogy to tree, if Vedas can be said to be the trunk, Upanishadas are the leaves and Geeta / Brahmasutra are the fruits. The neo spiritual writing may at best be juice of the fruits!

If we merely keep eating fruits and drinking juice, we may not get the right spiritual experience or may even be misled. Further, if we don't grow new trees the knowledge will slowly die down and we might only have distorted learning.

2. For people who think learning Veda requires one to go to Forest leaving everything behind-

If all people who have attained supreme knowledge of Ataman (or Brahma) abandon the world and go and live in forest how will the world survive? However transient this may be, world is needed as only here the man or Atman realizes himself. If the world is not running properly, there will be misery and busy fighting against that misery the man will never be able to focus his energy to higher knowledge. Therefore it is important that Karma / actions are performed even if a person has attained the knowledge. Such person performs the Karma or action for the benefit of the world and not towards his own selfish end.

वर्तमान

लिखू या ना लिखू के कितने सवाल है.
आज प्रेस मे मिडीया मे सवाल ही सवाल है.
किसी ने किसानो की जमीन ले ली
किसी ने खाये अपाहिजो के उपकरण  यह बवाल है.

कोइ गुस्सा है, कोइ हसता है
कोइ प्रेस मे लडता  है
कोइ सडक पर उतरता है
किसी का केस दर्ज करने  का खयाल है.

कौन है सच्चा कौन है झूठा
कौन है किससे बडा ईमानदार
कौन  है  सबसे बडा बेईमान
इस पर भी सवाल है

इन सब सवालो से बडकर
बुनियादी और जमिनी हकीकत पर
क्या जनता को कुछ हासिल होगा?
इस सारे हन्गामे का क्या होगा हासिल ये सवाल है.

अधूरा शहर

आधा अधूरा  सा आदमी
जिन्दगी ढोये जा रहा है,
इस अधूरे शहर मे.
कचरे के गतठ्ठे सी जिन्दगी
हर कदम पर कुछ गिरती हुई,

सांस लेने कि मशीन सा आदमी,
हर कदम पर जिसकी सांस उखड़ती हुई.
या एक कमाने का कारखाना
बना हुआ है  आदमी
कमा रहा है और हर साल
बड जाती है आमदनी.
हर साल कुछ नये परदे
य एक नया कारपेट्
घर ला कर खुश हो जाता है.
परदे और कारपेट् मे उलझ गयी है
अधूरे आदमी की अधूरी जिन्दगी.
सृजन भूल सा गया है
या नही है फुर्सत उसे
लोकल मे रोज धक्के खाने से.
समय है सिर्फ़ रईसो के पास
शहर मे समय भी गोया
कीमती जिन्स हो गया है.
यहां आदमी होना जरूरत नही
विलासिता का एक शौक हो गया है.