RELIGIONS OF THE
WORLD ( Page 5) |
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| Then we have the people from the Mediterranean region,
those previously thought to be a subgroup of the Dravidians. These
could be considered as the authors of the Indus Valley Civilization
that flourished almost 5000 years ago. In my opinion, the Rishis who
spent long periods of time in caves and grass huts to meditate on
the mysteries of life should have belonged to this group. It was at
the feet of these masters that seekers after truth among the Aryans
learned the precious lessons that later became the texts of Upanishads.
They also had only one God. Like the Aadivasis, their God was also
a mother, a loving, caring personal God who always listens to the
call of the children. Their descendants today call this mother Durga
or Devi. 6000-year-old terra- cota figurines of a female deity were
found in the Mediterranean region. These are similar to those found
in India. The influx of Aryans pushed these people to the south and
the east. The descendants of these people, though they lost much of
their identity through a liberal mixing of their genes as well as
faith with the Aryans and Dravidians, can still be found in these
regions of the east and the south especially Bengal and Kerala where
Durga or Devi temples are abundant. Today in many parts of the country
the place of mother goddess is taken by Parvathy, the consort of Siva,
or Saraswthy, the goddess of education and fine arts or Laksmi, the
goddess of prosperity. The title ‘Aadi parasakthi’ meaning
the original supreme force or the force of creation is also used for
the consort of Siva. To me it seems that this also is one of the ways
by which ancient Indians used mythology to create harmony between
differing views. By marrying the mother goddess, Parasakthi of the
earliest inhabitants to the supreme god, Parameswaran, of the Dravidians
they were helping the amalgamation of the two faiths into one. Here
we have a very good example of using the faith of the people to unite
them and not to cause division among them. This also teaches us that
what we call our creator is not what is important but how we relate
to Him/Her/It. |
| There are three distinct sects in Hinduism today, the
Sivites – those who worship Siva, Muruga or Ganesa -, the Vaishnavites
– those who worship Vishnu or his incarnations chiefly Krishna
– and the Sakthi sect who worship the mother Goddess –
as Durga, Devi or Kali. The Sakthi movement is comparatively new as
a formal sect. This does not mean, as some people infer, that the
worship of God as a mother is new to Indians. As mentioned earlier
the earliest inhabitants had no other God than the mother. Millennia
back the name given to her might have been different, other than Durga,
Devi or Kaali, yet the prehistoric ancestors of the people of Kerala
and Bengal as well as the Aadivasis worshipped a mother Goddess without
doubt. Nor was the worship of a mother Goddess limited to India. The
prophet Jeremiah had to warn the Israelites against worshipping and
offering sacrifices to ‘The Queen of Heaven”. |
| The Aryan Influence: |
| Then came the Aryans. They were polytheistic. The chief
of their legion of gods was Indra. They worshipped the sun and another
major god Vishnu. They came riding on horses, brandishing their swords,
ready to go to war with who ever they were to meet. But war was not
in the programme of the peaceful people of the Indus valley. Their
interests lay elsewhere. This onslaught from the northwest displaced
many to the south or the east. Others were subjugated or dominated.
If the San people (Bushmen) of Southern Africa in the nineteenth century
considered the Europeans who came in their flying machines as gods,
no wonder some people of India considered the Aryans on their horses
as gods 4000 years ago. And the shrewd Aryans capitalised on this.
In the legends and epics to follow the Aryans described themselves
as gods coming from the land of gods (devaloka), and the Dravidians
as demons (Asuras or Rakshasas). The Aryan warlords who successfully
defeated the resistance from the kings in the south - in Kerala, Karnataka
or Sri Lanka, namely, Vamana, Narasimha and Sree Rama, became the
incarnations of their god Vishnu. The Aadivasis who helped Rama to
defeat Ravana the king of Lanka were called monkeys. In return for
this help, their leader Hanuman was elevated to the position of a
god. |
| It is said that the Aryans were terrified of the powers
of the Dravidian God known to them as Rudra. This may be partly due
to the mystical powers possessed by some Dravidians through Manthravada,
some special Indian black-art similar to Voodoo, which they ascribed
to their faith in Siva or Rudra. This made the Aryans accept Rudra
as one of their holy trinity, the other two being Brahma and Vishnu.
Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu has, among the Hindus, a place somewhat
similar to that of Christ among Christians. The Tamilians may be an
exception in this regard as they refuse to worship any of the Aryan
gods these days. In place of Krishna, the Dravidians have Muruga and
Ganesha. |
| The most important contribution of the Aryans to the
Indian religious scene is the Sanskrit literature with its Vedas,
Upanishads, and epics like Ramayana and Mahabharatha along with many
other ancient books of fiction, mythology and philosophy. Ramayana,
the story of Rama, is the most revered book in Indian homes and a
very edifying one, with its emphasis on the duties of each state of
a person, on family values and human relationship in general. Geetha,
a small part of the great epic Mahabharatha, is a holy scripture in
its own right. |
| The Caste System. |
| An all time world record for human right violations,
something that far surpassed feudalism, serfdom, slavery, apartheid,
holocausts, or all these combined, as well as a Nobel price for ingenuity
and craftiness should go to the Aryan leaders who conceived, introduced
and established the caste system and weaved it so neatly into the
social structure of the population and justified and even sanctified
it on religious grounds as the will of the gods and the result of
the deeds in the past birth. Caste system was the strong foundation
on which the concept of rebirth was built into the philosophical systems
of Hinduism. Even as heaven was promised to the serfs of Europe for
their passive submission to the atrocities of the feudal lords, the
reward of good deeds, of doing the duties assigned to your cast was
rebirth into a higher caste. The Brahmin was called the twice born
and was closer to the final goal of Moksha, final union with God. |
| Over the last two and a half millennia many reformers
have attempted at eradicating this scourge. Sri Buddha almost succeeded
in getting rid of the caste system when Buddhism spread through the
length and breadth of the subcontinent. But after Buddha’s time
the Aryan leaders or Brahmins managed in re-establishing Hinduism
as Brahmanism. A last stand against this was taken by the Buddhists
in Kerala. This brought another incarnation of Vishnu - Parasuraman
- to the rescue of the ‘gods’ and reclaimed the land for
the gods. Even after the havoc done by this incarnation, the second
in Kerala, the proud people of Kerala refused to accept Aryan priests.
That is when they put the holy thread of Brahmins on a particular
guild of the population and formed the Malayalee Brahmins known as
Namboothiris. There are also those that hold the view hat the Namboothiris
are Brahmins who in the past migrated to Kerala from Mangalore area.
It could be that Parasuraman brought these from Mangalore or thereabouts
to establish their domination. |
| Gandhi spent much of his time and energy to fight
for the rights of the untouchables during and after his struggle for
India’s independence from British colonialism. The constitution
of India acknowledged the principle of equal rights for every caste
and made special reservations in the fields of education and employment
for the low caste people so as to alleviate the injustices of the
past. This had very positive effects especially in the southern states
but the caste system is still prevalent in India and the low caste
people are ill treated, especially in the Aryan dominated north. |
| Persia, the present day Iran, also could boast of an
ancient monotheistic religion, which remained the chief religion of
the land for about a thousand years till Islam replaced it. The founder
was Zoroaster and the religion is called Zoroastrianism. It is interesting
to note that Zoroaster lived around the same period as Socrates, Buddha,
Confucius, Lao-tzu as well as some Hebrew prophets like Jeremiah.
Zoroaster’s teaching was dualistic in nature with a ‘wise
lord” or Ahura Mazda as the creator of heaven and earth –
the spiritual and material worlds - as well as the source of all that
is good in the world. All the evil in the world was attributed to
the antagonist of Ahura Mazda who was called Ahriman. Reward for good
deeds was a paradise of light and joy while the punishment for evil
was a hell of darkness and torment. At the end of times Ahriman will
be defeated and destroyed. Today the followers of this religion are
the Parsis who migrated from Persia to India. |
| Too Many or Two? |
| In the foregoing section we saw something about a number
of religions of the east and the west and a brief survey of the evolution
of some of those. In this discussion I could not touch on the many
other religions that exist today like the Jains, Sikhs, Bahais nor
could I give an account of the pre-Christian religions of Greece,
Rome and Egypt. Many of these religions maintain that all others are
in the wrong. This is a rather confusing scenario in this twenty-first
century when every one speaks of globalisation in the fields of culture,
economy and politics as well as the arts and literature. Are there
too many religions? Which is the true religion? One even questions
the need for religion when one sees that religions are the cause of
many wars, genocides and other inhuman atrocities in history and even
today. The answers to such questions are not easy. All we can say
could be summed up in the following words: |
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Any religion that teaches men to lead good lives is
a true religion. |
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No religion teaches its followers to hate others. |
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There is only one God and people call Him by different names according
to their language. So all religions worship the Same God. |
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Religions are not meant to separate people from people. There are,
however, walls of religious separation today. These must disappear
and people of all religions should be able to live in harmony. |
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