A guide to various aspects of Indian religious thought inter-religious understanding and religious tolerance

[yogesh saxena]

A guide to various aspects of Indian religious thought
and inter-religious understanding and religious tolerance.
"Its chief mark consists in concentration on the spiritual aspect,
belief in the intimate relationship of philosophy and life,
the inseparability of theory and practice and the insistence
on intuition coexisting with the acceptance.
Religion
An Introduction
It has been pointed out by Dr. Arnold J. Toynbee, in A Study of
History, that the principal civilisations of the world lay different
degrees of emphasis on specific lines of activity. Hellenic
civilisation, for instance, displays a manifest tendency towards a
prominently aesthetic outlook on life as a whole. Indian civilisation,
on the other hand, shows an equally manifest tendency towards a
predominantly religious outlook. Dr. Toynbee's remark sums up what has
been observed by many other scholars. Indeed, the study of Hinduism
has to be, in a large measure, a study of the general Hindu outlook on
life.
Receptivity and all-comprehensiveness, it has been aptly stated, are
the main characteristics of Hinduism. Since it has had no difficulty
in bringing diverse faiths within its ever-widening fold, it has
something to offer to almost all minds. Monier-Williams in his notable
work Brahmanism and Hinduism dwelt on This aspect about a hundred
years ago. The strength of Hinduism, he emphasized, lies in its
infinite adaptability to the infinite diversity of human character and
human tendencies. It has its highly spiritual and abstract side suited
to the philosopher; its practical and concrete side congenial to the
man of the world; its aesthetic and ceremonial side attuned to the man
of the poetic feeling and imagination; and its quiescent contemplative
aspect that has its appeal for the man of peace and the lover of
seclusion. The Hindus, according to him, were Spinozists more than
2,000 years before the advent of Spinoza, Darwinians many centuries
before Darwin. and Evolutionists many centuries before the doctrine of
Evolution was accepted by scientists of the present age.
No civilisation anywhere in the world, with the probable exception of
China, has been as continuous as that of India. While the
civilisations of Egypt, Babylon and Assyria have disappeared, in India
the ideas emanating from the Vedic times continue to be a living
force.
European scholars of Sanskrit like Sir William Jones noted
similarities in the languages, terminology and substances of Indian
scriptures with those of Greece and Rome. Even a superficial study
convinced them that, while the language of the Vedas is a great
critical instrument in the construction of the science of philology,
the Vedic hymns constitute a compilation of most Indo-European myths
in their primitive form. Max Muller went so far as to say that the
Vedas are the real theogony of the Aryan races, Homer and Hesiod
having given a distorted picture of the original image.
The excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro and those in Saurashtra
have disclosed the existence of a highly evolved culture long before
the Aryan immigration, perhaps dating back to 3000 B.C. or later.
Among the remains discovered are a three-faced prototype of Siva
seated in a yogic posture, representations of the Linga, and a horned
goddess associated with the pipal tree. These symbols, evolved by a
very ancient civilisation, were assimilated by the Aryan immigrants in
slow stages-their earliest literary work, the .Rg-Veda, almost
overlooks these aspects. The Vedic Aryans, it has been suggested,
partly assimilated and partly destroyed the earlier culture.
Vedic Aryans and Zoroastrianism
It seems clear from the hymns of the .Rg-Veda and the Persian Gathas
and Avesta that the Vedic Aryans and the Zoroastrians had a common
origin. The languages in which Zoroaster preached and the Rsis sang
their hymns are almost identical, and Vedic meters are re-produced in
the Avesta. Evidently, the two groups of Aryans separated after a
violent quarrel, so that several deities of one group - Indra or
Jindra, Sarva and Nasatya - were transformed in the other into evil
spirits. It is, however, to be noticed that Mitra, Aryama, Vayu and
Vrtraghna are divine in both the systems. A period of unity was
probably followed by civil war, as envisaged in the fight between
Asuras and Devas.
The Vedic Aryans were warlike, while the Avesta reflects an abhorrence
of war. In the period when the ancestors of the Iranians and the
Hindus had lived together, Asura had been a term of honour; and the
Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda was Asura Mahat, the great Asura. The .Rg-Yeda
(III-55-11 & 15) cites several Asura qualities of the Divinities.
Varuna, Mitra and several other gods were called Asuras. Later, when
differences were accentuated between the two communities, Asura became
equivalent to a spirit of evil and Sura came to signify a good
spirit.
The undivided Indo-Iranians must have passed a long time in their
Central Asian home. The Indo-Iranian culture and religion have been
reconstructed, at least in part, by comparing the Vedas with the
Avesta. Before the occupation of Iranian high lands by tribes from the
Indo-Iranian original home, the plateau was the seat of a culture that
was probably matriarchal, and the people worshipped snake-gods in the
manner of India's primitive non-Aryans. It is likely that the pre-
Aryan cultures of North- western India and Iran were alike in origin
and spirit.
This ancient cultural link between pre-Aryan Iran and pre- Aryan
India, instead of getting strengthened by Aryan migration into the two
countries, as could be normally expected, was to all appearances
completely severed. Also, there is nothing to show that the Vedic
Aryans of India maintained an active cultural relation with their
brethren in Iran.
In the earliest days, while the Aryans of India must have been
connected with the Aryans of Iran as friends or as foes, actual
historical contact cannot be asserted with any degree of probability.
The two peoples turned their backs upon each other, as it were, and
developed their distinctive civilisations apparently without the least
mutual influence, although in language, culture and religion their
similarity in the earliest period had been little short of identity.
When, later in history, under the Achaemenids, Greeks, Bactrians and
Sakas, the Iranians and the Indians were forced to meet as citizens of
the same empire, they met as complete strangers, not as cousins or as
scions from the same stock. The earliest literary productions of the
Aryan settlers in India were the Rg-Veda, Sama Veda (consisting of
chants), Yajur Veda and the Atharva Veda (a composite religious and
magical compilation) The Vedas comprise Mantras (hymns ), Brahmanas
(ritual and ceremonies), Aranyakas (forest speculations) and the
philosophical Upanisads. In the context of This commonly accepted
interpretation of the Vedas, it may be recalled that European
Orientalists have too often considered them mainly from the
theological, anthropological and sociological points of view. A study
of the material in its religious aspect is difficult, since even the
great commentary of Sayana is in terms of the ideas of his own age. On
the presumption that the Vedas originated in primitive times, the Rg-
Veda hymns were regarded as the outpourings of a child-like nature
worship. John Dowson in his Hindu Classical Dictionary observed: "The
Aryan settlers were a pastoral and agricultural people, and they were
keenly alive to those influences which affected their prosperity and
comfort. They knew the effects of heat and cold, rain and drought,
upon their crops and herds, and they marked the influence of warmth
and cold, sunshine and rain, wind and storm, upon their own personal
comfort. They invested these benign and evil influences with a
personality; and behind the fire, the sun, the cloud, and the other
powers of nature, they saw beings who directed them in their
beneficent and evil operations. To these imaginary beings they
addressed their praises, and to them they put up their prayers for
temporal blessings. They observed also the movements of the sun and
moon, the constant succession of day and night, the intervening
periods of morn and eve, and to these also they gave personalities,
which they invested with poetical clothing and attributes. Thus
observant of nature in its various changes and operations, alive to
its influences upon themselves, and perceptive of its beauties, they
formed for themselves deities in whose glory and honour they exerted
their poetic faculty.";
But on a careful analysis of the Vedas it would be apparent that the
Vedic view is more subtle and deeper in concept. The One Being whom
the sages call by many names (Ekam-sat) is referred to in the neuter
gender, signifying divine existence and not a divine individual. The
monotheistic God stands in relation to man as a father and a
patriarch, while in a Rg-Veda hymn to Agni he is called "my father, my
kinsman, my brother and my friend". Monotheism, it has been aptly
stated "contemplates the Divine in heaven and polytheism contemplates
the Divine in the universe. Polytheism believes in the assembly of
gods, each possessing a character of his own. Max Muller coined the
word henotheism for indicating the tendency of the Vedic seers to
magnify the importance of the particular deity they are praising in a
hymn at the expense of the other gods. This has been described as
"opportunist monotheism''. One deity is identified with another or
different deities are identified with one divine entity, indifferently
described as Ekam (one) and Tat Sat (the reality).
Vedic concepts
Apart from these concepts. there are two basic ideas underlying the
Vedas - Satya (truth) and Rta (eternal order); and every god or
goddess exemplifies and represents these two ideas.As Abinash Chandra
Bose says in his Ca11 of the Vedas, Vedic theism is based on moral
values which (also in the case of Buddhism) may be upheld in a non-
theistic way. In India it is not the atheist who is denounced but the
person who repudiates Dharma, moral law. The Rg-Veda (X-85-1) states
that the earth is sustained not by the will of God but by truth, and
of This truth God is the supreme exponent, revealing Himself through
Rta or eternal order. Examining the Vedic hymns as a whole, one
discovers a doctrine, not of oneness, but of one divine substance
pervading all. It is stated that the One Being is contemplated by the
sages in many forms: Ekam santam bahudha kalpayanti (Rg-Veda,
X-114-5). It may also be observed that the Vedic ritual or Yajna is a
uniform ceremonial; whatever deity is worshipped, the ritual is the
same.
The universality of the Vedas is not often realised. The Rg Veda
asserts that God is the God of Dasa as well as of Arya - "Lord God is
he to whom both Arya and Dasa belong". (Rg Veda, Vlll-51-9). There is
a special prayer for the forgiveness of sins against the foreigner (Rg-
Veda, V-35-7). According to the Atharva Veda, God is of the foreigner
(Videsya) no less than of our own land (Samdesya). There are mantras
which extend This principle to all living beings (sarvani bhutani)
( Yajur Veda, 36-18) so that we come to a grand conception of
universal peace and serenity - the harmony with Nature (sarvam santhi)
(Yajur Veda, 36-17).
Many schools of thought
Panini is one of the world's earliest as well as the greatest of
scientific grammarians. The consensus of opinion fixed his date not
later than the 5th century B.C. At that period Yajna or sacrifice and
the worship of various deities were current and popular, and theistic
devotion to particular divinities, generally expressed by the term
Bhakti, had become prevalent. Panini refers to Vasudev as the object
of devotion, and Paramatma Devata Visesa, a form of the One Supreme
Divinity. The doctrine which assumed great importance later - that
custom has the force of law - is also exemplified by the twofold
meaning, in Panini's Astadhyayi, attached to Dharma. Dharma is not
only equivalent to Rta, primordial law, but also denotes custom
(acara) as in the later Dharma Sutras.
Already in Panini's days different schools of thought had arisen, both
theistic and non-theistic. A non-theistic doctrine, which is described
in Buddhist philosophy as the doctrine of non-causation and also as
the doctrine of Yadrccha- (fortuitous accident), was current in
Panini's time. That all existence was the result of chance was the
doctrine of the Ahetuvadins. The Svetasvatara Upanisad which advocates
the doctrine of the supreme spirit refers to other varieties of
thought like those of the advocates of Svabhava or materialistic
philosophy. Orthodox thought was later developed in the Samkhya
philosophy and attained its climax in the Vedanta Sutras. Panini
refers to Parasara Sutra, one of the earliest of the Vedanta
treatises, and also to the atheistic school, known later as the
Lokayata. There is mention also of Nihsreyasa which, in the Upanisads,
denoted supreme bliss as also of Nirvana , possibly associated with
Buddhism. From all these examples it is clear that, in the times of
the Buddha and Panini, practically all the varieties of speculation
which have flourished in India had already evolved. .
Philosophical discourses and pursuits were at first specially
developed by the Ksatriyas, but they soon became the prerogatives of
the Brahmins. The Chandogya and Kausitaki Upanisads illustrate these
successive stages. A solution of the ultimate problems of life is
outlined in the early Upanisads, and it takes the form of Monism,
absolute (according to Sankaracarya) or modified (according to
Ramanuja). Filled with zeal for This doctrine of the Unity or
Interdependence of all life, a social order was founded. Dr. Ananda
Coomaraswamy in his Dance of Siva says that the great Epics
represented the desired social order as having actually existed in the
golden past; they put into the mouths of their heroes not only the
philosophy but the theory of its application in practice. This is
evident, above all, in the long discourse of the dying Bhisma in the
Santiparva of the Mahabharata. "The heroes themselves they made ideal
types of character for the guidance of all subsequent generations; for
the education of India has been accomplished deliberately through hero-
worship. In the Dharmashastra of Manu and the Arthashastra of Chanakya
- perhaps the most remarkable sociological documents the world
possesses -they set forth the picture of the ideal society, defined
from the stand point of law. By these and other means they
accomplished what has not yet been effected in any other country, in
making religious philosophy the essential and intelligible basis of
popular culture and national polity".
What, then, is This view of life ? The inseparable unity of the
material and spiritual world is made the foundation of Indian culture
and that determines the whole character of Indian social ideals. Later
Hindu thought is founded on the rhythmic nature of the world process,
including evolution and involution, birth, death and rebirth, srsti
and samhara. Every individual life - mineral, vegetable, animal,
human- has a beginning and an end; This creation and destruction,
appearance and disappearance, are of the essence of the world process
and equally originate in the past, present and future. According to
This view, then, every individual ego (jivatman) or separate
expression of the general will to life (icchatrsna), must be regarded
as having reached a certain stage of its own cycle. This is also true
of the collective life of a nation, a planet or a cosmic system. It is
further considered that the turning- point of This curve is reached in
man, and hence the immeasurable value which Hindus (and Buddhists)
attach to birth in human form. Before the turning-point is reached -
to use the language of Christian theology - the natural man prevails;
after it, the regener man. To sum up, Indian philosophic thought
developed in several stages. The Vedic period is generally placed
between 2500 B.C. and 600 B.C. As already indicated, the four Vedas,
the Bramanas, Aranyakas, and Upanisads are creations of the early
sages.
The Upanisads
The Upanisads are diverse in character and outlook. They recognize
intuition rather than reason as a path to ultimate truth. They also
represent a strong reaction against the merely ritual and sacrificial
duties on which stress had been laid earlier. The Upanisads are
supposed to be 108 or more in number. Twelve of them are generally
recognized as the principal units. The Isa Upanisad begins with the
statement that whatever exists in This world is enveloped by the
Supreme. It is by renunciation and absence of possessiveness that the
soul is saved. In the Kena Upaniad, the Goddess Uma Haimavati in the
form of Supreme Knowledge expounds the doctrine of the Brahman or
Supreme Entity. The Katha Upanisad embodies the aspiration of
Naciketas, who declined his father's offer of property and went into
exile, making his way to the region of Yama,the God of Death.
Naciketas, in his dialogue with Yama, declines all the worldly
possessions and dignities offered by Yama and asserts that all
enjoyments are transient and the boon he asks for is the secret of
immortality. In This Upanisad occurs the famous saying "The knowledge
of the Supreme is not gained by argument but by the teaching of one
who possesses intuition"
In the Mundaka Upanisad occurs the verse which is the germ of the
Bhagavad-Gita . People who perform actions and are attached to the
world are pursuing a futile path, and This Upanisad accordingly
declares: "Let the wise man, having examined the world and perceived
the motives and the results of actions, realize that as from a blazing
fire sparks proceed, living souls originate from the indestructible
Brahman and return to Him. All doubts disappear and the attachment to
work subsides when the Supreme Being is cognized."
These basic doctrines are further expounded in the Taitiriya Upanisad,
which contains This famous verse repeated in other Upanisads: """May
we both (teacher and disciple) be protected; may we both obtain
sustenance; !et both of us at the same time apply (our) energies (for
the acquirement of knowledge); may our reading be illustrious; may
there be no hatred (amongst us). Peace, peace, peace . In the more
recent Svetasvatara Upanisad is found a summary of the main Upanisadic
doctrines, and the idea of devotion to a personal God is also
developed. The Chandogya Upanisad, one of the earliest, states that
the main doctrines of the Upanisads, were first expounded by the
Kshatriyas and not by the Brahmins. Later, as is evident from the
Kausitaki Upanisad, the Brahmins took up the intensive study of
philosophy. The contrast which is often drawn between Brahminism and
Hinduism is therefore not based on a right appraisal of the facts.
The Epics
The period of the Epics succeeded the period of the Upanisads. In the
Ramayana and the Mahabharat, philosophical doctrines were presented in
the form of stories and parables. In these poems of the heroic age
recounting the qualities and exploits of exalted individuals theVedic
gods are no longer supreme. Some have disappeared altogether. Indra
retains a place of some dignity; but Brahma, Siva and Visnu have risen
to pre-eminence. Even of these three, the first becomes subordinate.
Visnu and Siva become the out- standing entities and are alternately
elevated to supreme dignity and very often their ultimate oneness is
proclaimed. Visnu in the Vedas was the friend and companion of Indra
and strode over the universe in three paces; in the Epics he often
becomes the great deity of destruction as well as of renovation. Each
of these two gods in his turn contends with and subdues the other; now
one, now the other, receives the homage of his rival, a d each in turn
is lauded and honoured as the greatest of gods.
The Avatars
The Avatars, incarnations of Visnu, assume a prominent place in the
Epics, and more so in the Puranas. The first three, Matsya (fish),
Kurma (tortoise) and Varaha (boar) have a cosmic character and are
foreshadowed in the hymns of the vedas. The fourth incarnation,
Nrsimha (man-lion), seems to belong to a later age, when the worship
of Visnu had become established. The fifth, Vamana (dwarf), whose
three strides deprived the Asuras of the domination of heaven and
earth, is in character anterior to the fourth Avatara and the three
strides are attributed to Visnu in the Vedic text as Urukrama. The
sixth, seventh and eighth, Parasurama. Ramcandra and Krsna, are mortal
heroes whose exploits are celebrated in these poems so fervently as to
raise the heroes to the rank of gods. The ninth Avatara, the Buddha,
is the deification of a great teacher. The tenth, Kalki, is yet to
come; he resembles the manifestation referred to in the Biblical
Revelation.
The system of religious thought propounded in the Vedas and the Epics
and especially in the Bhagavad-Gita (a part of the Mahabharata)
survived the Buddhist impact which led to a renunciation of much
ritual and metaphysics on the part of a sizable proportion of the
population. Buddhism was absorbed into the parent religion within a
few centuries and Hinduism, as the Vedic religion had come to be
called, adopted the theory of the Avataras or incarnations according
to which the Buddha himself was accepted as Avatara. Jainism also
became, in essence, a doctrinal modification and adaptation of the
Vedic religion.
Dr. Toynbee has noted, in response to an ever more insistent craving
in Indic souls to apprehend the unity of God, the myriad divinities
gradually dissolved and colesced into one or other of the two mighty
figutre of Siva and Vishnu. he adds that this stage on the road
towards the apprehension of the unity of god was attained at least
1,500 years ago.
Buddhist Influence
We now come to the greatest contribution made by the Buddha to Indian
thought and world culture. Dr. Radhakrishnan, in his edition of
'Dhammapada" (which embodies Buddhist teachings), has stated that,
judged by intellectual integrity, moral earnestness and spiritual
insight, the Buddha is undoubtedly one of the greatest figures in
history. The same scholar pointed out that, altough ther were
different streams of thought operating on men's minds in the 6th
century B.C. philosophic thought was agreed at that time on certain
fundamentals. Life does not begin at birth or end at death; it is a
link in an infinite series of lives. each of which is conditioned and
determined by acta done in previous existences. Relief from the round
of births, resulting in life in eternity is the goal, indicated by
such terms as Moksa(deliverance) and Nirvana(union with the Brahman).
The means of attainment are prayer and worship; ritual and sacrifice;
and Vidya(realization by knowledge).
Even though the Buddha accepted the doctrines of Karma and rebirth and
the non-reality of the empirical universe, he declined to speculate on
Moksa and on the doctrine of the Atman and Paramatman . He laid stress
on the supremacy of the ethical aspect, and his outlook was definitely
practical and empirical. In fact, the Buddha did not tolerate any
doctrines which, he thought, diverted the mind from the central
problem of suffering, the cause of suffering and its removal, and the
urgency of the moral task.
. He rejected the doctrine of the Vedanta that the ego is permanent
and unchanging. At the same time, he did not countenance the view
that, at death, it is destroyed. As Dr. Radhakrishnan says, the Buddha
came to the conclusion that interest in the super- natural diverts
attention and energy from the ethical values and the exploration of
actual conditions: Karma builds the world and Dharma is an organic
part of all existence.
The Bhagavad-Gita
Every variety of Hindu philosophy has its source in the Upanisads, the
Brahma Sutras of Badarayana of Vyasa and the Bhagavad-Gita which forms
a part of the Mahabharata. It was as a reaction to the tendencies
exhibited by Buddhism and Jainism that the orthodox schools of Indian
philosophy had their origin and the Bhagavad-Gita is their epitome.
This work contains the essence of Indian teaching about the duties of
life as well as spiritual obligations. Everyone has his allotted
duties of various kinds. Sin arises not from the nature of the work
itself but from the disposition with which the work is performed. When
it is performed without attachment to the result, it cannot tarnish
the soul and impede its quest. True Yoga consists in the acquisition
of experience and the passage through life in harmony with the
ultimate laws of equanimity, non-attachment to the fruits of action,
and faith in the pervasiveness of the Supreme Spirit. Absorption in
that Spirit can be attained along several paths; and no path is to be
preferred cxclusively and none to be disdained. These doctrines have
been interpreted as marking a Protestant movement which lays stress on
the personality of God and His accessibility to devotion. While
following the Hindu ideal of the Asramas, the Gita emphasizes the
importance of knowledge, charity, penance and worship, and does not
decry life as evil:
"Nor indeed can embodied beings completely relinquish action; verily,
he who relinquisheth the fruit of action, he is said to be a true
relinquisher."
The Dharma Sastras
Later, treatises on ethical and social philosophy known as the Dharma
Sastras were compiled, They deal systematically with the proper
conduct of life and describe social , ethical and religious
obligations. The Sutras, of which the Brahma Sutra is the chief, are
brief aphorisms or maxims. They contain interpretations of philosophic
systems and refutations of opposing beliefs. It is remarkable that all
philosophical systems in India are known as Darsanas, literally
meaning calling insights or points of view. In the well known Sarvadar
sanasangraha compiled by Madhavacarya, a great successor of
Sankaracarya , the Carvaka or atheistic school, Buddhism, Jaini sm,
the Vaisnava philosophy of Ramanuja and Madhva, the Saiva system and
several other doctrinal variants, are all described as Darsanas and as
legitimate developments of Hindu thought: There are Sutras dealing
with the Logical Realism of Nyaya, the Atomistic Pluralism of
Vaisesika, the Evolutionism of Samkhya, the tech nique of Mind-control
or Yoga, the ritualistic philosophy of Purva-Mimamsa and the
metaphysics of Vedanta which attained its climax in the work of
Sankara.
The Puranas
The Puranas cover the intermediate period between thc Vedic and the
Classical epochs. Cast in the form of parables and narratives, they
became the scripture for the common people. Apart from their religious
and often sectarian significance, they furnish a picture of social,
political and cultural life and comprise an astonishingly varied
repertory of folklore and information regarding diverse topics
including philosophy, ethics, legal institutions, popular
festivals,and several arts; they deal even with subjects like grammar,
prosody, rhetoric, archery and care of horses and elephants; many of
them also describe places of pilgrimage. At one time their historical
value was discounted; but it is now being gradually appreciated.
Fusion with non-Aryans
The Aryans marched en masse, guided by a leader who was often a poet,
and came into contact with the Dasas and the Dasyus. The point to be
noted is the speedy fusion of the Aryans with the non-Aryans. The
process had three phases: ( I ) The elevation of non-Aryans and
aboriginals by intermarriages with Aryans. (2) The incorporation of
non-Aryans into Aryan society in various other ways. (3) Social
reactions by which forms of 1ife and modes of thought of the two
groups under went a kind of osmosis, intensified by the Buddhist
protestant reformation.
The Aitareya Brahmana gives an example of the manner in which
progressive leaders of the Aryans facilitated the assimilation of
other communities. A Rsi was performing a sacrifice on the banks of
the Sarasvati; and to this sacrifice was admitted one Kesava Ailusa, a
Sudra, whose learning is stated to have put all the Brahmins to shame.
The Vajasaneyi Samhita condemned intercommunal marriage, but it is
narrated in that work (ch. 23, 30 and 31) that a Sudra was the lover
of an Arya woman. By the time of the Mahabharata such great personages
as Vyas and Vidura were described as the offspring of the connection
of the Aryans with other groups. The story of Santanu and Satyavati,
the vow of Bhisma as well as the story of Ambika and Ambalika and the
birth of Vidura, also illustrate the above process.
Again, in the Mahabharata, it is narrated that Bhima married Hidimbi,
a non-Aryan woman, and Arjuna married a Naga girl, Ulupi. A new class
of Aryans called Utkrsta came into existence, and was admitted to the
privileges of sacrifice. By the time of the Satapathabrahmaa Sudras
became incorporated in the polity - a notable instance being the
Nisadas. lt is a curious fact (vide Panini's Grammar, ch. VI, 62, 58)
that there were non-Aryan Brahmins as well.
Parasara, one of the great sages of India, married Satyavati, a fisher
girl, who became the mother of Vyasa, the compiler of the Mahabharata
and the Puranas. Such intermarriages or unions were frequent all
through Indian history. Emperor Candragupta Maurya who belonged to a
lower caste, married Kumara Devi of the Licchavi clan, who was either
a Brahmin or a Ksatriya, and she was the grandmother of Asoka.
It should be remembered that the groups which crystallized later into
the Indian castes were initially not based on any gradation of
superiority, the difference being functional rather than racial or
communal. These groups, moreover, had their analogues in the Avesta,
and the Iranian names do not suggest the idea of colour or
superiority. Co-operation of all the classes was needed for
administration, and a passage in the Mahbharata indicates that the
King's Council included representatives of all classes of the people.
The current rigidity of the rules relating to intermarriage as also
interdining among the Indian castes is a comparatively recent
innovation. These lines found in severl Puranas are significant: "The
great sage Vasistha was born of a divine courtesan, but by austerity
and penance he made himself recognized as a Brahmin. The transforming
process was attained by self-imrovement." Another passage says, "Vyas
was by birth a fisherman, Parasar was born in a dog-eating tribe, Many
non-Dvijas have in the past attained Brahmanhood by their merit." The
Bhagavad-Gita affirms: "Castes developed according to the
differentiation of Guna and Karma", i.e., disposition or temperament
and inherited instincts or aptitudes.
Both among the Old Iranians and the Aryans of India the original caste
system of three classes based on the practical distritution of
functions was in existence. The Iranians, however, did not develop
another class as the Hindus did - the Sudra. Clearly, the three Hindu
caste divisions were not unalterably rigid. The definition of the word
Dvija, twice-born, makes the position clear. Dvija is a person who has
certain basic qualities: "lf a man 's activities be derived from his
jati or birth, from his, occupation, from study and knowledge, and if
all these are found combined, then he is to be called a Dvija, and not
otherwise".
Cultural synthesis
In their great trek to India the colonizing groups of Aryans
encountered races who professed a firm belief in the doctrine of
transmigration. It has indeed been suggested that this doctrine of
metempsychosis itself, the cult of serpent worship, the worship of
Ganesa, of Uma or Durga, of Skanda or Subrahmanya (the hunter-god)
were all adopted by the Aryans from earlier settlers in India. Even
the incarnation of Krsna, it has been said, was an adaptation from an
aboriginal deity; his life is an instance of the mingling of the
Aryans and the Yadavas. In any case, it seems clear that there was a
good measure of synthesis of the thoughts and beliefs of the Aryan and
pre-Aryan races.
There are widespread traditions of the southern migration of the Vedic
sage, Agastya, the reputed author of several hymns of the Rg-Veda. His
asrama was located south of the Vindhyas; and he is said to have
introduced the Vedic religion and literature in the South in his
capacity as a uniifying factor between the Sanskritic and Dravidian
tongues and ideals. When the Aryan colonisers in the wake of Agastya
penetrated to the South, they found an advanced civilisation. The
Ramayana describes Madurai as adorned with golden jewels. The
grammarian Katyayana mentions the Pandyas and the Colas. Asoka's
Buddhist missions were sent to the Pandya and Cola countries as far as
Tamrapani river in the Tirunelveli District. An extensive commercial
and cultural inter course grew up between the Aryans and the
Dravidians, as also between the Dravidians and countries to the east
and west of India.
The close contact between the Aryan and Dravidian elements continued
all through history and manifested itself in every aspect of life.
There is strong ground for the supposition that the importance of
Siva, Sakti and Skanda was due largely to Dravidian influence, since
the cult of An (Siva), Amma (Sakti) and Anil (Muruga or Skanda) was a
cardinal belief from the beginning of Dravidian history.
These facts illustrate the composite character of Hindu civilisation.
The Sama Veda spoke at length of the Vratyastoma (a particular
sacrifice or ritual) by which non-Aryan Vratyas were admitted into
Aryan society. The equalization of castes and communities was, of
course, brought to a head by Gautama Buddha, though he was no opponent
of the Brahminical civilisation. Both he and Mahavira, the expounder
of Jainism, while admitting that the Brahmin ideal is the right one,
led a crusade against certain aspects of Brahmin culture. Hindu
civilisation itself adapted for its use many ideals and precepts of
Buddhism and Jainism. For instance, among many communities, offerings
of rice and ghee took the place of animal sacrifice - a compromise
with the Vedic ritualism. The early Aryans had, of course, been meat-
eaters, but probably under the influence of Buddhist and Jain ideas
many groups of Brahmins as well as non-Brahmins became vegetarian.
Vaisnavism in the South
At a later period arose the fully organized Bhakti movement leading to
Vaisnavism and Saivism. The ancient Vaisnava mystics and saints in the
South were known as Alvars, and the Vaisnavism teachers as Acaryas.
They had a powerful exponent of these views in Ramanuja, who attacked
the Advaita interpretation of the Upanisads and gave recognition to
three ultimate realities, God, Soul and Matter, the last two being
dependent on the first.
As early as the 2nd century B. C. the renowned Besnagar Column had
been erected by a Greek named Heliodorous, who had been converted to
the Bhagavata or Vaisnava faith of which the Pancaratra doctrines then
formed an integral part; its scriptures were Satvata Samhita, the
Mahabharata, and the Bhagavata and Visnu Puranas. The origin of the
Pancaratra doctrines which form the basis of Srivaisnava culture has
been traced further back to the well known Purusasukta of the Rg-Veda.
The Satapatha Brahmana refers to the Pancaratra sacrifices performed
by the primeval Narayana, the idea of Nara and Narayana (Primordial
man and the deity Visnu) being an integral part of ancient Indian
thought. There are more than a dozen Vaisnava Upanisads. It was in the
period from the 10th century up to the 17th that many Vaisnava works
were produccd. The Vaisnavas regard the Pancaratra literature as
almost equal to the Vedas.
The Vaisnava Samhitas and other works insist on knowledge of and
devotion to, the supreme Godhead rather than on Vedic studies or
sacrifices. It is worthy of note that in the Bhagavata Purana (11th
Skanda) the A!vars were prefigured or adverted to; several great
devotees of Visnu, the Purana states, would appear on the banks of the
Tamraparni, Krtamala (Vaigai), Payasvin ( Palar), Kaveri (Cauvery),
and Mahanadi (Periyar).
The Alvars lived between the 5th and the 12th centuries. The first
group included Saroyogin or Poygaiyal var, Bhatayogin or Bhutattalvar,
Mahadyogin or Peyalvr and Bhaktisara or Tirumalisai-Piran. Nammalvar
or Satakopa, who came in the next group, was perhaps the greatest of
the Alvars. Others in this group included Madhurakaviyalvar,
Kulasekhara Perumal, Visnucitta (or Periyalvar) and Andal, his adopted
daughter. In the last of the groups were Bhaktanghrirenu
(Tondaradippodiyal- var), Yogivahana (Tiruppanalvar) and Parakala
(Tirumangaiyalvar). The Divya Prabhandha constitutes the collection of
the Alvars' compositions in the Tamil language.
The advent of Sankara
The next important milestone is the advent of Sankara. In his short
but marvellously active life, he travelled all through the country,
refuting atheistic and materialistic systems of thought, wrote
commentaries on the Upanisads, on the Brahma Sutra and on the Gita. He
interpreted these scriptures and built up his thesis with wonderful
clarity and depth of exposition. He remoulded Indian thought and
destroyed many dogmas. His great capacity for deep feeling and
emotional expression was combined with relentless logic. Sankara's
contribution to philosophy is his blending of the doctrines of Karma
and Maya, which culminated in a logical exposition of the idea of non-
dualism. The entire universe consisting of Namarupa, names and forms,
is but an appearance; Brahman, infinite consciousness, is the sole
reality. Its attainment and the annihilation of the great illusion of
the universe called Maya, by a process of realization, were the
objects of Sankara's quest. He revivifid the doctrines of the
Upanisads and, in Dr. Radhakrishnan's words, he was not a mere
dreaming idealist but a practical visionary. His Advaita doctrine is
still a living force in India. Sankaracarya established several mathas
in India to propagate the Vedantic or Advaita doctrine and the
succesive heads of these mathas as well as later scholars like
Madhusudana Sarasvati and the great polymath Appayya Diksita have
produced important treatises, elucidating the Vedanta as propoundd by
Sankaracarya.
Sankara's outlook was based strictly on philosophical thought and
logic; but even he has, in numerous compositions, dcscribed the
supreme entity in a personal aspect as saviour, helper, friend and
guide. He wrote poems dedicated to Nrsimha, Sri Krsrna, Laksmi, and
Annapurna, and there is his celebrated lyrical homage to Parvati or
Durga - the Saundaryalahari.
Sankara was followed by Ramanuja, Madhva and others who called
themselves commentators but were indeed creators of new systems.
Ramanuja's philosophy was termed qualified monism and Madhva's was a
dualistic system. The three major forms of Vedanta developed
respectively by Sankara, Ramanuja, and Madhva are distinct
philosophies, although each professes to have stemmed from the same
three sources - the Upanisads, the Brahma Sutra and the Gita.
Ramanuja
Ramanuja, of course, was concerned much more with the personal aspect.
His teachings may be regarded as a reaction against the tendency to
view religion on the intellectual rather than the emotional plane. He
assimilated many beliefs of the Dravidian civilisation and helped to
encourage and promote temple worship and public festivals. Born early
in the 11th century, Ramanuja was deeply influenced by the Tamil
saints and Alvars - their ideas coloured his interpretation of thc
Upanisads and the Brahma Sutra. He put forward a theistic view of the
Vedas as against the rigid Advaita point of view of Sankara. Basing
his thoughts on Bodhayana and the theistic Upanisads, the Mahabharata
(including the Bhagavad-Gita), Visnu Purana as well as the
compositions of the Alvars and Acaryas, Ramanuja produced a number of
works culminating in the Sribhasya . He proclaimed the doctrine of
salvation through Bhakti or faith. His earlier followers came to be
known as Vadagala is. About two centuries later the Tengalais
appeared; they, unlike thc Vadagalais, did not concentrate on Sanskrit
scriptures and traditions and regarded Tamil scriptures as equally
canonical.
There were several points of difference between Ramanuja and early
Vaisnava teachers like Nadamuni and Yamunacarya. One was the
importance attached to Swami Krpa, Grace of God. According to one
school, this is spontaneous, not depending on any effort or merit of
the devotee. The other school asserts that Grace also depends on the
devotee's virtuous action. The religious approach of Ramanuja was
mainly based on self-surrender, which must result in universal charity
and sympathy, and friendliness even to an enemy. He insisted that the
performance of scriptural duties alone was not enough for salvation.
Karma Yoga and Jnana Yoga, according to the Ramanuja school, only
purify the mind in preparation for Bhakti Yoga or devotion. Ramanuja's
Saranagati Gadya is a notable contribution to the gospel of self-
surrender, but it does not rule out caste functions and duties, and
the doctrine of Karma.
Vedanta Desika, the greatest successor of Ramanuja, and a strong
opponent of Sankara's Advaita doctrine, wrote a very controversial
work, Satadusani. Pillai Lokacarya, the famous exponent of the
Tengalai school, advocated passive surrender (Praptti) in preference
to active faith (Bhakti), and the guidance of a spiritual preceptor,
Manavala Maha Muni is the chief Saint of the Tengalais. This school
built up a remarkable Tamil literature to which it ascribed an
importance equal to that of the Vedas - it was called the Tamil
Tirumurai or the Tamil Veda. In essence, however, there was no
fundamental doctrinal divergence belween the two sects. Differences in
certain features such as caste marks on the forehead and temple
ceremonials and usage became accentuated in later years.
Successors of Ramanuja
As the ideas of Ramanuja spread through India, men like Madhvacarya,
Vallabhacarya, Caitanya, Ramananda, Kabir and Nanak came under their
spell. Ramanuja and his followers opposed the doctrine of Maya and the
interpretation of the world as purely phenomenal or illusory. They
emphasized the distinction between thc individual soul and the supreme
Godhead and based their philosophy on man's conviction of sin, his
responsibility for sin and the importance of grace emanating from thc
divine. In other words, they believed that salvation comes not
specially through Jnana (knowledge) or karma (action), but through
Bhakti (faith) and Prasada (grace). The Bhagavata doctrine of complete
resignation to God was one of the articles of their faith. God was
viewed alterlnately as father, mother, child, teacher and friend, and
even as the beloved. Ramanuja declared that caste had nothing to do
with the soul's quality; some of the Alvars were in fact non-Brahmins.
Ramanuja is said to have admitted even Harijans to the temple at
Melkote. One of his later followers, Ramananda, who lived in the 13th
century, not only protested against caste distinctions but enjoined
that no man should ask any devotee about his caste or sect: whoever
worships God is God's own.
Later followers of Ramanuja included a number of scholars who
sustained his philosophic system through the centuries. While
accepting the set rituals of initiation and worship, they admitted
Jains, Buddhists, Sudras and Harijans into their fold. A celebrated
successor of Ramanuja was Nimbarka, who lived about the same time as
Madhvacarya. According to his philosophy, which is a type of
Bhedabhedavada, that is, the theory of the Absolute as Unity-in-
difference, Brahman or the Absolute has transformed itself into the
world of matter and spirit. As the Life-force, Prana manifests itself
in the various cognitive sense functions, and yet keeps its own
independence, integrity and difference, so the Brahman also manifests
itself through the numberless spirits and matter, without losing
itself in them. As the spider spins its web out of itself and yet
remains independent of the wcb, so the Brahman splits itself up into
numberless spirits and matter but retains its fullness and purity.
The reaction against Sankara's Advaitism reached its climax in
Madhvacarya's dualistic philosophy. It resembles Ramanuja's doctrine
to some extent but stands for unqualified dualism. Madhva, also known
as Purnapranjna and Anandatirtha, was born near Udipi in South Kanara
in the 12th century. He draws a clear distinction between God and the
individual soul, God and matter, individual soul and matter, one soul
and another and one variety ot matter and another. Large groups in
India follow this doctrine which bases itself on the feeling of
absolutc dependence on God and love for Him.
Madhvacarya attacked Sankara vehemently on the ground that his
philosophy was a disguised variety of Buddhism. It is well known that
Sankara was strongly influenced by Gaudapada, who had great regard for
the Buddhist philosophy, and it is unquestionable that, while Sankara
was opposed to Buddhist thought in general, he was perhaps
unconsciously influenced by some of its tenets. Madhva, on the other
hand, objected to Advaita: it seemed to him presumptuous for the
individual soul to claim identity with Brahman. According to his
doctrine, Visnu is the only supreme being; and Bhakti is the primary
essential for liberation. Among his great disciples was Purandaradasa,
reputed as a social reformer and one of the creators of the Karnataka
system of music. Vadiraja, a renowned writer, was another Madhva
philosopher.
Vaisnavism in the North
One of the most influential Vaisnava cults was founded by
Vallabhacarya, a Telugu Brahmin who lived in the 15th century. He
migrated to the North and in his numerous works in the North he gave
an interpretation of the Vedanta differing from that of Ramanuja, as
also of Sankara. He called his doctrine Suddha Advaita, pure non-
dualism. The world is real, and not an illusion. God is Nimitta-
Karana, the causative being. Discarding the Maya theory Vallabhacarya
asserts that God cannot be described by negatives but only by his holy
and gracious attributes, and is personified in Krsna He is not only
karta, creator, but also Bhokta, enjoyer. Though he has no need to
assume a bodily form, he often does so to please his devotees.
Regarding Bhakti as the chief means of salvation and superior to
Jnana, (knowledge) Vallabha opposed all kinds of asceticism. The body
is the temple of God, he said. The famous Upanisadic precept Tatvamasi
was by an ingenious interpretation, modified by Vallabha as
Atatvamasi, "That thou art not". Vallabhacarya's doctrines were fully
interpreted and expounded by his son Vitthala.
Later, in Northern India, there arose the Caitanya movement. Nimbarka
had already elevated Radha, the consort of Krsna, to the highest
position. Jayadeva, the author of Gita-Govinda, and other poets like
Vidyapati, Umapati and Candidas, adopted the Radha-Krsna cult.
Caitanya, the great Vaisnava teacher of the 15th century transformed
the Vaisnava faith and extended his influcnce in most parts of
Northern India. He accepted converts from Islam, the foremost among
them being Haridas, Rupa and Sanatana. Salvation, according to his
doctrine, consists in the eternal experience of God's love. Caitanya
exercised great influence over later Indian thought.
Saktism
The cult of Sakti or the mother aspect of Godhead had its roots in the
Vedas. The Rg-Veda describes Sakti as the embodiment of power and the
upholder of the universe. Sakti is represented as the sister of Krsna
and the wife of Siva. She is worshipped as Devi, who is one with
Brahman. The literature of Saktism, called the Tantra, gives a high
place to women and reacts strongly against caste distinctions.
According to the doctrines of the Sakta cult (embodied in 77 Agamas),
Siva or the supreme entity is impersonal and beyond activity. Sankara
in his Saundarya1ahari declares: "Siva is able to function when united
with Sakti; otherwise he is inert." he Sakta cult and philosophy has
had great influence in Bengal and Assam, as well as in Malabar.
A variant of the Saivite philosophy, which developed in Kashmir, is
known as the Pratyabhijna system. Here, as Dr. Radhakrishnan says,
Siva is the subject as well as the object, the experiencer as well as
the experienced. "As the consciousness on which all this resultant
world is established,whence it issues, is free in its nature, it
cannot be restricted anywhere. As it moves in the differentiated
states of waking, sleeping, etc., identifying itself with them, it
never falls from its true nature as the knower." In theeme Godhead
rather than on Vedic studies or sacrifices. It is worthy of note that
in the Bhagavata Purana (11th Skanda) the A!vars were prefigured or
adverted to; several great devotees of Visnu, the Purana states, would
appear on the banks of the Tamraparni, Krtamala (Vaigai), Payasvin
( Palar), Kaveri (Cauvery), and Mahanadi (Periyar).
The Alvars lived between the 5th and the 12th centuries. The first
group included Saroyogin or Poygaiyal var, Bhatayogin or Bhutattalvar,
Mahadyogin or Peya is the unchanging consciousness and Sakti its
changing power, appearing as mind and matter.
Cultural fusions in the South
Early Indian history cannot be viewed in its true perspective unless
the institutions of the South receive adequate treatment. The unity of
India transcends the diversities of blood, fusions in colour,
language, dress, manners and sects. It is seen in the fusion of
Brahminical ideas and institutions with Dravidian cults. This unity,
however, has been limited by the later developments of the caste
system in a manner different from the original conception which was
functional in character and elastic in scope.
A typical South Indian village almost invariably has a temple
dedicated to Ayyanar or Hariharaputra or Hanuman or Anjaneya, or
Ganesa. On many hill-tops there are shrines dedicated to the Devi
(Candi) or Kartikeya also named Subrahmanya. These exemplify the
tolerant and assimilative outlook of the Aryans. In the context
mention has already been made of the Vratyastoma (a particular
sacrifice or ritual) by means of which masses of non-Aryans (Vratyas)
were admitted into the Aryan society.
According to South lndian tradition, Tamil as first developed by the
sage Agastya, to whom a grammar, a treatise on philosophy and many
other works are ascribed. The oldest Tamil grammar now extant, the
Tolkappiynm, is said to have been the work of one of his disciples.
The Saivite and Vaisnavite revival due to the Brahmins in Southern
India, since the 8th century, brought about a counter- movement among
the Jains. Early Buddhism in Northern India adopted the Prakrit or
vernacular speech for its religious treatises. On the same analogy,
Buddhism and Jainism in the South created works in the dialects of the
people. The Dravidian Buddhists and Jains created a Tamil literature
which was anti-Brahmanical in sentiment ; and covered the period
between the 9th and 13th centuries.
The Kural of Tiruvalluvar, *dating not later than the 10th century
A.D. is said to have been the work of a poet belonging to one of the
depressed classes. It enforces thc Samkhya philosophy in 1,330
poetical aphorisms based on three subjects: wealth, pleasure and
virtue. To the sister of its author, the poetess Avvaiyar, are
ascribed many compositions of the highest moral tone, and they have
enjoyed perennial popularity in Southern India. The Jain period of
Tamil literature includes works on ethics. In the same period a
celebrated adaptation of the Ramayana was composed in Tamil by Kambar.
This is a Tamil paraphrase rather than a literal translation of the
ancient Sanskrit Epic.


Between this period and the 16th century, two encyclopaedic
collections of Tamil hymns, deeply religious in spirit, were gradually
formed. One collection was the work of Saivite devotees and their
disciples who sought to uproot Jainism. Vaisnavite apostles of the
same period were equally prolific in Tamil religious songs. Their Book
of Four Thousand Psalms, Nalayira Prabandham, constitutes a hymnology
dating from the 12th century.
Saivite sects The development of Vaishnavism saw a parallel
development of the Saiva theism. A distinctive philosophy of Saiva
Siddhanta was evolved about the 11th century. The Saiva Agamas were
based on the Vedic concept of Rudra. A large number of inspired
writers in the Tamil country were headed by Manikkavasagar. All their
works have been collected and are venerated by the South Indian
Saivites. The first part of this collection, Tevaram, contains the
hymns of Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar. The second part mainly
comprises Manikkavasagar's Tiruvasakam. Sixty three Saiva saints are
recognized and their lives are recounted in the Periya Puranam
Sekkilar.
Dr. Pope, the well known Tamil grammarian, has stated that Saiva
Siddhanta is one of the most influential and intrinsically valuable of
the religious writings in India. The Saiva Siddhanta recognizes three
entities: God, thc Soul or the aggregate of souls, and Bondage (Pati,
Pasu and Pasa). The expression Bondage denotes the aggregate of the
elements which fetter the soul and hold it back from union with God.
In one of its aspects it is Malam, the taint clinging to the soul. In
another aspect it is Maya, the material cause of the world. The
peculiarity of the Saiva Siddhanta doctrine which calls itself
Suddhadvaita is its difference from the Vedanta Monism. God pervades
and energizes all souls and, nevertheless, stands apart. This concept
of the absolute is clear from the Tamil word for God, Kadavul, meaning
that which transcends (kada) all things and is yet the heart (ul) of
all things. When the absolute becomes manifest, it is as Force (Sakti)
of which the universe is the product. The Dvaita system, on the other
hand, insists on a radical pluralism, and at the same time on the
complete dependence of the souls and the world on God.
One of the important Saivite sects known as Virasaiva was founded by a
Brahmin named Basava, who was for some time the minister of a ruler in
Kalyan. The Basava Purana outlines Basava's life. This as also
Basava's own writings in Kannada, describes the fundamentals of a
doctrine based on rigid monotheism, Siva being regarded as the
supreme, limitless and transcendent entity. Brahmana is the identity
of "being", "bliss" and consciousness, and devoid of any form of
differentiation. It is limitless and beyond all ways of knowledge. It
is self-luminous and absolutely without any barrier of knowledge,
passion or power. It is in Him that the whole world of the conscious
and the unconscious remains, in a potential form untraceable by our
senses, and it is from Him that the whole world becomes expressed or
manifest of itself, without the operation of any other instrument.
The Virasaivas, often called Lingayats, are distinguished by the
Sivalinga and rudraksa on their person and they smear their bodies
with ashes. They are strict vegetarians and abstain from drink. The
Virasaiva doctrine has four schools, but the differences are of a
minor kind. All believe in the efficacy of a Guru or preceptor. All
assert the reality of the Universe and unity with Siva, the only
ultimate reality. The Virasaiva doctrine is prevalent in Mysore and in
the southern regions of Maharashtra.
Great movements of reform
Side by side with these philosophical systems, a large body of
devotional literature in the spoken languages of India has been
developed. This was due to the advent of great reformers-Ramananda,
Kabir, Nanak, Mirabai, Vallabhacarya, Caitanya, Tulasidasa, and
Tukaram. Ramananda and his Muslim disciple Kabir emphasized the belief
in a supreme deity and recognized no caste distinctions, although they
accepted the doctrines of Karma and Samsara. Nanak founded the
religion of the Sikhs. He was under the influence of Islam as well as
of Hinduism and, like Kabir, he believed in Karma and Samsara, Maya
and Moksa. He laid great stress on a personal God and a society of
disciples not bound by caste or race restrictions. The militant
character of Sikhism was a later development due to Aurangzeb's
intolerance and persecution.
The great saints of Maharashtra and Bengal created a wonderful
literature of Bhakti based on the worship of Rama or of Krsna.
Vallabhacarya, in particular, attacked Sankara's Advaita doctrine. He
preached that by God's grace alone can man obtain release. Caitanya, a
contemporary of Vallabha, and his followers called Goswamis, were
itinerant preachers whose sincerity of religious experience brought
about a reformation in Bengal.:
1. Belief in one supreme God of Love and Grace.
2. Belief in the individuality of every soul, which is nevertheless
part of the Divine Soul.
3. Belief in salvation through Bhakti.
4. The exaltation of Bhakti above Jnana and Karma; and, also above,
the performance of rites and ceremonies.
5. Extreme reverence paid to the Guru.
6. The doctrine of the Holy Name.
7. Initiation through a mantra and a sacramental meal.
8. The institution of sectarian orders of Sannyasins.
9. The relaxing of the rules of caste, sometimes even ignoring all
caste distinctions.
10. Religious teaching through the vernaculars. It was out of these
Bhakti cults that the Sikh group transformed itself into a military
brotherhood. Bhakti cults gave rise to such works as the Ramayana by
Tulasidasa, the , Abhanga of Tukaram and the poems of devotees like
Ramprasad of Bengal and Tayumanavar of South India and passionate
outpouring of Mira Bai. All these helped to popularize the spirit of
devotion and resulted in a great religious revival in many parts of
India.
Renaissance in Hinduism
In the 18th century religion suffered a serious decline mainly because
the impact of a completely different civilisation. English education
destroyed the isolation of India and brought about an active ferment.
Many Indians of the time became either sceptics who leaned towards
Christianity, or reactionaries who sought to preserve at any cost the
ancient forms and institutions. Fortunately, at this time, enlightened
Europeans like Sir William Jones, Sir Charles Wilkins, Colebrooke,
Monier-Williams and Max Muller revealed by comment and by translation
the treasures of ancient Indian wisdom. Their work was later
supplemented by art lovers and art critics, who revealed the secrets
of sacred and secular art-forms and concepts.
As an outcome of these influences and counter-influences, there arose
a series of movements which have been rightly described as a
renaissance of Hindu life and thought. Raja Ramamohun Roy was the most
outstanding pioneer of these movements. He struck a note of
universalism in tune with the spirit of the Upanisads. Born in Bengal
in 1772, he studied Persian, Arabic and English. In 1803 he published
a book in Persian, with a preface in Arabic, entitled Tuhfat-ul-
Muwahhidin. It carried a protest against idolatory and sought to
establish a universal religion based on the idea of the unity of
Godhead. He started a controversy with the Christian missionaries and
published a book in which he tried to separate the moral teachings of
Jesus from the miracles described in the Gospels. Rammohun Roy, along
with David Hare, stressed the necessity of education in India on
modern lines, in opposition to those who objected to English education
and insisted on a return to the past. He repeatedly declared that he
had no intention of breaking away from the ancestral religion, and
wished to see it restored to its original purity. In order to carry
out his ideas he founded the Brahmo Samaj on the basis of theism. The
Trust Deed of the Samaj laid down that "no graven image, statue or
sculpture carving, painting, picture, portrait or the likeness of
anything shall be admitted within the building."
The Brahmo Samaj
Debendranath Tagore, the next great leader of the Samaj, formulated
the Brahmopadesa, comprising tenets from the Upanisads and Tantras.
His successor, Keshub Chandra Sen, sought to incorporate Christian
ideals into the Brahmo Samaj movement. He began the compilation of a
scripture including passages from the Holy Books of many religions -
Hindu, Buddhist, Hebrew, Christian, Muslim etc. Then he went to
England in 1870, he was welcomed by many Christian organizations. As
the result of secessions in the Brahmo Samaj, three institutions
arose: The Adi Brahmo Samaj; the New Dispensation of Keshub Chandra
Sen; and the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj founded by dissenters from the
Keshub Church. The Sadharan Samaj, led by Shivanath Sastri and Ananda
Mohun Bose, gave a rational, monistic interpretation of the Upanisads,
admitting the essential unity of the universal self and the individual
self. The following doctrines, as noted in Renaissance of Hinduism are
common to all these varieties and offshoots of the Brahmo Samaj:
1. They have no faith in any scripture as an authority.
2. They have no faith in Avatars.
3. They denounce polytheism and idol-worship.
4. They are against caste restrictions.
5. They make faith in the doctrines of Karma and Rebirth optional.
Another offshoot of the Brahmo Samaj, the Prarthana Samaj was founded
by Justice Ranade in Bombay. Its programme included disapproval of
caste, recognition of widow marriage, and the encouragement of women's
education. Dr. Atmaram Pandurang, Pandita Rama Bai, S. P. Kelkar and
S. P. Pandit were the principal exponents of this Samaj.
The Arya Samaj
As a reaction against the influences typified by Raja Ramamohun Roy
and Justice Ranade, the Arya Samaj was founded by Swami Dayanand
Saraswati. It attacked the Brahmo Samaj for its pro-European and pro-
Christian attitude. A great Sanskrit scholar and a believer in the
doctrines of Karma and Rebirth, Swami Dayanand sought to revive the
Vedic ideals and laid stress on Brahmacarya and Sannyasa. He believed
implicitly in the ancient scriptures, disavowing Puranic Hinduism in
favour of Vedic Hinduism. The Puranic texts, he said, had no Vedic
sanction. Holding the Vedas alone as authoritative, he stated that God
and the human soul are two distinct entities, different in nature and
attributes, though they are inseparable from each other as the
pervader and the pervaded. The doctrine of Karma and Samsara is of
course accepted by the Arya Samaj. One of its main activities is
Suddhi, a purification ceremony, by which non-Hindus are converted to
Hinduism. The depressed classes and Harijans are entitled to be
invested with the sacred thread and are given equal status with other
Hindus. The Arya Samaj also reclaimed many Hindus who had been
converted to Islam and Christianity. Sanghatan, organization of the
Hindus for self-defence, is one of the main principles of the Arya
Samaj, and it has played its part as the church militant in the Hindu
fold.
The Theosophical Society
The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by Col. Olcott and Madame
Blavatsky, co-operated with the Arya Samaj and tried fora time to
organize lndian life on national lines and check the activities of
Christian missionaries. Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky went later to
Ceylon, declared themselves Buddhists, and took part in a movement for
the revival of Buddhism. Dr. Annie Besant joined the Society after a
period of militant agnosticism, side by side with notable social
service, and political work amongst the Fabians in England. She became
the head of the Theosophical Society in 1891. Claiming that she had
been a Hindu in her former birth, Annie Besant worked throughout her
life for the regeneration and activization of Hindu thought and Hindu
life. She published a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita along with Dr.
Bhagvan Das and popularized Hindu ideals in her numerous publications
and marvellously eloquent speaches. A defender of many orthodox
ideals, she turned later to social reform, which included the partial
modification of the caste system. . One of thc main principles of
Theosophy is the belief in a brotherhood of great teachers of the past
who are supposed to be living still, watching over and guiding the
evolution of humanity. The Theosophical Society under Dr. Besant's
guidance spread the fundamental principles of the Hindu religion -
Karma, Reincarnation, Yoga and spiritual evolution.
Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda
Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, a great devotee and mystic, had a broad
outlook of universalism. After accepting the discipline of Yoga and
Tantric Sadhana, he underwent the discipline of the Vaisnava, the
Christian and the Islamic ways of life. To rouse the religious
feelings of the wordly-minded and re-affirm the ancient truths of
Hinduism by an appeal to experience, he trained a devoted band of
followers, the most outstanding of whom was Narendranath, Swami
Vivekananda. Sri Ramakrishna's teachings were neither new nor
heterodox. As Swami Vivekananda said on one occasion, Ramakrishna
brought old truths to light. He was an embodiment of the past
religious thought of India. Like other great religious teachers of the
world, he projected his ideas through parables or images. Questioned,
for instance, on the problem of evil, Sri Ramakrishna said:" Evil
exists in God as poison in a serpent. What is poison to us is not
poison to the serpent. Evil is evil only from the point of view of
man." In other words, from the absolute standpoint, there is no evil,
but from the relative standpoint evil is a terrible reality.
Ramakrishna preached that realization is the essence of religion - and
that all religions are paths leading to the same goal. He deprecated
metaphysical subtleties and insisted on deep devotion - it was, he
said, through his intense devotion to the image of the Divine Mother
in Dakshineswar that realization had come to him. Swami Vivekananda
said:" If men like Sankara, Caitanya and Ramakrishna found image
worship helpful, there is no sense in declining it."
Ramakrishna's religion and the movement he founded by gathering around
him a band of devoted workers were essentially practical. This aspect
was expounded and universalized by Swami Vivekananda. Under the
inspiration of Ramakrishna, he changed from scepticism to religious
realization and travelled all over the world, preaching the essence of
the truths of Hinduism. He dedicated himself to the service of India
and particularly to the service of those who were starving, depressed,
or beyond the social pale. The work for the uplift of the Indian
masses was for him as important as meditation or Yoga.
At the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, Swami Vivekananda struck a
note of universal toleration based on the Hindu belief that all
religions lead to the same God. He also declared in Chicago that the
religion of the Hindus is centred on self-realizalion; idols, temples,
churches and books are aids and nothing more. Swami Vivekananda
strengthened the Ramakrishna organization by founding monasteries and
centres of Hindu teaching in India and abroad. He reinterpreted
Hinduism and stated that the abstract Advaita must become living. All
through his life and especially during his travels abroad, he insisted
that the essential features of Hinduism are its universality, its
impersonality, its rationality, catholicity and optimism. Above all,
its authority is not affected by the historicity of any particular
man. Swami Vivekananda told his countrymen that they had become weak
and miserable because they did not bring their Vedanta out of the
books into life itself. His great contribution to Hinduism lay in
applying the Hindu creed to the elevation of the masses and abolishing
India's isolation from the world, culturally, spiritually, and in many
aspects of social life. He founded a great and worldwide organization,
the Ramakrishna Mission, which has worked for the spiritual welfare
and multiform amelioration of the living conditions of the people of
India and other countries.
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, one of the latest exponents and interpreters of
Hinduism, has described ancient Indian philosophy as follows: "an
ingrained and dominant spirituality, an inexhaustible vital
creativeness and gusto of life, and, mediating between them, a
powerful, penetrating and scrupulous intelligence, combined with the
rational ethical and aesthetic mind at a high intensity of action,
created the harmony of the ancient Indian culture." Sri Aurobindo gave
new interpretations of the Vedas and the Vedanta, and in his Essay on
the Gita he expounded what he called 'the integral view of life." His
great work, TheLife Divine, is a summing up of his philosophy of 'the
Descent of the Divine into Matter." The importance of Sri Aurobindo's
mission lies not only in his restatements of old ideals but also in
his atternpt to explain the true methods of Yoga as apart from mere
asceticism and illusionism.
Mahatma Gandhi
In the popularization of ancient Hindu ideals, Rabindranath Tagore and
Mahatma Gandhi have played significant parts. Tagore has made a
suggestive interpretation of the Vedic religion and the substance of
the Upanisads. The teachings of Mahatma Gandhi have led to vast social
changes and to the uplift of the backward and depressed classes. He
has stated that his whole religion is based on a surrender to the will
of God, the spirit of renunciation as embodied in the Isa Upanisad,
the Gita and the ideals of practical service. He has given a new
interpretation to the doctrine of non-violence which is as old as
Hinduism, and tried to adapt it by means of satyagraha to political
and moral issues.
Mahatma Gandhi worked for the uplift of the depressed and backward
classes and for the creation of national entity. Speaking in
Travancore on the Temple Entry Proclamation enacted there in 1936, he
said: "These temples are the visible symbols of God's power and
authority. They are, therefore, truly called the houses of God, .the
houses of prayer. We go there in a prayerful mood and perform, first
thing in thc morning after ablution, the act of dedication and
surrender. Scoffers and sceptics may say that all these are figments
of the imagination, that we are imagining God in the images we see. I
will say to these scoffers that it is so. I am not ashamed of
confessing that imagination is a powerful factor in life. Now you can
easily understand that, in the presence of God, the Ruler of the
Universe, who pervades everything, even those whom we have called the
lowest of the low, all are equal." A recent example of transcendental
spiritual experience manifested in life is Shri Ramana Maharishi, who
passed away in 1950. A man of powerful personality, he taught as much
by his silence as by his sermons. He had a directness of approach and
a universality of outlook, which were products of true enlightenment.
The spirit of tolerance
It may be noted that the comprehensive tolerance of Hinduism is
exemplified remarkably in such instances as the following. In the
temple of *Dharmasthala in South Kerala the chief personage is a Jain
- he is regarded as a hereditary oracle whose arbitration is sought by
members of all Hindu and even Muslim communities. The temple itself
has the Sivalinga as well as the Salagrama, or symbol of Visnu, the
officiating priest being a Vaisnavite. In the shrine at Udipi the
worship of Siva and Visnu alike is offered and the heads of the Udipi
Math, although staunch Vaisnavites, are under the obligation to attend
to two Siva shrines, in addition to officiating as the chief priests
of the Krsna temple. It is believed that a person belonging to the
Harijan community received special divine favour and attained union
with God in the temple precincts. The tradition of Chidambaram is
similar- the Paraya saint, Nandan, who was refused admission by the
Brahmin priests, became the object of divine favour and attained
communion with God. In the temple of Jagannath at Puri, caste
distinctions have been discarded. In Travancore there is a forest
temple dedicated to Ayyappa or Hariharaputra - here, too, no caste
distinctions are observed. Hindus, and even Muslims and Christians,
perform vows in this shrine with belief in the efficacy of the god's
protective help. It may be noted in this context that the usual
invocation of Ayyappa, namely, Saranam Ayyappa, is reminiscent of the
Buddhist prayer.
Yogesh Kumar Saxena, Advocate, practicing at High Court and also at
Supreme Court with his inclination for social reforms and enshrined
with the sprits of writing many articles and poems at poety.com

The Spirit of Indian philosophy has been described in these words:
"Its chief mark consists in concentration on the spiritual aspect,
belief in the intimate relationship of philosophy and life, the
inseparability of theory and practice and the insistence on intuition
coexisting with the acceptance of authority." Finally, it is the
synthetic vision of Indian philosophy which has made possible the
intellectual and religious tolerance so pronounced in Indian thought
throughout the ages. Recent squabbles between religious communities,
born of political factionalism, are alien to the basic Indian mind and
are indeed antagonistic to its unique genius for adaptability and
tolerance. Identification of mind as an independent personality and
the tenability to enter into harmony and oneness is resulting in
mental and physical suffering, the sense of obstruction and
disappointment towards disintegration of society. Desirstic approach,
the energy gets deplete object conscienceless leading to a state of
starvation and one. consciousness. Gita says ‘he whose mind is not
shaken by diversity, who does not hanker of the pleasure, and is free
from attachment, that meets with everything good or bad, neither
rejoices nor hates his wisdom is fixed’.
The mind of a person have steady wisdom and he is not to distressed
calamity, he is not affected by the afflictions arising form thunder,
lightening, storm, flood etc., and fear arising from the venomous and
ferocious. When he is pleased in an affluent condition, he does not
long for sensual pleasures. The body with the controlled mind possess
pious understanding or evenness of mind. He does not rejoice in pain
that may be fall on him. He has life or body as he identified self,
being routed in the self. He will not praise any body when later does
any good to him nor sensor any one when one does him any harm. For
when a man thinks of objects, attachment form desire is born, from
desire anger arises, form anger comes delusion, form dilution loss of
memory, form loss of memory the destruction of discrimination, form
distraction of discrimination, he perishes as he is swept away by
impulse of passion and emotion and he will act irrationally.
One has to abandon all desires in the world be free form attachment an
latent impressions doing everything out worldly and thus playing one’s
part in the world. He has to cut the bond of attachment form all
sides, by the sword of knowledge. He should to play with life and
should be loyal to ideals and must spiritualist out his thoughts,
emotions and actions.
Soul require solitude, In order to get peace mind has to become calm.
The physical existence must be free form all thoughts daily for
sometime and furring the period of wisdom dawns. Thought mediation,
one may study his true and realise he as spirit of freedom, spirit of
unity, spirit of immortality. Live in truth by becoming truthful, love
all, for love is unity, by reflecting upon thought. The man bonda may
perpetuate slavery, Beware of lust, greed, anger passion hatred,
jealousy and the unlimited wants of five senses. They are enemies.
There is no spiritual without love. Spiritual realisation
automatically makes us love every body. Truth and universal love raise
us to a spiritual status and we can see the divine life. This is the
highest vision which comes when he realise God in his heart and
surrender himself completely to him and there by wiping out his ego
sense. Purity truth and Constant remembrance of God comes by practice
and in pure mind otherwise passions will create havoc. Desire move the
sense, Tapas cuts the senses and annihilates desires. Tapas. is
worship meditations. Thus for controlling the bondage of the path of
spiritualism. In this manner there will not be required by thought
control nor the restrictions can be imposed upon such individual who
has given his oneself to the swept of impotent without feeling any
discontentment by the swept of impulsive notions. This is required for
the rectification of prevailing maladies in the society.
An assessment of enthusiasm
Self realization and thought meditation are correlated and both of
them lead an individual to search the goal of his life. The route he
chooses depends upon the decision he makes but the decision making
process is not within the competence of an individual. There are so
many guiding principles and role of inheritance is so crucial that the
person who swept away with a desire to search the gospel of life ,may
consider himself that he has lost his relevance in the process.
An urge may lead to big surge .The innovation and the ideals play a
vital role for the advancement. Some people are very optimistic and
sometime they appear to become over-enthusiastic. The individuals use
worship the rising sun and as such since an interaction with another
individual having an innocent behavior, may always be regarded as one
of the associates.
Life is threefold present ;the present having an experience, past with
a memory and past with a memory and a future with an
expectation .Every expectation is not in anticipation nor is depended
upon the circumstances. The harmonious construction is required to be
given effect for analysing the truth amongst the 3 dimensional
reflections. Thus the individuals who is associated with an optimistic
personality always try to germinate confidence and simultaneously an
introspection with retrospective effect.
Throwing a stone up on the Moon may not be considered as an
intelligent step but without throwing the stone in the upward
direction, the heights attended by the trees in the Garden may not be
crossed. It is only matter of appreciation and understanding by the
individuals as to whether he may understand that the fellow is
throwing the stone to cross the barrier or to some impossible
distances. However even after being conversant that the person may
suffer the innoclasm towards his objectives in life, but the said
Individual’s approach becomes a guiding factor to other associate.
The father of the individual enthusiastic personality may seldom be
not able to cope up the requirement of adjustment in life with his son
but certainly there is an implied appreciation which is not
demonstrated but can be felt with his behavior.
Thus the child who understand that it is on account of close affinity
that the matter of appreciation become an unnecessary formality and
this creates a misunderstanding.
People worships to God as he is unknown as usually inaccessible.
Likewise the enthusiasm of an individual is indirectly related with
the destiny and incase if the Luck permits, there is every possibility
of achieving the success. Who will not like to become conversant with
an important personality and likewise people outside may start
appreciation with a critical assessment regarding your performance.
Thus neither the disappointment is required nor there is any need to
provide undue prominence to such negative approach. Though thy path be
dark but there is a guiding factor which is given to the people by the
nature and not by the individuals. Thus one should not have taken into
consideration on that what the others think about you but you should
think what you think of yourself.
If you are not a solution, you are a problem.
When you have given nothing, ask for nothing.
Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
When you drink the water, remember the Spring.
Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of
mankind.
We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can
survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even
alone in genders.
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice
or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in
finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the
wrong.
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have,
beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser
than oneself.
Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom.
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we
can solve them.
It is impossible to make people understand their ignorance; for it
requires knowledge to perceive it and therefore he that can perceive
it hath it not.
A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands
of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and
you feed him for a lifetime.
Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.
A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not
discover it.
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask
remains a fool forever.
If you have any doubts that we live in a society controlled by men,
try reading down the index of contributors to a volume of quotations.
If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow
wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog,
to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.
If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be
made straight when you are dry
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not
know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge.
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not
understand.
You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but
when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about
the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing --
that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between
knowing the name of something and knowing Some thing.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know
where we can find information on it.
How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue!
Who would not be that youth? What pity is it
That we can die but once to serve our country!
The universe seems wondrous to me, with or without God. It has
powerful lines and uncompromising ways. Patience and time sit like
sages on the planets, strong and impersonal. There is a stark beauty
to all of this.
Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not
fanciful, save by trial.
And so, my fellow Indians; ask not what your country can do for you -
ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world:
ask not what India will do for you, but what together we can do for
the freedom of man.
Courage is of no value unless accompanied by justice; yet if all men
became just, there would be no need for courage.
Justice does not come from the outside. It comes from inner peace.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Justice requires that to lawfully constituted Authority there be given
that respect and obedience which is its due; that the laws which are
made shall be in wise conformity with the common good; and that, as a
matter of conscience all men shall render obedience to these laws.
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even
supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be
content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to
acquire it.
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we
can solve them.
When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my
religion.
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable
superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able
to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his
mouth
I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's
religion, if they can find out what it is.
It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not
to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to
you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but
the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
Everyone ought to worship God according to his own inclinations, and
not to be constrained by force.
The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good
ending, then having the two as close together as possible.
For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in
terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.
Justice is the constant and perpetual will to allot to every man his
due.
Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men
harming or being harmed.
Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for
humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and
kindness.
Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and
manner of devotion.
It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as we are, or are not
what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
Such evil deeds could religion prompt.
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality
touched by emotion.
Those who seek consolation in existing myth, often pay for their peace
of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known
about the way the world works.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Never confuse the faith with the supposedly faithful.
Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you
give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name
of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all
ends.
The only time anyone's admitted they were superior before was when
they were busy telling me why they're better than me.
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshipped anything but himself.
To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to
is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our
information within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we
feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But
each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself.
Whatever God's dream about man may be, it seems certain it cannot come
true unless man cooperates.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things
and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes religion.
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its
evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been
honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it
cannot be a bad one.
A cult is a religion with no political power
Angels dancing on the head of a pin dissolve into nothingness at the
bedside of a dying child.
Angels dancing on the head of a pin dissolve into nothingness at the
bedside of a dying child.
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you
what you think it is you want to hear
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found
in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share
in the government to the utmost.
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance
to do something Stupid.
Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if
you can stop people talking
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people
are right more than half the time.
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than
we deserve.
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment
by the corrupt few.
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level
of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and
deserve to get it good and hard.
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying
to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly
succeed, and are right.
The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the
election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment.
Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man
who will get the blame
Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them.
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this
world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-
wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of
government except all those other forms that have been tried from time
to time.
It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting.
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only
nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no
matter what it does.
So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity
To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us
human.
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have
been searching for evidence which could support this.
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being
unable to sit still in a room.
The fates have given mankind a patient soul.
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know
how bad I am.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few
drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few
drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to
call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly
The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good
is my religion.
Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except
wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the
grapes were good in the first place
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions.
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last
is to come to terms with everything
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age
brings wisdom.
Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their
capacity for experience.
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be
reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a
journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must
observe.
It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem
foolish.
Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened
by doing it.
Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
No man is wise enough by himself
Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.
A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from
a mountain top
Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd
from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is
not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.
Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd
from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is
not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.
Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a
fool.
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is
what we think of it; the tree is the real thing
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
Because you are in control of your life. Don't ever forget that. You
are what you are because of the conscious and subconscious choices you
have made
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an
equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no
other.
We think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way
we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely
convinced of God’s existence think faith is impossible for them. Not
so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something
you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the
more heroic your faith.
To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to
is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our
information within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we
feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But
each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself
What I am actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our
intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance
directly and fearlessly.
God, I don’t have great faith, but I can be faithful. My belief in you
may be seasonal, but my faithfulness will not. I will follow in the
way of Christ. I will act as though my life and the lives of others
matter. I will love. I have no greater gift to offer than my life.
Take it.
We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The
freedom to express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to
be. We are not going to give that freedom away and no one shall take
it from us!
Only the educated are free.
In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved
Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to
tolerate speech.
Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than
slavery.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the
highest political end.
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice
or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace
unless he has his freedom.
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three
unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience,
and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own
person is its ultimate reward.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of
thought which they seldom use.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much
liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the
love of ourselves.
I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.
Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a
cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, Idealists are very
apt to walk straight into the gutter.
Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded
everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.
Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.
If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must
find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in
something is too narrow a space to live.
Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with.
His mind was created for his own thoughts, not yours or mine.
And so faith is closing your eyes and following the breath of your
soul down to the bottom of life, where existence and nonexistence have
merged into irrelevance. All that matters is the little part you play
in the vast drama.
Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of
character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder
whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more
definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that
momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.
Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and
what is beyond it.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of
civilization
The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every
right that he claims for himself.
Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with
chaos.
You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every
war they kill you in a new way.
One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and
intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.
Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we
have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through
experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened,
ambition inspired, and success achieved
A man's character is his fate.
People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge
yourself one.
Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own
life - is the source from which self respect springs.
To succeed is nothing, it's an accident. but to feel no doubts about
oneself is something very different: it is character.
The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it
is done.
Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit
of his character.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a
confession of their character
I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I
think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's
a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.
Underlying the whole scheme of civilization is the confidence men have
in each other, confidence in their integrity, confidence in their
honesty, confidence in their future.
Civilization is the art of living in towns of such size the everyone
does not know everyone else.
Civilization is built on a number of ultimate principles...respect for
human life, the punishment of crimes against property and persons, the
equality of all good citizens before the law...or, in a word justice
The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has
nobody to thank.
I always admired atheists. I think it takes a lot of faith
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but
the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
If there were no God, there would be no Atheists
I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for
such an absurd world
I'm a born-again atheist.
I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no
holidays.
Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is
no God.
An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation
if He didn't.
I'm still an atheist, thank God.
It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in
order to save us.
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a
woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of
the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't
believe?"
Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakeable truth
through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever
believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
You've got your phenomenon on one hand. Concrete and knowable. On the
other hand you've got the incomprehensible. You call it God, but to
me, God or no, it remains just that, the unknowable
Ask a deeply religious Christian if he’d rather live next to a bearded
Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist
that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his
house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don’t seem so bad lately.
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds
are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her
tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even
the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve
of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him
How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in
the roller of an electric typewriter?
If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But
the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an
underachiever.
To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find
more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than
have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies
and misfortunes of mankind.
Crime is naught but misdirected energy.
Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles
with all its might against the attempts of crime.
The judge is condemned when the criminal is absolved.
There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and
the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat
of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of
every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.
Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that
society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand
atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society
has a direct interest.

This universe, in truth, is nothing. There were no heaven and no hell,
nor the same in existence at present. Every action has it’s own
repercussion.
This was the comedy of the error with an amplifier, having the co–
incident, that the life is originated in this universe. There was no
sign of existence after the creation of earth. The sun was having its
radiation on the newly created planets after disintegration. Thus the
earth was also having the turmoil of uncertainty in the process.
Gradually the heat transmitted in the atmosphere. There was the
creation of the gases. The nitrogen, helium and ozone gases were
emitting from the earth. There was the nuclear fusion and nuclear
fission. The molecules were disintegrated into the hydrogen particles
and likewise there was also the creation of oxygen from the ozone
gases. After unification of the molecules of oxygen with hydrogen, the
water came into existence in the form of the gases. There was a period
of transmission of energy in the atmosphere. However, gradually the
preservation of the heat could have only been regulated. The coverage
was provided to the universe from the outer periphery of ozone layer
on the outer side of the atmosphere. Thus by getting the protection
through the outer radiation from the infra red and ultra violet rays,
there was the cooling effect in the atmosphere. This process has
gradually converted the steam of the water particles situated in the
atmosphere to the condensation process. By having the rain of the
water and other chemicals from the internal surface of the atmosphere,
there was the accumulation of the water every where. However,
subsequently due to the emission of the particles from the lower
surface of the earth, there was again the vapor formation. These
processes remain operative for thousands of millions years before when
as a mere co-incidence, the water was accumulated in the ocean of the
earth. There was no such rain as were in existence, but the mountains
started from where the process of evaluation generated. There was the
alga formation on the mountains and ridges and similarly there was a
jelly formation in the water due to friction of the molecules. Thus
the live molecule was created in side the jelly like substance in the
water and thereafter the formation of the ameba taken place on this
earth. The theory of evaluation of life is the subsequent process.
The vital question for consideration for our human being is to the
effect as to whether the same process is a mere co-incident at the
time of the birth of an individual. There is the generating of the
heat in the process of life when the idea is exchanged. These ideas
ultimately become the process of reproduction. There is the
combination of the molecule again in the similar process. Thereafter
the creation of the zygote inside the ovary of the female. Thus if we
consider the life being originated from the ocean, whether the
penetration of the sperm in the egg is also the starting point of the
theory of reproduction. Ultimately the life is converted into a
reality when the living organism took place in the process. We forget
that the existence of our life is similar to the creation of the
universe. Thus we start thinking for our survival. The struggle is of
no significance because it continue for some period and thereafter it
vanishes from its origin and thereafter the human being realizes that
his existence is for the time being.
This was a mere co-incident that a particular ‘Y’ chromosome was
penetrated in the egg and meet with ‘X’ chromosome. Thereafter the
process of life started. The shape and the identity of the person are
concentrated on particular genes. When our existence is of such a
small molecule from where we can get ourselves being recognized with
some identity. This is the illusion of life when we claim for the
recognition of our existence. The creation of the false existence is a
direct assault on the identity of the power that has created our life.
Even if we deny taking into our identity, the very existence of God,
but still the value of the life cannot be put to any doubt for always
being a controlling factor over the living being.
This is the starting point of our wisdom. The moment we give up to our
intelligentsia through logical perceptions by converting it from
analysis by observation, the reality of truth comes to the memory.
This process ultimately lead to an individual from committing any sin
as the repercussion of the same may be detrimental to one’s own
existence. No body will like to loose his own existence for the mere
satisfaction of his egoistic nature. Thus ultimately we use to connect
ourselves from some controlling power and thereafter the existence of
God comes to our conscience. This is the ultimate truth of life.
History of man is one long search for God. However, we cannot
subscribe to the theologian’s theory of God. Life is the image of God,
which is essentially a spiritual being. If the equation of life is
taken into consideration, there can be no doubt that the man cannot
eternally remain forgetful of his spiritual nature. Then he will find
out his self.
Time is having three-dimensional Picture, in which, there are certain
memories of the past having it’s permanent impact on the way of
thinking; the present as we have visualized it from such angle; and
the future with our expectation to be fulfilled. Thus in this process,
we may side-tracked from our inherent characteristics and may start
challenging the time-honored customs. The reckless spirit of defiance
of well-established sacred principle becomes the way of life. There is
the open crusade against the religion. There is no religion equal to
it’s potential, in which, there may be compassion for the animals and
birds, truthfulness in the behavior and love for the fellow being.
Thus the religion is based on the philosophy of brotherhood and
spiritual cult of life. The places, where there is the program
organized to slaughter the animals, as that of giving the sacrifices
to the deity, these are not the places of religion but these are
slaughterhouses.
I have known the truth, but you can not know it. This is the preaching
of every prophet. There lies their greatness. Thus they bring down the
highest truth to the door of every man but never allow it to reach to
such man. This is the religion of life. The true religion, which may
be achieved through spiritual knowledge, seeks the truths of the inner
world.
Bondage is of the mind, and freedom also is of the mind. A man is free
if he constantly thinks and feels: I am a free soul. Life and death
are in the mind of the man. Thus one should have a burning faith in
God. He may feel that he has no bondage .He will fellow the
instruction of the God.
YOGESH KUMAR
SAXENA ,ADVOCATE, HIGH COURT
H.I.G.203, PREETAM NAGAR, SULEM SARAI, ALLAHABAD, U.P. INDIA
0532/2436451—(2)-2637720—(Mobile)-9415284843----
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