Hinduism: A study in opposites
Hi darling,
I hope you like this new paper and writing style of mine. For me, it gives me much more customised options to write to you the way I want. It also looks better, I hope. I plan to make certain improvements as well on top of this, hopefully I can make them soon.
There has been some trouble at work for the past couple of days, which has been keeping me mentally stressed and flustered, but on the bright side I took up personal training at the gym. It has just been 10 days but it has already shown good results. In a future letter, I might expound on my thoughts about physical fitness and beauty, but for this one I have chosen a different topic.
I do not know when and how people start investigating, questioning or even believing in a supreme power, god or organised religion. I haven’t given much thought to this subject till now, but I feel there is some wisdom in the ancient texts, which we should critically examine. I have been enamoured with Buddhist philosophy and texts in the pasts and have felt that some of their points are quite applicable in our daily lives, while some of them are quite extreme. But just a week back, I started my investigation into the religion I was born into - Hinduism.
My first source is a brilliant book by Wendy Doninger - “On Hinduism”, which is a collection of essays on many facets of Hinduism.
My other source would be the excellent channel I came across which explains ancient Hindu texts in a very lucid manner. Such an intellectual giant, but with such capacity to explain.
My third source would obviously be all the customs, rituals and stories I have heard growing up. My current thought is that unlike other organised religions, it is such a fascinating tapestry of opposites woven together. Let me explain further
Monotheism vs Polytheism - Hinduism is primarily known as a polytheistic religion, with 33 crore gods, but even these gods have categories. The Vedas mention about Indra, Varun, Agni. But, in later texts we find mention of the Trimurti - Brahmna, Vishnu, Shiv. But, quite interestingly, in the Upanishads, which came slightly after the vedas, we find that God is one nirugana entity. This view of Advaita Vedanta was popularised by Swami Vivekananda.
Vegetarianism - Contrary to popular belief, majority of India is non-vegetarian, it is fascinating to note how in some parts of India, God is worshipped with meat offering, while this would be sheer madness in other parts. This applies to the consumption of meat too.
Heaven, Hell and Rebirth - A central idea of Hinduism is Karma and the idea of rebirth. But, in many places we find mention of Heaven and Hell. There are quite a few ways in which both of these co-exist in our texts.
Non-violence or Ahimsa - While ahmisa is praised in quite a few places, the necessity of violence also shows up in many of the subplots in our epics
Worldly pleasures - There are conflicting accounts on whether we should enjoy worldly pleasures ( though not in excess) or renounce everything and lead an ascetic life.
Combine all of the above, with the fact, that we have multiple layers of gods, multiple creation myths ( how we came to be in this universe), multiple afterlife versions, multiple versions of the same major epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, multiple ways to realise moksh or gain good karma and we get a truly fascinating tapestry of different beliefs all calling themselves Hinduism.
I hope you try to examine all of this critically. You might be very angry and some of the passages which are not at all women-centric and I would totally understand. Currently, in India there is a political movement to look at our religion as supreme and not in critical lenses, which is destroying the essential beauty of it.
Best,
Dad