HINDUISM,HINDU,DHARMA,SANAATHANA DHARMA (QUESTIONS & ANSWERS) DR. N. GOPALAKRISHNAN, Ph. D., D.Litt. What is Hinduism ? The puraanas tell that Himalayam samaarabhya yaavath indu sarovaram tham deva nirmitham desam hindustanam prachakshathey. The nation which starts from Himalayas and ends in Indian ocean and which is created by the god is known as Hindustanam. And those who are living there are Hindus. How the ‘Hindus’ are defined ? Aa sindo sindu paryantham yasya bhartha bhoomikam maathru bhoo pitru bhoo schaiva sa vai hindu riti smruthaa: Those who consider and respect the country which extends from Indus valley ( sindu river ) upto Indian ocean as their motherland, father land or holy land, they are the Hindus. ( all those consider Bhratham as their own mother/father/holy land they are the Hindus) Why it is said that Hinduism is not a religion ? It is not created by an individual / prophet/ Rishi . So it is not the opinion (matham) or advise of an individual. So it is not a religion. It is the contribution of thousands of Rishies. Who created Hinduism? Thousands of Rishies, during the course of thousands of years could formulate a perfect style/way of thinking and practicing various aspects and concepts in the life. Those are codified as the customs and rituals or in short acharas. These acharas combined together form the dharma . Dharma is the way of life. So Hinduism is the way of life. Why it is known as sanathana dharma? Sanathana word means ( according to Bhagavath geetha) the one which cannot be destroyed by any method and the one which is ever existing in everything which is immovable and non perishable is the sanaathanam. So this dharma is ever existing and it cannot be destroyed . So it is sanaathanam. Is it not true that something which has a beginning , has an end also ? It is true for the one which has a beginning. Sanathana dharma does not have a beginning so it will not have an end also. If it starts decaying someone /avathara will come to protect and energize to bring back the dharma with all its positive results as it is told in Bhagavath Geetha. What is the meaning of Dharma ? Dharma is the one which is guiding, protecting, supporting, …you . Dharanaath dharma …the one which is protecting you is dharma. Can we say Hinduism and sanaathana dharma are the same ? Yes! They are the same and remember that there is nothing like Hinduism . It is an English word created by the foreigners. There are communism, socialism and capitalism but nothing like Hinduism. Why some people call it a religion? When other pathways are known as ‘religion’, like the one based on Jesus, Mohammed and so on, use of a similar word may help others to understand our dharma easily if the word Hinduism is used. Hence people, particularly the British started using the word Hinduism. Now everyone is using the same. Is the word Indian and Hindu synonym ? Definitely yes. According to the definition, the word ‘Indian’ is same as Hindu. Majority of the politicians may not agree with that. Because they are full of wrong impressions created during the last 250 years of foreign rule. Then where the Indian Christians and Muslim will fit in ? They are also Hindus. They are Hindu Christians and Hindu Muslims. Just like we say American Christian, Pakistani Muslim, etc. When was Hindu dharma started? None knows the answer. According the archeological evidence, the Vedas might have got composed sometimes like 6000 – 8000 BC, in the present form. So the dharma might have formed earlier to this. Since it is a way of life, none can trace the beginning point of the dharma. If it would have been a contribution of some individual, we can say from the period of that individual. Here that approach focusing an individual is not possible What are the archeological evidences on sanathana dharma ? The archeological studies carried out in Kalibhangan, Bhagavan pura, Mehargarh, etc show that the oldest artifacts available are of the period BC 8250. So we can presume the Hindu civilization or the one something similar to that started blooming during then. There may be difference of opinion for this comment. Is the Indus valley civilization same as the Hindu dharma civilization? Definitely all the proofs available say so. Particularly those are available recently. Even though foreigners and the so called Indian intellectuals wanted to distort the true history and wanted to prove wrongly that they are different from Hindu dharma. The conclusion is that both are the same. But many people said earlier against this conclusion and few still continue to say so. why ? There was an intentional conspiracy to distort the facts which was spearheaded and created by the British to confuse Indians through the Aryan invasion theory and to create a feeling among Indians that they are also the invaders like the British ( to Indian subcontinent). So they wanted to prove that Indus valley, Harappan civilization, etc are entirely different from the Vedic civilization and Hindu culture . This was fully utilized by our pseudo intellectuals and also the so called secularists for creating a complex in the Indian mind. Who were/ are the Aryans ? The word Aryan does not mean any race or a group of people. It only means the scholarly people. You know arya vaidya sala, aryaavartham, aryavepu, aryaputra all meant for ‘scholarly’ meaning. During the last days of Maxmuller , he too commented strongly that, Aryan word has got nothing to do with a race. Where can we see the use of this word in Vedas? In Vedas there are a number of places where the Arya word is used as “krunvantho viswam aryam = let us make the world a glorious one. Srunvanthu viswe amruthasya putraa aaye dhamaani divyaani thasthu = the children of immortals, Let us come together and chant the great songs. Here too the message is Arya. Every wife , in olden days, use to call her husband of royal family as aryaputra. Why some people say the Vedic civilization and Hindu civilization are different ? Vedic civilization itself is the Hindu civilization and they are not different. There is nothing like Hindu civilization which is different from Vedic culture . When was the Vedas written or composed ? Vedas are known as anaadi which means the date of origin is not known. It is also said that it existed from time immemorial. But the Veda Vyasa compiled it in the present form. What is the real meaning of the word Veda? Veda was formed from ‘vid’ means knowledge. ( more details will be available when we discuss about Vedas separately) What the Vedas say about the date of its origin? Brihaspati prathamam jaayamaanam thishyam nakshatram abhisambhaboova . The delta cancri (thishyam) star when got occulted by Jupiter planet, and when the planet moved forward, it looked as the star was born newly.. This is an astronomical phenomenon. The computer simulation studies on the movement of the celestial bodies, showed that this occulting might have taken place almost during BC 4275 or so. If this Vedic line might have written after seeing this celestial phenomenon, then this line (which is in the last part of Rig Veda) might have been composed about 6250 years ago. So the last part of Rig Veda might have composed during this period. If this is true the first part might have got composed about 2 to 3 thousand more years ago. The last part of Vedas are composed of modern Sanskrit and the first part with vedic Sanskrit. So the Vedas may be more than 7 – 8 thousand years old. Is this observation agree with other scholars’ opinion ? No ! This is not agreeing with Indian scholars Opinion. Indian scholars like Balagangadhara Thilak, Jnanaanda Saraswati, Dayananda Sarawati, and so on fix the period of Vedas 20 to 50 thousand years ago. Some other ‘scholars’ fix the period around 1000 BC or so, like their western or Russian gurus. Does it agree with foreign scholars? Some of the foreign scholars started rethinking and proving that this period ( 6 – 8 thousand years old) may be correct. Some of them even conclude that Vedas are of 2 to 3 thousands old only. Now a rethinking is picking up fast. Some of them also fix the period as ‘many thousand years’ ago. Does it mean that Hindu dharma is the oldest religion ? If you want to label Hindu dharma as a religion , it is the oldest religion. If you want to consider it as the way of life then also Hindu dharma is the oldest codified systematic way of life in the world and Rig Veda is the oldest literature. How the message of Hinduism spread from generation to generation? This dharma spread from place to place and generation to generation through the practice of acharas ( seen and heard) from the parents, books, illustrations, etc. The messages also got transferred from mouth to ear by oral traditions Did Hindu dharma spread outside Indian continent ? Yes ! It spread through out the world, including African continent, American continents and so on. Many archeological proofs are available now.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 01:29:06 +0000
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