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Monotheism in Sonatan Dharma - Hinduism

By Indrajit Ganguli

Non-rational thinking in most religions has been bothering me for the past so many years and I thought of jotting down some points concerning Hinduism, to which I was born. Hinduism never really went from polytheism to monotheism or monism. All systems and thoughts exist in this religion or rather Dharma. In the Vedic days, there were neither polytheism nor monotheism in the sense we think today. To be more clear, there was no worship of deities. There were no temples. The Vedic people would pray in the open sitting around a "bedi (altar) " on which fire was lit and this sacrificial ritual was known as jagna. This yagna was done to praise all or some "debotas" that are mentioned in the Vedas. Even today, there are some rituals that will prove this point. One example is the Hindu wedding, which is performed around the fire, without invoking the almighty God. It is the fire of the jagna, Agni, which is witness to the ceremony.

The debotas are nothing but representing the forces or the beauties of nature. It is but natural for human beings to show their respect to the forces of nature and show their love towards the beauties of nature. We all do that, sometimes without knowing. Up to this point, we are in the realm of rational thinking, which is solid positive thinking as far as our environment is concerned. We see the sun, the moon, we see dawn and dusk, we see and feel thunder, the earth gives us food, rain and river give us life sustaining water and so on. Therefore, these are the debotas and our forefathers respected them, and very rightly so. This rational and simple thinking kept them bound to the earth and not to some hypothetical unknown factor, which we generally call God. The Rig-Veda (RV) has several verses praising Indra, the debota of rain and thunder and the king of all debotas. Nevertheless, in the same Rig-Veda, we never come across words like Bhagwan, Ishwar, Paramatma, etc. If we believed in God almighty, as many people interpret the Vedas and tell us, then there would have been several hymns for Bhagwan or Ishwar. We were and are constantly told that all these debotas represent different aspects of the one and only Paramatma. That is not true, and this explanation was to justify the change in the concept towards monotheism or to be in the international monotheistic religious club.

It is not uncommon to find scholars arguing that monotheistic concept existed during the Vedic period and the doctrine of one supreme God was in such names as Prajapati, Dharr and Tatr. At times, the scholars refer to several hymns of the Rig-Veda to prove their point. The hymns often cited are purusha-sukta (X-90), nasadiya sukta (X-129) and a few others. A.A. Macdonell clarifies this point with his explanation of the religious beliefs and practices of the Vedic people. According to him, the gods of the RV had not become dissociated from the physical phenomena they represented. Having many attributes such as power, brilliance, benevolence, and wisdom in common with others, each god exhibited few distinctive attributes. The idea that various deities are but different forms of a single divine being, however, never developed into monotheism, for none of the regular sacrifices in the  Vedic period were offered to a single god. As I have mentioned earlier a very noteworthy feature of the Vedic religion is that that there were no temples and no idols. People said their prayer in the open air and worshipped the spirits of nature with simple sacrificial rites.

The Vedic people worshipped 33 gods or rather debatas. Each of the debatas is on the whole, regarded as quite independent and not in any way subordinate or inferior to any other god. Expressing his views on the Vedic gods in general, Deshmukh says, "The main purpose of the hymns was to please the god invoked by praising his power and greatness. It does not constitute a distinct type of religious thought". According to Macnicol, " it is obvious that the religion of which those hymns are the utterance cannot be described as strictly theistic or monotheistic in the sense in which today we understand those words."

Monotheistic concepts in some of the hymns as described earlier thus appear to be interpolations. For example, the Purusha Sukta of Rig-Veda mentions how the four castes emerged. By determining the period when caste system was vigorously promulgated, the period of interpolations in the Rig-Veda can be established and so is the case in the Gita. Likewise, several concepts such as Purusa, sat (existence), asat (non-existence), kama (desire) as the first seed of mind, resemble the concepts expressed in Sankhya philosophy. Inclusion of these concepts in the last section of the Rig-Veda appears no different in intent than interpolations made in the Yoga Sutra, Sankhyakarika, Upanishads, and the original Gita. It is reasonable to assume that final interpolations in the Rig-Veda were made at about the period when the original Gita was altered into Bhagavad-Gita. If any of the Vedic gods had been truly recognized as God, there is every reason to believe that the name would have survived through subsequent generations, especially when monotheistic ideas gained prominence. However, it did not happen. On the contrary, we find all the names used to address God (the supreme) as depicted in the Bhagavad-Gita are non-existent in the Rig Veda, e.g., Isvar, Isam, Paramatma, Parmeshwar, Prabhu, Maheshwar, and Bhagavan. From these, it is evident that the concept of one supreme God, as depicted in the Bhagavad-Gita, did not exist in the Veda. Rather, it came as a new concept and was adopted by the Indian priestly class to revive their almost lost religious authority.

When and why did monotheism come in India? To find that out we have to go a little deeper. There is six recognized schools of thought in ancient India: Sankhya Darshan, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Mimansa, and Vedanta. Beside these, there was also Lokayatta of Charvak. The oldest of all these is the Sankhya Darshan. Kapila  founded it, around 700 B.C. Next is Yoga and this as a system is based on Kapila's Sankhya Darshan. The earliest major systematic work on Yoga is by Patanjali, whose period is believed to be 400B.C. The Nyaya Darshan is the science of logic and it was founded by Gautama (not Buddha) who lived ca. 200/300 B.C. Baisesika is the system of atomic philosophy expounded by Kanada. All the above were rational philosophies and as a reaction to these rational philosophies, the orthodox Brahmins started two new systems of philosophy in consonance with their ancient practices and faith. The Mimansa School insisted on the performance of Vedic rites, and the Vedanta school proclaimed the belief in a Universal Soul, which was first inculcated in the Upanishads. Next is Charvaka's Lokayatta (Materialism) and his period is dated around 550 B.C. While discussing the special features of Sankhya philosophy, German scholar, Richard Garbe points out:

1. A God or gods play no part in the system of Kapila.

2. It seeks to solve the problems of the universe and man simply by means of reason.

3. Sankhya is much closer to naturalism and rationalism in the history of thought.

In "The Philosophy of ancient India," Garbe expresses great admiration for Kapila, saying, "In Kapila's doctrine, for the first time in the history of the world, the complete independence and freedom of the human mind, its full confidence in its own powers were exhibited." Macdonell asserts that for the first time in the history of the world it "asserted the complete independence of the human mind and attempted to solve its problems solely by the aid of reason.

During the period in question, from 5th century B.C. up to 8th century A.D., there was decline in Brahmanism and the new religions of Buddhism and Jainism were well established. Brahmanism or as we call Hinduism continued to coexist but the Brahmins lost their position and power since both these religions did not recognize the authorities of the Vedas or that of the Brahmins. Buddhism and Jainism did not recognize a creator God and the basic thinking was more in line with Sankhya and Yoga philosophies.

Though the organized movement for the revival of Brahmanism began in the eighth century A.D., the Brahmanical religion began to regain its lost position in the Chalukyas and the Pallavas in south India. The Brahmanic religion in this period continued to follow the Vedic tradition. Up to this time, religious tolerance was shown towards the opposing indigenous religions, Buddhism and Jainism, even by those kings who accepted Brahmanism.

Monier Williams in his book "Indian Wisdom" observes, "Hinduism and Buddhism coexisted and were tolerant of each other in India till about the end of eighth century of our era." This was the time when Shankaracharya, popularly known as Shankara, was born in Kerala in 788 A.D. Shankara expounded his philosophy of Advaita (non-dualism) by declaring Isvara (God) as omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite and absolute. God is the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the world. He can be approached by devotional worship and desire less action. Here is the starting point of monotheistic thinking in India. Where did Shankara get this idea? Shankara was born on the Malabar Coast, where the Christians missionaries and the Jewish community had been active for centuries. Further, the agents of Islam, the Arabs had also penetrated the Malabar coastal area decades before the religious training of Shankara had begun. Thus, by the time Shankara was mastering the religious philosophy, concepts and practices of Hinduism from his Guru Gobinda, three versions of monotheism - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - were quite familiar to the intellectuals and religious men of this area. It was easy for Shankara to foresee the formation of a fourth version - Hinduism - by using the same basic tenets of monotheism to serve the purposes of Brahmanic revival. According to historian R.C. Majumdar, "Sankara's monism was based upon Islamic creed which he had learnt from the forefathers of the Moplas, Navayats and Labbes of South India." Arab settlers were in Kerala, south India. Mopla literally means son-in law. Arab menfolk who came and settled down in Kerala married local women, and thereby were known as sons-in-laws or Moplas.

It was during this period that the original Gita was interpolated and monotheistic concept inserted into what is known as Bhagavad-Gita today. This was done to establish the historical legitimacy of the monotheistic concept. It was for this purpose that the redactors added chapters I and X to the Rig-Veda, reconstructed the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata by identifying Rama and Krishna with The Supreme Being, added several verses to Sankhya Karika to change the original concept, and the concept of Purusha and Prakriti, and added more than 100 verses to the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali to introduce the concept of Isvara (God) and to interpret Yoga as union with God.

The greatest opposition to what Shankara preached was from the Buddhists, Jains, and the followers of Sankhya Yoga. Burning their books, by demolishing their teaching centers and monasteries, crushed these opponents. Brahmanical revivalism continued for centuries after Shankaracharya.

Gita is the most popular religious book of the Hindus. The original Gita (it was known then as Gita and not Bhagavad-Gita) had only 84 verses and the basic concept was based on Shamkya philosophy- proper knowledge, proper motivation, right action and fulfillment of desires. Action of the people, when influenced by these qualities, brings excellence to their work and thereby advances the society. The absence of such action, on the other hand, causes impoverishment and sorrow (dukkha). The original Gita dramatizes this view well by saying that achieving excellence in action is Yoga. It implies that mere work is not enough. Rather, one should aim at excellence in whatever one is engaged. The Bhagavad-Gita has 700 verses and that will mean that 616 verses were interpolated. Original Gita was composed around 5th /6th century B.C. The interpolated Bhagavad-Gita and other scriptures were corrupted between 800 and 1000 A.D. Research work concerning the interpolation of Gita was done by German scholars such as Richard Garbe, Rudolf Otto, JW Hauer, and others and their findings were later confirmed when copies of the original Gita was discovered in Bali, Indonesia and another one in Farukkabad. Both these versions had 84 verses only (ref. Gita as it was by Phulgenda Sinha)

After the revival of Brahmanism in about 800 A.D., the philosophic outlook and the thought pattern of the people were transformed through the Bhagavad-Gita. This was done in two ways: (i) by distorting the basic concepts of the rational thinkers of ancient India, such as Kapila, Buddha, Mahabir, Patanjali, and Vyasa, and (ii) by suppressing free thought. Both the concepts of right action and proper knowledge were distorted in the Bhagavad-Gita. Action for personal, family, and social betterment was dismissed as insignificant. The life of renunciation (sannyasi) and desire, less action was glorified (karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachan). Action and inaction were reinterpreted to mean the same. Material wealth and prosperity were called maya (illusionary). Knowledge meant knowing theistic doctrine, the Vedanta, the Brahman, and the Supreme God.

Further, the caste system was legitimized in the Bhagavad-Gita. Women's position went down in the society and people below or outside of the caste system were declared untouchable for life. A sense of inferiority, due to birth and fate, was instilled in the masses.

In the case of India, the entry of monotheism or more appropriately, monism is inseparably allied with distortion and denigration of existing rational thoughts. What this distortion of rational thought has done to this country we now see it all over.

 Mr. Indrajit Ganguli writes from Germany. His family is originally from Madaripur, Bangladesh. Comments should be directed at Ijganguli@aol.com

SRI CHAITANYA

Sri Chaitanya, (1486-1533) also known as Krisna Chaitanya, originally named Bishwambhar Mishra, was a Brahman-turned-ascetic who through his personal devotion invigorated the Baisnab community of Bangla and Orissa. He is credited with founding the fifth of the great Baisnab lineages, the Gaurio Sampraday, which today dominates the Baisnab religious life of northeast India and Bangladesh.

Ref: Bimanbihari Majumdara, Shri Chaitanyacaritera Upadana, Calcutta, 1959; Sushil Kumar De, Early History of the Baisnab Faith and Movement in Bangla, Calcutta, 1961; A K Majumdar, Chaitanya: His Life and Doctrine (A Study in Vaisnavism), Bombay, 1969; Edward C Dimock & Tony K Stewart, 'Introduction' to The Caitanya Caritamrta of Krishnadasa Kobiiraj (Tr. & Ed by Tony K. Stewart

Chaitanya and the making of Bangalee Collective consciousness

Bangalee civilization could merely be dated back to the age of Budhist-roving-monks called Charjapadis. These monks used to go around the neighborhoods of North-Bengal (for alms as sustenance).They used to observe the life-styles of the local populace and wrote ballads about their life, problems and dreams etc in the form of folk-poems and ballads. Religious content or Buddhist doctrines were not much in those ballads though. That was however the first people's literature of Bangla and was supposed to be as of now the first literature. The pattern of ballad literature went on being carried through oral and aural traditions from generations to the next. This same type was found throughout the history henceforth in many ballads, collected by many over the years. The collection as we know now are in Purbo-Banga gitika ( a collection in 8 volumes), we find epics called Manasha Mangal Kabyo , Chandi Mangal Kabyo and other Mangal kavyas. This was a style which recounted the various myths of the popular culture and showed the value-systems the Bangalees had during the middle ages. The period of these kabyos were a broad spectrum from late Charyapad to the Nawabi period (of course they were compiled and published in the Nineteenth Century).

The Pre-Modern age or the Nawabi age in literature started mainly after the consolidation of the kingdom of Gaur by Hossain Shah. He gave Bangla a centralized territory independent of the Delhi Sultanate and started seriously the development the Bangalee culture and language in full steam. Before him various Pathan and Moghul rulers came to Bangla mostly opposing the Delhi rule, but never started so to say a Bangalee cultural movement. Hossain Shah was a benevolent but shrewd Gauradhipoti or King. He wanted the kingdom to have a culture and religion different from that in North India, different from the state-religion and state-culture of Delhi sultanate and also different from the North Indian Hindu culture.This he did to make Bangalees have a different culture and different value-system than that of the rest of India. He undertook to translate all the Hindu epics in Bangla, interesting to note that Mahabharat and Ramayan was first translated by Muslims like PARAGAL KHAN. And for this Hossain Shah was called by the Hindus as the Avatar of Krishno. In the religious world occurred a revolution of sorts, the first of its kind in Bangla, a complete social revolution which upturned the whole orthodox Hindu-Brahminical structure, the concept of civil disobedience, mass movement and mass rallies were first introduced, just imagine 600 years ago.

The Bhakti culture that Chaitanya popularized is a unique version started in Bangla in parallel to other unique versions that were introduced by Kabir and Nanak and more or less comparable to the Sufi/Bhakti/Fakir sub-culture of Lalan and Siraj Sai(n). Philosophically the cue was taken from the Bhedabhed or Dbaitodbaito school of Indian philosophy. As against Adyaitobad of Sankaracharya, the Dbaitodbaito philosophy of Madhabacharya retains the distinction of Jibatma and the Paramatma and considers that the Reality or the Supreme is always manifested in terms of a human or humanoid figure, i,e the Supreme God head "Sat-chit-ananda" is manifested through a Sat-Chit-Ananda-Bigraha" .This Bigrahas are reincarnations of Bishnu the Supreme-God-head. Now since the concept of "Aham Brahmasmi" i,e I am the God is absent here, in this philosophy the best path to God in order to be in unison with the God-head is to completely surrender oneself (one's ego that is) to the manifestations. According to this school a Bhakti marg or Bhakti-Jog is more important than Karma or Jnan jog. Only through a complete surrender and Bhakti one can attain a near unity with Bishnu. Incidentally this is very similar to the Sufi school of Islam which sees the surrender to Allah the eternal as the core of Islam, The movement started with certain necessities and had to struggle it out with some orthodoxy in the society but after Chaitanya the effects of the movement increased manifold and left a mark in practically all aspects of Bangalee life and all other philosophies to come.

Bangla was very anarchist right from the beginning, as a matter of fact from the days of Charyapad the main-stream of Hindu orthodoxy could never have a strong footing in Bangla.The influence of the Tantrism coming through Tibet was very high, Bangla never had any Shaibo community and was mostly because of the tantric influence almost totally feminine-idol-worshipers and Shakta. Because of the power concept of the Shaktas, the philosophical root was the Adbaito  school of Sankara. Coupled with the Sankara school came in the Tantrik influence creating a unique Shakti thread in Hinduism.Ironically Baishnavism of Chaitanya came out with one deity (Krishno) and a masculine religion, yet unlike the south-Indian counterpart it did not have the strict monastic or ascetic style of functioning. This creed started to take religion as a veritable private matter as a communication with the ishtodebota (the personal god) even as against the kuladebota (family god) or jati-devata (community god).The concept of Radha-Gobindo as a kul-debota could not be lineated to Chaitanya or his teachings. This concept was so revolutionary (in spite of having coming from a different route of Shakti) that not only it made the religious practices unfettered off the shackles of rituals and strictures of the Tantrik and the Brahminical pattern, but also it changed the religious practices of the other schools, The Brahminical structure of non-touchability and strict class-barricades broke down (the famous episode of Kalidas in Chaitanya charitamrito , where we find a son of Brahman Baishnav is waiting to eat off of the left-overs of the untouchables and is only living off the alms from the un-touchables or "lowly-born" , when asked he explained this is the best way to unite with the ishto-debota as these so-called lowly-borns are the manifestations of the Sat-chit-ananda-bigraha. The Shakta pattern of worship underwent a revolutionary change. We have Bama Khyapa (an erstwhile Tantrik),Ramprosad who started conceiving Kali as Shyama , the beautiful domesticized deity in terms of a daughter of the family. The whole concept of rigidity in tantrism was replaced by a bhakti-editioned Shakti-bigraha.The wonderful era of experimentations in syncretism started. In the Baul tradition the tantric concept of sexuality was mingled through a Bhakti-edition of DEHATATBIK (relating to esoteric concept with the human body) philosophy. The FAKIR tradition started viewing Kanai (Krishno) and Allah as one and the same. Came the fantastic concept of conceiving Rasul in the lap of Ma Amina, an icon directly borrowed from the Jasoda-Krishno figure. The AULIA tradition which came through Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia of Delhi and Pir Nooruddin (Nanda Rishi as it is known in parts of Gaur) of Cherar-e-sharif fame of Kashmir got transformed here in terms of conceiving Krishno and Allah as the Sat-Chit-Ananda. All these philosophies came very close to each other. People used to worship the pirs, darvishes, baul-goshains, sannyasins(ascetics) with the same reverence. The tradition went on unabetted till Ramkrishno when he accepted Kalma and used to follow namazes five times a day. There was never a question asked about any difference of any religion or philosophical school. It went so as that Rev Krishno Mohan Bandopadhyay, a protestant missionary, wrote or oversaw the writing of Kristokirtan in the same style as Hari-nam-Sankirtan. Still the Bangalee  Christians sing on their mass the Krishto-kirtans instead of the western hymns in the villages of Bangla. Politically a natural withdrawal from the institutional politics and power bickerings and anarchism is still the main prop of Bangla politics and cultural life. Still even now any Bangali family would consider any professional job more desirable than an administrative job. If there is one factor that forms the backbone of a Bangalee sahajiya culture that is the movement of Sri Chaitanya .This is the logical starting point of modern Bangalee civilization and if there is one book that epitomizes the ideal of a Bangalee it is the Chaitnya charitamrita. 

Source: Soumitra@ix.netcom.com

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