Is there really a Hindu religion?

 Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/183585/

For the past month or so, readers have been asking me this question via email - Is there really a Hindu religion? Majority of them are youngsters, beneficiaries of modern education and are interested in culture. But all they listen to are social media and the politicians' blather only.

I replied rather irritated, "Hindus have a uniqueness. It is only them, who learn about their religion from their enemies and from those who have vowed to destroy their religion."

Just give it a thought. How many numerous philosophers and scholars have existed here. How many books have been written. Nobody reads those. But they form an opinion about Hindu religion listening to the hatred speeches of those who do not have even an iota of understanding on the history or the spirituality of Hindu religion. Is there any other religion that exhibits such a pitiful state?

To form an understanding by reading books and placing the concepts within the respective historical context is known as the thought process. To speak of an opinion formed based on a few sentences of WhatsApp or Facebook chats is not only ignorance, but also the unscrupulousness of spreading ignorance.

Those who raise the question as to whether there is really a Hindu religion are predominantly simple-minded politicians who are ignorant of the cultural history and the ways religions function.

To the question now. Is there really a Hindu religion? Did the Hindu religion existed before thousand years?

Let's first understand this: The term 'religion' as we define it now is just an idea. Generally, the uneducated believe that all the ideas we speak of now had existed always. The reality though is that the ideas that we describe now were formed within the last three centuries. Examples of this are democracy, individual human rights etc.

The history of how these ideas were formed and how they were fortified and proliferated has been written in quite some detail. We cannot discuss this topic without even a minimal understanding that history.

Religion is also one such idea. It was formed around sixteenth century AD in Europe. Religion is based on the French word 'Religio'. Until the seventeenth century, it meant "worshiping the divine".

Around 16th century AD, various Christian sects were formed in Europe in protest against the Catholic Church. They were together called Protestant Christianity or Reformed Christianity. The term 'religion' was used to denote those different christian sects. In due course, that term developed and took the meaning of the present day.

This present day meaning therefore took root entirely out of Christian ideologies. Even today, European scholars employ the term 'religion' within that framework.

According to them, there are four aspects to a religion.
a. Deity or Deities for worship
b. Places and methods of worship
c. Philosophies of worship and the sacred books representing those philosophies
d. The administrative organization regulating the worship.
It is a religion only if it entails all the above.

Europeans traveled across the world for trade from seventeenth century onward. They conquered the countries and started ruling them. This is termed as 'Colonization'.

When they observed the methods of worship during their travel, they categorized those methods as religion. This happened in India too; with them identifying the various methods as Hindu religion, Buddhist religion, Jain religion, Sikh religion etc.

In that case, what is the name of the spiritual tradition that existed prior to colonization?

The spiritual traditions of yore did not term themselves as religions. Islam identified itself as a path. Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism identified themselves as "Dharma". Even Catholic Christian tradition too identified itself as an order. The identity of religion was imposed on it only by modern scholars.

So, how then did the word 'religion' come about? The word 'religion' (Madham) was already employed in Hindu tradition as meaning "principles" or as "the firm side". The word "Samayam" from Tamil has the same meaning. You would be able to say, "It is my religion that drinking coffee in the morning is good".

Several such religions existed here. All the varied principles within the context of a philosophical tradition were called religions. Therefore, "Vendanta" is a religion. Within that, those who believed that "Brahmam" is what metamorphoses into the cosmos belong to the "Vivartavada" religion. There are many such religions within Buddhism and Jainism.

Even within the followers of general principles, those who believe that truth is just a logic belong to the "Tarkika" religion and those who believed that the worldly pleasures alone are the truth belonged to the "Sarvaga" religion.

Until the 18th century, the word 'religion' did not have the same connotation here as in Europe.

The methods of worship in India were delineated as religion by the English administrators. It was then gazetted and was spread via the newspapers.

When the European writings on Indian methods of worship were translated, the pioneers in translations started using the word 'religion' themselves, which therefore led to the usage of words 'Madham', 'Samayam' etc. This way, we began using the word 'religion' as we represent today.

This is the way we too started believing that there was a religion called 'Hinduism'. We started calling the one that existed here for several thousand years as Hindu religion. But many scholars and pioneers have condemned and warned against such usage to represent the methods of worship and spirituality existing here.

What exists here for many millenniums is not a religion like what European represented. Instead it is 'Dharma'. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism are all "Dharma".

Dharma and religion are different. The four foundational aspects described above is applicable for a religion, but not for a Dharma. Therefore, the answer for the question is this. Ïs there really a Hindu religion?. No. What existed and exists here is just "Dharma".  

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivartavada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma