Hinduism
A very popular definition of “Religion” is the right to follow rituals as put forward by the God, Angel or Prophet and the methodology observed in praying the God. A particular community observes a particular religion, follows a definite set of rituals and believes that it is the only way to “get” the God. If any other group tries to explain or insist different rituals, the two communities enter into conflicts. The wars have been fought, kingdoms have been ruined and millions have been killed to protect own religion and invade others’.
I have always been wondering that every common human being is fully aware of his rights, but neglects his duties. When one struggles to protect his rights, he must first see whether he fulfills his duties; his duties towards his family, his duties towards the society, his duties towards his nation and – most important – his duties towards the living beings.
To be aware of one’s duties is Hinduism. Hinduism, the popularly known religion, is the oldest religion on this earth. It is believed to be more than seven to ten thousand years old.
In fact, Hinduism – the culture – has begun since, when there was no religion existing in the world, the scholars in this Indian subcontinent felt the necessity of civic society and humanly life, while people in the rest of the world were still dwelling in the forests. The sages were scholars of those ages. They preached the society wisdom they earned through a long experience of life. The preaching was only mouth to mouth. There were no methods of writing down. Their lectures, preaching, findings were written down much later when writing was invented. These written books are very widely known as the Vedas and the Upanishads. The language used in these books was Sanskrit. Most of these books are in the poetic form called the Shlokas.
The word Hindu has its origin with the entry of the Aryans into India through the Khaiber pass. The geographical region near the Khaiber pass lies in the spread of the then largest river Sindhu (Indus). The Aryans called this subcontinent “India” after the name of the river Indus. And, the Aryans were called “Hindu” by the local people in their dialect since they came from the Sindhu.
This is just a brief history to tell about the onset of the Hindu culture in the Indian subcontinent. A point should be noted here that “Hindu”ism is not at all a religion. It is the culture – the way of life that everyone follows in this world. This does not include the rituals. This culture developed very fast in India and became popular world-wide with the name Hinduism. The golden period of this development was somewhere between 8000 and 12000 years BC. The so called Hindu religion was not founded by any one person. It is the gradual development of culture that came through generations.
The sages – the scholars – of the period studied many aspects of life, the science, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, sociology, warfare, politics, philosophy and much more. The holy book Bhagwad Geeta is the best example of philosophy based on laws of physics and social sciences. The people in the rest of the world must know and appreciate that The Geeta is not at all a myth, it is totally scientific.
As per the preaching of Bhagwad Geeta, Dharma (Religion as we call now) is the duties of oneself. One has to fulfill his duties at every instance in his life. No one has got rid of his duties, nor would one. The nature of duties does change from time to time, depending upon the circumstances. But one always lives with his responsibility to fulfill duties. The satisfaction one gets by rendering his true duties is as if getting near to the God, described as the Moksha (a happy detachment from all physical and materialistic worlds).
Thus the word “Religion” in today’s sense does not apply to Hinduism. Hinduism is the way of life. It is the real sense of understanding responsibilities – the duties – towards one’s family, society, nation and all living beings.
Everyone who follows this culture – may he be Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or from any community – is definitely a Hindu. There is no reason why should one feel ashamed of calling himself a Hindu. Instead, he should be proud of since he observes the heavenly and scientific culture which is ages old.
