Why I Am a Hindu

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Food is an important part of life for Hindus. Most don’t eat beef or pork, and many are vegetarians.

Hinduism’ is thus the name that foreigners first applied to what they saw as the indigenous religion of India. It embraces an eclectic range of doctrines and practices, from pantheism to agnosticism and from faith in reincarnation to belief in the caste system. But none of these constitutes an obligatory credo for a Hindu: there are none. We have no compulsory dogmas. This is, of course, rather unusual. A Catholic is a Catholic because he believes Jesus was the Son of God who sacrificed himself for Man; a Catholic believes in the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth, offers confession, genuflects in church and is guided by the Pope and a celibate priesthood. A Muslim must believe that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is His Prophet. A Jew cherishes his Torah or Pentateuch and his Talmud; a Parsi worships at a Fire Temple; a Sikh honours the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib above all else. There is no Hindu equivalent to any of these beliefs. There are simply no binding requirements to being a Hindu. Not even a belief in God.” Overall, the book’s first part does a fine job of showing how Hinduism has historically been accepting, non-dogmatic, and pluralistic; and the second part neatly describes the many ways in which the Hindu nationalist movement has abandoned those same values – ironically moving away from Hinduism’s open and agreeable nature to adopt the parochial and fanatical ways that they’ve decried in others. Well researched book on the Hindu religion, rediscovering its origins in the Vedas, its journey through several seminal writings like the Upanishads, Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata, several reformers including Adi Shankaracharya and Swami Vevakananda and finally to the current version of political Hinduism called 'Hindutva' or 'Sanghism' that we have seen sprout and recently flourish in our lifetime. Older Hindus will feel a sense of deja vu during the course of reading this book, when they come across many tolerant beliefs and practices that were commonplace during their childhood but that have been marginalised in today's restricted and narrow view of politicised Hinduism. Smartism followers worship five deities: Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, Ganesh and Surya. Their temple at Sringeri is generally recognized as the center of worship for the denomination. My difficulty with the book is where the author writes about what he calls as "political Hindutva". Tharoor is currently a member of the parliament by the graces of Indian National Congress whose members prefer to hide their Hindu identity, permit and even encourage the denigration of Hindus and Hinduism by the people of other faiths for gaining political benefits. No wonder that he throws venom on the BJP and RSS. Whether it is a calculated move on his part for his political survival or it is his schizophrenic interpretation of the contemporary Hindu society, he totally misses the religio-social situation in the country and how Hindus have been victimized ever since independence.

What are Hinduism's holy books?

In the second half, Tharoor who belongs to Congress Party (opponent of Modi's BJP Party), writes littanry of complaints against BJP Party. Why I Am a Hindu" was written in the context of growing electoral victories by the Hindu nationalist BJP political party (which claims to represent "real Hinduism" and to speak for a Hindu India rather than the secular pluralism of Gandhi and Nehru) and so written primarily for an Indian audience.

While talking about opposition to MF Hussain painting goddess in the nude, Tharoor writes this justification. It is only the period immediately before and after India's Independence, which has seen the rise of political figures with a fundamentalist view of Hinduism where the author has stated his own views. Increasingly this age-old religion is being used by politicians to manipulate voters, and like many free-thinking Indians of today, the author has expressed the worry of India turning into a fundamentalist religious country much like our north-western neighbour. This should not come as a surprise, knowing the author's political affiliations. Though he does not claim this to be an unbiased work, I would have rated it 5-star if he had managed to keep it objective till the very end.

One fundamental principle of the religion is the idea that people’s actions and thoughts directly determine their current life and future lives. Discovered the link of the existent to the non-existent. And they stretched their cord of vision across the void,

It is suggested that while the Vedic era saw only the worship of a formless and imageless God, the conduct of rituals and the propitiation of the river and mountain and tree gods of local tribes, all of which were ‘portable’ and not confined to a fixed spot, it was the arrival of the Greeks under Alexander in the fourth century BCE that brought into India the idea of permanent temples enshrining stone images of heroes and gods.) Again, while the Hinduism of the Vedas emerged from mantras and rituals, including elaborate sacrifices, the Puranas promoted their values entirely on the basis of myths and stories. By developing the concept of the saguna Brahman to go with the exalted idea of the nirguna Brahman, the Puranic faith integrated the Vedic religion into the daily worship of ordinary people. Using the seductive power of maya (illusion), the nirguna Brahman of the Vedas took the form of saguna Brahman or Ishvara, the creator of prakriti, the natural world and the God or Bhagavan of all human beings.” I read it for a different reason: There is no end of English-language literature on Hinduism written from one of two perspectives: either erudite, academic analysis or wit a specifically Christian, and usually missionary, view. (There's a lot of material that amounts to, "How to talk to a Hindu about Jesus" which presumes that Hindus need to be something other than what they are.)

Where do Hindus worship?

The giving of offerings is an important part of Hindu worship. It’s a common practice to present gifts, such as flowers or oils, to a god or goddess. Hindus worship many gods and goddesses in addition to Brahman, who is believed to be the supreme God force present in all things. In an age of manipulation through fake-images and messages spread through social media, people have been taught to hate the real soldiers of India’s freedom struggle, forgetting that these ‘Hindutva’ proponents made little or no contribution during the struggle for India’s independence. But Shashi Tharoor is no pushover to let them go easily. His book is a timely and sensible argument against the malady that is ‘Hindutva’, a product of fear and paranoia.

Vaishnavism is considered the largest Hindu sect, with an estimated 640 million followers, and is practiced worldwide. It includes sub-sects that are familiar to many non-Hindus, including Ramaism and Krishnaism. In the process, a highly textualised Hinduism was abstracted from the social context as well as from contestations. Philosopher J.N. Mohanty suggests that the wisdom of the Vedas was constantly challenged both by supporters and opponents of the philosophy. The main division was between philosophical schools that believed in the Vedas, and those that did not: the Sramanic tradition. Within the Vedic tradition we discern considerable self-criticism. For instance, Samkhya philosophy, that belonged originally to the Vedic tradition, developed a strong strain of atheism and naturalism. This is paid scant attention. Also excluded from metaphysical conceptualisations of Hinduism is the heretical materialist school of Carvaka philosophy that nurtures a robust anti-Vedic materialism. Other sceptics refused to accept the claim that the Vedas code absolute knowledge. The construction of a hegemonic tradition has spectacularly marginalised critical philosophies within and outside Hinduism. So who knows truly whence this great creation sprang? Who knows whence this creation had its origin?The exclusion of critical and rational philosophies from Hinduism gives us cause for thought. If a rational, materialistic, empiricist and sceptical philosophical school such as Carvaka had been given prominence in the forging of a Hindu tradition, perhaps India would have escaped being slotted into the spiritual versus materialist dichotomy. India with all its material inequities, communalism and casteism has been stereotyped as exotic and other-worldly. This has not helped us forge an equitable future. Till today our society fails to accept the enormity of rampant inequities, fascinated as we are with the metaphysical spirit. Some Hindus elevate the Hindu trinity, which consists of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Others believe that all the deities are a manifestation of one. Hindu Caste System Hindus believe in the doctrines of samsara (the continuous cycle of life, death, and reincarnation) and karma (the universal law of cause and effect). Vaishnavism recognizes many deities, including Vishnu, Lakshmi, Krishna and Rama, and the religious practices of Vaishnavism vary from region to region across the Indian subcontinent.