I work with a fellow who has brought new understandings to me.
But, they’re not enough on their own.
He’s Indian, and I really like him. He’s got a great sense of humour, and is apparently not bothered by my questions. I’m his supervisor, but I don’t think that really figures into it.
So, I’ll update y’all as I learn more. I’ve been asking him about the caste system, which apparently prevails to this day. I, as yet, do not recognize his caste. He seems to have grown up middle-class, and, frankly, expects a lot more for his efforts than I ever did. He told me that the Untouchables are the waitresses and cab drivers, so he was surprised to learn of my several years as a cabbie.
He told me that he is Hindu, and that implies no subscription to any god. He says Hindu is only a way of being, and that he worships no god. He recognizes that other Hindus do recognize various deities, but he does not.
So, can anybody describe for me what being Hindu means?
Main Entry: 1Hin·du
Variant(s): also Hin·doo /'hin-(")dü/
Function: noun
Etymology: Persian Hindu inhabitant of India, from Hind India
1 : an adherent of Hinduism
2 : a native or inhabitant of India
Hindu can refer not only to a faith, but the people of India. I didn’t realize this distinction until recently when I asked a woman I work with, who obviously was born outside of the US, what her cultural background was. She replied “Hindu”, which I thought odd as I didn’t ask about religion. I then asked what country she was from, and said India. When looking up the definition of Hindu, I realized her answer was correct to the question I asked.
The idea of Hinduism as a single religion is a fairly new one. It can refer to a thousand ways of worshipping thousands of Gods for a thousand different reasons. It encompasses everything from highly philisophical musing on the nature of reality to gaudy pop-worship to thinly veiled worship of ancient tribal gods from before the Aryans came. Shiva devotees and Vishnu devotees can be as different as, say, Christians and Muslims. They share a lot of the same vocabulary and have some degree of mutual respect, but worship very differently. It was not until the British that anyone came to think of a single religion called “Hinduism”.
I have been living in India for almost two years now. I have often heard people say that Hinduism is not so much a religion or an ethnic group, but a way of life.
I like the way that sounds, whatever it means. So, I thought I would share it with you.
I hope I don’t offend anyone, but it seems to me that one can consider oneself Jewish without ever going to synagogue. Simply growing up in a Jewish family is enough to allow one to identify as Jewish, because it is both a culture and a religion (By culture I mean it has its own foods, language, attitudes, music, etc.). Even if one does not practice the religion, one can be part of the culture.
The “Indian” word for India is Hindustan, by the way.
Hindu way-of-lifer checking in. I’m no authority on the religion, so I’m afraid I can’t help answer your question. but by and large, I do live life the Hindu way.
If a Hindu drives a Honda, you may find it handy to say it’s a Hindu Honda. Handy, yes, but not dandy. Though the Hindu handles the Honda handily, the Honda is neither Hindu nor Shinto. It is only a Honda, and it runs on hydrocarbons. Understand?
Hinduism is also a lot like Buddhism, in that you can follow the path of Hinduism without considering yourself a Hindu.
If you do your dharma (duty) and believe in karma (eternal retribution is not the perfect phrase but I’ll let it pass), these are the basic tenets of Hinduism.
With a few hundred million non-Hindu (religion) Indian citizens, I should think using Hindu and Indian interchangably could lead to a huge amount of confusion.
Noting the parallels that have been drawn to the Jews, I’ll point out what seems to me an obvious difference. While many Jews are secular, there is still a core religion associated with the Jews. Raj tells me that there is no core religion for Hindus.
Another thing he’s mentioned is that, as he perceives it, India has very little national identity as people tend to strongly identify with the region they’re from and regard other Indians from other regions almost as foreigners.
Is that the case?
When he gets back from the holidays, I’ll pester him for more info. He’s told me the name of his caste, and it didn’t stick.
[sub]Now that I think about it, I hope all of his family are OK - they live on the southern coast of India.[/sub]
It is true that people identify far more strongly with the region they are from than with the country in general. India has hundreds of ethnic groups and dozens of languages with thousands of dialects. The two major language groups are as related to each other as Swedish and Contonese. A Sikh from Punjab has as much in common with an adavasi from Orissa or a fisherman in Kerala as a guy from Canada has with a Guatamalan and a Jamaican. Hinduism can mean the ornate highly stratified gold-and-incense dancers-and-elephants fireworks-and-brass band practices of the deep South to simple foot-high shrines to the local village god in the high Himalayas. People have been living as part of their tribe, ethnic group, caste, or village for thousands of years. But they’ve only been a part of “India” since 1947.
This causes no end of problems…There are sometimes violent seperatists movements in the South, Northwest, Northeast, Tribal areas in the middle…well, just about every part of India except the “Hindu Heartland” that has pretty much controlled the relatively weak central government until recently.
I’m not sure I understand what your friend means when he says there is no core religion. I can confirm though that Hindus are free to practice their religion any way they want, within very broad guidelines.
Re: national identity of Indians in general, it seems to be that we have a built-in on/off switch, collectively turning it ‘on’ on some occasions, while letting it remain in the ‘off’ position for most of the time. Cricket, for example, brings out national unity like nothing else does.
Regional identitification is much stronger, not unlike what you’d find in the US. This has much to do with the stark differences in language and culture across various states - even neighbouring ones. In that sense, yes, those from other regions are considered as foreign - foreign to the region, but not to the nation.
I would definitely say there is a core religion for those that identify as Hindu, that being Hinduism. Hinduism can be all-encompassing, much like Unitarian Universalism, but there are also sects that are very strict in their observance and practices.
As others have said, there is certainly strong regional identification as well. Each region has its own language, foods, music, etc. This may seem strange but you have to remember that India has over twice the population of the EU.
Not confusion so much as anger. I put “Indian” in quotes when I should have elaborated on it. Many Indians take offense to the term Hindustan, and prefer the term Bharat (if they prefer a name other than India). In truth, Bharat is a much older term and probably the best term to use (the -stan in Hindustan speaks to its foreign origin), but most proud Hindus (who may refer to themselves as Hindustanis) enjoy the term Hindustan, so it remains in usage.
Personally, I’ve never used “Hindu” to mean “Indian”, nor have I seen it being used as such. There is a significant non-Hindu population in India, and I’m sure none of them would identify as being Hindu, although they would certainly identify as Indian.
To refer to an Indian, you normally use “Indian” or “Hindustani”, or less frequently “Hindi” or “Bharati”. If you’re an Indian, you call your fellow Indians “Desi”, although foreigners should avoid this term as it has negative connotations.
In Discovery of India, Nehru suggested that the Indian people be called “Hindi” after the language. And IIRC, colonials used to refer to Indians as “Hindoos”.
If I had to guess, when the British first landed here, they picked up the term ‘Hindu’ as a generic indicator. Only then did they realise that ‘Hindu’ refered to people who were adherents of certain philosophical tradtions, which were related, and that there were Muslims…et al. to whom the term did not apply. But by then, it stuck.