Modern Hinduism

Factual Questions
1

Among modern Hindus (and I understand this entails a huge group of people representing many subsects), is there the same kind of literalism that there is in Islam, Judaism and Christianity? What I mean is, most modern Muslims, Christians and Jews believe in a real, living deity with real powers. Christians usually believe that Jesus was a real, historical human being who performed the miracles attributed to him. Same for Muslims and the Prophet.

Now, Hinduism is quite a bit older than those religions, and its origins not as firmly established (maybe not as much so compared to Judaism). But are there (many) modern Hindus who literally believe in the hundreds of…I’m looking for a non-judgmental word here and failing, sorry…strange deities depicted in the ancient art and texts? I ask because the Hindus I’ve known personally, even devout ones who really seemed to derive their personal ethics from their religion, didn’t emphasize the actual theology very much.

I’m happy to hear experiences from those who are Hindus or were raised in Hindu households, as well as people who might have a broader perspective or some hard data. Mods, feel free to move this if I put it in the wrong forum.

2

As I understand it, it’s a real spectrum of beliefs, and nobody is particularly looking at the multi-hundred-god pantheon, but only to the deity or two that particularly speaks to them. Just as a peasant somewhere, say Mexico, may be devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe, or some community to the saint that lived nearby 500 years before, in Catholicism, or Protestants may get hung up on angels, so the typical non-intellectual Hindu has one particular god to whom he or she is devoted.

The more intellectual Hindus see the panoply of deities as manifestations of the Brahman (not the same thing as the god Brahma or the Brahmin caste), the overarching divine spirit which manifests itself in manifold ways. This even includes the top gods, Brahma, Siva, and Krishna, and their parallels in the Dravidian states (which I know are different in the Zeus/Jupiter Athena/Minerva Greco-Roman parallelism, but which I don’t know the specifics of except one name, Murukan, which I believe is the Krishna parallel for Hindu Tamils.)

3

Hindus accept all gods including Jesus and Allah. They see one truth, but understand that different religions get there in different ways. As I understand it, some of the Hindu gods were actual historical figures (whose powers were embellished in the mythology), while others were not. As they say, it’s all good. At least that’s the way I was taught it.

Interestingly, I grew up in a devout Hindu family, and for years we had a portrait of Jesus next to the other gods.

4

I now realize that this is in GQ, so I just want to say that my previous post could be all wrong. I may have missed the whole concept.

5

“Many subsects” is kind of misleading. While there are several specific subsects that propound particular dogmas (Vaishnavism, for example, and all the personality cults), most Hindus do not ascribe to any particular sect and consider themselves merely to be “Hindus” without further specificity. It is true that specific practices vary widely from place-to-place, family-to-family, and individual-to-individual, but to most Hindus, it is simply all “Hinduism.” There is no rivalry between vegetarian Vaishnavites (Vishnu/Krishna worshippers) and meat-eating Shaivites (Shiva worshippers), for example.

Except for the specific practices of certain wandering mendicants, labels like “Shaivite” or “Shaktist” (worshippers of the Goddess of Power) act more descriptively than as designators of particular sects. That is, you can look at a specific religious practice and say “that’s Shaivite” or that’s Shaktism," but very rarely will anyone say something like “I do this and not that because I’m a Shaktist and not a Vaishnavite.” And, really, most people will engage in a variety of practices.

It would hard to be a literalist in some sense, because Hinduism has no basic text that is considered the divine word that propounds Hindu dogma.

Yes and no. Very generally speaking, less educated people tend to take things more literally and more educated people tend to take things more as metaphor. But these don’t divide Hinduism into sects. They’re all just Hindus.

Because, practically speaking, there is not very much theology in Hinduism. Except for belief in reincarnation and in universalism (i.e., all beliefs are valid), there is not much in common among Hindus. There are no tests of belief that one must pass in order to be a Hindu. You must simply be born to a Hindu family. (Many Hindus don’t believe that you can convert to Hinduism, but most will gladly accept anyone who wants to join in.) Hindus also do not hesitate to take part in non-Hindu religious practices. It makes it frustrating for missionaries, for example, when the majority of middle-class children are enrolled in Catholic schools and freely take part in Christian-centered activities without ever feeling that they are in conflict with their Hinduism.

A central idea of Hindu philosophy is that god is everyone and everything. Note that is. It’s not that god is everywhere. It’s that everyone and everything is literally god. So anyone or anything can and are worshipped, including the prophets and deities of other religions, living holy men, little girls, trees, rocks, mounds of dirt. They’re all god, so they can all be worshipped.

Think about the Hindu greeting – palms together – it’s a prayer. You are literally praying to the other person because he or she is god.

I believe Murugan is the equivalent of Kartikeya, the god of war. But these things are pretty fluid and hard to pin down.

The most important god in southern India is, I think, Venkateshwara, who is seen as a parallel of Vishnu (who encompasses Rama and Krishna).

6

No. The Tamil name for Krsna is Kannan. Murukan is the Tamil name associated with Skanda, also known as Kartikkeya and Sanmukha, who was the second son of Shiva, and the six visible Pleiades sisters (Krttika) offered him their breasts to nurse all at once, and baby Skanda was so considerate of their feelings he grew six faces to nurse from all of them at once, so as not to slight anyone. Greedy baby! If he drank too much milk too fast, he’d be sure to puke up most of it. Anyway, Murukan was originally a deity of the wild hill country of Tamil Nadu–when Aryan religion migrated south, the usual syncretic associations took place.

I went to the huge annual Murukan festival one January at Batu Caves, Malaysia. In Malaysia, the ethnic Tamil ritual has become a multiethnic holiday, along with Muslim Hari Raya and Chinese New Year. Fun for everyone.

Speaking of syncretic associations, when Greek and Dravidian cultures met, Murukan was associated with Dionysus-- as Euripides has Dionysus in The Bacchae narrate his journey to South India and back. The multi-ethnic, multi-religious Murukan festival held in Sri Lanka, the Kataragama, has been compared by scholars to the rites of Dionysus.

7

I grew up in a Hindu household. From what I remember of them, my grandparents were quite devout. Aside from pictures of their choice of god, they also had images or objects related to other major religions. I don’t remember many details from back then though, because I lost all my grandparents before I turned 10.

My mother is much the same - aside from a few images of hindu gods, in her prayer room, she has also images from zoroastrianism, sikhism and buddhism. There are probably others too, but I’m not in there very often. Her philosophy, in general, is as Polycarp and ascenray describe.

She sits in on non-hindu religious ceremonies with as much devotion as she would a hindu one, and felt no conflict in sending her kids to catholic-run schools. She is vegetarian herself, but out of personal choice, and has no problem with her husband and kids eating meat, beef including - she prefers we didn’t, but that concern is borne out of health reasons (red meat is rarely served in my parents’ house) rather than a religious one.

She is not alone in this - many of my hindu friends’ parents share this kind of philosophy. I think it’s been often described as a way of life, rather than a religion in the commonly understood sense of the word.

8

Rather, Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshvar (Shiva). Krishna (as well as Rama and several others) is a human manifestation (avatar) of Vishnu.

In terms of who is actually worshipped on a day-to-day basis, the “big three” is different, because Brahma-worship is not very popular, so the lineup is:

Vishnu (often in the form of Krishna or Rama), Shiva, and Devi “the Goddess” (in many forms, including Durga, Kali, Sarasvati (goddess of learning), Lakshmi (goddess of wealth)). So this is where you get the three main types of Hindu practice: Vaishnavism (worship of Vishnu), Shaivitism (worship of Shiva), and Shaktiism (worship of power/the goddess).

Whichever god or goddess a particular Hindu might choose to be his or her principal focus, usually there is no hesitation in engaging in worship of any of the other gods or goddesses, whether Hindu or not.