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Eh? I was raised Anglican, and converted to Hinduism at around the age of 20. Well, that narrows things down a bit. I stumbled upon an increasingly battered and coffee stained translation of the Sermons of Sri Ramakrishna, and concluded that they resonated with me more than my upbringing. The Sermons of Who? We'll get to that. So what's this whole Hinduism thing? A ridiculously, hilariously syncretic religion whose fundamentals boil down to A) God, the True God, is tautologically everything. B) We'll therefore break It down into bite-size pieces so people can work with It. C) Reincarnation and karma are things, we suppose. But individual locals are welcome to disagree. So, this Ramakrishna weirdo. Your, ahem, saint. Born under the British Empire in a shithole village in the general area of Bengal, spent his life as a professional holy man. Went catatonic on a regular basis, emerged with visions. Wandered out of the jungle shouting about other visions. Regularly had nonstandard thoughts about his identity. Preached a HELL of a lot about his interpretation of God in general and Kali in specific. Keeled over dead at 50 and had his preachings compiled and, eventually, translated by one of his minions. I'll have a continuation post later, but I figure getting this party started is important given my feelings on procrastination. (Why procrastinate today if you can procrastinate tomorrow?)
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Jan 26, 2016 04:06
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Reserved For Later.
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Jan 26, 2016 04:07
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Ah cool, I was going to start a "Tell Me About Hinduism" thread a while back.Hope you don't mind if I pepper you with a lot of questions at once. I've read a few books about Hinduism over the past couple of years as part of my project to inform myself about world religions, but it does seem to be the most difficult of the major world religions to understand. I get a lot of the "theory", or the more philosophical side of the religion, but I still feel a bit in the dark as to how it all works in practice. I know that there are lots of differing opinions and viewpoints within Hinduism, but that makes it all the more difficult to understand just how certain ideas are treated by ordinary Hindus in their religious practice. Understanding sophisticated conceptions of transubstantiation, or divine grace, or original sin won't help you to understand the everyday religious life of most Catholics, for example, and when I read a book that starts talking about Brahman or samsara in Hinduim, I wonder just what it means to the average Hindu. So, for example:
Okay, probably enough for now. But plenty more where that came from if you're willing.
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Jan 27, 2016 13:45
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How would you describe the Hindu view of Buddhism? To be clear - I'm aware that in some of the areas where there is conflict between Hindus and Buddhists the conflict is more to do with politics and ethnicity more than the actual philosophical or theological differences in their religions. But the latter is what I'm curious about, how do Hindus tend to respond to the ideas in Buddhism?
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Jan 27, 2016 15:33
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Reserved For Later. As a Hindu, why are you reserving this post for later?
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Jan 27, 2016 19:24
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Smokey posted:As a Hindu, why are you reserving this post for later? Hi greyjoybastard! 
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Jan 27, 2016 20:13
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Sorry for my absence, I kicked off the thread in the middle of a very tricky work month.Blurred posted:
First off and the Perpetual Disclaimer, "most Hindus" is not a statement that makes a whole lot of sense. But yeah, let's go with traditional Hinduism. Brahman is not a meaningfully useful entity. It is, by definition, Everything That Is, including all possible gods and all possible people. Brahman is the abstract, philosophical concept that ties everything together - literally every other 'god' is part of It. I'm sure you could cobble together a way to worship Brahman Itself, but I'm unaware of anyone who has - Brahman is just way, way, way too big a concept. You're trying to devote yourself to the universe. Bhakti yoga is all about linking up with an entity that bridges the gap between you and the Unknowable Infinite. I'm not sure it's viable to skip the middle step - but again, this is Hinduism, it's not impossible someone has come up with another approach. The entire point of Hinduism as a structure, though, is to break down the Unknowable Infinite into bite sized pieces that won't make the human mind splatter all over the temple wall. Because that inconveniences the janitors. quote:
This is a question whose extent cannot be answered in a paragraph, or maybe in a book. I'll try to summarize. Shaivites (Shiva) probably think Vaishnavites (Vishnu) are wimps who can't properly handle asceticism. Shaktas (me) definitely think Shaivites have an inappropriate opinion on experiencing the universe, and Vaishnavites are lazy about experiencing the universe and possibly a bit too traditional. But it's all a question of which approach you want to take to enlightenment, and while some of us may turn our noses up at other sects a bit because we're human and slightly assholes, everyone else's route will still probably work out. Practically all Hinduism is either bhakti or the ascetic form I can't recall the name for offhand (which is incidentally practiced by a HUGE proportion of Shiva-types). By far the most common bhakti inclination is "Vishnu is the most relevant overgod, but we'll venerate everyone else who might conceivably be relevant, up to and including Kali, Scary Emergency Goddess From The Dark Jungles Of Bengal". quote:
Heck if I know about "most Hindus", and I have no opinion whatsoever on the idol thing. Maybe the icons have a divine presence, maybe they are just focuses for mortals. As a shakta, I'm pretty confident there's no physical restriction on deities you can call upon, but then, I personally follow a deity who may have been the Overgod of Bengal, so I might be biased. quote:
Modern Hindus very often care about caste, and it's seen as relevant to the culture. I think it is absolute bullshit. I am fine with protest conversions. Caste is bullshit, and if they're from a region where caste and religion are inextricably linked, I'd support them converting to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, never mind a philosophical offshoot of subcontinental religion. quote:
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Earwicker posted:How would you describe the Hindu view of Buddhism? Varies wildly. Shaivites, as a broadly ascetic tradition (again, see the Perpetual Disclaimer of There Will Always Be Exceptions), figure Buddhists are pretty much right, they're just taking the harder road and not asking the God of Meditation and Ego-Destruction to give them a hand up. I, personally, and this is broadly a shakta thing, completely reject the notion that existence is a bad thing. Unification with the universe is the eventual endpoint, but that's not nonexistence and experiences are a useful thing to bring back to the Godblob, if not the entire reason the universe exists in the first place. I disagree quite strongly with the basic details of Buddhism, but that's basically because a principal component of Bengali shaktism is "the world exists because God* finds it interesting". The fundamentals are hard to reconcile.
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Feb 18, 2016 05:39
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To add to the scripture question: There actually is a shakta-specific scripture, the Devi Mahatmya. Broadly speaking, a demon king threatens the gods, whereupon they break glass and ask Shakti (the subcontinent-generic form of the female half of God) to handle this bullshit. The story alternates between chants talking about how awesome the goddess is, and describing her various aspects kicking the asses of the demon king's minions until she reaches him and completely flattens him. On the one hand, there's a lot of metaphorical value here. On the other hand, it can be treated like the Ramayana as a fun adventure story - good chick (and her various subsets) pulverize the bad guys until there are no more bad guys. Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 05:55
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Super excited to see this thread! Gonna pop over from the Buddhist thread to here to quickly comment that: Regarding the caste thing: Buddhism essentially did the "no caste" thing purposefully 2700 years ago, and it's not surprising that people are still converting to Buddhism in protest of a caste system that Buddhism essentially rejects. Regarding the views of Hinduisum of Buddhism I have met a lot of Indians raised Hindu, and one convert, and the attitude has always been mutually respectful, especially, it seems, towards Tibetan Buddhists. The main "sticking" point usually seems to be atman versus anatman, and even that is usually just resolved with Buddhists saying there's nothing like a soul and Hindus saying "nah there is tho" and it just kinda hangs out there. I've never met a Hindu who went, for example, "nah Buddha didn't attain enlightenment" and Buddhism basically uses whatever local deities are appropriate for a practice without too much regard for sect or lineage. Now that I've said my piece: I've heard that in India among Hindus and Buddhists both the interactions with gods and temples and so on tends to be a bit different. My understanding is that the typical arrangement might be that I would make prayers that say, for example, "if I get a new job I'll donate a bunch of money to the temple." Then if I get the job, I make donations, and if I don't, I tell that god "hey screw you buddy ain't helped me out." This is pretty common of lay practice in polytheistic religions generally (the whole "never doubt infallible god" thing is pretty uniquely monotheistic). What do the lay practices of various Hindu sects look like? For example, not everyone can be a monk or a yogi, some people are householders, and they will have their private shrines and so on (Buddhism does this as well), but do they have practices, or is it mostly a "just keep it in mind and hope for better spiritual practice karma next time round?" For example, with Buddhism we have "refuge," and after you take refuge you can choose to hold some precepts, but as a householder, that's pretty much the limit of the expectations. You can certainly go on to become a yogi or householder-practitioner who is very dedicated, but the expectation is more or less "go to the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha for refuge," and then "try to do good." Is there something like Refuge in Hinduism? Of course I recognize there are a billion flavors of Hinduism just as there are a million flavors of Buddhism, so this is a general speaking question, or, maybe more of a "can you lay out the different perspectives from the major traditions" thing.
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Feb 18, 2016 15:16
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Eh? Was there weed involved? Also does Hindu mythology have those weird stories where some God decides to get his/her/its bone on with some random human and complications ensue like in Greco-Roman mythology?
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Feb 18, 2016 19:36
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Was there weed involved? Surprisingly not. quote:Also does Hindu mythology have those weird stories where some God decides to get his/her/its bone on with some random human and complications ensue like in Greco-Roman mythology? Vishnu is the only one whose avatars get it on with random ladies/people just offscreen that I recall offhand, but Hindu deities (arguably including Brahma, who is basically the Deist God, not to be confused with Brahman, the Ineffable Godblob) are amusingly fallible and a very standard myth structure is Gods have problem Gods devise a dumb solution Dumb solution causes way bigger problem Gods have to do something drastic to fix new problem Phoneposting, but when I get home I can relate both the most famous Kali story and the very hilarious Ganesh story, which both follow that model precisely.
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Feb 18, 2016 19:48
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Most of these stories in the Hindu myths took place some time ago. According to modern Hindu beliefs, what have the deities been up to lately?
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Feb 18, 2016 19:52
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Was there weed involved?
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Feb 18, 2016 19:52
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Earwicker posted:Most of these stories in the Hindu myths took place some time ago. According to modern Hindu beliefs, what have the deities been up to lately? Look, the population of India and adjacent environs has gone up dramatically in the last few centuries. Ganesh is too busy handling the distribution network for good luck in business to, I dunno, turn the Ganges into wine that will be immediately rendered undrinkable. Somewhat more seriously, I read a super interesting argument that the Mahabharata was meant to mark the end of the Age of Miracles with an apocalyptic (and human-centric) war in which practically everyone involved loving dies and Krishna spends his remaining avatar-juice eating the karmic consequences, because Vishnu avatars are Hindu Jesus (with somewhat more asskicking). I think I might like it, it presents a reason why intervention these days is, ahem, low-profile.
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Feb 18, 2016 20:47
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Does anyone have preferred translations of Hindu works? Particularly the Upanishads, I've been reading Eknath Easwaran's translation, but it's a limited selection as I understand it. I'm also curious if anyone knows what the original term was that he has translated into "the ego". I'd also be interested in reading an overview of the schools of Hindu philosophy, if such a thing exists. (I mean other than on Wikipedia)
chunkles fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 22:32
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how much is hindu practice/identity associated with hindutva nazis? do you feel like they at all compromise your understanding and practice of the religion?
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Feb 19, 2016 01:32
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icantfindaname posted:how much is hindu practice/identity associated with hindutva nazis? do you feel like they at all compromise your understanding and practice of the religion? gently caress 'em. For that matter, also gently caress the dickheads who think the caste system is either relevant to the modern day or a thing that should exist. I am, conveniently, a member of a tradition that habitually rejects both of the above, but even if Sri Ramakrishna added raving nationalist madness to his pile of crazy habits, I would overlook and fail to follow it. (I have actually gotten in Very Angry internet slap fights with dickheads of that flavor - and as an interesting aside, none of them had a go at calling me not a Real Hindu. One of them admittedly did go "oh you're a shakta, that explains a lot", but I choose to take that as a sign I picked the right deity/tradition.  )This does, however, bring up the also interesting question of how intrinsic caste and general Brahmin bullshit is to the Hindu label/classification. To which my answer is: hell if I know. There are people from subcontinental local religions who completely reject the Hindu label, and that is as fine by me as Christians existing. ...Which is also fine. I only sometimes make fun of actual Vishnu worshippers, so another demographic worshipping one of his avatars makes hardly any difference. 
Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 03:58
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So, I promised I'd do a small effortpost on Kali and Ganesh myths, because they're amazing and the Hindu gods are, in mythology, a bit dumb. Kali And The Accidental Almost-Apocalypse The gods were, as they often are, presented with a difficult to solve demon problem (we will leave discussion of Hindu demons for another day). This rear end in a top hat will, when his blood hits the ground, produce an equally powerful duplicate of himself. This is a tricky one. The gods have a conference, which probably involves a lot of alcohol and sex like any other conference, and some clever fucker goes "wait, hang on, doesn't one of the deities in the In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass cases... drink blood?" So they ignore the warnings, break glass, and call up Kali (or Durga, depending on your region, but I'm a shakta of the Bengali tradition and this is one of the only major all-subcontinent myths where Kali gets to kick some rear end ).She pulverizes the demon and swallows every drop of blood that leaks out of his splatted carcass, but there's a problem: turns out that A) she likes the taste of blood, a lot, and B) demon blood may or may not have some side effects. So she keeps her dance of destruction going even after the mission is accomplished, and is now at serious risk of destroying the world/universe because she's rocking out too hard. Shiva, who is her husband in this particular myth, volunteers to go and stop her. Because he knows her, and possibly because he's dealt with this poo poo before, he doesn't try to reason with her - he just lies down in front of her, cf bulldozer protests, and gets slaughtered for his trouble. Which brings her back to sanity, because she kind of liked her husband, so she stops trying to destroy the universe, and waves her hand, bringing her husband back to life. Mission accomplished. Interesting little note here: resurrection in Hinduism usually requires some fairly epic enterprises. Except if you're Kali, possible borderline-monotheistic goddess of the Bengal region. -- Ganesh, God of Luck, And Finding A Timely Prosthesis Is Pretty Lucky Ganesh's mother, Parvati, wife of Shiva this time around, is taking a bath, and she has her son stand guard with a spear to ensure that no interloping dorks see a goddess naked. Shiva comes blundering home and wants to see his wife, so he wanders over to the river and is stopped by some weirdo with a spear.  : What the gently caress is this poo poo? I want to see my wife! : I was instructed that nobody can see her until she's done her bath. : Nobody gets in my loving way!And Shiva decapitates this random moron and strolls in.  : Hey, husband! How's our son doing? : Our... he's doing great, excuse me for a moment, I forgot to launder the cat.Shiva summons his minions. "Alright, guys. I need you to go into the jungle right here and find me the first head you can find. Don't ask." (JUMP CUT) Parvati finishes her bath and comes out to meet her husband. Shiva: "See, I told you our son was doing great and not decapitated!" 
Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 04:31
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You're a poet Speaking of Ganesh, is there a way to distinguish idols of one Hindu deity with a person's head from another? I asked during an open house event at a local-ish temple, and the guide said basically that it didn't matter because they were all aspects of the same god so calling one by the other's name is - like nearly everything else in the universe - really not that big a deal.
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Feb 19, 2016 15:08
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flakeloaf posted:You're a poet Generally by what they're carrying, plus a few other tidbits depending on the deity. Kali is pretty easy most of the time, since odds are fairly good she will have one or more of:belt of human (well, demon, but same thing visually) heads or arms; severed head over bowl; or dead dude (Shiva) she is standing on. Can't remember signifiers for other gods offhand.
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Feb 19, 2016 23:33
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Please tell us about holy cows.
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Apr 1, 2016 04:03
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A friend just asked me and I didn't know the answer so I'm punting down the line - what does Hindu clergy look like? Are there Hindu monks and nuns or is it purely yogis or priests or what? I'm sure this varies from tradition to tradition so answer in as much or as little detail as you'd like!
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Apr 27, 2016 22:46
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Paramemetic posted:A friend just asked me and I didn't know the answer so I'm punting down the line - what does Hindu clergy look like? Are there Hindu monks and nuns or is it purely yogis or priests or what? I'm sure this varies from tradition to tradition so answer in as much or as little detail as you'd like! I would like to attempt this. Clergy as we tend to think of it in western Judeo-christian religions or even as we'd think of it in monastic Buddhism really has no direct analogue within the larger Hindu traditions for a variety of reasons which I'd attempt to explain. What rough analogues we can think of as clergy within the Hindu religion I'll attempt to explain briefly. I don't claim my analysis as exhaustive so feel free to discuss/respond, whoever feels the inclination. Clergy as we might generally think of it serves a number of roles which tend to be consolidated into the same person, namely: *Officiant in rituals. *Final authority regarding grey areas of doctrine as well as hierarchical organization of the larger clerical body. *Keepers, maintainers and interpreters of the historical doctrinal cannon. *Administrators of temples, monasteries and holy sites. For a variety of reasons, mostly socio-historical idiosyncrasies, these roles are generally not consolidated in the same individuals or even the same organizational groups of individuals within larger Indian society when and where they exist at all. As such, the idea or concept of clergy as we generally think of it does not translate well into the Hindu religion. Why might this be? First and foremost Hinduism is not a monastic religion. Within the history of South Asia monastic modes of orthopraxy have largely been the purview of the heterodox Brahminical traditions such as Jainism and Buddhism. Competition among religious movements in South Asia has been intense throughout its history, and to the extent that you can have a sort of ecological niche for monastic traditions, in South Asia that niche was ultimately occupied by traditions other than Hinduism. While arguably analogies can be made between vedic brahmins as a monastic community of priests maintaining the vedas via oral transmission, its anachronistic in a sense to think of these individuals as Hindu clergy. Particularly with the shift from vedic to puranic Hinduism, even the role and need for brahmin priests as ritual officiants was de-emphasized as the ideal of a family patriarch being the household diety and officiant in household rituals became a primary mode of religious worship. Furthermore, with the shift to puranic hinduism you see a de-emphasizing of the Vedas in importance and an ascendance of popular religious Epics in importance to the laity. Indicating a shift to more popular forms of religiosity, there is less of a need for a centralized institutional clergy and less need for institutionalized vedic ritualists as opposed to itinerant, popular spiritual performers (see more on Sadhus below). As an anecdotal example, during some travel in Kolkata I became good friends with a sprawling multigenerational family that filled their own apartment building. For the whole household, their main ritual officiant was essentially the Family Baba, an uncle that happened to devote his life to spiritual pursuits and so in a sense was housed and cared for by the rest of the family so that he could conduct the official rituals and pujas. While Hinduism became the dominant metareligious narrative in India, it only did so through a weakening of the doctrinal center to allow for more diverse regional variations. This largely obviates the need for a centralized authority as opposed to local religious savants who are skilled in local varieties of worship. To make another point, another reason why clergy as we think of it does not exist in Hinduism is because the ideal of the Saint/Religious Savant/Doctrinal Exegete is not the rooted, scholarly educated monk but more often the itinerant spiritual teacher, mystic and also ritual officiant. These are commonly known as Sadhus or Sidhis. This sort of religious rolemodel has served as the exemplar in larger Indian society for thousands of years and even the monastic traditions from South Asia, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism, were generated by these sorts of individuals. An interesting account by an Indian anthropologist is Sadhus of India by B. D. Tripathi who embedded and ordinated with Hindu itinerant mystics in order to conduct field research and interviews. Religious devotees become sadhus for a variety of reasons and throughout history have supported themselves not necessarily by seeking alms but by seeking payment for religious teachings/lectures, conducting religious ceremonies/spells or performing ritual plays & songs. Tripathi even found a small percentage of "Sadhus" that were supporting families based on the incomes of their religious activities, so it is also important to keep in mind that the ideal of the Sadhu is a fuzzy one which encompasses a range of different socio-economic classes, levels of education and religious motivations. Typically religious innovations come from Sadhus which become the locus of communities of worship as Gurus. The primary mode of passing down religious doctrine and understanding is not through a scholastic clergy but rather an individual savant teacher giving direct instruction and guidance to a religious pupil. Given the widely idiosyncratic and personal nature of hindu devotional worship, there is less of a need for an official body of clergy maintaining, explaining and teaching doctrine than there is for a nuanced local instructor. Regarding the role of maintainer of religious sites and temples, this largely did not fall to institutional organizations as much as it did endogamous clans of temple priests that would maintain mandirs and take care of the idols. Largely their job is to remain ritually pure in order to maintain the temple as opposed to administering a religious institution. While increasingly we might see modern temple organizations beginning to resemble institutions with administrators and temple priests similar to western clergy, I think it is an interesting questions to what extent this is a more recent development in Hinduism. Yiggy fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Apr 28, 2016 |
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Apr 28, 2016 22:24
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Paramemetic! Been reading and enjoying The TIbetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory by Matthew T. Kapstein and Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations 2nd edition by Paul Williams. Cheers and happy walking!
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Apr 28, 2016 22:32
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Yiggy! Good to post with you again. That book, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism, looks fascinating for a wide variety of reasons, I will see about picking it up somewhere or maybe even seeing if my wife can get it through a library! Thank you for your very informative post. It answered specifically my question about Hindu monasticism as well as getting into the question of clergy. Regarding monasticism, it makes sense that the religious ecosystem would polarize itself in such a way, in terms of monasticism and non-monasticism, and the religions polarizing into their niches. The discussion of the Sadhu here calls to my mind the early Kagyupa masters whose lineage did not have contact with monasticism until Gampopa. Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa, and Milarepa were none of them monks, and seemed in many cases to be either eccentrics or mundane. Particularly, when Naropa sought Tilopa for instruction, he asked for a great master named Tilli, and the townspeople told him "I don't know anything about a great master, but there's this crazy homeless guy . . . " So if we consider that Kagyu comes out of tantra, itself a method of Hinduism, it would sound like the concept of "clergy" as I perhaps inelegantly used it would appear to be the yogi, or Sadhu. To the question of clergy, the term is tricky indeed. I consider my question very well answered, but I will clarify it a bit to see what else comes. Here in this case I asked about clergy, which you mention can mean many things. This is true, while in my head I was referring loosely to this concept of "religious professionals" it occurs to me this means quite a bit and is in many cases a foreign concept. Most religions or spiritual traditions have the role of a kind of specialist "religious professional," from the Priest to the Rabbi to the Shaman to the Grannywoman. But that isn't a very elegant description outside the Western point of view you mentioned - for example, to the Western eye, familiar as we are with the Christian institution, a monk is clearly "clergy" in the sense that they are a religious professional, but even within the monastery there are teachers and students, and you while you would go to the bursar to request a puja (and make the right donations), you wouldn't go to the bursar to perform the puja - that would be the job of the ritual master and his retinue. So then, does the bursar, a monk, qualify as clergy? Or the ritual master? Or the ritual assistants? So it wasn't an elegant question. This brings up another question I have. There is a stark contrast between the practices of cultural Buddhists (Tibetans, for example) and those of convert Buddhists. While most Tibetans would immediately identify themselves as Buddhists, and may even loosely describe themselves as Buddhist practitioners, many of those same would also have a difficult time reciting the basic principles of Buddhism. In the same way, there are a great deal of Catholics out there, but how many would claim the Bible to be the basis of their faith, how many even know about the existence of The Catechism, let alone that it is actually the doctrinal final word of their faith? We can only know of a religion really what we've seen of it - by simply reading about it, for example, we get the sense that "followers of such and such religion do this or that" and so then we believe that this is invariably the case. We especially tend to see religions as we see them being practiced, which says nothing for how a religion works when it's not being practiced, as is actually the case for many culturally religious individuals. Catholicism in action may look like regular confession, never missing a Sunday, and so on - or it may look like showing up on both of the high holidays in a good year. The practices of many Western Buddhists are strange by the standards of cultural Buddhists because they have religious professionals - monks, in larger areas, or shamanistic ngakpas, but both are someone you go see if you need religious work done. They don't tend to go "you know, I want to learn the practice of such and such." Instead, if they need a practice done, they go hire someone to do it. So with that said, it follows naturally that as a Westerner my conception or idea of how Hinduism is practiced generally is not likely correct. I have heard rumors that generally Hindu engagement by cultural Hindus is essentially an economic relationship with a deity - observing some small practices and making donations to temples, and expecting some kind of result. But there are surely as many different variations as I can imagine - ranging from "aware of the religion" to "a yogi in retreat for 12 years," and everything in between. What does Hindu practice generally look like, at all levels? And returning to the question of clergy, other than the Sadhu, what other religious vocations are there? What is even considered a religious vocation rather than just a proclivity for a layperson to practice? What would a lay person practice, if they want some benefit? Do lay Hindus practice sadhanas, or? Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 03:45
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From what I've experienced on my own both in person and through studies, I think it is generally correct to point out a difference in modes of religiosity in the west versus the east. Religions in the West are much more interested in personal statements of doctrinal faith and orthodoxy, whereas the east is much more interested in orthopraxy and the role religion plays in everyday life through religious action. There is a lot of interesting discussion to be had on that, particularly to what extent that is a result and reaction to Protestantism or has its roots earlier in the confessional nature of judeochristian faith, but I digress. First to the point of what being a Hindu in practice looks like and then I'll address the issue of religious professionals. What is fascinating to me about Hinduism in specific as well as South Asian/Asian religions generally is to some extent you see all of the transitional forms still coexisting into modern times. A useful lens for thinking about the development might be phylogenetics and taxonomy. We find ancient and transitional forms of South Asian and Hindu religiosity living today, more-or-less maintaining older forms of worship concurrently with the later developments. With that said, recognizing what Hinduism looks like when you see it can be a little easier once you understand some of the broader historical developments in Hinduism. The ancestral form of Hinduism was foreign to South Asia, and did not necessarily represent the values or religious concerns of South Asians when it entered onto the scene roughly 3,000 years ago. Elegantly explained by Robert Calasso in his book Ardor, what motivated the vedic Brahmins was their interest and involvement in keeping the cosmos in motion through ritual activity and sacrifice. He describes a situation whereby the priests establish a sort of grid of symbolism and ritual which maintains the world and keeps it from dissolution into chaos and disorder through carefully prescribed rituals and alters. In its earliest phase, Vedism is utterly dependent on the Brahminical caste as priestly officiant. However, when we examine the chronology and development of the Vedic texts we see a shift in emphasis over time, and this is thought to be largely a response on the part of Brahmanism to the new cultures and institutions it was encountering as it immigrated and assimilated to South Asia. Ancient Vedic Brahmanism reflected the concerns of a nomadic, pastoral people. Many of the rituals concern the proper handling and preparation of livestock and meat, and the anxieties of a culture feeling the transition from hunting and gathering to a life of agriculture and rearing livestock. The later Vedic texts are thought to be composed during a time when pastoral nomads extant on the Indo-Gangetic plain where coming into increasing contact with growing towns/cities (Gana-Sanghas). In the middle Vedas, before ultimately being resolved in the later texts, there is a conflict between the values of a pastoral people coming into contact with settled, householder ways of life. Eventually in the later Vedas we begin to see a shift in emphasis from sacrifice as performed by the Vedic ritual specialist to sacrifice and Dharmic activity being initiated and maintained by the individual Brahmin householder. The idea being that these forms of activity are one and the same and that all activity can be seen from the context of karmic ritual sacrifice. This tendency will eventually develop into the ideal of prescribed activity for good Hindus that we see articulated in the Bhagavad Gita, which coming from the popular religious epic the Mahabharata represents a popular distillation and crystallization of the ideals and values which come out of the later Vedic texts. In the Bhagavad Gita you see three main Yogas, or primary modes of religious action which will ultimately help a Hindu obtain realization: Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. These three Yogas represent (1) the final adjustment of Vedism to settled, urban householder ways of life; (2) the assimilation into Hinduism of the ideals and concepts issuing forth from broadly influential heterodox religious movements such as Buddhism and Jainism; (3) an accommodation to non-brahmin/non-male/Subaltern individuals, which comprise arguably the bulk of even Hindu society. With that setting the stage. What does Being a Hindu Look Like? What does that mean? Depending on which Yoga a particular Hindu emphasizes (and they are not mutually exclusive), this can appear differently. For most Hindu families with a householder, the predominant form of religious activity is Karma Yoga, or engaging yourself with proper dharmic activity as befits ones age and gender, as broadly determined by the Dharmashastra system. In a religious sense, performing your properly prescribed duty is your ritual sacrifice that keeps the cosmos going, which drives the order of the Universe. The later Vedic developments broadly connect this sort of mundane every day activity to the highly transactional, ritual activity of the Vedic Brahmins. If it seems like this is stretching one sort of religious ideal to accommodate different religious cultures and communities spanning different regions and millenia in time, and maybe showing a few holes in the process, you would be onto, at the very least, an interesting discussion. To add onto that, the classic model of karmic yoga as detachment from prescribed dharmic action doesn't necessarily encompass all elements of South Asian Society, neither in our time or at the time of the composition of the puranic epics and the Gita. While this dharmic system tells you what to do if you're a man or woman of sufficiently high birth, it speaks very little to elements of society that don't fit within these clearly delineated paths, particularly ascetics, shudras, tribals, certain demographics of men and women (infertile, non-heteronormative, etc.). Essentially for men of high birth that prescription is proper study and sanskritization, getting married, establishing a household, having children, growing old and only then becoming overtly religious. For women, the prescription is to be good child-bearing, housekeeping wives. For shudras and low born castes, to serve as the outlet for ritual impurity which society will gradually funnel down to the low castes shoulders. With all of this laid out, at the same time that this ideal was being crystallized and vedic brahminism was adjusting to the already extant societies on the Indo-Gangetic plain, you are seeing a reaction among opposing religious movements to urbanization, the growing mercantile economy, the householder way of life, and a sort of existential ennui due to the picture of eternity that samsara paints. A great deal of these movements were in reaction to both household brahminism and this mode of economic living that was beginning to flourish. Two of these movements eventually went on to become Buddhism and Jainism, but we know from the early sutras in the pali nikaya that there were several other extant movements at the time with varying motivations and emphases. The ascendancy of Buddhism and Sramana movements during the rise of the Mauryan empire prompts a reaction among the brahminical traditions of that time, and one of the ways they adjust to this new competition on the religious scene is by co-opting and incorporating some of their religious innovations. While previously an ascetic, renunciant form of religious life was relegated to elder citizens in old age after they fulfilled their debt to society, the innovations from the sramanic movements emphasized that it is imperative to not wait until old age to begin this sort ascetic activity. In the Gita we begin to see the practice of Jnana yoga legitimized for dharmic practice of caste hindus. It is contrasted with other Yogas as perilous, like walking a tightrope to the top of a mountain, and almost in a way discourages hindus from this path while at the same time admitting that in theory it can lead someone to direct realization. This mode of worship in practice is generally what we are seeing when we talk about Sadhus, wandering ascetics, itinerant spiritual professionals and teachers. Hinduism's ultimate response to this mode of religious life was, "If you can't beat em, join em." Finally in the Bhagavad gita we see a third Yoga which is representing what is at that time a new mode of religious worship breaking into the Brahminical tradition: namely Bhakti forms of devotional worship. The dharmashastra system is only a fulfilling mode of worship if you're a twice born male Brahmin. Jnana yoga is only accessible to the religious elite and is largely not relevant to the lives of many people, now or then. Bhakti Yoga becomes a sort of catch all for all other forms of faith and religious worship, folding them under the larger umbrella of the Brahminical Meta-Religion. This is a development that both allows the mainstream of society to make sense of the myriad elements at the periphery (be they neighboring cultures, foreign religious movements from different ends of the silk road, tribal societies with unique & idiosyncratic beliefs, etc.) while at the same time establishing the primacy of Brahminism and the place of other religious movements within it. Bhakti yoga becomes the backdoor for everything else, and over time, everything else has become to be the dominant face of Hinduism in many ways. Jnana yoga is a path open to many Hindus and you see many of them take it in some way, identifying with specific gurus and movements, maybe even ordaining as a Sadhu and adopting the ascetic life before their time. Generally most Hindus will forego this path. So nowadays what Being a Good Hindu will tend to mean is that if you are of high enough birth, you attend to the specific rituals relevant to your caste. Brahmins will have their rite of passage Upanayana ceremony, will get married, have children, make their children go through the same ceremonies, etc. Concurrently with this most Hindus will be engaged in some form of Bhakti practice. They will have a family idol, maybe they'll conduct family pujas and offerings to the idol. They'll go to temple and receive Darshan. In Bhakti yoga Darshan is very important, and really just means seeing and being seen by the divine. This ideal gets extended not just to deities and idols but to gurus, teachers, important family and spiritual figures. There is a lot of interesting literature about how this dynamic is active and responsible for the spread of early stupa worship with the spread of early Buddhism. For some Hindus, on a very mundane level this sort of devotional worship is entirely transactional, much like the economic relationships you were referring to. You light an incense for Lakshmi because you'd really like a better job, etc. Generally, I think you can look at these much in the sense that you look at prosperity gospel, its sort of auxiliary to the point, though still a fairly common way of looking at and interacting with spirituality for many. So the final question, in Hinduism what does a religious professional look like? In South Asian society religious professionals have always had to have a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Wandering Sadhus will support themselves through a mix of teachings, sometimes textually based sometimes not, through reenacting scenes and folk songs from the epics (Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc.). They adapt what they teach and what they perform to their area if they have a large territory. In West Bengal you might be re-enacting stories from Kali's life, if you wander through a tribal area maybe you know their local stories and deities and so you perform to that. If you're in a city, maybe you're a kirtan singer. Indian classical music also has been a haven for many devotional singers and poets, who are more than able to support themselves by singing at festivals and religious events. Arguably gurus are religious professionals. You don't necessarily plan a career path based on becoming the center of a cult of personality, but for those Sadhus that get there it can definitely pay the bills. Yiggy fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 18:20
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So essentially, the Hindu 'clergy' are kind of like the family's stereotypical computer guy? Self-thought, simply the person who knows the most about it in the given (sub)community and eventually built their living around it?
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May 2, 2016 23:02
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Namarrgon posted:So essentially, the Hindu 'clergy' are kind of like the family's stereotypical computer guy? Self-thought, simply the person who knows the most about it in the given (sub)community and eventually built their living around it? That was a specific example from my travels but I'm hesitant to set one family, large though they were and devout, as the example for such a large community. And, again, the point of my post overall is that in Hindu society there are a number of different individuals playing different roles which hold a piece of the duties that we'd typically associate with clergy in the west. So for that family, yes Uncle Baba was the family ritual officiant. In that same city you had temple Brahmins that would maintain the mandirs. Local residents who would tend to local idols. In poorer neighborhoods sometimes it was just paper mache on the side of the road. Sometimes there were tiny idols in stone structures. I never saw who maintained those. In a sense though you're not far off in terms of the classic example of the wandering religious professional has a sort of spiritual computer guy quality. By that I mean to say often times helping the people procuring their services to obtain practical, everyday means and ways to fix their lives.
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May 3, 2016 04:57
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So with an idea of the types of spiritual roles that are filled, I'm going to go ahead and prompt next for the question here which is what spiritual practices themselves look like? Yiggy might be familiar enough with Tibetan Buddhist ritual to put it in a context for me, but if not then I'm interested in ritual in terms of what are the goals, the focus, and the means for accomplishing those goals? For example, in a deity yoga practice in Buddhism, I would take refuge, establish my motivation, make offerings, invite the deities, and then practice that deity either by self-generating as the deity or visualizing them in front, and reciting the mantra. Then I would dissolve the visualization field eventually and so on. I think this would be called practicing Sadhana? Is this something consistent with Hindu Sadhana practices? I am assuming there are also pujas and so on for propitiation and suchlike that are done following a similar structure? My ritual knowledge is all Tibetan, so I don't know how much comes from pre-Buddhist Tibetan Shamanism, and how much comes from Indian Tantra. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 12, 2016 |
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May 12, 2016 01:54
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