Lecture
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of religious belief is the host of Gods. Hinduism numbers hundreds of deities, from minor local godlings to the great Gods whose deeds are known in every Indian family. The best known are Vishnu; Rama and Krishna, two forms, or incarnations, of Vishnu; Shiva; and Brahma, the Creator God.
The sacred books of the Hindus contain several different accounts of the origin and structure of the Universe. According to one theory, in the beginning the demiurge God Brahma formed the world out of primordial matter. According to another, the world emerged ready-made from a golden embryo. According to a third, everything in the world was created from the essence of the universal spirit, Brahman. On the physical plane, the Universe has the shape of an egg and is divided into 14 regions, of which Earth is the seventh from the top.
The Universe exists in cyclical time. Every event has already occurred once before and will recur in the future. This theory applies not only to the sequence of an individual person's reincarnations, but also to the history of society, the lives of the Gods, and the evolution of the entire cosmos.
The smallest unit of the Hindu cosmic cycle is the yuga, or world age. There are four yugas, each shorter than the one before, corresponding to the diminishing of dharma, the moral order, in the Universe. The Krita Yuga, the age of perfection, lasts 1,728,000 years; the Treta Yuga, in which dharma decreases by a quarter, is three-quarters the length of the preceding age – 1,296,000 years; the Dvapara Yuga, in which only half of dharma remains, lasts 864,000 years; the final age, the Kali Yuga, in which only a quarter of the original dharma remains, lasts 432,000 years. The current age – the Kali Yuga – began on Friday, February 18, 3102 BCE. The end of the Kali Yuga will be marked by the disintegration of social classes, the cessation of the worship of the Gods, and the spread of disrespect toward sacred scripture, sages, and moral principles. When these phenomena prevail, the end of the yuga will come, accompanied by flood, fire, and war, after which a new cycle of four yugas will begin, called a mahayuga, or great yuga, which will last the next 4,320,000 years.
A thousand mahayugas, i.e. 4,320,000,000 years, constitute one kalpa – one day in the life of the God Brahma. At the end of each such day, all the matter of the Universe is absorbed into the universal spirit, and during the night of Brahma, which also lasts one kalpa, matter exists only in potentiality, as a pos-
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sibility |
of its own restoration. At the dawn of each day Brahma appears |
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from a lotus |
growing from the navel of the God Vishnu, and matter is formed anew. |
We live on the first day of Brahma's 51st year. His year consists of 360 such days and nights, and Brahma lives 100 years. After that, the Universe disintegrates completely, utterly ceases to exist, and remains in that state for the following century of Brahma. Then Brahma is reborn, and a cycle lasting 311,040,000,000,000 years begins.
In this ever-evolving, eternally self-repeating Hindu cosmos there is but one constant entity, Brahman, the universal spirit filling space and time. All other entities, such as matter and mind, are emanations of Brahman, and therefore constitute maya, or illusion. Brahman is the absolute – indivisible, unchanging, impersonal, sexless, transcending the concepts of good and evil. By virtue of the all-encompassing and all-pervading nature of Brahman, the atman, the world-soul, is regarded as an inseparable particle of Brahman. Moreover, Brahman is atman, and only the veil of maya, the illusory world of sensory perception, prevents a person from understanding this identity.
The sacred books of Hinduism set out four goals toward which human life should be directed. These are artha – wealth and power; and kama – pleasure and the satisfaction of desires, above all amorous ones. Artha and kama are legitimate goals and are considered important components of every person's needs, yet they are subordinate in importance to the two other goals of life: dharma – right conduct; and moksha – liberation from the cycle of endless rebirths.
The foundational goal among these, with which the others are coordinated, is dharma. Alongside morality and right conduct, this concept also denotes quality and duty. Dharma is eternal and unchanging. It is also, at the same time, specific. Everything that exists – both animate and inanimate nature – has possessed its own dharma since the beginning of creation. The dharma of gold is its yellow color and luster; the dharma of the tiger is its ferocity and carnivorousness. Human dharma (manava-dharma) corresponds to the rules of conduct befitting each individual. This includes respect for priests and sacred texts, truthfulness, abstention from taking life by violence, the performance of virtuous deeds, and reverence for the Gods. Depending on his position in life, a person is also obliged to follow other dharmas. He must observe the norms recognized by his country, tribe, caste, clan, or family. Men, women, the old, the young, rulers, and commoners each have different dharmas; in fact, each major social group has its own dharma. When a conflict arises between two dharmas – that is, when duty toward one group comes into conflict with duty toward another – the interests of the smaller group (for example, the family) are sacrificed to the interests of the larger one (for example, the caste).
According to a widespread belief, strict adherence to dharma is the best way to improve one's position in future lives. The «Bhagavad Gita» states: «Better is one's own duty [dharma], though imperfectly performed, than the duty of another well performed».
Hindus see the future of their souls solely in terms of the elevation of the status of their subsequent incarnations; however, an extremely influential stratum of representatives of «philosophical Hinduism» views the future in the context of moksha – the complete liberation of the soul from the cycle of rebirths. According to their view, the soul is bound to the ever-turning wheel of reincarnation, which is set in motion by the law of karma.
At different periods in its history, philosophical Hinduism has proposed various methods of attaining moksha. All of them are regarded as equally valid paths (margas) to salvation, though three of them have gained the widest currency and the sanction of the sacred texts.
The path of action (karma-marga) is the simplest, and lies closest to the doctrine of dharma. Karma-marga leads to salvation through acts and deeds appropriate to the position a person occupies in life, but all acts must be performed selflessly, without striving for the satisfaction of personal desires. Such a life leads to detachment from one's own «Self» and to union with Brahman.
The path of love (bhakti-marga) leads to salvation through boundless devotion to God. The object of this devotion is often the God Vishnu or Krishna – one of his incarnations. Boundless devotion brings the believer closer to Brahman (of whom God is a manifestation) and allows a person to perceive the unity of all that exists in Brahman.
The path of knowledge (jnana-marga) – is the most refined and difficult path to salvation. It requires the direct perception of the highest truth of the Universe – the unity of Brahman and atman. This insight may come after a long period of spiritual and physical abstinence, involving the renunciation of all earthly attachments and prolonged ascetic and meditative practice.
An important place among such practices is occupied by yoga. The Sanskrit word «yoga» means bond, union, or discipline. The goal of the practitioner of yoga – called a yogin – is the attainment of the state of samadhi, or the dissolution of the personality in Brahman as a means of comprehending it. The training of a yogin, as a rule, is conducted under the strict supervision of a guru, a spiritual teacher, and includes the strict observance of prescribed virtues, such as non-violence, truthfulness, chastity, as well as training in control over the body, the ability to shut off sensory perception, to achieve the utmost mental concentration, and to meditate. The ability to control one's own body is an important element of yoga; a trained yogin is capable of holding the most difficult postures, regulating the breath, and even stopping the heart. The principal form of yoga encompassing these techniques is known as raja-yoga (royal yoga). Among other variants one may mention hatha-yoga, in which great attention is devoted to physical exercises, and kundalini-yoga – the yoga of eros.
Every Hindu belongs from birth to a particular caste
and cannot change his caste affiliation. He must take a wife from his own caste; his occupation, too, will be traditional for that caste. All castes occupy a definite place in the caste hierarchy. The uppermost rung of this ladder is usually occupied by the castes of priests, the Brahmins, below which are the castes of merchants, farmers, artisans, and servants.
In one of the later hymns of the Rigveda, the most venerated of the sacred books of Hinduism, the origin of the four principal social classes (varnas) is described: at the creation of the world, a primordial man was offered up in sacrifice to the Gods,
and from the head of the dismembered body came the priests and spiritual teachers (Brahmins), from the arms the warriors (Kshatriyas), from the torso the merchants, farmers, and artisans (Vaishyas), and from the feet the people of the lowest estate (Shudras). This four-tiered system probably does not reflect the actual structure of Hindu society at any point in its history. It is quite possible that the system was invented by the Brahmins many centuries ago to reinforce their own position in the caste hierarchy. The sacred texts assert that a person's varna is determined by his karma; likewise, most Hindus accordingly believe that a person's position in the caste hierarchy depends directly on his conduct in previous lives. If a person conscientiously performs the duty prescribed to him by his caste (jati-dharma), then in his next life he may improve his position and become a member of a higher caste.
The life of members of the higher castes, according to the precepts of Hinduism, is divided into four stages. The first begins with the onset of puberty, when the boy begins to study the sacred texts under the guidance of a guru. In the second stage he marries, becomes head of a household, and brings forth sons. Around the time his grandchildren appear, a man enters the next phase – he withdraws into the forest, leading the life of a hermit, leaving society behind for contemplation and meditation. Finally, he becomes a sannyasin, a homeless wanderer living on alms, free of all worldly ties. In practice, few follow these precepts, but it does happen that well-to-do people, upon reaching midlife, withdraw from worldly affairs and spend their remaining years in meditation.
The cow is a sacred animal in Hinduism. The deification of the cow is one of the central elements of Hinduism. It is believed that the cow is a living manifestation of Mother Earth. For the Aryan settlers who first appeared in the territory of India, the cow was an indispensable member of the family. And since their principal occupation was agriculture, the cow provided them with practically all vital products – milk and dairy products, as well as fuel and the dung necessary for the household. In those times the Aryans worshipped their numerous Gods by means of the sacrificial rite of yajna. Originally this was simply an individual prayer of worship, but yajna soon became communal and consisted of invoking the fire God Agni through the ritual kindling of sacred wood upon an altar and the subsequent maintenance of the fire, its constant «feeding» with clarified butter. Dairy products offered to the Gods, drinks made of milk and honey (madhupeya) were conveyed to the other Gods through the fire of Agni. Since the cow provided everything necessary for the performance of the yajna, by association it soon came to be regarded as sacred. Animal sacrifices, characteristic of ancient cults, ceased in Hinduism, as under the influence of the new religious teachings that arose on Indian soil – Jainism and Buddhism – Hindus, especially Brahmins and Vaishyas, gradually inclined toward vegetarianism. In time the cow came to be called «Gaumata» – Cow-Mother, and «Aditi» – mother of the Gods. The growing popularity of the cult of Vishnu among the wealthy, middle, and lower strata of society, which arose with the appearance of the figure of Krishna the cowherd-God, strengthened the significance and religious veneration of the cow. The deification of the cow is also reflected in the religious canon; it is mentioned in Vedic literature, though rather in a figurative sense. Later, the passage of the Vedas devoted to the cow came to be interpreted literally, and the killing of a Brahmin priest and of a sacred cow came to be regarded as the most terrible of sins. Later still, the veneration of cows and their protection became a symbol of the religious unity of Hindus in their struggle against the Muslim conquerors.
Eagle. In Hinduism this is Garuda – a gigantic bird mentioned in the Ramayana, belonging to the Vedic God Vishnu. Garuda is depicted as a being with a human torso, an eagle's head and wings. A persistent mythological motif associated with Garuda is his perpetual enmity with serpents, whose «devourer» he is (a symbolic reenactment of the solar hero's struggle with his chthonic adversary). This motif, in particular, underlies the legend of Garuda's theft of amrita (the drink of immortality), which goes back to the Vedic myth of the theft of soma by Indra's eagle.
Mouse. In Ancient India the mouse was considered the mount (vahana) of the God of wisdom Ganesha, depicted as a man with the head of an elephant.
In Ancient India the elephant is a symbol of sacred wisdom, royal dignity, invincible power and prudence. Mighty Indra, head of the pantheon, rides around his domains on the magnificent white elephant Airavata, who came into being during the churning of the ocean. This elephant is the chief of the world elephants, the dignagas, guardians of the cardinal directions. Enormous as mountains, each with four tusks, the dignagas support the earth from the four sides. Ganesha, the God of happiness with the head of an elephant, is the leader of the ganas, lesser deities who formed the retinue of Shiva, Ganesha's father. He is called the Remover of Obstacles (Vigneshvara) and is the God of wisdom and literature. According to legend, the great epic «Mahabharata» was written with Ganesha's tusk.
In Hinduism the owl is the emblem of Yama, lord of the realm of the dead. In India the owl was revered as the patron of the night and a messenger of the afterlife, called to escort souls into the realm of the dead. In addition, the owl serves as the mount of the Goddess Durga, the consort of Shiva in one of her fierce manifestations.
By approximately the 5th–7th centuries, two main currents had finally taken shape within Hinduism. They are named after the principal venerated Gods – Shaivism (the cult of Shiva) and Vaishnavism (the cult of Vishnu). Within Shaivism yet another current also emerged – Shaktism, associated with the veneration of the feminine creative energy (shakti), embodied in the image of the divine consort – companion of the God. These aforementioned Gods became the focus of worship: the entire force of the believers' expression of religious feeling was concentrated on them. These expressions could take the most varied forms and variants. Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism were not currents that contradicted or were hostile to one another. Nor did they reject other Gods and currents. The Hindu pantheon remained as varied and numerous as before, and there likewise remained a multitude of ways of venerating these Gods. Both the Gods and their worshippers coexisted peacefully with one another. Hinduism is a very tolerant religion, but only where matters of doctrine are concerned; in questions of caste and other social institutions it is by no means characterized by any tolerance. Almost everything connected with the Gods as the principal objects of worship remained unchanged. The mythological images of Shiva and Vishnu grew out of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the epics, but now the Puranas became the main source of conceptions about the Gods. It was they that served as the mythological foundation of both Vaishnavism and Shaivism. The Middle Ages saw the flourishing of Hinduism as a Puranic religion, open and comprehensible to broad segments of the population. The northern Aryan cults were actively introduced into the southern Dravidian tradition, undergoing new transformations in the process. Among the forms of worship of the Gods, bhakti stands out, and in the 6th–9th centuries bhakti became a powerful religious movement that influenced the entire medieval period. By the 16th century the movement had already spread throughout all of India, shaping the way of life and faith of a huge part of the country's population. The teaching of Tantra likewise belongs to the Hindu religious currents. Although Tantrism possesses all the features of an independent religious tradition – a doctrine, a distinctive cultic and yogic practice, sacred books, the tantras, and a whole series of other traits of a separate religion – most scholars, and indeed the Tantrics themselves, regard it as a special form of Hinduism.
The ancient prototype of the Hindu Vishnu was a secondary solar deity of the Vedas, a companion of Indra, famous for his three strides that encompassed the entire universe. The transition to a new stage in the development of the mythological image of Vishnu is most fully reflected in the Mahabharata. It captures various layers in the formation of the complex, multifaceted image of Vishnu. His traditional Vedic attributes changed, and his image acquired the traits and qualities of the objects of popular local cults, including non-Aryan ones. As a result of this synthesis, Vishnu became a deity of all-Indian scope. One of the models for the assimilation of local beliefs was the concept of the avatar – the «descent» of a deity into the earthly human world. A detailed list of the ten canonical avatars and their mythological characteristics belongs to the Puranic period. An important role in the mythology of Vishnu is played by the doctrine of the vyuhas – the emanation of the deity and, at the same time, an essential part of his nature (the evolutionary aspect of the relationship between the whole and its parts). The doctrine of the vyuhas was not only another model, alongside the avatars, for the assimilation of local cults, but also an attempt to harmonize theology with mythology and elements of philosophy.
Shiva, as one of the central deities of Hinduism, grew out of a proto-Indian mythological figure (a horned deity enthroned). Already at that stage his image contained two contrasting characteristics (the erotic and the ascetic), which continued to exist for millennia as his principal distinguishing traits. Shiva's Vedic ancestor was Rudra – a sinister elemental deity. In the Puranic period the mythology of Shiva reaches its flowering and reflects more complex religious conceptions than the mythologies of other deities. The character of his cult, his mythological image, and his myth-and-ritual complex demonstrate the further development of traits already known from Vedic sources. Shiva's primary attributes evidently pertained to the earthly element (in contrast to Vishnu's solar one). An essential part of Shiva's cult is its connection with music and ecstatic dances of a shamanic type. His most popular iconographic form is the dancing Shiva, Nataraja, king of the dance, who destroys and creates worlds by his power. Other, no less popular images are the yogi absorbed in meditation, and the ascetic in worn clothing or a loincloth, holding a begging bowl. Of the numerous myths about Shiva, the best known are the myths of the sacrifice of Daksha and the destruction of Tripura. On the basis of the Agamic Shaivite texts, the philosophical school of Shaiva Siddhanta took shape in the eleventh century and remains popular to this day.
Bhakti (participation, devotion to God) is one of the central concepts in Hinduism. It denotes a special path of God-worship, consisting of boundless and undivided devotion to the deity, constant remembrance of him, and inward contemplation of him (bhakti-marga, alongside the path of knowledge, jnana-marga, and the path of disinterested action, karma-marga). The term in this sense first appears in the Bhagavad Gita. In the early Middle Ages Hindu theologians brought bhakti closer to the concept of love. At that time, in the Dravidian south, bhakti arose as a powerful and influential movement which, by the sixteenth century, had spread throughout the whole country, colored the entire medieval period, and survived into modern times, shaping the way of life of a huge part of the population. Bhakti was a broad, democratic movement that recognized the equality of people before God, with an indifferent, and at times even negative, attitude toward Brahmanical ritual. In terms of religious practice, priority was given to personified deities, chiefly Shiva and Vishnu. The outward forms of God-worship were also transformed. Music and dance came to occupy a large place in worship, and the role of temples and temple images grew. The song, the hymn to God – conceived of as merciful and loving – became a significant act of devotion.
The veneration of Mother Goddesses goes back to the most ancient period (the proto-Indian civilization). Its roots are unquestionably non-Aryan and belong to deep antiquity. The idea of an active feminine principle was alien to Vedic religion and mythology. The female figures of the Vedas, with rare exceptions, are schematic and colorless. The Goddess Devi entered the Hindu pantheon as the consort of Shiva during the period when Hinduism took shape as a Puranic religion. The Mahadevi (Great Goddess) of the Puranas absorbed into her image a multitude of Mother Goddesses, from figures of high priestly religion to folk village cults. Since then her significance has grown steadily. She is known in both benevolent and wrathful, terrifying forms. In the early Middle Ages the conception of the Goddess as shakti – the creative energy of God and the true basis of his power – became popular. To this day the Goddesses retain a wide range of manifestations – from an active creative principle to the lowest village cults. During the period when the Puranas took shape, a broad stream of Tantric conceptions flowed into them, associated with the recognition of the feminine principle as the supreme deity and with the use of special magical and ritual techniques.
Hindus, Shaivites especially, find in the great Shiva a multitude of merits, feats, and hypostases, and attribute to him many important functions. Yet it is held that all the strength and might of Shiva's gigantic potencies lie not so much in himself as in his shakti, his spiritual energy, which is not always present with him: it appears and manifests itself only under certain circumstances. First, this energy accumulates in him, as it were, during his periods of ascetic vigil and contemplation (recall the force of the discharge that struck Kama). Since deep antiquity there has existed in India a notion of the great supernatural power of the ascetic hermit. This notion is reflected in the epics, especially the Mahabharata, and became generally accepted. In a specific form of shakti it was applied to Shiva, who became a kind of first ascetic, the patron of ascetics, their deity. Second, the energy of shakti in Shiva turned out to be closely intertwined with his masculine life-giving force. It was believed that at the moment of Shiva's union with his feminine half this energy was multiplied and concentrated many times over. Many legends in Indian mythology are devoted to descriptions of various adventures of Shiva that occurred during, or as a consequence of, his amorous union. Shiva's seed, even accidentally falling from the sky to the earth, gave birth to gods. The cult of the linga (according to some legends of the Linga Purana, Shiva himself proposed worship of the linga) became so widespread in India because it was closely connected with shakti and with the moment of union of the masculine and feminine principles (the stone pillar of the linga in representations is always joined to a base in the form of a rounded ring-clasp, symbolizing the feminine principle, the yoni). However, the concept of shakti in Hinduism was not confined to spiritual power and Shiva's masculine potencies. Over time it spread further – indeed, it effectively shifted onto the feminine principle itself, personified by Shiva's wives, those very ancient Indian fertility Goddesses who, under various names, are known and venerated in India, and to whom sacrifices are offered, including human ones. The cult of Shiva's wives is closely connected with the idea, widespread in Hinduism, that Shiva's energetic force, his shakti, by means of which a person can most quickly and easily attain his highest ultimate goal, moksha, is more readily and easily received through the mediation of the great feminine principle, which is sometimes simply called Shakti, even the Goddess Shakti. The personifications of this Shakti, the consort of Shiva, came to be regarded as the numerous fertility goddesses, foremost among them the best known and most popular, Durga and Kali.
Vishnu. If the cult of Shiva in India was always closely linked with shakti and kama, the cult of the third member of the trimurti – Vishnu – had a different character. Vishnu is gentle and free of contradiction; his principal function is preservation. He is simple and maximally close to people, especially those inclined toward emotional (rather than rational) perception of the deity – and it is precisely such people who predominate among Vaishnavas. The four-armed Vishnu is usually depicted seated on the thousand-headed dragon Shesha, floating upon the primordial waters of the universe, or on a throne in the form of a white lotus. He is peaceable, but inclined to mischief. Thus, in the form of a tortoise, Vishnu taught the gods to prepare a drink from the primordial ocean in order to become immortal. Then, in the form of the nymph Mohini, he sowed discord among the divine forces, giving the drink to the gods and refusing it to the demons, which caused the appearance of another, demonic drink – poison, which threatened to destroy everyone (only Shiva, who drank the poison, saved the situation). Finally, in the form of a dwarf, Vishnu once came to the demon Bali and asked for a scrap of land. Bali did not refuse the dwarf, but as soon as Vishnu began to measure the land (the matter concerned three strides), he turned into a giant, and with the first two strides encompassed the whole world, while with the third he pressed Bali himself into the ground, allowing him to return once a year (even now, in southern India, the day of Bali's return is celebrated). Vishnu's relations with his wife are characteristic. The Goddess Lakshmi is always beside her husband; she loves him tenderly. It is not so much the energetic force of shakti (though Shaktas see it here too) as tender feminine love, exalted and selfless, that symbolizes Vishnu's relationship with his consort, both in his principal form as Vishnu proper and in all his other forms – the avatars – in which Vishnu appeared in anthropomorphic guise. Vishnu's transformations, his avatars, are countless. However, ten are considered the principal ones. In the first four he appears in the form of animals: as a fish he saves the legendary king Manu from the flood (the Indian version of the Near Eastern myth of the great flood); as a tortoise he gives advice about the drink of immortality; in the form of a boar he draws the earth out of the waters; in the form of a man-lion he helps to slay a demon-king. He does the same in his fifth guise as well – that of the dwarf-giant. The remaining five well-known avatars of Vishnu are Parashurama (a warrior famed for his feats), Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and the messiah Kalki, whose coming is still awaited. The Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu has already been mentioned: this is a symbol of the incorporation of Buddhism into the system of Hinduism. The warrior is a symbol of valor and heroism. But the most beloved avatars of Vishnu in India are Rama and Krishna.
Krishna is a deity whose cult acquired independent significance in India. Krishna is an ancient deity. The semantics of his name («the Black One») attests that in origin he is a non-Aryan, aboriginal deity. However, already in the epic tales, in the Mahabharata, Krishna appears as an all-Indian deity of high status. As the charioteer
and counselor of the chief hero-warrior Arjuna, he reveals to him the higher meaning of the celestial and ethical law, and this teaching of Krishna's entered the Mahabharata as the chapter known as the «Bhagavad Gita.» Later Krishna was transformed from a sage-philosopher into a merry and rather frivolous cowherd-god, and it was in precisely this hypostasis that he became known and ardently beloved, especially by women, throughout all of India. Widely circulated mythical legends in the country relate that Krishna's uncle, King Kamsa, was warned that he would perish at the hand of a son of his sister Devaki. Devaki and her husband were thrown into a dungeon, and their sons were killed at birth. Only one was saved; this was Krishna, who was raised by cowherds. From childhood little Krishna grew accustomed to a free life, pranks, and mischief. He stole butter from his foster mother, sang songs, played the flute, and, once grown, began to drive the local cowherd girls mad, who ran to hear his enchanting music. Generously bestowing his love on all of them, Krishna singled out among them Radha, his constant companion. Having grown up and learned to wield weapons, Krishna carried out what had been destined for him – he slew his tyrant uncle. The cult of Krishna is extraordinarily widespread. Women see in him a merry and passionate lover and, at the same time, a beautiful and playful boy – exactly as they would wish to see both their husband and their son. Songs are composed and dramas created in his honor. During the festival of Krishna, Krishna-lila, groups of boys act out mystery plays and scenes from his life. During the merry spring festival of Holi, in memory of Krishna's pranks, everyone paints each other with bright colors, images of Krishna are purchased, young people swing on swings (as Krishna loved to do), and sometimes engage in genuine mischief. There are many temples in the country in Krishna's honor, and the famous garden of Krishna, where, according to legend, he met with the cowherd girls, is still reverently venerated: there is even a tradition that one should not remain in the garden at night – at night this garden belongs to Krishna, who comes there, so that an uninvited guest may pay for his curiosity with his life.
The Vedic and Brahmanical traditions knew no temples; Hinduism, however, is unthinkable without them. It appears that the first Vaishnava (Bhagavata) temples began to be built in the third to second centuries BCE. Only the ruins of ancient cult structures have survived to the present day.
At that time Buddhism held the dominant position in India. Architects
and sculptors carved temples out of monolithic rock and caves, and adorned the exposed rock surfaces with sculptural friezes. In some cave complexes, for example at Ellora, Buddhist, Jain,
and Hindu sanctuaries stood side by side.
The rule of the Gupta dynasty (especially the fourth to fifth centuries) was the golden age in the history of India. Hinduism became the leading state religion under them and remained so for the following centuries, right up to the Muslim conquest of India. It was then that a new architectural tradition was created, embodied in the forms of the Hindu temple.
As a result of searching and experimentation, two main styles of temple architecture took shape. They differed in the external appearance of the tower-superstructure known as the shikhara. In the northern, Indo-Aryan part of the country, preference was given to a tower of smooth pyramidal form with a rounded summit, crowned by a sharp spire (kalasha) atop a flat stone disk (amalaka). In contrast to the northern nagara-shikhara, the southern Indian temple architecture established the dravida-shikhara, which rose upward as a stepped pyramid.
From the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, temple architecture rose to a higher level. It was then that the majestic temple of Shiva was erected at Thanjavur in south India, along with the temples of Khajuraho in central India and Konark in the east, in Orissa. The external appearance of some temples resembled the chariots of the gods, and so they were called chariot-temples, or rathas.
During the reign of the Hoysala dynasty (eleventh to mid-fifteenth centuries), Hindu architects who built temples in the south, in what is now the state of Karnataka, attempted to combine the southern style with the northern, raising bell-shaped towers above the sanctuary.
The true peak of Hindu architecture was the city of Vijayanagar (sixteenth century). Its structures are so worked into a landscape abounding in rocks and boulders that at times it is impossible to distinguish the works of human hands from those created by nature. Contemporaries left rapturous accounts of these structures – now the mute witnesses of the glory of the Vijayanagar empire.
Beginning in the twelfth century, as a result of Muslim conquests and endless wars, not only were no new Hindu temples built in northern India, but existing ones were destroyed. Their ruins still rise on hillsides or hide in the shade of trees today. The glory of these temples belongs to the distant past, but crowds of pilgrims still flock to them even now.
Southern India, where Hinduism was the religion of the rulers, remains to this day a veritable museum of temple architecture. In every region there is a temple with which some legend is associated and in which a well-known statue of a deity, or its symbol possessing miraculous power, is kept. Both inside and outside, the temples are covered entirely with sculptural carving, ornaments, reliefs, and figures of gods, heroes, dancers, and musicians. Various aspects of the life of people and gods are depicted in realistic scenes and symbols.
Temples were usually built in places marked by special holiness. Traditions and legends associate them with the deeds of Vishnu, Shiva, Durga, and other gods. Sometimes rulers built temples to fulfill the wishes of their subjects: this is attested by inscriptions on some of them. Temples were built in honor of rulers and their ancestors, relatives, or celebrated compatriots. But most cult structures were erected out of religious feeling, in order to gain the favor of the gods and acquire great merit.
A temple built in accordance with all the requirements of ritual becomes the embodiment of the body of the deity to whom it is dedicated, and the image of the deity together with the altar constitutes the jiva (soul) of the temple.
The altar, or any place where an image of a deity is installed, symbolizes the universe, composed of five basic elements: earth (prithvi), water (apa), fire (tejas).
In Hinduism, many rites may be performed by the father of the family. There is no separate social institution of clergy in Hinduism, although the brahmin varna enjoys enormous veneration. It is precisely the brahmins who most often perform priestly functions in Hindu temples.
In a typical rural locality, the upper layer of the caste hierarchy is formed by members of one or several brahmin castes, making up from five to ten
percent of the population. Among these brahmins there are some landowners, several village clerks and accountants or bookkeepers, and a small group of cult ministers who perform ritual functions in local shrines and temples. Members of each brahmin caste marry only within their own circle, although marriage is possible to a bride from a family belonging to an analogous subcaste of a neighboring locality. Brahmins are not supposed to follow a plow or perform certain kinds of work
involving manual labor; women from among them may serve in the household, and landowners may work their plots, but not plow them. Brahmins are also permitted to work as cooks or domestic servants.
A brahmin has no right to eat food prepared outside his caste, but members of all other castes may accept food from the hands of brahmins. In the choice of food a brahmin observes many prohibitions. Members of the Vaishnava caste (worshippers of the god Vishnu) have adhered to vegetarianism since the fourth century, when it became widespread; some other brahmin castes who worship Shiva (Shaiva brahmins) do not, in principle, refuse meat dishes, but abstain from the meat of animals that are part of the diet of lower castes.
Brahmins serve as spiritual mentors in the families of most castes of higher or middle status, with the exception of those considered «impure.» Brahmin priests, as well as members of a number of religious orders, are often recognized by their «caste marks» – patterns painted on the forehead in white, yellow, or red paint – but such marks indicate only affiliation with a particular sect and characterize a given person as a worshipper of, for example, Vishnu or Shiva, rather than as a member of a particular caste or subcaste.
Brahmins, more than others, adhere to the occupations and professions prescribed for their varna. For many centuries their ranks have produced scribes, clerks, priests, scholars, teachers, and officials. As late as the first half of the twentieth century, in some regions brahmins held up to 75% of all more or less important government positions.
In dealings with the rest of the population, brahmins do not admit of reciprocity; thus, they accept money or gifts from members of other castes, but never themselves make gifts of a ritual or ceremonial character. There is no complete equality among the brahmin castes, but even the lowest of them stands above all the other, highest, castes.
Over the long course of its existence, Hinduism has developed something like a program of individual perfection. Such advancement not only takes on diverse forms and includes a whole series of successive rebirths, but is also achieved by various means (rituals, instruction, and the direct acquisition of spiritual knowledge and spiritual powers) within the course of a given life. As a first theme within the study of contemporary Hinduism, one may consider a certain set of rituals that accompany a person from birth to death itself – an individual list of rites known as samskaras, marking all the successive stages of the journey undertaken by the individual along the roads of life. A survey of the samskaras reveals one of the most ancient and best-preserved ritual structures of South Asia. It can also shed light on important aspects of Hindu psychology, family bonds, and the social system.
A quite different path may be traced by analyzing the traditions of pilgrimage, vows, offerings, and other forms of worship that take place outside the domestic circle and, in many cases, outside one's native village or town. Here we are speaking of ritual actions, though in this case their all-Indian structure is far less well defined: for them there exist no clear instructions drawn from Vedic texts, nor known authorities from among the brahmins able to serve as the necessary guides, and even the very word «ritual» applied to them sometimes seems a stretch. These actions take us out of homes and temples and return us to primary life forces and rhythms.
On the fourth night after the wedding, before lying with his wife for the first time, the young husband addresses her with these verses: «May
Vishnu prepare the womb, may Tvashtar shape the forms, may Prajapati pour forth [the seed], may Dhatar place the fruit within you. Place the fruit, Sinivali, place the fruit, broad-tressed one. May the Ashvin gods, crowned with lotuses, place the fruit within you, the Ashvins with their golden fire-sticks – the fruit which I now give you to bear for ten months» (Jaiminiya Grihyasutra, 1.22).
Hindus draw numerous sources of energy from the world around them: sacred powers in rivers and rocks, in village temples and hilltop shrines, even in holy men and women. It has already been noted that time, like physical space, is richly endowed with spiritual meanings and events. There is natural time, the cosmic time of the annual seasons and other changes recurring on a universal scale, measured by the movement of the heavenly bodies and the periods of the monsoon winds, characterized by the alternation of light and darkness, heat and cold, rain and drought, growth and decay. But there is also individual time, filling, ideally, the hundred-year span between birth and death. Just as cosmic time is carefully preserved in the memory of the most important natural and divine events, personal time is likewise ritually marked. These markers are called samskaras, ritual acts marking the flow and transformation of the life process.
Some ritual manuals mention up to forty desirable samskaras to be performed, but more often their number is not so large – from ten to eighteen. Literally, the word «samskara» means «completion,» «accomplishment,» or «improvement,» i.e. the ritual advancement of the individual from the moment of conception to the last moment of earthly life. Since a considerable part of Hindu symbolism is bound up with agriculture, the metaphor of ripening is most often used to describe this process: the individual life cycle begins with the planting of a seed and lasts until the gathering of the sacrificial harvest, which is followed by the next rebirth and a new life cycle. Hence the symbolism of food and its transformations – in the material sense, as a process occurring in the body, and in the spiritual sense, as a process of ritual change – remains the principal means of reflecting the individual's life course.
Every culture, every religion pays ritual attention to the life cycle of its adherents. Yet by no means do all of them place such significant emphasis on the essential transformations accompanying ritual procedures as Hinduism does.
Therefore, in surveying the samskaras it is necessary to keep in mind at once several specifically Hindu points.
First of all, because of the existence of the unquestioned concept of metempsychosis, the individual's journey from conception to cremation or burial is not the only one. Rather, each life represents merely one link in a chain of countless rebirths undergone by this individual, until the attainment of the final stage – liberation – frees him from these cycles of ever-new births and deaths.
Second, the individual is not alone on his life's journey. It begins as an extension of an already existing family of parents, one carrying within it the memory of all its predecessors. Ideally it ends with the presence of a son, a further continuation of the ancestral line, who becomes the performer of the final ritual, the last offering of the body that has completed its journey. Whereas in our culture the family tree is represented by a widely spreading oak or chestnut with many branches, the corresponding image in Hinduism is a slender bamboo, tall and straight, on whose trunk joints (vamsha) are regularly arranged – a «direct lineage» depicting the unbroken movement from father to son. The masculine character of this succession is a central defining feature of kinship and ritual in Hinduism: all attention is devoted to the birth of a son capable of sustaining the continuation of the lineage and preserving the integrity of its ritual structure. A daughter is merely a temporary member of the family, since she will be incorporated into her husband's lineage, first through the marriage ritual itself, and then, after living in his village or town, at the moment of death, when she may be admitted to the company of his ancestors. Yet from the standpoint of the individual's life journey it is necessary to remember the much wider circle of persons involved in the performance of every ritual. It includes not only all visible relatives, but the invisible ones as well. The active presence of the deceased, men and women, is never forgotten, and in the offering of food, accompanied by mantras, they too take part, on an equal footing with the living.
And finally, in the series of samskaras there is what might be called «front-loading.» Most of these rituals are performed on a person under the age of six months, and some of them even before the cutting of the umbilical cord. Since the principal purpose of the samskaras performed during life is improvement – that is, the removal of everything impure – much attention is devoted to the preceding stages of the individual's existence, including the danger-filled passage from one body to another. Beyond this awaits him the established sequence of samskaras – the ritual road leading from conception to childhood, to initiation, marriage, death, and what awaits a person beyond its threshold.
The Vedic instructions for the performance of domestic rituals begin the reckoning of a new life with the rite of marriage. The consummation of the spouses' union is recommended on the fourth day of the ceremony, and sexual union is in fact a ritual of impregnation here. According to the mantras of the famous marriage hymn of the «Atharvaveda,» the bride is identified with the earth, and the groom with the sky. The image of woman as a plowed field and man as the sower retains its significance throughout Hindu mythology and ritual practice. Moreover, the embryo that arises in the bride's body as a result of the marriage ceremony is itself a new being, composed in part of the father's seed (the source of the bones, teeth, channels of the body, and its seed) and in part of the mother's intrauterine blood (the source of its blood, flesh, and internal organs). If the paternal substance predominates in the embryo, the new person will be born a boy; if the maternal substance predominates, a girl.
The next samskara, however, performed in the third month of a woman's first pregnancy, is the «engendering of a male.» This indicates the fact that ritual actions can nonetheless influence the sex of the future child. Beans, barley, berries, and shoots of the banyan tree may all be used in the rite. In the fourth or some subsequent month falls the ritual of «hair-parting,» during which the future father combs his wife's hair three times from the roots to the ends, lifting it upward as he does so. A porcupine quill, bundles of sacred grass, or a full spool of thread are used as a comb. This ceremony also requires the presence of ripe fruit, and it takes place, like the others, before the domestic hearth and requires the recitation of special mantras. In some regions of India the expectant mother looks at rice being prepared, discerning in it the features of the child soon to be born.
The birth ritual is performed immediately, as soon as the child comes into the world, even before the umbilical cord is cut. The first part of this samskara is concentrated on the «creation of wisdom» in the newborn; the father touches the child's lips with a golden spoon or ring coated with honey, curds, and clarified butter. The name of the Goddess of sacred speech, Vach, is whispered three times into the newborn's right ear. The second part of the ritual includes mantras of «long life.» After the umbilical cord is cut, the child may be given a secret name, known only to the father and mother, before being pressed to the mother's breast.
In the Vedic period, at the time of a child's birth, honors were paid to several mysterious feminine energetic powers that played the role of midwives to its future destiny and to the physical act of arrival in the world. Worship of the Goddess Shashthi («the Sixth») on the sixth day of the child's life is a modern survival of this veneration of the ancient figure of the female protectress.
Ten or twelve days after birth (and in some regions of India, a year later), the child undergoes the samskara of name-giving, as a result of which he is given his everyday name, often in honor of a deity indicated by favorable current astrological predictions. It is by this name that the person will henceforth be known. It serves as a kind of «cover» or disguise, diverting attention from the true name, which is kept secret from the evil eye and other dangers. Amulets, a black thread around the wrist, marks left on the body with lamp-soot, and other means may also serve to protect the child, from this day until it reaches puberty, and sometimes longer.
The new family member may be carried out of the house for the first time in the fourth month of life. This event, consisting in his beholding the sun and the moon,
is a samskara, as is the moment of his first feeding on solid food (boiled rice), which usually occurs in the sixth month. A month or so later the ceremony of ear-piercing is performed, during which a wire is inserted into the earlobes – for boys first into the right ear, for girls into the left. The ritual shaving of the hair and, correspondingly, the removal of the impurities contained in it, is an important life procedure in Hinduism and is often associated with special pilgrimages and vows, as well as with the ordinary system of rituals.
When the hair is shaved, a small lock is left at the back of the head, gathered into a tuft, as visible evidence that the procedure has been performed. Incidentally, the ritual of the first shaving of the hair on the head is the only samskara that may be performed not only at home but also in a temple, usually one dedicated to the lineage Goddess. The second shaving of the head for young men at the age of sixteen, at which point they also begin to shave the hair on their faces, may sometimes also be regarded as a samskara.
Of all the samskaras occurring between birth and marriage, the most significant, of course, is the initiation ceremony culminating in the presentation of the sacred thread, known as the upanayana, a ritual that «brings near» the pupil to his guru in search of religious instruction. Nowadays only the most exacting brahmin families subject their sons to this rite; more often an abbreviated version of it serves as a kind of prelude to the taking of the marriage vow.
Throughout the entire Vedic period, as well as in the age of classical Hinduism, the upanayana was considered an obligatory second birth for all the «twice-born» classes, that is, for brahmins, kshatriyas, and vaishyas, who received their sacred threads at the ages of 8, 11, and 12 respectively. The second birth, sealed by the sacred thread worn over the left shoulder, which bound its bearer for life, marked a transition into a new state of great collective and individual significance. Initiation meant not merely the newcomer's introduction to the Vedic tradition, both textual and ritual, when he heard the mantra (the gayatri, from the text of the «Rigveda,» 3.62.10) from his guru for the first time and became acquainted with the order of the procedure for offerings on the sacred fire (the standard homa). At this moment he became a link in the endless chain of the transmission of knowledge and assumed his allotted share of human responsibility for maintaining cosmic order and observing cosmic laws. This step was by no means a small one.
This complex ritual, among other things, opened the doors leading to the first stage of the life path, the stage of the student, one «living in accordance with brahman,» that is, the brahmacharin, receptive to the words of his guru and absorbing all the instructions that his spiritual father instills in him during this very long process of second birth. The «Atharvaveda» speaks with reverence of such a Vedic student, saying that he possesses greater power than a thousand suns. To this day, some children from certain brahmin families follow this ancient tradition. They live for years in the house of their guru, memorizing the Vedic texts by ear, one line per lesson, repeating it daily until the entire Veda, or substantial parts of several Vedas, is firmly fixed in their memory.
Yet another samskara marks the final stage of study as a brahmacharin, the «return» to the parental home after the performance of a ritual ablution, signifying something like the conferral of an academic degree. Now the focus of attention shifts to ritual activity associated with the life of the family householder. Ancient students received all their education during the several years they spent with their teacher; nowadays, of course, a brahmin boy, like all his peers, attends an ordinary school in the usual way. At present this tradition has been reduced to a purely symbolic process of instruction in the rules of religious life: initiation with the presentation of the thread, whispering of the gayatri mantra into the ear, instruction in the order of performing domestic sacrifices, ritual ablution, and «return» – all this takes place in a single day in the young man's own home, usually before his journey to his marriage ceremony, which takes place in the village or town of his bride.
Preparations for the wedding, in all castes, fall to the parents and may take many months. The rite itself, the samskara that transforms both bridegroom and bride, takes place at night in the house of the bride's father. It is embedded within a broad range of other rites and local practices, which may continue for several days and are usually marked by all the features of a communal festival. One important preliminary rite, performed long before the wedding, away from prying eyes, in the houses of the bridegroom and the bride, is the anointing of their bodies with oil of turmeric, a plant with a yellow root famed for its fertility-inducing power.
Already in antiquity there existed many variants of the rite and levels of symbolism in this union of two people, of two cosmic principles – the masculine and the feminine. In modern India there is even greater diversity in the course of this ritual, performed everywhere, but a number of its characteristic features were borrowed from the Vedic ritual sutras and can be traced in most regions of India and in other parts of the Hindu world. They include the construction of a ritual canopy from banana and mango leaves, believed to have an auspicious effect; the tying of a thread around the bride's wrist; the first glance exchanged by the future spouses after the curtain separating them is removed; the placing of the bride's foot three times on the family millstone as a vow of fidelity; the important ceremony of the seven steps taken toward the north, or around, the ritual fire; and the first offering upon the hearth of the new home. The rite called homa, which the young man learned during his initiation, performed now together with the bride, confers upon him the status of a householder, a full member of society. The young couple together seek out in the sky the pole star, Dhruva, and another star nearby, Arundhati (wife of the sage Vasishtha), who, like Dhruva, embodies devotion and marital fidelity. Usually there also takes place a ritual during which part of the hair on the bride's head is colored bright red – a sign of marriage, but also a symbol and promise of her important new role, that of future mother.
The final samskara on a person's life path is the ritual destruction of the material body after death, either by cremation or by burial. This is the «final offering,» as the name of this samskara suggests. Cremation and burial have been known since the time of the «Rigveda» and are widely practiced among Hindus to this day (although in southern India there is a tendency among the higher castes to cremate, and among the lower to bury, their dead). Funerary rituals once again vividly demonstrate that Hinduism regards death as a continuation of the unceasing existence of the individual self in various life forms arising along the long path to liberation, while the self itself remains indestructible throughout this process.
This samskara pursues the same goals as all the preceding ones: it marks the completion of the next stage of existence, in this case the end of earthly life; it serves the purpose of improvement, destroying impurity and turning the entire material body into ash and dust; it promotes the further advancement of the individual's subtle body by freeing it for another birth in the long chain of successive rebirths. This set of rituals, like the preceding one, exists in numerous variants, but traditionally it includes: the washing of the body, inside or outside the house; the procession to the place of burial or cremation, both of which are usually located near one another, close to a river, within or beyond the boundaries of the village or town; the ritual of lighting the funeral pyre or lowering the body into the grave; a circumambulation of the pyre or grave by the chief performer of the rite, usually the eldest of the deceased's sons, who makes the «offering» of his father's body; the breaking of a large ceramic pot of water over the pyre or grave; the ritual ablution of the mourners, with the men also shaving the hair on their heads and
продолжение следует...
Часть 1 4. Hinduism: the common spiritual heritage of the peoples of India
Часть 2 3. Hinduism and the Caste System - 4. Hinduism: the
Часть 3 7. Reform of Hinduism in the 19th–20th centuries. Religious syncretism
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