ANCIENT WISDOM: Writings of Faith

This installment looks at the oldest recorded system of faith and notes that there are some common elements that are exhibited.

Hinduism is one of the principal faiths in the modern world and is the world’s oldest religion with complete scriptural texts that date back 3000 years to c. 975 BC.  

One of the core beliefs of this system is the importance of the search for a One that is the All.  In this system, like that of the hunter/gatherers, adherents accept their status as beings of lesser power that are dependent upon the divine.

The word Hinduism was first coined in the 19th century to refer to a rich accumulation of traditions, texts and practices which date to 2000 BC or older.  The history of Hinduism in India can be traced to about 1500 BC.  But to what does the word Hinduism refer?  

The world’s three earliest (objectively observed) civilizations were located in Mesopotamia (the land “between the rivers”) in the vicinity of Iraq; Egypt in the vicinity of the Nile River; and the Indus civilization in the vicinity of the Indus River in India.  

Add to these three the cultures of the North & South American Continent: the mound builders and the other civilizations who existed c. 3500 BC and we can observe that humanity began to settle down and form urban settlements some 4000 to 5000 years ago.

Of the three earliest civilizations the Indus civilization was the most extensive.  It arose as the earliest known urban culture of the Indian subcontinent around 2600 to 1900  BC (4,000 to 5,000 years ago).  Early travelers to the Indus Valley, beginning with the Greeks and Persians, termed its inhabitants as “Hindu” or in Greek, indoi and this has been used to identify this civilization and the religion(s) that arose.  But many prefer to refer to this religion as the Vedic religion.  This is the religion of the ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples who entered India about 1500 BC from the region of present-day Iran.  

The Vedic religion takes its name from the collections of sacred texts known as the Veda,  the oldest written religious activity in India.  Its oral tradition, however, goes back to somewhere between 2000 to 1000 BC. 

There are artistic representations of luminous spirits associated with specific locales and natural phenomena as well as cobra-like divinities represented. By contrast, Pharaoh Akhenaten’s Aten, a god held to be the life giving rays of the Sun, is first mentioned during the period of 1991 to 1802 BC.

The Vedic people were in close contact with the ancestors of the Iranians and their writings contains elements from three sources: 

• an element common to most of the Indo-European groups, 
• an element held in common with the early Iranians, and 
• an element appearing only in the Indian subcontinent.  

Some of the common Indo-European elements include ritual sacrifice, worship of male sky gods, including the old sky god Dyaus (Zeus, Deus). The Vedic concept of heaven, "the world of the fathers" resembles the Germanic Valhalla and is similar to the spirit realm of the Ainu.

The prehistoric culture of the Indus Valley arose between 3000 to 2000 BC from the metal-using village cultures of the region.  Evidence exists to indicate that several features of later Hinduism may have had prehistoric origins.

The Indus culture seemed to accept and even celebrate the organic multileveled and sometimes pluralistic nature of their traditions made possible by the widely shared Hindu view that truth or reality cannot be encapsulated in any creed or dogma.  For many, Hinduism is not a religion, but rather is a way of life.

If the Indus (River) valley civilization was the earliest source of these traditions, then its sacred texts may have served as a vehicle for spreading their religious beliefs to other parts of the world.

It is said that there are “five strands” of Hinduism religious tradition:  doctrine, practice, society, story, and devotion.  The first of these, doctrine, is expressed in a vast tradition anchored to the Veda (a word meaning knowledge).  

The Indus people recognize four classifications of society which came to be developed into a caste system.  In our English descriptors these classifications basically refer to priests, warriors, merchants, and laborers. 

The Indus people praised a wide pantheon of gods that personified natural and cosmic phenomena including fire, the Sun, the dawn, storms and rain; also friendship, moral authority, kingship, and speech.

About 900 BC the compilation of the basic myths and rituals of the Vedas were followed by other texts: Forest Books, Philosophical discussions, the doctrine of monism and freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth.  All of this Vedic literature was considered the product of divine revelation.

Of the various strands of Hinduism, perhaps the fifth strand, the broad tradition of sharing or devotion with a loving God, with its central affirmation that religious faith is more fundamental than rigidities of practice or doctrine.  

Most Hindus believe in an uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent and all-embracing principle that contains both being and non-being.  This principle is termed brahman and is the sole reality–the ultimate cause, foundation, source and goal of all existence. As the All, brahman either causes the universe and all beings to emanate from itself, transforms itself into the universe, or assumes the appearance of the universe.  Brahman is in all things and is the self of all living beings.  Hindus, however, differ as to whether this ultimate reality is best conceived as an impersonal or a personal God.

Hindus generally accept the doctrine of transmigration and rebirth, a cyclic process with no clear beginning or end and encompasses lives of perpetual, serial attachments.  The only goal is (reunion with) the one permanent and eternal principle: the One, God, Brahman.

Hindus acknowledge several routes toward realizing this principle: 

• Ritual action (duty – disinterested discharge of ritual and social obligations), 
• Knowledge (training to gain a super intellectual insight into one's identity with brahman), and 
• Devotion (love for a personal God).  

These various paths or routes are seen as suited to various types of people and available to all.

Indian religious life underwent great changes around 550 to 450 BC.  This century was marked by the rise of ascetics who rejected traditional religion, denied the authority of the knowledgeable (the vedas) and the priests (the brahmans) and began to claim to have discovered the release from transmigration.  There were a number of these, but Buddha is perhaps the most widely recognized.  

There were a number of other teachers who organized bands of ascetic followers, each group adopting a specific code of conduct.  They gained support from ruling families and merchants who were growing in wealth and influence, and searching for alternative forms of religious activity that would allow them a more significant role.

The scriptures of the new religious movements throw some light on the popular religious life of the period. There was a "highest god” and the creator of the universe; there was a "Mighty One" that was second to him in importance.  

The priestly class, the Brahmans, were very influential, but there was opposition to their large-scale animal sacrifices on moral, philosophical and economic grounds.  

The Indo-European heritage of the ancestor cult was almost universally retained while popular religious life centered around local fertility divinities, cobra spirits and other minor spirits in sacred places such as groves.

Around 500 BC an ascetic movement became widespread and increasing numbers of intelligent young men "gave up the world" to search for release from transmigration by achieving a state of psychic security.

Very important around the turn of the millennium was the sun god.  The solar cult had Vedic roots but later may have expanded under Iranian influence.  It is known that Hindu ascetics occasionally visited Greece, and that Greece and India conducted not only trade but also cultural, educational and philosophical exchanges.