Teaching about Hinduism: Some Challenging Issues
Lynne Broadbent
Why is Hinduism challenging?
Hinduism has been called ‘infinitely fascinating, surprising, and challenging’. If
the religion itself is regarded as challenging, then teaching about it is certainly a
challenge for the teacher in the primary classroom! Hinduism is the most ancient
of all the religions, with no one moment of divine revelation such as at Jesus’
baptism or the Angel Jibril’s revelation to Muhammad, no one key figure or
founder, a baffling array of images of the divine and numerous holy books.
Therefore, some of the basic starting points through which a teacher might
introduce a new religion to pupils are not quite so straightforward when it comes
to Hinduism – but maybe it is this which makes Hinduism fascinating, surprising
and challenging for pupils.
How many gods? One god – or many gods?
Talking about God is never a simple matter, and teaching about the concept of
God in Hinduism presents three immediate challenges: first, the question of
number- is there one god or thousands of gods? second, the question of visually
representing god, in pictures or images, referred to as ‘murtis’, for display on
home shrines and in the mandir; and third, there is the nature of the images, or
murtis, themselves, brightly coloured and richly symbolised images of male,
female and animal deities, a challenge to the viewer’s cultural as well as religious
understanding.
For Hindus, there is One Ultimate Reality, Brahman, described as ‘Sat-citananda’, Truth, Consciousness and Bliss. For Hindus, as for most religious
adherents, God is far greater than human powers of description, so Brahman is
described in wide-ranging and seemingly contradictory terms; Brahman is
therefore both immanent and transcendent, personal and impersonal, male and
female, having form yet being formless. Most, but not necessarily all, Hindus will
understand this One Ultimate Reality as a personal God who is experienced
through God’s three main functions in the world; so God is a Creator, a Preserver
and a Destroyer. These three functions or qualities of God are represented by
three images; Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver or Sustainer and
Shiva the Destroyer, that is a destroyer of evil. Although shown as separate
images and functions, the three aspects of the Divine are interrelated as the
world is constantly in a motion of being created, sustained, destroyed and then
being re-created. While Brahman as Ultimate Reality and the different
representations of God may seem baffling, some scholars have used a
comparison of light passing through a prism: the ‘white’ light enters the prism and
is refracted into the many colours which make up that white light. So it is with
Brahman, all the aspects or qualities which make up the Divine are seen through
the different images. Brahma, the Creator, is often shown with several heads
and arms, a symbol of his creative power; Vishnu, the Preserver, often shown
holding a white conch shell and a rotating wheel, is sometimes regarded as a
‘cosmic policeman’ for when there is an imbalance between good and evil in the
world, he sends down an incarnation (avatara) to redress the balance and Rama
and Krishna were two of his incarnations; Shiva the Destroyer is often pictured
as Lord of the Dance, dancing in a circle of flames and stamping on the demon of
ignorance.
How do Hindus represent the Divine?
The representation of the divine in Hinduism has developed over many
thousands of years and is completely at odds with Jewish and Muslim practice
where the representation of God is forbidden. However, the question of
representation raises a basic human issue and that is, how do you speak of and
make sense of the divine and express your relationship with the divine when the
divine is unseen and transcendent? Jews convey their relationship with God
through constant recitation of God’s saving actions in their history, and in
synagogue liturgy there is frequent reference to ‘I am the Lord your God who
brought you out of the land of Egypt’. Muslims express their relationship with
Allah through recitation of the 99 Names of Allah, for example, ‘The Creator’,
‘The Guide’, ‘The All-Forgiving’ and ‘The Source of Peace’.
Christians express their relationship with the divine through reference to three
images, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the second of these, the Son, being
represented visually in homes, churches, on posters and greetings cards. Hindus
visually represent the different attributes and qualities of the divine. As for the
strangeness of the colourful and highly symbolic Hindus images – this seems
exaggerated because we often fail to draw on the rich diversity of images and
cultures when teaching about Christianity. If we were to familiarise our pupils
with Greek and Russian icons, with huge sparkling golden images of Christ
Pantocrator spanning the domes of churches, and Chinese and African images
of Jesus, then encounters with Hindu deities might not seem so strange.
How can we address the challenge of teaching about the Hindu concept of
God?
Many teachers begin with an AT2 or Learning from… religion task which could be
used with any religion – that is asking pupils to describe themselves in a limited
number of words. Having described themselves as daughter, sister, cousin and
friend and their personal qualities such as their friendliness, reliability, ‘a good
listener’, trustworthy … , most pupils come to the realisation that a limited
number of words is insufficient to describe their attributes! And so it is with God!
Looking at an array of Hindu deities, the images may at first seem strange but
the more familiar the images become, pupils start to see past the ‘strangeness’
and begin to identify and discuss the specific symbols and in turn the qualities
which the symbols represent. So the many arms shown on several deities are
recognised as symbols of God’s power, the blue colour of Krishna a symbol
representing the sky and the ocean, a symbol of the infinite nature of God,
Shiva’s hour-glass drum, a symbol of rhythm and sound as Shiva beats out the
rhythm of the universe. Clarification on the meaning behind the symbols can be
sought though textbook, internet and cd-rom and before long, pupils are
developing skills of investigation, interpretation, discussion and reflection, in this
case, reflection on the nature of God, all skills which transcend the teaching of
Hinduism and skills which lie at the heart of good RE.
Surely there are too many gods and goddesses and the children will not
understand?
Further exploration of the stories and rituals associated with the deities unlocks
the ways in which Hindus both interact with and learn from the divine. One of the
more familiar deities is that of Ganesh with his elephant’s head. The story tells
that Ganesh is the son of Parvati, moulded from skin from her own body and
created to satisfy her desire for a child. As a young boy, Ganesh is guarding the
room where his mother is taking a bath when his father, Lord Shiva returns. Not
recognising his son, Lord Shiva is angry when he finds his way to Parvati’s room
barred and in anger he cuts off Ganesh’s head. Of course, as a god, Lord Shiva
can restore his son to life again when faced with Parvati’s grief and does so with
the head of an elephant. Just as elephants remove any obstacle in their path,
Ganesh becomes known as ‘the Remover of Obstacles’, the aspect of the divine
prayed to before participating in worship in the mandir, before moving house and
before an examination or any other important event. If this appears strange to
pupils at first, then they need to reflect on whether in other religions people pray
to God to help remove their difficulties or obstacles – and then things are not so
strange!
Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth and Good Fortune is particularly worshipped at
Divali, a Hindu New Year festival. Lakshmi is usually depicted seated or
standing on a lotus flower a symbol of purity and goodness rising from the murky
waters below: in one of her four hands she holds a lotus flower, from another
hand fall gold coins symbolising wealth and prosperity. Businessmen pray to her
at Divali, the start of the new financial year. Krishna is another popular deity,
worshipped both as a divine child and as an adult. His birth is celebrated each
year when a murti or image of him is placed in a swing and rocked by each
member of the congregation. Stories of him as a child include him stealing his
foster mother’s butter and another of him revealing to her an image of the whole
universe, the sun, the moon and the stars, in his mouth. Krishna is the playful
and captivating aspect of the Divine – the God who attracts others to him. But it
is in the story of Krishna and Arjuna told in the Bhagavad Gita that we see God
as both friend and teacher we he teaches Arjuna, a human, how life should be
lived. Arjuna, in his chariot and about to go into battle, sees that if he proceeds
then he will be fighting his own relatives. The Bhagavad Gita describes his
plight: ‘Life goes from my limbs and they sink, and my mouth is sear and dry; a
trembling overcomes my body, and my hair shudders in horror..’ (BG 1:29)
Arjuna comes to recognise that his charioteer is none other than Krishna, and
Krishna calls Arjuna ‘friend’ and teaches him about dharma, living one’s life
according to one’s spiritual duty.
Praying to Ganesh to remove any obstacles, praying to Lakshmi for wealth and
good fortune and learning from Krishna the ways to live one’s life are just some
expressions of the relationship between humans and the divine which can be the
focus of learning for Key Stage 1, 2 and 3 pupils. In the story of Divali, the key
characters, Rama, Sita and Hanuman, display particular qualities or values and
act as ‘role models’ for those who listen to the story. Rama, for instance, one of
the incarnations of Vishnu, symbolises strength and the devotion of a husband as
he rescues Sita from the demon Ravana; Sita is the faithful wife and Hanuman,
the monkey god, is the devoted follower and friend of Rama. Work on Divali can
therefore a consideration of the personal qualities and values it promotes.
The Gods, are they real?
Encounters with stories and visual images of the Divine invariably lead to
questions about ‘truth’ and, as when asked about any religion, this is a difficult
question. If the question in part focuses on whether Hindus believe that there
was ever a time in history when God lived on earth, then the answer is ‘yes’ for
Hindus believe that Krishna was born in Mathura, Northern India, and grew up in
the town of Vrindavan, a place of pilgrimage today. If the question relates to
whether Hindus believe that the Divine is effective in the world today and that it is
‘worthwhile’ praying to God for help and guidance, then again the answer is ‘yes’
and there are several ways to enable pupils to understand this. First, resources
such as the ‘Gift to the Child’ interactive story books designed for Foundation
Stage pupils show children in worship scenes and discussions, with, for example,
Kedar, a young Hindu boy seen worshipping Ganesh.
Second, there is no better way to encounter the impact of the Divine on Hindus’
lives than to witness ‘puja’ or worship in a Hindu temple or mandir. Mandirs can
look very different from each other depending on the particular religious and
cultural traditions which they represent, but in most there will be a bell, rung by
worshippers to alert God of their presence and an image or murtis of Ganesh
before which worshippers pray with hands together and bowed heads as soon as
they enter. A central shrine or shrines will house murtis of perhaps Rama and
Sita, or Krishna with his consort Radha, and during the arti ceremony, the flames
of the arti lamp will be waved in front of the deities and then offered as a blessing
to the worshippers. From the rituals and the responses of the worshippers, it is
apparent that for Hindus the murtis are more than just symbols of the deity: when
the murtis in the mandir are consecrated, the priest invites the deity to be present
within the murti and the murti becomes the living presence of the deity. For
Hindus then, to worship in the mandir is to come face-to-face with the living
presence, to see and be seen by God; this ‘seeing’ is called ‘darshan’.
Third, in the absence of a visit to a mandir, the use of video may serve to convey
the personal nature of God in the Hindu tradition through images of worship in a
mandir or daily pujs (worship) at a home shrine where the lights of a diva,
flowers, fruit and incense are offered to the deities.
Summary
Syllabuses for Religious Education indicate a range of approaches to teaching
and learning about Hinduism, from the study of its holy books (reference has
already been made to the Bhagavad Gita with the Krishna and Arjuna story and
the story of Rama and Sita, found in the Ramayana), a study of karma and
reincarnation (closely linked to following one’s dharma as in the Krishna and
Arjuna story), an exploration of moral values and even a study of the caste
system – which is strange, since some Hindu writers comment that it is no longer
strictly adhered to in Hindu society! However, the greatest challenge in teaching
about Hinduism is also probably the greatest contribution which teaching about
Hinduism can make to programmes of Religious Education, that is the opening
up of discussion about the existence and the nature of god, a discussion with
begins with Foundation Stage pupils as they hear the story of Rama and Sita and
continues into VI Form philosophical debates!