World Religions, Sixth Edition
Warren Matthews
Chapter Three:
Hinduism
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The Origins and Historical
Development of Hinduism
 Dravidian peoples lived in cities along the Indus River in modern-day
Pakistan and northwest India
 Around 1000 BCE, Aryans migrated into Dravidian territory from the
west
 From the intermixing of Dravidians and Aryans, the earliest forms of
Indian society (including the caste system and Hinduism) emerged
The Sites and Sacred Rivers of Early
Hinduism
Recent India and Neighboring States
Shruti and Smriti: Revelation and
Scriptures
 The Vedas
 Sacred oral traditions brought by migrating Aryans

Were regarded as having been revealed to humanity

Were the subject of later commentaries
 Accounts of the gods
 Instructions on the performance of ritual to influence the gods
Shruti: Revelation and Scriptures
 Vedic scriptures
 Rig-Veda – stories of the gods
 Sama-Veda – chants used by priests in soma sacrifices
 Yajur-Veda – litanies and prayers used in devotions
 Atharva-Veda – charms and spells for use by ordinary people
Shruti and Smriti
 Shruti also expands on the theological implications of the accounts
and rituals revealed in the Vedas
 Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads
 Smriti is “remembered” and thus less authoritative
 Laws of Manu (how to live as a Hindu)
 Itihasa-Purana

Mahabharata

Ramayana
The Four Stages of Life
 According to the laws of Manu (composed 200 BCE - 200 CE)
 For upper-caste males:

Student

Married householder

Retired contemplative

Renunciate

Goal is samadhi – unity of the soul with Brahman

Raja yoga helps release the soul from the body
 Women practice three stages, with the fourth being optional
Gods of the Rig-Veda
 Agni – the god of fire (a central element in ritual sacrifice)
 Indra – warrior god who slays demons and protects human beings
and gods
 Soma – the sacred drink
 Varuna – the god of truth
 Mitra – the god of contracts or agreements
The Upanishad
 Some Hindus branched out from the Brahmins and Vedas
 The Upanishads seek a sacrifice of psychological aspects to unite
the Atman in humans with Brahman, the absolute of the universe
 Many Hindus consider the Upanishads to be natural developments of
thoughts already suggested in the Vedas
 No social upheavals were necessary to bring about this evolution of
religious thought
 The Upanishads have a common spirit of inquiry, offering ways that
religion can supplement other practices of the Vedas
The Guru
 A teacher who has gained a special insight into reality
 Upanishads – formulated as dialogues between student and guru
 Yajnavalkya – a prominent guru in the Upanishads
 Regarded as more than human
Karma, Samsara, and Castes
 Law of karma – the Hindu principle that thoughts and deeds are
followed by deserved pleasure or pain, we reap what we sow
 Samsara – the Hindu concept of the wheel of rebirth that turns
forever, meaning that souls are reborn until they reach perfection
 Caste – the particular social standing into which one is born,
according to one’s karma in prior lives
 Kshatriya – the Hindu caste of rulers, warriors, and
administrators
 Vaishya – the third Hindu caste, that of merchants and artisans
 Shudras – the fourth Hindu caste, that of laborers
The Bhagavad Gita
 A portion of the Mahabharata, an epic poem
 A battlefield dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and his chariot
driver, the god Krishna in disguise
 Krishna sees Arjuna’s reticence to enter battle, tells him to fulfill
his duty as a warrior, the caste into which he was born
 Karma yoga, or fulfilling one’s caste duty, is a way of ultimately
achieving moksha – liberation
Krishna and His Brother Balarama
The Bhagavad Gita – Four Ways of
Salvation
 The Path of Work – karma yoga
 The Path of Knowledge – jnana yoga
 The Path of Physical and Mental Discipline – raja yoga
 The Path of Love – bhakit yoga
The Laws of Manu
 A Hindu code of conduct compiled from about 200 BCE to 200 CE
 Developed full discussions around a thread of precepts, or sutra
 Described an ideal code of behavior for Hindus
 Depicted Brahmin ideals for each caste and for each member of
society
 Described four stages of life – student, householder, forest-dweller,
and samadhi (optional stage); allowed women to observe the first
three stages

Orthodox Hindu Systems of
Philosophy
 Sankhya – frees souls from bondage to matter
 Advaita Vedanta – accepts that appearances are not ultimate reality,
and that ignorance, that avidya keeps individuals from seeing
 Other philosophic systems
 Yoga philosophy – liberates the soul from the body
 Nyaya philosophy – focuses on intellectual analysis and logic
 Vaisheshika philosophy – studies the external world and
understands it in terms of atoms
 Purva-Mimamsa – emphasizes literal truth and duty
Hindu Responses to Western Influence
 Ramakrishna (1836-86) – a Brahmin with a devotion to the goddess
Kali, taught that all divinities are manifestations of the one God
 Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) – turned to the resources within his
Hindu tradition to improve India’s social conditions and resist British
imperial rule
 Sri Aurobindo (1827-1950) – underwent a transformative religious
experience that led him to practice and teach yoga, and taught that
world reform comes through spiritual development of the self
Kali, the Fierce Goddess Who
Destroys Forces of Evil
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Hindu Worldview
 Henotheistic rather than polytheistic understanding of the Absolute
 One superior god served by lesser deities
 Cyclical universe marked by polarities of creation and destruction
and influenced by the divine
 Human life marks the appearance of the atman and is influenced by
the law of karma
Hindu Worldview
 Human fate is bound to endless cycles of reincarnation unless some
method for attaining moksha is adopted
 Solution to samsara (reincarnation) is harmony with the Absolute
through the liberation of the soul
 There are various paths to harmony but all follow the laws of
karma
 Assistance of deities is necessary at times
The Sri Mhamariamma Temple in
Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur
A Contemporary Hindu Temple in
Flushing, New York