Transcript Hinduism - Miami Killian Senior High School

• Origins:
• Early Indo-Aryan religion was recorded in their sacred writings called the Vedas.
• This religious literature had been passed down orally by memorization for many
centuries, until the Aryans developed Sanskrit writing.
• The period from c.1500 - 1000 B.C.E. is called the Vedic Age.
• Vedic practices were the foundation for Hinduism.
• Vedic Beliefs and Practices
• The earliest gods were nature deities – earth, fire, light, rain, sky, sun, water, etc.
• Over all these gods was one supreme god, who created order in the universe.
• Over time, the personality and roles of the gods evolved.
• For example, the god Varuna, who originally was responsible for cosmic order,
became the god who judged sin.
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The Vedic god Varuna on his mount Makara
Indra mounted on Airavata
• Vedic practices – continued
• Vedic rituals took place outside; they had no temples.
• They did use altars, on which fire would be lit.
• Food was offered as ritual sacrifices (meat, butter, barley cakes).
• Soma juice (from the soma plant) was believed to give immortality, and was
poured over the Vedic sacred fires.
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Priests performing Vedic rituals
Vedic sacred Fire Ritual
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Only special priests called Brahmins knew the proper forms and rule and performed the
rituals.
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They became the elite of Indo-Aryan society.
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Sanskrit, the Indo-Aryan language, slowly became the language used by these Brahmin
priests alone. It then took on a sacred aspect.
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Brahmin priest from Rajasthan
Brahmin boy
Brahmin girl at her wedding
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The Vedic religion emphasized the value of sacrificing.
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The Vedic faith allowed girls to be educated, and women had a less inferior status under
the Vedic Indo-Aryans. This would change with the transition to Hinduism.
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By the end of the Vedic Age, India’s social structure was set. It included a hierarchy of castes, or varnas.
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Castes/varnas were rigid social categories determining a person’s occupation, economic potential, and
position in society.
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There were five major divisions of Indian classes: the Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Sudras, and Dalits
or Untouchables.
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Each of these major divisions was broken up into many smaller levels of social hierarchy called jatis.
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Brahmin couple
Brahmin priest
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Hinduism and the Caste System – continued
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While the castes/varnas were a social structure, it was an important part of Hindu philosophy.
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Brahmins, the priestly class, were the top of the social scale. They were in charge of religious ceremonies.
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The second caste were the Kshatriyas or warriors.
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Under the warriors were the Vaisyas or commoners. These were usually merchants who engaged in commerce, or
farmers.
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Kshatriya Warriors
Vaishya Mohandas Gandhi known as the Mahatma or Great Soul
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Below these varnas came the Sudras, the majority of the Indian people. Most were peasants who did
manual labor for others.
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The Sudra caste was not part of the original Aryan social hierarchy. It was added to refer to the darkerskinned conquered Harrapan people.
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The Aryans were lighter-skinned and used color as a way to distinguish between people in the upper or
lower castes.
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The Untouchables, or dalits were the lowest level of Indian society, so low they were not considered part of the Aryan
varnas.
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The Untouchables were not considered fully human and were thought to be so contaminated that their presence was
harmful to others.
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These dalits could not get water from the village wells. They had to live separately, and had to alert others to their
presence by tapping sticks together as they walked.
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Untouchables did the jobs considered to be the lowest and most degrading, such as touching (cleaning) the dead,
collecting garbage and emptying sewage.
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Untouchable/dalit children
Dalit woman outside her home
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Hindu belief system
The origins of Hinduism are in the Vedic faith and religious literature.
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Vedic religious thinkers questioned the authority of the Brahmin priests, and began to teach
independently. They called their teachings Vedanta, or “end of the Vedas”.
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Their teachings were collected in written explanations of the Vedic religion. These collections were
called the Upanishads.
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Because most people were illiterate they learned the ideas of the Vedanta through religious stories and
poems.
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These epics (long poems) were known as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
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Hinduism teaches that there is a single force in the universe, a sort of cosmic consciousness
called Brahman.
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Each living being has a drop of this essence, called their atman, or self.
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Because atman and Brahman are one, all beings desire to return to this ultimate reality and
merge with Brahman after death.
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Hinduism teaches that all things in the universe are of the same essence as God.
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This belief in the unity of God and creation is called monism.
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Hinduism teaches that the perceived reality/world is maya, or illusion.
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To return to Brahman people must realize and reject maya, which takes many lifetimes to achieve.
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Hinduism teaches reincarnation, the belief that people are reborn in a different form after death. This
may be as a person, an animal or even an insect.
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Hindus are forbidden to kill living beings, who might be the reincarnation of a family member or friend.
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How a person is reincarnated on depends on their karma, the force generated from their actions.
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A person’s present status is the result of their past karma or past actions.
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The concept of karma is linked to the idea of dharma, or divine law.
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Hindu dharma law requires each person to do the duties of the caste into which one is born, and to do
so with acceptance and humility.
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If one did so, their next reincarnation would be to a higher varna or caste.
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To express discontent with one’s present status in life was violating the dharma which would lead to a
lower reincarnation.
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These ideas locked people in to a rigid system of class divisions and left them unable to rise in the
socioeconomic hierarchy of the caste system.
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It also justified the privileges of the upper castes, since to be born a Brahmin or Kshatriya demonstrated
the spiritual goodness of one’s past karma.
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If a person was born low caste – they deserved it. Likewise, if a person was born high caste – they
deserved that also.
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Eventually, through many lifetimes, a person will achieve the status of being born into the
Brahmin or priestly class.
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From there , and there only, a person can finish working towards spiritual enlightenment
and reach nirvana.
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At that point the individual atman, or soul, has completed the cycle of reincarnation and
returns to Brahman.
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How does one achieve oneness with God?
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Hindus developed a set of mental and physical exercises designed to unite body and atman (soul). This is called yoga.
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Yoga may be breathing exercises, body positions which are held for a period of time, or meditations that may last for
hours with the body in the same position, and the mind stilled to absolute quiet.
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The goal of yoga, which means union, is to leave the cycle of earthly life and achieve union with Brahman.
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This union with Brahman is a state of oblivion, a “dreamless sleep”.
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Just as Brahman has no individual self-awareness, when the atman, or soul, returns to Brahman, it loses any
awareness of itself as a separate individual. So, it is not like the conception of the afterlife shared by Judaism,
Christianity or Islam.
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Summary of Hinduism:
Developed about 4,000 years ago on the Indian subcontinent. It is the world’s oldest religion.
It’s origins are the Indo Aryan Vedic religious writings, The Upanishads.
Hinduism is the main religion of India. It has approximately 800 million followers today.
Hinduism has no founder, no clear beginning, and no central authority, hierarchy , or organization.
Believes that Brahman and creation are one and the same. This is called monism.
It includes the worship of many different gods, from local deities to Indian gods worshiped by all Hindus, as well as a
single high force called Brahman.
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The god Krishna and his consort Parvati
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Brahman
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Ram
Shiva the Destroyer
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The god Ram
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Hindus believe that after death the soul leaves the body and is reborn in another person, animal, insect, vegetable or
mineral depending of its accumulated merits or faults – called karma.
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Hindus believe in ahimsa – noninjury to living beings, and samsara – the continuous cycle of rebirth.
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Hindus to do not believe in taking life – they are vegetarian – because any atman/soul can be reborn as any living
being – including insects.
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Any rebirth is valuable because it is an opportunity to work off negative karma. Hindus believe if you kill a living being,
not only do you risk perhaps killing your former friend or relative, but you have cut off an atman’s opportunity to
progress towards its reunion with Brahman.
Brahma the Creator
Vishnu the Preserver
Shiva the Destroyer
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An important Hindu who used his religious beliefs to make history was Mohandas Gandhi – the great Mahatma – who
used the ideas and practice of ahimsa to gain Indian independence from colonial rule by Great Britain, through the use
of non-violent civil disobedience.
Martin Luther King studied Gandhi’s writings and used his ideas in the Civil Rights Movement .
Hindus believe the Ganges River is sacred – they call it Mother Ganga. They believe it has the purify sin and potential
power to purify sin and help liberate a person from reincarnation.
Praying to Mother Ganga
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A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
- Mahatma Gandhi