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Hinduism is one of the world’s major religions. There are about one billion Hindus today. Most are in India, but sizable populations also live in Nepal, Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Guyana, Indonesia (Bali) and a few other countries. Hinduism is, by most estimates, several thousand years old and holds the distinction of being the most ancient of the world’s living religions. Its exact age, however, is difficult to determine – although it is known to be older than Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Some scholars believe that Zoroastrianism, which is also one of the oldest religions in the world, owes its origin to the same scriptural source from which Hinduism come from.
The Ancestors of the Hindus and their Religion
The ancestors of the Hindus were known as Aryas. The English counterpart of the Sanskrit word Arya is Aryan, or Indo-Aryan. The Aryas called their religion Arya Dharma – the religion of the Aryas. The word Hinduism was completely unknown to them. The word dharma, in this context, means religion or religious duties. Sanskrit, which belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, was the language of the Indo-Aryans.
The Aryans also called their religion Manava Dharma, or the Religion of Man, meaning that it was not an exclusive religion of the Aryans, but was meant for the whole of mankind. Another name was Sanatana Dharma – The Eternal Religion, illustrating their belief that the religion was based on some eternal truths.
The name Hinduism came much later. One of the neighbouring countries, Persia, has a common border with ancient India, which at that time was known as Aryavarta – the land of the Aryans. This common border between Persia and ancient India was the river Indus, called in Sanskrit, Sindhu. The Persians could not pronounce Sindhu correctly; they pronounced it Hindu. They also called the Aryans, living on the other side of the river Sindhu, Hindus; thus the religion of the Aryans became known as Hinduism.
Supersensuous Truths – The Basis of Hinduism
Such questions have challenged the human mind since the dawn of civilisation. Even those with the most intelligent minds have not found definite answers to these questions. Whatever answers they have found are based on mere speculation. But some spiritually illumined saints, with the help of their special purified minds, found the answers and have made them known to us. These answers were eventually recorded in books known as scriptures. Scriptures, according to Hinduism, are unique in their ability to reveal truths not knowable by average impure minds. The difference between an “impure” and a “pure” mind can be explained by the following analogy.
Ice, water and water vapour – all three are the same chemical substance. Yet they differ greatly in their properties. Relatively speaking, ice has the least freedom among the three; it can hardly move. Water has more freedom; it can easily flow and spread out. Water vapour has the maximum amount of freedom. Not only can it freely spread out in every direction, but being invisible, it is also the most subtle of the three. It can reach where neither ice nor water can every go.
So also is the human mind. An impure mind, no matter how intelligent, has many limitations. It cannot know anything beyond the domain of sense perception or what lies beyond the world of time and space. It cannot know what is going to happen the next moment or what happened in the distant past. Metaphysical truths, such as the knowledge of the existence of God or the hereafter, are beyond the scope of such a mind. But when that same mind is purified or transformed through spiritual discipline into an extraordinary mind, it can transcend the barriers of the sense world and reach the outermost frontier of the world of time and space. It can then glimpse what lies beyond the domain of the senses. It gains extraordinary capabilities. It becomes all-knowing; it can know all the events of the past, present and the future. A genuine saint possesses such a pure mind. With the help of that mind the saint comes to know the truth about God, the soul, creation, etc. Such truths are called supersensuous or metaphysical truths. Hinduism, like the other major religions of the world, is based on such truths discovered by its pure-minded sages.
Founder
Hinduism has the unique distinction of having no known founder. One may wonder how there can be a religion without any founder. The eternal and supersensuous truths discovered by ancient Indian sages are the foundation of Hinduism. These sages preferred to remain anonymous because they realised that these Truths must always have existed, just as the laws of gravitation had already existed when they were discovered by Newton. The sages also realised that these Eternal Truths had come from God, the same source from which everything in creation had come. As the Truths were revealed by God, the sages called them apaurusheya – not man-made.
Having no known founder gives Hinduism a certain advantage over other religions. Had it been a religion with a specific founder, it would have been hard for Hinduism to undergo the kind of evolution it has experienced during the past many thousand years. Various saints and Divine incarnations at different times have appeared on stage, played their individual roles, and enriched Hinduism with their teachings. By reinterpreting earlier scriptural texts they have made the religion relevant to changed times and people. They also have given validity to the scriptural truths through their own spiritual experiences.
Any ancient religion can be compared to the attic of an old home. Unless the attic is regularly cleaned, it gathers dust and cobwebs and eventually becomes unusable. Similarly, if a religion cannot be updated or cleaned from time to time, it loses its usefulness and cannot related anymore to changed times and people. But this did not happen to Hinduism. Fortunately, at different periods, many genuine saints born in India have cleansed, reformed and revitalised Hinduism and made it relevant to their times. This would not have been possible had Hinduism had a founder.