Am I a Sindhu or Hindu?

Where did the culture, philosophy and religion that people of my country call Hindu, and the country India originate? What I learnt at school was doctored by the British rulers. Has it changed?

Sindhu means waters, the rivers and the seas, in Sanskrit. One of the oldest world civilisations existed along these waters named Sindhu 5000 or more years ago. This is where the first nation people of this land, probably dark in skin, lived. Perhaps they migrated from the African continent, the source according to science of homo sapiens. Light skinned invaders and traders who came into this country in later years from the North West mispronounced the word Sindhu as Hindu, a word that meant dark skinned. Over time the land of the Hindu became India. These are facts, much as we may like to disbelieve them or deride them.

Some day we may rename our country in line with our origins. Sadly, Sindhu is not any more part of our country, thanks to the British. We may need another name, not one given by invaders who enslaved us.

?Who am I now? Sindhu or Hindu? This on top of my being a Gemini makes me schizophrenic. I sit and meditate like the figure in the Sindhu civilisation artefact, which foreign historians have declared to be Pasupathi or Shiva.

?Scriptures & Rule Books

?The knowledge we have of the culture, philosophy, and if you will, the religion of this land of Sindhu, was compiled as Veda. Veda means the book of knowledge in Sanskrit. Vedic verses spoke of natural elements such as the Sun Surya, Fire Agni, Thunder Indra, Wind Vayu, Water Varuna, Earth Prithvi etc. as supernatural forces, which dictated how people lived and died. They were called deva, the shining beings and sura, divine. It was a pantheistic, polytheistic and, in the modern civilized definition, a pagan philosophy of nature worship, which cherished and lived in unison with nature instead of defiling and destroying it as modern civilizations and religions do.?

?Unlike many later day religions, including its own offshoot of Hinduism, Vedic religion had no stories about creation, and creator. The concept of a creator was questioned in the Veda, and poked fun at. The Nasadiya Sukta in the 10th mandala of the Rig Veda asks,

?Who really knows, and who can swear,

How creation came, when or where!

Even gods came after creation’s day,

Who really knows, who can truly say

When and how did creation start?

Did the Creator do it? Or did the Creator not?

Only the Creator, up there, knows, maybe;

Or perhaps, not even the Creator.

?The knowledge that the wise ancients of this civilisation compiled was called sruti, referring to what was sensed by them. The word sruti means sound or hearing. They believed that creation was accompanied by sound, the primal sound of AUM, the pranava mantra. Sruti referred to scriptures, the Veda and Upanishad (the words refer to singular and plural). This knowledge was passed on from mouth to ear through the gurukul education system, possibly the most scientific learning taxonomy that exists. The process was ‘sravana manana nidhityasana’, ‘sensing or listening, reflecting and practising’. This is how the knowledge of the Veda was taught in the style of the Upanishad, which means learning sitting by the side of the teacher.

?All other bodies of knowledge were secondary and called smriti, remembered knowledge. Smriti are commentaries on Veda and Upanishad, codes of conduct such as Manu Smriti, historical compilations such as the Ithihasa of Bhagavatam, Ramayana and Mahabharata, and mythical compilation of purana, with metaphorical gods and goddesses.

?Sruti is eternal truth and wisdom. They say it as is. It’s a philosophy. They do not tell us what to do as Smriti do. Smriti need to be understood and practised as applicable to a time and space. Unfortunately, in this land of the sanatana dharma, the eternal way of life, one of tolerance and inclusion, smriti rules over sruti. Ironically the term sanatana dharma is from Manu Smriti and later day purana. Vedic religion had no name as far as I know. Religious practices that preceded the Vedic religion are known as agama, accepted as Dravidian in origin.

?Beliefs and Rituals

Philosophies and religions that emerged in other parts of the world, around the same time or later, were mostly in the Eastern part of the globe from what we know, such as Egypt, Sumeria, and China. In Egypt and Sumeria, as in the Vedic culture, the belief system was polytheistic, with multiple deities, and mostly pantheistic, worshipping nature. In China and Japan, it was probably more in the lines of Shamanism, worship of spirits, as it probably was in the American and European continents as well as Africa and Australia, as beliefs in spirits of nature and ancestors. In many ways, rituals of Shamanism correlate with those of the Vedic religion.?

Archaeological evidence exists from around 70,000 years ago in Africa and parts of Asia and Europe, the Stone Age. The homo sapiens were probably in search of food, water and shelter, not self-actualization, salvation, or gods. Yet, they seem to have practiced some form of worship driven by their survival needs. From survival needs, in the words of Maslow, they moved to safety needs through tribes, still unconcerned about anything but the present moment survival and safety.?

?Archaeological findings show that the Vedic culture, or religion, in the land of the five rivers Northwest of India, in the Bronze Age about 5000 years ago, worshipped nature in the form of images. Similar artefacts exist from Egypt, Sumeria and China. From these, as well as documents, we also know that the worship was mostly of natural elements, and spirits, as well as ancestors, as pantheistic, polytheistic and shamanic practices. There were perhaps beliefs of being born again as in the case of pharaohs, ancestral worship in China and Japan as a continuum, and the concept of the cycle of life and death in the Vedic belief.

?This may seem controversial to many, but there is no mention of the trinity of Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, their consorts, off springs and incarnations in sruti. The Veda mention these names as adjectives in passing. The Upanishad speak only of the energy as our natural state and make no mention of gods and deities. Later day humans created them in their image. This is why some say that there are as many deities as people, each with their mental map of what god ought to be.

?Even more intriguing is the fact that many of these deities, the shining deva, are dark skinned. Vishnu is dark blue as the space energy beyond the visible sky, now called dark matter; his avatar Rama and Krishna were blue, the word Krishna denoting darkness; Shakti, the creative feminine energy is mostly represented in darkish hues; Is Shiva white because of smeared ashes? Were the original Sindhu people dark skinned Dravidians who created these deities in their image? Deeper one digs, darker it gets!

?Did colour based racism start with the light skinned invaders? Do we have the courage to face the answers?

?Life & Death?

?Sometime during this period of transition from philosophy to religion, belief systems of a life after death took shape. Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, and Vedic cultures, and heretical as it may seem, the Judaic culture, believed in the continuance of life, and viewed death as a transition. This concept of reincarnation held constant, irrespective of how it manifested. Later day religions of Christianity and Islam, while they accept the Old Testament and prophets of Judaism, question reincarnation. I wonder why??

?Christian and Islamic beliefs hold that the life we now lead is the one and only one that we struggle through, and that there is none other, before and after. Therefore, we must achieve something significant, which will impress others we live with, in this life. Often this achievement required the involvement of a tribe or nation, which led to institutionalization. Institutions, in turn, governed morals and ethics. They turned to religion to control us through the fear and greed we had about death and life.?

?History tells us that but for Constantine there may have been no supremacy of Christianity. Constantine laid the foundation for what eventually became Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire. From this point of collusion between religion and state, it was all downhill. Religion ruled through fear and greed, no longer of nature alone, but of what would happen after we die. Religion decreed what we should do to book us a suite in heaven, and what we should not do to escape hell. Killing another in support of one’s religious faith guaranteed a space in heaven. Helping one who did not share our faith condemned us to hell. Heaven and hell became spaces we occupied after death, even though their pursuit and aversion made our daily lives hell.?

?Reflect

·?????What do you think happens when you die, which you surely will? Where do you go? In what form? To which land, heaven or hell?

·?????Where does all that you slaved hard in this life to achieve, suffered hell, go when you die?

·?????A Zen asks, what was the face before you were born? What will it be after you die?

·?????If all this is unpleasant, why?

Please do write in, resonant or dissonant. Let’s have a conversation.

Ram is co-founder and mentor at Coacharya?https://coacharya.com. Ram's focus is integration of Eastern wisdom with modern science, spiritually, systemically and sustainably.

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