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by Jayaram V
I often receive comments from readers that I should not call
our tradition Hinduism but Sanatana Dharma or Vedic dharma,
because Hinduism is a foreign word not found in any of our
scriptures. These are the very people who conveniently ignore
the basic premise of Vedanta that name and form are
temporary illusions and one should not be overly attached to them. I
use the word Hinduism or Hindu Dharma because they are popular
and well known. We rely upon names and words for our convenience to relate with the phenomenal world and its
complexity. If you are a true follower of Sanatana dharma, you
will not be attached to anything in particular, including your
notions of what your religion is or what your country or
nationality is. What matters most is whether you are a good
human being and whether you are progressing in the right
direction towards light and liberation. Every other indulgence is
a mere waste of time, a retrogressive step in the direction of
darkness (tamas), death (mrityu) and and egoism (rajas) or a
continuation of the state of ignorance and delusion.
India occupies a unique place in the history of the world,
because it is the birth place of four
distinct world religions. It has a continuing civilization that
is at least 7000 years old. As some historians are now
increasingly inclined to believe, it is also probably the cradle
of the human civilization. Equally fascinating among the nations
of the world is the USA, which is most modern, currently the
most powerful and
and the most advanced. While the two nations share some common
values, there is one
fundamental difference between them, which is worth studying.
It is with regard to how they cope with their past and preserve
their identities. A majority of Indians, especially the educated
intellectuals, are very
confused and ambivalent about their attitude towards their
identity as a nation; while the Americans deal with the
same problem with greater clarity, purpose, leadership and
understanding. For example in the name of nationalism, Indians changed
many place names to erase the memories of
their colonial past. (Yesterday someone said on twitter that one
should not call the government "sarkar" because it sounds very
British!") Even street names were not spared. However
despite this animosity, they continue to follow western ideals
and western lifestyles. You will find in the same streets whose
names have been changed many shop names and brand names that are distinctly
western.
In contrast, many places in the USA bear an odd
mixture of English, Spanish, African, European and even Chinese
and Indian street names and
place names. They let all types of people come and settle in the
country. Practically everyone who lives in the country legally
is an American because the law does not discriminate. This does not mean
that the Americans have no pride in
their nation, or as a friend of mine once argued that they have
no identity of their own. Without trying to repaint their history, they
asserted their independence and uniqueness in several distinct
and profound ways. For example, the Americans do not play
cricket, not because it is an uninteresting game, but because it
is rooted in the class hierarchy of the British society which
the Americans do not favor. In the days of British colonialism,
cricket was essentially a game of the aristocrats and the
nobility who had ample wealth and time to indulge in the game,
while the rest of the world toiled in the factories and
shipyards to keep the nation powerful and rich. As a show of
their independence, therefore they rejected cricket and came up
with baseball, a game that represented their temperament and
attitude much better. Again, the Americans took to football
rather than soccer, because it was a game where you ignored all
the gentlemanly niceties of British etiquette and mannerisms and pushed people around with
brute power. The US also maintained its independence by following a
federal system, rather than the British Parliamentary system, by
adapting to metric system in weights and measurements, by
introducing left side driving rather than right side and
following its own standards in the use of electricity, housing,
business practices, judicial system and
communications. In social matters, they devised their own rules
of etiquette and manners often to the amusement of the Victorian
England. Although the early settlers were mostly English
speaking people, they evolved their own form of English with
distinct spelling and pronunciation. America's success in the
field of innovation and creativity, largely stemmed from this
distinct individuality they promoted and preserved. Against this
backdrop, think of what happens in India normally. People might
have changed the names of places and streets; but they follow
the western world with complete fascination. Cricket consumes
the lives of people. Most of the films and creative work is
based on borrowed or copied ideas from the west. Many best works
of Indian film and music industry are rather the poor imitations
of the original works from the western world. There is no
respect for intellectual property rights. People who copy the
original art forms of the west are well rewarded with national and
popular awards.
Historically, the
British were the last foreign power to rule India. So, logically
it makes no sense why the people should be obsessed only with the
British names associated with the places and monuments in the
country. They should have gone all the way to the Bactrian
Greeks and the Kushanas or perhaps to the early settlers of the
Indus Valley civilization, who seems to have come from outside
during the early waves of migrations from Africa, when the
Saharan region was drying up and becoming a desert or when food
became sparse due to climatic changes and forced people to
migrate. The best that
we can do with regard to history is to accept it and learn from
it, without the compulsion to tamper with it or rationalize it
to suit our
modern ideologies or current beliefs. Hinduism may be a foreign
word. Yet, its value is not diminished if we use the word
Hinduism to refer to it. An ocean is an ocean whether you call
it the Indian ocean or the great Hindu ocean (hind mahasagar).
Suggested Further Reading
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