Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices)

by Julius Lipner

  While some scholars today are arguing for a more coherent, ‘synchronic’ approach in the academic study of the Purāṇas, Hindu theologians traditionally developed their own overarching, interpretive schemes to make sense of the diversity and apparent contradictions of Purāṇic content.3 To have an idea of how Hindu theologians made sense of Purāṇic folklore, let us consider the approach of the Śrī Vaiṣṇava theologian, Rāmānuja (eleventh–twelfth century). As our description indicates, Rāmānuja interpreted the Purāṇas in terms of Vaiṣṇava norms rather than through criteria that exalted the Goddess or Śiva as the Supreme Being. This standpoint of faith is the starting point of his theological approach to the conflicting claims for supremacy of the various deities advocated in the Purāṇas. In constructing his interpretive framework he invokes three regulating principles of empirical reality posited by the ancient and influential Sāṃkhya system of thought. These three principles or ‘qualities’ (guṇas) are called sattva, rajas and tamas. Rāmānuja interprets them as determining states of being and truth that are ‘pure’, mixed and ‘impure’, respectively, thus arriving at a hierarchical evaluation of Purāṇic truth. He then seeks to ground this interpretive scheme in Purāṇic discourse:

  Only those who have pure sattva, untainted by rajas and tamas, as their natural quality have a taste for the Veda and a grasp of its true meaning ... As the Matsya Purāṇa declares: ‘[The world-cycles] are either mixed, or sattvic, or rajasic, or tamasic in nature’. After the cycles are distinguished in such a way that some cycles of [the demiurge] Brahmā are mixed, others are predominantly sattvic, yet others mainly rajasic, and still others predominantly tamasic, the greatness of the presiding deities [tattvas] with a preponderance of either sattva or rajas or tamas [in the various cycles] is described, and we are also told, in Purāṇas similarly determined, how Brahmā, himself constituted by an excess of one quality or other, accomplishes this ... To be specific, it is said that the greatness of Agni and Śiva are lauded in the tamasic cycles, and the greater glory of Brahmā in the rajasic ones. In the sattvic cycles the even greater glory of Hari [=Viṣṇu] is proclaimed. In all these cycles those accomplished in yoga will attain the highest path ... In other words, since [the demiurge] Brahmā is the very first creaturely being [kṣetrajña], for him too in some of his days4 sattva predominates, in others it is rajas, and in still others it is tamas ... So we must conclude that when there is a contradiction between Purāṇas promulgated by Brahmā on days when sattva predominated and Purāṇas promulgated on days when the other qualities dominated, it is the Purāṇa promulgated on the sattvic day that is true and the contradicting Purāṇa that is false. This rule for interpreting the Purāṇas has been laid down by Brahmā himself in his sattvic phase.5

  Since for Rāmānuja, Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa is the name for the Supreme Being or God, and all other ‘deities’ like Agni, Śiva, the world-shaper Brahmā, etc. are no more than creatures subject to Viṣṇu's power and to scriptural authority, it is no surprise that he gives so much interpretive weight to the statements of the Matsya Purāṇa that privilege Purāṇas exalting Viṣṇu. It was only on this basis that he could make the Purāṇas cohere in the service of his theology.6

  In modern times too there are religious groups that approach the Purāṇas in a similarly faith-based manner. Two examples are ISKCON – the International Society for Krishna Consciousness – popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement, and the Swaminarayan faith. Though ISKCON claims to have an ancient Vaiṣṇava pedigree and is rooted in devotion to the sixteenth-century Bengali saint, Caitanya, its establishment by the Bengali guru Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) as a distinctive movement in the West began in the late 1960s.7 The Swaminarayan movement was founded by Sahajanand Swami (1781–1830), who is worshipped as divine in the form of Swaminarayan (regarded as the highest manifestation of the Supreme Being, Nārāyaṇa, a Vaiṣṇava designation) by a largely Gujarati following (on this movement see R.B.Williams 2001).

  For both faiths it is the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (especially its tenth section or canto) that occupies pride of place among the Purāṇas. This is because their founders already accorded doctrinal priority to this text. In its present form the Bhāgavata Purāṇa can be given a fairly late date (ninth century). This Purāṇa treats its material consistently from one angle, namely that of exalting Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva (the Kṛṣṇa of the Mahābhārata ) as ‘the Supreme Personality of Godhead’, as Swami Prabhupada preferred to describe him. The Purāṇa itself declares:

  The Vedas bear on Vāsudeva alone, and so do all feasts and sacrifices. All spiritual discipline converges on Vāsudeva, as does every rite and ceremony. Knowledge is fulfilled in Vāsudeva and so is asceticism. Dharma bears on Vāsudeva, and salvation comes only from him.

  (1.2.28–9)

  It is true to say, I think, that the heavier spiritual and theological reliance on this Purāṇa is by ISKCON. The exploits of the youthful Kṛṣṇa described in the Bhāgavata – his slaying of demonic beings in the environs of his adopted rural home, his amorous encounters with the milkmaids there and so on – provide the basis for a passionate devotion towards Kṛṣṇa, the blue-hued Lord, and have acted as the impetus for developing a sophisticated religious aesthetic and theology of tender love (mādhurya bhakti) towards him (see Schweig 2005;Valpey 2006). And although it is true that the Swaminarayan faith singles out this Purāṇa in so far as ‘the tenth canto ... gives the essentials of the devotional path (bhakti)’ (R.B.Williams 2001:185), religious devotion in this tradition is geared towards accepting Sahajanand Swami (under the guise of Swaminarayan) as the highest manifestation of the Godhead, and not Kṛṣṇa.

  As in the case of the epics, the reading or recitation of the whole or parts of a Purāṇa is recommended, usually by the Purāṇa itself, as a means for release from sin and bad karma, and as conducive to salvation. The Purāṇas often indulge in hyperbole in making this claim. Here is a story illustrating this point from the Śiva Purāṇa (750–1350 C.E.).

  Once there was a Brahmin called Devarāja. He was an out and out villain – a bad thing generally but especially reprehensible, of course, in the case of a Brahmin, who is supposed to be a ‘god’ among humans. In fact, ‘Devarāja’ means ‘King of the gods’, so the Purāṇa really intends to drive its point home. Devarāja did everything a Brahmin should not do. He didn't study the scriptures; he didn't say his prayers; he sold liquor; he robbed people of their money by deceiving and sometimes even killing them. His lifestyle made him rich, yet he used none of his ill-gotten wealth in the cause of dharma. He became infatuated with a prostitute and married her, thus humiliating his first wife. When he wasn't making money, he was making love to his new wife. Wealth (artha) and lust (kāma), beyond the bounds of dharma, quite overpowered him. What prospect of release (mokṣa) from a bad rebirth did he have?

  One day he went so far as to kill his mother, father and first wife while they slept, and to steal their money. After this, in the company of his willing partner, he threw all restraint to the winds. He drank liquor, he ate forbidden foods (even beef? who knows!) – he didn't care. Dharma meant nothing to him;the Purāṇa goes out of its way to paint him as a really bad lot.

  One day he visited a town with a Śiva temple where he decided to stay for a while. In this temple, the Śiva Purāṇa was being continually recited by Brahmins to devout hearers. Devarāja couldn't help but overhear. As fate would have it, he was then struck down by a fever, and after a month, he died. The messengers of Yama, the Lord of death, came for him and led him to the city of Yama, a place of gruesome torments. But help was at hand! The servants of Śiva flew to the rescue, entered the city, beat up Yama's messengers and made preparations to take Devarāja away in a ‘marvellous celestial chariot’, to Śiva's glorious mountain residence.

  By this time, Yama had come out to see what was happening and saw Devarāja about to depart with his victorious companions. Yama could do nothing: he had to honour his
‘guests’ and let them spirit Devarāja away from under his nose. The moral of the story is clear, but the Śiva Purāṇa leaves nothing to chance: ‘Precious is the reciting of the Shiva Purāṇa, the highest purification, by the mere hearing of which even a very evil person attains Release’, it declares, continuing:

  It [the Śiva Purāṇa] is the great place of the eternal Shiva, the highest dwelling ... [T] hose who know the Vedas say that it stands above all worlds. That evil man who, in his greed for money, injured many Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, and even other creatures that breathe, the man who killed his mother and father and wife, who slept with a whore and drank wine, the Brahmin Devarāja went there and in a moment became released.

  (O'Flaherty 1988:75)

  In their distinctive ways, all the other Purāṇas make a similar claim. Here we see smṛti virtually usurping the saving power of the Vedas, but it does so in the name of the Vedas: ‘those who know the Vedas say ...’.

  In present times the practice of formally reading or reciting and expounding sacred texts (Purāṇas included) continues apace, and is conducted sometimes on a grand scale publicly. In August 1990, for example, in Leicester (England), extracts from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa were recited in a school playing-field, which was re-named ‘Rameshwar(am)’ by the organizers for the occasion. This is the name of a holy site situated near the tip of the slim finger of land pointing towards Śrī Lakā deep in south-east India (see map). By re-naming (and consecrating) the playing-field temporarily in this way, the location for the recitation of the Purāṇa was transformed into a holy place thereby increasing religious merit for all those taking part in the event. The power of the Rameshwaram situated in India was replicated in the Rameshwaram created for the occasion in England – another instance of polycentrism in action.

  The event was sponsored by an anonymous donor and lasted for eleven days; the Pāṭhaka or reciter, a Gujarati Brahmin from Mumbai, was flown over for the occasion. An average of 10000 people attended daily, with about three times that number at the weekends. The Sanskrit text was explained in Gujarati with Hindi and English interspersed. Similar recitations took place in the country in 1990 and in previous years.8 Lutgendorf gives many details of large and small recitations and explanations of the Mānas in Benares (1991: Chapters 2–4). We have already commented on the nature of such recitations in an earlier context.

  Although the traditional or ‘classical’ Purāṇas of which we have been speaking are tradition includes in Sanskrit, as are the original epics, there are also Purāṇas in various vernaculars in different locations around India. ‘There are actually two types of vernacular Purāṇas: those that have been translated, however freely, from Sanskrit originals and those that originated independently’ (Brockington 1987:130). Brockington goes on to point out that a number of these vernacular Purāṇas have played an important part in the development not only of the languages in which they have been promulgated but also – in terms of articulating social identities etc. – of the local cultures in which they are embedded.

  The Purāṇic tradition includes the existence of texts known as māhātmyas (the adjective mahat means ‘great’):

  The term māhātmya applies to those texts [not necessarily committed to writing] which are composed with the specific purpose of proclaiming the ‘greatness’ of a variety of things: a place, an auspicious time, a deity, a ritual activity such as ... pilgrimage or ... donation, etc.

  (Rocher 1986:70)

  Here we may mention the important Devī Māhātmya, ‘The Glorification of the Goddess’, a text composed in Sanskrit probably in the fifth or sixth century C.E. (and also known as the Saptaśatī or Composition of ‘700’ verses]. Though it has come down as part of the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (Chapters 81–93 of the Purāṇa in most reckonings), like the Bhagavad Gītā, it has established a life of its own in the manner of an independent text. As the name indicates, it is a work glorifying the Goddess in which she is regarded as the supreme principle of the universe, the almighty source of all being. The Devī Māhātmya is the first text available with a more or less coherent theology, implied through narrative and hymns, of the Goddess as Supreme Being: ‘it both integrates earlier developments [of this conceptualisation] and precipitates later ones’ (Coburn 1984:85).9 In it the Goddess is worshipped as the unassailable, transcendent and personal source of all Power, who is also immanent in all being, ‘operative both as the material world and in the material world’ (ibid.:304). The Devī Māhātmya has been immensely important for Goddess worship in the history of Hinduism to the present day, both liturgically and theologically. We shall return to this text in due course.

  To the Purāṇic repertoire one may add countless sthala-Purāṇas, viz. folkloric accounts of the ‘greatness’ of a particular temple, shrine, holy place etc. – usually in the keeping of the site or place (= sthala) concerned – and many ‘caste-Purāṇas’ which eulogize the history or heroes of particular caste groups. All of these Purāṇas are viewed by their followers as adapting or explaining or making explicit, each in its own way, aspects of implied or supposed Vedic teaching. This is how ‘One should elaborate on and endorse the Veda by means of Epic and Purāṇa’, as the well-known expression, ascribed to the Vāyu Purāṇa and Mbh. (among other sources), declares.10

  We come finally to the last category of smṛti mentioned earlier, that of the prasthāna-vākyas.

  The prasthāna-vākyas

  In Sanskrit, prasthāna can mean ‘source’, ‘basis’, ‘journey’. Thus the prasthāna-vākyas are seminal or source texts – not falling under any of the smṛti categories already listed – which are regarded as supportive of what is recognized as primary scripture in the tradition concerned. In some way their followers take recourse to them in their spiritual journey through life. It is in this sense that they are source-and-journey texts or statements (vākyas). In the Hindu tradition, there are a great many prasthāna-vākyas. They may be lengthy or short, composed in Sanskrit or in the vernacular, and function on different levels of the religious journey. And they may relate to the rest of smṛti and the primary scripture(s) in complex ways, e.g. by corroborating or explaining or balancing or filling in gaps. Texts that may be regarded as prasthāna-vākyas by one group may not be regarded as such by another, or sometimes two or more groups may share the same prasthāna-vākyas but may prioritize them differently. Let us give some examples.

  One often comes across references in writings about the Hindu intellectual tradition to the ‘ṣaḍ-darśanas’. As the description indicates, these are six (sat) perspectives (darśana) on life, but the underlying assumption is that they all endorse, illumine and support the Veda in some way; that is, they all formally endorse the Veda as śruti. In fact, it all started in the Veda – the Veda which took about two millennia to take shape in its Indian context. This means that both so-called Aryan and non-Aryan views about the scope and nature of being, its description and understanding, and the goal of human existence, are represented in the Hindu (Brahminical) intellectual tradition, though it may be difficult if not impossible conceptually to disentangle the two. In other words, cumulatively these views may have been articulated under Brahmin supervision, but they comprise both ‘Aryan’ and non-Aryan (i.e. indigenous) roots. We shall see more clearly the point of putting it this way, presently.

  By the middle of the first millennium C.E. or so, the expression ṣaḍ-darśana came into use in Hindu discourse, though the intellectual roots of each darśana may well have stretched back for centuries. The best-known list of the six perspectives, which soon paired its members off because the members of these dyads were reckoned as counterparts in some way, is as follows:

  (i) Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and (ii) Uttara Mīmāṃsā; (iii) Nyāya and (iv) Vaiṣeśika; and (v) Sāṃkhya and (vi) Yoga. Numerous books have been written on each of these traditions, not to mention on individual aspects of them. Since our aim here can be no more than to try and catch a glimpse of the whole through
the parts, we shall comment briefly on each tradition and then attempt a bird's eye view.

  (i) Mīmāṃsā can be paraphrased as ‘sustained exegetical inquiry’, and it represents an attempt to grasp the purport of the Veda, both as performance and meaning. We have already discussed these features at some length earlier in this book (see Chapter 2). In Chapter 3 we explained how two broad schools of exegesis on the Veda, the Ritualists and the Vedāntins, battled for supremacy over how performance and meaning of the Veda should be understood. These are the Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsakas of our list above (‘mīmāṃsaka’ is a follower of Mīmāṃsa), and the interpretive battle between them intensified by about the beginning of the Common Era, leading in time to the formation of sub-schools in each camp. The nub of the debate between the two camps, however, continued to be the role and nature of language, especially the scriptural language of the Veda. The Pūrva Mīmāṃsakas supported the view that language is essentially performative, that its primary purpose is to tell the hearer what-should-be-done (kārya), viz. how to act. This teaching is enshrined mainly in the action-part (karma-kāṇḍa) of scripture (the Vedic mantras or hymns and the Brāhmaṇas and their ancillary texts), which deals largely with the performance of the sacred ritual. Performing the ritual became almost an end in itself, but it was that multi-layered performance, it was believed, that produced ‘cosmos’ or order out of chaos in the various domains of our lives – the physical, social, religious etc. If the sacred ritual was neglected, right thinking about one's place in the world would go astray, society would crumble, the heavens would collapse, and the preservers of world-order – the āryas – would go into decline.

  The Vedāntins or Uttara Mīmāṃsakas, however, subscribed to the view that language was essentially descriptive of what-is-the-case (yathābhūtavādī), that its purpose is to give new information about being, and, particularly in the case of the Veda, about transcendent being, including Brāhmaṇ, and the means (sādhana) to realize our unity with this Being. To this end they concentrated on making sense of the latter part, the knowledge-section (jñāna-kāṇḍa), of the Veda, viz. the Āranyakas and Upaniṣads (which the Pürva Mīmāṃsākas downgraded as mere exhortatory texts to action). The ritual was vitally important, to be sure, for reasons given above, but it was not an end in itself. The true goal of human existence was union ultimately with Brāhmaṇ, the metaphysical consummation of the ritual.