This article originally appeared in the March 2010 edition of Himal Magazine.

The defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India’s general elections last year was greeted with relief by secularists and democrats everywhere. Not entirely unreasonably: they read the fact that the BJP lost a solid 3.4 percent of its previous poll share as evidence that Indian voters had rejected the majoritarian politics of Hindu pride and prejudice, peddled by the BJP and the rest of the Sangh Parivar. The general consensus is that the ideology of Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, has lost its appeal among the urban youth and middle classes - that secularism has won and “God has left politics,” to borrow the elegant title of a recent essay by Delhi journalist Hartosh Singh Bal. Market reforms and globalisation emerge as the stars of this saga. Both the friends and critics of the BJP agree that it is the fervour for making money in India’s roaring economy that doused the flames of Hindu nationalism from the hearts of the middle classes. But that is not all. The ‘free’ market, we are told by a section of influential Dalit intellectuals, will not only free India from the menace of communal violence, but will also lift the curse of caste oppression. It is fair to say that the gospel of globalisation is gaining ground in India. Read the full story

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In the previous article, we read how Upanishadists launched a revolution to overthrow Brahmanism and establish Upanishadism in its place using Arjuna Vishada as the vehicle. In this article we will study how they consolidated their revolution.

Every revolution, whether military, political, social, religious or sectarian, is followed by two early preemptive measures: 1. Protecting the revolution from the attacks of well-entrenched vested interests. 2. Destroying, reforming or retiring the recalcitrant Old Guard. The stranglehold of the vested interests on Brahmanism was so strong that Upanishadists had to create a whole new god to accomplish these goals: Lord of beings (4:6). We read elsewhere the two main reasons why people create gods: fulfill their desires and for protection from evil. Presently Brahmanism’s upper classes were obsessed with fulfilling its desires by means of Kamya Karma, and Upanishadists were busy protecting their revolution from the evil of Brahmanism. It is important to note here that the new god’s mandate was only to protect and promote Upanishadism centered on Brahman and to destroy the evildoers (4:7-8). He was not the god of Upanishadism, but just its facilitator. He repeatedly identifies Brahman as the supreme divinity (5:21, 24-26; 6:27-28). Read the full story

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(Note: This is the 8th article in the series on the evolution of early religious thought in India, by Dr. Prabhakar Kamath. The previous article in the series can be accessed here. All Dr. Kamath’s previous articles can be accessed from this page where you can also sign up for Dr. Kamath’s RSS feed.)

We all know that Ashoka the Great gave Buddhism the gift of making it the dominant Dharma of India for a thousand years and one of the great World Religions to this day. However, few people know that he gave a wonderful gift to Brahmanism as well. He offered them his personal image of a renegade and fallen Kshatriya as the blueprint on which to base a parable in the form of a beautiful song, the Gita, by which Brahmins conquered back everything they had lost and more. A remorseful Ashoka overwhelmed by sorrow, self-doubt and the horror of war on the battlefield of Kalinga became the model for distraught Arjuna overwhelmed by sorrow, self-doubt and horror of war on the battlefield of Kurukshetra in the parable of Arjuna Vishada. This is a classic example of how Brahmanism used their adversaries themselves to beat them over the head. As we go along, we will study several more examples of such incredible feats by Brahmins in the defense and promotion of their archaic Dharma. Read the full story

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(Note: This is the 7th article in the series on the evolution of early religious thought in India, by Dr. Prabhakar Kamath. The previous article in the series can be accessed here. All Dr. Kamath’s previous articles can be accessed from this page where you can also sign up for Dr. Kamath’s RSS feed.)

Intellectual Ferment

By 600 B.C.E. a great intellectual ferment was brewing across the Indo-Gangetic plain the likes of which India has not seen since. Countless different Kshatriya-inspired philosophies sprang up from the agitated intellect of the Indo-Gangetic Civilization. During this period (900-500 B.C.E), thousands of wandering sophists, known as Parivrajaka, crisscrossed the country questioning anything and everything, including the doctrines of the Gunas and Karma, the Vedas, Vedic sacrificial rites, animal sacrifices, Varna Dharma, and supremacy of Brahmins. They engaged each other in robust public debates on every topic on earth. They challenged their adversaries to either win them over in debate or to follow them. These ‘argumentative Indians‘ came to be known as ‘ ‘Hair splitters’ or ‘Eel wigglers.’ The public halls all over Aryavarta were packed with curious people eager to learn and experiment with new ideas to cope with life’s vicissitudes. New Age Philosophies thrived everywhere. They were all sick and tired of Brahmanism’s remedy for every problem in the world: Perform sacrifices! Read the full story

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We read in the previous chapter how Brahmanism decayed due to the upper classes’ obsessive attachment to power, wealth and heaven, and compulsive performance of Kamya Karma to gain them. Not only did Brahmanism become irrelevant but also it was identified as the source of much social strife. The age of the Vedas ended and post-Vedic age of uncertainty, insecurity and disillusionment followed. These were the ominous times when the ancient tribes were breaking up; kings were being dethroned, and kingdoms were being swallowed up. The world, made up of various perishable forms of Prakriti and dubious Brahmanic elements, was seen as a miserable place to live (Maitrayani Up: 1:3-4). Rebellion hung in the air like the thick fog in the cool autumn dawn. Thousands of wandering sophists, known as Parivrajaka, crisscrossed the country challenging everyone to debate them or follow them. The first attempt to reform Brahmanism sprang up from within its own ranks. A section of Brahmanic society, mostly Kshatriya intellectuals, became disgusted with the decadence of Brahmanism and developed a whole new set of doctrines, which they propounded in treatises known as the Upanishads. The purpose of this brief article is not to expound the mindboggling and esoteric Upanishadic philosophy, but to expose its hidden intent. Read the full story

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In my previous article, we studied how Brahmanism originated and evolved to fulfill the desires of Arya people and protect them from evil of Dasyu. In this article we will study how in the course of next thousand years this Dharma decayed and itself became the evil that one needed protection from. We have witnessed this phenomenon of noble institutions decaying in the course of time even in our own lifetime. Congress Party, which was invented in the 19^th century with the noble intention of winning independence from the British, itself became the ultimate symbol of corruption after India won independence in mid 20^th century. Opposing political parties with lofty ideals, such as Bharatiya Janata Party, which were created to overthrow Congress Party, became even more corrupt and divisive -if that is possible- than Congress Party! Read the full story

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Introduction

It can be stated without doubt that the Ramayana, sage Valmiki’s magnum opus, is the single most influential epic to have ever risen from our nation. The epic was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and Indian life and culture. The characters of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman and Ravana (the villain of the piece) are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India. Read the full story

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Many Indians intellectuals who don’t believe in supernatural gods or powers fail to separate their non-belief from the ‘Hindu’ identity. The desire to belong to a dominant cultural group is so strong in us that these so-called ‘Hindu Atheists’ invent the most convoluted justifications for their acceptance of the Hindu label. But does it really make sense to call oneself a Hindu Atheist? What does one truly mean by the word Hindu in this context? The object of this article is to get rationalists and atheists from India who identify themselves as ‘Culturally Hindu’ to question this label with which they are associating themselves.

To make my position clear at the outset, I will state my fundamental claim below. Read the full story

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In my previous articles (1,2,3) I asserted that all religions came into being to solve some pressing societal problems. In the process, the problem solvers created gods to fulfill their own desires and to take refuge in them for protection from a specific evil. Let us now examine if we can apply these observations to Brahmanism. Around 3500 years ago, Northwest India saw waves of immigrants known as the Arya from north of the Himalayas. Their culture was remarkably distinct from that of the local people whom they disparagingly referred to as the Dasyu. The earliest Arya settlers in the region of the Punjab faced two major questions in their new land: 1. How are we going to cope with and harness the forces of Nature (Prakriti) such as rains, floods, famine, fires and storms? 2. How are we going to deal with the Dasyu who are hostile and evil?  They experimented with many solutions over the years and finally came up with a brilliant solution. The result of their experimentation was Brahmanism. Read the full story

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The solution to a social problem has itself become a problem

In my previous article I wrote that all current irrational beliefs, and behaviors rooted in them, served a perfectly rational purpose some time in the remote past, but they serve no useful purpose in the present time. What we call religion today was in the ancient times a solution for some grave societal problem, which was creating serious chaos in it. In a sense religion was the Constitution of the ancient society. However, even though all religions served useful purposes during the time they were invented they have now themselves become sources of serious conflicts, chaos and destruction in the world. This is an example of how a solution for a serious problem itself could become a problem. Why then does religion exist? Well, once a solution for a problem is found out, it becomes a source of livelihood for the priestly class, who claim custody of the religion. The priests of every religion have developed vested interest in keeping the masses deluded in order to make a comfortable living and enjoy a superior status in the society. This is true of all religions. Even the very educated amongst us can be deluded by their shenanigans.    Read the full story

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