Why is Hinduism even classified as a Religion?

[ravishingravi]

33 minutes ago, sarcastic said:

@ravishingravi ji,

 

I agree that in Hinduism, there are no commandments like in Christianity or ayah's in Islam where there are rigid rules that are hard coded and SHOULD be followed. 

 

However, in practice, vast majority of the common Hindus are not as flexible in the understanding of dharma. I know of parents who will chide his child of an inter-caste marriage because that is "varna samkraman" and against the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. So, this idea of flexibility is somehow forgotten and overtaken by casteism or dogmatism in general. The parents are more concerned from the backlash of the other Hindus in their own community who might disown them or chastise them for letting an intercaste marriage happen. But they will cover it up as if that is the teachings of the holy book. There is no verse in Bhagavad Gita that dissuades intercaste marriages but they will interpret it that way to suit their societal needs.

 

I wish Hindus are all understanding and have the adaptibility in their day to day life and practice of "Advaita" in their real life. But that is far from today's Hindus.

And finally, let us not cover this up saying Hinduism is good but some Hindus do not understand it and practice it incorrectly. Firstly, it is not some but many Hindus even in towns/small cities etc are not open-minded enough ( the feature that should be characteristic of ideal Hindus ).
Secondly, the argument will be similar to muslims saying "Islam is good. It is some muslims who are misinterpreting Quran and becoming terrorists".

 

Ultimately my point is, it is what happens in practice that matters and not what the so called "holy books" or "scriptures" talk about. 

What happens in practice is "cultural", not religious. The word "Hindu" comes from "Indu". Indu comes indus valley civilization. When invader came here, they couldn't pronounce indu and started calling it hindu. So, your observations as true and otherwise it may be, it has little do with a book or text and prescribed path. It is cultural identity. Like any culture, it suffers from some defects. There is no common thread binding a hindu from Meghalaya to ones from Tamil Nadu or Punjab or Maharashtra.

 

[sarcastic]

9 minutes ago, ravishingravi said:

What happens in practice is "cultural", not religious. The word "Hindu" comes from "Indu". Indu comes indus valley civilization. When invader came here, they couldn't pronounce indu and started calling it hindu. So, your observations as true and otherwise it may be, it has little do with a book or text and prescribed path. It is cultural identity. Like any culture, it suffers from some defects. There is no common thread binding a hindu from Meghalaya to ones from Tamil Nadu or Punjab or Maharashtra.

 

I agree. The word "Hindu" (I believe 'Hindu' is a persian variant of Sindhu and 'Indus' is the greek variant) certainly is given by outsiders and it refers to a cultural identity of people living in Indian subcontinent (before Muslims were here). 

 

I also agree that there is no such thing as "Hinduism" in a way like those of Abrahamic faiths. It is just the Mughals and later the EIC/British Raj found it convenient to classify the cultural group as a religious one since they need one to keep their records. 

 

Today's "Hindus" themselves started self-identifying themselves as Hindus only in late 19th century or 20th century onwards. 

[Muloghonto]

3 hours ago, ravishingravi said:

Actually from what you have stated, it is not clear whether you have read them. Be that as it may, Yes, there are some books written. So what ? More people in a India have read Harry potter than those books. So, how does this matter ? 

This is true for all religions - there are more christians who've read harry potter than the bible itself. 
As for me reading them- do you want me to quote specific passages from the Gitas, Vedas, etc that are directly crediting the 'knowledge' to the Gods ?

 

3 hours ago, ravishingravi said:

You have still not answered the question. Under which text is word Hinduism quoted with clear set of codes to be followed ? 

That is largely an irrelevant point, because the word 'hinduism' is not an Indian creation. However, brahminism (where Brahmin-lead rituals to the Gods under vedic auspicies prevail) most definitely has clear appeal to divine authority.

 

As for clear set of codes- a clear set of codes is NOT required for an idea to be considered a religion. Religion simply means appeal to divine authority. period. Does not matter if its super-codified like Islam or relatively uncodified like Hinduism.

3 hours ago, ravishingravi said:

 

Another trivia. What is the origin of term Hinduism ? 

Please 

Irrelevant. Nomenclature of whether its Hinduism, bahminism, anastika, sanatan dharma, etc. they are all the same thing. 

Judaism wasn't always called Judaism either, so there is another example of changing names does not matter a jot if the core tenets, Gods and rituals remain more or less the same.

 

[Muloghonto]

2 hours ago, ravishingravi said:

What happens in practice is "cultural", not religious. The word "Hindu" comes from "Indu". Indu comes indus valley civilization. When invader came here, they couldn't pronounce indu and started calling it hindu. So, your observations as true and otherwise it may be, it has little do with a book or text and prescribed path. It is cultural identity. Like any culture, it suffers from some defects. There is no common thread binding a hindu from Meghalaya to ones from Tamil Nadu or Punjab or Maharashtra.

 

Yes, there is. The thread is Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwara + Kali/Durga. More than 1 of the 5 major deities are followed, along with the same concept of rebirth (if orthodox hindu) applied.

Hindu can be a cultural identity, but it is also clearly a religious identity as well. 

 

[Muloghonto]

2 hours ago, sarcastic said:

I agree. The word "Hindu" (I believe 'Hindu' is a persian variant of Sindhu and 'Indus' is the greek variant) certainly is given by outsiders and it refers to a cultural identity of people living in Indian subcontinent (before Muslims were here). 

 

I also agree that there is no such thing as "Hinduism" in a way like those of Abrahamic faiths. It is just the Mughals and later the EIC/British Raj found it convenient to classify the cultural group as a religious one since they need one to keep their records. 

 

Today's "Hindus" themselves started self-identifying themselves as Hindus only in late 19th century or 20th century onwards. 

With the word 'hindu', you are correct.

However, history CLEARLY proves that the major tenets of hinduism - the creations of Brahma, the 'management of Vishnu' and the 'final say' of Shiva, along with belief in rebirth as a higher/lower/same being based on karmic merit, is a common binding thread to hinduism that has existed from atleast the Gupta Empire period.

Of this, we are more or less certain, based on textual and cross-referenced evidence. Hindiusm the religion transitioned from vedic 'old pantheon worship' to a more Christian/Islam-esque ' one God with many facets' aspect during the Bhakti/Mahabali movement periods but the framework remains more or less the same for the past 1700 years at the very least.

 

[coffee_rules]

Jay Lakhani explains the very basic constructs of Dharma.  

 

 

 

[rkt.india]

On 8/28/2018 at 5:25 PM, coffee_rules said:

Dharma comes from Sanskrit word 'dhri' which means 'that which upholds' or 'that without which nothing can stand' or ''that which maintains stability and 
harmony of universe''. Dharma is conduct, duty, justice, morality, virtue, right and much more. 
Animals, Plants, Electrons have dharma  but no Religion.  One follows Dharma and gain Karma. Karma is the  collective good work of your this life and all previous lives that is needed for the atma to attain moksha.

 

Faith/Belief/Religion  constitutes worship of  the divine. There  are religious institutions that formulate the worship and they are the custodians of the worship and have a say in the religious rituals. In a way, followers of Shankaracharya and belief in Shaivism is a religion. The word Hinduism is popular only in the last 200 years in the  post colonial period. Hindustan refers to a geographical area around the river sindhu more than  the  religion. People in this  region  were Hindustani.

yes, Hindu refers to the people living across Indus river or Sindhu River.  Later, people termed Hindu as religion.  

[Nikhil_cric]

On 8/28/2018 at 7:10 AM, sarcastic said:

I m not completely sure of other two, but Buddha has explicitly denounced the authority of Vedas and the varna vyavastha (i.e. what turned out to be today's caste system). 

Buddha's path is completely independent of any worship of any deity and his philosophy does not agree with any creator/sustainer/destroyer concepts. 

Buddha was somehow incorporated into Hinduism by some Hindu philosophers such as Adi Sankara by calling him as one of the 10 Avatars of Lord Vishnu but the Buddhist schools explicitly reject any such claims. 

This is the problem with defining Hinduism imo. It has always had a tendency to sublimate local cults and deities and even synthesising elements of other faiths that were literally its antithesis to the point that we have extreme contradictions that really shouldn't be reconciled but somehow, through the ingenuity of various brahmanical narratives have all been accepted as part of one tradition. 

[Cricketics]

Hinduism isn’t a religion, it is a culture. 

[Muloghonto]

1 hour ago, Cricketics said:

Hinduism isn’t a religion, it is a culture. 

It is a religion first, culture second. Having rituals and belief in a supernatural creationism, is by defnition, a religion. 

Pointing out that its different class of religion than western religions does not make it bereft of theism- which is the bedrock of qualifying as a religion.

 

Does your religion espouse God/Gods and some sort of moral code associated with these God/Gods ? If yes, then religion. Hinduism qualifies.

 

[Global.Baba]

Philosophy,culture, religion, way of life, cult different words, belief, faith are al different variations of the same thing.

 

Atheism is a cult/belief system as well where most so called atheist loons are hell bent on convincing people there is no god which is no different. There might be some who keep it to themselves not so much different from people who keep their religion to themselves.