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Hinduism

Hinduism is more a civilization than a religion: not only because it is associated with a full-fledged social system, the caste system, but also because it is closely linked with an ancient culture spread over a clear-cut territory (today's India) and endowed with a language (Sanskrit). As a civilization, Hinduism does not display much cohesion and homogeneity. At first sight, it seems to possess the classic duality between what Robert Redfield calls a “great tradition” and a “little tradition,” which one may call “popular Hinduism,” composed of local practices. According to Shyama Charan Dube, however, this schema is complicated in the Hindu case by the lack of unity in the great tradition itself.

A Religion of “Unity in Diversity”

Most Hindus traditionally share a common belief in reincarnation, consider the seven sacred cities (Ayodhya, Mathura, Haridwar, Benares, Kanchipuram, Ujjain, and Dwarka) as pilgrimage centers, worship god according to similar rituals in their respective temples (pujas), and celebrate the same festivals, including the Kumbh Mela, for which people gather together in millions every 9 or 12 years. Yet Hinduism does not have an orthodoxy enshrined in one book and guarded by an ecclesiastical body but encompasses several religious streams founded by gurus who pay obeisance to any one of the many gods of the Hindu pantheon (Shiva, Vishnu, or one of his avatars, or the Shaktas, who worship the Goddess under one form or another). Thus, the Hinduism of the great tradition appears as a “conglomeration of sects” (Romila Thapar, 1989, p. 207), known as sampradaya (from the Sanskrit samprada, to transmit); indeed, the essence of the sect lies in “the uninterrupted transmission from one master to another” (Catherine Clémentin-Ojha, 1990, p. 19) of the message of the founding guru, which itself derives from a revelation. (However, a Hindu sect may also take the form of a panth [way], where the founder is not considered as having been the recipient of a divine revelation.) Isolated from one another, these sects are also rivals to the extent that they compete for patronage and for the preeminence of their particular teachings.

The main, if not the only, current of Hinduism—which became formalized in a way that approximates to an “ecclesiastical structure” (Thapar, 1985, p. 17)—was that of Shankara. This ascetic reformer of the 8th century responded to the spread of Buddhism by establishing monasteries (math) in the four corners of India—Sringeri in the south, Dwarka in the west, Badri in the north, and Puri in the east—at the head of which were placed shankaracharyas, ordained to exercise a spiritual authority comparable with that of the Buddhist clergy.

The Making of Hinduism

In spite of the common features listed above, the remarkable diversity of Hinduism prevailed for centuries, to such an extent that until the 16th century there was no single religious tradition known as “Hinduism.” The development of a collective Hindu consciousness was inhibited not only by the extreme social and religious differentiation within Hinduism but also by a tendency to discount the importance of the Other and therefore to ignore the need for solidarity in the face of that Other. In the process of sociocultural integration, a capacity for assimilation in the caste system is revealed: Insofar as the hierarchy represents a system of gradation based on the notion of ritual purity, everyone can find a place in it, below the Brahmins, according to the degree of conformity with the exalted values personified by Brahmins. As a result, invaders such as the Huns found themselves classed as Kshatriyas (warriors), observing the ritual practices prescribed for these castes and recognizing the authority of the Brahmins.

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