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Hinduism as One Religion

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DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.33387.28967

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In light of the many changes in “Hinduism" over the centuries, to what extent can it be un-

derstood as one religion? Give reasons for your answer and support with examples.

The intention of this paper is to highlight the many changes to Hinduism over the centuries and to

argue throughout that although the Hindu religion may seem bewildering to Westerners, with its

many deities and traditions, Hinduism should be seen as one religion rich in diversity. As Flood

rightly argues, the result of many changes and processes have resulted in this ‘religion’ which ex-

hibits the most diverse and contradictory features, with the differences often more pronounced

than the similarities.1 It is these changes and processes that will be the focus of this paper.

I will look specially at the reformers Ram Mohan Roy and Dayananda Sarasvati, founders of the

Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj, respectively, before introducing the later reformer Ramakrish-

na. By charting them in chronological order, I will show that their reforms have been both positive

and negative. Roy and Ramakrishna focused on Hindu pluralism, while Sarasvati can be seen as a

reformer who cut off dialogue with people from other religious traditions, resulting in his movement

coming to be associated with Hindutva due to his opposition to missionaries from other faiths.2

I will first argue that Hinduism is a group united by common features, such as shared beliefs in

reincarnation (samsara), liberation (moksa) and a particular ordering of society, know as caste.3 It

has been argued that because the religion is so open and so varied in tradition and practice, there

can be no one ‘Hinduism’. I would strongly disagree and instead assert that although may be no

clear boundaries as there are with Islam and Christianity, Hinduism is the one religion and we

should applaud their attitudes involving taking on board other religious traditions and practices, as

was the case with many reformers.

1 Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. 7.

2 Shattuck, Cybelle. Hinduism, 92.
3 Flood, Gavin. The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. 2.
In order to lay out my argument in a coherent manner, I have split the paper into two sections.

Firstly I will look at the problems with the terms Hinduism and who speaks for its adherents, look-

ing at the issue of Hindutva in India, seen as the attempt to establish a ‘Hindu nation’. I will then

move on to analyse my chosen reformers’ impact on Hinduism, hopefully demonstrating that Hin-

duism can be seen as one religion, regardless of the changes that have taken place. I will con-

clude that the issue of Hindutva is not in the spirit of the reformer Roy, however it was Dayanan-

da’s later view of Hinduism that was influential in establishing a link between hindutva and national

identity.

Hinduism and its Spokespeople

For many, the term Hinduism evokes colourful images of Ganesh, Krishna and Vishnu, however

there are many thousands of deities and different traditions belonging to different groups. For ex-

ample, in Southern and Eastern India there are major differences between which deities are wor-

shipped and how.4 There is also a problem of who speaks for ‘Hindus’? As the religion is so varied,

the term Hindutva has been coined by Indian adherents who want a ‘Hindu nation’. The dramatic

success of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a group who want Christians and Muslims to lose

their rights under the law in favour of Hindus rights, has been impossible for Western scholars to

ignore, leading to questions about what the Hindu religion is and its place in a modern nation

state.5 Alvalos’ insightful papers alleges the Hindutva movement is favoured by the higher castes

of Indian society, which seems astonishingly hypocritical from the people in society who don’t give

the lowest caste members of society, the dalits, any rights. As will become apparent, the relation-

ship between the castes in Indian society has been the subject of many attempts at reform, from

those such as Roy who tried to outlaw child-marriage and widow-burning to Gandhi who tried to

assimilate the dalits, the lowest caste, into mainstream society.

4 Klostermaier, Klaus. A Survey of Hinduism. 46.

5 Avalos, Hector. Fighting words: The origins of religious violence. Prometheus Books, 2005. 707.
It is worth noting here that many of the reforms in Hinduism and its practices have occurred due to

difference in doctrine. Put simply, there are different texts used by different practitioners of Hin-

duism, however they all reference the earliest texts - the Vedas - whether to agree or refute their

claims.6 After came the Upanishads, and I will attempt to demonstrate that both of these sophisti-

cated philosophical texts were used in a compelling fashion by the reformers.

Hindu Reformers

In 1828, Ram Mohan Roy, a Bengali from a Brahim family working for the British East India Com-

pany in Calcutta and educated at a Muslim university, travelled widely and came to a universalist

conclusion. After studying both Eastern and Western philosophies, he come to the conclusion that

as all religions had “the same conception at their centres” and despite variance in outward prac-

tice, they all deserved equal respect and therefore advocated tolerance and the belief that all reli-

gions are essentially one.7 The significance of this cannot be underestimated. It was said by a lat-

er reformer, Vivekānanda, that ‘the salvation of Europe depends on a rationalistic religion… the

idea of the Impersonal God, is the only religion that can have any hold on intellectual people.8 Roy

had found, years previously, that only through reason could we know God, and this God, which all

religions lead to, is an impersonal God. It was for this reason that his movement appealed to

brahmins and the intellectuals of the day, with the rejection of popular theism and the position of

the educated elite and the newly emerging urban class.

As the first reformer to vehemently criticise the Hindu practice of sati, as he was from a Brahim

family, the ones generally approving of the practice, he tried to separate religious beliefs from so-

cial practice. As mentioned above, the religious texts played a major part in the reforms, and the

reason for Roy being against sati and child-marriage was because he saw them as having no

6 Klostermaier, Klaus. A Survey of Hinduism. 32.

7 Shattuck, Cybelle. Hinduism. 90.
8 Vivekanada, "The Absolute and Manifestation," lecture in London 1896, quoted in R. King, Orien-
talism and Religion, 141.
place in the teaching of the Upanishads. His movement appealing to people on an ethical level,

and although membership was not large, he set a precedent for calling for both religious and social

reform. He was also a pioneer in Western scientific education in India and based his religious ser-

vices on Christian ones, with hymns, sermons and readings from the Upanishads in the same way

Christians would read out the Bible. This shows that although Hinduism went through reform, this

was not to make it more exclusive, rather the religion was made even more diverse.

A second reformer, Dayananda Sarasvati, in 1875 established the social reform movement called

the Arya Samaj. However, unlike Roy before him, the Arya Samaj believed that the Vedas, not the

Upanishads, were the highest source of ethics and knowledge in the world.9 Crucially, however, his

attitude to other religions was not the same as Roy’s, as Sarasvati believed that the missionary

efforts of Muslims and Christians in India should be actively opposed. Although like his predeces-

sor he believed in an impersonal God, he was against Western scientific education and branded

image worship, pilgrimage and pretty much anything not from the Vedas as ‘superstitious’.

As well as being instrumental in campaigning against child-marriage and allowing marriage by

choice rather than by arrangement, he was also an advocate of both the male and female right to

education and believed that national education was the means of making citizens good Hindus. His

movement established schools called gurukulas where Indians learn Sanskrit, the linguistic symbol

of India’s heritage and Hindi, which he promoted as a national language.10 It should be said that

although the movement was not large in terms of membership, it was instrumental in establishing a

link between Hinduism and national identity that has spilled over into modern Indian politics.

The third and final reformer that the paper gives me room to discuss is Ramakrishna, a Bengali

priest in service to the goddess Kali in Calcutta. He met two gurus and a brahmin who taught him

Tantric practices, leading to him seeing visions of deities including Jesus Christ. After studying Is-

9 Shattuck, Cybelle. Hinduism. 91.

10 ibid.
lam and Christianity, he followed their traditions until he felt he had reached the end goal.11 In

many respects he was the same as Ram Mohan Roy as believed that all religions led to the same

ultimate goal, that there were many paths to God. Recognised as a saint during his own lifetime,

he had many followers, one of whom would go on to take the name Swami Vivekananda, who had

arguably the greatest influence on the Hindu religion. He appeared at the World Parliament of Re-

ligions and through his speeches and efforts, Hinduism gained respect as a world religion, giving it

the same status as Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

In conclusion, having charted the problems with the term Hinduism, the problems with who speaks

for them in the world and a chronological account of three reformers who changed Hinduism, I

have tried to demonstrate that Hinduism is one religion, even though its reformers and adherents

take on other religions’ traditions and beliefs, to the point of incorporating them in their own reli-

gion. Although the reformers all made their own impact, of the three it is arguably Vivekananda

who has made the most impact, as Hinduism is now seen as a major world religion instead of just

superstitions of Indian tribal people.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Avalos, Hector. Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence. Prometheus Books, 2005.

Flood, Gavin D. and Wiley Online Library (Online service). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism.

Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Flood, Gavin D. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University

Press, 1996.

11 ibid, 93.
 King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion : Postcolonial Theory, India and 'the Mystic East' Rout-

ledge, 1999.

Klostermaier, Klaus K. A Survey of Hinduism. 2nd ed. Albany: State University of New York Press,

1994.

Shattuck, Cybelle T. and Ebooks Corporation Limited. hinduism. London: Routledge, 2003.

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