Sanjeev Sanyal Speaks To Hindol Sengupta On What It Is To Be A Hindu | Who Is A Hindu? | BOOM

you it has been meditated upon argued and fought over for thousands of years Hinduism is the world's oldest faith and it brings together within it everything from the most soulful contemplation to the most boisterous rituals just under eighty percent of Indians define themselves as Hindus India has been a majority Hindu country and the world's most diverse and plural nation for a very long time but what does Hinduism really mean today can it address our deepest anxieties and our most pressing questions does it divide or does it unite I will ask all those questions to some of the finest minds in the world in this very special series called being Hindu on being Hindu my guest today is the best-selling author banker and historian Sanjeev Sanyal he and I have had long conversations about Hinduism its history its meaning in Indian civilization and how does it bring our culture and civilization together I am delighted to welcome on my show Sanjeev Sonia Sergey thanks very much for coming to the show pleasure to be here I want to begin by asking you in many of the conversations you and I have had the core question that we've tried to address is what is this Hinduism right it's a religion where many people even say the word Hindu is incorrect so what is Hinduism I think when people come down to it they usually use a cop-out something like it's a way of life now calling Hinduism a way of life really doesn't give you very much meaning I mean at the end of the devii analyze it it it's actually a meaningless way of thinking about it because effectively it doesn't say anything so what I prefer to say is that Hinduism is a religion but it is not necessarily a belief or a faith it may contain within it many beliefs and faiths but Hinduism as a whole is not a belief of faith but it is a religion it is a religion in the sense that like other religions it thinks about the meaning of human existence things about morality it thinks about where we came from and where we are going so these are issues that are common to all religions but what is unique about Hinduism at that is that it doesn't give you a single answer instead it gives you a way of thinking about things and in many ways you're allowed to come to your own conclusion so there are Hindus who are polytheistic they're Hindus who are monotheistic monastic in fact it's even possible to be an atheistic Hindu and inside incidentally there are long traditions within Hinduism of all these lines of thought so the thing that brings together Hinduism and gives it unity is not the question is not the answers that we arrive at but the questions that are being asked it's always been the case right from the origin of Hinduism this is how it was set up so these if you go back to the Rig Veda and I would say there is a something called the NASA their system which is one could argue that this is in a sense the starting point of Hinduism so the starting point of say an Abrahamic religion is usually Maxim so if you are if you are Muslim then the axiom is that there is one God and that his last a messenger is Muhammad now if you don't believe this these axioms and the rest of in the rest of Islam does not follow similarly if you are a Christian you must believe that there is one God and he and Jesus Christ is his son and that he died on the cross for our sin for for our sins now we don't believe that doesn't matter now Hinduism doesn't have a starting axiom it has a series of starting questions and the nests of the asuka thumb is where it starts from so let me give you a sense of it it's a it's a it's a longish chant but basically it says in the beginning there was neither up nor down there was neither air nor light there was none like non truth none of the truth non truth what was there and then it goes on to say that we do not know so perhaps the gods know but even they were created so what was they right in the beginning before they came do the sages know but perhaps they know not and then it ends by saying surely the Great Creator knows and the last line is perhaps he too knows not so that's the point this is the starting point of in that is it is in this seeking it is in that journey of seeking something it is in that travel so to speak where we discover for the lack of a better our faith and that faith could be individualistic it could vary from person to person it could vary from community to community but therefore the question is is it therefore a religion yes it is because as I said right in the beginning first of all while it doesn't lead you to a specific faith that's why you cannot in the context of Hinduism you cannot use the words faith belief and religion interchangeably because Hindus are not synonymous to each other they are not synonymous to each other because you you can have multiple beliefs and combinations of multiple beliefs within Hinduism so Hinduism as a whole is a religion but not a belief and it is it may contain within it many many beliefs and to understand this you need to understand that this is how it's been deliberately set up it's not like it just randomly evolved to be like this right in the beginning the the Rishi's who were setting up the underlying architecture of Hinduism the infrastructure so this we are the intellectual infrastructure they started out with this in mind so all Hindu scriptures are divided into smoothie and Shruthi okay so Shruti means that which is heard or inspired ie that which in the sense does not have a precedence it's you can say divinely inspired from the gods or you just it simply appeared and then the rest of it which is smoothie which is a tradition a it's a memory of the great thoughts of great thinkers and so on so Shruti is heard or inspired and Smithey which is a tradition that which is remembered now what is interesting here is almost 99% of Hindu scriptures and there are plenty of them 99% of them are actually smoothly ie considered traditions or the recordings of the thoughts of great thinkers the Shruti is related only to the first three Vedas in fact we're really strict about it it only relates to the Rig Veda alone so this is important because effectively what you have is that you have the relevant definitions not even though finishes not even incidentally the Gita even the Gita although those who are very strict fashion awaits will dispute me on this but even the Gita is a smoothie ie it is a part of the theja so that the mom hearth and even the way it is written even though it's supposed to be a revelation from the god from a god krishna ET the way it is written is actually as it was heard by sanjay hmm so the the charity asuras '''l word of God and it is deliberately so so what it does it it has this open-ended starting point so if you had to put it in what I say in modern terms think of the Shruti texts as being the underlying operating system and the Spirit is as being apt so what you can do is you can keep adding apps and the same operating C system operator keeps functioning and you take in apps you can add apps you can some apps become more popular than others some apps disappear but you can keep adding more and more of them the original vedic texts themselves are the ones that are basically eternal although there are records in that in the past when they too have been occasionally updated so but that you have to be a rishi or something like that to be allowed to tinker with it I don't know so tell me I have often thought of this and now that you mentioned or give this analogy of an app system and underlying you know iOS so to speak the operating system and so on and so forth that Hinduism is a bit like an open source religion yes that the source codes are at at a very fundamental level the questions because they are questions yes remain constant for the less of a better word constant yes but the rest is open source absolutely so and it is deliberately so this is why I'm emphasizing it's not that it just turned out that way right in the beginning the Rishi's are starting out by saying so in the nests of the Assam and more right so they have the wisdom in a sense - absolutely strictly speaking we should be every generation should be adding to this body of knowledge so the Vedas is means knowledge and there is no end to the knowledge so sadly this dude is either guy three month or seeks intelligence absolutely if you read the Gayatri mantra what does it say it says o radiant Sun illuminate my mind just like you eliminate the skies and the earth what is it saying open my mind okay so it's very different from say the The Lord's Prayer you know that similarly there is another line let good thoughts come to us from all directions yes right which Gandhi was fond of quote yes and of course these the idea is open-mindedness questioning and continuously updating of information so it is very important in the in the Hindu tradition to continuously update now this does not mean we throw out everything so consequently this this idea that this is a kid what I would call a complex adaptive system it's like an ecological system it continuously adapt but it takes along with it the memory ie the spirit theme of all that has already been thought before and so the body of knowledge keeps adding to we are not continuously discarding some thoughts will of course follow some texts and ideas may over time go into disuse but even then many relatively disused ideas or thoughts still continue in some small puff pocket and some text will continue to sterilise we just spoke about how Hinduism and its interactions with science or to think of Hinduism as a science or scientific might not be an inaccurate way of putting it so is that why do you think that in the Hindu tradition or in the Hindu legacy the fear of the theory of evolution was never very strong so in some ways this theory of evolution and the idea of continuous mutations and ecological is conceptually very true yes in fact it's a it's essentially the same idea if you if you if you want to take it that way and this is not just about of course the theory of evolution the whole idea that knowledge must continuously so in fact it is sad that we have given up the the tradition of writing new petition but in fact till well into the medieval period new petitions were being written that's right I think this needs to be revived the idea of writing new finishes new dharma Shastras and the idea is that these are continuously added like there was not you know we are stuck with one man who smithy they have been many monasteries in the past and the idea is that there will be many into the future similarly we we need to have new dharma Shastras they are meant to apply through their times they are not eternal and that is the point it is very very different to think about this there a way of thinking then thinking about a revelatory text that you know do not be touched you cannot witness absolutely question absolutely this totally a different way of thinking about it what really is the connection between history as we understand it as a formal sign so to speak and Hinduism is a religion take the ramen for example sure now the ramen starts out originally as a story of love and adventure now it's possible that there is possibly some historical event that it is based on I have written in land of seven rivers many of the places that are mentioned in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are real places so it's not they're not fictional places now the events themselves possibly may have happened but the text that we now have are not what should I say they are not necessarily true to the actual events they have been much embellished over long periods of time so then should we then discard them as history no because they are history in a different sense so as I mentioned you have the Rama and it starts out as a story of love and adventure then later on we begin to have additions which take it give it other dimensions so for example at some point in time the debate is about the rule of law and the enforcement of contract and so what happens is that the text is changed to emphasize Rama as the upholder of the law as the person who enforces his promises and contracts even when there it I'd rate per hat at great personal cost even when it is unfair blatantly unfair in fact an entire new take a segment is added called the Rama and at the end of the Ramayana which is not a part of the original remain in the early medieval period where they talk that which talks about him sending away Sita to to the forest in the end and again the point about that is the idea that the law said it was an unfair law it law said that each she had to be sent away and as king he had to Apolo and of course he finds for for the next many years and he lives in great unhappiness but he's a great king that is why it is ROM Raja because he is the king is not above the law he applies the law now it is not as if ancient in all ancient Indians agreed with this way of thinking about upholding law so there is clearly those who thought that you know natural justice must pretty prissy you know prevail over the word of the law and you can see in the Mahabharata you have Krishna who interpreting the law interpreting absolutely he's interpreting the law all the time and in fact sometimes twisting the law but he's trying to maintain some semblance of natural justice being natural course of just absolutely so what you have here is a record of an ancient debate okay now same you can see that in other other fields as well so the Raman again in another plane also changes so ROM goes from being a great man a hero put a shook thumb ROM to God to God and so he becomes Bhagwan Rawat ulsi das he becomes Guan hua now original the Valmiki's Ramayana before the addition of these new additions he is quite not obviously a god in fact he in fact at one stage does make the statement that I am NOT a God and then you have clearly Tulsi das Adama and where he is clearly defied yeah so this is again an evolution so and the mahabharath has the same thing and of course you have new additions added to it and and of course the bhagavad-gita is an addition you also have this conversation with Bhishma as he is lying there on his bed of arrows and he and he he talks about straight craft and and morality and the upholding of Dharma and so on so the point I'm making is that if you think of it as the the epics as et hasa or history not of events but of our civilization of our ideas of our greatest fears of our greatest joys that is the sense in which the epics are a tea hustle not in the narrow sense of a history textbook fair enough the other question that so since we're on the topic of epics and offer of our text we were talking about the man who smithy yes now there's a lot of debate about hinduism in caste right yes where do you stand on that debate on the relevance of the Manu splitty on whether caste oppression continues and why it continues and its contacts with Hinduism and so on and so forth so Hinduism is an evolving religion so at various points in time it has meant different things so if you go back to very ancient times it's very obvious that caste is very very fluid and you can see intermarriage happening you can clearly see people being upgraded and downgraded according to their personal capabilities and in fact there are famous stories about Vishwamitra who starts out being a king Ayesha threa and later on becomes a Rishi and a Brahma ratio Brahman Rishi you have of course you know the story of satyakam who is this son of a slave or slave girl or a prostitute and of course he doesn't know who is his father and he goes to a great sage Rishi ana says that we know will you teach me and the sage asks him who is your father and of course he goes he says I don't know so he goes back and asks his his mother who his father is and of course she doesn't know because she is a prostitute so he comes back and tells the Rishi that I do not know the name of my father so the way she says you know so you must be then a son of a Brahman because you've told me the truth now this is not a statement that somehow the the Rishi had you know suddenly in you know intuitively understood his genetic lineage what he is basically saying is that you have within you the qualities of being a great scholar a great thinker because you have told me the truth because you are a seeker of droop and so he initiates him into and does the opening ceremony which is of course by which he becomes twice born yes so there are clearly you know in ancient times the old Vedic tradition is that these positions are occupational there are posit or positions given by virtue of their actions in life this system remains fairly fluid well into the medieval period and we do know from genetic evidence now that people were into marrying and there was a lot of churn going on well into the early medieval period then about fifteen hundred years ago for whatever reason it became much more rigid in terms of inter Manning between castes but even then the cast themselves remain fluid so there was a individual cast going up and down and even new cast even then being coming up and the Rajput saz a caste for example they they are not necessarily all of Kshatriya origin and Shivaji is coronation and of course then you have in late medieval period the example of Shivaji you mentioned yes exactly the Marathas go from being considered a lower caste and they are given an upgrade to becoming becoming given Kshatriya status and this has happened in historical time so this kind of churn is very much a part of Indian history it's of course doesn't only relate to Hinduism they are non Hindus in India has also been influenced by this social structure but the point I'm making to you is as we are now in a society that is much more fluid it doesn't Hinduism will take it in its stride it's not like it's fundamental to him there was many anyway Hinduism is interpreted this in multiple ways and I mentioned in fact reform after reform reform after reform happens this is the way it goes on if you do not like the way it is now you can change it and in some odd peculiar way we may be going back to its original spirit so if you have for example the opening ceremony the sacred thread ceremony which by which you recover twice become a twice-born suppose at higher cost oddly enough this ceremony was original now is only character this is only done by the Brahmins basically and even there it is by some families have kept it alive traditionally all the costs not just the higher gas incidentally but even the many artisan classes castes when the person was initiated the young boy was initiated into the field of world of work there is a ceremony we were related to the sacred thread ceremony incidentally there are records and even a life traditions of women doing it so so it is not just even for the men it is women also have a tradition of doing this and so you know in some or peculiar way this is the way Hinduism originally was so we may be actually as these going boundaries break down we may be going back to this original form and of course this cycles many other cycles and many other things will happen into the future and that is what its set up to do and my last question to you then is what does in the 21st century what does it mean to be a Hindu we are looking for the answer so our approach is more like that of a scientist and that yes I have through this because of this experience understanding thinking evidence whatever I each individual comes to a certain conclusion as a group or as a person and that is perfectly fine on that note thank you very much Sanjeev thanks for coming on my show thanks for being on the being Hindu show thank you Oh

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Id: qTdF_uuYKZA

Length: 23min 43sec (1423 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 22 2016