Download HINDUISM, a religion that is wide¬spread in modern

HINDUISM, a religion that is widespread in modern India. It came into being in the
middle of the 1st millennium. When the Moslems invaded India in the 8th century, they
started to call "Hindus" the inhabitants of the "land beyond the Indus river"; somewhat later
all those who did not accept Islam came to be known as Hindus.
Hinduism is based upon a fundamental assumption that the material world is not the
only reality. Hindus believe there are other realities that are far more important, realities that
reveal the true nature of life, the mind and the spirit.
Like Islam, the Hindu religion is a total way of life. From the Western perspective,
Hinduism is difficult to grasp and explain because it is so different from Western tradition.
In many respects Hinduism is a conglomeration of religious thought, values, and beliefs
without the benefit of a single founder like Abraham, Jesus, or Muhammad. It does not have
an organizational hierarchy like that of the Catholic Church. Among the Hindus one may
find magic, nature worship, animal veneration, and limitless deities. In some respects Hindus
are among the most religious people in the world because they find the divine in everything.
Everything, therefore, takes on religious significance, and rituals are important for showing
God in everything. This ritual significance is found in everyday activities such as bathing,
eating, and marriage ceremonies.
The existence of sects and diverse interpretations of religious tenets are allowed.
Hinduism has a complex range of religious and philosophical ideas and also a code of
prescriptions, which specifies all man's rights and obligations from birth to death. Great
importance is attached to ritual.
Hinduism is based on the concept of Trimurti. The Universe and all forms of life were
created by Brahma. Yet the worship of Brahma, the nominal head of the Hindu triad, is
virtually non-existent. Hindus worship two other gods— Vishnu and Shiva—and this led to
the emergence of the two major trends to be observed in Hinduism, namely, Shivaism and
Vishnuism. The pantheon of Hinduism also includes Buddha as the tenth Avatara
(incarnation) of Vishnu. Characteristic of all varieties of Hinduism is belief in the eternal
nature and divine inspiration of the Vedas and the cyclical development of the Universe
(samsara), where movement proceeds in a descending curve, and faith in the eternal nature
and indestructibility of the soul. In keeping with the law of retribution or reward, and
retributive justice (or Karma), which sanctifies the division of society into castes and the
caste hierarchy, there are four main aims man needs to pursue in life: Dharma — fulfilment
of religious, family and social duties; Artha (activity, usefulness) — the acquisition and
appropriate utilization of objects of material value; Kama— the satisfaction of sensual
aspirations, particularly those of sensual love; Moksha — liberation from the chain of
reincarnations, i.e. the final transcending of mortal existence. At the present time 83 per cent
of the population of India are Hindus and this religion is also widespread in Nepal, Sri
Lanka, Bangladesh, Guyana and other countries, where emigrants from India live.
BASIC HINDU CONCEPTS
Several Hindu concepts specifically relate to world view and individual values and
behaviour.
First, intellect is subordinated to intuition. Truth does not come to the individual; it
already resides within each of us.
Second, dogma is subordinated to experience. One cannot be told about God; one must
experience God.
Third, outward expression is subordinated to inward realization. Communication with
God cannot take place through outward expression; it must occur through internal realization
of the nature of God.
Fourth, the world is an illusion because nothing is permanent. All of nature, including
humankind, is in a constant cycle of birth, death, rebirth or reincarnation.
Fifth, it is possible for the human to break the cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation
and experience an internal state of bliss called Nirvana.
One achieves Nirvana by leading a good life so one can achieve a higher spiritual status
in the next life. The more advanced one's spiritual life, the closer one is to Nirvana. The path
to a spiritual life, and therefore Nirvana, is meditation.
The Hindu holds materialism in abeyance and instead practices introspection. Karma is
the link that ties a person's acts in one life to the next life.
Fatalism becomes important as past lives influence each new life.
BUDDHISM, one of the world religions which took shape in India in the middle of the
1st millennium B.C. and later spread to the countries of Southeast and Central Asia and also
to the Far East. From among the numerous religious groups that had moved away from
Brahmanism and advocated their own paths for religious salvation in the 3rd century B.C.,
there was now taking shape a more or less united Buddhist organization and doctrine,
enjoying the energetic support of secular power (i.e. King Ashoka).
Buddhism teaches that any being, any life, in all its forms and manifestations, is evil,
bringing suffering to all that exists. Decay of the body, illness, death, hating what we do or
despising what we cannot have, separation from what we love, and not being able to obtain
what we desire are all examples of suffering. The cause of evil and suffering is the
attachment felt by man and other living creatures to the world perceived with our senses,
which is, in reality, a mere illusion, a perpetual cycle of rebirth (Samsara). Any human
emotion, passion or desire only aggravates suffering, leading to new still more terrible
reincarnations. In order to wrest oneself out of this "cycle of being", it is essential to
overcome ignorance, to understand the essence of the world, to renounce any thirst for life,
or aspiration to life's pleasures, to power, to wealth, to understand the fickleness and transitory character of all that is earthly, since only then is it possible to embark upon the "path of
salvation".
The so-called Eightfold Path to Salvation is the upright life, it is a path of complete
aloofness, on which there are no longer any place for joy even at the prospect of salvation
close at hand. Salvation itself consists in the transition from Samsara to Nirvana, non-being.
In early Buddhism only hermit monks could aspire to this salvation. Laymen could
only hope for better reincarnations, if they made generous offerings to monks and observed
five moral precepts (Pancasila): to abstain from perpetrating evil, from falsehood, from
theft, from sensual excesses and from alcohol or other intoxicants. The teaching of
Buddhism was advantageous to the ruling classes, since it explained all evil on earth,
including exploitation, as the fault of the suffering individual himself, who allegedly created
for himself in earlier reincarnations such a fate (Karma), and also because it advocated
meekness and humility as the most important virtues bringing man deliverance from the
sufferings of earthly existence.
Buddha was not a God but a man, an extraordinary man who, sometime in the sixth
century B.C. in India, achieved enlightenment. Once awakened, he devoted his life to
helping others achieve enlightenment or Nirvana, the state of spiritual and physical purity,
necessary to attain freedom from the ongoing cycle of suffering and rebirth. Modern
Buddhism directs itself to purification of life and consciousness, not to worship of a God
figure.
During the reign of the Kushan Dynasty (first centuries A.D.) Buddhism flourished
significantly in India, but after that its influence waned and it yielded ground to Hinduism
and by the 12th century it had almost disappeared from India, while becoming widespread
beyond its frontiers. Within Buddhism there has always been controversy between a large
number of sects and different schools of thought. Hinayana is regarded as the most ancient
form of Buddhism. Another school is that of Tantrism. It was mainly Mahayana Buddhism
that spread beyond the confines of India. In the 14th-16th centuries, Lamaism developed in
Tibet.
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF BUDDHISM
Buddhism — a religion and philosophic system of central and eastern Asia, founded in
India in the 6th century B.C. by Buddha, a religious philosopher and teacher who supposedly
lived in India in 563-483 B.C. Buddhism teaches that right living, right thinking and selfdenial will enable one to reach Nirvana, a divine state of release from earthly and bodily
pain, suffering, sorrow and desire. The name, Buddha, is title, applied by Buddhists to
someone regarded as embodying divine wisdom and virtue. It has been given to other
religious leaders in Asia.
To help overcome desire and to achieve enlightenment, Buddha taught an Eightfold
Path.
1. Right view is understanding and accepting the reality and origins of suffering, and
the ways leading to the cessation of suffering.
2. Right thought is being free from ill-will, cruelty, and untruthfulness towards self
and others.
3. Right speech is abstaining from lying, tale-bearing, and harsh language.
4. Right conduct is abstaining from the taking of life, from stealing, and from sexual
misconduct.
5. Right livelihood is not harming any living thing, and being free from luxury at the
expense of others.
6. Right effort is avoiding and overcoming evil, and promoting and maintaining good.
7. Right mindfulness is the contemplation of the transitoriness of the body, of one's
own and others' feeling, of the mind, and of phenomena.
8. Right meditation is complete concentration on a single object and the achievement
of purity of thought, free from all hindrances and distractions and eventually beyond
sensation.
JUDAISM, a religion widespread among Jews. Judaism came into being in the 2nd
millennium B.C. against a background of polytheistic (pagan) beliefs and rituals of the Semitic
tribes of Northern Arabia; since then, Judaism has spread throughout Israel, Europe, and the
Western Hemisphere. Judaism is the oldest of the religions in practice today. Jews believe in one
God, and they reject the Trinity of Christian belief. The Jewish world view is the basis of its culture.
This is expressed in four concepts basic to the Jewish faith: 1. God is one. The worship of Yahweh,
the god of the tribe of Judah (hence the name Judaism) 2. Human beings are free. 3. The individual's
highest aspiration is to serve God. 4. Jews belong to a group, to a nation, whose mission is to serve
God. Judaism penetrates every area of human existence. It is not simply a religion to serve spiritual
needs but a guide in the conduct of worship, ceremonies, and justice between persons, in addition to
friendship, kindness, intellectual pursuits, courtesy, and diet.
In Judaism there appeared at a very early stage the idea that the people of Israel was God's
"chosen people" and from the 8th century B.C., when the danger of the Jews' enslavement by a
foreign power was becoming imminent, there took root the idea of the future coming of a "divine
saviour", or Messiah. The Pentateuch (five books) or Book of Moses (Torah) recorded in written
form (in 444 B.C.) the beliefs of the Jews which had taken shape over the centuries. The ancient
period of the history of Judaism (the so-called Biblical period) came to an end in the 2nd century
B.C., when the Bible, a collection of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism (known in Christianity as the
Old Testament), was compiled.
The next period in the history of Judaism lasted until the 19th century and can be defined as
the rabbinical-Talmudic period. In this period, on the basis of interpretation of the Torah, adapted to
the new conditions of life for the Jews in the feudal world, the rabbis ("teachers of the Law")
completed the compilation of the written source of Judaic beliefs second in importance to the Bible
— the Talmud (3rd-5th centuries A.D.). In the Talmud new religious ideas found expression: belief
in a world beyond the grave, in retribution or reward after death, in the resurrection of the dead. It
expounds the Judaic conceptions regarding angels and demons (angelology and demonology), i.e.
conceptions of good and evil deities, which in Judaism are an echo of polytheistic beliefs. The
Talmud laid down in more precise detail the system of onerous religious rituals which specify the
behaviour of the believer with 613 prescriptions. In this period Judaism assumed the form which is
now regarded as Orthodox or Traditional.
The next stage in the development of Judaism began at the start of the 19th century and was
an offshoot of the legal emancipation of the Jews in the countries of Western Europe. There then
appeared the first bourgeois variety of Judaism — Reformed Judaism. The ideologists of this reform
refused to link the dogma concerning the Messiah with ideas of the return of the Jews to Palestine
and the revival of the Jewish state and they declared Judaism to be a "universal" ethical teaching.
They rejected many of the ritual prescriptions of Judaism and brought Jewish worship nearer to
Protestant practice in its external form.
Judaic religious leaders enjoy the strongest influence of all in Israel, where rabbinical
organizations play a major role in the country's political and social life.
Study the texts thoroughly. Summarize the information contained in the texts and
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