RELI 1002 Test 1 Hinduism

Class Lecture 1- Hinduism 01/10

Religion- What does it mean for us?

  • Religion- a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices (Merriam, Webster Dictionary)

    • A modern word derived from Latin

  • Humans are the only species that have ‘access’ to a divine entity as they practice how to access this superhuman being/ divine entity

    • Every religion has its array of forms (MONO-1)

What are some ways to study Religion?

Religious studies

  1. Descriptive (learning about)

  2. History of Sociology of

  3. Academic study

Study of religion

  1. Prescriptive (learning to..)

  2. Salvation History

    1. What are some approaches to Study of Religion?

      1. Historical/ Comparative

        1. Possible to reach a fairly objective nature of religion and access objective history

      2. Phenomenological

        1. The study of religion should be empirical, descriptive, historical, and anti-reductionist

      3. Empathetic

        1. It is not possible to be neutral or objective, but it is possible to be genuinely empathize

        2. I might be wrong, but this is the best I can do

    2. What are some limits to the Study of Religion?

      1. There is a distinction between the devotional expression of a religious belief and the study of diverse devotional expressions

      2. Religions are internally diverse (baptism, catholic)

      3. Religions are always evolving and changing

      4. Religions are enmeshed in virtually all dimensions of human agency and expression

      5. Religions are historically embedded

Not all humans claim to be religious, but religion is pervasive throughout time and cultures

Notes from reading- Chapter 1Anthology

Study of world Religions

  • The study of world religions is engaged in a conflict between the expansion and the reduction of understanding of religion

  • Some religions get tangled up with nationalism and are used to justify prejudices, hate, oppression

  • Muller analyzed myths as rationalizations for natural events, reducing religion to this natural evolutionary cause

  • Comparisons were made between myths and real-occurring events to

  • James Frazer wrote a book of myths

  • As this occurred religion was sought to be the glue of society(Emile Durkhiem), then economic(Max Weber) influences and psychological(Frued)

  • Carl Jung agreed with Freud that the unconscious is meaningful and expressed in dreams and myths but rejected the notion of the centrality of sex in the unconscious and saw religion as a meaningful physiological reality

  • Rudolf Otto argued against the idea that the naturalistic sciences could reduce religion to a natural or social force

  • Gerardus van der Leeuw shaped the phenomenology of religion as he explored the intuitive essence of many phenomena such as sacred time, compassion, etc..

  • Micrea Eliade led the history and phenomenology of religion movements as he did not want to reduce religion to conscious experience and the natural world

  • We must be careful in comparisons as some authors are finding in their studies that word comparisons can lead to different ideas

The Sacredness of Nature and Cosmic Religion

  • Micrea Eliade was a big contributor to the study of religion, he blended 2 majors in his approach: first, the history of religions to clarify the factual side and then the phenomenology of religions to reflect intuitively the essence of religion by comparing there themes

    • Nature is never just natural

    • This chapter focuses on how religious man the supernatural is connected with the natural, and how nature is the way it is(connection to religion)

    • High places are inaccessible by men, so many believe this is where the Gods stay

  • Iho means elevated

Materialistic perspectives on religion

  • Freud gives 3 excerpts that humans invented religion

  1. The future of an Illusion

    1. Says that religion is an unconscious search for security in a father figure projected into the heavens

    2. Looking for protection as a Father

    3. Moral world order, divine, they say its just an illusion

Religion as the Opium of the People

  • Karl Max alongside Fredrich E. believes that religion is an illusory psychological projection of human emotions in the heaven, but rather more social with religion sanctioning and blessing the unjust status quo

  • The biggest criticism is that man makes religion

  • Madman talks about the consequences whether religion wins or not

Some argue that the Image of God is dominating

  • Puro complaining from individuals

  • The lost dimension in religion focuses on those who want to learn their place in this universal world

Class Lecture 2- Hinduism 01/12

Establish some benchmarks

  • Religions can be loosely defined as a system of beliefs and practices that are held by humans(mortals) in relation to Superman beings

  • Superhuman beings are entities that can do things ordinary mortals cannot do

  • These divine beings are known for their miraculous deeds and powers that set them apart from humans

Studying religion

Studying religion is a relatively recent (modern) phenomenon

  • Religion is studied as it is a double-edged sword- it can be a source of healing and comfort to others while others employ it to justify violence and hatred toward others

    • Helps us fight prejudice

Authors mentioned in the reading

  1. Friedrich Max Muller(1823-1900)

    1. ‘Grandfather’ of comparison of world religions

    2. He knew a bunch of languages as he compiled sacred books of the East including Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, and Muslim text

  2. Sir William jones

  3. Scientifically = linguistically (much older roots)

  4. James Frazer

  5. Refined approaches to comparative studies of religion

  6. Contemporary schema of historical evolution at the center of his approach to studying religion

  7. Religion evolves from archaic practices of magic

    1. 13 volumes titled ; The golden bough this work systematically listed the world, myth, rituals and religion

    2. Magic- religion - science

4. Emilie Durkeim

  • Religion can be understood to a social phenomenon

5. Max Weber

  • Stressed on the sociology of religion

  • Economic forces influential on the concepts of Gods and demons

  • Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism

6. Sigmund Freud

  • Religion as an infantile illusion based on the elevation of a beloved father figure divinity

  • Meaningfulness of the unconscious psyche

  • His theories stressed on influence of sexual instincts on human behavior

7. Carrl Jung

  • Built on Freud’s theories but differed in multiple ways from him

  • The importance of studying religion is to understand symbolization

  • Religion as meaningful expression of the collective unconscious

8. Rudolf Otto

  • Argues that neither social or natural sciences can understand religion

  • Study of religion to be approached as Sui Generis

  • Behind dogmas lies the numinous experiences of the sacred

9. Gerarudus van de Leeuw

  1. Stressed the importance of phenomenology (direct experience) and hermeneutics (awareness of assumptions)when studying religion

  2. Important to understand the concepts of sacred time, mysticisms and love

10. Micrea Eliade

  1. Acknowledge the use of social sciences to study religion

    1. He says there are multiple ways

  2. Stressed need to understand the hierophany(manifestation of the sacred in a limited earthly form

11. Jonathan Z. Smith

  1. Rejects the phenomenological efforts to find the essence of the religious patterns

  2. Profound impact on the field of the study of religion

  3. Professed study of religion to be approached scientifically

  4. Use of stats can be used

12. Karl Marx

  1. One has to understand the class struggle to understand history

  2. Religion is an illusionary psychological projection

  3. Man makes religion, religion does not make man

  4. Religion can be defined in terms of economics

    1. The Opium of people

13. Friedrich Nietzche

  1. German Philosopher ‘laid the foundations’ to existentialism

  2. Highly iconoclastic in his stance

  3. ‘Morality is nothing else..

14. Judith Plaskow

  1. Influential feminist scholar and a cofounder of the journal of feminist studies in religion

  2. Stresses the importance of understanding the construction of power using liturgy

  3. To understand the male image with religious constructs helps to understand

15. Diana Eck

  1. Another prominent female scholar in religion, her research focuses on the challenge of religious plagiarism

16. Paul Tillich

  1. Religion as ulitmate concern

  2. Modern despair due to entanglement from depts

Class Lecture 3- Hinduism 01/17

India Civilization- includes present-day independent countries Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc..

Oldest Archeological finds in Indian Context

British archeologists started to find material evidence of an old civilization- first harappa followed by Mohenjo-Daro. Both are located in present-day Pakistan

  • Ca means circle

  • BCE before common era

  • AD

  • Egaletarian - equal

Transportation Culture

  • Animals like bulls/buffalos used to move individually because horses weren’t around yet

  • Some carts are flat to carry more materials

Material Culture

  • Standardized road widths following a strict hierarchy

  • Streets are laid such that lanes, connect roads, streets

  • The roads were like ATL they got drops

  • Standardized road widths following a strict hierarchy

  • Most structures had wet areas - bathrooms- connected to covered drains

    • Happening during say time of Egyptian and Mesopotamia civilizations

    • The sciatica was stolen from the Egyptians (cultural appropriation)

    • The image of the Bull show Unicorns

The great Bath at Mohenjo-daro

  • The textbook mentions the bath house either as a ritual center or a place for procreation

    • The way they made bricks was different compared to each other

    • They knew how the hydraulics worked- water therapeutic

Since 2000s some Scholars have identified as Indus-Sarasvati culture

City of Lothal

  • The archeological of Lothal

    • Foundation of walls at Lothal and its dockyard or risivior tank at Lothal

Egalitarian

  • Only a few finished images of Humans

  • Priest-King

  • Made a dancing girl

  • When we look at scale we see that the messages are small

Notes from reading- Chapter 2 Hinduism

What are good things to know as starters?

  1. Numbers

    1. Approximately 950 mil to 1 bil around the world

  2. Important dates to know

    1. Indus Valley civilization composition of the Vedas - 2500-600BCE

    2. Composition of epics and puranas - 500BCE-1000CE

    3. 600-1600- devotional poetry in local languages

    4. 13th-18th centuries Northern India under Muslim rule

    5. Mid-1700s to 1947 British colonial rule

  3. Leadeers?

    1. Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Vallabha, Ramananda, CHaitanya, swami, etc..

  4. Sacred text/

    1. Vedas

  5. Deities

    1. Supreme being (Brahman), not limited by gender and takes countless forms

    2. Most think of human souls as immortal and once it reaches liberation it will be freed from karma and rebirth

Notes

Vedas- 4 collections of hymns and texts that are said to have been revealed to Rishi through sight and sound

Shruti- sacred words

  • Hearing and seeing are the most important characteristics in Hinduism

    • Hindus experience darshana as they are seeking to be seen by a deity (guru)

    • Hindus live up to this by telling stories of God, praying, chanting,

    • To me it seems like it can be almost everything

  • Hindu is said to be a default category

    • When Indian ask you what religion you belong to and you don’t answer then by default ur hindu

    • You don’t need to study the Vedas to be hindu you kinds just live like that

  • The British came up with this term at first ‘ the religion of those Indians’

  • Dharma means righteousness

    • They lowkey talk about everything in their religion

Origin

  • Some say it was a fusion of indigenous religions of the Indus Valley with the faith of the Aryans

  • Others say indo-Europeans migrated into India from other parts of Asia

Harpa Culture

  • 2 towns that had good relationships with one another and shared many things

    • Mohenjo Daro and Harappa

    • This culture had a written language that still not yet developed

    • They were impressive builders who lived in planned cities

  • The Great Bath 1750 BCE

    • Like a pool in this city

    • Scholars believed it was designed for religious rituals of some sort

    • Some houses included a fire pit which scholars believed was used in ritual

    • Goddess sculptures found that many believe these men praised these goddesses but women did not have as many rights so what's up with that??

    • This is basically where Hindu started

Indo- Europeans

  • Similar cognates

    • The Sanskrit word Jana is a cognate of the English word ‘knowledge’

    • Ajana is Sanskrit and ignorance is English

  • It was a peaceful migration undertaken by a growing agricultural pop in need of additional land

  • We may not know exactly where they came but we know that they composed many poems

    • Used many devices

The Vedas

  • The earliest surviving Indo-European compositions are the Vedas- sacred text

  • 4 collections - Rig, Sama, Yajur, Atharva

    • These contain hymns(Samhitas)

    • Directions for the performance of sacred rituals (Brahmas)

    • ‘Composition for the forest’(Aranyakas

    • Philosophical works called Upanishads

  • The earliest section of Rig Veda contains 1028 hymns, Sam veda meant to be sung

  • Artharva Veda differs from the other three Vedas in that it includes materials used for purposes other than sacrificial rituals

  • Vedas are important but unlike Bibles, people just don’t have these lying around

  • To Brahmins, it was a way to have a higher class system

    • Those who were smart learned the ‘word’

The Vedic Hymns

  1. Indra warrior god who battles other cosmic powers

  2. Agni the god of fire who was believed to serve as a messenger

  3. Soma name of god indemnified with the moon

  4. Sarasvati is speech incarnate, the power of the world and the mother of the Vedas

    1. Rituals are fairly important

Upanishads

  • They rethink the sacrifices and rituals

  • Take form in conversations

  • This is where the conversation of karma comes to play

Karma

  • Action

  • System of rewards and punishments attached to various actions

Samsara

  • Cycle of death and rebirth or reincarnation

  • To be free from this one must have wisdom

  • Experience of enlightenment is when one is truly free

Atman and Brahman

  • The human soul and the supremebeing

  • To know this supreme being one must be in a new state

  • Existence of truth, knowledge, infinity,

  • Think about how water and salt dissolve with one another

  • Women are very important in teaching their mission

Classic Hinduism

  • Smrti is literature composed after the Vedas was composed

    • Epics - ithasas

    • Ancient stories puranas

    • Codes of law and ethics - dharmashastras

Class Lecture 3- 4 Vedas 01/24

1st section of the four of Vedas is identified as Vedic Samhita (hymns)

2nd and 3rd are the Aryanakas(forest books) and Brahmanas(ritual manuals)

4th and the most important is Upanishads (sitting close to teachers feet) known as Vedanta

  • Concerns relationship between absolute reality and individual self Brahman(energy we all have) Atman(makes us me)

  • Individual self is not different from absolute reality

  • Tat tvam asi (though are that)

6 systems of Indian Philosophies

  1. Sanhkya(number, enumeration)

    1. Deeper philosophy

  2. Yoga (paired with Sanhkya)

    1. Discipline, joining

  3. Nyay

    1. Rule, logic

    2. An influence of algo

  4. Vaisheshika(relationship with Nyay)

    1. Distinction, characteristics

  5. Mimamsa

    1. Investigation with absolute reality

  6. Vendeanta

    1. Means the culmination of the veda

All agree there is an eternal soul (Atman) that need to be freed from the cycle of birth and death (Karma)

  • These have evolved overtime ‘rich cerebral’

What is the concept of time in Hinduism?

  • The Universe undergoes vast cycles of creation dissolution and recreation

    • Yuga large spans of time (one cycle of creation to destruction takes over 4 bill years )

      • 1 Satya Yuga

      • 2 Treta Yuga

      • 3 Dvapar Yuga - transaction

      • 4 Kali Yuga - destruction of this world?

What is a second-tier text?

Shruti means divinely revealed

Smriti means texts that were remembered or contemplated

Maha means great

Mahabharata- great India

Sutras means treaties, laws or prescriptions

  • One such compilation by Rishi Patalanji is Yogasustras

Yoga means more than just bodily postures

  • Means to yoke ones spirit to divine

  • Patalanji Yoga focuses on the moral, mental and physical discipline

  • Has 8 limbs or Ashtanga Yoga

  • To do we must do Yama and Nimaya

What does Yoga even accomplish?

  • Focuses on detaching mind from the sensory world

    • Means concentration and meditation- Dharana and Dhyana

    • Samadhi is the ultimate goal where you aim the level of comfort

Hindu Pantheon

  • Supposedly 33 million gods and goddesses

  • There are 4 main manifestations of divinity 3 male and 1 female

    • Brahma- creator

    • Vishnu- sustainer

    • Shiva - Destroyers

    • 4 alls holding items (Chakra is important)

Class Lecture 4 01/26

What are the male gods

  1. Braham

  2. He has 4 heads

    1. His vehicle( Vahana) is Swan

    2. Most commonly held objects are pothi(book) and rosary and others change with context

  3. Vishnu

    1. Single head, bluish/dark complexion

    2. Vahana (vehicle) is Garuda (eagle)

    3. Most common held objects are conch, lotus (generally red), mallet and discus

    4. Vishnu has 10 avatars

Purana (historical text)

  • Comes under the sub- shurti

    • Gods exist in human form

    • Creation story of humans

      1. Canonical texts lay the foundations of deities

      2. Churning of the comic ocean, also created poison that could have ended all life

      3. Poison was consumed by Shiva to protect the creation from destruction

        1. This led Shiva’s complexion to turn blue (the poison was held in his throat, thus one of his names is Neelkanth)

  1. Shiva

  2. Single head, bluish/dark skin tone

  3. Vahana(vehicle) is bull, humped bull or Zebu

  4. Most represented with the 3rd eye

  5. The most commonly associated objects are the trident, damru(hourglass-shaped drum) water pot, moon crescent in hair, clad with animal skin and necklace and armlets of snakes(spectacled cobras)

4. Ganesh

  1. Elephant headed god

  2. Son of Shiva and Parvati

  3. The human head was severed by Shiva, and then replaced by an elephant’s head

Hindu Pantheon

  • There are 4 main manifestations of divinity, 3 male and 1 female

    • Female divinity is identified as Shakti (power) is also called Devi

Female Gods

  1. Shakti/Devi/Durga

    1. 9 different forms

    2. Generally depicted as single-headed, exceptions as to context

    3. Generally always has multiple arms

    4. Vahana (vehicle) is highly contextual (depends on what altar we look at)

    5. Most common held objects are weapons of various kinds

  2. Saraswati or Sarasvati

    1. Vahana (vehicle) is mostly a swan some representations have a peacock

    2. Most commonly represented on white sari, held objects are pothi(book) rosary and veena

    3. Goddess of Speech or Vac

  3. Lakshmi

    1. Generally single headed, wearing a red sari

    2. Cross legged seated on a red lotus

    3. Four armed, a pair holding two red lotuses and other pair emanates gold coins

    4. Pair of elephants with pots pouring water

Notes from Anthology pages

  • Purans contain instructions for the worship of the Gods and goddess

  • It says that the divine takes human form for the sake of helping humanity but remains pure amid material life

    • We are given examples of the ways they liked being pleased

      • Compassion, being with good souls, friendliness and due humility towards all human beings, study of sacred texts, etc..

      • Devoting ones life like in any religion

  • The songs of saints were people from the bhakti tradition some saints sang songs to Hindu deities

    • Saints came from all classes of people and were both men and women unlike those of the classical sanskrit tradition who were controlled by brahman man

    • There were people in the lower caste such as Ravi Das who had great faith- with his excerpt the world of illusion

Worship in silence- Lalla was a mystic of Kashmir and so devoted to Lord Siva- detached from the world she forsook her Brahmanic family

Without Krishna I cannot sleep by Mirabai- she was fare more devoted to Lord Krishna than to her husband but when he died she defied her in laws desire thst she throw herself on his funeral pyre and instead became a wandering mendicant (begger)

Three poems by Kabir -

Class Lecture 6 01/31

Hindu society

  • Four main caste groups

  1. Brahmins

    1. Priest

    2. Have to do with the head

  2. Kshatriya

    1. Warriors

    2. Have to do with arms

  3. Vaishya

    1. Traders

    2. They pray, sell goods and a lot of walking (thighs)

  4. Shudra

    1. Laborers

    2. Supporting transporting for the caste

Untouchable- the person is powerless

Avarna- means without caste, identified as Dalits or Scheduled caste or scheduled tribes in India

Twice born groups- people who are from Brahmins to Vaishya they are born again

  • One is born in a particular caste

Caste System

  • Varna dictates the notion of ritual purity and pollution

    • A ritual kind of purity (liturgical- performing a ritual)

    • The caste system is unlike class-system

      • A shudra could be poor or even a Vaishya can be poor

Stages of Life, according to Dhamrmashtra

  1. Ashrams “Stages of life”

  2. Brahmacharya ”student life”

  3. Grihastha “family man”

    1. Girth- means home

  4. Vanaprastha “forest dweller”

  5. Sanyasa “renunciate- retired”

Societal organization

  • The secondary set of texts such as Puranas laid the conceptual foundations of contemporary Hinduism

  • Dharmashtra

    • DHarma + Shastra - religious and social duties + treaties and law

Approaching life according to Dhamashatra

  • Dharma = religious and social duties

  • Artha = material wealth

  • Kama= aesthetic/ physical enjoyment

    • These 3 are all connected and lead to Moksha

  • Moksha= liberation of the cycle

Karma= tally of your life

  • actions, good or bad believed to determine the quality of rebirth in future lives

  • Accumulation of karma in life - its like a bank account with a balance (ex; credit score)

Samsara- birth- one lives life - karma accumulated - > death

The two epics of central of Hinduism

2 epics

  1. Ramayana and Mahabharata are the main characters of both epics serve as models of virtue for society to emulate

  2. Ram- composed about 20,000 verses

  3. Mah- has 100,000 verses

    1. Both these texts were accessible to people of all castes and genders

    2. Both have a pan-India presence

    3. Both involve feuds between family members and are set at court

      1. Involve long period of exile for the protagonist

      2. Were brought by underhand means- culminate in major war (good always win)

  4. Characters

    1. Rama (Ramayana)

Mahbharta

  • A family feud between Kauravas and Pandavas

    • Kauravas (evil)- 100 brothers

    • Pandavas (good)- are five brothers

      • These individuals are rightful inheritors of the throne of Hastinapur

      • Kauravas invite Pandavas to a rigged game of dice & incrementally coax them to lose everything they own including themselves

    • P exiled into wilderness for 12 years

  • Epic contains a section - Bhagavad Gita

    • BG is a dialouge between Krishna (charioteer) to Arjuna (key warrior)

    • At the heart of Mahbharta is a family feud

      • A rigged dice game was used by the antagonist to wrongfully claim kingship

      • Arjuna does not take part in the battle, as he has to kill his kin

Bhagaavad Gita

  1. BG articulates 3 paths to Moksha

    1. Jñana Yoga - realized self(atman)

  2. Karma Yoga - path of action without attachment to the fruits of action

    1. Gandhi embodies this selfless

  3. Bhakti Yoga

    1. Path of loving devotion- keep steadfast loving devotion towards a god

    2. Bhakti- literal translation is devotion

    3. Bhakti yoga during medieval period spawned into a independent religious movement

    4. Puja becomes important

Review for test

Indus Valley civilization

  • Ruins of Harappa were discovered in early 1880s and Mohenjodara in early 1900s

    • Peak of IVC - ca.2500 -1500 BCE decline to ca 1500-600 BCE

  • Geographic spread of IVC culture in present-day Pakistan, Indian and Afghanistan

  • High level of standardization bricks with standard proportions and multiple sets of weights spread in a vast geography with similar scale system

  • Avant-garde (advanced) urban planning with a strict hierarchy of road widths and indoor plumbing with sophisticated covered drains designed with understanding of hydrology

  • Over 2000 seals were discovered from various urban centers throughout IVC region, art observed on these seals and other archeological finds indicate conceptual continuity in Hindusim

What is Hinduism

  • A great variety of practices, beliefs and scriptures seems to have originated in the Indian subcontinent

Key terms

  1. Aryan - noble one

  2. Veda - sacred knowledge

  3. Guru- teacher

  4. Vedici deities - elemental

    1. Agni- fire god

    2. Surya- sun god

  5. 4 Vedas