Introduction and links to related topics
Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.
Deva - A divine being according to Hindu beliefs; a devil or evil spirit according to Zoroastrianism.
Arasa-mara - Arasa-mara (Sanskrit) (from arasa sapless, tasteless + mara dying, death)
The banyan tree, considered in one of its aspects as the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life. According to popular Hindu belief, under one of these trees Vishnu taught during one of his incarnations on earth, hence it is held sacred. "Under the protecting foliage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils their first lessons on immortality and initiate them into the mysteries of life and death" (SD 2:215).
Vaishnavism - The system of Hindu beliefs and practices that honor Vishnu/Krishna as Supreme God; probably the most widely followed kind of Hinduism. Bhakti yoga is the primary practice of this religion, the final reward of which is eternal communion with God.
The most famous of this god's many names are Vishnu, Narayana, Hari, Bhagavan, Krishna, and Rama; hence the usage Vishnu/Krishna. Vaishnavism's ancient name, Bhagavata ("followers of the Blessed Lord, i. e. , Bhagavan"), may clarify its beginnings, for it makes a connection with the movement's two most important literary works: the Bhagavad Gita (first put in print ca. 150 BC) and the Bhagavata Purana (Shrimad Bhagavatam, ca. 850-900).
Though the tradition began earlier, two things became clear by about 200 BC: the Bhagavatas related to their god, Krishna, by devotion and accepted the Vedas and Upanishads, the scriptures of Brahmanic Hindu religion. In this process the Brahmanic deities Vishnu and Narayana became identified with Bhagavan Krishna. Thereafter, Krishna has been viewed as an incarnation (avatara) of the Supreme God Vishnu (by South Indian Vaishnavas), and Vishnu has been viewed as a subordinate form of the Supreme God Krishna (by North Indian Vaishnavas).
The Bhagavad Gita is the earliest full statement of the Bhagavata synthesis. Krishna teaches a path of salvation: desire-free performance of one's born duty should be combined with the meditative wisdom of the Upanishads, suffused by and culminating in loving devotion to Krishna.
Pancha Shraddha - (Sanskrit) "Five faiths."
A concise summary of Hindu belief exactly correlated to the "five constant practices," pancha nitya karmas. The pancha shraddha are 1) sarva Brahman: God is All in all, soul is divine; 2) mandira: belief in temples and divine beings; 3) karma: cosmic justice; 4) samsaramoksha: rebirth brings enlightenment and liberation; 5) Vedas and satguru: the necessity of scripture and preceptor.
See: pancha nitya karma.
Universalist - Applicable to all; including everyone or all groups. Any doctrine that emphasizes principles, beliefs or theologies that are or could be acceptable to many or all people, especially as contrasted with sectarian, denominational perspectives. Such schools are often syncretic in nature, but firmly based around a core of the original faith of the founder, and usually viewed by adherents as enlightened substitutes to traditional, established faiths.
See: neo-Indian religion, syncretism.
Syncretism - A combination of various beliefs and practices, often of opposing views formed into a one creed or system of belief, typically marked by inconsistencies.
See: universalist.
Iconoclastic - Opposed to widely accepted ideas, beliefs and customs. Also [but not used as such in this text], opposed to the worship or use of religious icons, or advocating their destruction.
Hinduism - (Sanskrit) India's indigenous religious and cultural system, followed today by nearly one billion adherents, mostly in India, but with large populations in many other countries. Also called Sanatana Dharma, "eternal religion" and Vaidika Dharma, "religion of the Vedas."
Hinduism is the world's most ancient religion and encompasses a broad spectrum of philosophies ranging from pluralistic theism to absolute monism.
It is a family of myriad faiths with four primary denominations:
Saivism,
Vaishnavism,
Shaktism and
Smartism.
These four hold such divergent beliefs that each is a complete and independent religion. Yet, they share a vast heritage of culture and belief:
karma,
dharma,
reincarnation,
all-pervasive Divinity,
temple worship,
sacraments,
manifold Deities,
the guru-shishya tradition and
a reliance on the Vedas as scriptural authority.
From the rich soil of Hinduism long ago sprang various other traditions. Among these were Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, which rejected the Vedas and thus emerged as completely distinct religions, disassociated from Hinduism, while still sharing many philosophical insights and cultural values with their parent faith.
Though the genesis of the term is controversial, the consensus is that the term Hindu or Indu was used by the Persians to refer to the Indian peoples of the Indus Valley as early as 500 bce. Additionally, Indian scholars point to the appearance of the related term Sindhu in the ancient Rig Veda Samhita. Janaki Abhisheki writes (Religion as Knowledge: The Hindu Concept, p. 1): "Whereas today the word
Hindu connotes a particular faith and culture, in ancient times it was used to describe those belonging to a particular region. About 500 bce we find the Persians referring to 'Hapta Hindu.' This referred to the region of Northwest India and the Punjab (before partition).
The Rig Veda (the most ancient literature of the Hindus) uses the word Sapta Sindhu singly or in plural at least 200 times. Sindhu is the River Indus. Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian, also uses the word Sindhu to denote the country or region.
While the Persians substituted h for s, the Greeks removed the h also and pronounced the word as 'Indoi.' Indian is derived from the Greek Indoi."
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan similarly observed,
"The Hindu civilization is so called since its original founders or earliest followers occupied the territory drained by the Sindhu (the Indus) River system corresponding to the Northwest Frontier Province and the Punjab. This is recorded in the Rig Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures, which give their name to this period of Indian history. The people on the Indian side of the Sindhu were called Hindus by the Persians and the later Western invaders. That is the genesis of the word Hindu" (The Hindu View of Life, p. 12).
See: Hindu.
Mary - Mary The Christian ecclesiastical teachings as to Mary's perpetual virginity, her absolute sinlessness, and the role of intercessor were unknown during the ministry of Jesus and the immediately succeeding beliefs of the primitive Christians; although these three ideas in connection with the cosmic Virgin-Mother were familiar to exoteric and mythologic thought worldwide for ages preceding their adoption by Christian theologians some time after primitive Christianity. As to the idea of the perpetual virgin, as early as the latter part of the 2nd century Clement of Alexandria mentions it, but without accepting it, and not until the 4th century did it become a doctrine of the Church. Absolute sinlessness as a dogma seems to have been accepted as reluctantly as the former idea. Both Augustine and Anselm state their view that Mary the mother "was conceived in iniquity," and born "in original sin." The dogma of the intercession was not recognized by the Church until the 3rd century, when a wave of popular emotion initiated feast and holy days that are still observed.
The month of May was made sacred to Mary by the Christians, copying an ancient Greco-Latin view and practice, for the same month had been sacred to the Greek Maia or the Latin Vesta.
Blavatsky associates Mary with the Egyptian Isis and the Hindu Devaki (mother of Krishna) -- both of whom are represented as suckling an infant; with Maya, the mother of Gautama Buddha, there is an interesting association of both similarity in name and idea. By Southern European mariners after the Christian era Mary has been associated with Mare, the Latin word for the sea -- there being here again an early pagan teaching of the sea of space, or the representation of the cosmic Virgin-Mother. In another distinctly mystical sense the sea, like the Sanskrit Maya (illusion), symbolizes the illusory nature of all phenomenal life -- illusory because noneternal and yet the womb or matrix in and from which universes are born; and in the case of individual human beings, the birth of wisdom from experience in the illusions of life.
Thus the Christian Mary became clothed with various religio-mystical ideas and teachings associated from immemorial time with both cosmic events and with human experiences in life and initiation. The Christ in man is born as a child of the virgin-mother spirit, man's own higher consciousness -- a mother which remains perpetually virginal, by its nature intrinsically sinless, and which functions between the personal man of flesh and the god within us as the intercessor, as indeed the inner Christ itself is.
See also ANA; ANAITIA
Saivism - (Sanskrit) The religion followed by those who worship Siva as supreme God. Oldest of the four sects of Hinduism. The earliest historical evidence of Saivism is from the 8,000-year-old Indus Valley civilization in the form of the famous seal of Siva as Lord Pashupati, seated in a yogic pose. In the Ramayana, Lord Rama worshiped Siva, as did his rival Ravana. Buddha in 624 bce was born into a Saivite family, and records of his time speak of the Saiva ascetics who wandered the hills looking much as they do today.
There are many schools of Saivism, six of which are
Saiva Shiddhanta,
Pashupata Saivism,
Kashmir Saivism,
Vira Saivism,
Siddha Siddhanta and
Siva Advaita.
They are based firmly on the Vedas and Saiva Agamas, and thus have much in common, including the following principle doctrines:
the five powers of Siva - creation, preservation, destruction, revealing and concealing grace;
The three categories: Pati, pashu and pasha ("God, souls and bonds");
the three bonds: anava, karma and maya;
the three-fold power of Siva: icçha shakti, kriya shakti and jnana shakti;
the thirty-six tattvas, or categories of existence;
the need for initiation from a satguru;
the power of mantra;
8the four padas (stages): charya (selfless service), kriya (devotion), yoga (meditation), and jnana (illumination);
the belief in the Panchakshara as the foremost mantra, and in rudraksha and vibhuti as sacred aids to faith;
the beliefs in satguru (preceptor), Sivalinga (object of worship) and sangama (company of holy persons).
See: individual school entries, Saivism (Saivism six schools), Saiva.
Vodun - (1) A West African word meaning “deity” or “power.”
(2) General term for a variety of eclectic religions and associated magical systems practiced throughout the Americas, consisting of mixtures of various African tribal beliefs with various Native American tribal beliefs, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, Spiritualism, Theosophy and other systems (including Hinduism, Islam, Neopagan Witchcraft and anything else that seems useful). Different names include Candomble, Macumba, Santeria, Hoodoo, Voodoo and many others.
(3) In the United States and Canada, systems of thaumaturgic magic and religion practiced by people who are usually poor, uneducated and nonwhite. Therefore, see Black Magic.
Vegetarianism - Abstaining from eating flesh (meat, fish), and by some, eggs and dairy products. Religious traditions prescribing vegetarianism include Jains, Pythagoreans, Orphics, and Manichaeans; the medieval Cathari and Bogomils; and sects of Buddhists, post-Vedic Hindus, and Taoists.
Historically it is associated with beliefs in reincarnation, the unity of life, bodily purity, sexual abstinence, rejection of sacrificial cults.
Kaivalya - (Sanskrit) "Absolute oneness, aloneness; perfect detachment, freedom." Liberation.
Kaivalya is the term used by Patanjali and others in the yoga tradition to name the goal and fulfillment of yoga, the state of complete detachment from transmigration. It is virtually synonymous with moksha. Kaivalya is the perfectly transcendent state, the highest condition resulting from the ultimate realization. It is defined uniquely according to each philosophical school, depending on its beliefs regarding the nature of the soul.
See: moksha, samarasa, Sivasayujya, jnana.
Medicine - Medicine As the healing art, medicine is as old as thinking man. Before the latent fires of mind were lighted in the third root-race, disease and death were unknown. However, with the physicalization of protoplastic humanity, and the separation of the sexes, the unnatural linking with the animals in the third and fourth root-races disordered the harmonious relations between man and nature. In addition, self-conscious man's continued evolution into matter, with the involution of his spiritual nature, brought about forms of disorder, disease, and physical death. Then, beings from higher spheres descended, and dynasties of divine kings and spiritual guides taught men, leading them to the invention of all the arts and sciences, including the medical use of plants (cf SD 2:364).
Medicine was originally a divine science, providing for the well-being of the spiritual, mental, psychic, astral, and physical man. Archaic medicine included a profound knowledge of genuine astrology, of true alchemy, of occult physiology, of the finer forces vibrating as sound, color, form, thought, and feeling, and whatever related man to his home universe of natural law and order. This was the basis of the natural "magic" which tradition has linked with the medical art. This knowledge was dual in its power to work for life or death, for good or evil ends. Its full comprehension required not only a trained intellect, but the intuitive understanding of a pure spiritual nature. Nevertheless, the Atlanteans acquired enough knowledge of the use of dangerous powers that they became -- albeit with numerous and noteworthy exceptions -- a nation of sorcerers. Then, the white magicians established the Mystery schools in which to safeguard the sacred teachings from evildoers and to protect humanity from their influence. Thus, the deeper truths of the healing art have ever since been entrusted only to pledged disciples and initiates. Such fragments of it as have been rediscovered by intuitive physicians from time to time have usually been in keeping with the general cultural level of their civilization. The exceptions have been men who have frequently been too far ahead of their times to be understood. Such a man was Paracelsus in medieval Europe, persecuted for heretical teachings such as the psychoelectric and magnetic play of sidereal forces which linked man with the stars -- the spiritus vitae in man came from the spiritus mundi.
Of the archaic history of medicine -- as of the race -- little is to be found. However, echoes of the primitive wisdom have survived, and every country having a literature of its ancient periods has some account of the healing art. The Hindu sacred scriptures -- the oldest literature extant -- have treatises upon medicine and surgery, showing a profound and intimate knowledge of the subject. This high standard was not maintained when the Vedic writings became misunderstood and mutilated by later commentators. The exclusive Brahmins' assumption of the right to all knowledge also prevented original thought and research. What writings are available today are of little practical value without the lost key. Even our typically matter-of-fact interpretation of legendary and classical beliefs and customs, and of archaeological findings, overlooks that what is known of ancient medical practice is largely exoteric, symbolic of a deeper teaching than we possess.
Records of ancient medicine in Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, etc., tell of the temples being used as hospitals, with priest-physicians supported by the state giving every care to the sick who came, both rich and poor. In addition to material means of treatment -- many of which we have rediscovered -- these devotees of the gods of healing used special incense, prayers, the "temple sleep," invocations, music, astrology, etc., which we regard as harmless superstition of an earlier day. However, such conditions, intelligently adapted to each case, in making a pure, serene, uplifting atmosphere around the sick person, would invoke the influences of wholeness within and without him. By putting the inner man in tune with his body, his disordered nature-forces manifesting as disease would tend to flow freely in the currents of health. Natural magic is as practical as the unknown alchemy which transmutes our digested daily bread into molecules of our living body.
There is a mystic science attached to the caduceus, the classical emblem of medicine. To the priest-physicians in the temples, this symbol was sacred not only to the god of wisdom and healing, but stood for profound cosmic truths, knowledge of which was held in common by all initiates. It symbolized the tree of life and being. Cosmically this symbol stood for the concealed root or origin of universal duality which manifests as positive and negative, good and evil, subjective and objective, light and darkness, male and female, health and sickness, life and death.
Creed - Shraddhadharana. An authoritative formulation of the beliefs of a religion. Historically, creeds have arisen to protect doctrinal purity when religions are transplanted into foreign cultures.
See: conscience.
Conversion To Hinduism - Entering Hinduism has traditionally required little more than accepting and living the beliefs and codes of Hindus. This remains the basic factor of adoption, although there are, and always have been, formal ceremonies recognizing an individual's entrance into the religion, particularly the namakarana, or naming rite.
The most obvious sign of true sincerity of adoption or conversion is the total abandoning of the former name and the choosing of the Hindu name, usually the name of a God or Goddess, and then making it legal on one's passport, identity card, social security card and driver's license. This name is used at all times, under all circumstances, particularly with family and friends. This is severance. This is adoption. This is embracing Hinduism. This is conversion. This is true sincerity and considered by born members as the most honorable and trusted testimony of those who choose to join the global congregation of the world's oldest religion.
Many temples in India and other countries will ask to see the passport or other appropriate identification before admitting devotees of non-Indian origin for more than casual worship. It requires nothing more than one's own commitment to the process. Belief is the keynote of religious conviction, and the beliefs vary greatly among the different religions of the world. What we believe forms our attitudes, shapes our lives and molds our destiny. To choose one's beliefs is to choose one's religion. Those who find themselves at home with the beliefs of Hinduism are, on a simple level, Hindu. Formally entering a new religion, however, is a serious commitment. Particularly for those with prior religious ties it is sometimes painful and always challenging.
The acceptance of outsiders into the Hindu fold has occurred for thousands of years. As Swami Vivekananda once said, "Born aliens have been converted in the past by crowds, and the process is still going on." Dr. S. Radhakrishnan confirms the swami's views in a brief passage from his well known book The Hindu View of Life: "In a sense, Hinduism may be regarded as the first example in the world of a missionary religion. Only its missionary spirit is different from that associated with the proselytizing creeds. It did not regard it as its mission to convert humanity to any one opinion.
For what counts is conduct and not belief. Worshipers of different Gods and followers of different rites were taken into the Hindu fold. The ancient practice of vratyastoma, described fully in the Tandya Brahmana, shows that not only individuals but whole tribes were absorbed into Hinduism. Many modern sects accept outsiders. Dvala's Smriti lays down rules for the simple purification of people forcibly converted to other faiths, or of womenfolk defiled and confined for years, and even of people who, for worldly advantage, embrace other faiths (p. 28-29)."
See: Hindu, Hinduism.
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