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Short Note-9
ARHAT VACANA Kundakunda Jñanapiha, Indore
HINDUISM : Civilization of unity in diversity
IN.N. Sachdeva *
Hinduism to denote as a religion like Islam or Christianity is a misuse, misconceived and misleading. It is not easy to define Hinduism. Like Islam and Christianity it is not a religion/faith or way of worship. It is neither a race nor a sect or a community. People of different faith or way of worship even diverse to each other are called Hindu. There are Sanātanists and Vaisnavas or Saivaites; who believe in reincarnation of god in the form of Avtára and worship idols. There are Arya Samajists who go by Vedas only. They believe on Mono God and do not worship idols. They do not believes n Purānas as scriptures. According to their faith God does not come in the form of Autāra. The Jainas and Bauddhas are also included among Hindus. They do not believe in God as creature, but in Nature or Prakrti. Adivāsis/tribals who form bulk of Indias population are included among Hindus. They worship their ancestors and idols of family deities. There are many smaller sects started by different saints/Gurūs at different times like Nanaka, Kabira, Radha Svāmis, Valmīkis, Nirankāris etc. all over the country. They worship their respective Gurūs. There are vegetarians as well as non vegetarian among them. Similarly there is no common dress or other living habits and neither common language or script. Their traits are deeply rooted in local soil.
The word Hindu is mispronounciation of Sindhu, the name given after the River Sindh now also calls Indus in North India. Arab travellers pronounced Hind to river and called the people living there Hindu, because they could not pronounce S or SA properly. They called this country as Hindustan, express, the place of Hindus or Sindhus. Europeans could bot pronounce Hind properly; they made it ind and called the river as Indus and the people as Indian and country as India. Thus it is to be noticed that word Hindu is not of local origin or of language like Sanskrit, Prakrit by Aryans after local language. At one time it was called Aryā Vrata, a name perhapss given by Aryans after their settlement here. Later it was called Bhārata. In fact all people living in and around south of river Sinda are Hindu. Thus it not a religion.
Britishers, who ruled India about 200 years resolved this diffculty to their political advantage, by dividing population into Muslims and Non- muslims; avoiding the word Hindu for obvious reasons..
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Arhat Vacana, 15 (3), 2003 Jain Education International
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