http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=8&article=1408
The Ancient Origins of Hinduism
The word
Hindu originated, not as the name of a religion, but as a geographical marker.
Hindu derives from the Sanskrit word for river,
sindhu, from which the Indus River received its name. Sometime in the first millennium
B.C., the Persians, who were then South Asia’s closest neighbors, mispronounced
sindhu, and designated the land around the Indus River as
hindu. Over a thousand years later, in
A.D.
712, the Muslims invaded the Indus Valley. To distinguish themselves,
they called all non-Muslims hindus; the name of the land became, by
default, the name of the people and their religion (Schoeps, 1966, p.
148). Christians, upon entering Hindustan (as it was then called),
committed the same error of reduction. From their perspective, the
indigenous people were all idol-worshipping pagans, so they christened
the Indians
gentoo, a derogatory synchronization of “gentile” and “hindu.” Thus the name
hindu
originally was given by outsiders to denote a geographic territory, but
through the encroachment of various other religious groups it came to
encompass all native religions in South East Asia.
As the history of its name demonstrates, unity in Indian religion has
been superimposed by outsiders, first by the Muslims, then the
Christians, and much later by the British colonialists who through their
censuses unintentionally reified the South Asian peoples under that
banner. It has only been in the last couple of centuries that the Indian
people have embraced the name Hindu as their own, though two Indians
rarely use the word with the same meaning. Some scholars suggest that it
is more appropriate to speak of “Hinduisms” than to risk giving off a
false sense of unity.
The genesis of Hinduism is nearly as elusive as its contemporary
definition. Unlike Islam, which began with Mohammed, or Judaism, which
began with Moses, Hinduism has no founder, nor any traditional time or
place of origin; it emerges from the jungle as a continually evolving
religious system. Scholars debate the primary source of what would
become the Hindu religion, though all agree that several cultures had an
influence. Basham, Buitenen, and Doniger suggest that ancient Hinduism
evolved from at least three antecedents: “an early element common to
most of the Indo-European tribes; a later element held in common with
the early Iranians; and an element acquired in the Indian subcontinent
itself ” (Basham, et al., 1997). The oldest of these influences are the
symbols and deities indigenous to the Indus valley, part of the ancient
and abstruse Dravidian culture. Archaeologists date this magnificent
society to the third millennium
B.C., making it
one of the oldest known civilizations. This early date also places the
religion of the Indus over a thousand years before the writing of the
Old Testament, in the time of the Patriarchal Age. If the
archaeologists’ dating is correct, the Indus civilization was
established soon after the Tower of Babel incident. The archaeological
sites along the Indus have revealed many terra-cotta figures resembling
gods and goddesses in the Vedic literature, some of which are still
worshipped. Though religious figurines abound, temples inexplicably are
absent from the Indus cities. Because the Indus valley script has yet to
be deciphered, much of the Dravidian culture and religion remains a
mystery.
The Christian must ask how the Hindu religion fits into the biblical
narrative. Islam grew out of Judaism and Christianity, and Buddhism
derived from Hinduism; Hinduism is the only major religion lacking an
adequate explanation as to its origin. No substantial texts exist beyond
1000
B.C., and the texts after 1000 do not
contain narrative. The earliest of these is the Rig Veda, which is
nothing but a collection of praise hymns to the gods rather than the
record of a people as in the Bible. Unlike western cultures, which tend
to view time as a linear progression, the eastern religions generally
reckon time to be cyclical. As a result, they emphasize the eternal over
the transient and historical. Scholars are able to piece together the
earliest Indian religion only through archaeology, clues in the later
texts, and by extrapolating from existing traditions. Using these same
resources, Christian scholars can reinterpret the available data so that
the Hindu religion fits into a biblical scheme of world history.
Reconstructing the ancient history of any civilization is tentative,
however, and all such projects are educated speculations at best.
Bible believers would expect all civilizations to post-date the
universal Flood, which destroyed every human save the family of Noah
(Genesis 7). The peoples that sprang from Noah’s sons then spread over
the Earth, though the Bible is silent as to when and how. Though it is
possible that some colonies were established, the text indicates that
most of the people stayed together in the land of Shinar (Genesis 11:2),
where they began construction on that fateful tower. The hubris of
Noah’s descendents kindled the wrath of God, Who, after He had confused
their languages, “He scattered them abroad over the face of all the
Earth” (Genesis 11:9). Josephus wrote that “each colony took possession
of that land which they lighted upon and unto which God led them; so
that the whole continent was filled with them, both the inland and
maritime countries” (
Antiquities I.v.1). From this point the Old
Testament records the history of the children of Abraham; the events of
the rest of the world can be known only through secular history. We must
try to trace the origin of Hinduism back to an original belief in the
true God—a belief passed down from the progeny of Noah. In a passage
particularly descriptive of the Indian religion, Paul argues that the
ancient Gentiles knew God, but they did not “retain their knowledge of
God,” instead changing “the glory of the incorruptible God into an image
made like corruptible man—birds and four-footed animals and creeping
things” (Romans 1:28,23).
Evidence for the historical digression from the worship of Jehovah God
to the worship of nature and nature-gods is found in the ancient texts
and myths of South Asia. The earliest Hindu literature, the
Rig Veda, speaks
often of “the Creator,” of “the One,” a Great God over all the other
gods. He is called Varuna, and is closely related to the Zoroastrian god
Ahura Mazdā (“Wise Lord”) and the Greek god Uranus (
Ourania).
Though an insignificant sea god in the current pantheon, Varuna was a
prominent god in the ancient system, and the subject of many hymns in
the
Rig Veda. Zwemer writes that Varuna is “the most impressive
of the Vedic gods. He is the prehistoric Sky-god whose nature and
attributes point to a very early monotheistic conception” (1945, p. 86).
This god is an ethical god, capable of great wrath or merciful
forgiveness of sins. Note this passage from the Vedas:
I do not wish, King Varuna,
To go down to the home of clay,
Be gracious, mighty lord, and spare.
Whatever wrong we men commit against the race
Of heavenly ones, O Varuna, whatever law
Of thine we here have broken through thoughtlessness,
For that transgression do not punish us, O god (Rig Veda VII.lxxxix.1-3).
Varuna is already on the decline by the time the Vedas were committed
to writing; Indra, a warrior god, takes prominence in the later Vedic
period. Yet even then, Varuna is qualitatively different from Indra and
all the other gods that follow him in the Vedic literature; he is less
anthropomorphic and more majestic (cf. Zwemer, p. 88). Other Hindu
deities act like humans in the same way as the Greek gods, yet Varuna is
above that. It would seem that this god embodies many of the qualities
of Jehovah, albeit diluted and removed by many hundreds of miles and
years.
The myths of ancient Hinduism likewise contain echoes of the distant
past similar of Genesis. There are several different, though not
exclusive, creation myths in the Vedas (and even more in later
literature), but in one of the earliest writings, Indra is the maker of
all. “Who made firm the shaking earth, who brought to rest the mountains
when they were disturbed, who measured out the wide atmosphere, who
fixed the heaven, he, O folk, is Indra” (
Rig Veda II.xii.2). This
version of creation by a personal god is more similar to the Old
Testament account than to later Hindu formulations. Hammer remarks, “In
the early creation myth Indra was seen as the personal agent in
creation, bringing existence out of non-existence. In later speculation
the ‘One God’, described in personal terms, gives way to ‘That One’—the
impersonal force of creation” (1982, p. 175). As time passed and the
true God was forgotten, the creation myths became more fantastic,
involving giant snakes and four-mouthed gods growing out of lotus
flowers (Basham, et al., 1997).
In addition to the creation myths, a story persists in the epic tradition (written between 300
B.C.-
A.D.
300) of a great flood. It was so great that “there was water everywhere
and the waters covered the heaven and the firmament also” (
Mahabharata
III.clxxxvi). The hero of the story is Manu, who is analogous to Noah
in the Hebrew story. One day a fish approached Manu and asked him for
protection in exchange for a blessing (later tradition identifies the
fish as the god Vishnu). Manu helped the fish, who gives him this
warning:
The time for the purging of this world is now ripe. Therefore do I now
explain what is good for thee! The mobile and immobile divisions of the
creation, those that have the power of locomotion, and those that have
it not, of all these the terrible doom hath now approached. Thou shall build a strong massive ark and have it furnished with a long rope. On that must thou ascend, O great Muni, with the seven Rishis and take with thee all the different seeds which were enumerated by regenerate Brahmanas in days of yore, and separately and carefully must thou preserve them therein (Mahabharata III.clxxxvi).
Manu alone survived the great flood, and from him the world was
repopulated. The connection between the Hindu story and the Genesis
account is strengthened by etymological ties between the name “Noah” and
“Manu” (Sage, 2004).
The evidence from India’s earliest literary traditions reveals that
Hinduism is a corruption of true religion. Though for most of its
existence Hinduism has been an extremely pluralistic religion—being
influenced by several cultures originally, and later by surrounding
religions (Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity)—it appears to have grown
out of monotheism. The renowned Sanskritist of Oxford, Max Müller,
wrote: “There is a monotheism that precedes the polytheism of the Veda;
and even in the invocations of the innumerable gods the remembrance of a
God, one and infinite, breaks through the mist of idolatrous
phraseology like the blue sky that is hidden by passing clouds” (as
quoted in Zwemer, p. 87).
REFERENCES
Basham, Arthur, J.A.B van Buitenen, and Wendy Doniger (1997), “Hinduism,”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 20:519-558.
Hammer, Raymond (1982), “Roots: The Development of Hindu Religion,”
Eerdmans’ Handbook to the World’s Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Sage, Bengt (2004), “Noah and Human Etymology,” [On-line],
URL: http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-083.htm.
Schoeps, Hans-Jachim (1966),
The Religions of Mankind (Garden City, NY: Doubleday).
Zwemer, Samuel (1945),
The Origin of Religion (New York: Loizeaux Brothers).
