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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 DOI: 10.1163/156852908X270917

Religion and the Arts 12 (2008) 34–41 www.brill.nl/rart

RELIGION and the ARTS

Open-Source Hinduism

Siddhartha Fireflies Ashram, Bangalore, India

Abstract Hinduism is often taken to be a religion in the Abrahamic sense of the term. But the strength of Hinduism lies in the fact that it does not have one God, one prophet, and one book. Hinduism has always been an open-ended process that is constantly evolving. Th ere was always a liberative current in Hinduism that spoke of justice and equality. But today even the dominant current of Hinduism can be shorn of its caste and gender inequalities. Hindu cultural nationalism, which has often shown an ugly and intolerant side, is unable to find any scriptural sanction for its excesses. It would be more fruitful to see Hinduism as a spiri- tual laboratory than a religion in the strict sense of the term. Just as Open Source software can be modified and changed on an ongoing basis, Hindu spirituality can also evolve and change itself to suit the complex social and ecological problems the world is now facing.

Keywords consumerism, Hinduism, nationalism, open-source, secularism, spiritual laboratory

In India the great questions of civilization were not the exclusive preserve of intellectuals, theologians, and institutionally appointed religious leaders. Th ese matters concerned everybody and continue to concern everybody, even if in the past the upper castes had unfair advantages in discursive mat- ters. Despite the grave atrocities related to caste, communalism, and patri- archy, India has partially succeeded in re-inventing itself along pluralistic lines, even if this process has been accompanied by social turmoil. Present day conflicts related to religion, gender, caste, and social class go to show that the process of cultural renewal is alive and kicking. Hopefully the direction of renewal will tilt decisively towards perspectives that are pluralistic and compassionate.

Perhaps nowhere else in the world has the quest for meaning taken on so many different hues and forms and produced such a variety of perspectives on the goals of human existence. So much so that it is not difficult to argue

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that the original connotation of the word “Hindu” would include all the perspectives and experiences of those who lived on the eastern side of the river Indus. Th ese perspectives and experiences spanned the length and breadth of what is today known as India, and well beyond its present boundaries. Th ey were modified, extended and re-invented over the centuries. Th is is not unlike open-source software that allows users to study, modify, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in existing or new forms. Th us Hinduism, in its best sense, may also be considered open source. In open-source Hinduism the fluidity of the interactive process allows the old and the new to constantly inform each other, mingling and creating new hybrids. Even if the commu- nalists are doing their best to destroy much that is good in our heritage, open- source Hinduism remains a formidable foil.

When one lives in India the good and the ugly sides of religions are quickly apparent. On the one hand there are millions of ordinary people who go about their lives inspired by the humane values of their respective religions. On the other we frequently witness the murderous violence and mayhem that results from religious conflicts. Unfortunately, the good and the ugly exist side by side, and one wishes there would be less of the ugly.

Yet India has been the spiritual and political laboratory of people like Mahatma Gandhi who succeeded in fine-tuning the theory and practice of non-violent civil disobedience. Gandhi saw himself as a Hindu who was also “a Muslim, Christian and Sikh.” Th is apparent paradox of multiple religious belonging is essential to a proper understanding of Hinduism. Inclusive approaches were articulated from the beginning of history. Th e Vedas stated, “Th e truth is one, the sages call it by different names.” If all religions lead to the one Truth, the one Consciousness, then there is little scope for religious conflict.

Hinduism is clearly not a religion in the Abrahamic sense of the term. It is rather a spiritual laboratory that keeps itself open to both inside and out- side influences. Th ere is no single book, single messiah, single prophet, or single belief that holds it together. As a spiritual laboratory the one and the many, the immanent and the transcendent, the personal and the imper- sonal are all allowed to have their play. From the early anonymous scriptures to the later historical sages Hinduism has allowed freedom and liberty for religious discourse, cutting across caste and gender lines. Some might argue that this was not the case as far as the lower castes, especially the Dalits, were concerned. Untouchability arose from a notion of ritual pollution, which prescribed that the higher castes were purer than the lower ones. Lower castes, particularly the Dalits, were not allowed entry into the temple.

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Despite this, lower castes and Dalit saints emerged, especially in the bhakti tradition, across the length and breadth of the country. Sant Ravidas is a well-known example (Nadkarni 262–63).

Hinduism has received serious body blows in recent times. Th e Dalits have rightly nursed serious apprehensions and insist that Hinduism played a role in their social oppression. Sections of the secular lobby have rejected Hinduism as irrational and unscientific. Th e cultural nationalists have given it a bad image through their strident advocacy of a militant and aggressive Hindutva. Many feminists are shocked by patriarchal texts like the Manu Shastras. Th ese are enough reasons for the liberal intellectual to consider throwing the baby out with the bath water. With all these serious anomalies would it not be better that Hinduism is at least ignored, insofar as that is possible, since it is unlikely to die a natural death in the near future? But any dispassionate observer of the Hindu heritage will admit that caste and gen- der can today be separated from Hinduism, that Hinduism can be vibrantly re-discovered or re-invented as a pluralistic, compassionate and socially lib- erative set of traditions and spiritual insights.

Let me explain further. Th e Dalit prophet Ambedkar (mid-twentieth- century “untouchable” leader), for example, has become a potent political and spiritual symbol throughout India. Some might even argue that he has displaced Gandhi as the most omnipresent symbol in India. We have had a distinguished Dalit president of India in K. R. Narayan. Th e chief justice of the supreme court of India, an eminent legal luminary, is a Dalit. Th e chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayavati, has proved that even in the caste infested Hindu heartland of Uttar Pradesh a Dalit woman can brilliantly turn the tables on her political adversaries. It is of course highly debatable whether Hinduism has at all contributed to this emerging situation or whether secularism and Ambedkarism should take most of the credit. But there are scholars like Anantanand Rambachan who are talking of a “Hindu liberation theology” characterized by a preferential option for the poor, a focus on systemic evil, and a passion for justice that might transform oppressive structures that are economic, political, social, and religious.1 All this is by way of showing that a new context is emerging in India where the authentic and liberative message of Hinduism can be disassociated from the

1) See Rambachan. In this book, Rambachan offers a fresh interpretation of Advaita Vedanta as a life-affirming path that “provides a powerful impetus for a life of service and compassion” (7). For him, Advaita is not trapped in illusionism.

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oppressive caste and patriarchic structures. Th is is not to underestimate the distance to be still covered to rid our society of caste and gender inequities.

Th e scholar Vasudha Narayan states that it was only in the late eight- eenth century the term Hindu was used regularly to refer to the dominant religion of India.2 Harjot Oberoi states that the Vedas, Th e Ramayana, and the Bhagavad Gita, considered to be the main religious texts of the Hin- dus, do not mention the term Hindu (Oberoi 16). Even in the time of Muslim rule, Hindus were considered as those who were not Muslims, and included Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists. Th ere are of course others who argue that the word Hindu in its religious sense has a much longer history and has its origin in the rivalries between Hindus and Muslims between 1200 and 1500.

But whether Hinduism was popularized by the British or has a much longer history, the fact remains that it is today used to describe a plurality of communities who see themselves as different from other established reli- gions like Islam and Christianity. Even if one concedes that Sikhism and Buddhism are distinct religions despite their intimate connections with what is broadly defined as Hinduism, the narrowing of the definition of who is today a Hindu would still make it a plural and varied tradition rather than a single religion in the sense of Christianity, Islam, and or Judaisim.

Th erefore, Hinduism does not refer to a single tradition or imply a sin- gle Hindu community, in the restricted use of the term. Th is constitutes the richness, openness and universal appeal of Hinduism. I would even go further to say that this is the uniqueness and genius of Hinduism. Few other traditions have creatively interacted with others, developed new per- spectives and responded to the challenges of the modern era as much as Hinduism has. Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Narayana Guru, Ramana Maharishi, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and J. Krishnamurthi are good examples of this process in the last hundred and fifty years of our history. In more ancient times the Buddha, Ramanuja, Basava, and Kabir had stated the non-dogmatic and compassionate aspects of the Indian spiritual heritage. In our own time we have the example of Swami Agnivesh, M. V. Nadkarni, Anantanand Rambachan, and many others. Trying to cast Hinduism as a middle-eastern religion, as the cultural

2) Narayan writes: “Th e religion has no single founder, creed teacher, or prophet acknowledged by all Hindus as central to the religion, and no single holy book is universally acclaimed as being of primary importance” (10).

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nationalists are attempting to do, through selective choice of texts, cultural traits, and deities, is negating the genius of a pluralistic historical process that was open source from the beginning.

“Th e whole world is a family,”3 or Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, is another ancient statement (Kale 104). Perhaps the quintessential Hindu is Kabir, who sang:

I am neither in temple nor in mosque . . . All the men and women in the world are His living forms. Kabir is a child of Allah-Rama, He himself is my Guru, my Pir. (qtd in Th apar 309–310)

Kabir sees Allah and Rama as two names for the same impersonal God. Ramakrishna, like so many others, was a Hindu and an effervescent part of the open-source process. Ramakrishna’s spirit was able to slip into the experi- ence of being fully Muslim. He also claimed the experience of being fully Christian. Th e Ramakrishna mission, like several other “Hindu” traditions, does not even call itself Hindu. Far from being a negative element this ambi- guity shows that Hinduism is wary of definitions and that the ineffable expe- rience of the divine goes beyond all definitions and descriptions. Th is could be Hinduism’s gift to the global community that is fast seeing the limitations of indefensible boundaries and hide-bound differences. Th e potential open- ness and pluralism inherent within the Hindu process would make it attrac- tive to people all over the world who wish to transcend narrow nationalist and religious frontiers.

Gandhi went to great lengths to emphasize the open-endedness of Hindu- ism. His favorite song “raghupati raghava raja ram” is another good example of multiple belonging. Th e well-known line from the song “Eshwar Allah tero naam” (You are known as Eshwar and Allah) is familiar to every Indian. Ram- achandra Gandhi, the grandson of the Mahatma, who broke fresh ground in contemporary open-source Hinduism, stated that if only all religions could

3) Kale 104, verse 133. Th e full verse reads:

He is “ours,” that one is the “other,” Such is the calculation of the narrow minded; For the liberal minded, however, Th e whole world is one family!

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add “non-violence” as one of their central truths we would move towards putting an end to the murderous violence unleashed in the name of God.

Th e open-ended nature of Hinduism is also apparent in the system of margas, or pathways to achieve spiritual liberation. Hinduism recognizes that human beings come with different mental chemistries. For some the spiritual quest will lead them to Jnana, where one finds liberation through insights and a deep intuitive understanding of the nature of reality. Even the notion of God can be excluded in the Jnana approach. Th en there is Bhakti, where one finds fulfillment through intense devotion to a personal God. Th e overflowing love experienced for the personal deity also embraces other human beings. Bhakti has produced an enormous corpus of poems and songs, some of which have a strong egalitarian and gender sensitive appeal. Th en there is karma, the path of action, best exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi, where the seeker finds the divine through service to one’s fellow beings. An option for the poor is a strong element in Gandhi’s approach to compassionate action.

Many centuries ago, the Basava movement had similarly underlined its commitment to the poor. Doing away with the caste system, while embrac- ing gender sensitivity, was also an important part of its spiritual quest. In one of his most celebrated poems, Basava suggests that the spiritual quest must make an option for the poor:

Th e rich will make temples for Siva. What shall I, A poor man do?

My legs are pillars, Th e body the shrine, Th e head a cupola of gold.

Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers, Th ings standing shall fall, But the moving ever shall stay. (qtd in Ramanujan 1)

Th e poor man carries the temple in his body. Basava is clearly implying that God stands with the poor man. “Th ings standing shall fall, but the moving ever shall stay” can be interpreted as “what is rigid, pretentious and clichéd will decay, and what is fresh, light and spontaneous will flourish.” “Th ings

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standing” may also refer to a rigid notion of religion that is enmeshed with the caste system. Th e temple, into which a lower caste person cannot enter, shall fall.

Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma are not mutually exclusive streams. Th ey gen- erally tend to overlap with each other. Th us the mystic and intellectual who follows the Jnana approach may also be drawn to aspects of Bhakti and Karma. And likewise, the followers of Bhakti and Karma may be enriched by Jnana, and so on.

I have often felt that the rise of a belligerent cultural nationalism is partly due to our inability to develop and nurture a strong sense of inclusive secu- larism. By inclusive secularism I mean a perspective where a rational and scientific worldview engages with an inner spiritual or religious quest. A secularism that is exclusive, like the dominant French variety, is suspicious of religion and can easily become rigid and intolerant, providing grist to religious extremists who gleefully characterize it as secular-fundamentalism.

An exclusive secularism can also be co-opted by market fundamentalism that overlooks the need for human community and substitutes extreme indi- vidualism and soulless consumerism in its place. It must also be pointed out that today’s religious traditions have certainly not been bastions against con- sumerism and that both secular and religious individuals are equally seduced at a subliminal level by the bombardment from hundreds of sophisticated advertisements that suggest that the highest meaning of life is to be an enthu- siastic consumer.

We live in a world where money (artha) and pleasure (kama) are projected as the main goals of life. We have forgotten personal and social responsibility (dharma) and ultimate meaning (moksha). In the context of the commer- cialization of values many people search for an inner orientation that empha- sizes the human potential to be much more than a mere consumer. Th e restlessness emerging from a soulless consumer-oriented world leads to a crisis of identity where people seek references that will give purpose and meaning to their lives. Th e human being is not a mere combination of bio- logical factors, but is constantly recreating herself. Th e human journey is an ongoing process and will never find closure. Every regressive step in our his- tory had to do with the closure of the human spirit.

Open-source Hinduism also includes secular spirituality. Sensitive and inclusive varieties of secularism carry an ethical and spiritual core. Jawaha- rlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, was a good example. He saw science not only as a tool to eradicate poverty and disease but as a means to stamp out superstition and religious obscurantism. He recognized that

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inner change acted on the outer environment and vice versa. In 1945, he wrote from prison in Ahmadnagar Fort that “some kind of ethical approach” to life was necessary, even if he did not see religion as an answer. He was, what I would call, a secular-spiritual person. And the secular dimensions of open- source Hinduism have inspired some of the finest secular-spiritual persons in this country like Shabana Azmi (the actress), Aruna Roy (the activist), U. R. Anantamurthy (the novelist), and Dr. Siddalingiah (the Dalit poet). And there are many hundreds and thousands of others like them who provide hope, compassion, color and song to this “ancient-future” civilization.

Th e challenge of open-source Hinduism in the twenty-first century is to articulate relationships at three levels: relationship with the self, relationship with society, and relationship with nature. Transformation at these three lev- els becomes difficult without challenging the modern notion of the human being as homo economicus, where material accumulation and competition are the dominant drives. Th e original Latin meaning of competition was not cutthroat competition but “running together,” as my friend Patrick Viveret, the French philosopher, states. It did not mean that some would win and others would be eliminated. We are today faced with the daunting task of joining hands with business and religious leaders, politicians, civil society leaders, media, and others to create an economic process that reverts to the original meaning of competition. In the present vertical model the human being is almost mechanically driven to compete with others to reach the top without sufficiently realizing the horizontal potential of relating to others and with nature. It is only a movement away from the vertical to a horizontal trajectory that can re-ignite the joys of conviviality, well-being, and ecologi- cal inter-connectedness.

Works Cited

Kale, M. R. Hitopadesha of Narayana. Delhi, India: Motilal Banarisidas, 1967. Nadkarni, M. V. Hinduism: A Gandhian Perspective. New Delhi, India: Ane Books, 2006. Narayan, Vasudha. “Hinduism.” Eastern Religions. Ed. Michael D. Coogan. London: Dun-

can Baird Publishers, 2005. 9–109. Oberoi, Harjot S. Th e Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity

in the Sikh Tradition. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Ramanujan, A. K. Speaking of Siva. New York: Penguin Books, 1973. Rambachan, Anantanand. Th e Advaita Worldview. Albany NY: State University of New York

Press, 2006. Th apar, Romila. A History of India. Vol. 1. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.