The tolerance of Hindu religion - 1

...the paeans are sung in praise of tolerance of Hindu religion. It is in contrast to intolerant stand of other two major religions, the Christianity and the Islam. The tolerance of Hindu religion is said to be very high. All the people coming to this subcontinent were assimilated into Hindu religion with the exception of Muslims and British. The Greeks, the Scythians, the Huns, the Parthians, the Kushans and others who came to India as invaders or migrants were ultimately assimilated in Hindu society to the extent that now they are not separately recognizable. They lost their original identities.

The invaders were co-opted by giving them Kshatriya status and poor migrating communities were assimilated as Shudras. There were Shudras who never knew when they became Shudras and became a part of Hindu society. These Shudras either came from outside or lived in the region of India which had not come under cultural hegemony of Brahmans. The assimilative powers of Hindu religion have been grand but they were ineffective in case last two major rulers of this mammoth land. These assimilations have taken place without any involvement of violence. There have been no crusades. The Hindu religion is not proselytizing. Nobody has gone converting people to Hinduism. There has been no prescribed method of converting a man to Hinduism.


The spread of Vedic religion has been patronage oriented. By and large the concept of Vedic and later Hindu gods seems to have been superior to the local gods of local people. Additionally the reincarnations were already there to appropriate local and tribal gods. If one patronizes Brahmans or protects them and accept their superiority and scriptural authority then he becomes a Hindu and that too a Kshatriya if he is a ruler. However, there have been real conversions in history to Vedic religion. If a poor migrating community starts worshipping gods from Hindu pantheon then over a period of time, then they automatically become part of Hindus. They become Shudras, if they are doing clean jobs and untouchables if they are doing unclean jobs. The Muslims and British refused to accept the superiority of Brahmans and thus maintained their separate identity.


The Hindu society and religion itself consist of groups that worship different gods and still live peacefully with each other. This is idol mode of worship that cuts across caste and deity lines in the Hindu society. The only condition is that the deities worshipped must belong to Hindu pantheon or be a reincarnation of them. The deities may be worshipped singularly or in groups. The Shudras and women are prevented from studying Vedas but not from idol worship. The religious dictums of Hindus do not prevent them from worshipping any god from Hindu pantheon. This worshipping of different gods by different people does not create any antagonistic feelings among the followers of different gods. One of the reason for existence of peace is that mode of worship is secondary in Hindu society and acceptance of traditional stratification primary. A Hindu from any jati has the freedom of choice in worshipping the god/s and/or goddess/s of his liking from Hindu pantheon but with two restrictions; one is that the priest of a temple can only be a Brahman and second is that every fifth Hindu (untouchable) is not allowed to enter the sacred and pure temples for the fear of defiling the undefilable god. The faith in any of the gods or deities has no bearing on jati or Varna of any individual. This can also not be a basis for exclusion from caste; the most powerful weapon in the hands of Varna dharma. So any person from any caste can worship the holy trinity of Hindus, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh as long as he believes in superiority of higher Varnas. The grouping in Hindu society is on the basis of jati not on the basis of favored deity. The identification of trinity with the Absolute eliminates any basic differences between them. Thus there are no differences and no antagonism. The concept of reincarnation takes care of local deities and also eliminates basic differences of deities. The goddess have been taken as being complimentary to gods and are usually their wives otherwise reincarnation of their wives. Thus basic difference problem among followers of different deities is amicably solved. All the loopholes that can provide basic differences are plugged. And then what appears is a tolerant religion.


However this tower of tolerance stands on the cries of untouchables. Their cries go unheard. These people living barely at sustenance level hardly receive any iota of tolerance. They are invisible to this persona of tolerance. The acclaimed tolerance develops myopic vision when it comes to fifth stratum. At their sight the tolerance turns into a king cobra looking at mice; the fangs outstretched.


However, the Hindu religion did not react violently to the entry of Muslims and British. The presence of Mosques and Churches was peacefully tolerated. In this calm scenario of peaceful coexistence one thing must be remembered is the relative capacity of Hindu dharma to react aggressively under adverse conditions. It looked at the small presence of Parsis and earlier catholic Syrian Christians with passive indifference bordering on smugness. Secondly these people were not violating Varna dharma since they did not have any. There were always chances of assimilating them through the system of reincarnations. However such hopes were belied but not destructive. Such was not to be the case with Muslims. In the presence of Muslims; the smug, powerful, lazy constricting python got converted into pliant tolerating rabbit mildly hoping to convert Mohammad into a reincarnation of Lord Vishnu. Again the hopes were belied. However it kept its king cobra character for untouchables. The Muslims always treated Hindus as heathen idol worshippers since the idols do not have any actual power. They refused to take heathen Brahmans; the idol worshippers; as their superiors unlike earlier invaders; they derived their mental strength from their own religious dictum; the Koran. The earlier invaders had their tribal deities with limited powers related to nature which ultimately lost out to ultra powerful Hindu deities namely the holy trinity. Muslims also had their concept of all powerful Allah that was more than a match to Hindu concept of God. There was no way in which one Absolute could be proved superior to another Absolute. Thus nobody yielded totally though Islam, over the course of time, came to occupy about one fourth of the Hindu turf...