LECTURE GUIDES
LECTURE 1
Reading Other People’s Scriptures ....................................................4
LECTURE 2
Hinduism and the Vedas...................................................................11
LECTURE 3
What Is Heard—Upanishads ............................................................19
LECTURE 4
What Is Remembered—Epics ..........................................................26
LECTURE 5
Laws of Manu and Bhagavad Gita ...................................................33
LECTURE 6
Related Traditions—Sikh Scriptures .................................................40
Sacred Texts of the World
Scope:
Religious texts are, in many cases, the best way to learn about the faith traditions of others. Authoritative and widely available, they offer a window into a new world of ideas and practices. In our rapidly shrinking world, where cultural traditions are converging at an everincreasing rate, the value of mutual understanding cannot be overstated.
But it would be far too simple to suggest that we can easily discover some universal truth or common ground by a cursory read of another faith’s sacred writings. These texts exhibit tremendous variety in content, form, use, and origins. We must approach these texts with an open mind and great care. In so doing, we may find that we learn as much about ourselves and our own beliefs as we do about others’.
The library of world scriptures is huge, and sacred texts can be studied and pondered for a lifetime. Thus, this course will focus on a specific selection of texts. The course provides an overview of the sacred writings of seven major religious traditions, basically in chronological order of the religions’ founding, along with descriptions of holy books from another half dozen lesser-known or smaller faiths.
We begin by discussing how to approach reading these texts, then start our journey with the sacred works of the Hindus. Among the many great opportunities here will be a chance to broaden the definition of text, for many of these texts defy Western ideas about scripture. We will also look at the related faith of Sikhism, whose relatively recent sacred text occupies a unique role in world religions.
Next, we will study Jewish scripture, including the Tanakh (also called the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament by Christians), the Apocrypha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. We will look at the formerly oral traditions now written down in the Mishnah and Talmud, and we will see why the Jewish relationship to their scripture rightly earns them the title “people of the book.” Before moving on, we will also consider the ancient Near Eastern monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism; its text, the Avesta; and some interesting parallels between this faith and the three great Abrahamic faiths.
The Buddhist canon is the largest in the world, containing about 100,000 pages. We will consider the Tripitaka, or “Three Baskets,” of the Buddhist scriptural tradition: the Vinaya (rules for monks and nuns), the Sutras (discourses of the Buddha), and the Abhidharma (works of systematic philosophy) from all of the major Buddhist traditions. After this, we will look at the Jain faith, which arose in a similar time and place as Buddhism. This faith is in the unique position of sharing many of its core principles among its different sects but not sharing its core scriptures.
Confucianism is often thought of as a philosophy rather than a religion, but its texts discuss morality, principles for living in harmony with the universe, rituals for dealing with unseen beings, divination, and temple ceremonies, much like the other scriptures in this course. We will see, however, that although the contents of the Confucian Classics are much like that of other scriptures, their uses are rather different, with a decidedly this-worldly, even political, focus.
Daoism is another great faith of Chinese origin, and its history is entwined with that of Confucianism. Its most famous text, the Daodejing, is fairly well known in the West, but it is only a small section of a much larger canon with a complicated history of development.
We will consider both of these traditions, then turn to Japan for a brief look at two of its native faiths, Shinto and Tenrikyo. One has no official scripture beyond the ancient histories of Japan; the other is a modern faith based in the ideas and the beautiful poetry of its founder.
To most students of this course, Christian scriptures will be among the most familiar, either as part of their faith’s own tradition or through the deep influence of these scriptures on Western literature. We will attempt, however, to view these works through fresh eyes as we consider the development and canonization of the Gospels, the letters of Paul and the audience who first read them, and the Apocryphal and Gnostic books that did not make it into
the orthodox Christian canon. Then we will look at a late attempt to expand the Christian canon through the addition of the Book of Mormon.
Muslims consider the Qur’an to be the complete and final revelation of God, but it is not the only Muslim text we will consider in this course. In addition to this central and most revered text of Islam, we will look at the legal interpretations of Islamic law passed down through the Hadith, as well as the mystical poetry of Sufism. We will also look at the Baha’i faith, a 19thcentury religion that came out of the context of Shia Islam and has its own unique scriptures.
We will end the course with some unusual cases and questions. First, we will ask what happens to a sacred text when the religion it represents is no longer practiced; specifically, we will consider two cases: the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Mayan Popol Vuh. We will next ask whether explicitly secular writing can take on aspects of the sacred by looking at the place of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in American culture. Finally, we will close with a consideration of how the comparative study of sacred texts might make a difference in our lives as individuals, as members of faith communities, and as citizens of the world. ■
Reading Other People’s Scriptures
Lecture 1
The texts we will discuss in these lectures matter a great deal to a great many people. They have been read and reread, loved and revered for centuries or millennia. People have lived by the books we will discuss and, as we’ll see, have sometimes been willing to risk death to preserve them. The library of world scriptures is huge, and in most cases, we come to it as outsiders. But this course provides an overview of the scriptures of seven major religious traditions, as well as holy books of some smaller faiths, in the hope that our study will bring us new insight into global thought, politics, and culture and new wisdom to apply in our own lives.
Preserving Sacred Texts
• Imagine a world in which the printing press had never been invented, where the only books were those that had been painstakingly copied out by hand. How many books would you own, particularly if you had to copy them out yourself? Many people would have only the texts they consider sacred.
• Or from a slightly different perspective, if there were a fire, which books would you try to save? History shows us that this isn’t always a hypothetical question.
o On October 23, 1731, the great classical scholar Richard Bentley was staying at Ashburnham House in London, where the royal library had recently been relocated. About 2:00 am, he awoke to the smell of smoke and jumped out of bed to try to put out a fire that had started near a chimney.
o As the flames rapidly spread and the paneling caught fire, Bentley ran upstairs and grabbed the Codex Alexandrinus before he escaped the burning building.
o This book, written in the 5th century, is one of the three earliest and most important manuscripts we have of the complete Greek Bible (the New Testament plus the Septuagint). The early version of the New Testament that is in the Codex Alexandrinus has been crucial to establishing the most accurate Greek text possible.
• Such tales of sacred texts that have survived through the centuries, sometimes through extraordinary efforts and sacrifices, are not rare. The burning-house scenario is common enough that a section of the Jewish Talmud is devoted to the question of whether it is lawful to rescue sacred writings from a fire on the Sabbath.
• And accidental fires aren’t the only concern. From 175 to 183 C.E., teams of carvers in China inscribed the Confucian classics on stone tablets, in part to prevent the repetition of an incident that had taken place 400 years earlier. At that time, the first emperor of China had ordered the destruction of all Confucian writings in private hands and threatened execution for any scholars who persisted in teaching them.
• Most of the Confucian classics survived the first emperor, which is different from the fate of the Zoroastrian sacred texts, most of which were lost in the fires of Persepolis that were set when Alexander the Great invaded Persia in 330 B.C.E. Even today, Zoroastrians lament that they have to make do with fragments of the scriptures that were collected during the Sassanid Empire (c. 3rd century C.E.), which consist of only about one quarter of their original holy writings.
Why Study Scriptures?
• For believers, sacred texts from their own belief systems promise ultimate truth or salvation of some sort. They tell readers how to connect with the divine and offer guidelines for living or even commandments that should not be ignored. But what if you’re not a believer in a particular religion? What might be in such texts for you? And why focus on scripture in the first place?
o There’s no question that religion is a significant part of the lives of most people around the world; thus, studying various belief systems offers an important window into understanding global politics, thought, and culture. In order to understand others, we need some sense of how they see themselves in relation to the cosmos and tradition and other people—and those relationships are often defined by religion.
o Yet religion encompasses much more than just scripture. It includes ritual; ceremonies; such practices as meditation, yoga, or humanitarian service; ecclesiastical organizations; formal theology; sacred spaces and artifacts; ethical codes; a community of fellow believers; and so forth. Why devote a course to scripture?
• We can provide four short answers to this question, the first of which is accessibility. As wonderful as it might be to visit a Zen monastery in Japan, or to observe a pilgrimage in India, or to take part in Holy Week celebrations in Israel, realistically, only a few of us have those opportunities. Sacred texts, by contrast, are readily available in bookstores, libraries, and on the Internet.
• The second reason for studying scriptures is centrality. In most cases, sacred writings communicate core values and beliefs about a religion; sometimes, they are the glue that holds a religion together. For instance, there are several types of modern Judaism, but they all share a reverence for the Torah; Sunni and Shia Muslims all recite the Qur’an; the hundreds of Protestant denominations and subdenominations are united in their reliance on the Bible; and the diverse communities of Hindus look to the Vedas as their most authoritative texts.
• The third reason is comparability. It’s true that some religions do not have sacred written texts; instead, they may have oral traditions that are passed down by religious specialists. In fact, most of the scriptures of the larger world religions started as oral traditions that were eventually transcribed into written form. But written texts are, of course, easier to study and compare side by side.
o For instance, we can investigate the role played by poetry, historical narrative, or law codes in various scriptures. With printed translations of sacred texts, we can more easily discern the themes, insights, and anxieties that characterize various religious communities.
o Not all religions use scriptures in the same way, and there is remarkable variety in the types of writings that people hold sacred and the sizes of various canons, but at least written texts give us some common basis for comparison.
o It is easy to be overwhelmed by the religious diversity of humankind throughout history, but scripture gives us some common ground from which to start a conversation.
• Finally, there is wisdom to be found in sacred texts, even for those who come to a particular scripture as outsiders. These books have survived because people have found them useful, and
they frequently offer novel insights or call attention to universal truths.
o For instance, reading the Bhagavad Gita and its teachings about acting without attachment to the fruit of actions can make us think more deeply about how much self-interest lies at the heart of what we do. Confucian texts can help us appreciate the degree to which our identities come from our relationships with others.
o Note, however, that we can’t think of world scriptures as merely books of quotations. Biblical
Ideally, reading other people’s scriptures should be more like a window than a mirror; rather than confirming our own assumptions, it should show us ideas we haven’t seen before.
scholars warn us about the dangers of proof texting—that is, taking a verse out of context to support a point. It’s much better to look at scriptural passages in context, to try to understand what the authors had in mind and how believers have interpreted them over the centuries.
Thoreau’s Dream
• There has never been a better time for cross-cultural, inter-religious explorations than right now. We can compare our situation to that of an earlier American who was curious about sacred texts from around the world, Henry David Thoreau.
o From 1845 to 1847, Thoreau lived in a one-room cabin at Walden Pond. He had only few books with him, mostly Greek and Latin classics but also an English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, and he expressed an interest in the Hindu Vedas and the Zoroastrian Avesta, as well.
o While living at Walden, Thoreau wrote a memoir of a canoe trip he had taken a few years earlier called A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. In this book, he shared a fond dream or ambition: “It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations. … Such a juxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men.”
• Thoreau was a bit too early, but his dream was realized about a half century later when Oxford University published the 50-volume series Sacred Books of the East. It was a groundbreaking scholarly project, with translations of the most significant sacred texts from Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and Islam. And all of it is available online today (www. sacred-texts.com).
• Because these are early translations, they’re not always as readable or as well organized as we might hope, but the point is that we have at our fingertips everything Thoreau imagined. The trick is knowing where to start, because many of these texts can seem puzzling or strange at first glance. This course is a guide to launch you on a study of these scriptures.
The Benefits of Our Study
• If you approach the study of scripture as a skeptic or an agnostic, you can, like a naturalist, marvel at the variety and creativity of our human species. You may gain an appreciation of what these texts mean to believers and, perhaps, better understand why they have gone to such efforts to preserve, translate, disseminate, and interpret the writings they hold sacred.
• If you are already committed to one of the religious traditions we will survey, you may enjoy learning how people throughout history have made sense of the universe through sacred texts. Through the concerns, critiques, and questions of these historical figures, you may come to see your own tradition with fresh eyes.
o One of the drawbacks of being religious is that reading your own scriptures is most often a case of rereading. You get comfortable, perhaps even complacent, in hearing the same words again and again. Yet the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber had a point when he observed that people who want to truly open themselves to a sacred text “must take up scripture as if they had never seen it.”
o And that, of course, is exactly what we do when we look at other people’s holy books. It’s a good reminder of the time when our own scriptural traditions were new to us.
o Once you’ve had a chance to stretch your mind a bit, to step outside your own faith community, then you can return to your familiar scriptures with new questions and see things in a new light, from a broader perspective.
Suggested Reading
Feiser and Powers, eds., Scriptures of the World’s Religions.
Gernet, “Christian and Chinese Visions of the World in the Seventeenth Century” (on Zhang Chao and Christianity).
Levering, ed., Rethinking Scripture.
Novak, ed., The World’s Wisdom.
Smart and Hecht, eds., Sacred Texts of the World.
Smith, What Is Scripture?
Van Voorst, ed., Anthology of World Scriptures.
Questions to Consider
1. Why is studying sacred texts a good introduction to world religions?
2. What would Henry David Thoreau have thought about a course like this one?
Hinduism and the Vedas
Lecture 2
If you come to the study of sacred texts from a Judeo-Christian background, you probably have a certain concept of “scripture”: Such texts are written books that claim some sort of divine origin; they tell us about the life or ideas of the founder of the religion; they are considered especially sacred and authoritative by believers; and so on. But one of the interesting things about studying world religions is that it gives us an opportunity to rethink our assumptions, and most of what we think about scriptures doesn’t apply to the sacred texts of Hinduism. In fact, as we’ll see, the Vedas—the holiest and most powerful scriptures in the Hindu tradition— seem to break all these rules.
Ideas about Scripture
• In a Judeo-Christian conception, “scripture” has certain attributes: First, it refers to a written book that claims some sort of divine origin. Such texts tell us something about the life or ideas of the founder of the religion and are considered especially sacred and authoritative by believers, who study and consult them regularly for guidance and wisdom. Finally, scriptures serve as a source of doctrine for the religion, defining beliefs and revealing truths about the universe.
• Interestingly, most of these assumptions about scripture don’t apply to the sacred texts of Hinduism.
o Rather than a single book of scripture, Hindus have hundreds of sacred texts, and they have traditionally valued oral rather than literary transmission. Their holiest compositions, the Vedas, were thought to be too sacred to put into written form; instead, they were memorized by ritual specialists, the Brahman priests.
o There is no founder of Hinduism. In fact, the term “Hindu” itself was created by Westerners in the 18th century to refer to the many religious beliefs and practices of people living in the Indian subcontinent. What we term “Hinduism” encompasses a tremendous variety of beliefs, rituals, and deities, but there is no single person who started it all.
o Some parts of the Hindu canon are considered more sacred than others; oddly enough, the Bhagavad Gita, probably the most beloved and widely read Hindu scripture, is not in the most sacred category of Hindu texts. In addition, there isn’t a strict boundary between scripture and commentary.
o Sacred texts are important in Hinduism, but they are not central to the religion in the way that the Bible is in Judaism or Christianity; in fact, ordinary Hindus are familiar with but don’t generally read the scriptures. Many believers consider taking part in festivals, pilgrimages, the worship of icons or images, devotional offerings, and hospitality or the performance of one’s duty to family and community as more important to religious life than scriptures.
o Perhaps the strangest thing about Hindu scripture from a Western perspective is that the Vedas—the holiest and most powerful scriptures in the tradition—don’t convey much cognitive information. The content matters less than their ritual function. They are chanted in an ancient language that even the priests who are performing the ceremony may not understand. They don’t tell about the gods so much as directly connect believers with divinity or with the harmonious order of the universe.
Basic Framework of Hindu Sacred Texts
• The key distinction in Hindu sacred texts is between Shruti (“What Is Heard”) and Smriti (“What Is Remembered”). Shruti—basically, the Vedas—is considered to have been revealed. (The Vedas consist of four collections of hymns known as the Samhitas, along with their oldest commentaries, the Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads.) Ancient sages called rishis (“seers”) perceived these mantras (“sacred syllables”) resonating through the cosmos and passed them on to their disciples orally.
According to some Hindus, the Vedas were written by God; others hold that they are eternal and uncreated.
o The oldest of the four Samhitas, the Rig Veda (“Knowledge of the Verses”), dates to perhaps 1500 B.C.E. and consists of 1,028 hymns, divided into 10 books. The poems are addressed to various gods and were meant to be chanted as an accompaniment to rituals or fire sacrifices.
o The Sama Veda (“Knowledge of the Chants”) includes songs and melodies used in sacrifices, with words mostly taken from the Rig Veda and instructions on their recitation.
o The Yajur Veda (“Knowledge of the Ritual Directions”) has prose formulas and prayers chanted by priests in rituals.
o The Atharva Veda (“Knowledge of the Atharvans [Priests]”) consists of incantations and magical spells to ward off evil spirits and illnesses, to gain a husband or a wife, or to prevent miscarriages and charms to speak when one is building a house, going into battle, worried about crops or family arguments, or even gambling. This last Veda is the latest—dating to perhaps 800 B.C.E.—and is not considered quite as authoritative as the other three.
• Each of the four Samhitas is associated with texts called Brahmanas (ritual handbooks); Aranyakas, or “Wilderness Books”, which are explanations of symbolism and the inner meaning of ritual; and Upanishads (meaning “sitting near” [the teacher]), which are philosophical expositions of such concepts as atman (the soul) and brahman (ultimate reality).
The Upanishads form the basis of Hindu philosophy, and with them, we finally get an emphasis on ideas and knowledge rather than ritual.
• Altogether, the four Vedas (Samhitas plus their three collections of associated texts) make up the Shruti.
• The second major category is Smriti, “What Is Remembered.” These texts were produced after the Vedas and are thought to have been written by humans, but they are nevertheless inspired.
o Although they are not as holy or as authoritative as the Vedas, these texts have probably played a more important role in the everyday lives of Hindus for the last 2,500 years.
o The Smriti include the two epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata (200 B.C.E.–400 C.E.); the Dharma-shastras (200–300 C.E.), regulations for everyday living; and the Puranas (400–1000 C.E.), myths and legends about the gods.
Gayatri Mantra and the Vedas
• Every morning at dawn and every evening at twilight, millions of Hindus recite the Gayatri mantra, an invocation to the three realms of earth, atmosphere, and sky.
o The meaning of the mantra is something like: “We meditate on the adorable glory of the radiant sun; may he inspire our intelligence,” with an implication that sun equals light, which equals knowledge, which equals consciousness.
o But the mantra is always recited in Sanskrit, a language not spoken in India today. As Professor of Religion Robert Lester explains, giving voice to the ancient syllables, “harmonizes the body, mind, and spirit with the physical worlds and the primal, universal forces.”
o The Gayatri mantra has been known as the “mother of Veda,” and it was taught to young upper-caste males as part of the ceremony that began their study of the Vedas.
• In traditional India, there were four major castes: Brahmans, priests/ teachers; Kshatriyas, warriors/rulers; Vaishyas, farmers/merchants; and Shudras, laborers/servants. (The so-called untouchables, now referred to as Dalits, were without caste.) Only the three highest castes were allowed to participate in Vedic religion because they claimed descent from the Indo-Aryan migrants that came to India around 1500 B.C.E.—the originators of the Vedas—and only they could study the Vedas (though Brahmans were the specialists).
• The Vedas were in existence for more than 1,000 years before they were written down, and for the next two millennia they were still mainly transmitted orally from teacher to student, because transcribing the sacred words was thought to diminish their power or even to be sacrilegious.
• The Brahmans took their duties seriously and jealously guarded the sacred words that had been entrusted to them. There were, however, Hindu reform movements in the 19th century that encouraged all Hindus to recite the Gayatri mantra, regardless of caste or gender, and that practice has continued to the present.
• Even now, although most Hindus would describe the Vedas as their most sacred scriptures, they probably don’t know much about their contents, because the Vedas are hardly ever encountered apart from ritual functions, in which they are always chanted in Sanskrit.
Contents of the Rig Veda
• Scholars of religion sometimes talk about the “Protestant bias,” that is, looking at other faiths through the lens of the Christian Reformation: assuming that scriptures are at the heart of a religion, that the oldest texts represent its purest form, and that those documents can best be understood through textual criticism, historical analysis, and translation. This approach may give us a somewhat skewed view of Hinduism.
o Still, the pioneering Protestant scholars of the 19th century, particularly Max Müller (1823–1900), did amazing work in building bridges and promoting inter-religious understanding.
o Müller, a German religious scholar, worked for 24 years to produce the first scholarly edition of the Sanskrit Rig Veda, using only handwritten manuscripts. Such devotion to other people’s sacred texts is admirable, even if the European approach was foreign to Hinduism.
Selections from the Rig Veda
Hymn to Agni:
I extol Agni, the household priest, the divine minister of the sacrifice, the chief priest, the bestower of blessings.
May that Agni, who is to be extolled by ancient and modern seers, conduct the gods here.
Through Agni may one gain day by day wealth and welfare which is glorious and replete with heroic sons.
(1.1; Embree, 9)
Hymn to Soma:
I have tasted the sweet drink of life, knowing that it inspires good thoughts and joyous expansiveness to the extreme, that all the gods and mortals seek it together, calling it honey. …
We have drunk the Soma; we have become immortal; we have gone to the light; we have found the gods. What can hatred and the malice of a mortal do to us now, O immortal one?
(8.48; Doniger, 134)
• Burial Hymn:
• Go away, death, by another path that is your own, different from the road of the gods. I say to you who have eyes, who have ears: do not injure our children or our men. …
• Open up, Earth [for ashes]; do not crush him … wrap him up as a mother wraps a son in the edge of her skirt.
• (10:18; Doniger, 52–53)
• The Rig Veda consists of 1,028 hymns, divided into 10 books. Most of these are praises and petitions to the gods; references to myths; and hymns addressed to the sky and earth, storm gods, solar gods, and the components of sacrifices. There are also injunctions to moral behavior and touching burial hymns. The hymns in the 10th book tend to address more universal or philosophical themes.
o Some of the hymns from this book concern creation, but these seem to be contradictory. Sometimes, the universe comes from sacred speech, nonexistence, a mother goddess, or a primordial giant who was sacrificed; there is a hymn that suggests that even the creator himself may not know exactly how it happened.
o The fact that most English anthologies include some of these hymns about the origins of the cosmos is another example of Protestant bias. We care about creation stories because the Bible starts with a dramatic example, and we’re curious about other people’s beliefs on this issue.
• It’s important to keep in mind that when we read translations of sacred texts, looking for bits of wisdom or beauty or poignancy, we are doing something that is rather foreign to the texts themselves. Analyzing and discussing the meaning of specific passages might seem natural in an academic lecture series, yet for Hindus, the Vedas are not supposed to be understood cognitively so much as experienced in a traditional setting of sound, color, fragrance, movement, and devotion.
Suggested Reading
Denny and Taylor, eds., The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective.
Doniger, trans., The Rig Veda.
Edgerton, trans., The Beginnings of Indian Philosophy.
Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism.
Griffith, trans., The Hymns of the Rig Veda.
Holm, ed., Sacred Writings.
Mittal and Thursby, eds., The Hindu World.
Questions to Consider
1. What are the two major categories of Hindu sacred texts?
2. Why did the Hindus value oral over written scriptures?
3. How are the Vedas different from scriptures in the Judeo-
Christian tradition?
What Is Heard—Upanishads
Lecture 3
In the last lecture, we talked about the broad category of Hindu sacred texts known as Shruti—“What Is Heard.” These revered texts were known as the four Vedas; each begins a Samhita, used primarily in rituals and sacrifices. Eventually, the sacred sounds of the archaic Sanskrit hymns became more important than the meaning, and exact instructions for performing the rituals, called Brahmanas, along with some speculations about their religious significance, the Aranyakas, were attached to the Samhitas and became components of the Vedas and, thus, Shruti.
The latest stage in the development of Shruti came with texts known as the Upanishads. These compositions, also memorized and transmitted orally for many centuries, consist of explorations and elaborations of key themes in the Vedas.
European Interest in Indian Culture
• The beginnings of European scholarship on Indian culture came in the 18th century, when the British East India Company took over large portions of the Asian subcontinent, starting with Bengal in the northeast.
o Sir William Jones was a British civil servant in Bengal with an astonishing facility in languages. In 1786, Jones gave a lecture noting distinctive similarities among Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, and he suggested that they were related as descendants of an earlier language that later scholars would call Indo-European. It was a startling hypothesis that turned out to be correct.
o Most European languages, along with Persian, Sanskrit, Bengali, and Hindi, belong to the Indo-European language family, which means that English is more closely related to Sanskrit than, say, Japanese is to Chinese. In Jones’s time, it also meant that studying the ancient texts of India might yield clues to the origins of European culture.
• In 1818, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote, “I anticipate that the influence of Sanskrit literature will not be less profound than the revival of Greek in the fourteenth century,” and he asserted that the best way to understand his own philosophy was to start with the Upanishads. But not many Europeans had read them in 1818, much less the older Samhitas, which hadn’t yet been translated.
o The archaic language of the Samhitas was difficult, and most of the few manuscripts that were available were in poor condition.
o In addition, Henry Thomas Colebrooke, another British civil servant in Bengal and one of the few Europeans with enough Sanskrit to have dipped into the Samhitas, warned his colleagues that what they contained was not rewarding.
o A few excerpts of the Samhitas were published in the 1830s, but full translations would have to await the efforts of Müller and others in the late 19th century.
• By contrast, the Upanishads had long been important in Indian philosophy, and Europeans had a shortcut to them. In 1657, a Muslim Mughal prince in India named Dara Shikoh had produced a Persian translation of 50 Upanishads. A century later, in 1755, the French adventurer and scholar Abraham Anquetil Duperron came across two copies of the Persian version, which he translated into Latin and published in 1801.
• There was a German translation from Sanskrit in 1832, followed by an English rendition in 1853. Müller himself published a careful translation of 12 Upanishads as two volumes of his Sacred Books of the East series in 1879 and 1884. In his introduction, Müller defended the value of Asian scriptures while trying to temper the unreasonable enthusiasm of those who assumed they were full of ancient wisdom and eternal truths.
Overview of the Upanishads
• The first Upanishads date from about 700 B.C.E. There are generally thought to be 108 classic Upanishads, all composed within a 1,000-year period, but there are now more than 200 texts that are considered by at least some Hindus to be Upanishads. In this collection, 12 or 13 Upanishads are regarded as the most important and authoritative.
• The Upanishads feature some sort of instruction, often a dialogue between a teacher and student or a debate or lecture; these pedagogical interactions sometimes include gods and women. The word “Upanishad” literally means “sitting by the side of”; thus, this is the sort of transmission of wisdom that eager students would have wanted to overhear.
• The earliest of the Upanishads are prose collections of miscellaneous materials, while the later principal Upanishads are verse compositions with a devotional focus. They are all suggestive and exploratory rather than definitive about their ideas.
• Two Upanishads are considered to be the earliest—the
Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya; they are the longest, as well.
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
• Book I of the Brihadaranyaka begins with a cosmic reinterpretation of the horse sacrifice, one of the most elaborate and prestigious rituals in ancient India, which could be undertaken only by a king. o It is doubtful that this ritual was performed very often, but the Brihadaranyaka invites listeners to view it in metaphorical terms, as something to be meditated on rather than physically enacted. It begins with a chapter imagining the world as a sacrificial horse, in which dawn is the horse’s head; the sun, its eye; the wind, its breath; and so on.
o This sort of microcosmic/macrocosmic thinking is common in the Upanishads, where connections are drawn between something close at hand and the larger universe, though the microcosm is more often the worshipper’s own body.
o Some scholars have suggested that the main issue seems to be control; by learning to control one’s mind through meditation or one’s breathing and bodily positions (as in Yoga), humans can put themselves in harmony with the cosmos and gain power over things that otherwise would be beyond us, such as a good harvest, the gods, or life and death.
• After the passage reinterpreting the horse sacrifice, the Brihadaranyaka moves to various stories of creation and discussions of how humans are connected to the gods and the natural world. Two key terms here are brahman (ultimate reality) and atman (the self or soul).
- The great mystery to be realized is that atman is brahman.
- Our individuality is an illusion; at a deeper level, we are one with the universe.
• Book II follows with a dialogue in which a king teaches a Brahman priest about brahman.
o The king uses a concept that will reappear several times in the Upanishads, that there are four modes of consciousness: wakefulness (ordinary life), dreaming (which seems real but is an illusion), dreamless sleep (loss of one’s sense of self), and pure consciousness (beyond the other three, in which one merges with brahman).
- o A later Upanishad analyzes the sacred syllable Om as comprised of three sounds—a, u, m—each of which represents one of the first three modes of
- consciousness, and
- the silence that follows as a manifestation of brahman,
- the oneness of the universe.
• We next hear the story of the sage Yajnavalkya, who is asked by one of his wives to teach her the knowledge that leads to immorality. He explains that atman and brahman are identical; there is ultimately no difference between self and other.
• In Book III, Yajnavalkya debates eight teachers about the meaning of ritual, the number of gods, life and death, and brahman and atman. In Book IV, he discusses with a king several mistaken ideas about brahman, as well as what happens at the moment of death and reincarnation.
o The idea of reincarnation, or samsara, is a key concept in the Upanishads. People are reborn into better or worse human situations or even as animals, but not randomly. Our next lives are determined by our actions (karma), as judged against our duty or moral responsibilities (dharma).
o Those who can free themselves from desires—who understand that they are, in actuality, brahman—can escape rebirth and gain immortality by merging with the infinite.
• In Book V, Prajapati, the creator god, teaches his children—gods, humans, and demons—about brahman, speech, fire, and breath. Perhaps most memorably, he teaches them “the divine voice that the thunder repeats”: DA DA DA, which is short for damyata, datta, dayadhvam, “Be self-controlled, give [to others], be compassionate.”
• Book VI includes an argument among the bodily functions about which is superior (breath wins), and another teacher/student dialogue, this time about different types of fire and reincarnation. The Brihadaranyaka concludes with several rituals and spells for love, fertility, childbirth, and so on.
Other Upanishads and Their Influence
• The second early, lengthy Upanishad, the Chandogya, is famous for its recounting of a dialogue between a father and his son, in which the father teaches the absolute oneness of atman and brahman through a series of metaphors—how nectar from many flowers comes together in honey, water in many rivers comes together in the ocean, and so on. After each example, he concludes with the observation, “You are That.”
o The Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads are key texts in Vedanta philosophy. “Vedanta” means “the end of the Vedas” and is a term used to describe the Upanishads as a whole, but it later became the name of the preeminent school of Indian philosophy that emphasized the underlying unity of the universe.
o The 8th-century philosopher Shankara argued that brahman is the only thing in existence, eternally and without attributes; everything else is an illusion. But later Upanishads were more devotional and seemed to discuss brahman in more personal terms, as if it could be identified with a god.
o Other Indian philosophers found support in the Upanishads for dualism (the idea that individual selves are dependent on brahman but not identical to it) and theism, in which liberation from reincarnation comes not from knowledge of ultimate reality but from devotion to a god or goddess who, in return, would save his or her followers.
• One of the most famous of the later Upanishads is the Katha, which tells the story of Nachiketa, a young boy who is granted three wishes by Yama, the god of death. Yama teaches the boy about reincarnation, atman and brahman, and the importance of meditation, selfdiscipline, and Yoga.
• In the 19th century, German Idealists, English Romantics, and American Transcendentalists all found the Upanishads electrifying. Later, the great 20th-century poet T. Ralph Waldo Emerson retold the story of Nachiketa and Yama in his essay “Immortality.”
S. Eliot titled one section of his poem The Waste Land “What the Thunder Said” and included the Sanskrit terms corresponding to DA DA DA from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
• In 19th-century India, at a time when many were feeling the humiliation of British colonialism and imperialism, religious leaders looked to the Upanishads for inspiration as they developed what has been called Neo-Vedanta: the re-creation of Hinduism as a modern, unified, tolerant religion based on the ideals of nondualism, meditation, and Yoga.
• The Upanishads may or may not speak to your own religious sensibilities, but it’s hard not to empathize with the basic impulse behind them. In the Brihadaranyaka, we hear the plea: “Lead me from the unreal to the real! Lead me from darkness to light! Lead me from death to immortality!”
Suggested Reading
Goodall, trans., Hindu Scriptures.
Olivelle, trans., Upanisads.
Radhakrishnan, trans., The Principal Upanishads.
Roebuck, trans., The Upanishads.
Questions to Consider
1. Why were Europeans initially more interested in the Upanishads than in the Vedas?
2. What are the major concepts developed in the Upanishads?
What Is Remembered—Epics
Lecture 4
and Mahabharata.Defining “Dharma” behavior,” but it’s more than that.
throughout the cosmos. gender, caste, family situation, and stage in life.
The Ramayana
• The Ramayana, traditionally ascribed to a poet named Valmiki, appears to have been composed between 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E., probably by multiple individuals. It’s a lengthy epic of about 25,000 verses, divided into seven books.
• The Ramayana begins with a framing story, in which the poet Valmiki is commissioned by the creator god Brahma to tell the story of Rama, the king of Kosala.
o Valmiki does so and then teaches his epic poem to his disciples, especially the twins Lava and Kusha, who spread it far and wide.
o Eventually, King Rama himself learns of the epic and invites the twins to his court so that he may hear it. Thus, the story is about Rama, and he’s also the audience for it.
• What follows is the epic itself. The former king of Kosala appealed to the gods for a son. At the same time, various deities complained to Lord Brahma about a demon or ogre named Ravana, who was oppressing the world. The god Vishnu agreed to take on human form to defeat Ravana and, thus, was born as Rama. In other words, Rama is an avatar of Vishnu.
• As a young man, Rama and his brother Lakshmana take a journey to save a sage from demons. While away from court, they hear of a marriage contest for a woman named Sita who had been found as a baby in a furrow of a plowed field and had been adopted by a king. Rama wins the contest and returns to the capital, Ayodhya, with Sita as his wife.
• Years later, the old king wished to make Rama his successor, but one of his wives intervened, claiming two wishes that she had been promised earlier: to make her own son the heir apparent and to have Rama exiled into the wilderness for 14 years.
o The king is brokenhearted but cannot go back on his word. And Rama is happy to accept exile rather than see his father proven untruthful. Sita and Lakshmana, unable to bear life without Rama, accompany him into the wilderness.
o Here, we see examples of dharma in action—Rama is the perfect son, who sets aside his own feelings and ambitions to obey his father, and Sita shows herself to be the perfect Hindu wife, completely devoted to her husband.
• But there is trouble ahead for this ideal couple. An ogress tries to seduce Rama and Lakshmana, and when she is rebuffed, she complains to her brother Ravana, the 10-headed demon-king of the island kingdom of Lanka. He kidnaps Sita, but Rama learns the identity of her captor. He soon teams up with Hanuman, the monkey-hero to find her.
• Hanuman takes a great leap over the ocean to the island of Lanka, where he finds Sita and offers to carry her back, but she refuses, saying that her husband must rescue her. Then follows a long account of the war between Rama and Ravana, before Ravana is finally defeated and killed.
• Afterward, Rama accuses Sita of having been unfaithful to him with Ravana. She protests that she is innocent and offers to undergo public ordeal by fire to prove it. When she is vindicated, Rama welcomes her as his wife, explaining that he had never doubted her virtue but had to put her to the test to prove her innocence to others. The couple returns in triumph to Ayodhya, and Rama takes the throne. Some versions of the epic end here, but Valmiki’s Sanskrit version has one more chapter.
• A few years later, Rama hears that some of his people still doubt Sita’s fidelity. Uncomfortable with the uncertainty, Sita decides to leave, even though she is pregnant. She takes refuge with the poet Valmiki and gives birth to twins who grow up to become disciples of the poet: Lava and Kusha.
The most popular Hindu holiday, Diwali, in part commemorates the lighting of the palace lamps when Rama and Sita returned from exile.
o In other words, Rama’s own lost sons are now reciting to him the story of his own life. Rama is joyfully reunited with them and invites Sita to return to the palace.
o Sita, however, calls upon her mother, the goddess Earth, to witness her longstanding devotion and purity; she then descends into the earth as it opens to receive her. Rama is heartbroken until the god Brahma reminds him that he is an incarnation of Vishnu, and he will once again be with his beloved wife in heaven.
• The Ramayana has much to say about dharma with regard to gender roles, kingship, family relationships, honor, interactions with the gods, and the place of sacrifice, violence, and even poetry within a well-ordered, harmonious life. The story is also integral to Indian culture.
o Not many Hindus have read the Vedas, but hundreds of millions have read the Ramayana in vernacular languages or have seen versions on television or in reenactments. Indeed, Rama is widely worshipped in India (as an avatar of Vishnu).
o Further, Rama’s influence is not confined to India. His story has been transformed into beloved national epics in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. There are Buddhist, Jain, and even Muslim versions of the tale, which can be found throughout South and Southeast Asia in temple architecture, dance, and drama.
The Mahabharata
• The Mahabharata (“Great Epic of the Bharata War”) is much longer, more complicated, and more morally ambiguous than the Ramayana. The Mahabharata comprises 75,000 to 100,000 verses in 18 books. It is ascribed to the poet Vyasa, who like Valmiki, is both the author of the epic and a character in it.
• This epic has a similar setting to the Ramayana and was composed at about the same time (300 B.C.E.–300 C.E.), but it is much darker in tone. It is the story of a family that tears itself apart and, in the process, brings ruins to the whole country.
• The story begins with a king who had two sons. The oldest son, Dhritarashtra, should have been the next ruler, but because he was born blind, the kingdom was given to the younger son, Pandu.
o Pandu had five sons—or so it seemed, but their actual fathers were gods: Yudhisthira, the son of Dharma personified; Bhima, the strong one; Arjuna, the great archer; and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva. These five Pandava brothers are all married to the same woman, Draupadi.
o When Pandu died, the blind Dhritarashtra became regent, and naturally, his eldest son, Duryodhana, expected to inherit the kingdom, though Yudhisthira, the son of Pandu and the oldest of all the cousins, had a stronger claim.
• The blind king divides the realm in two, but this does not satisfy Duryodhana, who tries to kill the Pandavas and eventually challenges Yudhisthira to a game of dice. Yudhisthira, whose dharma does not allow him to back down from a challenge, loses everything, including his brothers and their wife Draupadi. Ultimately, the losers promise to go into exile for 12 years and remain in disguise for another year, after which time, the winners will hand over the kingdom.
• After the Pandavas fulfill the terms of their agreement, the cousins refuse to give up their kingdom. There seems to be no alternative but war. On the eve of the battle, Arjuna does not want to fight, because he knows that he will be killing relatives, teachers, and friends the next day, but the god Krishna, who is acting as his chariot driver, explains that doing one’s duty is required by dharma. (This famous episode is later known as the Bhagavad Gita.) In the 18-day war that follows, nearly everyone on both sides dies.
• The Pandavas are victorious, but peace is still elusive. Several years later, most of their chief allies are slaughtered in a drunken brawl, and Krishna himself is accidentally killed by a hunter. Yudhisthira abdicates the throne, leaving the kingdom to a younger kinsman while he, his four brothers, and Draupadi try to reach Indra’s heaven in the Himalayas.
• Along the way, everyone dies except for Yudhisthira and his devoted dog, who turns out to be the god Dharma; they both are taken into Indra’s heaven. However, Yudhisthira is shocked to discover his archenemy Duryodhana in heaven, while his four brothers and Draupadi are in hell. He chooses to go to hell to be with his family; the vision then dissolves, and he is told that he has passed the final test. All are reunited in heaven.
• This summary doesn’t even begin to touch on the poignancy and richness of this narrative, which includes framing stories, hundreds of subplots and digressions, sacred vows, terrifying curses, and more. The ideal of dharma is constantly sought for
and questioned, as even the heroes make terrible mistakes and the gods themselves encourage humans to act in ways that seem ethically troubling. But the Mahabharata offers plenty of material for thinking about the deepest questions of life. One of its constant refrains is: Dharma is subtle.
• If the Ramayana is the more beloved of the two epics, the Mahabharata is similarly well-known and pervasive throughout India; indeed, Bharat is what Indians call their own county. The Mahabharata is a national epic and a work of profound religious devotion and insight. It is not surprising that it is often referred to as the Fifth Veda.
Suggested Reading
Brockington and Brockington, trans., Rama the Steadfast.
Dass, Gucharan, The Difficulty of Being Good.
Doniger, The Hindus.
Goldman et al., trans., The Ramayana of Valmiki.
Mittal and Thursby, eds., The Hindu World.
Narasimhan, trans., The Mahabharata.
Smith, trans., The Mahabharata.
Venkatesananda, The Concise Ramayana of Valmiki.
Questions to Consider
1. What are the basic stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata?
2. Why have these epics become so popular and influential?
Laws of Manu and Bhagavad Gita
Lecture 5
In the sacred texts of Hinduism, the status of the Vedas (including both Samhitas and Upanishads) as Shruti is clear, as is the significance of the epics as Smriti. Then we face hundreds of texts that would probably be classified as Smriti (“What Is Remembered”) but are seen as more or less authoritative by different Hindus. Many of these writings are used in a sectarian fashion by the devotees of various gods and goddesses or by the followers of particular philosophical schools. In this lecture, we’ll get a sense of what’s in the vast Hindu canon, and then we’ll focus on two of the most prominent, influential texts: The Laws of Manu and the Bhagavad Gita.
The Hindu Canon
• At about the time the Upanishads were composed (700 B.C.E.–300 C.E.), other texts attempted to synthesize Vedic lore in a systematic fashion. These become known as Vedanga (“limbs of the Vedas”), and they covered six topics: etymology, grammar, phonetics, meter, astronomy, and ritual. Often, these texts took the form of sutras—series of short aphorisms that were meant to be memorized and that could sometimes be cryptic without the guidance of a teacher or commentary.
• Somewhat later texts known as shastras were also treatises devoted to specialized topics. Thus, the Dharma-sutras (rules for moral, appropriate behavior) of 300 to 100 B.C.E. were followed by Dharma-shastras, beginning about 100 C.E. Dharma was considered one of the three aims of life appropriate for Hindus, along with artha (worldly success) and kama (enjoyments).
• Later still came the Puranas (“ancient texts”), which are lengthy collections of myth and legends about the gods and ancient sages. There are 18 major Puranas and dozens of minor ones, written from about 400 to 1000 C.E. The Puranas are especially known as manifestations of bhakti, or devotion; they advocate an intense, emotional, passionate faith in particular deities, which in turn promises salvation to all, regardless of caste.
• After the Puranas, there are even later, more sectarian texts that are held to be sacred by some Hindus but not by others. These include devotional poetry from the 6th to the 16th centuries written in vernacular languages, as well as a whole genre of Sanskrit texts known as Tantra (8th–11th centuries).
• Hinduism is more like a family of related religions than a single monolithic tradition, and it is less defined by a fixed scriptural canon than Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Hindus generally accept the authority of the Vedas (even if they encounter them only rarely), and they feel connected to the great epics, but there is a great deal of variation in their use of other sacred texts.
The Laws of Manu
• The Laws of Manu, dated to about 200 C.E., has had a tremendous impact on everyday life in India. This relatively short text outlines rules, customs, and expectations for the four major castes. It is attributed to Manu, the legendary progenitor of the human race, and it purports to record his words to a group of sages when they asked about the laws by which society could be harmoniously organized.
• The four major castes (varnas) in India are the Brahmans (priests/ teachers), Kshatriyas (warriors/rulers), Vaishyas (farmers/ merchants), and Shudras (laborers/servants).
o All four castes were thought to have been descended from the Indo-European Aryans who migrated into India about 1500 B.C.E. and brought with them the Vedas and the Vedic religion. Only the upper three castes, however, could participate fully in Vedic rituals or receive an initiation known as being “twiceborn.” Outside the system were outcastes, now referred to as Dalits, who were descendants of indigenous peoples.
o For twice-born males, life was divided into four stages: student, householder, forest dweller, and wandering ascetic. A man became a forest dweller when he retired from a career, divesting himself of possessions and moving to a hut in the forest, perhaps with his wife. As a wandering ascetic, he became homeless and left everything behind, even his wife, so that he could devote himself to meditation, asceticism, and spiritual pursuits.
• The Laws of Manu is composed of 2,684 verses divided into 12 chapter-length books. It starts with the creation of the world, including an account of the origins of the four varnas. Then, chapters 2–6 outline the rules for the different life stages of a Brahman male.
o The Laws specifies appropriate teacher/student relations and, for householders, provides guidelines for marriage, sacrifices, hospitality, offerings to ancestors, and so on.
o Generally, people were expected to stay within their own castes for marriages, meals, and other social interactions. There are also warnings about polluting influences that would compromise one’s purity, including coming into contact with forbidden foods, death, members of lower castes, and menstruating women. Chapter 6 provides regulations for forest dwellers and wandering ascetics.
• Chapters 7 to 9 turn their attention to the dharma of Kshatriyas, with rules for kingship, diplomacy, and war and guidelines for the legal system.
• The Laws concludes with a chapter on problematic situations, such as children born of mixed-caste parents, a chapter on penance for sins, and a chapter on the workings of karma that explains why people are reborn into different castes.
Implications of The Laws
• In India, The Laws of Manu has historical value and may provide insights into some of the traditional values that are still part of Indian society. Caste regulations have weakened over time, but they
still play an important role in politics and marriage arrangements. As in Judaism, some of the expectations for priests have spread throughout society, so that education is a higher priority for many Indian women and lower castes, not just for Brahman males.
• But reading The Laws of Manu also gives us a chance to reconsider some of our own cultural assumptions. For example, the idea that “all men are created equal” is, in reality, a fiction. It’s a fact that some people are smarter than others, or better looking, or were born into more prosperous families—and remember, Hinduism’s law of karma provides an explanation for those differences that satisfies our sense of justice. Doesn’t it make sense to have different expectations for those of varying abilities? Perhaps there isn’t a single standard of achievement by which we can measure everyone.
• As much as we may recoil at the notion of social class fixed by caste, we in the West tend to determine social class by wealth, whereas in India, people could still belong to the Brahman caste even if they were poor. And though we like to think that anyone can succeed through hard work and ability, in actuality, there seems to be less social mobility in the United States than in many other modernized countries.
• It is also striking that for most of its history, India’s social stability came from the kind of dharma advocated by The Laws of Manu rather than from strict law codes. People had a defined place in society and acted accordingly because of pressure from family, neighbors, and especially, jati (local, self-governing subcastes). What does it say about our society that we depend on laws, contracts, and a somewhat intrusive government to keep things running smoothly?
• Although we might enjoy living in a secular society characterized by relative equality and informality, do we lose something when we jettison notions of sacred and profane? Should certain people, places, or activities be regarded as particularly holy or sacred? Are there aspects of your life that are specifically oriented toward the divine or the spiritual?
• Finally, some bits of wisdom from The Laws might be worth adopting in our modern lives. For example, the idea that different modes of spirituality might be appropriate at different stages of life seems valuable.
Bhagavad Gita
• The Bhagavad Gita (“Song of the Lord”) is a scripture of just 700 verses. As an excerpt from the Mahabharata, it qualifies as Smriti, but its philosophical content and dialogue form make it sound like an Upanishad, and it is often treated as if it were Shruti. Further, it speaks to Hindus of all castes, combining discussions of spiritual insight with advice for worldly success and intense devotionalism.
• As we saw in the last lecture, on the eve of the great war between the Pandava brothers and their evil cousins, Arjuna
In suggesting that the way of devotion is open to everyone, Krishna tells arjuna: “No one who is devoted to me is ever lost.”
rides in his chariot between the two opposing armies and sees family and friends on both sides. Realizing the enormity of the slaughter to come, he drops his bow and tells his chariot driver, Krishna, that he does not want to fight; kingship and victory are not worth the terrible cost.
• Arjuna is caught in an impossible situation. As a Kshatriya, his caste duty or dharma is to protect the world and punish wrongdoers.
Yet if he kills relatives in the process, he is sure to bring bad karma to everyone.
• Krishna offers multiple reasons why Arjuna should fight. These justifications can be organized into three broad categories: jnanayoga, “the way of wisdom”; karma-yoga, “the way of action”; and bhakti-yoga, “the way of devotion.” o The first, the way of wisdom, draws on the insights of the Upanishads, in particular, the ideas of reincarnation and the oneness of all life. The meditations here are probably most appropriate for educated Brahmans.
o The way of action, in contrast, is perhaps best suited for Kshatriyas. Krishna tells Arjuna that he must perform his caste duty, no matter how unpleasant, because to do otherwise would bring shame upon him and disorder to the world. For a warrior, action is preferable to the inaction or renunciation of a Brahman, but the secret is to act dispassionately. In this way, one can live calmly and peacefully, free from the distractions of fear or anger.
o In the third path, the way of devotion, bad karma can be avoided if one surrenders one’s deeds to Krishna. A little further on, Krishna suggests that the way of devotion is open to everyone, not just noble priests or warriors.
• Over the course of the Gita, Krishna gradually reveals himself, until in chapter 11, Arjuna asks to see Krishna’s true form.
o There follows a terrifying theophany as Arjuna beholds an infinite being who encompasses the entire universe, with innumerable arms, bellies, and faces. Krishna is both creator and destroyer, and Arjuna is shocked to see the chief warriors in both armies hastening into his open mouths.
o Arjuna begs Krishna to return to human form, but clearly any debate is over, just as when God’s voice speaks from the whirlwind in the Hebrew Bible’s book of Job.
• The Bhagavad Gita offers an attractive counter to the notion in the Upanishads that salvation comes only to those who leave behind all worldly responsibilities. Instead, the Gita demonstrates how spiritual attainment can be won while still honoring the social obligations of family, caste, and community. For this reason, the Gita has long been chanted in homes and temples, recited at festivals, and quoted by ordinary Hindus throughout India.
Suggested Reading
Dimmitt and Van Buitenen, eds. and trans., Classical Hindu Mythology.
Flood, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism.
Flood and Martin, trans., The Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation.
Goodall, ed. and trans., Hindu Scriptures.
Miller, trans., The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War.
Mittal and Thursby, eds., The Hindu World.
O’Flaherty, ed. and trans., Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism.
Olivelle, trans., The Law Code of Manu.
Patton, trans., The Bhagavad Gita.
Schweig, Dance of Divine Love.
Questions to Consider
1. How has the idea of dharma affected Indian life in the past and in the present?
2. Why is the Bhagavad Gita nearly universally beloved in India, even though it consists of just a few chapters from the Mahabharata?
Related Traditions—Sikh Scriptures
Lecture 6
From the ancient, massive, continuously expanding canon of Hinduism, we now jump to a related tradition that is nearly its opposite, at least with regard to scripture. Sikhism is one of the youngest global religions. It began in the 15th century in the Punjab region of India, now divided between India and Pakistan, and today, it claims nearly 30 million believers scattered around the world. Yet wherever they go, Sikhs show reverence for a particular sacred text whose form is exactly fixed: the Adi Granth (“First Scripture”). In this lecture, we’ll explore the development and content of this text and the Sikhs’ unique relationship to it.
Overview of Sikhism
• Sikhism is a religious tradition that comes out of Hinduism, though it has elements in common with Islam, as well.
o Like Hindus, Sikhs believe in reincarnation and karma, and they see salvation as an escape from the cycle of rebirth and redeath, a liberation whereby they merge with God.
o Yet like Muslims, they are monotheistic; their temples have no images or idols; and they reject the caste system, believing that all people are equal. In fact, one of the primary acts of charity associated with Sikh temples is free communal meals, where everyone, regardless of caste, social status, or even religion, eats together.
• Sikhs stress the importance of good works rather than rituals; they value ordinary life over asceticism or renunciation; and they strive to keep God in mind at all times, living lives of honest labor and generosity toward those in need.
• They also have one of the most distinctive relationships with scripture of any major world religion. Many faiths show great respect for their sacred texts, but Sikhs take this to an extraordinary level, treating the Adi Granth as if it were a living person.
The 10 Gurus
• Sikhism began with revelations to Nanak, the first Guru (1469– 1539). At about the age of 30, Nanak had a vision in which he was taken up to God’s heavenly court and commanded to rejoice in God’s name and to teach others to do the same. Over the next quarter century, he went on four long journeys to spread his message of reverence for God’s name.
o According to Nanak, there is one God, eternal and unchanging, beyond form and gender. We are separated from God by ignorance and sin, but he is manifest throughout the cosmos, in our individual souls, and in the divine word that comes through the Gurus.
o This concept of the “word” is closely associated with God’s name, which is not a specific title—he can be called many things—but, rather, an expression of divine reality, and God himself is considered the true Guru.
o God’s grace can bring humans into mystical union with himself and free them from reincarnation, particularly if they meditate on his name and live wholesome, productive lives.
• Nanak spread his message through singing hymns that he had written himself, and eventually, some 974 of his poems became part of the Adi Granth. Unlike the Mahabharata or the Bible, the most sacred text of Sikhism does not include narrative; it is focused on timeless, eternal truths rather than the mundane facts of history, and these spiritual insights are often expressed in beautiful, poignant images.
• Over the course of two centuries, Punjabi Sikhs gradually became more distinct from other Hindu religious movements. The second Guru standardized a new script of 35 letters called Gurmukhi (“from the mouth of the Guru”) to write down the sacred hymns of Nanak. The third Guru established new birth, marriage, and death ceremonies and emphasized the importance of the langar (free kitchens) of the Sikh temples.
The fifth Guru, Arjan, is a key figure in the story of Sikh scripture. Not only did he build the Golden Temple in Amritsar, but he also selected nearly 6,000 hymns, written by his four predecessors and himself, for inclusion in the Adi Granth, which he formally established as the sacred text of the Sikhs in 1604. Somewhat surprisingly, the Adi Granth also included songs that had been composed by 15 Muslim Sufis and Hindu Sants, or holy men, that the fifth Guru felt were in tune with Sikh principles.
• Two years after editing the Adi Granth, Guru Arjan came into conflict with the Muslim Mughal emperor and was arrested and tortured to death, according to tradition, when Arjan refused to remove Hindu and Muslim references from the Sikh holy book. Tensions continued, and the seventh Guru disowned his own son when the young man offered to change a line from the Adi Granth to please another Mughal emperor.
• After the ninth Guru was executed when he refused to convert to Islam, his son, Gobind Singh, the final Guru, militarized the movement in 1699 by introducing the Khalsa, an order of soldiersaints, including both men and women, who would always protect and defend the faith.
• Gobind Singh added a few hymns to the Adi Granth that had been composed by his late father, the ninth Guru, and then in 1708, shortly before his death, he announced that there would be no more Gurus after himself. Instead, the perpetual Guru of the Sikhs would be their holy book, the Adi Granth, or as it was now to be known, the Guru Granth Sahib (“Revered Teacher Scripture”).
The Guru Granth Sahib
• The Guru Granth Sahib is composed of three sections of unequal length. It begins with an introductory collection of prayers, starting
with the Japji, which was written by Nanak and is recited every morning by devout Sikhs, followed by two evening prayers and a bedtime prayer.
The second, quite long section consists of hymns or poems that are meant to be sung. They are organized by the melodic modes of classical Indian music called ragas, which are combinations of notes associated with different moods, times of the day, and seasons.
o There are 31 ragas in the Adi Granth, and within each raga section, the hymns are subdivided into six categories based on length or meter. The poems within each subcategory are arranged by the order of the Gurus who wrote them.
o Finally, at the end of each of the 31 raga sections are the songs of the 15 Hindu Sants and Muslim Sufis that Arjan thought worthy of inclusion in the sacred text of the Sikhs.
• The third part of the Guru Granth Sahib is made up of 77 pages of miscellaneous poems written by the Sikh Gurus, earlier Sants and Sufis, and 17 court poets.
• The language is mostly early-modern Punjabi, sometimes mixed with other northern Indian dialects, along with words from Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic. It can be difficult for contemporary Sikhs to understand, yet the beauty and sacredness of the words as they are chanted or sung conveys profound religious emotion.
• As in many religious traditions, the opening verses of Sikh scripture are given particular attention, and they are thought to be the epitome of Sikh beliefs. The Guru Granth Sahib begins with the first composition of Nanak, the Mul Mantar (“root mantra”).
o The beginning of the first verse is Ik Onkar, “the one creator,” referring to God. It is written by combining the numeral 1 with the first letter of the word onkar, which is also the first letter of the Gurmukhi alphabet. The combination of the number 1 and the first Gurmukhi letter is often used as a symbol of Sikhism.
o The Japji, the first prayer that is recited every morning by Sikhs, goes on to praise the one God, who is beyond human understanding, language, and the sacred texts of the world.
The hymns of the Adi Granth proclaim the oneness of God and the equality of all human beings, and they offer some general guidelines for living. Mostly, however, the Adi Granth has thousands of devotional hymns praising God, many of which offer lovely phrases and striking images.
Reverence for the Guru Granth Sahib
• The Guru Granth Sahib is at the center of all Sikh ceremonies, and Sikhs treat their sacred text as a living Guru. In a Sikh house of worship, or gurdwara (“doorway to the Guru”), a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib takes the central place. It is brought out every morning and placed on a throne. When people come into a gurdwara, they cover their heads, remove their shoes, and bow to the Guru Granth Sahib. They sit on the floor, listening as the Adi Granth is read, sung, or interpreted.
• The Guru Granth Sahib speaks to worshippers directly through a practice called vak (“reading”). In the morning, the book is opened at random and the passage at the top of the left-hand page is read, which is considered a hukam (“order”) for the day. This may happen in a home for an individual or a family or in a gurdwara for an entire congregation.
• It is the Guru Granth Sahib that makes the gurdwara; wherever the text is, that place is holy. Some homes have a special room for the text, or it can be taken outside the home, but it is always treated with the utmost respect. Whenever the Adi Granth is transported, it is wrapped up and carried on top of someone’s head, and it is often accompanied by a procession.
• Like a beloved friend or teacher, the Guru Granth Sahib is present at all the important milestones of a Sikh’s life: when a child is born, when Sikhs are initiated into the Khalsa, and at marriage ceremonies.
The daily order from the Guru Granth Sahib in the Golden Temple in amritsar is made known electronically to Sikhs all over the world.
o At times of celebration and sorrow, it is customary for friends and family to read the entire Adi Granth aloud nonstop, day and night, in shifts. Any Sikh who can pronounce the Gurmukhi script, male or female, old or young, is allowed to participate as a reader, and it usually takes about 48 hours to get through the text.
o Celebrations at the gurdwara are often marked by nonstop singing of the entire Adi Granth.
• Sikh families and individuals often read the Adi Granth at a slower pace, though the sacredness of the book means that not all families have a copy. To show proper reverence, the Guru Granth Sahib must be taken out from a special resting place every morning and returned every evening. Because not everyone has an extra room, most Sikhs make do with smaller volumes of daily prayers and hymns from the Adi Granth, which don’t require the same level of care.
• In fact, a complete copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, even in translation, is a bit difficult to come by. Probably the easiest way to gain access to the entire Adi Granth is through translations that have been posted online, such as the Khalsa Consensus Translation.
Suggested Reading
Dass, Nirmal, trans., Songs of Kabir from the Adi Granth.
———, trans., Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth.
Holm, ed., Sacred Writings.
Guru Granth Sahib, Khalsa Consensus Translation.
Mann, The Making of Sikh Scripture.
McLeod, trans., Textual Sources for the Study of Sikhism.
Nesbitt, Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction.
Shackle and Mandair, eds. and trans., Teachings of the Sikh Gurus.
Singh, Nikky-Gurinder Kaur, Sikhism: An Introduction.
Questions to Consider
1. Why do Sikhs treat their holy book, the Adi Granth, with such extraordinary reverence?
2. What has made the Adi Granth the most successful new scripture of the last several centuries?
Judaism—People of the Book
