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Nolan's Oppenheimer released this weekend, and I wanted to use this opportunity to both post an excellent paper about Bhagavad Gita's influence on the man and a short introduction to Hinduism to illustrate just how different it is from Abrahamic religions.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131114032416/http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/Hijiya.pdf
Hinduism is an umbrella term for a group of philosophical schools which is practised by people living east of the Indus River (the word Hindu is derived from the root word Sindhu, which was the Sanskrit name for the river). What is commonly understood as Hinduism in the west today (and India to a large extent) is the most popular school, called Advaita Vedanta (a monist philosophy that champions polytheism whose metaphysical view is panpsychist). Unlike Abrahamic religions, it is very difficult to define who a Hindu is, as the schools itself have very varied philosophies. In all, there are 10 major schools of philosophies, consisting of varied views from hedonistic atheism to monotheistic theism, with both dualist and monist views (there is also btw dualistic non-dualism). To quote the Supreme Court of India-
The diversity in schools and inherent intentional contradictions even in a singular school makes it difficult to distil an understanding to a western audience makes it difficult to explain Hinduism to someone who isn't brought up in the culture. So I will focus on explaining the concepts of Dharma, Samsara, Karma and Moksha, which are mostly (always an exception) common to the different philosophical schools.
Dharma - Ask any modern Hindu on what does Dharma mean, and you would almost always get the answer as religion, despite this word only recently taken on that meaning and despite being far removed from the real meaning. The fact that describing its actual meaning is also difficult because it is so tied to the culture hasn't contributed in correcting this error in the mind of modern Hindu. Dharma is tied to an inherent cosmological order called Rta, and is the behaviour that is in accordance with it. It has been translated as duty, law, virtue or an obligation towards the world, and though they come close, I feel none of them describe the essence of it. A better way to understand is "what is right" on an individual and contextual level. What that means is there is no universally prescribed set of behaviours for a person to be Dharmic. A person's Dharma depends on a wide variety of factors depending on but not limited to their personality, their background, the stage of life (ashram) they are in and can be in active conflict with another person's Dharma. The principle texts even are full of contradictions regarding it. For example, Mahabharata, the epic poem of which Bhagavad Gita is a part of, is littered with multiple characters arguing "Ahimsa parmo dharma" or "non-violence is the highest dharma" despite the Mahabharata being a story about war. Even the main antagonist of the Mahabharata, Dhuryodhana, routinely uses what the characters exclaim as Dharmic to do acts which are Adharmic (opposite of Dharma).
Samsara - Literally meaning the world, it is philosophically used to describe the wandering aimless journey of the soul (Atman) through cycles of birth and death, multiple lives as multiple beings through the universe. Tied very closely to the theory of Karma (more on that later), the samsara is the fundamental condition of living beings who experience pleasure, pain, joy, sadness tied to the material world. The conditions a person gets born in and the things a person experiences varies in different life, but the one thing that is certain is suffering (will cover this point more in the next section).
Karma - Commonly Karma is thought to mean as "what goes around, comes around", though it literally means "action". It's the theory of Karma that means your good deeds have good effects, and bad deeds have bad effects. If you do a good Karma you accumulate merit or Punya, conversely bad Karma begets you demerit or Paap. Mind you, Karma also takes in account the intention behind the action rather than the action itself. During multiple lifetimes, your Punya and Paap either gets you appropriate circumstances or you go to Swarga (heaven) or Narka (Hell). The heaven and hell in Hinduism differs from Abrahamic religions' concept of it in two ways. First there is no required belief you need to hold to get into there, even if you believe in a flying spaghetti monster if you live a Dharmic life you get into Swarga and even the fervent believers living an Adharmic life will get into hell. Second, it is not eternal, eventually your accumulated Paap or Punya will get exhausted, and you return to Samsara and the cycle of reincarnation again. This cycle of reincarnation is the real jail, you take birth, you suffer, you find momentary joy, suffer some more, again and again and again. Maybe in some birth you finally get Dharma, you do good deeds, and that reflects in your current or the other life, but take another birth and all the understanding is lost, and you start with scratch again. Samsara is eternally changing and living in Samsara means you will get attached, maybe to pleasures, maybe to people or to life. It is certain that things will end, or you would lose them and that will cause you suffering.
Moksha - If you are destined to suffer why accumulate good Karma in the first place, doesn't it seem all too pointless to just continue again and again. Hence, the highest goal in Hinduism isn't to accumulate good deeds, but to escape this cycle of reincarnation or attain Moksha. What the nature of it is and how to achieve it varies from school to school. Moksha is often equated to enlightenment and nirvana. In one school, it is described as a cessation of desire (Buddhism) in another removal of Ahamkara(a false ego created by oneself) or yet understanding your being. In Bhagavad Gita, the path to attain Moksha is said to lie in the 4 Yogas namely, Karma Yoga (acting without any attachment to the result of your actions), Jnana Yoga (pronounced as gyan meaning knowledge, it means understanding the nature of reality through knowledge), Bhakti Yoga (surrendering your ego and self to a deity) and Raja Yoga (introspection and understanding oneself using meditation).
This a very incomplete and limited explanation of the concepts which are vast and have a diverse set of views between different sects of Hinduism, so take that with a grain of salt.
PS- I have used a lot of words from Sanskrit and a lot of these words aren't pronounced as they are spelt(in many of them the a is silent) in latin script, so here's a list of how you would pronounce some of these words- Gita - Geet Advaita - Advait Vedanta - Vedant Swarga - Swarg Narka - Narka Karma - Karm Yoga - Yog Rta - Tr Samsara - Sansaar Moksha - Moksh Ahamkara - Ahankar(n is silent)
Do you know of any resources that make the history of Hinduism legible to a westerner? I got curious reading about Indo-European languages and then Indo-European religion. The parallels between Germanic mythology and early Vedic religion are fascinating. But the early Vedic religion has clearly been transformed and subsumed. (No cattle sacrifices in modern Hinduism!) I am curious what the different proto-Hinduisms were and how they met and fought and syncretized.
Books I've read on the history of Indo-European religion (admittedly years ago) were light on the Indo-Iranian branch.
Don't look at history, look at population genomics. Razib Khan is your best resource for this.
That being said, genomics data on India is an evolving field, so confidence in some findings is not as iron-clad as the stamp of science might suggest. Genomics tells you the 'what', but it doesn't tell you much about the 'how'. This means that you're stuck drawing equivalencies from known events in history from other regions. They might be informed guesses, but that's all they are.
For example: Does the appearance of a new - mostly male genetic branch over a few hundred years guarantee 'invasion, murder & rape', or could it also indicate a large male immigrant population. Note: in the modern era of peaceful immigration, most immigrants are still young men. We don't really know what happened here, and all political/academic groups are happier promoting their own conjecture, than digging in and finding out who got it right.
The verdict on the supposed violence of ancient proto-Hindus will influence political will to demonize colonizing muslim invaders of the last 1000 years. It provides historical backing/debunking for the sharp line that supposedly distinguishes the southern Indian Dravidians from the northern Indian Aryans. It allows inquiry into whether India's central philosophical work (Rigveda) was even composed in South Asia.
Indians have been a defeated people for a whole millennium. Post-socialism India has tried to reclaim a confident image of itself, carved from great ancient kings, who are the supposed ancestors of the modern inhabitants of this land. The Govt. senses a great deal of risk in even allowing research that might imply that the genetic ancestors of a huge portion of Indians have always been a defeated people. To them, there is nothing to gain and a lot to lose. I don't blame them. It's a hard choice.
How does it make them anymore a defeated people than the Europeans. Were the Etruscans a more or less defeated people after they gladly accepted Roman citizenship during and after the Social War? Despite being genetically identical to the Romans for over 1000 years at that point.
There are 2 difference.
The first is that the European male lineage was almost entirely wiped out. If everyone is the child of the winners, then you're a child of the winners. If that genetic breakdown is more of spectrum, then some are more children of winners than the others. Second, Europe kept winning. They do not have an issue of cultural inferiority. The Europeans do not have their own white man to look up to, to borrow from and to integrate into.
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This topic is part of a very contentious and visceral cultural war here in India with a lot of parties having vested interest in each interpretation. The whole subject is quite political. Academic Indology is extremely dominated by left leaning ideologues both in West and in India. Indology would either comprise of a postmodernist analysis of caste based power dynamics or a marxist histographical (again very anti-brahmanical) view of history which surprisingly is very pro-islamic. For example, Aryan Invasion Theory (proposed by the brilliant but very euro centric Indologist Max Weber) was defended very vigorously both through gate keeping and politicisation of any attenpt to challenge it, despite overwhelming evidence regarding a very gradual introduction of what is thought to be proto-hindu tribes Y chromosome in India(over 1000 years).
The Indic Right isn't much better as they subscribe to Out of India theory despite bery little arguments in support of it, though not many take them seriously. Currently the accepted view is Aryan Migration theory.
The fact that much of the archaelogical evidence that could have helped has been destroyed in over 500 years of Islamic invasion of India.
I'm not sure what the difference between Aryan Invasion Theory and Aryan Migration Theory is supposed to be. The genetic evidence matches pretty closely what we see in historical events that are universally considered invasions e.g. the Spanish conquest of the New World, which in terms of demographic impact took nearly 400 years to conclude during a time with much more advanced military technology and social organization than possessed by Bronze Age tribal peoples.
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I thought Wendy Doniger’s book was pretty good when I first read it.
Wendy Doniger is the kind of person who reads about Zarte Piet and sees that as proof that chattel slavery of black men dates back 1000 years in the Netherlands. Her 'fit my observations onto my own western priors' approach leads to conclusions that would confuse even the most illiterate Indian.
It would be like an Indian studying Abrahamic religion saying that Jesus, Moses and Muhamed were all avatars of the same person, who reincarnated in different space-times to enlighten that space-time of the dharmic way. The Indian would say: "They believe in a similar system Trimurti system as us. The creator is God who is Brahma. The one who interacts with the humans, is the son, who is Vishnu. However, because they do not have the same cyclic system as us, they've replaced the destroyer: Shiva with a Holy Spirit which feels kinda redundant."
Now imagine if this commentary was considered the preeminent scholarship on Abrahamic religions...... that's Wendy Doniger. She isn't malicious, it's simply that she isn't capable.
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I find it very hard to take Wendy Doniger seriously as an expert of Hinduism. It is very apparent to people born and brought up in Hindu tradition to see the inherent misunderstandings in her view regarding Hinduism.
For example, she wrote a book Shiva trying to reconcile how he is viewed as both a householder and ascetic in India. She theorized that tribes in war to attain peace adopted both opposite elements to describe the same deity, completely ignoring not only the available literature and tye depth of this contradiction. Ignoring the fact that all mythology invloving Shiva has depicted him always of being a walking contradiction, destroyer of the world acting as a protector of creation by consuming the poison with the threatening the existence of the universe, an ascetic with ash smeared all over his body despite adorning the holy river Ganga and the Moon on his head, with a nature described as calmness and yet having a fiery (would be an understatement) temper. All commentaries on Hindu thought historically starting from Vedas points to this and yet her academic assumption ignores this widely accepted fact.
Yeah. I was expecting someone to mention that at some point. I’m aware of what makes her controversial. But aside from an orthodox book like “What Is Hinduism?” or “Dancing with Siva” that’s trying to induct you into the religion, there isn’t much I could point to to recommend to a westerner that has zero familiarity with it.
I get that completely, I would point someone towards S Radhakrishnan, a respected scholar who also served as president of India.
The whole CW surrounding Hinduism in this current era is very fascinating and I hope I would be able to cover that in future threads.
I would love to read it.
I appreciate your and @screye's replies on the culture war aspects. As an American I am used to reading western history with the bias of the author in mind. But that's hard to do for parts of the world where I don't have the context; I can sometimes intuit the author's biases, but their implications are not clear to me.
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Why do you think this philosophy is so attractive to Christian westerners?
Is it a lack of responsibility for good deeds compared to Christianity?
Maybe a lack of understanding of the philosophy? Or just a rejection of Christianity and Hinduism is the easiest outlet?
It's... not particularly attractive, comparatively speaking? AFAIK most Christian westerners who grow tired with (one variant of) Christianity just move to atheism/agnosticism/apatheism or some other variant of Christianity, or possibly some sort of a New Age movement that serves a warmed-up version of more traditional strains of Western esotericism. Some people dabble with Eastern religions, but there's also movement back to Christianity from those circles (I personally know several people from those scenes who have converted to Orthodoxy).
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Answering the question you asked, I think it's in part because the unfamiliar is seen as exotic and interesting and exciting and novel, whereas what we grew up with, even if it was just in the background, is the same old boring thing. Part of it is the Exotic Wisdom Of The East notion and the lure of something that can be presented to be five thousand years old, and which is easier to get into than Judaism (which makes similar claims to antiquity and constant tradition to the present day).
Part of it is intellectual curiosity which means you want to be well-read and familiar with world cultures, and that in turn can devolve into the cherry-picking amongst westernised versions of Buddhism and other traditions. I think part of it could also be down to the efforts of ISKCON to introduce Krishna-devotion to the West; the Bhagavad Gita is a source text for that.
Part of it is that it doesn't make demands in the same way your natal or ancestral traditions do; you know what you have to do even if you're a fallen-away Christian (or Jew or Muslim) and if you fell away because you don't like the rules and the whole idea of sin and the rest of it, then you're not going back. But adopting a Westernised version of Hinduism or Buddhism leaves you free to pick and choose: you don't have to perform the faith as the natives would do it, you can pluck out the philosophy and the parts that appeal to you (look at how yoga has been treated). You can be spiritual but not religious. You can talk about karma and the rest of it, but it's not the same as sin and salvation; at the worst, you will be reborn in an earthly body to do it all over again and learn the lessons you need to learn (there's not much, if any, talk of the Buddhist hells or the Hindu afterlife of punishment in Western versions, even if those are not eternal as in Christianity). Moksha/liberation is also appealing because it's impersonal: no facing a personal God to answer for your sins in the afterlife, just merging into the cosmic energy of the universe.
I'm not saying there aren't sincere Western converts to Buddhism/Hinduism, but the pop culture version of these is what most people who'd toss off the "I am become Death" quote know.
I’ve found Hindu religious literature maddening to read. Its poeticism and lack of doctrinal, formal structure to it makes it like trying to hold sand in your hands. It’s also difficult to find some sort of definitive, religious entry point for learning about it. Most westerners I know, are more attracted to the visual displays of its practices than the intellectual philosophy of it.
But there are plenty of practices to leave people more than intrigued about the religion.
There's a lot of dense, what I would call in other contexts, theology for various sects and movements within Hinduism, but a surface level engagement with it is not going to introduce you to that. I've tootled around on various Wikipedia pages to find out "okay, so this guy is meant to be a guru and saint in a particular movement that taught - what, exactly?" when it comes to characters in biographical/religious movies.
There is also a strong devotional strain where exact theology and structure isn't important, what is important is being totally devoted and given over to God. See this person, for instance.
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Oppenheimer was Jewish, as pointed out by this salty opinion piece in Newsweek by "the editor in chief of Pasadena Magazine" (though looking at the latest issue online she seems to be a contributor, not editorial staff; however she is a features editor for Variety), which is "a bi-monthly lifestyle publication covering the people, institutions, and businesses of Pasadena and the surrounding San Gabriel Valley".
That article would make for a Culture War post in itself, as Ms. Saval seems to make a mini-speciality out of complaining about how Jews are treated in Hollywood. Now it's the turn of we Irish to be the most recent oppressors, by having an Irish actor play a (secular) Jewish character.
I feel a strong urge to go "Oy vey!" Or maybe "Faith an' begorrah!" A fella called Murphy from Cork with all belonging to him being teachers was raised Catholic? Plainly this is A Conspiracy!
Nolan is an Irish name too, you see how it all fits together? The Murphia in action to do down the Jewish actors who can't get a crumb of a part in any movie! We know this, because she says so:
All those poor, poor actors like Dustin Hoffman who just never got the chance for the big break because of the Irish in power in Hollywood keeping the best roles for themselves - look how Gabriel Byrne exerted his malign influence over the Coen Brothers when making Miller's Crossing.
It must be a conspiracy to do down Jewish actors, it can't just be that Nolan thinks Murphy is a good actor who also has the benefit of being extremely handsome with a fanbase from "Peaky Blinders" who might possibly turn up to watch this long biopic just to see him in it.
The CHEEK, she openly doesn’t care that no Chinese, nor Kurds, nor Poles, nor Englishman were considered for the role!! Now we know who is truly oppressed!
Yeah, it's not a case of "A black actor should play Othello, not a white actor in blackface", it's really getting near to "only X actors should play X characters".
Only a genuine one-sixteenth Cherokee triracial trans non-binary deaf wheelchair user from this one specific small town actor should play the character who has all those elements as described, no you can't get somebody who's deaf but not in a wheelchair to do it, that would be discrimination and racism!
This is precisely the attitude that killed the Scarlett Johansson movie:
The trans activists complained about it so she dropped out, and then it turned out the movie - which they wanted so badly for Representation - wasn't going to be made if there wasn't an A-list actor associated with the part, because guess what? If you're going to make one of these indie-type small movies that about four hundred people globally will go see, you need a Big Name to draw in the audience or else the studio knows it will sink like a recent Disney live-action remake and not even make the costs back. Oscar bait alone isn't good enough to persuade them to fund this. And they were shocked, shocked! that some unknown trans man actor wouldn't be good enough (maybe if Elliot Page had been out at the time and wanted to do the project, but who knows?) but they had cut off their noses to spite their faces.
What's even more laughable is that casting Murphy is supposed to prove anti-Semitism in Hollywood. Hollywood, of all places.
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Oh, that’s good!
Man, that article is one of the clearest illustrations of the “the Jew cries out in pain as [s]he strikes you” trope I’ve seen in a while. Imagine being somebody who writes about Hollywood for a living, but whose main takeaway is “this industry is unfair to Jews.” The… I won’t even call it lack of self-awareness, because at this point it’s gone beyond that to a perceptual failure so catastrophic that it causes you to reach a conclusion 180 degrees opposite from the correct conclusion based on the data all around you on display here is jaw-dropping.
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How is Hinduism practiced in the day to day life of adherents? I see videos of Indians praying to certain gods. Is it like Greco Roman religion where they pray to request a favor, and offer a sacrifice if the favor is granted? Is it more like Islam where there is a reward in the afterlife?
It's more like being in a Frat than a religion per se. Notice how temples are somewhat distanced from the practice of the religion, and serve more are source of community. The first point undergirds the rest. You intuitively understand that none of your neighbors might practice the same thing as you. You shrug and move on. But if a neighbor ever puts their nose in your practices and tells you what's right or wrong, that's a grave social mistake.
It is easier to say what's not Hindu than what is Hindu. Never claim to know a universal truth, and never make passes on other people's group's membership rituals. That's a good start. No wonder the Jews and Parsis fit right in. They already performed #2 , and ended up performing #1 simply out of fear borne from being a tiny minority.
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My family is hardly the most religious, but in general Hindus perform sacrifices during certain festivals or auspicious occasions, with an explicit desire for blessings, and a smaller number will perform sacrifices as a thank you for something they perceived as a boon.
E.g. A devout Hindu family's kid is about to give an important exam. They'll perform a ritual, visit a temple and make a donation, all before the exam for good luck. If the kid does well, they might do it again to express their thanks, there's no hard and fast rule.
Reminds me of indigenous East Asian practices in many ways. Daoism always reminded me of what something like “spiritual banking,” would look like. You say a prayer or light incense for your ancestors, in the hopes that some good fortune gets bestowed upon you.
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It is somewhat irresponsible to mention dharma without also covering dukkha.
Wait, but you just also did that.
I know, and I weighed the consequences of brevity in this instance, and decided that a correction in one sentence was sufficient. To fulfill dharma I cannot be obligated to address all dukkha incurred by another's attempt to teach.
It is also an intended read that if you are irresponsible enough to take spiritual training (is it the transfer of knowledge about the spirit?) over the Internet from someone's book report, you can be responsible for performing your own search.
Is there any allowance for humor in Hinduism?
The better question is if there's any allowance for humor here; how many of the people who upvoted you did so because of the logical point it contained? ;)
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Wow, super interesting to see how the Hindu use of the word seems to differs from the use of the word in western meditation circles, which might be more like "Ultimate Truth", or "Behaviors in harmony with the Ultimate Truth", where Ultimate Truth is understood to be the truth of No-Self, achieved by enlightened beings. So there "Dharma" means something like "the set of knowledge and behaviors that lead to Enlightenment, as well as the knowledge gained from Enlightenment"
In Buddhism this is Anatman or Anatta (Sanskrit or Pali, much of Buddhist writings are in Pali). Its is the negative prefix A- before a word mentioned earlier in this thread concerning Hinduism, Atman.
In short the major schools of Hinduism all agree on the existence of the Atman, a universal "self" or essence of an individual. There is some overlap here with the western concept of a soul. In the single clearest division of Buddhist teaching and Hindu, the Buddhists reject the existence of the Atman/Self as illusory and a hindrance to moksha.
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Because, you are talking about the Buddhist version of the word. It isn't the same as the more orthodox Hindu schools versions. The Western version isn't even the same as the Buddhists, but it's closer to it.
I’ve always looked at Buddhism more like Hinduism, with most of the fancy God’s and supernaturalism cut out of it. There’s a ‘lot’ of overlap otherwise, between the two.
Buddhism’s often looked at as an atheistic religion, that either has no God’s at best, or “doesn’t make use of God’s,” at worst, in its practice. But it’s open to anyone’s use and import of the concept. Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism don’t make very heavy use of the supernatural when you compare it to Tibetan Buddhism, which makes ‘very heavy’ use of the supernatural.
Eh, the Buddhists say they don't believe in God, but the way they talk about Dharma or the Buddha nature is indistinguishable from how other religions talk about God. The contradictions seem to be the point in Buddhism though. It seems like they are trying to play a joke on you by passing off obvious contradictions as if they really make sense if you think about them enough. And then after you've wasted your life meditating on them you don't want to admit you got duped so you keep passing it on.
I've noticed this in the way some Pure Land traditions interact with Amitahba, or some ethnic traditions like the Tibetan's retain their traditional polytheistic gods, but in the Cha'an descended Mahayana traditions or the Sri Lankan descended Theravada there's nothing like the treatment of Siddhartha Gautama as a deity.
There are jokes though, something the Abrahamic faiths seem pretty light on. In general the laity don't seem to take it as seriously as the monastics do, its largely an ethnic church where you go to temple on certain times and perform certain traditions, try to live my a set of moral norms, and don't get all to bothered over it day to day. Buddhism also leaves space for traditional superstitions to co-exist in many cultures like the relationship with Daoism and Trad. Chinese folk beliefs or with Shinto in Japan.
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Interesting stuff, but I'd say that it deserves its own post.
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I know that the “culture war” thread has long since morphed into the “general thread for society and current events”, but I think there should be some sort of restriction on what topics are allowed in top level posts. Otherwise there’s not much point in maintaining a separate thread.
This doesn’t even have a tenuous connection to the CW and would have been better off as its own separate thread.
Just to clarify, these kinds of posts are fine in the culture war thread. We have not created any explicit rule against these types of posts, and we have never enforced anything against them.
A minor history lesson:
The original culture war threads were just discussion threads where culture war topics were allowed rather than completely banned.
A bunch of rules have arisen over time to handle how culture war topics are handled and presented, but at no point were non-culture war topics banned, it's just that they defacto did not show up in the culture war threads because those topics were allowed to happen elsewhere in the community.
Basically the culture war thread was set up as fence to keep culture war topics in rather than to keep other topics out.
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While this is a little harsh, I agree that this would be better as a thread on its own to discuss it in more depth. Maybe it could be moved to be a separate thread, as there's a lot to get into and it needs the room for comments distinct from the rest of the Culture War stuff?
I’d like to see an Insight Porn Tuesdays thread, where we explain interesting and illuminating things. This is the kind of thing which would be perfect for it. They could be tangential or even “logistical” to the culture war (Vivek R. (R) is a monotheist Hindu, which makes this timely).
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If he had just added two sentences at the end about how white liberals tend to find Hinduism attractive for x and y reason it would be fine. He even mentioned that in the beginning.
The CW angle is clear in my mind, I think it just needs a tad extra exposition at the end. That being said it’s already far higher quality and more interesting than most of the other posts in the last month.
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The CW thread has long had posts that have little connection to the "culture war" but are nonetheless interesting. I think it's fine. The distinction between the CW thread and toplevel posts comes from /r/ssc, where culture war posts were quarantined (iirc), but after all the splits the main thing we care about is the CW thread so there's no need to enforce any separation.
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I don't disagree that this isn't really culture war, but I want OP to know that even it is decided that this isn't the right place for this post, I found his post interesting and educational and look forward to reading more, whether in this thread or elsewhere.
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