The New York Times recently ran a story about a mysterious gigantic swastika in Kyrgyzstan. The swastika in question is 600 feet across, at least 60 years old, and made out of fir trees:
Legend has it that German prisoners of war, pressed into forestry duty after World War II, duped their Soviet guards and planted rows of seedlings in the shape of the emblem Hitler had chosen as his own.
More than 20 years later, the trees rose tall enough to be visible from the village beneath. Only then did the swastika appear, a time-delayed act of defiance by vanquished soldiers marooned in a corner of Stalin’s Soviet Union.
For all the tidiness of legend, however, the tale is not quite true. [Link]
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p>The article then goes on to present various explanations for the swastika, none of which quite click. A major reason why they don’t click is that the swastika in question obviously not a Nazi swastika (based on its orientation) but a Hindu/Parsi/Buddhist/Jain one:
The mystery’s persistence is in its way surprising, given that as a Nazi swastika the symbol is imperfect, whether by design or because of uneven terrain. Hitler’s swastika was tilted 45 degrees; the formation here is almost level. Moreover, the arms do not mimic the Third Reich’s symbol, but its mirror image — a swastika in reverse. [Link]
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p>Left facing swastikas long predate the Nazis and are common in Asia. One explanation for the swastika is that it is in some way connected to Hinduism. The swastika is known as the “Eki Naryn swastika” and is located in a town of the same name. The phrase “Ek Narayan” means “One God.”
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p>However, we don’t know it was Hindus for sure. It could be the Chinese:
[The left facing] swastika is often found on Chinese food packaging to signify that the product is vegetarian and can be consumed by strict Buddhists. It is often sewn into the collars of Chinese children’s clothing to protect them from evil spirits. [Link] [It is a well known fact that Chinese spirits are afraid of children of dyslexic Nazis– ed]
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p>In Taiwan, the swastika is a generic symbol for temple:
On maps in the Taipei subway system a swastika symbol is employed to indicate a temple, parallel to a cross indicating a Christian church. [Link]
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Synbols on a Taipei subway map |
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p>In fact, China’s first “red cross” society was the Red Swastika society, founded in 1922. [Both India and Sri Lanka tried to have the Red Swastika approved as an official part of the Red Cross society, but had to back down].
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p>Wikipedia lists a very long list of cultures who use the Swastika as their symbol, none of which have anything to do with Nazis. In Asia, the symbol shows up first amongst Parsis and Hindus, spreading from there to Buddhists, and from Buddhists to the rest of East Asia:
The use of the swastika by the indigenous Bon faith of Tibet, as well as syncretic religions, such as Cao Dai of Vietnam and Falun Gong of China, is thought to be borrowed from Buddhism as well. [Link]
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p>Not all the uses of the symbol can be explained by cultural diffusion, however. It arose on its own amongst Native Americans as well, most notably the Navajo and Hopi. Wikipedia conjectures:
The ubiquity of the swastika symbol is easily explained by it being a very simple symbol that will arise independently in any basketweaving society. The swastika is a repeating design, created by the edges of the reeds in a square basket-weave. [Link]
Coming back to the Eki Naryan swastika, I don’t think it’s a Nazi symbol at all. People with a hammer will see every problem as a nail, and former Soviets are likely to see every swastika as associated with the Nazis. Occam’s razor suggests that the symbol has more local roots than some Indiana Jones type story. Personally, my money is on stranded Buddhist time travellers who were trying to signal their spacecraft …
It’s easy enough to understand.
That’s a snoozer, alright.
I’m going to think of it in Internet terms. Monotheism is like logging into Amazon.com: you go to one God, He takes care of everything (except maybe during the holiday season, when you should allow 4-6 weeks for delivery). He’s your “Take Care of Everything Portal.”
(Monistic) Polytheism is like having the entire Internet at your disposal. You can have fiduciary spiritual support from Wellsfargo.com (aka Lakshmi), or you can order takeout at Pizzahut.com (Annapurna), or you can try to get the goods on your neighbor via Google (say, Saraswati).
Thanks Ennis and Mystic Devi.
Kurma, by ‘accept’ I meant to say ‘accept as a god/as divine’. So, for Muslims, while Jesus was a prophet he was emphatically not God/the son of God. We are talking about metaphysical considerations, not emotional ones (though the first rather stupidly often lead to the latter!).
Monotheistic religions never accept a plurality of gods, though they may in some cases recognize a plurality of names/understandings of God. This is perhaps a special quality of Sikhism, perhaps partly because it is an offshoot of Hinduism. You could argue that Sufism and medieval Christian mystics like Eckhart accept that the same God is called by different names and understood in a myriad of ways. But Sufism, Eckhart, these seem to be exceptions which prove the rule. How does a Christian who is convinced God is Love accept that a fearful or violent God worshipped by others is the same as his own? Or an indifferent God? Or human-all-too-human gods?
When you cut it fine, it seems to come down to a difference between those believers who understand the divine in terms of identifiable qualities (including name), and those believers who understand the divine as something beyond all such qualities.
Sometimes souls have to pass through the advaitic stage in order to get to the dwaitic stage. As is evidenced in the life of Shuka – the narrator of the Srimad Bhagavatam.
Sure. And Neo-Vedantins invert that and assert that non-dual Brahman is the only reality. They base it on the four mahavakyas of the Upanishads:
“I am Brahman” (Aham Brahmasmi).
“The Self is Brahman” (Ayam Atma Brahma).
“That thou art” (Tat tvam asi).
“Consciousness is Brahman” (Prajnanam Brahma).
Dvaita (dualism with God-as-person and jiva-as-separate) and acintya bheda bheda (simultaneous difference/non-difference) being provisional rungs on their own ladder. Of course the other bhaktivedantins interpret the Upanishad sentences above in their own differing ways too. It is important to note that no one killed each other over the differences, and that may be the defining tenet of the traditions collectively referred to as Hinduism. It was and still is, “each in his own way,” whether thats the Hindu housewife with her pictures of Krishna, Sai Baba and Jesus, the rural folk worshipping Maraiaman, or the Bengali Marxist rejecting it all and exhorting the cadres to ‘worship man’ (as Jyoti Basu recently did).
Personally, I incline to an impersonalist view. Krishna with his cows and gopis is a maha cool dude and all, but not my cup of tea. Shiva is very cool too, as is Ganesh.
Mystic Devi,
The Guru Granth Sahib also refers to God as Allah, Khuda, Rab etc too. The Sikh Gurus interacted with Sufis as well, several of whose writings are included in the SGGS.
(I understand your point but I thought that the above should be mentioned too).
To others:
That’s a matter of opinion and one which is rejected by the faith. Sikhism isn’t an offshoot of anything.
People who regard it as a syncretic faith are entitled to their opinion, but it’s not one which the faith itself teaches and absolutely not one which I share, as I and numerous other Sikhs have discussed on SM on many occasions during the past year.
HMF, What about Sammy Davis Jr? And Madonna? You’re gonna break her heart.
Desitude, I just wanted to mention that I’m finding your explanations of various Hindu/Vedantic teachings to be superbly written and very educational.
I second Jai # 56. Desitude thank you. You’ve been brilliant.
I don’t want to get into a debate over the roots of Sikhism – but the trait you point out in Sikhism (ie viewing Allah and Christ and Brahma as different names for the same God) has not been remarkable in Christians and Muslims throughout history.
brown godz rok!
Sikhs don’t see themselves that way. And no portion of Hinduism that I know of uses Muslim names for G-d too. For some reason, people focus on the use of Hindu names for G-d, but not the opposite.
You also have to remember that there are writings by both Hindu and Muslim writers in the Guru Granth Sahib.
Ennis, No, Hinduism doesn’t use the names of Allah or Christ for God, but I’ve walked into temples in India and seen pictures of Christ up on the wall beside Lakshmi, Ganesha etc.
And I’ve often heard Vaishnavas say that Allah is a name for the formless Brahm (formless aspect of the Absolute Truth), since muslims do not assert a form for Allah.
Mystic Devi,
I thought I should clarify the first half of my post #54, as I feel I may have accidentally come across as rude.
The Sikh Gurus — and remember that there were 10 of them, from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh, all of whom contributed to the contents of the SGGS — used the names for God which were in common usage at the time in a number of different religions. So you are indeed correct in saying that they used the names Govind and Ram. However, it should however be mentioned that, unless the context clearly indicated otherwise, these names referred to what they regarded as the single, infinite, formless God (“Ek Onkar”), not the mythological (or historical, depending on one’s beliefs) figures depicted in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata respectively.
Sikhism does not believe in avtaars or human incarnations of God (which would include Christ, from the traditional Christian perspective, for example), and teaches that any actual historical figures which may be revered as such by certain other faiths were not actually God Himself, although they may indeed have been exceptionally spiritually-enlightened individuals.
Anyway, my previous post was just intended to pre-empt individuals who make the false assertion of Sikhism being some kind of “branch” or “offshoot” of Hinduism. We occasionally meet people like that in life, and unfortunately some of them occasionally attempt to press the point here on SM too. No ire was directed at you personally 🙂
venu, can I just say you’re a genius? A smiley for Salil’s #51 – 🙂
OK, in summary, dvaita or advaita, does anything mentioned in this thread, even remotely coincide with that the Westerner commonly understands by the word ‘polytheism’? The understanding here is more on the lines of Mystic Devi’s comment #45.
Can someone provide an argument about why Catholic (definitely christian no matter what protestants say) worship of Mary and the saints doesn’t put it at the same level of closeness/distance to monotheism as Hinduism where a Vishnu worshipper can have have similar regard for Ganesha, Hanuman?
DQ, I still need to discuss your #52. Wish today weren’t so bad and I could participate more in this great conversation. Maybe I’m having a tough day because of some accidental blasphemy here 🙂
Well, maybe Mary and the saints aren’t such a great analogy, but I hope you get my point. As long as all gods/holy figures are subordinate to the ultimate one as in the layman’s concept, why is it not analogous to some monotheistic religion which allows for holy figures subordinate to God. I mean, think of President vs. Secretaries of various departments. In the story of the Vamana avata, it is explicitly mentioned that Indra, for instance, serves at the pleasure of Vishnu.
We don’t even have to get to the more philosophical understandings mentioned in many comments.
Kurma, I have never known a single Hindu who does not believe in one god who is above all the others. This god is taken as a way for the devotee to access/visualize God. Viashnavites choose Vishnu, Shaivites choose Shiva etc.
Say hello to your half-Deist half-agnostic Hindu friend 🙂
desitude, Level 2: Saguna Brahman: literally Brahman with Gunas, or Brahman with qualities. Here the unqualified, unmediated Absolute is viewed dualistically as a result of mithya or illusion. First, I think Hinduism can be viewed at many different levels. As the good ol’ folk religion, many of these considerations are not “articles of faith” for practitioners. The “keepers of the faith” do insist on some of these philosophical positions, but many practioners believe that these are not very important for their faith. Indeed, the massive bhakti movement arose because people felt that ritualistic and philosophical expressions of religion were not very satisfying, and that direct personal relationship with God was more inspiring.
Second, using Western philosophical terms is perfectly fine. I personally think that it is a great way to look at the religion, and indeed a quite valuable approach. I think you will find, however, that there is a vast variety of opinion on many of these philosophical problems. If you look at metaphysics, there are Hindu approaches that are “realist” and those that are “idealist”. If you look at theology, you will find monotheism, polytheism, atheism, agnosticism, animism – you name it, we got it! Similarly for epistemology and the various other problems that philosophy seeks to concern itself with.
I was about start a paragraph with ‘No less a personage than Amartya Sen at Hah-vahd’ says that atheism is a valid “way” under Hinduism when I noticed that you had already mentioned Amartya Sen under ‘atheism’. I don’t know about his own position on theology, but I think his position is that under Hinduism, there is no single way, somewhat similar to what I have to say below on essentialism.
HMF, And from what I know, orthodox Jews believe that one cannot convert into Judiasm at all. Their position is, either you were born into it or not. I would go further and say that in Judaism, only the Jews are the chosen people. However, many modern forms of Judaism do allow conversion.
Dharma Queen, I thought the more correct term for Hinduism was monistic polytheism i.e. one divine spirit manifesting itself through multiple deities.
I know that most people would think of, say, Shiva, Rama and Durga as separate divinities, but I think your point is not on the folk religion, but on its philosophy. I think ‘monistic polytheism’ is a very common way that people articulate their faith. Probably any Hindu you will talk to would either articulate such a position, or say he doesn’t really know, but I think this is not nescessarily the philosophical position of Hinduism.
I would hesitate to qualify Hinduism as essentially monistic or dualistic in philosophical terms, although there are very, very significant strands of opinion that believe in non-dualism (advaita) and dualism (dvaita). I would also hesitate to qualify Hinduism as monotheistic, polytheistic or any flavor thereof, although the Vedantas specifically try to address this issue. Although I do believe that the Vedantas are an excellent interpretation of Hinduism (and probably what you think of when you say Hindu philosophy) and that monistic polytheism might be a good description of one specific strand of Vedanta, I would be reluctant to say that this the only way possible for a Hindu. The reason for all this hesitation, reluctance and general humming-and-hawing is that such positions themselves would be somewhat essentialist (Note that essentialism is only making a very broad assumption, namely, that entities have properties – that’s it! that’s all!). I would not say that Hinduism is non-essentialistic, but I would at least say that we cannot assume that Hinduism is essentialistic.
I would argue that the most consistent thread that runs throughout the long span of Hinduism is the recognition that there are multiple “ways”. (One of these ways could be monotheism and another could be polytheism and yet another atheism, but neither way excludes the other. All of them agree that the other ways could be possible ways.)
Jai and JOAT:
Thanks for the warm words 🙂
Shankar:
I think I’m pretty much in agreement with you
but many practioners believe that these are not very important for their faith.
Of course, thats why may man said “wtf mate?” at the end of my legnthy comment 🙂 Some of the “philosphical” positions are indeed “elite” positions, and my writing on a few aspects of them obviously reveals my biases, but they are important in sustaining the traditions as well.
Great, refreshing, non-infammatory discussion on what moves us (or not) in these matters of religion and dharma, brownz!
desitude, Totally. Great discussion. I would like to share the famous Song of Creation from the Rig Veda. For me, nothing expresses better this openness to all sorts of philosophical inquiry than this poem.
1 THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
2 Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day’s and night’s divider. That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
3 Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos. All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
4 Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit. Sages who searched with their heart’s thought discovered the existent’s kinship in the non-existent.
5 Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it? There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
6 Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The Gods are later than this world’s production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
7 He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.
I love the way it starts off with these descriptions of the beginning when there was absolutely Nothing : ‘no realm of air, no sky beyond it’. With the references to “darkness” and “chaos”, and subsequent references “Warmth” and “Desire”, you are, like, yes! we are going to find out the Hindu version of how the universe was created. But instead, these questions : ‘Who verily knows and who can here declare it’ : epistemological questions. ‘whence it was born and whence comes this creation?’ : questions on Origin. And then, more questions : ‘He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it’. Is he really the source? Is he the only source? ‘Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven’ Is he omnipotent? Is he in control?’. And, finally, it not only admits the conclusion that we don’t know, it even admits the conclusion that perhaps there are things even the big G doesn’t know. ‘he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not’. Beautiful!
Shankar,
Very interesting, thank you. Thanks to you as well Desitude.
I would say many of my notions of Hinduism are derived from the Upanishads. I’m thinking of that one that states, in describing the divine ‘he is the father of lightning, he is the season and the seas, he is the parrot with red eyes…’ and the other which describes the self as composed of two parts – like two birds sitting on a branch, one living and acting in the world while the other (the Atman) looks on, unmoved. Most of the Upanishads reflect this sense of the divine permeating and manifesting itself through all material things.
Kurma,
Catch me whenever. This is a great discussion!
I guess the essential difference would be that Hinduism considers some Gods to be avatars of the divine consiousness that come to remind human beings that we are part of the divine consiousness, and other Gods representative of the different aspects of Creation. In Hinduism (and I guess by that I mean advaitic hinduism), God, the Guru and the Self are all one. God is consiousness in the unmanifested form, Guru is consiousness in the manifested form that is aware of the manifestation and the Self is consiousness in the manifested form that is trying to be aware of the manifestation.
I don’t think Christianity has a similar principle even though some of the works by Alan Watts (Jesus? His Religion) seem to dispute that. In this aspect of Christian worship (again from my understanding of what I have read…I don’t have personal experience here), Mary, the saints and even Jesus help you along the way to God, but are not God.
Another interesting (well, to me) thing that comes to mind is that Hinduism worships the many aspects of God because the concept of prayer (puja) is that of playing with God. We bathe him, clothe him, adorn him, and feed him as thanks for his doing the same to us. And, we do it to the different aspects of Godhood, depending on the occasion. So polytheism in this sense is not worship of different competing Gods, but worship of different aspects of God because of our limitation to comprehend something so vast as God.
Dharma Queen, Things I wanted to discuss about #52 have already been dealt with in the subsequent comments. Thank you and desitude, Jai, Janeofalltrades and Shankar everyone who participated here. I can easily imagine pointing people to this thread in the future. Shankar, thanks for posting that great poem.
desitude,
A very good point. So, despite all our denials about the social aspect of it, the fact that all those who identify themselves as Hindus get along very well with each other on matters of belief is essential to putting this huge variety of beliefs under one big umbrella..
Venu, unless you talk to the unitarians, Jesus IS God. He is part of the holy trinity.
This is a perfectly fine way to characterize Hinduism or another religion. But is it polytheism? Typing “define: polytheism” into Google yields this.
I’m taking it that everyone agrees that Hinduism fails to meet the simple definition of “belief in multiple Gods” which is a lay Western accepted definition of polytheism. Please correct me if anyone feels that this contradicts what you have said. Venu zeroes in on one issue which is critical to me for polytheism. When are multiple entities really multiple and when are they different aspects of the same? The difference lies in whether they may compete.
kurma:
Check out this interesting paper on atheism and related traditions in Hindu thought.
It seems you cannot read the whole paper unless u have access to jstor. I am sorry I did not realize this earlier. If you(or anyone else) don’t have access and want a copy, plz let me know and I’ll try to send in a copy. Usually univs have access, I guess.
No, Hinduism doesn’t use the names of Allah or Christ for God, but I’ve walked into temples in India and seen pictures of Christ up on the wall beside Lakshmi, Ganesha etc.
Proof positive, here is a picture from a temple in north India, about 3 months ago.
About 6 months ago, I went to a lively debate by a Evengical Christian theologan from a seminary and a Buddhist Professor at OSU sponsored by Socrates Club. In some ways they were unique as both of them practiced religion and were also academic scholars. What came out of discussion were two things:
They are essentially two strands of major religions: dharmic and abrahamic (I haven’t said anything new yet) – the interesting thing that the society at that time plays a major role when that region is born. A shepard like religious leader (Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammed) had to take birth in middle east nomadic society with sparse resources at that time. It would have not happened in India at that time. Religions are not born out of vaccuum. Religions from South Asia has lot to do with the way people have lived there.
Another concept, religions are not static constructs. Like Buddhism and Hinduism has centuries of to and fro, they give and take concepts from each other. Also, Buddhism in Japan today is quite different from what is in Sri Lanka – there is strong cultural osmosis. Same for Christianity in Africa, Asia (India), Europe, Middle East are different. Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha is quite different Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha series. So, people drum-beating homogenized, neatly-packaged, pristine forms of their religion just crack me up. Triva: There are few well known Catholic Priests (American and Europeans) who profess Christianity as well as Buddhism. They were discussed too. I am forgetting their names right now.
In the end, Buddhist Professor said Buddha would consider Jesus Christ an enlightened one, and the Evengelical theologican was also quite gracious about different ways to wisdom.
I havent read through all the comments, but i always thought that swastika had its origins in sanskrit… Su – “good” and Asti – “being”
Here’s a hopefully much more convincing example with less apocryphal connections to Nazism. (Hint: These trees were planted in Germany.)
The word swastika is sanskrit, Mumbaiker.
The Nazi ‘swastika’ in German was called the Hakenkreuz (hooked cross). The British started calling the symbol by same the name their black skinned hindoo colonial subjects used as kind of a subverse dig at the Nazis.
Just an interesting factoid, I thought I would point out.
Kurma,
Sorry about the late response. You raised some excellent questions, and I am posting what I think about them below. Most of this is just my personal opinion, and there is a fair amount of generalization.
IMHO, a relgion should be classified based on the nature of the highest power it recognizes. For example, Hinayana Buddhism is better classified as atheist than polytheistic, even though it may recognize hindu gods. This is because the most powerful ‘entity’ in Buddhism is still the Eternal Cycle, which is not any god but just a ‘law’, and even the gods are seen as subordinate to it, though they may be more powerful than humans. A perfect polytheistic religion, on the other hand, may be the religion of the ancient Greeks, where Zeus was the most powerful god, but the difference was merely quantitative, not qualitative. Zeus was like so many other gods, only more powerful and virile.
You raised an extremelyinteresting point there. Religions need to do a constant balancing act between the philosophical/intellectual needs, and the emotional needs, of their followers. From the intellectual point of view, is it satisfying to define God as an ‘unknowable essence’. However, this does not serve the emotional needs of many people; people prefer a personal God who is less distant, looks after them and occasionally grants a favor or two. In christianity, this need is answered by the figure of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Most christians I know are far more passionate when they talk about Jesus than they are about God.
Islam has worked very hard to resist this temptation, by refusing to deify Mohammad, and disallowing all idols. However, I feel, many muslims derive the comfort of a personal god, from the concept of the ummah. Prayer in Islam is a very communal exercise, and they feel a closeness and sense of identity with their muslim brethren during prayer, which helps to make up for the lack of of a less distant god.
I agree with you, that pragmatically it may be a good approach to start a discussion. However, I often find the ‘people of the book’ and little too smug, and it just puts me off all discussion. Maybe its just me 🙂 .
Good stuff, Sakshi.
Love the point you raise about Islam relying on the Ummah to establish the personal connection that is hard to have with a formless God. What you say about the ancient Greek religion vs. Hinduism is precisely what I had in mind too coming to this thread – qualitative vs. quantitative supremacy of one deity.
On a somewhat related note to your comment, congregants in one Indian church I know ranged from those who had statues and pictures of Jesus and Mary and had lamps, flowers before them to those who would not allow themselves to even have a bar cross in their home for fear that it would be “idolatry”.
I meant
cross
get over it the third reich has been long dead. what do some of you think SS is offensive yet we use them on cars the swastika is just a symbol of luck. get over it already.