Exceptions Prove the Rule

I would love to tell you that Hindus have always been shining examples of a people who consistently respect religious traditions, but I'd be lying if I did. Human nature, and the tendency to believe that one's own faith is not only the best, but perhaps the only valid one, has raised its head in Indian history, too.

If you have a look at the Puranas, you'll find that while some of them are quite versalistic in outlook, others are notably sectarian. Some of  the authors of the Puranas poke fun at their neighbor's gods in a fairly lighthearted manner. In others the insults get edgier.

At times, friction between different Hindu dominations has gotten out of hand. At some points, the devotees of Vishnu have actively persecuted the devotees of Shiva. At other points, the devotees of Shiva have persecuted the devotees of Vishnu.Non-Hindus living in India, such as Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists, and more recently Muslims, have occasionally taken some serious hits from fanatical Hindus.

A Test of Tolerance

Before the arrival of the Muslims around 1000 C.E; Hindus handily assimilated all the would-be conquerors who came storming over its northern borders. The Kushans (Mongolians), the Parthians (Persians), and the Huns all eventually melted into India's embrace, disappearing into the sea of Hindu Culture.

The broad-minded Hindus were able to accommodate just about everybody who came knocking on their door-until the Muslims. For the first time, foreign invaders left wounds so deep they refused to heal. Hindu tolerance was being put to the ultimate test.

In ancient times, however, religious tolerance was the norm throughout much of the world. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, were astonishingly tolerant of other religions,at least by today's standards. As the monotheistic religion's began to dominate world culture, respect for other cultures, religious beliefs largely disappeared.  Today Hindu culture is one of the last remaining enclaves of a universal -minded religion.

A Peaceable People

Generally speaking, the Hindus are a peaceable people. Whether or not different communities liked each other, they made an effort to get along. The caste system, considered evil in the West, assured that different subcultures, whether they ranked in high or low in the pecking order, survived relatively unmolested within the framework of India's structured society.

The Hindus are perhaps the most peaceful of the major world cultures. Think about it : For at least 2,500 years, the only significant military foray Hindus have made outside India was the South Indian conquest of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines around 1400 C.E. Hindus may fight with each other but thy've had very little interest in conquering anyone else-though many of the world's other cultures have certainly had a crack at conquering India!

One Culture, Many Traditions

Westerners today tend to think of India in monolithic terms : one country, one culture. In reality, at very few times for a very brief periods in its history has most of the Indian subcontinent been unified-at least until 1947 when the state of Bharat (the Indian name for India) was created. Instead, for most of its long history, India has been home to an amazingly large number of district subcultures.


There are about 80,000 subcultures in India today. That's not a misprint-the correct figure is 80,000. Over 325 languages are spoken there, not to mention thousands of dialects. There are also 25 commonly used written scripts . And we think of America as a melting pot of different cultures!

Hinduism is by far the most complex religion in world, shading under its enormous umbrella an incredibly diverse array of contrasting beliefs, practices, and denominations. Hinduism is by far the oldest major religion. It has had more than enough time to develop a diversity of opinions and approaches to spirituality unmatched in any other tradition.

The Tolerant Religion

Christianity and Islam are aggressive missionary religions. In Hinduism, missionary efforts have traditionally been exception rather than the rule. For the most part, the Hindu attitude toward other faith is " Live and let live".

This does not mean Hindus always look at what goes on in other traditions, or even within their own tradition, with unblinking acceptance. Even in the Veda, the rishis rolled their eyes at what they felt were the excesses of some of the trible practices and urged Hindus to live nobly, abiding by the highest ideals and practicing some rudiments of self-control. How did Hinduism develop this tolerant spirit?

Inner Religion

One of the great ironies of religious history is that, although the religions that came out of the Near East-Judaism, Islam Chistianity-adamantly reject most of Hinduism's fundamental teachings, their mystical traditions-the Kabbalah, Sufism, and Christian Gnosticism-reflect Hindu insights in almost every detail. Numerous students of comparative religion, from Muslim scholar Al Biruni in 1000 C.E. to the world famous writer Aldous Huxley nearer our own time have expressed their amazement at the parallels between the major mystical traditions of the world and Hinduism.

The Image of God

There are probably no two religions as radically opposed in their fundamental beliefs as Hinduism and Islam.The meeting of Muslim and Hindu cultures led to catastrophic historical consequences still playing out in South Asia today.

Muslim feel it is a spiritual crime to make an image of God. Hindus feel that, used with proper understanding, images of God, such as the statues of various deities found in Hindu temples, are an excellent way to focus the mind on the divine. Some Muslims feel they are called upon by their faith to destroy any images of God they came across.

During the first few centuries of the Muslim occupation of North India, that today you must travel to south India, where the Muslims didn't penetrate, to find a truly ancient Hindu temple.

Using an image as a focus for worship is a defining Characteristic of Hinduism. You"ll learn about it in Chapter 11, " Can you Show Me God?"