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INDIA

Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken is a favorite poem for many people, partly because it speaks so well of a universal human question, the question of what things might have been like had we made a slightly different decision at some point earlier in our lives. In history, too, we ask such questions: what if Lee had adopted a different strategy at Gettysburg? What if the Persians had won at Marathon? Historians frequently play that "what if" game, and sometimes ask students to join them in guessing what history would have been like "if only...."

Sometimes, the "what if" questions can be partly answered by looking at societies that made different choices at similar history turning points, and it seems to me that, in looking at Western civilization, it's useful to exam civilizations that made different kinds of choices.

Generalization: In many ways, India and China mark roads not taken by Western Civilization.

The people of India developed one of the world's first great civilizations. At roughly same time great civilizations developing in Egypt and Mesopotamia, an equally strong civilization was developing in the Indus valley (what we usually call Harrapan civilization). Now here is a strange thing: all of you have heard of Egypt and Mesopotamia as "cradles of civilization," but no one hears about Harrapan civilization. Partly this is because we can't decipher their writing. We can read hieroglypics and cuneiform, but not Harrapan script. Nevertheless, archealogists have discovered enough to know that, in many ways, Harrapan civilization was like that of Egypt and Mesoptamia (see these excellent links to Harrapan sites).

Around 1500 B.C. Harrappan civilization came to an end. We don't know for sure exactly how and why (since we have no written records) but many historians believe that the arrival of a new people into India, the Aryans, played an important role in disruppting Harrapan civilization. These Aryans, already dominating Media and Persia, now moved on to India as well (c. 1500 BC). At the time, the Aryans were illiterate, but they were militarily strong enough to dominate much of the subcontinent.

Interestingly, the Aryans themselves ended up establishing one of the world's greatest civilizations. The next 1000 years of Indian history (1500-500 BC), what we call the Vedic age is a great creative period (see these Aryan /Vedic Age links). During this time, India produced some of the world's most impressive art and architecture. In addition, India was for hundreds of years the greatest center of mathematics in the world. Only in the 17th century did Europeans catch up, and even today many of the world's top mathematicians are from India. India also was the original home of the world's greatest game, chess. (Invented perhaps by and Indian queen to distract her overly-amorous husband.) In chess and in mathematics, India does not mark a road not taken: the western world copied much from Indian society.

But in other ways, India does mark a road not taken, particularly in India's areas of greatest achievement, literature and religion. India produced some of the greatest epics in all of human history, poems full of exciting stories and impressive insights into human nature. And yet Indian literature, works like the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Ramayana, and the Bhagavad Gita, are little known in the west and have had very little impact on Western civilization.

One reason for this is that the great works of Indian literature are all religious works, works dominated by the ideas of one of the world's most fascinating religions, Hinduism. And it is in the area of religion that Indian society most clearly marks a road not taken by western civilization.

Hinduism is a complex religion and, as the Hindus themselves admit, a contradictory religion. In the Hindu view, however, these contradictions are not at all a bad thing. Reality is contradictory, and a religion ought to reflect the contradictory nature of human experience. This is a very different attitude than that of western religion! Christians, Moslems, and Jews are all disturbed by any apparent contradictions in their religions, and work hard to show that their religious beliefs are consistent. Not so the Hindus.
This attitude toward contradiction is a great strength of Hinduism. It enables Hinduism able to absorb any new religious impulses. You've got a new religious idea? Great! We'll believe that...too!

Hindu religion is also different from western religion in its continued embrace of polytheism. The West was once polytheistic, but ultimately monotheism almost entirely replaced polytheistic beliefs. TheHindus instead developed polytheism to perfection.

The three chief Hindu gods are:

a. Brahma (the creator god). In some ways, Hindu religious writings on Brahma (e.g., the Upanishads) sound very much like the Bible in their theology. Brahma is the source of everything, including, especially, love. The ultimate goal is union with Brahma. But this isn't really monotheism. It is, instead, what we call pantheism:everything is God. In order to experience union in God, one must overcome the world of "maya," illusion. This physical world is not only less important than the spiritual, it isn't even real! The ultimate goal for the worshipper of Brahma is to attain Nirvana: "heaven," in a certain sense, but perhaps better understood as "nothingness," or, at least, as obliteration of personal identity.

b. Shiva (the destroyer god). Shiva destroys ignorance, supersitition, and (particularly) maya. (In the lecture, I tell the story of Iswara, Paravati, Manmata and the demon Taraka).

c. Vishnu (the preserver god. Vishnu, takes on human flesh (avatars) to fight against demons. Like Christ? Well, not quite as one sees from the stories told about Vishnus in two of his incarnations:

1. Krishna (told in the Bhagavad Gita)
2. Rama (told in the Ramayana)

Stories like those of Bhagavad Gita/Ramayana attractive, but reading them constantly reminds one of differences between Hinduism and Christianity. One of most important is the very different attitudes toward ritual. Rituals, particularly religious austerities like the tapas, give spiritual power quite apart from good and evil. Taraka gained his power through his tapas. Viswamitra became a sage through austerities--and a sage powerful enough to create an alternative heaven! This idea is very different from that of Christians, Jews and Moslems: religious ritual in these religions is important, but not nearly as important as in Hinduism.

What's also a bit strange is inconsistency in ritual. Within Hinduism, their is temple prostitution and often great emphasis on sex as the way to spiritual progress (e.g., tantraism). On the other hand, their is equally high regard for abstinence (e.g. Ghandi and his women). Why such seemingly contradictory ideas? Perhaps because the ultimate virtue is to see that physical things make no difference.

Hinduism dominates every area of life in India, including the political and social system. Indian society: caste system. There are four principle castes and thousands of sub-castes. Caste in India determines your whole life: where you can live, what you can eat, what profession you will follow, what you can wear, and who you will marry.

For the top castes, this works out quite well. "Brahman is by right the Lord of this whole creation. A Brahman is born hightest on earth, the lord of all created beings. Whatever exists in the world is the property of Brahman," says the Code of Manu, the most important of the Hindu law codes.

For the lower castes, things are not nearly so good. They must live outside the villages. For clothing: the garments of dead. For eating utensiles: broken dishes. For jewelry: iron. They can be killed for simply walking on a public road or entering the house of Brahman.

The caste system is verydifferent from what we're use to in the West, but it has some advantages. It produces a very stable society. Why? It takes away a lot of worry.

The social status of women is also very different from what we're used to in the west. Since marriage determined by caste, arranged by parents at very young age. Perhaps this is not so bad--arranged marriages more successful than ours! But the marriages are hardly equal.

The Code of Manu says, "A husband must be constantly worshipped as a God by a faithful wife. day and Night women must be kept in dependence by the males of their families."

What you have to watch out for in particular is women's unbridled lust. "It is the nature of women to seduce men in this world; for that reason the wise are never unguarded. One should not sit in a lonely place with one's mother, sister or daughter, for the senses are powerful and master even a learned man."

Women are expected to control lust and be faithful to husbands--even after the husband is dead. Some women are expected to prove their fidelity by casting themselves onto their husbands funeral pyres, burning themselves alive. This practice is known as "sati" (suttee in some texts), and a woman who sacrifices herself is said to be "sati" (pure).

Another major difference between Hinduism and Western societies is its acceptance of infanticide. It is perfectly acceptable in Hindu society to kill an unwanted baby. You have a girl when you wanted a boy? Kill it, and try again.

This was once the practice in the West as well. The Greeks and Romans considered infanticide acceptable. But ultimately, we came to view baby-killing as one of the worst of crimes. Or at least we did until 1973.

Why would women jump on pyres? How can people kill their own babies?

A lot of it has to do with Hindu belief in reincarnation. Hinduism teaches that this life not all there is: you will later come back in another form. What form you get depends on your karma. If your karma is good, you will come back as something better, a Kshatriya or a Brahman, perhaps. If you are bad, you'll come back as something worse, as a member of lower caste, or as a woman perhaps. And if you're particularly bad, you'll come back as a rat--reincarnation is not limited to human forms.

Reincarnation is an idea the West toyed with. Plato and the Pythagorians believed in reincarnation (probably influenced by the Hindus). But the West basically gave up the idea while India held onto it. The result: very different attitudes to all sorts of thing, particularly suffering. In the West, one automatically feels obligated to help those suffering if one can. In India, one is not so quick--because you know why they are suffering, and there is not much you can do if someone's karma is bad.

This is obviously not an entirely satisfactory answer to the problem of evil and suffering, and it's not surprising that, within India itself, there were some important reform movements, movements designed to help understand and reduce suffering.

Two of these movements, Jainism and Buddhism.

(That's all I've got available for now..."