God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World by Stephen Prothero
Authors: Stephen Prothero
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gods through many different paths ( margas ), disciplines ( yogas ), and philosophies ( darshanas ). Their deities appear as powerful kings, starving ascetics, brave monkeys, graceful dancers, blue-faced flute players, and impersonal stones. Some Hindus say that there is really just one god underlying these many manifestations. Others say that there are many gods but one is supreme. Still others say there are many gods and all are equal. Some Hindus even say there is no god whatsoever—that the gods are a by-product of our hyperactive imaginations. Hindus are also divided on just how the gods are present in the murtis (icons) bearing their names. In a dispute that resembles the divide between Catholics (who believe that bread and wine are transubstantiated in the Mass into the body and blood of Jesus) and Protestants (who believe that bread and wine are just symbols representing Jesus), some Hindus say that the divine resides in these images, while others say that these images are symbols pointing beyond themselves to divinity.
Tellingly, Hindus cannot even agree on what to call their religion, or whether it is a religion at all. One of the most common claims among Hindus in the West is that “Hinduism is a way of life” rather than a religion. And many prefer to refer to that way of life not as Hinduism but as Sanatana Dharma (Eternal Law).
Because you typically become a Hindu by birth rather than conversion, Hinduism is, like Judaism, as much a people as a religion. The term Hindu originally conjured up a place—the ancient Indus River Valley—and the people who occupied it. During the Mughal Empire of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, this term referred to any non-Muslim, and, as late as the early twentieth century, Americans were referring to all immigrants from India (Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim) as “Hindoos.” British Orientalists and Indian nationalists popularized the notion of Hinduism as a world religion distinct from Islam and Christianity in the Victorian era, but the word Hinduism (spelled Hindooism at the time) doesn’t even appear in English until the 1790s, and its usage was not widespread until the latter half of the nineteenth century. 3 That is why it was possible in 1845 for the American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson to locate the popular Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, inside the wrong religion—“the much renowned book of Buddhism,” he called it. 4
In the absence of some entity with the authority to magically transform one specific vision of what Hinduism ought to be into what Hinduism actually is, Hinduism is what Hindus do and think, and what Hindus do and think is almost everything under the sun. More than a term pointing to a unified religion, therefore, Hinduism is an umbrella term for the religious tradition that gave the world karma and reincarnation and yoga. Under Hinduism’s sacred canopy sit a dizzying variety of religious beliefs and behaviors practiced in the wildly complex and contradictory subcontinent of India and its diasporas.
Samsara and Moksha
Although Hindus disagree on how to reach the religious goal, there is considerable consensus on both the human problem and its solution. The problem is samsara , which literally means wandering on or flowing by but in this context refers to the vicious cycle of life, death, and rebirth. We are born and die, and then we are born and die again. And so it goes for the cosmos itself, which flows equally endlessly through its own cycle of creation, destruction, and re-creation.
In the West, belief in reincarnation is growing rapidly. More than one out of every four Americans and Europeans believes that the soul takes on another body after death. 5 But for Westerners reincarnation is usually seen as a reward rather than a punishment: perhaps in your next life you can buy that Porsche or marry that hottie or land that six-figure salary. Hindus, however, have classically seen reincarnation as a problem rather than an
Tellingly, Hindus cannot even agree on what to call their religion, or whether it is a religion at all. One of the most common claims among Hindus in the West is that “Hinduism is a way of life” rather than a religion. And many prefer to refer to that way of life not as Hinduism but as Sanatana Dharma (Eternal Law).
Because you typically become a Hindu by birth rather than conversion, Hinduism is, like Judaism, as much a people as a religion. The term Hindu originally conjured up a place—the ancient Indus River Valley—and the people who occupied it. During the Mughal Empire of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, this term referred to any non-Muslim, and, as late as the early twentieth century, Americans were referring to all immigrants from India (Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim) as “Hindoos.” British Orientalists and Indian nationalists popularized the notion of Hinduism as a world religion distinct from Islam and Christianity in the Victorian era, but the word Hinduism (spelled Hindooism at the time) doesn’t even appear in English until the 1790s, and its usage was not widespread until the latter half of the nineteenth century. 3 That is why it was possible in 1845 for the American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson to locate the popular Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, inside the wrong religion—“the much renowned book of Buddhism,” he called it. 4
In the absence of some entity with the authority to magically transform one specific vision of what Hinduism ought to be into what Hinduism actually is, Hinduism is what Hindus do and think, and what Hindus do and think is almost everything under the sun. More than a term pointing to a unified religion, therefore, Hinduism is an umbrella term for the religious tradition that gave the world karma and reincarnation and yoga. Under Hinduism’s sacred canopy sit a dizzying variety of religious beliefs and behaviors practiced in the wildly complex and contradictory subcontinent of India and its diasporas.
Samsara and Moksha
Although Hindus disagree on how to reach the religious goal, there is considerable consensus on both the human problem and its solution. The problem is samsara , which literally means wandering on or flowing by but in this context refers to the vicious cycle of life, death, and rebirth. We are born and die, and then we are born and die again. And so it goes for the cosmos itself, which flows equally endlessly through its own cycle of creation, destruction, and re-creation.
In the West, belief in reincarnation is growing rapidly. More than one out of every four Americans and Europeans believes that the soul takes on another body after death. 5 But for Westerners reincarnation is usually seen as a reward rather than a punishment: perhaps in your next life you can buy that Porsche or marry that hottie or land that six-figure salary. Hindus, however, have classically seen reincarnation as a problem rather than an
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