Semitic Faiths ‘n Sanatan Dharma: A Simple Study of Contrasts

While Christianity and Islam are hostile to the Jews but not to Judaism per se, their followers are antagonistic towards Hinduism, the Sanatana dharma of the Hindus, and for a good reason. Judaism being the father of the Abrahamic  faiths, denouncing it amounts to theological self-deprecation but as Hinduism is outside their monotheistic Semitic fold, running it down runs no such risk. Besides, weakening its polytheistic hold on a billion souls would soften the path of harvesting them for their bottomless religious granaries.

Even taking their proselytising urge in good faith – the Christian belief that without faith in Jesus, people stand condemned and the Islamic relief of a final truth to guide humanity - are their religious credos any better than the Sanatana dharma that postulates ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti (what is right is One only, describe it wise variedly) is the question that needs to be addressed for any rational study of contrasts among these diverse dispensations. Whatever, if Hinduism is a ‘Way of Life’, as ruled by India’s apex court, then it can be said that Christianity and Islam are the by-lanes of Moses’ Semitic Path, and  to comprehend the former, one has to go through the latter. However, it’s not much known that the oft-quoted "seeing is believing’ is the rational part of clergyman Thomas Fuller’s full quote, “seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth," that underscores this simple study of their contrasts.

To begin with, when the Ten Commandments were first proclaimed, Jehovah spoke audibly to Moses from Mount Sinai amid smoke, fire, thunder, and lightning, so that the assembled Israelites heard His voice. When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” Then Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” Though this Biblical account is not up to Fuller’s seeing is believing, the Jewish belief about its happening makes them hold Jehovah’s diktats in dread. Whatever, in their God’s scheme of rewards and punishments there was no provision for recompense from sins through repentance.

But even when it comes to hearing,  it’s one thing for Jesus himself to claim to be the Son of God, that he never did, and yet another for his apostles to proclaim so, what with the innovative immaculate conception, added much later after his demise. So also, Jesus’ teachings, including the Sermon on the Mount as well as his “Go specifically to the lost sheep of Israel; don't enter Gentile, Samaritan towns” during his ministry and “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them” that was after his resurrection (what did change in the meantime for his change of mind!), as cited in Mathew 10 and 28 respectively, have no evidentiary value whatsoever. It's thus, the entire Biblical legend of Jesus that is the fulcrum of the Christian faith is totally based on hearsay or improvement, as the case may be, but yet, the belief of the Christians in this regard is the gospel truth.

When it comes to the Islamic narrative, Gabriel, in incognito, met Muhammad in a cave of Mount Hira and made him say after him: “Recite in the name of thy Lord who created! He createth man from a clot of blood etc.” But as he fled from the cave in panic and was half-way down the hill, he heard a voice from above, “O Muhammad, thou art the Messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.” So, for his followers,  Muhammad’s word became the basis of their devotion for him and eventually the truth of Islam. Not only that, the guidance he said he received from Allah, the Arabic  avatar of Jehovah, became the ayats of the Quran to forever rule the minds of the Musalmans, for good or bad.

Just the same, it is this Semitic dogma that became its dictum; ‘the God’ revealed to their prophet the right ‘path of life’ for them to unquestioningly follow so as to stand the believers in good stead on the Day of Judgment. Besides, but for Judaism, in its religious offshoots of Christianity and Islam, the messiah is believed to be endowed with the power of intercession on behalf of the faithful on that Fateful Day. It’s thus, intended or otherwise, the prophet became the fulcrum of the faith as well as the icon of the Christian and the Islamic religious credos, relegating the otherwise haughty God to the fringes, never mind the pretence to the contrary.

It's another matter though that the Christians became antagonistic to Jews on the grouse that they were collectively responsible for Jesus’ death resulting in their persecution over the ages, culminating in the holocaust. That apart, so as to keep his flock together in the face of the Jewish mocking at his prophethood, Muhammad incited them against his detractors, the God’s chosen people. Not only that, so as to insulate his followers as well from the Christians, the acolytes of His son, he ordained them to keep away from the latter on the pretext that he (Jesus)  sought to partner with  Him along with Mary, his mother. Whatever, it is ironical that while the Unitary God had divided his flock into three mutually antagonistic factions, the Hindu gods and goddesses amalgamated the amorphous Sanatana  societies in their dharmic fold!

So, what of the peerless Hindu phenomenon, which the monotheists dismiss as idolatrous polytheism, that too even as the crosses with Jesus and his baby self in Mary’s arms abound in the Churches, and the Hajis fall over each other to kiss Hajar al-Aswad (Black Stone) at the Kabbah! If only the uninitiated realise, what they mistake as Hindu idol worship in essence is an obeisance to the deities in their distinctive vigrahas, in which their gods and goddesses get manifested (pranaprathista) through Vedic rituals, formulated in enchanting Sanskrit mantras.

Set aside their credos, what if we measure these four on the scale of gender justice that today’s man’s world pretends to hold dear. Whereas the Semitic dispensations are dictated by the Lord God (as already seen, Christianity had added Mary and Jesus in its pantheon to the chagrin of Islam), the Sanatana dharma is governed by spouse gods galore. Not only that, while the Semitic God is stern and aloof, Vishnu, the sustainer, (the creator Brahma and the destroyer  Shiva  being the others in the Trinity) in his avatars on earth, mingled with the Hindu folks. Won’t that fulfil Fuller’s twin criteria of seeing is believing, and feeling is the truth. What’s more, in respect of cultural aspects, while the solemn, even sombre, Semitic events, centred around the God and his prophets, for the most part that is, can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand, the numerous Hindu festivities, with mirth and music, associated with the gods and goddesses, nearly need a calculator to account for. And for those who experience it, that’s life, the blessed one at that.

All the same, for the discerning minds, the vital difference between the Sanatana dharma and the Semitic faiths lies in the concurrent philosophical stream of the former and the abject absence of the same in the latter that the Roberto Baggio episode amply underscores. Inconsolable at letting down Italy in that FIFA world cup final with his over-the-crossbar kick in the penalty shootout against Brazil, that too as its captain, and not finding any solace in ‘Jesus shedding his blood to save sinners’, he turned to Buddhism, a spiritual offshoot of Hinduism, for good effect.

What is amusing is that Christians and Muslims, whose God is not clear about the creation of man (see the tailpiece) seek to emancipate the Hindus whose progenitors had propositioned that it’s man who created the god, in theories many, as expostulated in the Brihadāranyaka Upanishad, composed around 700 B.C.E. Here’s is an excerpt from Valerie J. Roebuck’s The Upanisads, just to cite one such.

“He knew: “I am creation, for I created all this.” So he became creation. Whoever knows this, come to be in this, his creation.”

“When they say, “Sacrifice to that one!”, “Sacrifice to that one!”- some god or other, that is his varied creation, and he himself is all the gods.

Then he created from seed whatever is moist, and that is Soma. All this is just food and the eater of food. Soma is food, and Agni is the eater of food.

This is the higher creation of Brahma, since he created gods who are better than he: and also because, being mortal, he created immortals, it is his higher creation. Whoever knows this, comes to be in this, his higher creation.”

That’s not all; the Hindus have the Bhagavad-Gita, which according to the Prussian philosopher, William von Humboldt, “is the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue.” The author’s translation in verses, Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help, is in the public domain that can be perused as free ebook, the essence of which is –   

“The Supreme Spirit through Nature causes the birth of all beings. Thus, the indwelling spirit in the beings is a divisible part of the same Indivisible Supreme Spirit. The spirit lying within beings is subject in degrees to virtue, passion and delusion, the three attributes of Nature. It should remain the human endeavor to free the indwelling spirit from these nature-induced influences. This, however, is not possible for any in a single birth, and indeed, it would take the sustained effort of lot many births for that. Thus, in the end, the soul could be tended towards that state of purity, which matches with that of the Supreme Spirit. As and when this happens, the indwelling spirit merges with the Supreme Spirit which is nothing but moksha.”

It's thus, the god is truly within man (aham brahmasmi) so also the so-called Satan, the salvation is not as simple as being or becoming a Christian or a Musalman, and the entry into heaven or the hereafter, as the case may be, is not based on the intercession of the messiah on the Day of Judgement. So, one may wake up and smell the coffee.  

The Tailpiece  

Clueless Creation,

A Satirical poem by the author. 

Told God man In Genesis One
Him He created in form of His

Not when asked as how He did
Thought He fit in Genesis Two
To tell He used the dust for that
But to change tack after that,
So in time Muhammad told
Made Jibrail recite him
In the name of One who makes
Man on earth from clot of blood,
Failed as he then to enquire
Wherefrom He gets all that blood
And since God hath sealed His mouth
Knows not man the true roots of his.