On February 27, Justice KM Joseph of the Supreme Court of India reportedly said, “I am a Christian but still very fond of Hinduism, which is a great religion and should not be belittled.” This is exactly how we feel. We believe that Hinduism is the most ancient, tolerant, and scientific religion in the world.
Hinduism’s greatest strength is its mysterious antiquity. It has no founder. Did it start when the first Negrito paddled across the sea and made landfall? Or was it even earlier, when a Ramapithecus, shivering in a Shivalik rock shelter, saw a flash of lightning split a cycad and wondered who had done this? Hinduism certainly did not start when an unknown Middle Eastern geographer named the religion after a mispronunciation of the Indus river! In the rock shelters of Madhya Pradesh’s Bhimbetka, we have seen rock paintings that could represent our first holy pictures. In a sacred grove in Kerala, we took part in an ancient ceremony that could have originated in Africa. In the Dangs, we blew a tribal sacred horn that resembled an Australian didgeridoo. And in Karnataka, we sat in on a tribal ritual in a forest where the deity was a small cairn of stones. These could well be the roots of the religion now called Hinduism. But it should more rightly be honoured as Adi Dharma, the original faith.
The incredible range of Adi Dharma displays enormous tolerance. But fanatics dislike tolerance and give their version of the religion another name. Those in the US did the same for Christianity and called it the Ku Klux Klan.
The Supreme Court of India has, however, described Hinduism not as a religion but as “a way of life”. It goes beyond worship rituals and the sacred to include an exploration of the causes of natural events, as opposed to accepting them as is. That is science. Scientists not only find reasons for natural events but also formulate ways to pass on this knowledge to succeeding generations. Albert Einstein conveyed his discovery of the release of nuclear energy in the form of an equation, e=mc2. But this would mean nothing to those who did not know the Roman alphabet. Ancient Indian scholars found another way of passing on their knowledge through the ages. They expressed them in simple allegories. These folk tales were remembered and transmitted unchanged till they reached a generation that had the background to interpret them. They became our revered itihas. In particular, the itihas of the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are very effective.
An example of this is the Dashavatar. This precedes Darwin’s theory of evolution and goes beyond it. Starting with marine life (matysa avatar), it supports the scientific belief that all life began in the oceans. Then it reaches mankind’s pre-human ancestors, the dwarf (Vaman avatar), before going on to resemble the Neanderthal. After that it goes beyond Darwin, to capture the social evolution of humans. Finally, there is the Kalki avatar — a human riding a horse. We believe that this shows an integration of man with machine, which is probably the only way that humans could survive in alien worlds.
Two other examples of wonderful depictions of seemingly modern scientific discoveries are the Shiva-Shakti itihas and the Vishnu-Brahma itihas. The Big Bang theorists say that all the matter and energy of the universe at one time was concentrated in a tiny speck with protons and electrons packed together. Then, the speck began to expand and the protons released the electrons, which then began to spin around the protons creating the illusion of matter. Itihas says that Shiva and Shakti were once locked together in a tight embrace. Then Shakti separated from Shiva and began to dance around him creating Maya, the illusion of matter. Our last itihas concerns Vishnu and Brahma. Once when Lord Vishnu, the preserver, was asleep, a fine string emerged out of his navel. At the end of this string was Lord Brahma, the creator. Modern String theory says that all matter is composed of vibrations. They are called strings to capture the image of strings vibrating on a violin, creating varied notes of music. This could also be happening in our galaxy, and in others that have black holes in their centres. They consume matter. We believe that they also extrude matter on the other side as our Vishnu-Brahma icon depicts.
So where did all this knowledge come from? The most interesting theory was by Eric von Däniken, the author of Chariot of the Gods. When we met him in Switzerland, he said that visitors from outer space chose India as the first place to impart their knowledge. He did not mention which Indians were chosen for this gift. We thought of the various sources of inheritance that give rise to our ethnic diversity. The cities of Rann survived because their reservoirs had steps. We also recall the amazing stepwells of Gujarat. And the jewellery made by the people of the Rann and the diamond cutters and polishers of Gujarat.
It is most unlikely that such skills arose among tribes of cattle herders. They had no need for the decimal system or even for the concept of zero. Were these invented by a race of jewel-manufacturing intercontinental traders? They would need a phonetic script of great flexibility and a numerical system to match. We call these people the Sanskritians.
Today they are called members of the Indus Valley civilisation, but that is incorrect. Their descendants most likely live in Gujarat, and some in Garhwal. This is all part of the great and wonderful civilising saga of Hinduism.
Hugh and Colleen Gantzer are travel writers
