Part 9 begins on the Indus plain. An urban civilisation flourished and vanished there, and a body of orally transmitted hymns later appeared that became Hinduism’s oldest scripture. How the two relate is among the most politically charged questions in…
Part 9. India: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism
Part 9 returns to the Indo-Iranian root from the Indian side. It opens with the Indus cities and the Aryan question, on which philologists, colonial administrators, Hindu nationalists and Dalit organisations have each built a narrative. Vedic sacrifice, the Upanishads and caste and dharma lay out the Brahmanical order.
Chapters 82–93
- From the Indus Cities to the Vedic Hymns: Origins and the Aryan Question
- Sacrifice and Its Masters: Vedic Ritual, the Brahmanas and the Priestly Order
- The Upanishadic Turn: Atman, Brahman, Karma and the Renouncers
- Varna, Caste and Dharma: The Social Order and Its Contestation
- Jainism: Mahavira, the Tirthankaras and the Ethic of Absolute Non-Violence
- The Buddha and the Early Sangha: Life, Teaching and the First Schism
- Ashoka and the Dhamma State: Buddhism as Imperial Ideology
- The Great Vehicle and the Diamond Vehicle: Mahayana, Vajrayana, Tibet and the Decline of Indian Buddhism
- The Epics and the Bhagavad Gita: War, Duty and the Avatar
- Shiva, Vishnu and the Goddess: Sectarian Hinduism and the Tantric Current
- Systems of Liberation: The Six Darshanas and the Vedanta Schools
- Bhakti, the Sants and the Sikh Panth: From Devotional Revolt to the Khalsa and Its Politics
Chapter 83. Sacrifice and Its Masters: Vedic Ritual, the Brahmanas and the Priestly Order
The Vedic hymns were not freestanding poetry. They were the spoken part of a sacrificial system, and the people who controlled that system came to hold a position in Indian society that no other priesthood has kept so long. This…
Chapter 84. The Upanishadic Turn: Atman, Brahman, Karma and the Renouncers
The Upanishads close the Vedic canon. Van Voorst notes that they are “also known as the Vedanta (End of the Veda)” [Van Voorst, Anthology of World Scriptures, #63227, “Overview of Structure”]. In them the outward sacrifice gives way to inquiry…
Chapter 85. Varna, Caste and Dharma: The Social Order and Its Contestation
No institution of the Indian subcontinent has been argued over as much as caste. For its defenders it is a frame of duty (dharma) inherited from the Vedas, a division of labour that gives every person a place. For its…
Chapter 86. Jainism: Mahavira, the Tirthankaras and the Ethic of Absolute Non-Violence
Of the śramaṇa (“striver”) movements that challenged Brahmanical ritualism in the Ganges valley in the middle of the first millennium BCE, Jainism took renunciation to its furthest point. It holds that the soul (jiva) is bound by a subtle karmic…
Chapter 87. The Buddha and the Early Sangha: Life, Teaching and the First Schism
Siddhartha Gautama, the “awakened one” (Buddha) of the Shakya clan, belongs to the same śramaṇa ferment as Mahavira (Chapter 86). His solution differed from Mahavira’s. He rejected both sensual indulgence and the self-torment of the Jains, he denied the permanent…
Chapter 88. Ashoka and the Dhamma State: Buddhism as Imperial Ideology
The third Maurya emperor, Ashoka (reigned c. 268–232 BCE), is the first ruler in the library’s sources to turn a śramaṇa ethic into a programme of government. His rock and pillar edicts are the oldest readable Indian documents, his missions…
Chapter 89. The Great Vehicle and the Diamond Vehicle: Mahayana, Vajrayana, Tibet and the Decline of Indian Buddhism
After the Ashokan centuries, Buddhism changed in two linked directions. In doctrine it grew into the Mahāyāna, the “Great Vehicle”, which taught the bodhisattva ideal, the Pure Lands, the philosophy of emptiness and the Yogācāra analysis of a “store consciousness”.…
Chapter 90. The Epics and the Bhagavad Gita: War, Duty and the Avatar
Buddhism and Jainism had made renunciation the high road to liberation. Brahmanical religion answered them with stories. The Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa turned the ethics of king and warrior into sacred narrative. Within the Mahābhārata, the Bhagavad Gītā argued that…
Chapter 91. Shiva, Vishnu and the Goddess: Sectarian Hinduism and the Tantric Current
What outsiders call “Hinduism” is, in the words of Michael Baltutis’s primer, “a family of myriad faiths with four primary denominations: Saivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Smartism” [Baltutis, What Is Hinduism?, #54289, “Chapter 2: Hinduism’s Four Denominations”]. Running through all four,…
Chapter 92. Systems of Liberation: The Six Darshanas and the Vedanta Schools
Classical Indian philosophy is organised as darshanas, “views” or “points of view.” There are six orthodox systems, usually paired: Nyaya and Vaisheshika, Samkhya and Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. All accept the authority of the Veda. They argued with each other…
Chapter 93. Bhakti, the Sants and the Sikh Panth: From Devotional Revolt to the Khalsa and Its Politics
Bhakti, devotional love of a personal God sung in the vernacular, began in Tamil country and moved north over the next thousand years. It challenged Brahmin ritual and Sanskrit learning, and in the north it met Islamic Sufism. Out of…