Many decades ago, a young boy in South India found himself facing a classroom exercise. “All Muslims rise,” said his class teacher. The boy saw his best friend, Suleyman, stand up, so he stood up too, because he thought he was like Suleyman. But the teacher ordered him to sit down. She next asked “Christians” to stand, and the boy stood up because he saw his friend Peter rising. Again, much to his puzzlement, the teacher told him to sit down.
Finally, “Hindus” were called. Paramesvara, the carpenter’s son, stood up, but since our protagonist had never ever played with Parameswara, he kept sitting. The teacher glared at him and shouted, “Stand up you ass. You are a Hindu!”
“This made me think “Hindu” was another name for an ass. I knew that I was not an ass; how then did I classify as a Hindu? When I returned home, I told my mother that my teacher had ruthlessly characterised me as a Hindu, which seemed synonymous to an ass. When my mother confirmed that I was indeed a Hindu, I felt crestfallen, but she continued by explaining that Hindu did not mean ass, but referred generally to the majority of Indians who did not go to churches on Sundays or mosques on Fridays,” the boy wrote decades later, on August 12, 1981, in an essay titled, ‘What Religion is to Me’.
By now the boy’s curiosities had taken him to a deeper realm of philosophical enquiries and he had become Nitya Chaitanya Yati, a renowned Hindu monk, philosopher and scholar who became an influential figure in the history of modern Kerala.
Yati (1924-1999) authored more than 140 books in English and Malayalam on philosophy, spirituality, art, literature, and psychology, and continued in the spiritual tradition established by the famed Narayana Guru. Like the latter, Yati vehemently opposed the caste system and believed that Hinduism was not a monolithic institution. He also asserted that one’s spiritual growth was unaffected by adherence to or avoidance of religion.
Interestingly, these great men followed Advaita Vedanta rather than Vedantic Hinduism. They transcended rigid Brahminical tenets, championing universal brotherhood and emphasising compassion towards others as the core of the Hindu way of life. They considered this brand of Hinduism the hallmark of the Indian tradition.
Why are we discussing this now? Because India is currently at a juncture in its history where strenuous efforts are under way to align Hinduism more closely with the watertight compartments of Sanatana Dharma, or the Vedic understanding of Hinduism. As the eminent Tamil writer B. Jeyamohan, who proudly calls himself a disciple of Nitya Chaitanya Yati, writes in this powerful and enlightening essay, “India’s age-old mei-gnana tradition is not a monolith. It is a complex and plural body of knowledge that has evolved through centuries of intense philosophical debates and has been enriched by the continuous iteration of rebuttals and the ultimate synthesis of mutually opposed points of view”.
Do read the essay and write back with your comments. We’d love to engage in meaningful debate on this important topic.
Wishing you a great week ahead,
Team Frontline.
We hope you’ve been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don’t like! Mail us at frontline@thehindu.co.in
COMMents
SHARE