HINDUISM

HINDUISM . Hinduism is the religion followed by about 70 percent of the roughly seven hundred million people of India. Elsewhere, with the exception of the Indonesian island of Bali, Hindus represent only minority populations. The geographical boundaries of today's India are not, however, adequate to contour a full account of this religion. Over different periods in the last four or five millennia, Hinduism and its antecedents have predominated in the adjacent areas of Pakistan and Bangladesh and have been influential in such other regions as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and Indonesia. But in these areas Hindu influences have been superseded or overshadowed by the influences of other religions, principally Buddhism and Islam. This account will treat only of Hinduism as it has taken shape historically in the "greater India" of the Indian subcontinent.

Indus Valley Religion

There are good reasons to suspect that a largely unknown quantity, the religion of the peoples of the Indus Valley, is an important source for determining the roots of Hinduism.

The Indus Valley civilization arose from Neolithic and Chalcolithic village foundations at about the middle of the third millennium bce as a late contemporary of Egyptian and Mesopotamian riverine civilizations. It engaged in trade with both, though mostly with Mesopotamia. Reaching its apogee around 2000 bce, it then suffered a long period of intermittent and multifactored decline culminating in its eclipse around 1600 bce, apparently before the coming of the Aryan peoples and their introduction of the Vedic religious current. At its peak, the Indus Valley civilization extended over most of present-day Pakistan, into India as far eastward as near Delhi, and southward as far as the estuaries of the Narmada River. It was apparently dominated by the two cities of Mohenjo-Daro, on the Indus River in Sind, and Harappa, about 350 miles to the northwest on a former course of the Ravi River, one of the tributaries to the Indus. Despite their distance from each other, the two cities show remarkable uniformity in material and design, and it has been supposed that they formed a pair of religious and administrative centers.

The determination of the nature of Indus Valley religion and of its residual impact upon Hinduism are, however, most problematic. Although archaeological sites have yielded many suggestive material remains, the interpretation of such finds is conjectural and has been thwarted especially by the continued resistance of the Indus Valley script, found on numerous steatite seals, to convincing decipherment. Until it is deciphered, little can be said with assurance. The content of the inscriptions may prove to be minimal, but if the language (most likely Dravidian) can be identified, much can be resolved.

At both Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the cities were dominated on the western side by an artificially elevated mound that housed a citadel-type complex of buildings. Though no temples or shrines can be identified, the complex probably served both sacred and administrative functions. A "great bath" within the Mohenjo-Daro citadel, plus elaborate bathing and drainage facilities in residences throughout the cities, suggests a strong concern for personal cleanliness, cultic bathing, and ritual purity such as resurface in later Hinduism. Indeed, the "great bath," a bitumen-lined tank with steps leading into and out of it from either end, suggests not only the temple tanks of later Hinduism but the notion of "crossing" associated with them through their Sanskrit name, tīrtha ("crossing place, ford").

A granary attached to the citadel may also have involved high officials in ceremonial supervision of harvests and other agricultural rituals. Terracotta female figurines with pedestal waists, found especially at village sites, reveal at least a popular cultic interest in fertility. They are probably linked with worship of a goddess under various aspects, for while some portray the figure in benign nurturing poses, others present pinched and grim features that have been likened to grinning skulls: These are likely foreshadowings of the Hindu Goddess in her benign and destructive aspects.

But most controversial are the depictions on the seals, whose inscriptions remain undeciphered. Most prominently figured are powerful male animals. They are often shown in cultic scenes, as before a sort of "sacred manger," or being led by a priestly ministrant before a figure (probably a deity and possibly a goddess) in a peepul tree, one of the most venerated trees in Hinduism. Male animals also frequently figure in combination with human males in composite animal-human forms. With female figures seemingly linked to the Goddess and males associated with animal power, it has been suggested that the two represent complementary aspects of a fertility cult with attendant sacrificial scenarios such as are found in the animal sacrifice to the Goddess in post-Vedic Hinduism. In such sacrifices the Goddess requires male offerings, and the animal represents the human male sacrificer. Most interesting and controveṛṣial in this connection is a figure in a yogic posture who is depicted on three seals and a faience sealing. Though features differ in the four portrayals, the most fully defined one shows him seated on a dais with an erect phallus. He has buffalo horns that enclose a treelike miter headdress, possibly a caricatured buffalo face, wears bangles and necklaces or torques, and is surrounded by four wild animals. Some of these associations (yoga, ithyphallicism, lordship of animals) have suggested an identification with the later Hindu god Śiva. Other traits (the buffalo-man composite form, association with wild animals, possible intimations of sacrifice) have suggested a foreshadowing of the buffalo demon Mashṣāsura, mythic antagonist and sacrificial victim of the later Hindu goddess Durgā. Possibly the image crystallizes traits that are later associated with both of these figures.

The notion that features of Indus Valley religion form a stream with later non-Aryan religious currents that percolate into Hinduism has somewhat dismissively been called the substratum theory by opponents who argue in favor of treating the development of Hinduism as derivable from within its own sacred literature. Though this "substratum" cannot be known except in the ways that it has been structured within Hinduism (and no doubt also within Jainism and Buddhism), it is clear that a two-way process was initiated as early as the Vedic period and has continued to the present.

Vedism

The early sacred literature of Hinduism has the retrospective title of Veda ("knowledge") and is also known as śruti ("that which is heard"). Altogether it is a prodigious body of literature, originally oral in character (thus "heard"), that evolved into its present form over nine or ten centuries between about 1400 and 400 bce. In all, four types of texts fall under the Veda-śruti heading: Saṃhitās, Brāhamaṇas, Ᾱraṇyakas, and Upaniṣads. At the fount of all later elaborations are the four Saṃhitās ("collections"): the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā (Veda of Chants, the oldest), the Sāmaveda and Yajurveda Saṃhitā s (Vedas of Melodies and Sacrificial Formulas, together known as the "liturgical" Saṃhitās), and the Atharvaveda Saṃhitā (the youngest, named after the sage Atharvan). These constitute the four Vedas, with some early sources referring to the "three Vedas" exclusive of the last. The material of the four was probably complete by 1000 bce, with younger parts of the older works overlapping older parts of the younger ones chronologically. The Saṃhitās, or portions of them, were preserved by different priestly schools or "branches" (śākhā s) through elaborate means of memorization. Many of these schools died out and their branches became lost, but others survived to preserve material for literary compilation and redaction. The subsequent works in the categories of Brāhamaṇa, Ᾱraṇyaka, and Upaniṣad are all linked with one or another of the Vedic schools, and thus with a particular Vedic Saṃhitā, so that they represent the further literary output of the Vedic schools and also the interests of the four types of priests who came to be associated differentially with the ritual uses of the four Saṃhitās. It is from the Ṛgveda that Vedic religion in its earliest sense must be reconstructed.

Although the urban civilization of the Indus Valley had run its course by the time of the arrival of the Aryans in about 1500 bce, the newcomers met heirs of this civilization in settled agricultural communities. The contrast between cultures was striking to the Aryans, who described the indigenous population as having darker skin, defending themselves from forts, having no gods or religious rituals but nonetheless worshiping the phallus. As small stone phallic objects have been found at Indus Valley sites, this is probably an accurate description of a cult continued from pre-Vedic Indus Valley religion that prefigures the later veneration of the liṅga (phallus) in the worship of Śiva. In contrast to this predominantly agricultural population, the invading Aryans were a mobile, warlike people, unattached to cities or specific locations, entering Northwest India in tribal waves probably over a period of several centuries. Moreover, their society inherited an organizing principle from its Indo-European past that was to have great impact on later Indian civilization in the formation of the caste system. The ideal arrangement, which myths and ritual formulas propounded and society was to reflect, called for three social "functions": the priests, the warriors, and the agriculturalist-stockbreeders. Early Vedic hymns already speak of three such interacting social groups, plus a fourth—the indigenous population of dāsa, or dasyu (literally, "slaves," first mythologized as demon foes of the Aryans and their gods). By the time of the late Ṛgveda, these peoples were recognized as a fourth "class" or "caste" in the total society and were known as śūdra s.

Most crucial to the inspiration of the early Vedic religion, however, was the interaction between the first two groups: the priesthood, organized around sacerdotal schools maintained through family and clan lines, and a warrior component, originally led by chieftains of the mobile tribal communities but from the beginning concerned with an ideal of kingship that soon took on more local forms. Whereas the priests served as repositories of sacred lore, poetry, ritual technique, and mystical speculation, the warriors served as patrons of the rites and ceremonies of the priests and as sponsors of their poetry. These two groups, ideally complementary but often having rival interests, crystallized by late Vedic and Brahmanic times into distinct "classes": the brāhamaṇa s (priests) and the kṣatriya s (warriors).

Although the Ṛgveda alludes to numerous details of ritual that soon came to be systematized in the religion of the Brāhamaṇas, it brings ritual into relief only secondarily. The primary focus of the 1,028 hymns of the Ṛgveda is on praising the gods and the cosmic order (ṛta ), which they protect. But insofar as the hymns invoke the gods to attend the sacrifice, there is abundant interest in two deities of essentially ritual character: Agni and Soma. Agni (Fire) is more specifically the god of the sacrificial fire who receives offerings to the gods and conveys them heavenward through the smoke. And Soma is the divinized plant of "nondeath" (amṛta ), or immortality, whose juices are ritually extracted in the soma sacrifice, a central feature of many Vedic and Brahmanic rituals. These two gods, significantly close to humankind, are mediators between humans and other gods. But they are especially praised for their capacity to inspire in the poets the special "vision" (dhī) that stimulates the composition of the Vedic hymns. Agni, who as a god of fire and light is present in the three Vedic worlds (as fire on earth, lightning in the atmosphere, and the sun in heaven), bestows vision through "illumination" into the analogical connections and equivalences that compose the ṛta (which is itself said to have a luminous nature). Soma, the extracted and purified juice of the "plant of immortality," possibly the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom, yields a "purified" vision that is described as "enthused" or "intoxicated," tremulous or vibrant, again stimulating the inspiration for poetry. The Vedic poet (kavi, ṛṣi, or vipra ) was thus a "seeer," or seer, who translated his vision into speech, thus producing the sacred mantra s, or verse-prayers, that comprise the Vedic hymns. Vedic utterance, itself hypostatized as the goddess Vāc (Speech), is thus the crystallization of this vision.

Vedic religion is decidedly polytheistic, there being far more than the so-called thirty-three gods, the number to which they are sometimes reduced. Though the point is controveṛṣial, for the sake of simplification one can say that at the core or "axis" of the pantheon there are certain deities with clear Indo-European or at least Indo-Iranian backgrounds: the liturgical gods Agni and Soma (cf. the Avestan deity Haoma) and the deities who oversee the three "functions" on the cosmic scale: the cosmic sovereign gods Varuṇa and Mitra, the warrior god Indra, and the Aśvins, twin horsemen concerned with pastoralism, among other things. Intersecting this structure is an opposition of Indo-Iranian background between deva s and asura s. In the Ṛgveda both terms may refer to ranks among the gods, with asura being higher and more primal. But asura also has the Vedic meaning of "demon," which it retains in later Hinduism, so that the devaasura opposition also takes on dualistic overtones. Varuṇa is the asura par excellence, whereas Indra is the leader of the deva s. These two deities are thus sometimes in opposition and sometimes in complementary roles: Varuṇa being the remote overseer of the cosmic order (ṛta ) and punisher of individual human sins that violate it; Indra being the dynamic creator and upholder of that order, leader of the perennial fight against the collective demonic forces, both human and divine, that oppose it. It is particularly his conquest of the asura Vṛtra ("encloser")—whose name suggests ambiguous etymological connections with Varuṇa—that creates order or being (sat, analogous to ṛta ) out of chaos or nonbeing (asat ) and opens cosmic and earthly space for "freedom of movement" (varivas ) by gods and humans. Considerable attention is also devoted to three solar deities whose freedom of movement, thus secured, is a manifestation of the ṛta, a prominent analogy for which is the solar wheel: Sūrya and Savitṛ (the Sun under different aspects) and Uṣas (charming goddess of the dawn). Other highly significant deities are Yama, god of the dead, and Vāyu, god of wind and breath. It is often pointed out that the gods who become most important in later Hinduism—Viṣṇu, Śiva (Vedic Rudra), and the Goddess—are statistically rather insignificant in the Veda, for few hymns are devoted to them. But the content rather than the quantity of the references hints at their significance. Viṣṇu's centrality and cosmological ultimacy, Rudra's destructive power and outsiderhood, and the this-worldly dynamic aspects of several goddesses are traits that assume great proportions in later characterizations of these deities.

Although it is thus possible to outline certain structural and historical features that go into the makeup of the Vedic pantheon, it is important to recognize that these are obscured by certain features of the hymns that arise from the type of religious "vision" that inspired them, and that provide the basis for speculative and philosophical trends that emerge in the late Veda and continue into the early Brahmanic tradition. The hymns glorify the god they address in terms generally applicable to other gods (brilliance, power, beneficence, wisdom) and often endow him or her with mythical traits and actions particular to other gods (supporting heaven, preparing the sun's path, slaying Vṛtra, and so on). Thus, while homologies and "connections" between the gods are envisioned, essential distinctions between them are implicitly denied. Speculation on what is essential—not only as concerns the gods, but the ritual and the mantra s that invoke them—is thus initiated in the poetic process of the early hymns and gains in urgency and refinement in late portions of the Ṛgveda and the subsequent "Vedic" speculative-philosophical literature that culminates in the Upaniṣads. Most important of these speculations historically were those concerning the cosmogonic sacrifices of Puruṣa in Ṛgveda 10.90 (the Puruṣasūkta, accounting for, among other things, the origin of the four castes) and of Prajāpati in the Brāhamaṇas. Each must be discussed further. In addition, speculations on brahman as the power inherent in holy speech and on the ātman ("self") as the irreducible element of personal experience are both traceable to Vedic writings (the latter to the Atharvaveda only). This article shall observe the convergence of all these lines of speculation in the Upaniṣads and classical Hinduism.

Religion of the BrĀhamaṆas

The elaboration of Vedic religion into the sacrificial religion of the Brāhamaṇas is largely a result of systematization. The first indication of this trend is the compilation of the liturgical Saṃhitās and the development of the distinctive priestly schools and interests that produced these compendiums. Thus, while the Ṛgveda became the province of the hotṛ priest, the pourer of oblations and invoker of gods through the mantra s (the term hotṛ, "pourer," figures often in the Ṛgveda and has Indo-Iranian origins), the newer collections developed around the concerns of specialist priests barely alluded to in the Ṛgveda and serving originally in subordinate ritual roles. The Sāmaveda was a collection of verses taken mostly from the Ṛgveda, set to various melodies (sāman s) for use mainly in the soma sacrifice, and sung primarily by the udgātṛ priest, who thus came to surpass the hotṛ as a specialist in the sound and articulation of the mantras. And the Yajurveda was a collection of yaju s, selected sacrificial mantra s, again mostly from the Ṛgveda, plus certain complete sentences, to be murmured by the adhvaryu priest, who concerned himself not so much with their sound as with their appropriateness in the ritual, in which he became effectively the master of ceremonies, responsible for carrying out all the basic manual operations, even replacing the hotṛ priest as pourer of oblations. A fourth group of priests, the brāhamaṇa s, then claimed affiliation with the Atharvaveda and assumed the responsibility for overseeing the entire ritual performance of the other priests and counteracting any of their mistakes (they were supposed to know the other three Vedas as well as their own) by silent recitation of mantra s from the Atharvaveda. As specialization increased, each priest of these four main classes took on three main assistants.

The Brāhamaṇas—expositions of brahman, the sacred power inherent in mantra and more specifically now in the ritual—are the outgrowth of the concerns of these distinctive priestly schools and the first articulation of their religion. Each class of priests developed its own Brāhamaṇas, the most important and comprehensive being the Śatapatha Brāhamaṇa of one of the Yajurveda schools. The ritual system was also further refined in additional manuals: the Śrautasūtras, concerned with "solemn" rites, first described in the Brāhamaṇas and thus called śrauta because of their provenance in these śruti texts, and the Gṛhyasūtras, concerned with domestic rites (from gṛha, "home"), justified by "tradition" (smṛti ) but still having much of Vedic origins. The Śrautasūtras were compiled over the period, roughly, from the Brāhamaṇas to the Upaniṣads, and the Gṛhyasūtras were probably compiled during Upaniṣadic times.

The domestic rites take place at a single offering fire and usually involve offerings of only grain or ghee (clarified butter). Along with the maintenance of the household fire and the performance of the so-called Five Great Sacrifices—to brahman (in the form of Vedic recitation), to ancestors, to gods, to other "beings," and to humans (hospitality rites)—the most prominent gṛhya ceremonies are the sacraments or life-cycle rites (saṃskāra s). Of these, the most important are the rites of conception and birth of a male child; the Upanayana, or "introduction," of boys to a brāhamaṇa preceptor or guru for initiation; marriage; and death by cremation (Antyeṣṭi, "final offering"). The Upanayana, involving the investiture of boys of the upper three social classes (varṇa s) with a sacred thread, conferred on them the status of "twice-born" (dvija, a term first used in the Atharvaveda ), and their "second birth" permitted them to hear the Veda and thereby participate in the śrauta rites that, according to the emerging Brahmanic orthodoxy, would make it possible to obtain immortality.

The śrauta rites are more elaborate and are representative of the sacrificial system in its full complexity, involving ceremonies that lasted up to two years and enlisted as many as seventeen priests. Through the continued performance of daily, bimonthly, and seasonal śrauta rites one gains the year, which is itself identified with the sacrificial life-death-regeneration round and its divine personification, Prajāpati. In surpassing the year by the Agnicayana, the "piling of the fire altar," one gains immortality and needs no more nourishment in the otherworld (see Śatapatha Brāhamaṇa 10.1.5.4).

Śrauta rites required a sacrificial terrain near the home of the sacrificer (yajamāna ), with three sacred fires (representing, among other things, the three worlds) and an upraised altar, or vedī. Nonanimal sacrifices of the first varieties mentioned involved offerings of milk and vegetable substances or even of mantra s. Animal sacrifices (paśubandhu )—which required a more elaborate sacrificial area with a supplemental altar and a sacrificial stake (yūpā )—entailed primarily the sacrifice of a goat. Five male animals—man, horse, bull, ram, and goat—are declared suitable for sacrifice. It is likely, however, that human sacrifice existed only on the "ideal" plane, where it was personified in the cosmic sacrifices of Puruṣa and Prajāpati. The animal (paśu ) was to be immolated by strangulation, and its omentum, rich in fat, offered into the fire. Soma sacrifices, which would normally incorporate animal sacrifices within them plus a vast number of other subrites, involved the pressing and offering of soma. The most basic of these was the annual Agniṣṭoma, "in praise of Agni," a four-day rite culminating in morning, afternoon, and evening soma pressings on the final day and including two goat sacrifices. Three of the most ambitious soma sacrifices were royal rites: the Aśvamedha, the horse sacrifice; the Rājasūya, royal consecration; and the Vājapeya, a soma sacrifice of the "drink of strength." But the most complex of all was the aforementioned Agnicayana.

A thread that runs through most śrauta rituals, however, is that they must begin with the "faith" or "confidence" (śrāddha) of the sacrificer in the efficacy of the rite and the capacity of the officiating priests to perform it correctly. This prepares the sacrificer for the consecration (dīkṣā) in which, through acts of asceticism (tapas), he takes on the aspect of an embryo to be reborn through the rite. As dīkṣita (one undergoing the dīkṣā), he makes an offering of himself (his ātman ). This then prepares him to make the sacrificial offering proper (the yajña, "sacrifice") as a means to redeem or ransom this self by the substance (animal or otherwise) offered. Then, reveṛṣing the concentration of power that he has amassed in the dīkṣā, he disperses wealth in the form of dakṣinā s (honoraria) to the priests. Finally, the rite is disassembled (the ritual analogue to the repeated death of Prajāpati before his reconstitution in another rite), and the sacrificer and his wife bathe to disengage themselves from the sacrifice and reenter the profane world.

In the elaboration of such ceremonies and the speculative explanation of them in the Brāhamaṇas, the earlier Vedic religion seems to have been much altered. In the religion of the Brāhamaṇas, the priests, as "those who know thus" (evamvid s), view themselves as more powerful than the gods. Meanwhile, the gods and the demons (asura s) are reduced to representing in their endless conflicts the recurrent interplay between agonistic forces in the sacrifice. It is their father, Prajāpati, who crystallizes the concerns of Brahmanic thought by representing the sacrifice in all its aspects and processes. Most notable of these is the notion of the assembly or fabrication of an immortal self (ātman ) through ritual action (karman ), a self constructed for the sacrificer by which he identifies with the immortal essence of Prajāpati as the sacrifice personified. And by the same token, the recurrent death (punarmṛtyu, "redeath") of Prajāpati's transitory nature (the elements of the sacrifice that are assembled and disassembled) figures in the Brāhamaṇas as the object to be avoided for the sacrificer by the correct ritual performance. This Brahmanic concept of Prajāpati's redeath, along with speculation on the ancestral gṛhya rites (śrāddha s) focused on feeding deceased relatives to sustain them in the afterlife, must have been factors in the thinking that gave rise to the Upaniṣadic concept of reincarnation (punarjanman, "rebirth"). The emphasis on the morbid and transitory aspects of Prajāpati and the sacrifice, and the insistence that asceticism within the sacrifice is the main means to overcome them, are most vigorously propounded in connection with the Agnicayana.

In the Brāhamaṇas' recasting of the primal once- and for-all sacrifice of Puruṣa into the recurrent life-death-regeneration mythology of Prajāpati, a different theology was introduced. Though sometimes Puruṣa was identified with Prajāpati, the latter, bound to the round of creation and destruction, became the prototype for the classical god Brahmā, personification of the Absolute (brahman ) as it is oriented toward the world. The concept of a transcendent Puruṣa, however, was not forgotten in the Brāhamaṇas. Śatapatha Brāhamaṇa 13.6 mentions Puruṣa-Nārāyaṇa, a being who seeks to surpass all others through sacrifice and thereby become the universe. In classical Hinduism, Nārāyaṇa and Puruṣa are both names for Viṣṇu as the supreme divinity. This Brāhamaṇa passage neither authorizes nor disallows an identification with Viṣṇu, but other Brāhamaṇa passages leave no doubt that sacrificial formulations have given Viṣṇu and Rudra-Śiva a new status. Whereas the Brāhamaṇas repeatedly assert that "Viṣṇu is the sacrifice"—principally in terms of the organization of sacrificial space that is brought about through Viṣṇu's three steps through the cosmos, and his promotion of the order and prosperity that thus accrue—they portray Rudra as the essential outsider to this sacrificial order, the one who neutralizes the impure forces that threaten it from outside as well as the violence that is inherent within. Biardeau (1976) has been able to show that the later elevation of Viṣṇu and Śiva through yoga and bhakti is rooted in oppositional complementarities first formulated in the context of the Brahmanic sacrifice.

The UpaniṢads

Several trends contributed to the emergence of the Upaniṣadic outlook. Earlier speculations on the irreducible essence of the cosmos, the sacrifice, and individual experience have been mentioned. Pre-Upaniṣadic texts also refer to various forms of asceticism as performed by types of people who in one way or another rejected or inverted conventional social norms: the Vedic muni, vrātya, and brahmacārin, to each of whom is ascribed ecstatic capacities, and, at the very heart of the Brahmanic sacrifice, the dīkṣita (the sacrificer who performs tapas while undergoing the dīkṣā, or consecration). These speculative and ascetic trends all make contributions to a class of texts generally regarded as intermediary between the Brāhamaṇas and Upaniṣads: the Ᾱraṇyakas, or "Forest Books." The Ᾱraṇyakas do not differ markedly from the works that precede and succeed them (the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad is both an Ᾱraṇyaka and an Upaniṣad), but their transitional character is marked by a shift in the sacrificial setting from domestic surroundings to the forest and a focus not so much on the details of ritual as on its interiorization and universalization. Sacrifice, for instance, is likened to the alternation that takes place between breathing and speaking. Thus correspondences are established between aspects of sacrifice and the life continuum of the meditator.

An upaniṣad is literally a mystical—often "secret"—"connection," interpreted as the teaching of mystical homologies. Or, in a more conventional etymology, it is the "sitting down" of a disciple "near to" (upa, "near"; ni, "down"; sad, "sit") his spiritual master, or guru. Each Upaniṣad reflects the Vedic orientation of its priestly school. There are also regional orientations, for Upaniṣadic geography registers the further eastern settlement of the Vedic tradition into areas of the Ganges Basin. But the Upaniṣads do share certain fundamental points of outlook that are more basic than their differences. Vedic polytheism is demythologized, for all gods are reducible to one. Brahmanic ritualism is reassessed and its understanding of ritual action (karman ) thoroughly reinterpreted. Karman can no longer be regarded as a positive means to the constitution of a permanent self. Rather, it is ultimately negative: "the world that is won by work (karman )" and "the world that is won by merit (puṇya )" only perish (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 8.1.6). The "law of karma" (karman ) or "law of causality" represents a strict and universal cause-effect continuum that affects any action that is motivated by desire (kāma ), whether it be desire for good or for ill. Thus even meritorious actions that lead to the Vedic heaven "perish," leaving a momentum that carries the individual to additional births or reincarnations. The result is perpetual bondage to the universal flow-continuum of all karman, or saṃśara (from saṃ, "together" and sṛ, "flow"), a term that the Upaniṣads introduce into the Vedic tradition but that is shared with Jainism and Buddhism. As with these religions, the Upaniṣads and Hinduism henceforth conceive their soteriological goal as liberation from this cycle of saṃśara: that is, mokṣa or mukti ("release").

Mokṣa cannot be achieved by action alone, because action only leads to further action. Thus, though ritual action is not generally rejected and is often still encouraged in the Upaniṣads, it can only be subordinated to pursuit of the higher mokṣa ideal. Rather, the new emphasis is on knowledge (vidyā, jñāna ) and the overcoming of ignorance (avidyā ). The knowledge sought, however, is not that of ritual technique or even of ritual-based homologies, but a graspable, revelatory, and experiential knowledge of the self as one with ultimate reality. In the early Upaniṣads this experience is formulated as the realization of the ultimate "connection," the oneness of ātman-brahman, a connection knowable only in the context of communication from guru to disciple. (Herein can be seen the basis of the parable context and vivid, immediate imagery of many Upaniṣadic teachings.) The experience thus achieved is variously described as one of unified consciousness, fearlessness, bliss, and tranquillity.

Beyond these common themes, however, and despite the fact that Upaniṣadic thought is resistant to systematization, certain different strains can be identified. Of the thirteen Upaniṣads usually counted as śruti, the earliest (c. 700–500 bce) are those in prose, headed by the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and the Chāndogya. Generally, it may be said that these Upaniṣads introduce the formulations that later Hinduism will develop into the saṃnyāsa ideal of renunciation (not yet defined in the Upaniṣads as a fourth stage of life) and the knowledge-path outlook of nondualistic (advaita ) Vedānta. Even within these early Upaniṣads, two approaches to realization can be distinguished. One refers to an all-excluding Absolute; the self that is identified with brahman, characterized as neti neti ("not this, not this"), is reached through a paring away of the psychomental continuum and its links with karman. Such an approach dominates the Bṛhadā-raṇyaka Upaniṣad. Avidyā here results from regarding the name and form of things as real and forming attachment to them. The other approach involves an all-comprehensive Absolute, brahman-ātman, which penetrates the world so that all forms are modifications of the one; ignorance results from the failure to experience this immediacy. In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad this second approach is epitomized in the persistent formula "Tat tvam asi" ("That thou art").

The later Vedic Upaniṣads (c. 600–400 bce) register the first impact of theistic devotional formulations, and of early Sāṃkhya and Yoga. Most important of these historically are two "yogic" Upaniṣads, the Śvetāśvatara and the Kaṭha, the first focused on Rudra-Śiva and the second on Viṣṇu. Each incorporates into its terminology for the absolute deity the earlier term puruṣa. As Biardeau has shown in L'hindouisme (1981), they thus draw on an alternate term for the Absolute from that made current in the brahman-ātman equation. The Puruṣa of Ṛgveda 10.90 (the Puruṣasūkta ) is sacrificed to create the ordered and integrated sociocosmic world of Vedic man. But only one quarter of this Puruṣa is "all beings"; three quarters are "the immortal in heaven" (RV 10.90.3). This transcendent aspect of Puruṣa, and also a certain "personal" dimension, are traits that were retained in the characterization of Puruṣa-Nārāyaṇa in the Śatapatha Brāhamaṇa and reinforced in the yogic characterizations of Rudra-Śiva and Viṣṇu in the previously mentioned Upaniṣads. The Upaniṣadic texts do not restrict the usage of the term Puruṣa to mean "soul," as classical Sāṃkhya later does; rather, it is used to refer to both the soul and the supreme divinity. The relation between the soul and the Absolute is thus doubly defined: on the one hand as ātman-brahman, on the other as puruṣa -Puruṣa. In the latter case, the Kaṭha Upaniṣad describes a spiritual itinerary of the soul's ascent through yogic states to the supreme Puruṣa, Viṣṇu. This synthesis of yoga and bhakti will be carried forward into the devotional formulations of the epics and the Purāṇas. But one must note that the two vocabularies are used concurrently and interrelatedly in the Upaniṣads, as they will be in the later bhakti formulations.

The Consolidation of Classical Hinduism

A period of consolidation, sometimes identified as one of "Hindu synthesis," "Brahmanic synthesis," or "orthodox synthesis," takes place between the time of the late Vedic Upaniṣads (c. 500 bce) and the period of Gupta imperial ascendancy (c. 320–467 ce). Discussion of this consolidation, however, is initially complicated by a lack of historiographical categories adequate to the task of integrating the diverse textual, inscriptional, and archaeological data of this long formative period. The attempt to cover as much of this span as possible with the name "epic period," because it coincides with the dates that are usually assigned to the formation and completion of the Hindu epics (particularly the Mahābhārata ), is misleading, because so much of what transpires can hardly be labeled "epic." On the other hand, attempts to define the period in terms of heterogeneous forces operating upon Hinduism from within (assimilation of local deities and cults, geographical spread) and without (heterodox and foreign challenges) either have failed to register or have misrepresented the implications of the apparent fact that the epics were "works in progress" during the whole period. The view one takes of the epics is, in fact, crucial for the interpretation of Hinduism during this period. Here, assuming that the epics already incorporated a bhakti cosmology and theology from an early point in this formative period, this article shall try to place them in relation to other works and formulations that contributed to the consolidation of classical Hinduism.

The overall history can be broken down into four periods characterized by an oscillation from disunity (rival regional kingdoms and tribal confederacies on the Ganges Plain) to unity (Mauryan ascendancy, c. 324–184 bce, including the imperial patronage of Buddhism by Aśoka) to disunity (rival foreign kingdoms in Northwest India and regional kingdoms elsewhere) back to unity (Gupta ascendancy, c. 320–467 ce). The emerging self-definitions of Hinduism were forged in the context of continued interaction with heterodox religions (Buddhists, Jains, Ᾱjīvikas) throughout this whole period, and with foreign peoples (Yavanas, or Greeks; Śakas, or Scythians; Pahlavas, or Parthians; and Kūṣāṇas, or Kushans) from the third phase on. In this climate the ideal of centralized Hindu rule attained no practical realization until the rise of the Guptas. That this ideal preceded its realization is evident in the rituals of royal paramountcy (Aśvamedha and Rājasūya) that were set out in the Brāhamaṇas and the Śrautasūtras, and actually performed by post-Mauryan regional Hindu kings.

When one looks to the component facets of the overall consolidation, these four periods must be kept in mind, but with the proviso that datings continue to be problematic: not only datings of texts, but especially of religious movements and processes reflected in them, and in surviving inscriptions. Most scholars ordinarily assume that when a process is referred to in a text or other document, it has gone on for some time.

Śruti and smṛti

Fundamental to the self-definition of Hinduism during this period of its consolidation is the distinction it makes between two classes of its literature: śruti and smṛti. Śruti is "what is heard," and refers to the whole corpus of Vedic literature (also called Veda) from the four Vedas to the Upaniṣads. Smṛti, "what is remembered" or "tradition," includes all that falls outside this literature. Exactly when this distinction was made is not certain, but it is noteworthy that the six Vedāṅgas or "limbs of the Veda" (writings on phonetics, metrics, grammar, etymology, astronomy, and ritual) are smṛti texts that were composed at least in part during the latter half of the Vedic or śruti period. The ritual texts (Kalpasūtras) are subdivided into three categories: Śrautasūtras, Gṛhyasūtras, and Dharmasūtras. Whereas the first two (discussed above under Brahmanic ritual) pertain to concerns developed in the Vedic period, the Dharmasūtras focus on issues of law (dharma ) that become characteristic of the period now under discussion. Dates given for the composition of these texts run from 600 to 300 bce for the earliest (Gautama Dharmasūtra ) to 400 ce for the more recent works. Both Gṛhyasūtras and Dharmasūtras were sometimes called Smārtasūtras (i.e., sūtra s based on smṛti ), so it seems that their authors regarded them as representative of the prolongation of Vedic orthodoxy (and orthopraxy) that the smṛti category was designed to achieve. As the term smṛti was extended in its use, however, it also came to cover numerous other texts composed in the post-Upaniṣadic period.

This śruti/smṛti distinction thus marks off the earlier literature as a unique corpus that, once the distinction was made, was retrospectively sanctified. By the time of the Manāva Dharmaśāstra, or Laws of Manu (c. 200 bce–100 ce; see Manu 1.23), and probably before this, śruti had come to be regarded as "eternal." Its components were thus not works of history. The Vedic ṛṣi s had "heard" truths that are eternal, and not only in content—the words of the Vedas are stated to have eternal connection with their meanings—but also in form. The works thus bear no stamp of the ṛṣi s' individuality. Such thinking crystallized in the further doctrine that the Vedas (i.e., śruti ) are apauruṣeya, not of personal authorship (literally, "not by a puruṣa "). They thus have no human imperfection. Further, it was argued that they are even beyond the authorship of a divine "person" (Puruṣa ). Though myths of the period assert that the Vedas spring from Brahmā at the beginning of each creation (as the three Vedas spring from Puruṣa in the Puruṣasūkta ), the deity is not their author. Merely reborn with him, they are a self-revelation of the impersonal brahman. In contrast to śruti, smṛti texts were seen as historical or "traditional," passed on by "memory" (smṛti ), and as works of individual authors (pauruṣeya ), even though mythical authors—both human and divine—often had to be invented for them.

Smṛti texts of this period thus proclaim the authority of the Veda in many ways, and nonrejection of the Veda comes to be one of the most important touchstones for defining Hinduism over and against the heterodoxies, which rejected the Veda. In fact, it is quite likely that the doctrines of the eternality and impersonality of the Veda were in part designed to assert the superiority of the Veda over the "authored" and "historical" works of the heterodoxies, whose teachings would thus be on a par with smṛti rather than śruti. But it is also likely that the apauruṣeya doctrine is designed to relativize the "personal" god of bhakti. In any case, these doctrines served to place a considerable ideological distance between śruti and smṛti, and to allow smṛti authors great latitude in interpreting śruti and extending Hindu teachings into new areas. Smṛti thus supposedly functioned to clarify the obscurities of the Veda. But the claim that smṛti texts need only not contradict the Veda left their authors great freedom in pursuing new formulations.

Varṇāśramadharma ("caste and life-stage law")

The most representative corpus of smṛti literature, and the most closely tied to the continued unfolding orthodox interests of the Vedic priestly schools, is that concerned with dharma ("law" or "duty"). As a literary corpus, it consists of two kinds of texts: the Dharmasūtras (600/300 bce–400 ce), already mentioned in connection with the śruti/smṛti distinction, and the Dharmaśāstras. The most important and earliest of the latter are the Mānava Dharmaśāstra, or Laws of Manu (c. 200 bce–100 ce), and the Yājñavalkya Smṛti (c. 100–300 ce). But other Dharmaśāstras were composed late into the first millennium, to be followed by important commentaries on all such texts. The main focus of these two classes of texts is fundamentally identical: the articulation of norms for all forms of social interaction, thus including but going far beyond the earlier Sūtras' concern for ritual. Four differences, however, are noteworthy: (1) Whereas the Dharmasūtras are in prose, the Dharmaśāstras are in the same poetic meter as the epics, Manu in particular having much material in common with the Mahābhārata. (2) Whereas the Sūtras are still linked with the Vedic schools, the Śāstras are not, showing that study and teaching of dharma had come to be an independent discipline of its own. (3) The Śāstra legislation is more extended and comprehensive. (4) The Śāstras are more integrated into a mythic and cosmological vision akin to that in bhakti texts, but usually ignoring bhakti as such, with references to duties appropriate to different yuga s (ages), and the identification of north central India as the "middle region" (madhyadeśa ) where the dharma is (and is to be kept) the purest.

The theory of varṇāśramadharma, the law of castes and life stages, was worked out in these texts as a model for the whole of Hindu society. There is little doubt that it was stimulated by the alternate lay/monastic social models of the heterodoxies, and no doubt that it was spurred on by the incuṛṣions of barbarian peoples—frequently named in these texts as mleccha s (those who "jabber")—into the Northwest. The model involves the working out of the correlations between two ideals: first, that society conform to four hierarchical castes, and second, that a person should pass through four life stages (āśrama s): student (brahmacārin ), householder (gṛhasthin ), forest dweller (vānaprasthin ), and renunciant (saṃnyāsin ). The first ideal is rooted in the Puruṣasūkta. The second presupposes the śruti corpus, because the four life stages are correlated with the four classes of śruti texts. Thus the student learns one of the Vedas, the householder performs domestic and optimally also śrauta rituals of the Brāhamaṇas, the forest dweller follows the teachings of the Ᾱraṇyakas, and the saṃnyāsin follows a path of renunciation toward the Upaniṣadic goal of mokṣa. But although all the life stages are either mentioned (as are the first two) or implied in the śruti corpus, the theory that they should govern the ideal course of individual life is new to the Dharmasūtras. Together, the varṇa and āśrama ideals take on tremendous complexity, because a person's duties vary according to caste and stage of life, not to mention other factors like sex, family, region, and the quality of the times. Also, whereas a person's development through one life ideally is regulated by the āśrama ideal, the passage through many reincarnations would involve birth into different castes, the caste of one's birth being the result of previous karman. A further implication is that the life stages can be properly pursued only by male members of the three twice-born varṇa s, as they alone can undergo the Upanayana ritual that begins the student stage and allows the performance of the rites pertinent to succeeding stages.

Each of these formulations has peṛṣisted more on the ideal plane than the real. In the case of the four āśrama s, most people never went beyond the householder stage, which the Sūtras and Śāstras actually exalt as the most important of the four, because it is the support of the other three and, in more general terms, the mainstay of the society. The forest-dweller stage may soon have become more legendary than real: In epic stories it was projected onto the Vedic ṛṣi s. The main tension, however, that peṛṣists in orthodox Hinduism is that between the householder and the renunciant, the challenge being for anyone to integrate into one lifetime these two ideals, which the heterodoxies set out for separate lay and monastic communities.

As to the four varṇa s, the ideal represents society as working to the reciprocal advantage of all the castes, each one having duties necessary to the proper functioning of the whole and the perpetuation of the hierarchical principle that defines the whole. Thus Brāhamaṇa s are at the top, distinguished by three duties that they share with no other caste: teaching the Veda, assisting in sacrifice, and accepting gifts. They are said to have no king but Soma, god of the sacrifice. In actual fact the traditional śrauta sacrifice counted for less and less in the brāhamaṇa householder life, and increasing attention was given to the maintenance of brāhamaṇa purity for the purpose of domestic and eventually temple rituals that, in effect, universalized sacrifice as the brāhamaṇa 's dharma, but a sacrifice that required only the minimum of impure violence. This quest for purity was reinforced by brāhamaṇa s' adoption into their householder life of aspects of the saṃnyāsa ideal of renunciation. This was focused especially on increasing espousal of the doctrine of ahiṃsā (nonviolence, or, more literally, "not desiring to kill") and was applied practically to vegetarianism, which becomes during this period the brāhamaṇa norm. Brāhamaṇa s thus retain higher rank than kṣatriya s, even though the latter wield temporal power (kṣatra ) and have the specific and potentially impure duties of bearing weapons and protecting and punishing with the royal staff (daṇḍa ). The subordination of king to brāhamaṇa involves a subordination of power to hierarchy that is duplicated in contemporary rural and regional terms in the practice of ranking brāhamaṇa s above locally dominant castes whose power lies in their landed wealth and numbers. Vaiśya s have the duties of stock breeding, agriculture, and commerce (including money lending). Certain duties then distinguished the three twice-born castes as a group from the śūdra s. All three upper varṇa s thus study the Veda, perform sacrifices, and make gifts, whereas śūdra s are permitted only lesser sacrifices (pākayajña s) and simplified domestic rituals that do not require Vedic recitation.

Actual conditions, however, were (and still are) much more complex. The four-varṇa model provided the authors of the dharma texts with Vedic "categories" within which to assign a basically unlimited variety of heterogeneous social entities including indigenous tribes, barbarian invaders, artisan communities and guilds (śreṇi s), and specialists in various services. Susceptible to further refinement in ranking and regional nomenclature, all such groups were called jāti s, a term meaning "birth" and in functional terms the proper word to be translated "caste." Thus, although they are frequently called subcastes, the jāti s are the castes proper that the law books classified into the "categories" of varṇa.

To account for this proliferation of jāti s, the authors asserted that they arose from cross-breeding of the varṇa s. Two possibilities were thus presented: anuloma ("with the grain") unions, in which the husband's varṇa was the same as his wife's or higher (in anthropological terms, hypergamous, in which women are "married up"), and pratiloma ("against the grain") unions, in which the wife's varṇa would be higher than the husband's (hypogamous, in which women are "married down"). Endogamous marriage (marriage within one's own varṇa ) set the highest standard and was according to some authorities the only true marriage. But of the other two, whereas anuloma marriages were permitted, pratiloma unions brought disgrace. Thus the jāti s supposedly born from anuloma unions were less disgraced than those born from pratiloma unions. Significantly, two of the most problematic jāti s were said to have been born from the most debased pratiloma connections: the Yavanas (Greeks) from śūdra males and kṣatriya females (similar origins were ascribed to other "barbarians") and the caṇḍāla s (lowest of the low, mentioned already in the Upaniṣads, and early Buddhist literature, as a "fifth caste" of untouchables) from the polluting contact of śūdra males and brāhamaṇa females. It should be noted that a major implication of the prohibition of pratiloma marriage is the limitation for brāhamaṇa women to marriages with only brāhamaṇa men. This established at the highest rank an association of caste purity with caste endogamy (and the purity of a caste's women) and thus initiated an endogamous standard that was adopted by all castes—not just varṇa s but jāti s—by the end of the first millennium.

This accounting of the emergence of jāti s was integrated with further explanations of how society had departed from its ideal. One is that "mixing of caste"—the great abomination of the dharma texts and also of the Bhagavad-gītā —increases with the decline of dharma from yuga to yuga, and is especially pernicious in this Kali age. Another is the doctrine of āpad dharma, "duties for times of distress" such as permit inversion of caste roles when life is threatened. A third doctrine developed in the Dharmaśāstras identifies certain duties (kalivarjya s) as once allowed but now prohibited in the kaliyuga because people are no longer capable of performing them purely. Through all this, however, the ideal peṛṣists as one that embraces a whole society despite variations over time and space.

The four puruṣārthas (goals of humankind)

The theory that the integrated life involves the pursuit of four goals (artha s) is first presented in the Dharmaśāstras and the epics, in the latter cases through repeated narrative illustrations. The development of distinctive technical interpretations of each artha, or facets thereof, can also be followed during the period in separate manuals: the Arthaśāstra, a manual on statecraft attributed to Candragupta Maurya's minister Kauṭilya but probably dating from several centuries later, on artha (in the sense now of "material pursuits"); the Kāmasūtras, most notably that of Vātsyāyana (c. 400 ce), on kāma ("love, desire"); the already discussed Dharmasūtras and Dharmaśāstras on dharma; and the Sūtras of the "philosophical schools" (darśana s) insofar as they are concerned with the fourth goal, mokṣa. Early sources often refer to the first three goals as the trivarga, the "three categories," but this need not imply that the fourth goal is added later. The Dharmaśāstra and epic texts that mention the trivarga are focused on the concerns of the householder—and, in the epics, particularly of the royal householder—these being the context for the pursuit of the trivarga. The fourth goal, mokṣa, is to be pursued throughout life—indeed, throughout all lives—but is especially the goal of those who have entered the fourth life stage of the saṃnyāsin. The trivarga-mokṣa opposition thus replicates the householder-renunciant opposition. But the overall purpose of the puruṣārtha formulation is integrative and complementary to the varṇāśramadharma theory. From the angle of the householder, it is dharma that integrates the trivarga as a basis for mokṣa. But from the angle of the saṃnyāsin, it is kāma that lies at the root of the trivarga, representing attachment in all forms, even to dharma. Paths to liberation will thus focus on detachment from desire, or its transformation into love of God.

Philosophical "viewpoints" (darśanas) and paths to salvation

As an expression of Hinduism's increasing concern to systematize its teachings, the fourth goal of life (mokṣa ) was made the subject of efforts to develop distinctly Hindu philosophical "viewpoints" (darśana s, from the root dṛś, "see") on the nature of reality and to recommend paths to its apprehension and the release from bondage to karman. Six Hindu darśana s were defined, and during the period in question each produced fundamental texts—in most cases sūtra s—that served as the bases for later commentaries.

In terms of mainstream developments within Hinduism, only two schools have ongoing continuity into the present: the Mīmāṃsā and the Vedānta. And of these, only the latter has unfolded in important ways in the postsynthesis period. Nonetheless, all six have made important contributions to later Hinduism. It must thus suffice to discuss them all briefly at this point in terms of their basic features and major impact, and reserve fuller discussion of the Vedānta alone for the period of its later unfolding.

Of the six schools, two—Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta—are rooted primarily in the Vedic śruti tradition and are thus sometimes called smārta schools in the sense that they develop smārta orthodox currents of thought that are based, like smṛti, directly on śruti. The other four—Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, and Yoga—claim loyalty to the Veda, yet are quite independent of it, their focus instead being on rational or causal explanation. They are thus sometimes called haituka schools (from hetu, "cause, reason").

Of the smārta schools, the Mīmāṃsā is most concerned with ritual traditions rooted in the Vedas and the Brāhamaṇas, whereas the Vedānta is focused on the Upaniṣads. It is notable that both sustain Vedic orientations that reject (Mīmāṃsā) or subordinate (Vedānta) bhakti until the Vedānta is devotionalized in its post-Śaṅkara forms. Beginning with Jaimini's Mīmāṃsā Sūtra (c. 300–100 bce), Mīmāṃsā ("reflection, interpretation") provides exegesis of Vedic injunctive speech, in particular as it concerns the relationship between intentions and rewards of sacrifice. Great refinement is brought to bear on issues relating to the authority and eternalness of the Veda and the relationship between its sounds, words, and meanings. Vedic injunctions are taken literally, the many Vedic gods are seen as real although superfluous to salvation (there is an anti-bhakti stance here), and it is maintained that the proper use of injunctions is alone enough to secure the attainment of heaven (not a higher release, or mokṣa, as propounded by all the other systems, including bhakti ). Mīmāṃsā persists in two subschools, but only in small numbers among brahman ritualists.

As to the Vedānta ("end of the Veda," a term also used for the Upaniṣads), the foundational work is Bādarāyaṇa's Vedānta Sūtra, or Brahma Sūtra (c. 300–100 bce), an exegesis of various Upaniṣadic passages in aphoristic style easily susceptible to divergent interpretations. These it received in the hands of later Vedantic thinkers.

The haituka schools are notable for their development, for the first time within Hinduism, of what may be called maps and paths: that is, maps of the constituent features of the cosmos, and paths to deliverance from bondage. Emerging within Hindusim at this period, and particularly in the schools least affiliated with the Vedic tradition, such concerns no doubt represent an effort to counter the proliferation of maps and paths set forth by the heterodoxies (not only Buddhism and Jainism, but the Ᾱjīvikas). They allow for a somewhat more open recognition of the deity of bhakti (Sāṃkhya excepted) than do the smārta schools, though none of the haituka schools makes it truly central.