Who is a Hindu?

 

A lot of ink has flowed over the question how to define Hinduism.  There is no other religion for which the question of definition is so difficult. So I am giving below my own version of answer to this question, simply by collating and in concised from the seminal book by the Indic scholar of Belgium, Dr Koenraad Elst with the same title "who is a Hindu?"

There are Credal definitions, Historical definitions, Legal definition and pragmatic definition

1. Definition by Bal Gangadhara Tilak -    "who chose belief in the Vedas, variety in the means and infiniteness of the objects of worship as the criteria for being a Hindu" - The acceptance of many approaches to the ultimate truth is indeed a distinctive characteristic of Hinduism, distinguishing it from the exclusivism intrinsic to Christianity and Islam, however, : perhaps disagreement about the means’ would be a better description than ‘variety in the means’.  Thus, many of the Sants of the Bhakti movement (Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya) extol repeating the God-name as the means to Liberation and explicitly denounce both rituals and ascetic practices as false ways. Another major problem with the definition is "belief in Vedas", which will contradict with the pluralism of spiritual paths and these will exclude Veerashivas, Brahmosamaj, Aryasamaj, Budhists, Jains, Tribals etc.

2. Credal definition of Puranic Hinduism -- "Who believe in Reincarnation, and adherents of all the Puranic and Vedic scriptures including belief in caste separation, [not Varna which is Class separation] taboo on cow slaughter - this will exclude almost most of the present day Hindus who do not practice Caste separation, Aryasamaj, Ramakrishna mission. However one of the important point of this definition is "belief in reincarnation" which is a central theme in many of the sects including Budhists, Sikhs and Jains

3. Historical definition: - The term ‘Hindu’ is the Persian equivalent of the Indo-Aryan term ‘Sindhu’, ‘river’, ‘the Indus’.  The equivalence is a simple application of the regular phonetic relation between the Indo-Aryan and Iranian branches of the Indo-European language family: initial [s] is retained in Indo-Aryan but changed into [h] in Iranian, while aspirated voiced stops like [dh] are retained in Indo-Aryan but lose their aspiration in Iranian.  The Iranians used the word Hindu to designate the river Sindhu and the countries and populations situated around and beyond the Sindhu.  From Persian, the Greeks borrowed the river name as Indos and the people’s name as Indoi, hence in English Indus, India, Indian.

The Hindus never described themselves as ‘Hindus’, until Muslim invaders came and designated them by this Persian term.5 it does not follow that those whom we would call Hindus in retrospect had no sense of pan-Hindu cultural unity, as some might hastily conclude; merely that the term Hindu was not yet in use.

All Indians who were not Parsis, Jews, Christians, or Muslims, were automatically Hindus.  So, the original definition of Hindu is: an Indian Pagan.  Since the earliest use of the term Hindu in India, a clear definition has been given with it, and of every community it can easily be decided whether it fits that definition or not.  It does not matter if you do not like the name-tag: if you fit the definition, you fall within the Hindu category.  The Hindus have not chosen to be called Hindus: others have conceived the term and its definition, and Hindus simply found themselves carrying this label and gradually accepted it.

4. Legal Definition: - India’s Constitution does not give a definition of the term Hindu, but it does define to whom the ‘Hindu Law’ applies.  It must do this because in spite of its pretence to secularism, the Indian Constitution allows Muslims, Christians and Parsis a separate Personal Law.

The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 goes in greater detail to define this ‘legal Hindu’, by stipulating in Section 2 that the Act applies:

‘(a) to any person who is a Hindu by religion in any of its forms and developments, including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or a follower of the Brahmo, Prarthana or Arya Samaj,

‘(b) to any person who is a Buddhist, Jain or Sikh by religion, and

‘(c) to any other person domiciled in the territories to which this Act extends who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion’.

This definition of the ‘legal Hindu’, though explicitly not equating him with the ‘Hindu by religion’, is exactly coterminous with the original Islamic use of the term Hindu: all Indian Pagans are legally Hindus.  The Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs are explicitly included in the ‘Hindus by law’ but separated from the ‘Hindus by religion’: at this point, the law follows the usage established by Western scholars, contrary to the original usage.

Though initially it was objected by Sikhs in the Parliament and was convinced by the then Law Minister BR Ambedkar, all Sikhs, Jains and Budhists accepted it purely from the perspective of availing the benefits of caste-based reservations which is applicable only to Legal Hindus. Ramakrishna Mission went to court claiming them to be excluded from the definition of Hindu in order to escape the legal anti-Hindu discriminations esp. in education and temples, but lost it as they were unable to differentiate themselves from the term Hindu on the aspects of the practice of the religion, which squarely fell within the ambit of all practices.

Same way, Scheduled Castes automatically fell in to the legal definition of the Hindu in order to enjoy the legal benefits which is not available for other religious minorities. However Scheduled Tribes will need to declare themselves as a Hindu in order to enjoy the benefits.

5. Savarkar's definition: - ’A Hindu means a person who regards this land of Bharatavarsha, from the Indus to the Seas, as his Fatherland as well as his Holyland, that is the cradle-land of his religion"

This means that a non-Indian cannot be a Hindu, even if he considers India as his ‘Holyland’ say like Isconites; while a born Indian cannot be a Hindu if he considers a non-Indian place (Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome) as his ‘Holyland’.  Since Jainism, Buddhism, Veerashaivism, Sikhism, and all Indian tribal cults have their historical origins and sacred sites on Indian soil, all Indian Jains, Buddhists, Veerashaivas, Sikhs and so-called ‘animists’ qualify as Hindus.

The values of Sanatana Dharma are not tied up with this piece of land, and the Vedas or the Gita, though obviously situated in India, are not bothered with notions of ‘fatherland’ and ‘holyland’.  As Dr. Pukh Raj Sharma, a teacher of Ayurveda and Bhakti-Yoga from Jodhpur once said: ‘The country India is not important.  One day, India too will go.’4 So, we may question the wisdom of defining a religious tradition by an external characteristic such as its geographical location, even if the domain of this definition admirably coincides with the actual referent of the term Hindu in its common usage.

In Conclusion:

Hence a conglomeration of the credal, legal and practical definition will aptly fit -

A Hindu is a one who believes, practices either one or many or all of the aspects below:

-  belief in the Vedas, variety in the means and infiniteness of the objects of worship

- believe in Reincarnation, and adherents of all the Puranic and Vedic scriptures including belief in caste separation, [not Varna which is Class separation] taboo on cow slaughter

- person who regards this land of Bharatavarsha, from the Indus to the Seas, as his Fatherland as well as his Holyland, that is the cradle-land of his religion

- An animists who worships all forms of lives and animals

- A Nature worshiper - worship of The Sun, the moon, the stars, the space, the water, the fire, the air, the earth and does not abuse them for his sole benefit

 

And follows any path towards Self Realisation or emancipation or Liberation as the central theme of his life.

This Sanatana Dharma has any number of branches and offshoots.  Within its fold, we have the Vaidika and the Tantrika, the Buddhist and the Jain; we have the Shaiva and the Vaishnava, the Shakta and the Sikh, the Arya Samaj and the Kabirpanth; we have in its fold the worshippers of Ayappa in Kerala, of Sarna in Chotanagpur and of Doni-pollo in Arunachal Pradesh, the tribes and adivasis.  through all these forms and variations flows an underlying current of shared spirituality which makes us all Hindus and gives us an intrinsic sense of harmony. From the Vedic days, we have had two sets of tradition - Rishi tradition and Muni tradition. The Rishi tradition lead to the Vedic, Upanishadic and Puranic and Dharmic outcomes and governed by all of these, while the Muni tradition lead to the similar teachings, its own puranas and its own Dharma or Dhamma opening up the Jain and Buddhist traditions. Since the origin being the same and end goal being the same of "Realisation or Emancipation or Liberation" through many different paths, all of them qualify as Sanatana Dharma or Hinduism, hence all practitioners of these traditions are called as Hindus, whether they belong to this land confined between Himalayas and the Sindh river and the three Seas or not or call this geography as their Fatherland or motherland or as holy land or not.