Vivekananda.From The Science and Philosophy of Religion, by Swami Vivekananda, 1915
At least as important as these guru-centred communities in the increasingly international texture of Hindu life are communities of Hindus who have emigrated from South Asia to other parts of the world. Their character differs markedly according to region, class, and the time at which emigration occurred. Tamils in Malaysia celebrate a festival to the god Murugan (Thaipusam) that accommodates body-piercing vows. Formerly indentured labourers who settled on the Caribbean island of Trinidad in the mid-19th century have consolidated doctrine and practice from various locales in Gangetic India, with the result that Rama and Sita have a heightened profile. Many migrants from rural western India, especially Gujarat, became urbanized in East Africa in the late 19th century and resettled in Britain. Like those Gujaratis who came directly to the United States from India since the liberalization of U.S. immigration laws in 1965, once abroad they are more apt to embrace the reformist guru-centred Swaminarayan faith than they would be in their native Gujarat, though this is by no means universal.
Professional-class emigrants from South India have spearheaded the construction of a series of impressive Shrivaishnava-style temples throughout the United States, sometimes receiving financial and technical assistance from the great Vaishnava temple institutions at Tirupati. The placement of some of these temples, such as the Penn Hills temple near Pittsburgh, Pa., reveals the desire to evoke Tirupati’s natural environment on American soil. Similarly, Telugu-speaking priests from the Tirupati region have been imported to serve at temples such as the historically important Ganesha temple, constructed in Queens, New York, in 1975–77. Yet the population worshipping at these temples is far more mixed than that in India. This produces on the one hand sectarian and regional eclecticism and on the other hand a vigorous attempt to establish doctrinal common ground. As Vasudha Narayanan observed, educational materials produced at such temples typically hold that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life, that it insists in principle on religious tolerance, that its Godhead is functionally trinitarian (the male trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva is meant, although temple worship is often very active at goddesses’ shrines), and that Hindu rituals have inner meanings consonant with scientific principles and are conducive to good health.
A small fraction of diaspora Hindus are also important contributors to the VHP, whose efforts since 1964 to find common ground among disparate Hindu groups have not only helped establish educational programs for youths but sometimes also contributed to displays of Hindu nationalism such as were seen at Ayodhya in 1992. The struggle between “left” and “right” within the Hindu fold continued into the early 21st century, with diasporic groups playing a more important role than ever before. Because of their wealth and education, because globalizing processes lend them prestige and enable them to communicate constantly with Hindus living in South Asia, and because their experience as minorities tends to set them apart from their families in India itself, their contribution to the evolution of Hinduism has been a very interesting one.
“Hinduism,” originally an outsider’s word, designates a multitude of realities defined by period, time, sect, class, and caste. Yet the veins and bones that hold this complex organism together are not just chimeras of external perception. Hindus themselves—particularly diasporic Hindus—affirm them, continuing and even accelerating a process of self-definition that has been going on for millennia. Vasudha Narayanan
Citation Information
Article Title: Hinduism
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 14 August 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hinduism
Access Date: August 19, 2019
Additional Reading General works
Among the many overviews of Hinduism are Sitansu S. Chakravarti, Hinduism: A Way of Life (1991); Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (1996); C.J. Fuller, The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism in India (1996); David R. Kinsley, Hinduism: A Cultural Perspective (1982); Klaus K. Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism, 2nd ed. (1994); and R.C. Zaehner, Hinduism, 2nd ed. (1966, revised 1985). Jan Gonda, Vedic Literature (Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas) (1975), and Medieval Religious Literature in Sanskrit (1977). For historical overviews, consult Vincent A. Smith, The Oxford History of India, 4th ed. (1981); and Romila Thapar and Percival Spear, A History of India, 2 vol. (1965–66). Sacred texts
Original sources of the principal texts of Hinduism in English translation are collected in Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty (ed. and trans.), Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism (1988); and R.C. Zaehner (ed. and trans.), Hindu Scriptures (1966). A useful compendium of Hindu mythology in translation is Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty (ed. and trans), Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook (1975).
Some of the individual textual classics of Hinduism have been translated and published in the series Sacred Books of the East: F. Max Müller and Hermann Oldenberg (trans.), Vedic Hymns, 2 vol. (1891–97, reprinted 1979), selections from the Rigveda; Maurice Bloomfield (trans.), Hymns of the Atharva-Veda: Together with Extracts from the Ritual Books and the Commentaries (1897, reissued 1973); Julius Eggeling (trans.), The Śatapatha-Brāhmana, According to the Text of the Mâdhyandina School, 5 vol. (1882–1900, reprinted 1978); Julius Jolly (trans.), The Institutes of Vishnu (1880, reprinted 1965), and The Minor Law-Books (1889, reprinted 1965); George Thibaut (trans.), The Vedānta-Sūtras, with the Commentary by Rāmānuja, 3 vol. (1890–1904, reprinted 1977); and Hermann Oldenberg (trans.), The Grihya-Sutras: Rules of Vedic Domestic Ceremonies, 2 vol. (1886–92, reissued 1973). Also of interest are Wendy Doniger and Brian K. Smith (trans.), The Laws of Manu: With an Introduction and Notes (1991); and Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty (ed. and trans.), The Rig Veda: An Anthology (1981), a collection of 108 hymns. Patrick Olivelle (trans.), Upanishads (1989); and Barbara Stoler Miller (trans.), The Bhagavad-Gita (1986, reissued 1991), are excellent translations. Translations of the epics include J.A.B. van Buitenen (ed. and trans.), The Mahābhārata (1973– ); and Hari Prasad Shastri (trans.), The Ramayana, 3rd ed., 3 vol. (1976). Translations of several Puranas are available in the Purāṇas, series ed. by Anand Swarup Gupta (1968– ).