My family and extended family are high caste Hindu and coincidentally terrible human beings (narrator: It’s not coincidental). As such I am atheistic and have kept my distance from Hindu stuff because from what I have seen so far no good comes out of it ever. The way I see it, in a post-colonial India, Hinduism is a religion of the oppressors. The little that I know it is full of red flags and there no emancipatory value to it which is a bit shocking considering India’s colonial past. For example, in the Hindu epic called Ramayana, Hanuman flies to Sri Lanka. He does this to check up on Sita, the wife of Lord Rama (the incarnation of Krishna who is one of the most important Hindu gods). Sita had been kidnapped by Ravana, the king of Sri Lanka. After Hanuman checks up on her, he commits arson basically setting civilian infrastructure on fire which I am sure is against the Geneva Convention or its equivalent mapped to this mythical universe. This is something that is celebrated which I never understood really.
Either way, I don’t fuck with Hinduism for mostly personal reasons. This got me thinking if there are people here who are interested in it. The only other Indian person I know here is trapped in the cycle of getting banned for going off the handle and creating alt accounts which is kinda ironic considering the Hindu belief in karma and rebirth.
I know that the Rev Left Radio guy is interested in Buddhism which also originated in India/Nepal but is extremely less problematic. So it got me wondering if there are non-Indian people here interested in Hinduism. That’s all.
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I’m Thai, so, thanks to the Buddhism-with-Hinduism-characteristic over here, I’m a bit familiar with a few of localized version of Hindu mythology, including Ramayana. I agree, it’s weird when you really think about it.
Can you give me some keywords that I can search for or some links so I look into these localised versions?
The conception of good-versus-evil in Ramayana is heavily racialised. I was wondering what it was like in other versions.
Ramakien (wikipedia link)
It’s the only one I remembered, thanks to secondary school. I remember that they are other mythology, mostly in the form of children stories, but I can’t remember the name or even the plot.
[warning : incoming rant]
Frankly, literatures is one of my least favorite subject in my entire school years, partly thanks to many local literatures that was so terribly written I have no idea why people still talk about them fondly. For heck sake, one of the first story we learn in primary school is a few step away from being a porn. Compare to these, at least Ramakien is somewhat enjoyable.
[end rant]
Thank you
I’m a Hindu. I’m a white British convert. I am more interested in the tantric esoteric side of Hinduism than the everyday worship that is mostly cultural. I find the practises of meditation, yoga and contemplation of the universe through the lense of gods and their myths very helpful to my mental well being. I also love reading about the hijra, their history and role in society today and their current fight for recognition and how the gods have a very fluid idea of gender.
Myths are not to be taken literally in my mind. I love Hanuman as a symbol of devotion, strength, chastity and innocence. I think the myths were written in a certain time, place and culture and they reflect that but they also contain spiritual truths about faith, over coming adversity, the nature of the universe and other stuff as well.
There is definitely some dodgy stuff in Hindu scriptures that can be used to justify stuff that is wrong like the caste system and misogyny but like any religion what parts are actually believed and practised is entirely cultural. It has and will change over time given the material conditions. Which you can see looking at the history of the religion and the changes that have occurred from the vedic period to now.
I do also study some Buddhism as Buddha is seen as an avatar of Vishnu in some sects of Hinduism and I think his teachings have a lot to offer and his myth of a prince rejecting wealth and status because of the suffering he saw in others and going on a journey to try and liberate people from that suffering is part of Hinduism too and since he was the latest avatar probably the most important one to follow as example for our current age.
Hinduisms is huge and there’s plenty of good in it if you look.
Im wondering if you have read any of the texts and if yes what you think about those. By texts, I’m referring to maybe the Gita or epics like Ramayana or Mahabharata. By read, I don’t really mean pored through the pages. More like how us communists have read Capital wink wink.
I have read the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana. I haven’t really studied them though as I am mostly into Shaivism. I have read some stories from the Mahabharata but not the whole thing, it’s huge. I love the Gita and it’s message of performing ones duty or dharma and letting the consequences happen and accepting them good and bad. I love the idea of God it invokes as being the highest form but also omnipresent in everything.
I love the Ramanyana for similar reasons. It’s all about performing dharma ones duty no matter how hard it gets. I love the story of Rama and Sita’s love and their devotion to each other even when separated. I love Lakshmanas role as faithful brother and how he stood by Rama’s side the whole time. It’s also just a really fun story.
Those are the messages I get out of those kind of stories. They are pretty simple readings of the texts and I’m sure people who study them get much more out of them. I can also see how do your duty as a message can be very easily manipulated to keep people in their place. I have a radical view on what ones duty is as a leftist many people do not.
Just gonna vent to you if you don’t mind. I love Lakshmana and Hanuman but I feel like the essence of these characters are used to exploit people into serving the cause for a QUOTE greater purpose UNQUOTE.
Not sure if this would interest you but there was this anime of Ramayana that was insanely popular when I was a kid. The hindi dub featured Bollywood actors and the animation was done by a Japanese studio.
I am white but grew up with a lot of south asian friends. However, I still feel like I know nothing about Hinduism. As an aside, it’s been interesting watching said south asian friends either abandon or fully recommit to their heritage as they grew older. I want to read Ramayana, but have not yet done so. I find it really interesting how these were originally Indo-European stories, and I think it would be neat to understand the similarities and differences. It seems like the southern Dravidian people weren’t originally Hindu, so I’m interested in learning more about the regional differences and how that plays into Hindu national identity. It’s my understanding that Assam basically celebrates chinese new year, for example. I’ve been focusing on east asia for now and it’s really a different world. I’m anticipating it would be similar learning more about south asia.
Are you American?
yes
If your Indian friends are ever conflicted about their place in the highly segregated racial hierarchy in the USA, there is an informative book about this topic.
It’s called “The Karma of Brown Folk” by Vijay Prashad. Link to epub and pdf
Thanks for the link! I’ll definitely share if the opportunity comes up. Big fan of Vijay Prashad
I got my pop knowledge on Hinduism from videogames and weeb shit, so I comfortably say I know nothing about Hinduism beyond a few names and info-blurbs about them.
I got about as much interest in it as I do with other religions and mythologies around the world, so I’d like to learn about them but it’s one of those things that are low on my list of shit to read unfortunately, as much as I enjoy reading the stuff.
I’m not Indian and I am indeed very interested in Hinduism. I’m interested in religions in general, but mostly ancient religions. So I’m not all familiar with modern Hinduism.
Hinduism is the oldest continuously practiced religion in the world. The first schools of Hinduism, like Nyāya, Yoga and Vedanta, were extremely advanced. They had epistemological and metaphysical concepts and developments that only showed up in the west in the Renaissance. Like realism, atomism etc. Vedanta and Yoga (both likely the oldest schools) even developed a monistic consciousness-first metaphysics and that’s something being studied seriously by science only now, like cutting edge metaphysics and studies of consciousness.
I see the early schools of Hinduism as way ahead of their times. And studying them and the developments that came from sages after them, up until the medieval age, really breaks your brain to see how freaking modern and scientific they were even 3000 years ago.
In any case, for those same reasons I’m fascinated by ancient Egyptian religion, Ancient Greek philosophy, Buddhism Jainism etc.
Those people figured shit out thousands of years ago using only their minds and meditation that took us hundreds of years of applied scientific method and crazy scientific tool developments to find out.
Reading about it made me realize how much we don’t know shit. We think we’re the epitome of scientific and philosophical development. But we’re just repeating what a bunch of old ass people were saying thousands of years ago, and they figured that shit out just by sitting quiet and thinking right lol
I generally think of Buddhism as the good parts of Hinduism without (most of) the bad parts. Random question: is it weird that when I meet an Indian (as a white USian), one of my first thoughts is how they probably have privileged POS relatives (because I’m under the impression that mostly high caste can and want to come to this hellscape)?
From what I saw on Wikipedia it’s true that Indians in the US have higher average incomes compared to other ethnic groups. It’s true that most Indians who emigrate are privileged. It’s also true that those who move to west are more often than not very reactionary. Whether it’s weird that that’s the first thing that pops in your mind is something you’ll have to decide for yourself.
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This is kind of an off-topic comment and while I understand where you’re coming from, we shouldn’t lump in such a huge group of people into one umbrella, and calling them a phobia 😅
This is not really a warning, it’s more a comment you should think about in your own time.
