This video explores the intricate aspects of Hinduism, raising the pivotal question of what it means to be Hindu given the enormous diversity of practices, beliefs, and stories within the religion. The discussion delves into how the universe in Hinduism moves in cycles, accommodating multiple realities and stories simultaneously. Various creation myths are highlighted, demonstrating the flexibility and diversity inherent in Hindu beliefs, where seemingly contradictory narratives coexist as fragments of a larger truth.

The historical context of Hinduism is examined, explaining how the term "Hindu" evolved from a geographical label to a broad religious identity encompassing a myriad of cultural and spiritual traditions. The narrative discusses the 19th-century influence of colonizers in categorizing these diverse practices under one umbrella and how different Hindu stories, such as the Ramayana, reflect distinct meanings over time and across cultures. The video also introduces fundamental Hindu concepts like Karma, dharma, moksha, and the caste system as they relate to social structures and personal spiritual goals.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. kumbh mela [kuːm ˈmeɪlə] - (n.) - A major Hindu festival and pilgrimage held every 12 years, attracting millions of people. - Synonyms: (festival, pilgrimage, religious gathering)

The kumbh mela, which in 2019 drew 200 million people.

2. pantheon [ˈpænθiːˌɒn] - (n.) - All the gods of a particular religion collectively. - Synonyms: (gods, deities, divine beings)

So the Ramayana is just one of many narratives starring the Hindu pantheon.

3. shruti [ʃruːti] - (n.) - Texts that are considered to be divinely revealed in Hinduism. - Synonyms: (sacred texts, divine revelations, holy writings)

There are two kinds of Hindu stories. First, the authorless divinely revealed kind known as shruti.

4. smriti [smrɪti] - (n.) - Texts that are remembered or traditional texts in Hinduism, composed by humans. - Synonyms: (remembered texts, traditional writings, human-composed documents)

smriti include the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most widely read Hindu scriptures in the world

5. brahman [ˈbrɑːmən] - (n.) - The ultimate reality or universal spirit in Hindu philosophy. - Synonyms: (ultimate reality, universal spirit, divine essence)

brahman transcends any single name or form, yet has infinite names and forms.

6. avatar [ˈævətɑːr] - (n.) - A manifestation or incarnation of a deity in Hinduism. - Synonyms: (incarnation, manifestation, embodiment)

brahman is often understood through a trio of major gods, each with multiple avatars or incarnations on earth.

7. moksha [ˈmoʊkʃə] - (n.) - Liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth in Hindu belief. - Synonyms: (liberation, nirvana, emancipation)

For some Hindus, the goal is getting off this samsara ride to become liberated from existence, a state called moksha.

8. dharma [ˈdɑːrmə] - (n.) - A key concept in Hinduism referring to duty, righteousness, and the moral order. - Synonyms: (duty, moral order, righteousness)

For many Hindus, the aim is to fulfill dharma, the duties of the social position you're born into.

9. seva [ˈseɪvə] - (n.) - Selfless service or giving in Hinduism, without expectation of return. - Synonyms: (selfless service, charity, altruism)

...food, which is then passed on to people in need as an act of seva, or giving, without any expectation of return.

10. bhakti [ˈbʌkti] - (n.) - Devotion and love towards a personal god in Hinduism. - Synonyms: (devotion, worship, piety)

...through rituals that express bhakti, or devotion to the divine.

The Infinite Stories of Hinduism - Crash Course Religions #5

Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to Crash Course Religion. So this is a Hindu celebration. So is this. And this. And so is this one. The kumbh mela, which in 2019 drew 200 million people. That's like five Tokyos or 250 Indianapolises. They came from all walks of life with diverse practices devoted to diverse gods. And that raises a. With all those many ways of doing Hinduism, what does it mean to be Hindu?

In Hinduism, the universe moves in cycles, with room for multiple universes and multiple lifetimes where multiple realities can be true at once. Like maybe the universe began with the cracking of a great golden egg, spilling life across an empty cosmos. Or. Or perhaps a lotus flower grew from a God's belly button before being pulled apart to create the heavens, the earth, and the sky. In another origin story, the creator was just lonely and wanted some friends, which is why I started playing the Sims. And you know what? Credit to this universe's creator, because they've never like locked me in a bathroom for the rest of my natural life, which I've definitely done to some Sims.

So which of these creation stories is true? Well, it's kind of all of the above. In Hinduism, stories that seem to contradict themselves are not typically seen as a problem to be resolved, but fragments of an infinite ultimate truth. Hinduism is often called the world's oldest living religion. And it's true that some of its texts date back to over 3,000 years ago in the Indus river valley. But those early storytellers didn't call themselves Hindu. That title came first from the Persians, then from the Greeks. And originally it was mostly a geographic and ethnic label, basically meaning those people living by that river.

So how did the word Hindu go from a way to identify your neighbors to a collective religious identity? Now, some scholars trace this vibe shift to the 19th century, when British colonizers used the Hindu category on their census, lumping together wildly diverse indigenous communities with a catch all term that basically meant not Muslim. Others argue that Hindu was already taking shape long before the British barged in as a religious identity shaped in part by a centuries long rivalry between Muslims and those of other faiths in South Asia. Regardless, by the 19th century, the English word Hinduism had stuffed thousands of years of culture and history under one complicated umbrella.

Today, Hindus are still as diverse as ever, with no central creed or holy figure uniting the different practices. But what Hindus do have is stories, lots of them, designed for navigating questions about the self, the cosmos, and life. There are two kinds of Hindu stories. First, the authorless divinely revealed kind known as shruti. Sanskrit for what is heard. This includes the four Rig Sama, Yajur and Atarva. The word Veda means knowledge or wisdom, and these texts are full of it. The oldest, the Rigveda, contains over a thousand hymns and chants with instructions for living a good life. The second kind of story is Smurty, or what is remembered. The authored by a humankind. smriti include the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most widely read Hindu scriptures in the world. Like the Vedas, these tales of gods and goddesses model how to navigate life's responsibilities and challenges. Because the smriti are designed to help maintain society across time and space, they're flexible and adaptable, allowing for several versions of the same story.

Let's head to the thought bubble to learn more. For 14 years, the God prince Ram was exiled to a forest with his wife Sita and half brother Lakshman. One day, Sita was kidnapp by the ten headed demon king Ravana. So Ram and Lakshman teamed up with a monkey general named Hanuman to take down the demon king. Together they triumphed over evil, rescuing Sita. That's how one version of the Ramayana goes, according to an epic poem composed sometime around 300 BCE. But there's a different version where Ram banishes Sita after rescuing her, another where Lakshman is the hero, versions where Sita can fight demons herself. Thank you very much. A version where Sita isn't ever kidnapped, and a really meta version where Ram is like Sita, don't join me in the forest. And Sita gets furious and says countless Ramayanas have been composed before this. Do you know of one where Sita doesn't go with Ram to the forest?

The Ramayana has been told for over 2,000 years in two dozen languages by some counts. There are hundreds of versions, even Jain and Muslim ones, each one reflecting different meanings in different times and places. Thanks, thought bubble. So the Ramayana is just one of many narratives starring the Hindu pantheon, gods and goddesses, commonly understood as incarnations of the ultimate reality or brahman. brahman transcends any single name or form, yet has infinite names and forms. It's sort of an infinity for one deal. And if that seems weird, I mean, so does infinity, so does consciousness.

brahman is often understood through a trio of major gods, each with multiple avatars or incarnations on earth, all with a role to play in the multiverse. First, there's Brahma no En, who has four heads, four arms and the Task of creating the universe. He's the one who pulled apart Vishnu's belly button lotus flower to make the universe. And speaking of Vishnu, he's the next God in the trio. Vishnu is also four armed, often blue, and considered the preserver of the universe, which is an in demand skill these days.

Last but not least is Shiva, also four armed, often blue, destroyer of the universe, which according to some interpretations isn't all bad. Giving all of existence a bit of spring cleaning every now and then does allow constructive change to happen. In fact, you can't have a multiverse without it. Now, I realize I've been using he him pronouns, but that's not exactly right, because many Hindu texts frame the ultimate reality as neither male nor female. And each God in the trio has a godd his counterpart. In fact, one form of Hinduism called Shaktism worships the divine feminine energy inherent in brahman named Devi. The supreme goddess Shakti, by the way, has eight arms and rides a tiger.

Alright, now we're entering the word nerd part of the episode. Humor me while we explore some Hindu terms and I keep my 894 day streak. Many Hindu stories ask questions like how does brahman, the ultimate reality of things, relate to the Atman, a person's soul? In other words, a question that's asked in so many where do I fit in? And Hindus have a lot of different takes on this. One of them you may have heard of is Karma. In this view, your actions have an effect both on the world and on your soul's future path. It's all part of Samsara, the cycle of birth, life, death and reincarnation. Depending on if you earned good or bad karma, you could be reincarnated as a person, an animal, or an insect.

I would like to be reincarnated as a dog, but I feel like my karma is, for lack of a better term, housefly ish. For some Hindus, the goal is getting off this samsara ride to become liberated from existence, a state called moksha, which some interpret as letting go of all desire. But others view moksha as only possible after death, and only if you've cleared your karmic accounts. For many Hindus, the aim is to fulfill dharma, the duties of the social position you're born into. dharma is what keeps traditions going. It can impact how you name your baby or send off loved ones after they die. And interpretations of dharma have also been used to arrange social hierarchies, like the immensely complicated caste system, which has been used throughout South Asia to assign different levels of privilege.

Based on inherited social status, even among non Hindus. Scholar Isabel Wilkerson has noted that caste functions similarly to race in the US where the amount of respect and resources and social standing a person has is determined at least partially by their race. There are actually two forms of caste. One is varna, which refers to one of the four categories of people named in the Rig Veda. The other is jati, which refers to the rankings of people based on their lineage. Although castes have existed in some form for around 3,000 years, they became a much more rigid way of organizing societies when British colonizers kind of hijacked them, creating deep and lasting social inequalities by muddling the two forms of caste and also claiming that they were unchangeable.

And yes, a lot of this goes back to those colonial census takers. In the centuries since this shift, certain groups have weaponized caste in order to maintain power, even using physical and sexual violence to do so. Caste divisions still create significant inequality. The Indian government has taken steps to decrease it to little effects. And it plays a significant role in Hindu nationalism, which we'll get to in a later episode. Of course, simple categories fail to capture the diversity of practices among Hindus. See, for many practitioners, Hinduism isn't just something you are. It's also something you do through rituals that express bhakti, or devotion to the divine.

Rituals known as puja happen at home or at temples known as mandirs, decorated with scenes from Hindu stories and statues of popular deities. It's thought that ringing a bell and greeting the deity respectfully makes it possible to access darshan, a state of seeing and being seen by the divine. Sort of a transcendental facetime. Often, templegoers lay offerings of food, which is then passed on to people in need as an act of seva, or giving, without any expectation of return.

Okay, word nerd, portion over. So even though Hindu started as a geographic label, Hinduism is not only in South Asia, it spread to the Caribbean, South Indonesia, North America, and Europe, blending more diverse practices into an already diverse tradition. In fact, one of the most important Hindu holidays, Diwali, is celebrated all over the world. For some, it represents Ram's triumph over Ravana. For others, it's Krishna's defeat of the demon Narakasura. For still others, it's about Vishnu sending away the demon king, Bali. What's constant, though, is the hope of good winning out over evil with room for more than one story. In the glow of those lights, multiplicity is Hinduism's beating heart. Many gods, yet only one. More than one life more than one universe, more than one version of a story.

So it's fitting, really, that a tradition so at ease with more than one possibility manages no straightforward answer to the question, what does it mean to be Hindu? In our next episode, we're going to explore the way Buddhists live and worship. I'll see you then.

Religion, Culture, Philosophy, Hinduism, Education, Global, Crashcourse