Hindu Dharma or Sanātana Dharma?

 

 

Hindu Dharma or Sanātana Dharma?

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

A question which keeps cropping up constantly, especially among those Hindus who are proud of their identity but who also like to split straws and to squabble over names and words, is whether we should call our religion Hinduism (Hindu Dharma) or Sanātanism (Sanātana Dharma), and ourselves Hindus or Sanātanīs. The main argument of these people is that Hindu is a name or appellation given to us by "foreigners" or "outsiders", whereas Sanātana is a self-descriptive name for ourselves.

 

But is Sanātana really a self-descriptive name for our religious, cultural or civilizational identity, or for our Dharma?

1. In the earliest Vedic texts, the Samhitas, the word sanātana occurs (by itself, and not as a joint phrase with the word dharma) only twice in the Atharvaveda (X.8.22,23), and here it simply means "eternal", and is applied as a descriptive epithet of Brahmā. or the Supreme Being or Supreme Consciousness.

2. Later the word sanātana occurs several times in the Brahmana texts, but again always without the accompanying word dharma, with the simple meaning "eternal", and applied specifically to different Gods or to the Supreme Being or Supreme Consciousness.

3. Perhaps (though I am open to correction, if anyone can produce older citations) the first use of the combined phrase containing both the words (Sanātana and Dharma) is in the Manu Smriti, 4.138 and 9.64. And these are not referring to any self-identity, but to what they describe as an "eternal law" (of morality or ethical social behavior):

Manu Smriti, 4.138:

satyam brūyāt priyam brūyān na brūyāt satyam apriyam.

priyam ca na-anṛtam brūyād eṣa dharmaḥ sanātanaḥ.

"Let him say what is true; let him say what is agreeable; but let him not utter a disagreeable truth, nor utter an agreeable falsehood: that is the eternal law".

Manu Smriti, 9.64:

na-anyasmin vidhavā nārī niyoktavyā dvijātibhiḥ.

anyasmin hi niyuñjānā dharmaṁ hanyu sanātanam.

"A widow must not be appointed, by a twice-born man, to cohabit (perform niyoga) with any man; he who does so will be violating the eternal law".

It will be noticed that not only does the phrase not denote identity in any way in either of the two contexts, but it looks as if it is just a phrase used to emphasize that any social or moral act recommended or forbidden is claimed to be recommended or forbidden as per an "eternal" code. The caste-specific references in the second reference, additionally, make clear the narrow social relevance of such "eternal" laws.

Even for the meaning "eternal" the Manu Smriti much more often uses other words, most commonly śāśvata. And the word sanātana occurs by itself in reference to other things sought to be described as eternal: brahmā/brahman (1.7; 6.79); the Vedas (1.23; 3.284; 12.94,99); the Vedic sacrifice (1.22); and some general other laws pertaining to kingly duties (9.325), or the caste status of children born out of inter-varṇa unions (10.7).

The same practice is followed in later texts (starting with the Epic and Puranic texts), where either some God or Goddess, to indicate his/her ancientness and importance, or some social or ethical rule or law, to indicate its sanctity, is called sanātana (eternal).

Hence, I really would be extremely interested in finding out, from those who advocate the term Sanātana Dharma, as opposed to the term Hindu Dharma, the earliest ancient or medieval source which uses the term Sanātana Dharma as an identity term for what we today call Hindu Dharma: by which I mean the Hindu religion or (to preempt diversionary straw-splitting polemics from people who would like to divert the discussion into an endless debate about whether or not "dharma" means "religion") our indigenous Indian national-civilizational-spiritual-cultural ("way of life") identity.

 

Even more to the point, a follower of Hindu Dharma would be a Hindu. Who would be a follower of Sanātana Dharma: a Sanātanī? Which ancient or medieval text contains this word Sanātanī? And that too, as a name or identity word for what we would today call Hindu?

All these words (Sanātanī, Ārya, etc) produced out of an inexplicable allergy for the word "Hindu" and as substitutes for it, were nothing but ill-thought-out pseudo-nationalistic reactions to colonial rule and scholarship, and do not in any way reflect our own self-description in the same way as the word Hindu:

1. They were perhaps influenced or induced by all the nasty things written in colonial times by western scholars and missionaries about Hindus. Just as the Arya Samaj decided to answer criticisms by the missionaries about Indian idolatry and polytheism, and about the lack of a "canonical" text, by claiming that the "pure", "original" and "unpolluted" or "uncorrupted" Indian religion was idol-less and monotheistic and had a set of "canonical" texts (i.e. "the Vedas"), so also these renamers of Hinduism decided to answer criticisms of Hinduism by the simple process of changing the name of the religion itself. It may be noted that the choice of the word sanātana (eternal) as the epithet for our dharma also seems to give a befitting reply to the Christian/Muslim claims of their religions (in spite of having founders) being "eternal" as per various twisted arguments and pieces of "logic"!

2. There are also the kīḍās (worms) of history-phobia in the minds of many Hindus. This is demonstrated most typically by the recurring trends of trying to erase history and historical memories by changing place-names on specious pseudo-nationalistic and pseudo-patriotic grounds − an easy, cheap (though not to the exchequers who have to execute all the name-changes out of the tax-payers' money) and painless (to the renamers) exhibition of patriotism, as I have already pointed out in detail in another article. This itch to ditch the word "Hindu" is one more manifestation of that same mentality.

3. Basically, instead of comparing the Hindu religion with the Muslim and Christian religions, and showing why it is superior to them, these Hindus prefer to run away from the battlefield under the cowardly pretext that there can be no comparisons between Hinduism on the one hand and Islam and Christianity on the other, because the former is not a "religion" at all, while the latter two are "religions"!

Hinduism is superior not because it is "true" while the other two are "false", but because, Hinduism has no fixed religious dogmas: you can believe or disbelieve in any religious or philosophical idea, doctrine or text, or in any ritual act, without becoming any the less a "Hindu" for it. Hindu thought covers almost every possible part of the intellectual and ideological spectrum, unlike the other two which are based on fixed dogmas and have narrow boundaries.

And this is where the name Sanātana Dharma falls flat as a cover-all substitute for Hinduism: in every context where it is used in our texts, it refers to some specific belief or moral/ethical or social viewpoint specific to the text or to the particular sect, or school of philosophy, that the text belongs to, which naturally considers its own beliefs "eternal". If someone now wants to use it as a substitute for the word Hinduism or Hindu Dharma, it must be recognized as a modern and reactive revisionist interpretation of the traditional term with a totally new meaning, and not as the traditional term.

[Incidentally, silly political events − such as DMK leaders, or others of similar ilk, making derogatory remarks about the term Sanātana − give additional impetus to these revisionist attempts].

 

The argument that the term "Hindu" was given to us by "outsiders" is extremely misleading for two reasons:

1. Identity terms which effectively cover all the sections of Indian society (or of any society or entity under discussion) are of necessity ones given by "outsiders". The word ārya was used in the Rigveda by its Pūru composers to refer only to Pūrus: in the Rigveda, the Pūrus are ārya, and all others (including the Anus and Druhyus to the west and northwest, the Yadus and Turvasus to the south, and the Ikṣvākus to the far east) are non-āryas or dāsas. Note that in the eyes of the composers of the Rigveda, not only the Andamanese, Santal and Dravidian speaking people from the rest of India, but even Rāma and Kṛṣṇa would be non-āryas or dāsas. Trying to use the word ārya as a substitute for Hindu would be an extremely new and revisionist reinterpretation of the term. Even when later and later texts extended the term  to include larger and larger areas and to extended contexts (e.g. as in the geographical name āryāvarta, or in the much-later-recorded extant versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata where the heroes are often described as ārya, or the Buddha, with a new meaning to the word referred to the four ārya truths), the term never covered the whole of India.

The same is the case with any other "Indian-origin" word that anyone may seek to prop up as a "native" alternative to the "outsider" word "Hindu" − including the word Sanātana. This is because it is only from the point of view of an "outsider" that the oneness of India, as a distinct entity for purposes of identity, would normally be apparent. Sources from inside India would normally only be inventing or using words from a point of view distinguishing their own group from other Indian groups (until of course contact with outsiders brought into focus and emphasized their commonality with those other Indian groups in contrast with the "outsiders"). So any word used by any "insider" as a self-identifying term of cultural-civilizational-religious identity would normally refer to a (big or small) section of "insiders" but not to all "insiders" as opposed to "outsiders": any identifying term of this kind could normally only be given by "outsiders". [I am repeatedly using the word "normally" because Argumentative Indians spoiling for a fight are quite capable of managing to concoct abnormal scenarios to endlessly argue against the facts].

Thus, the European colonialists concocted the phrases "American Indians" or "Amerindians", and the phrase "Australian Aboriginals",  to cover all the inhabitants of the two continents. It is inconceivable that the original inhabitants of those two continents could already have had (given the wide geographical areas, isolated locations, and different unconnected languages and cultures in both continents) a common name to express their common identity as opposed to that of the "outsiders". Hence, today, any hypothetical attempts to have a common name for the "insiders" as opposed to the "outsiders" in either of the two continents would necessarily have to accept the colonial-given names "American Indians" or "Amerindians", and "Australian Aboriginals", or coin some totally new common name from native sources (and from which particular native language would that new name be derived?).

In the case of India, despite all the "insider"-"outsider" claptrap, the name "Hindu" though given by "outsiders" (and, as I pointed out above, it would be outsiders who could logically give a all-covering name for India and its diverse inhabitants) was not given by colonial invaders: it is a name, in different forms (which includes all forms and variants of the words "India" and "Hindu") used since more than two millennia ago by inhabitants of most of the rest of the civilized world which came into contact with India, including the Persians, Greeks, Arabs and Chinese.

2. And, what is more, unlike the common name for the native peoples of America or Australia, the "outsider"-given common words or names for India and its people were originally based on a purely Indian word: the name of the river Sindhu, which became Hindu in Persian and Indus in Greek, and Tianzhu in Chinese (Tianzhu is one of the Chinese transliterations of the word Sindhu. Hiuen Tsang or Xuanzang, transliterated it as Yin-yu). The whole world recognized that the huge complex banyan tree of civilization, culture and peoples, with its multifarious branches and sub-branches, and unbelievably infinite variety, which flourished mainly to the east of the Sindhu river, was one entity with one common name and complex identity. All these related names, based on this universal recognition of India's unity and identity, were only emphasized when Muslims accepted the word Hindu as a common word for all Indian Pagans.

 

In this respect, the framers of the modern Indian Constitution also recognized Hindu as the all-inclusive term for followers of all indigenous or Indian-origin religions (as opposed to the followers of religions of foreign origin) by specifying, and that too in a negative manner (see clause c) (thus pre-empting foolish questions about whether atheists and agnostics can be called "Hindus"), that any laws framed for Hindus are applicable:

"(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."

It must be pointed out to all those who are allergic to the word "Hindu" even when they are personally proud of being Hindus and actively involved in the defence of Hinduism, and want to change it to something else, that the word Hindu is as Indian as any word that they could concoct or derive by dubious methods such as reinterpreting other existing words (like Sanātana) to replace the word Hindu. And, if the aim is to concoct a Sanskrit word, the word Hindu is as much of Sanskrit origin as the word Sanātana, besides having a history of international usage of over two thousand years, so that there can be no accusation of "Sanskrit chauvinism" in using it; even the Tamil forms for India and Hindu are "Indiyā" and "Indu".

Let us not reject the rich history and heritage, and the unifying force, of words like "India" and "Hindu" for petty political reasons or out of extremely misguided ideas of "insider" and "outsider".