Being a hindu and Avaita...

[Guest guest]

Namaste All:

 

The recent post by Mrs Baghini Niveditaa triggered a question I had

for a certain time.

I once read by modern scholars that to be Hindu is to be part of a

race, like being " Jewish " , meaning that one cannot become it if one is

not " born " into a certain set of circumstances, one of which is having

hindu parents (like the case of jewish people being born from a jewish

mother). From this point of view, even adopting Hinduism as a

" religion " or an ethical way to live, doesn't make one a Hindu (my

wife was born in Russia, and now she's a sivaite, wears indian

clothing all the time, does puja, follows certain ethical precepts,

etc.. and she considers herself hindu anyway)

Maybe the question do not have much ground, since is a matter of

semantics and different people has different takes on it, besides the

fact that we are talking at the conceptual and relative level here

(after all, being hindu or jewish or you name it, it's an attribute of

the ahamkara), but nevertheless, I would like to know if there is any

extrapolation in the Advaita Vedanta literature that mentions this

point. For example, did Sri Shankaracharya or any other of the

Acharyas of the Advaita tradition ever spoke of Hinduism? as a

philosophy, as a religion, a race or even commenting? I don't know

either if the concept existed in Sri Shankara's time!!

 

Pranams,

Mouna