What good has Hinduism done for India?

[haemoglobin16]

Hello Everybody,

The question that I'm asking you is simple : What good has Hinduism done for India?

 

Thank You!!!

[Krishna69]

Hinduism is not a religion like christianity, or islam or any other religion. Hinduism originally called sanathana Dharma is actually the way of life. This way of life has actually kept and still keeping different people of India living in different states socially and morally intact. Irrespective of the language we speak, we are united by the culture on the broader scale which is unique to this country. Minor differences may exist in the ritual and ceremonies as per different states, but this way of life following sanathana dharma without any restrictions like other religions is keeping the people intact, which yu will understand only when you live in India. People from south are visiting Varanasi, Badrinath, kedarnath, etc, and in the same way people from North are visiting Rameshwaram, Madurai Meenakshi temple, Guruvayur Krishna temple, Thirupathi, etc. It is this way of life with no restrictions, it is getting preserved by its own nature and which also preserved the ancient traditions for several centuries inspite of the heavy invasions by Mugals, Christianity and finally the British People living in that country still have truthfulness in their actions out of the fear of getting punished later by GOD. On the whole, a stranger from other country if he visits and stay in a colony, he will certainly get all kinds of help from the colony of people, and he will be treated like a family person, unlike what I have found in United states, where people discriminate you largely based on racism and its difficult to trust anyone for any reasons. You will understand the difference if you actually live in India atleast for a while. Morality rate is certainly high in India when compared to other countries and this is basically one of the essence of sanathana Dharma

Regards

Shyam

[Murray]

You may as well ask 'what good has Christianity done for America?' As very few people in any 'Christian' country follow their scriptures, it appears to be a very meaningless question.

 

 

 

Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.

Bg.18:66

[Guest guest]

God is doing good for all.

 

Joy

[theist]

One thing is that in India even the lowest stationed people, on societies rungs, understand concepts like reincarnation and that they are not the body.

 

We can't just apply standards like plumbing in every home or a car in every garage as human progress.

 

So it appears that vedic knowledge has helped the residents in that land come alot closer to knowing who they are.

 

So from that angle I would say vedic knowledge(what some may call Hinduism) has helped Indian people greatly. In fact, in that regard, there is no close second place.

[Guest guest]

Hey hemoglobin,

 

I'm going to answer your question with more questions.

 

What good has Islam done for Pakistan? Or Afghanistan? Or Bangaledesh?

[Guest guest]

what good your parents ahave done for you?

 

that is the kind of question youhave asked.

 

buddhism, jainism, sikhsim are chidlren of hinduism.

 

hinduism had given the vedas and gita to the world.

those who value these are called the hindus.

 

yogas and aayurveda is from hindu culture.

the west is crazy about it.

 

vedic culture/living is eco friendly - no polution.

hinduism says the animals, cows ec are also the citizens of this plant and must be protected, not killed and eaten.

 

then numbers 0 to 9 are from hindu culture actually not from arab.

 

there is a long list.

why columbus had interst to go to india?

 

have you ever wondred what islam has given to the world?

no hindu was involved in 9/11 or any such acts?

 

jai sri krishna!

 

 

[Guest guest]

I have a few questions.

 

1. What is your faith ?

 

2. Did you sincerely ask what your religion has done to your country or this world ?

3. What good has christianity done to the world ?

 

As usual people like this come here and post questions and run away not to ever return. Why have you not replied until now for all the posts and replies made ?

[gHari]

The Blood Goblin is likely a/the saved Christian; you know, that evergreen tree cult.

 

As someone already noted, we don't know what 'good' is. You'll have to define your requirement more explicitly for our list, Mr Goblin.

 

One man's 'good' is not always another man's 'good'. The only 'good' for a junkie is a bag of heroin. Are you a junkie, Goblin? What is your brownie point assessment system for rating good versus great versus bad? Knowing that, we can evaluate the equation and come up with answers to your very sincere query. If your idea of good is measured by the number of virgins you get in heaven, then well, you will feel India is very unfortunate indeed.

 

A thief only sees the empty pockets of a saint.

 

 

[theist]

"A thief only sees the empty pockets of a saint."

 

 

 

 

[Enlightened]

It is us who can do good with it. Hinduism is not going to do anything until you put it in practice.

 

but by your question, you are trying to ask, what has hinduism done for the Indians?

 

Well, for one set of Indians such as RamaKrishna paramahamsa, Vivekananda, Chaitanya mahaprabhu & Goswamis, and many more others, it has given them a life of pure bliss because they were putting it in practice. On the other hand, many people have to get the courage of putting it in practice.

 

/images/graemlins/smile.gif In reality, any religion can do 'good' if you let it to...it is your choice to choose the path that you like best for you to return to Krishna.

 

I have personally experimented all the religions and have found hinduism to work for me... it may or may not be the case with you.

 

hmm... a combination of buddhist teachings and Gaudiya teachings does lead to a very pleasant and happy life. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Guest guest]

Shree vacra tund maha kaya koti surya samah prabha

nirvighnam kurume deva subh karya sah sarvada

 

It is not what Dharma has done for us but what we are doing for Dharma both individually and collectively

Dharma Raksit Raksitaha.

 

What use is it if I gain the world but I loose my Soul?

 

 

.

Jai Shree Krishna

 

[Guest guest]

Hello Friends,

The nature and the essence of the question may be provocative and I apologise for that.But as a rationalist and a reformist I'd just want to know that what is that Hinduism has to offer to the world that it couldn't offer to the poor of it's own country i.e. India???

 

Thank You!!!

[Guest guest]

Hinduism is a way of life.

It is not limited to India. It is available for anyone.

And Hinduism can not DO anything for anyone. People have to help themselves and adopt the wise teachings and way of life that we understand to be hinduism.

God always gives us free will to follow or not to follow his teachings. He will never force anyone to be a good 'Hindu'.

But most Indians are lucky, because they have at least grown up knowing a lot about reincarnation, etc. There are also so many holy places in India, where the energy is very good for meditation, etc. For that they should thank God.

By the way, do you equate material wealth with good?

[Enlightened]

Actually, Hinduism made a systematic society that was prosperous in the past. Even though there was huge discrimination and idiotic ideals about the lower castes... Indians lived happily in "hindu provinces" where they could practice their religion.

 

Anyway, hinduism again can only offer ideals and ways to turn oneself from the ignorance of the world. The rest is done by the individual.

 

Asking why India is not better because of hinduism is like saying "Why can't I see the sun at night? "

 

Sun is always there , it is our earth that has turned the other way.

 

Similarly, the hinduism is there, it is the community that has turned away from the philosophy and richness of ancient India.

[Guest guest]

God is only interested in our spiritual condition.All hardships are meant for our own purification.What vedic knowledge could do to india's poor is to make them eligible for liberation.This happens when love of God awakens in heart.

 

Joy

[Guest guest]

"A thief only sees the empty pockets of a saint."

 

I like it, thanks!

 

srimad bhagavatam says what is good or dharma.

 

jai sri prabhupada!

 

 

[kedar]

Hi all,

If one looks back the history from about 5000 years from now, one can clearly see how people were not just spiritually happy, but also materially. They were once rich ,prosperous, and a strong empire, and that continued till 1000 years ago when 1)the external invasions, 2)internal malpractises such as untouchability, sati, etc., and 3)emergence of new religons and forced conversions started affecting our core ideology, not to mention the British rule that squeezed the country's riches to the maximum extent.

 

Hinduism, in its pure state, called the Sanatana Dharma has guidelines laid down for all purposes. If one folows the scriptures, one is sure to attain moksha.

 

Kedar.

[Guest guest]

Peace, war and Hinduism

 

In a day and an age where peace benefits people and wars are a blessing for rulers, what role does non-violence play? Whether it is West Asia or South Asia, India or Pakistan, the post-September 11 world seems to confirm Mahatma Gandhi's sagacity, writes RAJMOHAN GANDHI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thousands marched to London's Trafalgar Square early this month, waving flags and banners reading "Yes to peace, no to terror" and "Suicide bombers kill people and peace."

 

THIS piece uses some Hindu concepts to look at current issues. We can start with wisdom. Where Christian and Judaic teachers taught that the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, our Indian ancestors said that gyan or wisdom would end fear.

 

What would be a wise response to the post-September 11 anger surge? A global phenomenon in the truest sense, the anger wave has altered emotional landscapes in the U.S., the Middle East, in Europe and on the subcontinent. Rhetoric has become shriller everywhere, positions harder, and patience thinner. In New Delhi as in Tel Aviv and Washington, but also in ghettos in Gaza, Nablus, Ahmedabad and Karachi, the word revenge seems to leave on the tongue a nicer taste than before.

 

Embracing the anger wave, some think it understandable that desperate individuals should turn themselves into bombs, or their aircraft into missiles, while others itch for taking out men labelled evil or for a once-and-for-all solution. Resentment at double standards joins righteous anger, and Indian and Israeli voices ask for American-style responses.

 

Our Prime Minister's recent hesitation in choosing between revenge, retaliation and a fitting response may suggest that the reflecting poet inside him remains alive, but we have always seen the poet yield to the politician, or is it the stern statesman, that also inhabits the Vajpayee soul. His Hiroshima verses did not return to trouble Mr.Vajpayee when he ordered Pokharan in 1998; and the faces of Lahore-ites touched by Mr.Vajpayee's 1999 remarks do not disturb his cogitation regarding a strike at Pakistan.

 

There may be something impressive in this, but is it the wisdom that India's sages prescribed? No warning in the Gita is as solemn as that against anger, and human beings everywhere have reason to be worried about a retreat from international law and conflict resolution to a celebration of physical force and might-is-right. Another Hindu concept, one that Buddhists and Jains also prize, is ahimsa. Rendered as non-violence or non-injury, ahimsa seemed a passive quality until Gandhi infused into it the ingredients of active love and struggle, but we should also recognise that for Gandhi (and most Hindus) ahimsa could co-exist with some carefully understood acquiescence in the use of force. (To give only one example, Gandhi's Quit India resolution of 1942 stated that Allied troops fighting Nazi Germany and Militarist Japan could use India's soil if the country was freed.)

 

If some Hindus claimed that their ancient epic, the Mahabharata, sanctioned and indeed glorified war, Gandhi pointed to the empty stage with which the epic ends — to the noble or ignoble killing of almost everyone of its vast cast of characters — as ultimate proof of the folly of revenge and violence. And to those who spoke, as many do today, of the naturalness of war, Gandhi's reply, first expressed in 1909, was that war brutalises men of naturally gentle character and that its path of glory is red with the blood of murder.

 

Gandhi agreed with the 19th Century war reporter William Howard Russell who wrote: Conduct war on the most chivalrous principles, there must be a touch of murder about it, and the assassin will lurk under fine phrases. The most civilised troops will commit excesses and cruelties. Believing that most actual wars and the Mahabharata epic corroborated such a judgment, Gandhi also insisted on non-violence from his followers if he was wanted as the leader of India's Independence struggle. The post-September 11 world, where violence in the name of justice has invited overwhelming force, seems to confirm Gandhi's sagacity in, for instance, calling off the 1922 campaign when Indian demonstrators shouting independence slogans charred about two dozen policemen to death. Whereas in the 1857 Revolt, the killing of British women and children triggered rage and a steely resolve in the British and proved a major factor in the Indian defeat, Gandhi's readiness to suspend his campaigns if innocent lives were lost on the British side won decisive goodwill in the international community, including in Britain. Perhaps there is a case for Palestinian and Kashmiri fighters considering ahimsa in the style of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. There is, thirdly, the law of karma or of consequences, and an interesting thing about this almost physical (and inexorable) law. Most of us think that a stroke of luck, or some cosmic oversight, will enable us to elude the consequences of our deeds.

 

The hate sown in Muslim madrassas in Pakistan and in Hindu madrassas in Gujarat and elsewhere in India will have consequences complex and unpredictable but costly. The notion that men and women may not aspire to equal rights if they are Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, or Muslims in India, will exact its full price. The same is true of the events of September 11 and of the attacks on Afghanistan; of Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli raids, settlements and occupations; of terrorist attacks on the Kashmir Assembly and the Indian Parliament; of promises not kept and lives not preserved in Kashmir; of the scorching of 58 trapped human beings in Godhra and of hundreds of other pleading human beings elsewhere in Gujarat; of the inferno of homes, bakeries, and businesses in Gujarat; of the plucking out of historic tombs and mosques; of Chief Minister Narendra Modi's failure to protect innocent lives and Gujarat's good name; of guns opened on defenceless wives and children of Indian armymen in J & K.

 

And any war that occurs between India and Pakistan will also have consequences. Those saddened by the remoteness of peace in South Asia or the Middle East may be helped by a fourth Hindu concept, that of action without a focus on its fruits. All know that what a people need may diverge from what political rulers require that while peace benefits people, wars may be a blessing for rulers. This truth is bound to hurt and depress a worker for peace. But wait. There is no depression or hurt for a worker who in the spirit of the Gita seeks no fruits but does what he must. If called to work for a historic reconciliation between India and Pakistan, such a worker will no doubt strive to reach politicians, the media and opinion-makers in both countries. But if the Gita has gone home, satisfaction will be found in the mere attempt. Breakdowns and wars will not shock, though they will certainly produce suffering, which the worker will toil to reduce.

 

But the peace workers' eyes will be on the task at hand, not on immediate results. They will also rest on common Indians and Pakistanis, more on them than on leaders. Despite the unceasing output, in both lands, of hate wrapped in bright and patriotic colours, common Indians and Pakistanis know that their lives are interlinked, and that cooperation with one another may lead to long-denied comfort and prosperity. They also know while a war may produce a nominal victory for India, an Indian occupation of Pakistan is an impossibility for any length of time.

 

If the inevitable end of an Indo-Pak war is co-existence, why not try co-existence before a war, especially a war linked to the nuclear hazard? Finally, there is the Hindu concept of an individual's distinct worth and identity. The Arjuna that Krishna addresses and cares for in the Gita is not man in general; he is specially dear to god. Relating to Arjuna, every individual may feel this special concern and a special identity.

 

It is this individuality which was destroyed in Gujarat. The flat unrecognisable charred lumps that hours earlier were lively humans answered well to what the killers believed, which was that those on the other side were only they, Muslims or Hindus. They were not individuals each with a name, face and features of a particular kind, or with unique plans and dreams.

 

Though generally claiming to retrieve individual heroes and villains, a war also divides the bulk of its characters into two flat assembly lines, patriots on one side and enemies on the other. A Hindu (or non-Hindu) who cherishes the individuality of a loved one and sees each individual as a separate Arjuna will want a lot of persuasion before accepting a war.

 

The writer is a journalist, biographer and historian

 

[Guest guest]

what is the original source of this article please?

could you share a link?

 

the writer does not know that hindus have no madresas.

 

jai sri prabhupada!

 

 

[stonehearted]

Interesting article. It seems rather unsympathetic to both Muslim and Hindu extremists. Found with a quick Google search:

 

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2002/05/26/stories/2002052600150400.htm

[Gauracandra]

Separating out any controversy that arose from the initial question, I have often wondered how the philosophical conclusions of impersonalism affect the economics of the countries that embrace them.

 

In one sense all of eastern philosophy has some aspect of formlessness to it. The idea of reincarnation is formlessness. One animal changes shape into another animal, or plant, or different gender. Then we have other ones that reject the reality of existence all together. Its all an illusion that we are to overcome.

 

Now ideas are the most important thing in the world for they shape how we approach the world itself. If I'm told that the world itself is simply an illusion, it doesn't give me much impetus to invest in the world. In fact, absorbing oneself in worldly activities would be "negative".

 

Western civilization accepts the existence of this world as reality. Thats why virtually every great accomplishment in the world has been made by western civilization. Because they invest and perfect the truly existing world around them rather than abandoning the world. The phone, the internet, the computer, the printing press, the lightbulb, the television, the radio, movies, discovery of DNA, polio vaccinations, the airplane, the space shuttle, the Hubble telescope, velcro, the zipper, you name it, from meaningless to meaningful, it has all come from western civilization. Other countries have adapted the discoveries, but didn't create them.

 

Now why is this? True India gave the world initial mathematics. And China gave us fireworks, kites, and spaghetti. I'm joking somewhat. But still it is very lopsided. Why? I think it is because the main distinction between western and eastern civilization is this acceptance of form. The world factually exists. Once that issue is out of the way, then it sits down and manipulates, and perfects, and adapts, and changes, and develops within this very real world.

 

When the poster asked what good has Hinduism done, many took it as an attack. Perhaps it was meant to be, I don't know. However, I think it is perfectly acceptable to ask what the eastern world has contributed to the world. If eastern philosophy wants to run away from the "non-existing" world I suspect it won't contribute much to the world.

[Guest guest]

i would like to know more about lord krishna

[Govindaram]

Here: Bhagavatam #

 

Enjoy /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Guest guest]

<< However, I think it is perfectly acceptable to ask what the eastern world has contributed to the world. >>

 

yes, but the 'world' is not a person.

hinduism defied islam for 16-1700 years.

for 1000+ yuears they killed hindus, and they could not kill hinduism or the vedic culture.

 

milions of xians gave up . and became HK's from hippies. is it any less conribution?

 

if you ask enemies of hinduism the question,

their answer would be negaive.

 

the question is like:

'what contribution the rose plant has given to the world?'

 

those who like thorns and cactus cannot appreciate rose.

some fishermen cannot get sleep if rose fragrance is around.

taliban shot at bamian buddha statue just recently.

that was islam's contribution to the world.

 

have you seen thousands of vedic temples in india?

that is hinduism. gita is hinduism's contribution.

is it any less than anything in the world?

 

jai sri krishna! -madhav