HINDU RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT

A Project submitted in partial fulfillment of the course SOCIOLOGY OF

DEVELOPMENT, 3rd SEMESTER during the Academic Year 2019-2020

SUBMITTED BY:
MAIRA HUSSAIN
Roll No. – 1935
B.A. LL.B.(Hons.)

SUBMITTED TO:
Prof. SHAKEEL AHMED
FACULTY OF SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT

ACADEMIC YEAR- 2019-20

CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, NAYAYA NAGAR,
MEETHAPUR, PATNA-800001

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DECLARATION BY THE CANDIDATE
I hereby declare that the work reported in the B.A.LL.B (Hons.) Project Report Entitled “HINDU
RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT” submitted at Chanakya National Law University, Patna is an
authentic record of my work carried out under the supervision of Prof. Shakeel Ahmed. I have not
submitted this work elsewhere for any other degree or diploma. I am fully responsible for the
contents of my Project Report.

(Signature of the Candidate)

MAIRA HUSSAIN
Chanakya National Law University, Patna

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Firstly, I would like to thank my faculty of SOCIOLOGY OF DDEVELOPMENT, Prof. Shakeel
Ahmed for providing me an opportunity to make my project on such an interesting topic which is
also a contemporary issue as for now.
Secondly, I would like to thank all my colleagues and friends for helping me out in arranging of
the accumulated collected study material.
Lastly, special thanks to my parents for guiding me in giving the final touch to this project and
helping me out throughout this project.

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 Table of Content

Contents

Acknowledgement ................................................................................... 3

Table of Content ...................................................................................... 4

Introduction ............................................................................................. 5

Research Methodology ............................................................................ 7

Religious Movement ............................................................................... 8

1. Brahmo Samaj………………………………………………………………………………8
2. Arya Samaj………………………………………………………………………………….9
3. Non-Vendanta………………………………………………………………………………10

Social Reform Movements ................................................................... 11

1. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh…………………………………………………………..11
2. Tamil Nadu Untouchability eradication forum (TNUEF)……………………………...11
3. Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)…………………………………………………………...12

Field Influence of Hinduism on the world........................................... 13

Conclusion .............................................................................................. 15

Bibliography ........................................................................................... 17

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 Introduction
Several contemporary groups, collectively termed Hindu reform movements or Hindu revivalism,
strive to introduce regeneration and reform toHinduism. Most modern Hindu reform movements
advocate a return to supposed ancient, egalitarian forms of Hinduism. Discrimination and the caste
system are regarded as being corrupt results from colonialism and foreign influence. The Vedic
traditions are being reinterpreted in a modern way, to support this egalitarianism.1

From the 18th century onward India was being colonialised by the British. In contrast to the
Muslim domination, this colonialisation had a huge impact on Indian society, where social and
religious leaders tried to assimilate western culture and modernise Hindu culture. During the 19th
century, Hinduism developed a large number of new religious movements, partly inspired by the
European Romanticism, nationalism, and esotericism (Theosophy) popular at the time. Conversely
and contemporaneously, India had a similar effect on European culture with Orientalism, "Hindoo
style" architecture, reception ofBuddhism in the West and similar.

Enlightened Hindus of modern times have made attempts to institute a reform in Hinduism by
rejecting all idolatrous and immoral rites, and by setting up a purely monotheistic form of worship.
Of these, the earliest and most noted was the so-called Brahm Samaj (Congregation of Brahm),
founded in Calcutta in 1828, by the learned Rammohun Roy. He tried to combine a Unitarian form
of Christianity with the Brahmin conception of the supreme personal God. After his death in 1833,
differences of view as to the nature of God, the authority of the Vedas, and the obligation of caste-
customs caused the society to split up into a number of small congregations. At present there are
more than a hundred independent theistic congregations in India. Some, like the Arya Samaj, rest
on the sole authority of the Vedas. Others are eclectic, even to the extent of choosing for devotional
reading in their public services passages from the Avesta, Koran, and Bible. Few of them are
altogether free from the taint of pantheism, and, being more like clubs for intellectual and moral
improvement than for ritualistic forms of worship, they make but little progress in the way of
conversion.

In short, Brahminism cannot succeed in reforming itself. Its earlier sacred books are steeped in the

1
"The Reform Movements". Retrieved 2008-11-16.
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polytheism out of which it grew, and the pantheistic view of the world, to which it was afterwards
committed, has been like a dead weight dragging it hopelessly into the stagnant pool of
superstition, pessimism, and immorality. In virtue of its pantheistic attitude, there is no form of
religion, high or low, that cannot be tolerated and incorporated into its capacious system. The
indifference of Brahminism to the gross buses of Hinduism is, after all, but a reflex of the
indifference of its supreme god. Sin loses most of its hideousness when it can be traced ultimately
to the great impersonal Brahm. There is but one form of religion that has any prospect of reforming
the religious life of India, and that is the Roman Catholic. For the shadow, pantheistic deity it can
set form the One, Eternal, Personal Spirit and creator; for the crude Tri-murti, the sublime Trinity;
and for the coarse and degrading avatars of Vishnu, the incarnation of the Son of God. It can
replace the idolatrous and immoral Hindu rites with its own imposing liturgy, and substitute the
Cross for the abominable linga.

Brahminism, being a natural religion and a privilege of Hindu birth, has never made any concerted
attempt at proselytizing in foreign lands. But some years ago steps were taken by a few individuals
of England to foist upon English-speaking people a new religious system embodying the
pantheistic belief and magical superstition of the Vedanta school of Brahminism. This new system,
known as Theosophy, was to embrace within its fold members of every form of religion,
reconciling all differences of creed in the pantheistic view that all deities, high and low, are but
transitory emanations of the supreme, incomprehensible Reality, devotion to which was the highest
religion. This quasi-cult, which also made pretensions to the exercise of magical powers, soon met
the ridicule and obloquy it deserved. It is practically obsolete at the present day.

OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the Concept of Hindu Religious movements.
2. To study the Historical perspective of Hindu religion
3. To throw light on social reform movements in India.
4. To find out and analyze the views of world people, political leaders as well as Legal Experts
and Sociologists on various aspects of hindu religion.
5. To study the impact of movements on world platform.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This project work is descriptive in nature. The researcher has based his research on non empirical
research and data collected from secondary and electronic sources. It is purely based on data
collected from books, journals, and web sources. Books and other references as guided by faculty
of sociology were primarily helpful for the completion of this project.

SOURCES OF DATA
In order to complete the research study, the researcher will collect the material through various
primary and secondary sources of data.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Since the researcher is a student of law, she has access to a limited area and knowledge. The
researcher having only a preliminary knowledge of the subject could understand the problem
clearly but was faced with constraints.
However, the researcher only has access to limited amount of work that is available in the library.
The researcher has a restricted access to information and sources for reasons beyond her control.
But the researcher will still attempt to take out the best possible work.

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 Religious Movements

Since the dawn of history, India has been the cradle of religious movements. In the early medieval
period two parralled movements, in Hinduism and Islam, respectively representing the Bhakti and
Sufi movements emerged in India, which reached their fullest development in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.2

Both these religious developments have hardly anything to do with the coming of Islam or with the
so-called 'Muslim rule in India'. The seeds of the Bhakti movements are to be found in the
Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavata Purana, etc.

The various Sufi saints had come to settle down in India in the eleventh-twelfth centuries, the
earliest and the most well known being Sheikh Muinuddin Chisti, who made Ajmer his home when
Prithviraj Chauhan (III) was still ruling over there. The greatest merit of both these parallel
religious movements is that they freed the Indian society from the dogmatic beliefs, ritualism, caste
and communal hatred and so on. It was in the true spirit of Indian history and culture that both
these movements prospered without even the least ill-will and conflict. On the contrary, both
contributed to each other's religious ideas and practices. Both these movements were democratic
movements, which preached simple religion in the language of the masses and neither craved for
political patronage nor bothered for the political developments around them.

1. BRAHMO SAMAJ

Bramho Shômaj) is the societal component of Brahmoism, a monotheistic reformist and

renaissance movement ofHindu religion. It is practised today mainly as the Adi Dharm after its
eclipse in Bengal consequent to the exit of the Tattwabodini Sabha from its ranks in 1859. After the
publication of Hemendranath Tagore's Brahmo Anusthan (code of practice) in 1860 which formally
divorced Brahmoism from Hinduism, the first Brahmo Samaj was founded in 1861 at Lahore by
Pandit Nobin Chandra Roy.3

It was one of the most influential religious reformist movements responsible for the making of
2 Sherya Acharya http://www.preservearticles.com/2011103016257/short-essay-on-the-religious-movements-of-
india,14.10.2013,10:05 amIST
3 http://www.merriam-webster.com/concise/brahmo%20samaj,14.10.2013,11:02 AM,IST

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modern India. It was started at Calcutta on 20 August 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and
Debendranath Tagore as reformation of the prevailing Brahmanism of the time (specifically Kulin
practices) and began the Bengal Renaissance of the 19th century pioneering all religious, social and
educational advance of the Hindu community in the 19th century. Its Trust Deed was made in 1830
formalising its inception and it was duly and publicly inaugurated in January 1830 by the
consecration of the first house of prayer, now known as the Adi Brahmo Samaj. [3] From the
Brahmo Samaj springs Brahmoism, one of the recent sects or faiths of Hinduism. It is not
recognised in India as a separate religion distinct from Hinduism despite its non-syncretic
"foundation of Rammohun Roy's reformed spiritual Hinduism (contained in the 1830 Banian deed)
and inclusion of root Hebraic – Islamic creed and practice" though the position is different in
Bangladesh.

2. ARYA SAMAJ

Arya Samaj is a Hindu reform movement founded by Swami Dayananda on 7 April 1875. He was
a sannyasi who believed in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda emphasized the ideals
of brahmacharya (chastity).Arya Samaj ("Society of Nobles") is a Hindu reform movement in India
that was founded by Swami Dayananda in 1875.4 He was a sannyasin (renouncer) who believed in
the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda advocated the doctrine of karma and reincarnation,
and emphasised the ideals of brahmacharya (chastity) and sanyasa (renunciation). Dayananda
claimed to be rejecting all non-Vedic beliefs altogether. Hence the Arya Samaj unequivocally
condemned idolatry, animal sacrifices, ancestor worship, pilgrimages, priestcraft, offerings made in
temples, the castesystem, untouchability and child marriages, on the grounds that all these lacked
Vedic sanction. It aimed to be a universal church based on the authority of the Vedas. Dayananda
stated that he wanted 'to make the whole world Aryan', i.e. he wanted to develop missionary
Hinduism based on the universality of the Vedas. To this end, the Arya Samaj started Shuddhi
movement in early 20th century to bring back to Hinduism people converted to Islam and
Christianity, set up schools and missionary organisations, and extended its activities outside India.
It now has branches around the world and has a disproportional number of adherents among people
of Indian ancestry in Suriname and the Netherlands, in comparison with India.

4 http://www.aryasamajct.com/about_arya_samaj.html ,15.10.2013,10:33a.m,IST
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3. NEO-VEDANTA

Neo-Vedanta, also called "neo-Hinduism" is a central theme in these reform-movements. It is a

modern interpretation of Hinduism, which aims to present Hinduism as a "homogenized ideal of
Hinduism" with Advaita Vedanta as its central doctrine. It presents an imagined "integral unity"
that was probably little more than an "imagined" view of the religious life that pertained only to a
cultural elite and that empirically speaking had very little reality “on the ground,” as it were,
throughout the centuries of cultural development in the South Asian region.5

This modernised re-interpretation has become a broad current in Indian culture, extending far
beyond the Dashanami Sampradaya, the Advaita Vedanta Sampradaya founded by Adi Shankara. It
was popularised in the 20th century in both India and the west by Vivekananda[10][3], Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan, and western orientalists who regarded Vedanta to be the "central theology of
Hinduism". Oriental scholarship portrayed Hinduism as a "single world religion", and denigrated
the heterogeneousity of Hindu beliefs and practices as 'distortions' of the basic teachings of
Vedanta.

swami Vivekananda was a central personality in the development of neo-Hinduism (also called
Neo-Vedanta) in late 19th century and the early 20th century. His ideals and sayings have inspired
numerous Indians as well as non-Indians, Hindus as well as non-Hindus. Among the prominent
figures whose ideals were very much influenced by them were Rabindranath Tagore,
Gandhi,Subhas Bose, Satyendranath Bose, Megh Nad Saha, and Sister Nivedita.

5 http://www.blogspot.in/2006/09/neo-vedanta-of-swami-vivekananda-part_11.html,15.10.2013,12:00a.m,IST
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 Social Reform Movements

In social work, Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Baba Amte and Shrii Shrii Anandamurti have
been most important. Sunderlal Bahuguna created the chipko movement for the preservation of
forestlands according to the Hindu ecological ideas.

There are groups in India that are actively engaged in getting women and those from socially
disadvantaged jātis to become priests of Vedic ritual.

One of the foremost movements in breaking the caste system and educating the downtrodden was
the Lingayat movement spearheaded by Basavanna in the 12th century in Anubhava Mantapa
inKalyani of Karnataka. The less accessible Vedas were rejected and parallel Vachanas were
compiled.6

1. RASHTRIYA SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS was founded by Keshav Baliram Hegdewar in 1925.
The goal was to unite Hindus, make them rise over their caste differences and work to achieve a
Hindu Rashtra; the ideology of the Sangh, closely associated with political Hinduism, came to be
known as Hindutva.RSS is one of the largest Hindu paramilitary, cultural organisation with more
than 6 million volunteers.It advocates casteless Hindu society & its egalitarian philosophy for
Hindu society has impressed leading personalities like Dr. BR Ambedkar, Veer Savarkar etc. RSS
runs large numbers of 1 Teacher schools called " Ekal Vidyalayas " to cater education to poor &
downtrodden Hindus living in remote villages of India.

2. TAMIL NADU UNTOUCHABILITY ERADICATION FORUM (TNUEF)

For the past ten years, the CPI(M) and other mass organisations in Tamil Nadu have been
concentrating on movements against caste oppression, and for eradication of untouchability. Efforts
towards eradication of untouchability have intensified after the formation of the Tamil Nadu
Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF) in May 2007. District units of the TNUEF are present
and active in all the 32 districts of Tamil Nadu today.

Many class and mass organisations like CITU, AIKS, AIAWU, DYFI, AIDWA, SFI and the Tamil

6 http://www.studymode.com/essays/Social-Reforms-Movement-During-19Th-1580752.html,15.10.2013,05:45a.m,IST
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Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association have been associated with the TNUEF. Industry
wise trade unions and employees’ federations functioning in sectors like banking, insurance,
telecom, education, railways, power, transport, construction, tailoring and pharmaceuticals have
also been associated with the Front. Similarly, 18 Dalit Organisations functioning at the state level
and 45 Dalit organisations functioning at the district level are active participants in the activities of
the TNUEF. As a whole, the TNUEF is functioning as a wide and broad platform for the struggle
against the caste oppression and for eradication of untouchability.

3. VISHWA HINDU PARISHAD (VHP)

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad or VHP was founded in 1964 by second sarsanghachalak (chief) of
RSS, Shri Madhav Golwalkar (Guruji) with core objective of consolidating and strengthening the
Hindu Society and also to eradicate the caste system among the Hindus which had crept in during
medieval times and unite all Hindus. The VHP has openly advocated appointing Dalit (lowest
strata in Hindu society) as Priests in temples and also runs several medical camps, hospitals,
schools and hostels in remote regions of India primarily inhabited by Dalits and tribals. In recent
years the VHP has emerged as one of the most active Hindu missionary organisations and has
organised several mass conversion programs of Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.

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 Influence of Hinduism on World
Hinduism is one of the oldest living religions in the world. Followers of this religion can be found
scattered around the world, nevertheless Hinduism is most closely associated with India.
"Hinduism has its roots in the civilization that flourished in the Indus valley some 5,000 years ago,
but did not develop as a formal religion until the conquest of the subcontinent by the Aryans of
Central Asia in about 1,500 B.C." As Hinduism evolved over the centuries, "it continually
absorbed and reinterpreted the beliefs and practices of the different peoples with whom it came into
contact." Most Hindus live in India, but the faith is also practiced in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Nepal, etc.Having between 500-600 million adherents worldwide, Hinduism is the world's
third largest religion, behind Christianity and Islam.7
Hinduism and Buddhism exerted an enormous influence on the civilizations of Southeast Asia and
contributed greatly to the development of a written tradition in that area. About the beginning of
the Common Era, Indian merchants may have settled there, bringing Brahmans and Buddhist
monks with them. These religious men were patronized by rulers who converted to Hinduism or
Buddhism. The earliest material evidence of Hinduism in Southeast Asia comes from Borneo,
where late 4th-century Sanskrit inscriptions testify to the performance of Vedic sacrifices by
Brahmans at the behest of local chiefs. Chinese chronicles attest an Indianized kingdom in Vietnam
two centuries earlier. The dominant form of Hinduism exported to Southeast Asia was Shaivism,
though some Vaishnavism was also known there. Later, from the 9th century onward, Tantrism,
both Hindu and Buddhist, spread throughout the region. Beginning in the first half of the 1st
millennium CE, many of the early kingdoms in Southeast Asia adopted and adapted specific Hindu
texts, theologies, rituals, architectural styles, and forms of social organization that suited their
historical and social conditions. It is not clear whether this presence came about primarily through
slow immigration and settlement by key personnel from India or through visits to India by
Southeast Asians who took elements of Indian culture back home. Hindu and Buddhist traders,
priests, and, occasionally, princes traveled to Southeast Asia from India in the first few centuries of
the Common Era and eventually settled there. Enormous temples to Shiva and Vishnu were built in
the ancient Khmer empire, attesting to the power and prestige of Hindu traditions in the region.
Angkor Wat, built in the 12th century in what is now Cambodia, was originally consecrated to

7 http://www.truthmagazine.com/archives/volume34/GOT034136.html,15.10.2013,07:35,IST
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Vishnu, although it was soon converted to (and is still in use as) a Buddhist temple. One of the
largest Hindu temples ever built, it contains the largest bas-relief in the world, depicting the
churning of the ocean of milk, a minor theme of Indian architecture but one of the dominant
narratives in Khmer temples.

Despite the existence in Southeast Asia of Hindu temples and iconography as well as Sanskrit
inscriptions, the nature and extent of Hindu influence upon the civilizations of the region is fiercely
debated by contemporary scholars. Whereas early 20th-century scholars wrote about the
Indianization of Southeast Asia, those of the late 20th and early 21st centuries argued that this
influence was very limited and affected only a small cross section of the elite. It is nevertheless
certain that divinity and royalty were closely connected in Southeast Asian civilizations and that
several Hindu rituals were used to valorize the powers of the monarch. The civilizations of
Southeast Asia developed forms of Hinduism and Buddhism that incorporated distinctive local
features and in other respects reflected local cultures, but the framework of their religious life, at
least in the upper classes, was largely Indian. Stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
became widely known in Southeast Asia and are still popular there in local versions. In Indonesia
the people of Bali still follow a form of Hinduism adapted to their own genius.

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 Conclusion
Hinduism, major world religion originating on the Indian subcontinent and comprising several and
varied systems of philosophy, belief, and ritual. Although the name Hinduism is relatively new,
having been coined by British writers in the first decades of the 19th century, it refers to a rich
cumulative tradition of texts and practices, some of which date to the 2nd millennium BCE or
possibly earlier. If the Indus valley civilization(3rd–2nd millennium BCE) was the earliest source of
these traditions, as some scholars hold, then Hinduism is the oldest living religion on Earth. Its
many sacred texts in Sanskrit and vernacular languages served as a vehicle for spreading the
religion to other parts of the world, thoughritual and the visual and performing arts also played a
significant role in its transmission. From about the 4th century CE, Hinduism had a dominant
presence in Southeast Asia, one that would last for more than 1,000 years. In the early 21st
century,Hinduism had nearly one billion adherents worldwide and was the religion of about 80
percent of India’s population. Despite its global presence, however, it is best understood through its
many distinctive regional manifestations.More strikingly than any other major religious
community, Hindus accept—and indeed celebrate—the organic, multileveled, and sometimes
pluralistic nature of their traditions. This expansiveness is made possible by the widely shared
Hindu view that truth or reality cannot be encapsulated in any creedal formulation, a perspective
expressed in the Hindu prayer “May good thoughts come to us from all sides.” Thus, Hinduism
maintains that truth must be sought in multiple sources, not dogmatically proclaimed.
Anyone’s view of the truth—even that of a guru regarded as possessing superior authority—is
fundamentally conditioned by the specifics of time, age, gender, state of consciousness, social and
geographic location, and stage of attainment. These multiple perspectives enhance a broad view of
religious truth rather than diminish it; hence, there is a strong tendency for contemporary Hindus to
affirm that tolerance is the foremost religious virtue.

On the other hand, even cosmopolitan Hindus living in a global environment recognize and value
the fact that their religion has developed in the specific context of the Indian subcontinent. Such a
tension between universalist and particularist impulses has long animated the Hindu tradition.
When Hindus speak of their religious identity assanatana dharma, they emphasize its continuous,
seemingly eternal (sanatana) existence and the fact that it describes a web of customs, obligations,
traditions, and ideals (dharma) that far exceeds the Western tendency to think of religion primarily
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as a system of beliefs. A common way in which English-speaking Hindus often distance
themselves from that frame of mind is to insist that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life.
While attending the local Hindu temple, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a class of teenagers.
Toward the end of my last Sunday School session with them, they shared some of the
misconceptions about the Hindu faith and Indians in general. Here are but a few to think about. Ask
yourself: have you ever thought in this way .There are many who believe that Hindus worship cows
and tease them accordingly. This is not true. Hindus honor cows and hold them to be sacred
because they symbolize sustenance, health, and God’s nourishment. Many Hindus are teased due to
this misconception.

“Unity and secularism should be the motto of the government and its people. We can't afford
divisive polity and mindset in India.”

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 Bibliography

Books and Websites:

 SITANSU S. CHAKRAVARTI, Hinduism: A Way of Life (1991);

 GAVIN FLOOD, An Introduction to Hinduism (1996);
 C.J. FULLER, The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism in India (1996);
 DAVID R. KINSLEY, Hinduism: A Cultural Perspective (1982);
 http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/ct.htm
 http://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/is-rss-not-secular/
 http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/2013/05/who-is-hindu-secularism/
 www.britannica.com
 www.preservearticles.com
 www.nios.ac.in

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