Swayambodha and Shatrubodha - The Framework
Why Do We Need a Framework?
Cultural phenomena progress through three phases: Naïve, Sophisticated and Decadent. A few of them however escape the downward turn towards decadence and acquire a canonical status. It is artefacts such as a definitive book, an anthem or a ritual that distinguish a canon from a mere trend.
With time, that becomes tradition.
Tradition is not static, it is dynamic and living because it has an unchanging core that adapts to the changes in the environment. Sri Kapil Kapoor ji’s memorable metaphor of ‘Sanātana Gaṅgā Pravāha’ to describe our tradition captures the ‘civilizational flow’ evocatively.
The Hindu civilizational discourse has arguably entered the sophisticated phase. This is marked by a shift in the content of the discourse, a transition from the political to the cultural, civilizational and metaphysical.
Like all transitions, this will generate much upheaval and intellectual churn that leads to social reconfiguration downstream. There is a real danger that we might skip the sophisticated phase and leapfrog directly into decadence due to the performative anxiety that is incentivized and amplified by the medium(s).
Therefore, the responsibility of those engaging in this churn is to steer the conversation away from decadence and towards our tradition.
What then are the challenges and how can we develop the thinking resources to overcome those? Colloquially speaking, how can we think about a ‘thought framework’?
When we enter a cultural discourse, we step out of comfort, and into the vulnerable. We expose our deepest part and put it out there for scrutiny. The rate of ‘opinion growth’ outpaces our intellectual and spiritual growth; the heart trying to masquerade as the mind. This is inevitable, it is perhaps even necessary.
At this point, we need something to hold on to: an idea, a role model, a vocabulary. The magical alchemy of śraddhā. In the age before social media, we had a sustainable cadence for feedback loops. We could hold on to some ideas and direct our action. Such action was a means for our transformation – At some point in this process, the agency was shifted from the object to the subject. We had anubhūti and that became our pramāṇa.
This process is aborted today. The shelf-life of our ideas is shortened. Our heroes are stillborn. We have a lot more information but it generates doubt due to the rapidity of the feedback loop. As Pico Iyer noted,
‘an abundance of information creates a poverty of attention’.
It is not just attention but the very basis for trust that is denied. At this juncture, the need is for clarity – Not so much about one idea but about our own process of arriving at ideas that inform action.
This is the most critical need for the Hindu Civilizational discourse today – A meta-framework. Something that allows us to organize our thoughts; creates a space for self-authoring that can lead to the ‘self-vision’ that Śri Aurobindo spoke of.
To know that you know how to know is the greatest asset – Our framework is an effort in service of this goal.
The Greatest Problem that Hindus Face
What is the greatest problem that the Hindu society currently faces? Is it a ‘lack of unity’? Let us take a look at societies and civilizations other than Hindu.
Looking at Islamic and Christian societies it is more than evident that they are not united. Both Islamic and Christian societies are divided into thousands of sects which are constantly at war with each other. What gives them an edge and what always keeps them growing is their extremely sharp Śatrubodha – a sense of the enemy. No matter how much infighting they engage in, they know that a non-Muslim, or a non-Christian in respective cases, is always an enemy even if a tactical alliance has to be made.
Śatrubodha with a Hierarchical Sense of Priorities
The sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is extremely developed in Islamic and Christian societies. Their theology has terms and phrases to denote the other, like ‘heathen’ or ‘Kāffir’ and the Kāffir (the other) is always an enemy. The othering of the Kāffir is institutionalized and all-pervasive. This is what gives them an edge.
It turns out that a society can have as much infighting as it wants, until it has a highly developed Śatrubodha with a hierarchical sense of priority in which the ‘in’ group is always preferred when a choice has to be made. Internal faultlines don’t matter if the pyramid of priorities coupled with Śatrubodha is put into practice. It is this practice which led one of the Ali brothers, who were ‘friends’ with M. K. Gandhi, to say this: “According to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mahatma Gandhi.”
This sense of discrimination and othering leads to a scenario where sects like prophetic monotheism always keep growing, whether in war and in peace, in favorable circumstances and in adversity. For example, the Islamic kings who came to rule non-Muslim lands converted the population to Islam. And on the other hand, in Baghdad, it was the Islamic population which converted the non-Islamic Mongol king.
Prophetic Monotheistic sects keep winning because they have a highly developed Śatrubodha. Hence if there is something for Hindus to learn from the ‘others’ it is a highly developed Śatrubodha with a hierarchy of priorities in which the ‘out’ group is always at a lower rung than the lowest of the ‘in’ group.
Some Hindu scholars, saints and groups have been focusing on developing this Śatrubodha. Starting from Swami Dayananda, Swami Vivekananda and Śri Aurobindo and continuing to Śri Ram Swarup and Śri Sita Ram Goel and their followers, attempts have been made in the past 150 years to develop Śatrubodha in Hindus, although very few groups barring one or two have used the word ‘Śatrubodha’ in this context.
Being Hindu: Developing Svayaṃbodha
What then is this Svayaṃbodha for Hindus? What is Sanātana dharma or Hindu dharma? What does it mean ‘being Hindu’?
Hindu dharma, at its most fundamental is its rituals and customs on one hand and its sādhanā paddhatis, practice of meditation on the other. Let us take them one by one.
A knowledge of karma and punarjanma is at the core of ‘being Hindu’; all else flows from it. Individual actions accrue karma and karma leads to prārabdha based punarjanma. Every successive birth entangles us deeper into an endless cycle of birth and death. True knowledge is thus shrouded from us due to our own actions. It is by doing sādhanā and meditation under the guidance and grace of a guru that layers of ignorance are removed, true knowledge dawns, and liberation happens from the cycle of birth and death. Attaining self-realization is considered the highest activity in Hindu dharma.
This path however, is not for everyone, as everyone is not capable of doing intense sādhanā. For the rest of the society there is the other path, the path of performing rituals and customs according to our circumstances. This path is called dharma for the common man. Most of the Hindu śastras are employed to elucidate this dharma for everyone.
The operating principle of being Hindu is this: there is a cosmic rhythm ऋत (ṛta), the hidden order of saṃsāra, as in both nature and culture. Every living being benefits from this order, ‘ṛta’ from the moment he is born. This creates a ऋण ‘ṛṇa’ on us. To repay those (ṛṇas) is धर्म ‘dharma’.
The Vedic tradition defines five kinds of ṛṇas – panca ṛṇa. deva ṛṇa; ṛṣi ṛṇa; pitṛa ṛṇa; brāhmaṇa ṛṇa & nṛu ṛṇa – the debt paid to deities, saints, ancestors, Brahmins and fellow men. These debts are redefined as duties for individuals and groups. To play those responsibilities is to repay those debts to nature and culture. The Hindu cosmos functions on the basis of duties, responsibilities that individuals and groups have to fulfill. These responsibilities are both towards nature and culture. It is through the fulfillment of these kartavyas, duties that one becomes a Hindu. It is through rituals and tradition that dharma makes itself tangible to us.
A Hindu cannot be a nihilist who does anything that strikes his fancy; follows any cult that suits his idiosyncrasy; holds no beliefs of any kind; maintains no sanctity of any kind in his life. In short, Hindu dharma is a specific set of rituals, customs and actions that every Hindu is supposed to do. It is the exact opposite of the ‘anything goes’ attitude that many Hindus have come to adopt today.
Being Hindu means to follow our duties and responsibilities towards Nature and culture as ordained in the Panca Ṛṇa system. Being Hindu means to live multiple identities allowing for all diversity of life and human nature, but at the same time developing a sense of priority amongst these identities based on the pyramid of dharma in which the highest and most critical peg is always dharma followed by deṣa, varṇa, jāti and all other ancient and contemporary identities.
Authored by Pankaj Saxena. Published by Brhat.