HINDU RELIGION

Hindu Religion



Hindu Religion

Introduction

Hinduism is a religion with various gods and goddesses. According to Hinduism, three Lords rule the world. Brahma: the creator; Vishnu: the preserver and Shiva: the destroyer. Lord Vishnu did his job of preserving the world by incarnating himself in different forms at times of crisis. Hinduism is widely practiced in India, where 80 percent of the population, now well over 1 billion people, claims Hinduism as their religion. It is also practiced in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Bali, and Guyana, and has followed the migration of Indian emigrants around the world. It is estimated that Hindus now represent 1 percent of the population of Britain.

Discussion

The Hindu religion is built around a number of gods and goddesses who represent creation, preservation, and destruction. The representation of male and female as complementary opposites in religious imagery confirm the symbolic importance of heterosexual reproduction in the ethos. Another opposition that structures values in the Hindu faith is purity and pollution. This opposition shapes the perspective on women's reproductive bodies, since menstrual cycles and childbirth are biological functions that are associated with pollution.

Three Dimensions of Hinduism

One of the most fruitful ways to attempt a review of Hinduism in Guyana is to consider it under the three major themes of worship (upsana), festival (utsava), and sacrament (samskara). Worship covers a wide area of forms of worship that includes puja, havana, meditation, prayers, vows (vratas), and devotional singing (kirtana). Pilgrimage would be considered under this category, but unlike the case of, say, Mauritius where a local tradition of pilgrimage has emerged, in Guyana this is not the case and there is no indication at this time that such a tradition is likely to emerge. These forms of worship are found to perform on an individual, domestic, and communal basis.

Utsava, or festivals, refers to the celebration of events that are fixed by the Hindu calendar. In contrast to the religious calendar of North India where there is one or more event for every day of the year, the calendar in Guyana has become extremely abbreviated. The most prominent and spectacular calendrical events in Guyana are Boll and Dipvali which have been made national holidays. These celebrations are preeminently communal, but by virtue of the fact that they have been made official national holidays, they have now also acquired national significance with more and more participation from the larger Guyanese society. Apart from these two, there are other very important festivals that are centered on the major Hindu Gods. These are Sivaratri, Ramanavami, and Krsnajanamastami.

In addition, there is the major event of navaratra which occurs twice a year when the Goddess Durga is worshipped. A major change that has taken place in the Guyanese context is that there is no counterpart to the grand celebrations that characterize the festival in North India. It should be pointed out that the worship of Durga in Guyana is not so much a communal event as it is a domestic one, though ...