Conversion
to Hinduism
By
P.R.Ramachander
(Given after my note I am giving some comments I recived in face book THanks to each of them.THe value of my note went up greatly by their notes)
Hinduism
is the one of the world’s oldest
religion and also way of life and is still surviving and thriving. Hindus do
not have an agenda to convert other people to Hinduism
They never tell , you
will go to hell if you don’t follow
our religion
In fact a
famous prayer chanted
daily by every Brahmin is
आकाशात् पतितं तोयं यथा गच्छति सागरम् ।
सर्वदेव नमस्कारः केशवं प्रतिगच्छति ॥
“akasath,
pathitham thoyam ,
Yadha Gachathi SAgaram
Sarva deva Namaskara, Kesavam prathi gachathi”
Just like
all water falling
from sky reaches the sea
SAlutions to all
gods , reaches Kesava
When
BUdhism and Jainism
started converting Hindus
to that religion, Many great
philosophers like Adhi Sankara and Ramanaja tried their best
to stop it. Sikhism arose in India
and did convert people to their religion
Arya samaj and Hindhu maha Sabha , Viswa
Hindhu Parishad Brought
Their own way to convert people
to Hinduism
They
could not do much when Islam and
Christianity converted them
In spite
of all this there are 1.2 billion
Hindus in the world
Comments by my friends
I feel Buddhism/Jainism/Sikhism didnt actively convert anyone.
The concept of religion was not there before in India.
It was the concept of matam मतम् ( school of thought) and it was very common for different schools of thoughts to co -exist and some would dominate for a particular time frame, then another school of thought would take over.
Usually after vadam- prativadam style debates the one who loses follows the school of thought of the winner.
Best eg is Mandana Mishra and Adi Shankaracharya where Mishra loses and follows Adi Shankaracharya's school of thought.
Ramanuja himself had disputes with his own Guru and broke away standing on top of a temple to broadcast the sacred mantra to everyone, defying his guru's instructions of strict secrecy and he also invited many Non Brahmins into the Vishisthadvaita fold.
In India the schools of thoughts seem to evolve with time.
When Sufism was growing and many converted then Sikhism came into being.
Where it actually had shades of Sufism and Hinduism.
The word Khalsa itself is from the Arabic word
k͟hālis which means pure.
Reason could be that having a school of thought that resembles Sufism would halt conversion to some extent as to preserve dharma and Sikhs have done well over all.
Buddhism came when there was excessive animal sacrifice..so a new school of thought had to come to halt sacrifices to reset the mind to looking within in a self realization mode.
Once all the excessive animal sacrifices were eradicated, then Adi Shankaracharya comes with Advaita philosophy and resurrected vedic practices with ahimsa as the operating system.
In India, each school of thought that came didnt come to out do the other..they emerged to work in succession, they adapated, modified, absorbed and keeps updating itself according to time, place and person.
Renuka Karthik Good scholarly write up. Further, there were violent internal fights too in the history of sanatanam. Let me know, who coined, and how the word hinduism came in vogue, as this word nowhere appears in our scriptures. There are discriminations, biasedness, untouchability, poverty , separate living (caste wise residential colonies) in the varnas, leading to, attraction and conversions to other religions. Of course, there were forced conversions by invaders too. That Stockholm syndrome type mindset, made people further support conversions.
A S Rao The word Hind is used in Arabic for a noble, high-status, and unattainable beloved.
Origin :
Native Bedouin Arabic : Hind = a large herd of camels / a noble woman
Its used as a name for girls.
Poetically it is used to denote beauty, grace, and cultural refined status as one who is rich owns a lot of camels.
Hind bint Abi Umayya was one of the wives of the Prophet( pbuh)
I know Arabic hence aware of the word Hind in Arabic.
It also means India in Arabic.
For eg the word Tamarind is an Arabic word meaning
Tamr Hindi= date fruit of India
ISKCON is also converting the non Hindus in to Hinduism. Not only foreigners, many non Hindus in India also converting themselves to Vedic religion. Making them strictly Vegetarians.
Hinduism is about an individual's the journey within, and not of his outward practise. All who deeply embrace Santana Dharma are souls that have consciously or unconsciously begun to evolve, or are higher evolved ones. May each soul's journey be blessed
.
when a bag of grains uncared for, gets infested. Yet, many grains remain intact. But, it doesnt mean, the rest of the grains remain same. Segregate the infested grains from the bag, treat the remained content in the bag with preservatives.
