Friday, October 23, 2015

Differences in Hinduism and Brahmanism - 1

These days we see BJP and its allies such as RSS often call that they represent Hindus; however, the fact is that they represent only a small section of people coming under Hindu Fold and that is Brahman. Not all Hindus are Brahmanic Hindus and that is creating much confusion in the minds of many people who are not well aware about the differences in these two sections, Brahmanic Hindus and Non-Brahman Hindus. In fact they are two different religions and not one, the way it is depicted by Brahmanic groups belonging to RSS and its allies.
In my this post and following posts I shall describe the differences in these two religions. There is common belief that Hinduism is only a culture but my research shows that Hinduism is a religion and not a culture at all. In this posting I show the religion part of Hinduism. As for culture, there are many cultures, each for the region and they differ so much that we cannot call them as one culture. We shall see those different cultures after some time. For example, culture of Punjab is totally different from that of Bengal and than of Tamilnadu or Andhra or Kerala and so forth.

Given below are differences in the two religions. Here I note that not all Brahman by caste are Brahman by religion and those Brahman by cast but not practicing Brahmanism behaves more like Hindus and at the same time we also see that some Hindus by caste practice Brahmanism and prefer to behave as per the terms of Brahmanism. This observation can create confusion in the mind of the observer. So you have to be careful while distinguishing them. Particularly those Hindus who are influenced by Brahmanic organizations such as RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Sanatan behave like Brahmanic Hindus.

1. Hindus can worship any form of God (supposedly belonging to any other religion also) while Brahman can worship only some specific forms of Gods. Hindus can visit a Church, a Darga, a Masjid or any other place of worship and put his/her prayer and offering to show respect to that form of God. Brahman cannot even think of such liberty. Because of this freedom often people of those religion try to influence Hindus to convert them to that faith. Hindu can be a believer a non believer, believer in one god, in many gods while a Brahman cannot be a non believer. Hindu can take advise of a Brahman, a Mullah, a Clergy or any priest from any religion and still he remains a Hindu this is not possible for a Brahman. Often this liberal behavior of Hindus is misunderstood by other people. Hindus are by natural instinct secular in their approach to all religions. They are guided by their traditions more than any scripture, we shall see more of this later.
2. Hindus eat non-vegetarian food and they offer such food to their deities in prayers while Brahman is strictly vegetarian and offers only veg food to their god in prayers. Brahman when called as priest to perform a sacrament (puja) of a Hindu deity they insists for a veg prasad or offering to that deity. Fasting (not eating food in the name of God) and penance based on such methods is essentially of Brahmanic origin and not Hindu; however, today we see Hindus indulge in doing fasting under advise of Brahman priests. For Hindus only Karma yoga is advised by Bhagwatgita and no physical penance. Hindus need not do any fast. When a Hindu asks an advise about what they should do to avoid any misfortune to a priest, obviously the advise by that Brahman priest is not on the basis of Hindu tradition but that of Brahman ritual and Brahmanic teachings; this has further complicated the situation. One cannot blame the priest for not advising on the basis of Hindu tradition since, they do not know them. Hindu's ignorance of their Hindu tradition is responsible for such confusion.

To this there are exceptions amongst Smarta (Kashmiri), Saraswat from Maharashtra and karnatak, Gouda Saraswat, Devandya Brahman from Konkan and also Bengali Brahman, they accept non-veg food to eat but never offer it to their deities. This is because these Brahman communities are not followers of Adi Sankar. Only those Brahman who follow order of Adi Sankar are strictly vegan.

3. Hindus do not hate any other religion but believe in respecting it; while Brahman hates all other religions, including Hinduism, and spreads mischievous Mal-propaganda against them as always. See literatures of RSS and such other legs of Brahmans. Brahmans brainwash Hindus and make them hate other religions, this training is the foremost objective of RSS, BJP, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajarang Dal, Sanatan and more. Hindus foolishly listen to them and may even react according to their poisonous teaching.

4. Hindus have only six life observances namely, pregnancy celebration, birth ceremony, name ceremony, marriage ceremony and last ceremony and after death ritual called Shraddha. Some Hindus observe thread ceremony also. Whereas Brahman has sixteen elaborated ceremonies spread over the whole life, of course, nobody observes them at present, not even the best of Brahman practicing priests.

This study continues in next post.

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