The popular fable of the Elephant and the Blind men from the pancatantra best illustrates the conundrum that has challenged all and any intellect that has strived to understand the define Hinduism.In the story six blind men encounter an elephant,blind in vision as they are,they try to construct the reality of the entity before them by touch alone, ultimately each concludes that thing was a rope,a fan,a wall,a pillar,a tree trunk etc.
The fable doesn't say whether the blind men later discussed their conclusion among one another,on how they came to describe the same thing so variously,perhaps one of them said that he was once a weaver and hence thought it was rope,perhaps another was a mason and thought it was a wall,the man who thought it was pillar was perhaps was an artisan and the one who thought it was the trunk of tree was a lumberjack.
If they indeed did exchange their findings with one another,they would have agreed that their conclusion was as a matter of fact a product of their perception,strung together by their experience and weaved by their the intellect thereafter.
Is Hinduism then a treatise of scientific precision,is Hinduism the narrative of a grand civilization,is Hinduism a discursive philosophy, is Hinduism a compendium primitive superstition,may be as they say, its a way of life that encompasses all the above.
On observation we will realize that none of these categories truly capture the true nature of Hinduism,fully or in its entirety, or the panorama of philosophical and social narratives that come to represent modern Hinduism.
Like the six blind men,ingrained in our intellect is a space where we construct all our ideas, ideologies and existential beliefs.This space exists entirely due to our certain intellectual disposition,generated by our education,our social background,other formative intellectual pursuits whose exercise have influenced that disposition.
So the individuals who see the scientific Hinduism,the spiritual Hinduism,the transcendental Hinduism or the Hinduism of superstitions,is essentially giving shape to an idea,whose 'reality' subsists only within the realm relative to his intellectual space.For him who conceives the elephant as the Wall or the other who thinks its a pillar,that is the absolute extent of the reality relative to him.
So does there exist a Hinduism that is real, pure and untainted by listless rituals and moribund traditions,or is our vexation over pure and tainted,real and concocted versions of Hinduism a reflection of our insecurities over what we believe to be true or we believe ought to be real.The fact remains Hinduism provides enough space and depth for all concept and conviction to find an active resonance,yet it does not allow itself to be monopolized by any of them.
When this is the case where is the scope for compartmentalizing Hinduism into true and false.How is the Hinduism of the Advaita,of the absolute undivided, indivisible Atman,any more real and truer than the Hinduism of the Dvaita,of the manifest separation of Paramatma and Jeevatma,and the eternal journey of the latter,transcending time and space,to unite with the former.Is the Vedanti yogi,who has renounced all attachment and possessions,taking up refuge in the solitude of unbound,any more a real Hindu,than the person who,in the path set by the Bhakti tradition, has completely given over to the worship of a personal deity,which is the absolute core of his very being.
Hinduism does not recognize nor encourage the persistence of a belief where there is monopoly on the pursuit of truth,the Rgvedic verse Ekam Sad Vipraha Bahuda vadanti,illustrates the fact that there is space for manifold expression of the one truth.
The supreme Atman is non dual and all phenomenon manifest themselves as the representation of Maya with the Atman as its substratum, yet this Maya is not unreal,even if its a mere representation.The Upanishads often use the example of a rope and sake to illustrate the nature of Atman and Maya,while to the ignorant mind,in the shroud of darkness,the rope appears as the snake.here both the rope and snake are representations,the snake represents to the ignorance,the rope represents knowledge, yet the rope must exist as the substratum for it to be represented(or misrepresented)as a snake.
Even Adi guru Shankara while describing the jagat(the universe of phenomena) as Maya,does not say they don't exist.In his Dakshinamurthistotra he describes Maya thus:
The name 'maya' is given to an appearance which
cannot be accounted for. It is not non-existent, because it
appears; neither is it existent, because it is nullified.
Hinduism,as represented by all its traditional school of philosophy,recognizes the fact that supreme consciousness is the underlying basis of all the myriad dualities,these dualities must be first embraced and understood,before we can penetrate the truth beneath its beguiling surface,merely dismissing the dualities because the scriptures say it is not real,is a false approach and would lead to superficial realization
.If the millions of personal deities worshiped by Hindus represent the single undivided changeless supreme consciousness,then these deities and their worship are as real as the supreme Brahman.This explains why Adi Guru Shankara besides reviving Hinduism and setting up many Gnana peetam,was also prolific in setting up many temples,where various gods and goddesses where consecrated and priests ordained to conduct daily worship received special instructions for the same,from the great master himself.
Perhaps Hinduism is,as somebody wise had said before,is a study in the impenetrable intricacies of the human mind,its philosophies,its rituals,its beliefs,its general outlook,is a microcosm of the vast depths and vivid vistas of the human consciousness.Our consciousness is a barely explored terrain of a vast unexplored continent,which is riddled with features yet unexplained,shapes,sounds and forms yet unknown,secrets not yet deciphered.
Our consciousness is such a landscape,where the magnificent and ordinary,the vividly imaginative and dull inertia,depravity and kindness,rationality and irrationality,where eternal curiosity and universal knowledge,and many other subtle and unexplored of attributes, jostle and compete with each other in the eternal churning of the individuals consciousness,to lend it individuality,yet none of these attributes in themselves complete his individuality.Hinduism represents this eternal truism.
Brahma satyam jagan mithya jivo brahmaiva naparah,
anena vedyam sac shastram iti vedanta dindima
Brahma is the reality,the world is an illusion,
the individual self is nothing other than the Brahma,
That by which this truth is known is the truest science,
the science of all sciences,thus proclaims the Vedanta
...Adi Guru Shankaracharya.