By A. K. Saran

TODAY there is no living Hindu society in India. The process of the decay of Hindu society and religion (which must be distinguished from Hindu spirituality) began very long ago. It reached a decisive phase during India’s encounter with Islam and continued in a different form throughout the comparatively brief but radically significant period of British rule. It has taken yet another form in independent India. So far, I have seen no signs of a genuine renewal. And the future is dark; more so because our vision is obscured by a false light.

Was there not a renaissance of Hinduism during the early British period? And right now, do we not see in India a violent attempt to revive Hinduism? Has India not been passing through a new wave of Hindu nationalism that signifies a reinforcement of counter-secular forces in Indian politics? Has there not been in recent years a noticeable set-back in the modernizing processes, and does it not indirectly strengthen Hinduism? And above all, is not Hinduism showing, once again, its unique strength to meet the new challenges of secularism and modernization?

At the level of facts, the answer to all these questions is broadly in the affirmative; and at that level, there is a certain obvious persuasiveness about it. But this in no way compromises the truth of the statement that there is no living Hindu society in contemporary India, even though the Hindu tradition is not decayed or dead.

What instinct is to the animal order (which is passive and non-self-conscious), tradition is to the human (which is active and self-conscious). Man too has instincts, but unlike animals, he cannot live by them alone. Tradition, then, is that by which man, qua man, lives.

This presupposes the definition of man. Man cannot define man without falling into contradiction. So man is the being who cannot define himself and yet who, by virtue of his self-consciousness, cannot live without seeking self-definition; in other words, without yearning for self-knowledge. This yearning, this search, implies his finitude; the contradiction of its fulfillment, his infinity. The tension between finitude and infinity is man’s existence. Tradition enables him to cope with (not resolve or eliminate) this radical tension. To lose (or reject) tradition is to be sick in the soul.

Since man as man cannot live without tradition, the existence and continuity of tradition is simply the reality of human existence. However, since tradition is concerned with man’s transcendent destiny, it is greater than, and prior to, man. (Hence no merely anthropological and sociological theory of tradition can be adequate). But man ultimately has to transcend all hence he is more than tradition. Man himself lives between temporal realities and a temporal meaning: he cannot be identified with either of them. Tradition, as the mediator between time and eternity, duplicates this Janus-like quality of man. Thus the relation of Man and Tradition is one of synonymy but without mutual reducibility.

As symbolic system Tradition points to the Transcendent, the Absolute, the Unmanifest; in a dialectical identification with the symbolized, it is, therefore, primordial, a-historical; hence perennial and universal. As a mediator, it is a specific formulation of transcendent or supra-temporal truth. A formulated tradition, though always pointing beyond itself, exists in time and space, and has a history. The Hindu tradition is one of the earliest formulations of the Primordial Tradition. There are other formulations: Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam and the Far Eastern and Near Eastern ancient traditions.

The Hindu tradition, though a modality of the Primordial Tradition, is intended to be complete and universal. (This does not exclude other modalities of the Primordial Tradition—say, Judaism, Christianity or Islam—from being universal and complete in their own way. This point cannot be elucidated here, but it is important to mention it).

In virtue of its universality and completeness, the Hindu tradition provides for man a whole way of life grounded in a theory of cosmic history, worked out in all necessary detail. A “sacred” science of society and history thus becomes a necessary aspect of the Hindu tradition. This is not true, for instance, of the Buddhist tradition, in which a social order is presupposed rather than derived from its first principles. “Why have I taught you nothing about the world? Because that would be in no way useful to you for deliverance”. (A saying of the Buddha).

Thus to be a Hindu is to participate wholeheartedly, in the prescribed manner and at the prescribed level, in a social order based on, and functioning in accordance with, the “Sacred” Sociology. The progress of the Hindu towards his ultimate goal, Mukti, the authenticity (or meaningfulness) of his life, is thus a function jointly and integrally of the participant’s sincerity and the conformity of the social order to traditional principles (sacred sociology). Any antithesis of the two, though not excluded empirically, is theoretically ruled out. It follows that one has no way of being a Hindu—in fact, of leading an authentic human life—if there is no traditional (sacred, normal) society in which one can participate.

There is one important exception to this. Besides the religio-social mode of the Hindu tradition, there is another, the intellectual-spiritual. The intellectual-spiritual mode of the Hindu tradition is basically a Sadhana (spiritual exercise). It is the effort to realize directly the ultimate Transcendence, the supreme identity of the individual and the Absolute. This, in the last analysis, is not a matter of doing anything or of participating in a traditional social order. One can realize the supreme Self-knowledge whatever one’s situation. The whole question is one of cultivating purity of mind.

One can try to do this by stepping out of the social order and joining a monastic order which, theoretically, can exist within any kind of society and yet preserve its integrity; or by cultivating inner detachment in a degree that enables one to remain completely unaffected by one’s participation in the socio-cultural system. A high level of detachment is, in fact, also required in the case of the monastic option when it is not an integral part of the dominant world-view of one’s times.  

Note: The following passage is taken from Prof. A.K. Saran’s article The Crisis of Hinduism. Readers interested in engaging with the complete text may access it through a Google search and download it accordingly.