सनातन धर्म की सही परिभाषा क्या है? What is Sanaatan Dharma?

Many people over the world, mostly people in the Indian subcontinent and specially Hindus are well acquainted with the terminology sanaatana dharma, but many or most of them confuse the term with Hinduism. Sanatana means ancient-most or without beginning. Dharma stands for [eternal] principles. Hinduism accepts and embraces, like a mainstream, so many religions, most of them theist and many atheist Faiths.

Each religion necessarily has a particular prophet, text and discipline or assemblage {like a church or a mosque} for its very definition and identification. Dharma, otherwise known as Hinduism over the world, does not bind anybody with any prophet, any text, or any assemblage or discipline; instead, it grants absolute freedom to every individual to choose his prophet, text and discipline. A Hindu can even subscribe to an atheist philosophy or belief as in the case of the Samkhya, Nyaya or Vaisheshika etc or prefer not to be interested about the existence or otherwise of God, as did Buddha and Mahaveer and still be treated as a great man of dharma and a Hindu. In this sense, Hinduism is not a religion but is rather a commonplace for a multiplicity of religions, both theist and atheist. Sanatana Dharma is one of them, a theist religion. However, as far as I have discovered, most Hindus respect it for its attractive word-to-word meaning, but many of them not knowing the basic theme of this Religion.....

In the above backdrop, I felt it proper to place here just a very brief mention of the five basic features of Sanatana Dharma. These are, believing and acceptance of:

1. Panchayajna: the five sacrifices [to cleanse the sin of killing],....

2. Sodasha-samskaara: the sixteen purifications [by rituals],....

3. Punarjanma and karmafala: rebirth and [having to reap] the fruits of actions,....

4. Ishwara as both the psychological [nimitta] and material [upaadaana] cause of creation, and....

5. Avataaravaada: the fact of God incarnating again and again.

.. ..

One who does not accept any one or more of the above five principles can be accepted as a man of dharma, a pious person, if he otherwise is so, and may be a Hindu, but not one belonging to sanatana dharma

Let us see briefly, what these five basic features are:

I. The Five Sacrifices

For very livelihood, man has to kill micro animals – even if unintentionally - and commits sin everyday by way of:.... 1. breathing, 2. stepping and walking, 3. filtering water, 4. processing and grinding grains etc into eatable food and 5. cooking Thus he commits sins against God’s creation and creatures. In order to do penance [prayashchitta] for these sins, one has to routinely perform five sacrifices [yajnas]. Performance of these sacrifices through rituals is recommended, but not compulsory. To seek penance, one is free either to perform rituals like lighting the sacrificial fire or to mentally beg apology to these lesser animals five times daily in the name of God. All are not rich enough to afford performance of rituals for penance.

II.The Sixteen Purifications....

These are as listed below:

Garbhaadhaana: The first coming together of the husband & wife for bringing about conception.

Pumsvana: Ceremony performed when the first signs of conception are seen, and is to be performed when someone desires a male child.

Seemantonayana: A ceremony of parting of the hairs of the expectant mother to keep her spirits high & positive. Special music is arranged for her.

Jaatakarma: After the birth of the child, the child is given a secret name, he is given taste of honey & ghee, mother starts the first breast-feeding after chanting of a mantra.

Naama-karana: In this ceremony the child is given a formal name. Performed on the 11th day.

Nishkramana: In this the formal darshan of sun & moon is done for the child.

Annapraashana: This ceremony is performed, when the child is given solid food (anna) for the first time.

Chudaakarana: Cuda means the 'lock or tuft of hair' kept after the remaining part is shaved off.

Karna-vedha: Done in 7th or 8th month. Piercing of the ears.

Upanayan: The thread ceremony. The child is thereafter authorized to perform all rituals.

Vedaarambha: Studies of Vedas begins with the guru [teacher].

Samaavartan: Convocation and returning home.

Vivaaha: Marriage ceremony.

Vaanprastha: As old age approaches, the person retires for a life of tapas (austerity) & studies.

Sanyaasa: Before leaving the body, a Hinddu sheds all sense of responsibility & relationships to awake & revel in the timeless truth.

Antyeshti: The last rites done after the death.

Of these, the first three are pre-natal samskaaras; the next six pertain to childhood; the subsequent three are for boyhood; marriage, the thirteenth pertains to youth and manhood; the next two are for later age and the sixteenth is the last of samkaaras for a man. Antyesti is the last samskaara and other rituals like annual shraaddha etc are not requisites of Sanatana Dharma, but are later incorporations into Hinduism.....

III. Rebirth and the Fruit [Result] of Actions....

Sanatana Dharma firmly states the law of conservation of consciousness [before and after death]. As such it asserts that if the Purusha [the Self within] could assume and adopt a living body once, it is only natural that it is capable of and has been doing so and shall be doing so till the end of a cycle of such rebirths. It is important to note here that all the Indian subcontinent born faiths including the atheist religions rest their foundation in rebirth. In addition, all these religions assert that only by being able to assume new living bodies repeatedly, every soul gets justice to achieve perfection, in this life or a future one. Exactly as every amoeba is the Buddha involved [the Buddha being the amoeba evolved] in the Darwinian thinking, in all these religions belief in re-incarnation and reaping the fruits of action is a basic ingredient. The Self has to reincarnate itself repeatedly in fresh living bodies in order to prosper in the path of Truth until it makes itself completely unattached and liberated. Since not all are born in equal circumstances and with equal opportunities, it is only prudent to accept that God has to give opportunity after opportunity, life after life to every soul to move towards its fulfillment so that it can finally rest in the blissful eternal Truth. And for atheists, the law of conservation of consciousness or life-force is more scientific than the law of conservation of mass and of energy.

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IV. Ishwara [God] as Both the Psychological and the Material Cause of the Universe.

Like all other theist religions, Sanatana Dharma accepts that the entire creation is the result of God’s desire, so this aspect hardly calls for any clarification. Nevertheless, it attempts to explore deeper about the source of material with which the universe is created. Like other theist religions, it accepts that when nothing was there, God alone existed. So where could he get the raw material from? If He is formless, then he cannot contain material. Further, in the beginning, there being nothing besides him, this creation would not have been possible. The reason is simple: if God did not have any material body, and at the same time, there was nothing besides him, then procuring the raw material for the creation was impossible. Assuming that anything is created out of nothing is a gross violation of exact science. From where could he get the material for the universe otherwise than from himself? If one is to suppose that the material also exists separately, then it consumes a great or major portion of the universe, eternally consuming away space where God cannot exist. This will lead to a situation where two things are eternal, one is God and the other, matter, but none is universal, each one taking away space from the other. This will end the concept of one universal God. Sanatana Dharma solves this absurdity by its discovery that the material for the creation forms part of God’s body from where objects are projected. The universe is an integral and inseparable part of God’s body, which always exists howsoever sublime it may be.....

By implication, the belief that God is necessarily formless loses credence. But what can be the form of the universal material and how can there be material without form? The form may be extremely sublime, undetectable, unperceivable and even unconceivable. So one can call it formless in the senses in which many scientific facts use the phraseology “tends to”. For example, science states two parallel lines tend to meet at infinity. In reality, they can never meet. And both these statements are true. So also, Sanatana Dharma accepts God both with and without form. At the same time, it proclaims that God cannot be expressed in terms of form or formlessness. He transcends concepts, which are mere byproducts of the mind.

V. The Recurrently Reincarnating God

Sanatan Dharma believes that in order to protect the saints and to destroy the evil, God reincarnates himself. It is not essential that He assume only a human body to incarnate himself: it can be of any other animal body also. This is an eternal phenomenon. One must observe that for God’s reincarnation, two conditions are necessary. One is, evil is so much that even the existence of saints becomes extremely difficult. The other condition is: the evil forces need destruction and the saner elements of the world do not possess sufficient strength to do it. At such times only and not at all times God descends down to the world by sending a miniature version of Himself, say His own Image, but with strength enough to re-establish religiousness and to annihilate the evil.

For Him, it is an easy task. Just as he can create innumerable living and nonliving beings, what surprise that He is capable enough of creating his own, small representative [having quality and form like the rest of His creation] and known as Bhagawaan? His descending down to a specific place of the world does not make the rest of the universe Godless or anyway defficient. It is proclaimed in the Upanishads, “poornamadah poornamidam poornaat poornam udachyate; poornasya poornamaadaaya poornamevaaavashishyate” [that is whole, this is whole, what ever comes out of the whole is whole, and when the whole is taken out of the whole, what remains is still whole]. Everything is whole and complete....

---- By Maneesh Kumar