Aum Beep Beep:Lifting The Lid On Hinduism

AUM…………..BEEP BEEP

LETTER TO MY SON

LIFTING THE LID ON HINDUISM

BY VIPUL TRIVEDI

PUBLISHED BY THEODORUS BOOKS

COPYRIGHT VIPUL TRIVEDI 2014

SMASHWORDS EDITION

CONTENTS

1. BRAHMIN BLESSINGS

2. THE FATHER, THE SON AND THE UNHOLY SPIRIT- THE ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS

3. IN THE BEGINNING THERE WERE EUROPEANS – ARYAN HISTORY

4. DRAMAYANA- THE STORY OF RAMA

5. THE RIGGED VEDA

6. MANU'S MISCHIEF- THE LAWS OF MANU

7. THE SPILLING OF THE SEED- PURANA TALES

8. THE WAR THAT NEVER WAS-THE MAHABHARATA

9. THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH- THE GITA’S LIES

10. REBIRTH OF THE CHASTISER- THE SECOND COMING OF KRISHNA

11. JUMBO MUMBO- RELIGIOUS SUPERSTITIONS

12. THE TRUTH RETOLD

PREFACE

Ask any Hindu what Hinduism is all about and you are likely to get a one word reply- spiritualism. Ask an old Brahmin the same question and you will almost certainly get a more convoluted response. It is too deep, he will begin, for just anyone to fathom its secrets. The great religion's answers, he will go on, are accessible only to those versed in Sanskrit, the language of the gods. The secrets contained within the vast volume of scriptures, the origins of which go back over 3500 years, to which you have to add the evolved (and evolving) philosophy of Vedanta based on the interpretations of thousands of enlightened gurus of those august works, are not relinquished easily. Hinduism, he will add, is not a religion. It is a way of life! Indeed, he will cry with pride, it is the one and only truth! No, my friend, he will conclude, what you need is a Guru to guide you on your way. He will then helpfully point you in the direction of the Vedantic cult of his choice, to his extremely charismatic and very spiritual leader. Thus will begin your foray into Hinduism, where you will wade through the morass of esotericism and sophistry on your self seeking journey towards enlightenment.

What exactly are the origins of Hinduism? Why is it considered peaceful whilst other religions aren't? At the age of forty, just after my father's death in 2001, I felt an urge to discover the answers to these, and other, questions for myself. I was determined to have a go at reading some of the readily available translations of the scriptures. My legal training proved to be invaluable in my quest.

My study took me back 3500 years, from the end of the Indus valley civilization to the invasion of the Indo Aryans, the chanting of the much lauded Vedic prayers and their stories of floods and creation, to Brahmanism and the evolution of the caste system and the graduation of the religion based on primitive rituals of animal (and human) sacrifices to the spiritual brand which is now being offered for sale by ashrams worldwide, whether they are based in small garages in London or in opulent mansions all over the world, built by a new breed of industrialists who have identified religion as a sure bet money spinner.

When my son was seventeen years old he asked me, after he had read the works of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, what I thought about our own religion. He told me that he could not find any book which was easily readable and which explored the secrets of Hinduism. I had already noted this dearth myself well before then and informed him that I was carrying out my own research into Hinduism and, if he wished, I would send him notes of my findings to enable him to follow them up with his own study. He later went on to university and I continued with my reading.

To my utter horror I discovered that far from being based on non violence and spiritualism the roots of Hinduism lay in the most barbaric practices of animal sacrifices and violence through conquest by marauding, nomadic and racist Indo Aryan tribes, and in the practice of slavery through the caste system which was said to have been created and sanctioned by god himself. My interest grew at this point and I delved deeper into the literature. The deeper I dug the more horrified I was to uncover that the sacred scriptures, all the way to the Bhagwad Gita and beyond, almost without exception, had only one aim in mind- to keep the Brahmins at the top and the Dalits at the bottom; that the Brahmins first created the caste system and then wrote scripture after scripture, all emphasizing that god had created the caste system and that it was the sacred duty of all humans to blindly follow this system by playing their given caste roles in order to obtain fruits in the future and ultimately liberation. Hinduism, or Brahmanism as it was originally, wasn't about spiritualism- it was about seizing and maintaining power through the use of slavery by religion. It is an inconvenient and unpalatable truth that that Hinduism has consigned hundreds of millions of its poorest citizens who are classified as members of the lowest caste (the Dalits) to an existence of utter misery and destitution for over 3500 years.

Two years ago I decided to write this book in the form of a letter to my son. Knowing his sense of humour (which I like to believe he has inherited from me) I was aware that he would be more likely to read the book if it made him laugh. I have therefore tried to pander to his humour. I have attempted to maintain the light hearted and informal tone of a father's letter to his son throughout when telling the real story behind the scriptures like the Puranas, the Ramayana, The Mahabharata, the Gita and others.

My aim in writing this book is to inform the reader where the beliefs of Hinduism, the so called truth to which Hinduism lays bold claim, originate and to investigate the veracity of our beliefs and to elucidate the mysticism which shrouds the religion. As I pursued my study I began to build, piece by piece, the jigsaw of deceit and violence which holds the religion together. The book, which traces the development of Hinduism and written in the style of a father's informal letter to his son will, I hope, appeal to readers of all faiths or none.

The effects of religion upon modern India are also important. On the one hand India is living in the 21st century and is at the forefront of an emerging world where technology and economic progress are improving the lives of millions. On the other hand, as far as religious beliefs are concerned, we are living in a bygone era: adherence to strict caste rules, planetary superstitions, animal worship, mythological character worship and performance of archaic rituals is not only rife but life modelling and controlling.

Religious extremism and intolerance are also on the increase in India. The saffron threat presented by the Hindu right wing zealots is all too real. This saffron menace is creeping into all areas of Indian life as they try to dictate what Indians should or should not be allowed to read and whether Indians should be allowed to celebrate Valentine’s Day or couples allowed to hold hands in public. We talk about this in connection with the Islamic nations but find it difficult to imagine that it can happen in India. But it can. And it is.

This is the story of my journey to liberation which I invite you, dear reader, to follow. The story is mine; the belief entirely yours.

Vipul Trivedi

****************

CHAPTER 1

BRAHMIN BLESSINGS

My Son,

I hope this letter finds you in the very best of health and happiness. I will not mention wealth because I know that you are surviving on a student’s loan and notions of wealth are not quite in the equation as yet.

Your mum and I miss you terribly and even after almost three years it takes us several weeks, after every one of your holiday visits, to accept that you have gone to attend your university course. I know we usually communicate these days by email or text message but I thought I would write to you in the old fashioned way, for I have something important to tell you.

As you are aware from our discussions over the past few years I began questioning the whole notion of God even in early childhood and adolescence. You will recall the story I told you about the Brahmin priest who came to stay with us in our flat in Nairobi to perform the Raandal Maa ceremony. This is where we invite the spirit of the goddess, called Raandal Maa, to personally attend our house to shower blessings upon us following the performance of an elaborate puja to summon her. I must have been about seven years old then. The pujas, or prayer sessions, went on for two or three days. On the night before the final day I was asked by one of my aunts to deliver a glass of warm milk to the priest at around ten o’clock, just before he went to bed. I barged into his allocated room without knocking, just in time to see him withdrawing a syringe from the bottom of a coconut, near the root of the tail. The remnants of a red liquid were still visible in the syringe. The priest looked sternly at me and said that if I ever told anyone about the syringe Mataji (the Goddess) would be very displeased and punish me. I nodded silently and left the room, closing the door behind me.

On the final day of the puja the priest put on a magnificent act. Towards the end of the ceremony he suddenly whipped off the ribbon which held his long hair together and shook the hair loose. He then put on a high pitched female tone and shrieked at the top of his voice, I am here, Maa is here, I am pleased with your puja and this will be shown in the presence of my colour in your house! With these last words, he reached behind him into a basket, retrieved a coconut and smashed it on the floor. Out poured a bright red liquid and all the people gathered there, about fifty in all, started shouting Mataji! Mataji! She has arrived! and prostrated themselves before the nine identical paper facial portraits, each wrapped around a coconut to give a three dimensional effect, of the beautiful goddess. Upon receiving a prod from my father I did the same.

The reaction of the people did not surprise me. What did surprise me was the reaction of the family when I told them what I had seen the night before. This was after the priest had left, taking his fees, the donations to Mataji and lots of ghee (clarified butter), flour, rice, moong beans etc with him. I tell you it was enough to feed our entire extended family of twelve for a week! The elders of the family were not in the least bit surprised when I told them of the syringe incident. They shrugged it off, saying that whilst the ceremony may have enjoyed a theatrical culmination, this did not detract from the spirituality and holiness of the event and that the actual recitation of the mantras, the fire ceremonies (havans), the singing of the bhajans and aartis and the general spiritual atmosphere engendered by the three day gathering of the clan was sure to have a general beneficial effect all round. They did not, they said, require the final evidence of the red coloured coconut water to prove that Mataji had indeed come to bless the house, the family and indeed the whole neighbourhood. I think my questioning of faith began at that point and I am therefore a little disappointed that it has taken me all these years, over 40 in fact, to write this letter. But the vicissitudes of life take their time and toll.

On another occasion we visited the house of Shastriji in Nairobi. He, you will recall from my stories, was the most renowned and popular priest in Nairobi at the time. I told you that this man had a fetish for fondling the extended tummies of heavily pregnant women, ostensibly to determine the sex of the baby. We know women who have been disgusted by this guy’s lecherous behaviour. He had also developed a reputation as a formidable practitioner of tantric black magic. Apparently, Ba had seen an apparition of a monkey or bear like creature trying to walk up the stairs to our house. She had also once seen it perched outside her bedroom window. A consultation with Shastriji revealed that Lord Shani was highly displeased with us and that a puja to pacify this very powerful and angry deity would be necessary. So the whole family traipsed off to his house on a Saturday morning by prior arrangement. It had to be a Saturday, being the day of Shani.

The usual fire was lit. I remember vividly that the repeated mantra chanting started with the words, Aum Prang Pring Prong….. and these words were followed by a Sanskrit prayer to Shani. How the children laughed at Prang Pring Prong and how soundly we were thrashed outside Shastriji’s house afterwards. The fact that the great Shani is, in fact, the planet Saturn was not ever mentioned to us. No doubt we would have laughed a little bit more, and would have received more thrashings, if this profound and esoteric knowledge been imparted to us prior to the ceremony.

Having grown up in a staunch extended Hindu Brahmin family that used to sing God’s praises at the top of its collective voice every day, and especially on Saturdays, I was well versed, like my cousins, in the various shlokas, puja rituals, bhajans, aartis and the like. We used to observe all the usual fasts and festivals and prayed to all the different gods like Ganesha, Hanuman, Rama, Krishna, Shiva and also all the various goddesses. We even prayed to all the diseases like smallpox, in the form of the goddess called Sitalama who is the deity for this deadly disease. My religious instruction began, I think, from the very moment of birth. We were a household of Brahmins who prayed loudly and in song. You could not get away from the chanting of mantras and, like most other Brahmin children in the community, I learnt the Sanskrit verses by listening to them being sung day after day by my grandmother, father and other adults in the house. There was no formal instruction in the verses. As children we would listen to the adults and were fascinated by stories from the Puranas of good versus evil as they were portrayed to us.

As you know I attended a Goan Catholic primary school in Nairobi, where the teachings of Christianity, particularly the New Testament, were drummed into us at every available opportunity. Several years of imbibing Christian knowledge has also given me a fairly good grounding in that religion. From an early age I came to realise that our religion could not stand alongside the Christian version. Fundamentally, there was either reincarnation, as we believed, or there was not, as the Christians did. No way could the same god tell one group that they would be reborn and another that they would not be. There are other fundamental differences too but I do not wish to dwell upon them here.

Oh, did I tell you that the Catholics baptised me one day without my knowledge or consent? They did. Or I think they did. One is never sure of these things. I think it was done in secret, Mother Teresa style. I remember the incident well. As children we used to be taken occasionally to the church opposite our primary school. In the good old days there was no discrimination: Hindus, Muslims and Christians all used to go. One day an old teacher died and we had to attend mass in his memory a few days later. I remember sitting alongside my Christian friends as the priest led the prayers. At the end, all the Goan boys lined up to accept the wafer as the body of Christ. I remember a boy sitting next to me pulling me along with him and I suddenly found myself in front of the priest. He uttered the words, Body of Christ to me and put something in my mouth.

A few seconds later there was some commotion as a teacher grabbed me by the hand and smacked me on the back of the head. He asked me to spit out the wafer which, by then, had been swallowed. Seeing this he led me to the back of the church behind a pillar where the stern looking priest looked at me and asked me why I had taken the wafer when I was not a Christian. I was too scared to answer and did not want to implicate my Goan friend. I remained silent.

Not to be outdone, the priest took a phial of water and still looking directly at me, asked me if I accepted Christ as my saviour. I nodded dumbly. He then threw some water over my face and head and mumbled something under his breath. He then nodded and smiled at the teacher and patted me on the head. The teacher led me back to class. For a few days afterwards some of the Goan children kept on asking me whether I would be attending church on Sundays from then on and I did not understand why they were asking me this. It was only years later that I realised the significance of the incident. I smile when I think about it now. I wonder if I should sue the church for this impromptu conversion.

When I told my father about it he simply said that the priest had blessed me with the holy water and that I should consider myself lucky at having been chosen for the honour amongst all the pupils. As Hindus we attach special significance to holy water and consequently neither your Dada nor I saw anything untoward in this episode.

My Goan teachers also taught me the wonderful universal prayer of St Francis of Assisi which has stayed in my heart and mind throughout my life; it is the prayer you and I used to recite together when you were in primary school. I shall remain forever grateful to my teachers for teaching me the verses of this beautiful prayer.

GAYATRI HAVAN

And you will no doubt recall the incident in India when we performed the Gayatri havan (fire ceremony) in our house a few years ago just after we moved in. One of our relatives enlisted the services of a local maharaj (priest). The priest turned up with all the paraphernalia required for the puja accompanied by two teenage sidekicks, one of whom immediately announced that in Hinduism an uninvited guest was to be treated as god. He was, perhaps unsurprisingly, conspicuously and unashamedly pointing to himself as he said this. What a pompous prat he was, this sixteen year old git. Things got progressively worse from that point on.

We had agreed a fee of 1700 Indian rupees for the whole puja. However, during the ceremony, at various points in the puja, the priest kept on asking me to deposit 100 rupee notes before the statuette of the goddess Gayatri. I did this a few times before realising that this was going to cost us more than we had bargained for. I must have done this ten to fifteen times at his bidding, but one cannot complain about the priest’s behaviour in the middle of a puja. The rascals have been known to up and leg it from a puja midstream at the smallest slight, real or imagined, leaving those left behind to wonder what calamity was about to befall them as a result of this inauspicious and untimely abandonment of the prayers.

At the end of the proceedings the priest asked me for the agreed fee, having already pocketed the notes offered during the puja. I did not want to make a scene but one close Indian friend who was also present took umbrage and pulled the priest and his sidekicks into the balcony for a confrontation. A heated row ensued between him and the priest. Gone was the pleasant priestly demeanour. The guy had the temerity to warn me, to my face, that god would reject the puja and that our house would be cursed. At this point I had to pull our Indian friend away. I was afraid he might throw the priest off the balcony into the car park below. Finally I agreed to pay the priest only 500 more rupees and he left angrily, grumbling and mumbling under his breath. This incident is not unusual. It is something that is practiced by the Brahmins all over the world. I swore to myself on that day that I would not perform any more pujas of this type in my house ever again. Nor should you- ever; not even after my death.

Your Janoi (sacred thread) initiation is well overdue. Your second birth has been delayed for years owing to one reason or another. First we wanted to do the ceremony in India and then there were your GCSE years to contend with and, before we knew it, you were off to university. However, now that I know what I know about Brahmanism I am afraid I can no longer bring myself to put you through the initiation. No, son, you are not going to wear the sacred thread, for the simple reason that I no longer believe there is anything sacred, either about the initiation ceremony or the thread itself.

SWAMI SATYAMITRANANDA’S VISIT

I also remember vividly the day when the youngest Shankaracharya of India, Swami Satyamitrananda Giriji Maharaj, came to our house in Nairobi. Actually, he came three or four times, if I remember correctly. I also remember spending several hours with my cousins and uncles washing and decorating the car in which he was to be collected from the airport. I was about six or seven and we all went to the private airstrip at Wilson airport on the outskirts of Nairobi and I remember seeing the young man alight from the small private aircraft to a tumultuous welcome from the Brahmins who had gathered to receive the appointed Supreme Leader of our religion. It was like a state visit. We attended all his lectures in Nairobi and he also came to our flat for lunch. It was quite an occasion, I tell you. How proud we were as a family to be graced by the presence of the Shankaracharya himself. It was like having the Pope to lunch because the post of Shankaracharya is the highest religious post in Hinduism.

I think Swami Satyamitrananda is the only Shankaracharya in recent history to have defied the rule which prevents a Brahmin from leaving the shores of India. Shortly after he returned to India after his first trip abroad he had to give up the post of Shankaracharya. You see, son, it is believed that a Brahmin loses his highest caste status if he leaves the shores of India. Satyamitrananda visited Nairobi several times after that and on every occasion we were sure to invite him to our place and he graciously accepted our every invitation. Son, I tell you this to let you know that we were considered to be a good Brahmin family in which the traditions of the Brahmins was followed to the letter. I have noted with some sadness that Satyamitrananda's name has become associated with the Hindu nationalist movement whose aim is to steer India away from its founding secular values and to turn it into a Hindu state.

MATHURA TEMPLE INCIDENT

Several years ago we visited the holy city of Mathura, the birthplace of Krishna. Even as our car stopped outside his temple we were besieged by the pandas who surrounded the car and attempted to become our guides for the tour of the temple and its surroundings. The pandas are local priests who rely on the patronage of pilgrims and superstitious tourists, especially the Non Resident Indians, who visit the holy places. They make you carry out all sorts of pujas and fleece you for as much as they can get. We were quite taken aback by the aggressive behaviour of the twenty to thirty pandas who had surrounded our hired car and were all shouting and thumping on the car roof, bonnet or boot for attention. I actually asked the driver to take us back to the hotel but he had become even more nervous than me and told me in no uncertain terms that turning back might not be a good idea as violence may ensue if we led the pandas into believing that we had insulted Krishna by turning our backs on his temple.

So, with the pandas following us all the time, shouting and exhorting us to choose one of them as a guide, we made our way along the Yamuna river path towards the main shrine. On the approach to the shrine we saw that there were several smaller shrines, with the curtains drawn so that we could not see the murtis behind. Each of these shrines was attended by a priest who told us, completely deadpan and matter of factly, that the curtains would only be opened if we paid the requisite fee of 10 rupees for each shrine. As this was not a lot of money we paid up to see the small statuettes of Krishna in various poses.

We then entered the main shrine where the head priest sat. The curtain was drawn here too. He recognised us as Gujaratis and told us that he too was a Gujarati, as though there was some special spiritual significance to this kinship. He asked us to sit down. Sitting across from him at a desk was a man with an open ledger before him. The priest then started rattling off prices required for the curtain to open. He quoted us two thousand rupees to feed a widow and 1500 rupees to feed a cow. I did not expect this at all and by this time I must admit that we were feeling really pissed at the crude behaviour of the temple keepers. I told the priest that we did not want to pay so much but that I would give a donation of two hundred rupees. At this suggestion his face turned to anger and he actually shouted at me, Then we will not open the curtain and you will not be blessed with the Lord’s darshan!

I stood up and told him, as calmly as I could, despite the anger which was welling up inside me, that it did not matter if the curtain remain closed because the Lord standing behind it had clearly seen me in attendance and this was enough. I then asked the rest of our group, which consisted of your mum and her two brothers, to leave the temple with me.

Suddenly, the priest’s attitude changed completely. When he saw that I was dead serious about leaving without darshan his own superstitious beliefs took over. He clearly felt that if we left without darshan, having come all the way from London for this very purpose, because of his refusal to open the curtain, he would suffer some personal adverse consequence. He shouted to someone behind the curtain to open it and as we stood there the curtain was opened and we had the pleasure of seeing the murti of Krishna and Radha. But the magic had gone. We just wanted to leave the temple as soon as possible. We donated the 200 rupees and left without a word.

You see, it is all about money. India’s various temple trusts have millions of dollars in their coffers. Indeed the richest one at Tirupati is said to loan money to the state government of Andhra Pradesh. Just last year a temple in Kerala was found to be hoarding twenty billion dollars worth of treasure in its hidden underground vaults. Yes, twenty billion! The next in line are Balaji temple in Tirupati, Shirdi Sai Baba temple, Siddhivinayak of Mumbai and the golden temple in Amritsar. You should see the people queuing up to donate money in Tirupati. There is a well into which people throw money, watches, full wallets, purses and jewellery. The story behind this temple is that Krishna borrowed money from god’s treasurer to pay for his wedding and is still paying off the debt. So any money donated goes towards paying off this debt and the donor receives blessings from Krishna in return.

The third richest temple trust is the Shirdi Sai Baba trust. It is so ironic that the temple built in the memory of a man who took vows of poverty, an ascetic who begged for food every day and shared it with stray dogs, has become the third richest in India. Some time ago the trustees wanted to build a throne for the baba costing twenty million dollars. Only after a national outcry did they desist from this silly course of action.

The story of the cult of Satya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi perhaps epitomises the link between money and god. You know this recently deceased Baba well- he is famous for his