A good email friend of mine Arun Bewoor, a Parsi by faith but a very accomplished ex-CEO of a multinational company in India forwarded to me a email below asking me a question:
My answer to him was this below:
It all depends on what exactly one has in mind when using the word Hinduism.
1. If one is referring to a world view then Hinduism is “singular” or monolithic in the sense in which perhaps Manu Pillai in his book might have used it because then it would refer to Sanatana Dharma, the overarching civilisational paradigm of India.
2. If one is referring to a system of philosophical thought then again it is “singular” because then Hinduism refers to Vedanta— the Vedas and especially the Upanishads .
3. If one is referring to multidisciplinary thought processes then Hinduism is not monolithic because Hinduism has several branches of intellectual inquiry — e.g. Vedaangas, Upavedas and “darsanas”
4. If one is referring to schools of Theology then again Hinduism is multifarious and not monolithic because it has dozens and scores of “sampradaaya”.
5. If one is referring to religious practices and popular customs then Hinduism is certainly not monolithic and, in fact, is a phantasmagoric collective of religious beliefs and faiths because it has hundreds of polytheistic modes of worship in vast parts of the country where 25 different languages are known and 2000 dialects are spoken amongst 1.4 billion people who have lived for centuries on the coasts, plains, hills, desert, forests and islands.
6. Hinduism thus is very difficult to slot, label or pigeon-hole as being this or that as other Abrahamic religions can be. We Hindus have no one prophet or one holy book or one Pope or Grand Mufti who acts as the CEO of Religion to whom we all must bow down and offer allegiance… or else … it’s either Paradise or Hell Fire.
7. The Rg Veda is the oldest extant religious text in the world … at least 10000 years old … and one of its most memorable epigrams in Sanskrit is this :
8. “Ekam Sath Viprah bahudah vadanti …The Truth is One but the wise ones speak of it in many singular ways”.
That’s probably the nearest that one can ever get to a single definitive view of Hinduism and it would still be open to any number of interpretations!
Hinduism is monolithic and multilithic both at the same time . It’s a bit like quantum theory…. It’s a multiverse but is called a universe .
Sudarshan Madabushi