Invitation to World Religions

Hinduism as a Way of Life  139

emigrants send their children to RSS youth camps to give them a sense of their Hindu identity and cultural pride. HINDUISM AS A WAY OF LIFE Hindus often insist that Hinduism is more a “way of life” than a system of beliefs. Indeed, Hinduism does place greater emphasis on what one does rather than on what one believes . The emphasis on doing rather than believing might explain the disconnection between tex- tual injunction and actual practice that one often encounters in Hinduism. For example, the Laws of Manu , as we have seen, provide prescriptions for how to live based on the varnashrama dharma system, but these do not always translate into actual lived practice. In this section, we will explore Hinduism as a way of life. Temples and Icons Hinduism encourages a sensory religious ex- perience in its adherents. This experiential aspect is nowhere more evident than when a Hindu goes to a temple. As religion scholar Diana Eck observes, the devotee doesn’t say, “I am going for worship.” Rather, the devotee asserts, “I am going for darshan.” The Sanskrit word darshan means “to see,” but in the Hindu context it refers specifically to the in- terlocking gaze shared by the deity and the devotee. That is, darshan is the intimate act of both seeing the deity and being looked upon by the divine, an act that establishes a loving relationship between devotee and God. 12 As we learned earlier in this chapter, the image of a god in a temple or a personal shrine at home is not just a representation of the deity; rather, it is imbued with the divine pres- ence. Thus, devotees believe that to see an image of a deity is to see the deity itself. In

VISUAL GUIDE Hinduism

In Hinduism, folding one’s hands and offering salutations by saying “Namaste” (nom-us-tay) is a simple way of giving a respectful greeting, as well as saying, “I bow to the divine in you.”

Hindu forehead markings: bindi, tripundra , and namam . Bindi (drop) is a decorative mark on the fore- head signifying auspiciousness. An additional “dot” is often applied by married women to the top of the head where the hair is parted. The mark between the eyes signifies the “third eye” (perception beyond ordinary sight). Some forehead markings denote sectarian affilia- tion, such as the three horizontal lines worn by worshippers of Shiva and the vertical “V” of the worship-

pers of Vishnu. The red “drop” in the middle represents Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune. PROPERTY OF OXFORD

The mandala (Sanskrit, “circle”) is a sacred device that varies in form and function: to map cosmology, to embody deities, to serve as tal- ismans, or to facilitate meditative contemplation.

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