Core principles of Hinduism and its epistemology for assimilating external knowledge ⭐

Here, Kautilya describes how an Ārya conqueror ought to treat a mleccha land he acquires.

He should adopt the same mode of life, the same dress, language, and customs as those of the people. He should follow the people in their faith with which they celebrate their national, religious and congregational festivals or amusements.

…

He should always hold righteous/religious life in high esteem. Learned men, orators, charitable and brave persons should be favoured with gifts of land and money and with remission of taxes … he should prohibit the slaughter of animals for half a month during the period of Cháturmásya (from July to September), for four nights during the full moon, and for a night on the day of the birth-star of the conqueror or of the national star.

He should also prohibit the slaughter of females and young ones (yonibálavadham) as well as castration. Having abolished those customs or transactions which he might consider either as injurious to the growth of his revenue and army or as unrighteous, he should establish righteous transactions.

…

He should initiate the observance of all those customs, which, though righteous and practised by others, are not observed in his own country, and give no room for the practice of whatever is unrighteous, though observed by others.

—Kautilya, in the Arthaśāstra, 13.5

(the section as a whole more generally refers to how to treat any conquered land, but these excerpted portions only make sense with regard to foreign lands, which lines up with the context of Mauryan rule in much of Afghanistan and Balochistan.)

In summary:

• Abolish wicked practices, e.g. cow & calf slaughter, bad economic policies
• Embrace local customs, dresses, festivals, gods
• Learn their good practices; abolish the bad
• Otherwise act in accordance with sacred law
• Hold Hindu culture (“Righteous Life”) to be highest-status, i.e. as the “high culture” of the land — aka “Sanskritization”

This sheds light on the Hindu approach to syncretism. Core values, principles and philosophy were non-negotiable, while we were exceptionally tolerant and syncretic in superficial “cultural” elements like customs, dresses, festivals and even flexibly admitting foreign deities. One may observe a parallel to Hindu philosophy, where it is Brahman that is fundamental and (at least in Advaita), all deities are seen as expansions of the same Brahman.

• Brahman as a philosophically fundamental concept, and the associated Vedic literature and philosophy. [Hindu /metaphysics/]
• The three goals, or Puruṣārtha: Artha (wealth), Kāma (pleasure), Dharma (righteous behaviour). [Hindu /consequentialist ethics/]
• The three obligations/debts, or Ṛṇatraya: to gods (to follow the religion), to rṣis (to learn, advance and pass down knowledge) and to one’s ancestors (to produce children) [Hindu /deontological ethics/]
• Śāstra: following the injunctions in the Dharmaṣāstras (moral literature) and Arthaṣāstra (economic/political literature) [Hindu /law/]
• The four sciences: the Vedas (religion and formal science: philosophy, linguistics, mathematics in the associated Vedāṅgas), Ānvīkṣakī (hard science), Vārtā (practical work or commercial knowledge), Daṇḍa-nītī (government) [Hindu /science/]
• The pramāṇas, described below [Hindu /epistemology/]
• Indriyajaya: Practising restraint over sensual pleasures, conquering your six inner enemies – kāma (lust), krodha (anger), moha (desire, for various consumer pleasures), mada (pride), matsarya (envy). In Hinduism, conquering them means having total control over them (not being devoid of them) rather than letting them rule you — and this is seen as something instrumentally valuable for your other goals. [Hindu /virtue ethics/]
• The prohibition on cow and calf slaughter [Hindu /cultural norms/]

This also doesn’t pin things too precisely. The Dharmaśāstras are various, and neither they nor the Arthaśāstra can be regarded as timeless; similarly on the primary point there are multiple conflicting philosophies. The enumerations differ: some texts include mokṣa as a Puruṣārtha; some include more obligations. The “materialist” school of Bṛhaspati lists only Vārtā (work knowledge) and Daṇḍa-nītī (government) as the sciences, while the school of Śukra (which in many ways is a “dark” version of Bṛhaspati) lists only Daṇḍa-nītī in a “only power matters” kind of way.

Nonetheless it sheds light on what “type” of thing is universal, and what is subject to change with region, tribe and time period.

Although the excerpt from Kautilya is about an Ārya conqueror ruling a mleccha land, the same pattern is observed with foreign invading tribes that assimilated into the Hindu fold, e.g. here are some inscriptions from the Western Satraps (admittedly, they may not have been so foreign — assuming they decended from the Apracas, their origins seem to have be paternally Kamboja Hindus and only maternally Scythian, nonetheless they were culturally the latter and identified as such before they established their empire)

Rudradaman, who is the lord of the whole of Malwa, Gujarat, Marwar, Sindh, Sauvira (Multan), Kukura (East Rajasthan), Aparanta (Northern Konkan), Nishada (tribals) and other territories gained by his own valour, the cities, marts and rural parts of which are never troubled by robbers, snakes, wild beasts, diseases and the like, where all subjects are attached to him, and where through his might the goals of Dharma, Artha, Kāma are duly attained.

– Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman.

He who by the right raising of his hand [possibly the Chakravarti Royal Gesture] has caused the strong attachment of Dharma, who has attained wide fame by studying and recalling, by the knowledge and practice of grammar, music, logic, and other great sciences, who is proficient in the management of horses, elephants and chariots, the wielding of sword and shield, pugilistic combat, in acts of quickness and skill in opposing forces … who has been wreathed with many garlands at the swayamvaras of princesses.

– Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman.

Rudradaman, who obtained good report because he, in spite of having twice in fair fight completely defeated Satakarni, the lord of Dakshinapatha, on account of the nearness of their connection did not destroy him.

– Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman.

The meritorious gift of Ayama of the Vachhasagotra, prime minister of the King Mahakshatrapa the lord Nahapana.

– Junnar inscription of Nahapana, 26.

Success! By Ushabadata, the son of Dinaka and the son-in-law of the king, the Kshaharata, the Kshatrapa Nahapana, who gave three hundred thousand cows, who made gifts of gold and a tirtha on the river Banasa, who gave to the Devas and Brahmanas sixteen villages, who at the pure tirtha Prabhasa gave eight wives to the Brahmanas, and who also fed annually a hundred thousand Brahmanas- there has been given the village of Karajika for the support of the ascetics living in the caves at Valuraka without any distinction of sect or origin, for all who would keep the varsha.

– Karla Caves inscription of Nahapana.

Success! Ushavadata, son of Dinika, son-in-law of king Nahapana, the Kshaharata Kshatrapa, inspired by true religion, in the Trirasmi hills at Govardhana, has caused this cave to be made and these cisterns.

– Nashik Caves inscription of Nahapana, 10.10.

Of the queen of the illustrious Satakarni Vasishthiputra, descended from the race of Kardamaka kings, daughter of the Mahakshatrapa Rudradaman, of the confidential minister Sateraka, a water-cistern, the meritorious gift.

– Kanheri Caves inscription by Rudradaman’s daughter/Vashishtiputra Satakarni’s wife.

They repeatedly proclaim their acceptance of Hindu philosophy and the sciences, and a knowledgeable reader may spot many nods to Artha/Dharma-śāstric prescriptions for governance: building hydraulic infrastructure, hunting down robbers and wild beasts, grants of land and cows to Brāhmaṇas, establishment of non-sectarian monasteries etc.

The above addresses the question about the Hindu attitude to syncretizing foreign cultural elements. We may similarly ask: what is the Hindu attitude to accepting foreign or new ideas on objective or scientific matters?

The crispest answer to this is given by Kumarila Bhaṭṭa, who says: we are free to admit the superior authority of mlecchas on any given wordly science. The Ārya have superior authority in religion, not necessarily in anything else, where we are free to learn from anyone. The Manusmṛti also famously states:

श्रद्दधानः शुभां विद्यामाददीतावरादपि । अन्यादपि परं धर्मं स्त्रीरत्नं दुष्कुलादपि ॥ २३८ ॥

śraddadhānaḥ śubhāṃ vidyāmādadītāvarādapi | anyādapi paraṃ dharmaṃ strīratnaṃ duṣkulādapi || 238 ||

One imbued with faith may acquire excellent learning even from a lowly person, special law even from the lowest, and the gem of a wife even from a base family.—(238)

Similar attitudes are expressed by Vācaspati Miśra and Vātsyāyana of the Nyāya school.

More fundamentally when it comes to scientific matters, Hindu epistemology rests on the concept of Pramāṇa, meaning “proof” or “way of knowing”. The six Pramāṇas described in the literature are:

• pratyakṣa (sense perception/observation)
• anumāna (logical inference)
• śabda (word)
• upamāna (analogy)
• arthāpatti (called “postulation”, but in practice not different from anumāna)
• anupalabdhi (absence)

Only the first three are “fundamental” and universally enumerated in most Hindu literature (though some Vaiśeṣika literature does not mention śabda, perhaps subsuming it as a form of pratyakṣa), while the rest may be regarded as specific forms of argument popular in Hindu philosophy.

The first two are fundamental to science of course (“logical positivism” in the terms of modern philosophy). Śabda is mainly a nod to the authority of the Vedas — so the materialist Bārhaspatyas reject it, as do Buddhist logicians (who mostly derived from the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika schools of Hinduism) though in practice the Buddhists relied heavily on the word of Siddhārtha Gautama.

Much of the epistemological literature centers on discussing which pramāṇas are more reliable, and which take precedence over which. Interestingly, it is universally acknowledged that pratyakṣa and anumāna take precedence over all others. Rāmānuja writes:

For it is an acknowledged principle that Scripture has meaning only with regard to what is not established by other sources of knowledge.

In cases of Scripture conflicting with Perception, Scripture is not stronger. The True cannot be known through the Untrue.

Ādi Śaṅkara writes:

Surely, even a hundred Vedic texts cannot become valid if they assert that fire is cold or non-luminous! Should a Vedic text say that fire is cold or non-luminous, even then one has to assume that the intended meaning of the text is different, for otherwise (its) validity cannot be maintained; but one should not assume its meaning in a way that might contradict some other valid means of knowledge or contradict its own statement.

The validity of the Vedas holds good only with regard to matters concerning the relation between ends and means of Agnihotra etc., which are not known through such valid means of knowledge as direct perception; but not with regard to objects of direct perception etc., because the validity of the Vedas lies in revealing what is beyond direct perception.

This is not considered a rejection of the authority of the Vedas, rather it pins down its domain to the realm of philosophy and ritual — any other claim made in passing does not hold authority.

Also published on Twitter

Hindu syncretism is also distinct from FungibleBrown syncretism.

For example, people forget just how many random religions had popped up in FungibleBrownistan around the same period as Christianity and Islam: Mithraism, Manichaeism, the cult of Apollonius of Tyana.

They were syncretic, absorbing philosophy and theology from multiple sources. Manichaeism was famously a synthesis of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Christianity. Mithraism was based on worship of an Iranian deity Mithra (cognate to our Mitra) but absorbed many local European elements.

These were all major cults. Apollonius of Tyana was more popular than Jesus at some point, Empress Julia Domna was sympathetic to the cult of his worship (and funded Philostratus’s “The Life of Apollonius of Tyana”, which documents his travels to India); there are ancient Mithra temples all over Europe and Britain.

But this type of synthesis was essentially a “we now have 15 competing standards” type of syncreticism, and did not allow them to form a unified identity against external threats.

Also observe that it is exactly this type of syncretism that modern Left-liberals are so fond of—meme cults like Din-i-ilahi, Baha’i, Ganga-Jamuna Tehjeeb, are all romanticized precisely because they are impotent.

Hinduism doesn’t need to be syncretized with anything—it is already syncretic, and provides a positive vision that allows it to actually unify what it syncretizes rather than just be the 15th competing standard.

So glad you asked! I have answered precisely this in a previous article “Is Hinduism tolerant? Is it Nihilistic?” (linked in image).

This enumeration is affirmed by surveying what is consistently emphasized throughout the literature and is largely common between texts on different topics or apparently contradictory schools.

E.g. there are Hindus who emphasize ritual, work, knowledge, ascetism, or devotion: but these are ultimately all regarded as valid yogas or “paths” (as explained famously by the Gītā but also the Yoga Sūtras: e.g. your work is itself an instance of the will of Brahman).

This seems to be a point of confusion:

The Vedas are popularly referred to as the preeminent Hindu sacred text, but reverence for the Vedas is— as the French Indologist Louis Renou remarked— largely a “tipping of the hat”; they don’t provide an ethical basis for one’s life

The Vedas in this sense, when they are described as the core for all Hinduism, do not include just the Saṃhitās that you are thinking of, but also the Upaniṣads, Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas and associated Vedāṅga (śāstra/rules of life and ritual, astronomy, linguistics, epistemology, Vedānta/metaphysics).

This is a misunderstanding of how religion or ideology works. An ideology isn’t 100% of its people completely knowledgeable about some formal, axiomatic knowledge system.

An ideology is a mass of people who all have their “compasses” pointing in the same direction (or rather along some vector field that converges into some point or direction).

For example, does a normielib understand that the ideology she believes in, Left-liberalism, is about “Triumph of the Noble Savage”?

No. But when she sees a crazy-looking person on Instagram supporting Palestinian terrorists and rapists, she instinctively knows to support them—even if she had never heard of Palestinians before.

Does Matt Yglesias know that he believes in “Triumph of the Noble Savage”? No, but once enough of the normielibs scream at him, he instinctively knows to concede and make soft-excuses for the Palestinian terrorists and rapists.

These are “Lay” followers of Left-liberalism. They might not know THE TRVTH, but they know the direction to update in, and in the limit that gives rise to a TRVTH.

Similarly, if you preach the Upaniṣads and the Puruṣārtha to a lay-Hindu, they are much more likely to be receptive to it than a Lib, Muslim or Christian.

(Sure: you could say in this sense “Almost everyone is a Lay-Left-liberal” because of Left-liberal dominance over the information ecosystem. Nonetheless these other local forces still exist and have meaning.)

This also explains:

• why ideology relates to “cultural identities”—an Indian, even one who doesn’t identify as Hindu, is more likely to be receptive to Hindu philosophy than non-Indians
• why “political religion” exists—ideologies which seek to expand their influence view other ideologies as threats (you don’t want other forces affecting people’s compasses), and the other ideologies must defend themselves.

This guy blames Hindutva, Hindu unity and Savarkar for (supposedly) causing a decline in discussions of the “deep questions”.

… with the reformist zeal supplanted by a overriding desire for symbolic unity … The orthodox triumph … effectively ended the larger project of critically engaging with tradition

Needless to say, this is unsubstantiated nonsense. Engagement with the “deep questions” reduced because of the left-ward shift of Indian humanities academia from the 1970s (as well as brain-drain from the humanities to hard-sciences), and leftists did not have a true passion for Hindu history beyond caste oppression narratives, glazing Buddhism a bit, and doing shameless apologia for Muslim invasions.

Apart from that, though, the problem with this frame is: unity is fundamental to Hinduism. Unity has been fundamental to Hinduism since Āstīka convinced Janamejaya to stop persecuting the Nāgas and assimilate them instead.

Assimilation is what differentiated the Vedic people from other Indo-Europeans: in India, the “hero slays dragon” myth morphed into “hero masters and conquers (but does not destroy) dragon”.

The key is: unity/assimilation on superficial differences, while insisting on the core principles. There is no sense in which an “artificial unity” prevents you from doing this, you will face no resistance from Hindus to teaching Hindu philosophy. You are imagining resistance where there is none.

A Vaishnava bhakta’s devotional relationship with Krishna, a Vedantin’s contemplation of Brahman, and a family’s celebration of Diwali are forced into an artificial unity that serves neither understanding nor preservation.

Again, this is not an “artificial unity”. The first two at least (and in an indirect/partial way the third) are explicitly described in the literature as two different yogas to attaining the same goals.

When faced with questions about caste, gender roles, or religious pluralism, we find ourselves trying to defend or explain “Hinduism’s position” - as if such a unified position existed.

Literally every religion has schools with internal disagreement. Your problem isn’t that there isn’t a unified position, your problem is that you (and other HIndus) aren’t aware of what the positions are. You don’t need a cult, you need a wiki.

Also I should probably remind you: you are not obligated to answer questions in a lib frame. All of these questions have nuanced answers; the important point is to not let the enemy frame it in their “oppressor-oppressed” frame, because it is false. It is also perfectly possible for Hinduism to not take a stance on some random political question from the modern day.

In fact, your general question of “What would Hinduism mean in a foreign land and a different time or context?” is directly answered—by Kautilya, in the form of “how should an Ārya treat a foreign land he conquers?”

He says, roughly (see linked article for full quote):

• Abolish wicked practices, e.g. bad economic policies, cow & calf slaughter
• Embrace local customs, dresses, festivals, gods
• Learn their good practices; abolish the bad
• Otherwise act in accordance with sacred law
• Hold Hindu culture (“Righteous Life”) to be highest-status, i.e. as the “high culture” of the land — aka “Sanskritization”

(In fact this “how to generalize Hinduism?” question is addressed in the literature not only in reference to foreign countries, but also in reference to treating scientific evidence that apparently contradicts scripture. See linked article for details.)

Some final comments on a particularly inane insinuation in the self-explanatorily titled section The Colonial Origins of “Hinduism”.

The absence of a common name does not imply the lack of an identity. Sometimes the word “āstika” (literally is-ist, implying belief in the existence of Brahman) was used, sometimes terms like “the dharma of the āryas”, “the true dharma”, “the eternal (sanātana) dharma” but most commonly just “dharma”.

Yet the Hindu writers were very clear on what was “our” religion, and what was not. Texts from the six darśanas were “ours”. The Vedic yajña-s were “ours”. Buddhists were not. Greeks were not. Muslims were not.

As I wrote before:

A standard feature of ancient Indian culture was that we rarely referred by specific names the water we lived in.

Sanskrit was usually just called “Bhāṣā”, India was usually just called “Loka” or “Deśa” (though terms like JambudvIpa, Bhāratavarṣa, Āryāvarta, Karmabhūmī/Karmakṣetra, Yajñiyadeśa, Dharmadeśa existed), Hinduism was just called “Dharma” or “the practices of the Āryas”. Even when there were actual names for these. This doesn’t mean there wasn’t a sense of identity; they just didn’t care to mention it by name.

This practice in still preserved in the speech of old people (“our country” etc.), and among Indonesians/Malays who just call their language “Bahasa”.

What we call India was the universe for most people in those times, with foreign countries merely being footnotes on the frontier. What we call Hinduism was the aether they swam in, all other beliefs were either heresies or curiosities, depending on how tolerant their outlook was.

(In fact, one way to think about this is precisely the “primary religions vs secondary religions” concept he cites in his post, which I thought was quite enlightening.)