Dialma Samayoa

World Religions RELS-2300-003

August 8, 2015
Religion or Dharma for Hinduism Practices
Religion have existed for centuries since it has been the basic foundation of life. Some
various type of religion would be Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and so much more.
Each one of them has their own unique way to show their belief, traditions, rituals, and ethics,
creating their own stories, how they socialize or in other words how they institutionalize.1 But
the Hinduism actually defines themselves as Dharma. The rituals, life duties, and life stages in
Hinduism is able to explain to explain more in the depth to define dharma. Through this essay I
will define both religion and dharma and conclude which is best to describe their Hindu
practices.
First of all, since there is not one certain definition that can define all those type of
religions, there is actually three great minds have defined religion in their own perspective. There
is three perspective towards religion, Karl Marx defined religion in a materialist perspective,
Sigmund Freud defined religion in a functional perspective, and William James defined religion
in a belief perspective.2 Later Dharma would be define
Materialist perspective is when people believe that the humans have invented religion in order
manipulate people or simply to have power over a society. Karl Marx lived in the 19th century,
and is one who believed that the world is really harsh and unfair. That humans is the one who
1 Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions 8th Edition (New Jersey: Pearson Education), 2
2 Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions 8th Edition (New Jersey: Pearson Education), 3-9

created religion, in order to have a society live a false happy life to satisfy their own desires.3
That is why he began to believe that the cause of many people to suffer pain is by authorities
who wants to oppress their beliefs towards their society. Which then cause the people begin to
become authorities themselves in order to defend their religion.4 One example would be the
Christians when they would punish some of the people, and make them believe that the reason
that they are being punished by god is for being sinners.
On a functionalistic perspective, it is the opposite of the materialist perspective. That instead of
religion to cause suffering towards the people, religion can actually be useful in order to live a
better life for a society or each individual. Emile Durkheim have defined religion based on
sociology in a functional explanation. He has described that religion is a way for humans to
create a society or a moral community, since humans cannot live without in an organized society.
In other words, it is by creating a church.5 Also, since religion can also teach social virtues like
how one should be loving, compassionate, disciplined, and justice shows that religion is a social
process of identity formation.
A belief perspective is where they believe the unseen reality. For example, the
supernatural, and the belief of something far more superior. William James have done a classic
study The Varieties of Religious Experience. He first of all explains that there is just so many
religions with their own uniqueness that is not possible to define religion in a certain principal or
essence.6 He also states that the reason we believe on something which no one can touch or see is
3 http://web.pdx.edu/~tothm/religion/Definitions.htm, 2
4 Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions 8th Edition (New Jersey: Pearson Education), 3
5 http://web.pdx.edu/~tothm/religion/Definitions.htm, 1
6 http://web.pdx.edu/~tothm/religion/Definitions.htm, 1

because not only the human mind has one conscious mind, but we have multiple different
consciousness. That is why we do not rationalize, and hold onto belief.7
As I defined religion, I would now explain how for Hindus dharma is defined. In the
Indian Subcontinent, by the region in the Indus River, many foreigners have named a type of
Indian religion as Hinduism. The Vedas seem to be the foundation of Hinduism in their texts.
Hinduism has over 330 million deities in India and so has there is a lot of variation of spiritual
expressions within the religion. So, in Hindi they describe it as dharma which is actually has
many meanings, duty, natural law, social welfare, ethics, health, and transcendental realization.
In other words, is an order in society. To define dharma and understanding it is by explaining
their rituals, their duties or life goals, and their life stages. 8
First of all, the Vedas is an important role in Hinduism. They were the first to have written text
and were considered sages which were teachers who passed their teaching to their students. They
have passed ancient sacred hymns for the first millennium BCE.9 They believed that there were
controlling forces in the cosmos, and that there were gods for every natural stuff that happened in
the earth. For example, the god of fire, Agni. They also had shruti texts which included directions
on how to do certain ritual sacrifices to the deities, the sages going to the forest to meditate, and
teaching from highly realized spiritual masters. All three are the Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and
Upanishads. Now the present philosophical systems still uses some vedas scriptures and
7 Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions 8th Edition (New Jersey: Pearson Education), 7

Mary pat fisher, living religions 8th edition ( New Jersey: Pearson Educatio), 73-74

Mary pat fisher, living religions 8th edition ( New Jersey: Pearson Educatio), 77-78

traditions which is the importance of meditation to personally experience the truth of life. They
are more into ethics to keep an orderly social life because they are afraid of karma, and believed
that the ultimate cause of suffering is peoples ignorance of the self.10
Now, the Hindus religion have sixteen rites prescribed in the ancient scriptures to purify and
sanctify the person in his or her journey through life.11 One of the rituals would be a public
worship known as puja. What they do is that the pujaris or Brahmin priest that were trained in
Vedic practices would conduct worship ceremonies. Also, since they believe is really important
to use all human senses to experience the sacred presences, to smell, they would use ghee, honey
or sandalwood paste with offerings of rose water and flowers. To use the eye senses, they would
be experiencing dshan which is a visual contact with the divine. To hear, they would make
sounds with mantras and ringing bells. To taste, they would pass down Prasad or food that has
been sanctified by the deities or guru, and they pass it downs to the devotees. The other type of
ritual would be fire ceremonies, and death ceremonies. They would do those traditions because
they belive that fire is the divine brightness and power of truth which illuminates the darkness.
So, fire is important in death ceremonies to cremate the body after death.
The reason they do all the rituals, is because they want to live a good life. So they set Life goals
or duties. The top people in the social chain would be the Brahmins, then the Kshatriyas, the
Vaishyas, and then the shudra. This was named as the caste system. The Brahnins were the priest,
the Kshatriyas were the kings, warriors, and vassals, the Vaishyas were the farmers and

10

Mary pat fisher, living religions 8th edition ( New Jersey: Pearson Educatio), 80

11

Mary pat fisher, living religions 8th edition ( New Jersey: Pearson Educatio), 97-98

merchants, and the shudra were the laborers and artisans.12 Each cast system were heredity, so if
you were born from a merchant, then you would become a merchant. To keep the system, they
believed that it keeps a proper conduct of rulers, social order, purification rites, and ethical
guidance.
Besides the rituals and life goals, they believe in life stages. They believe that attaining spiritual
realization or liberation would take a life time or more, and is different between a male and a
female. 13The males life span of a Brahmin is divided into four periods which is approximately a
25 year gap. The first period would be that he is chaste student at the feet of a teacher. The
second period is the householder stage which is he expected to marry. The third period is that he
starts to detach himself form worldly pursuits and so should start to meditate. The final period, is
to withdraw totally from society and become a sannyasin. The Sannyasin stage is where they
declare themselves that they belong to no one and only belongs to himself. Not all Hindu males
are able to follow the path or end up in the final stage.
In the end, religion is used more to generalize a group of people; that the definition of religion as
a perspective where it teaches morality and virtues, with their own set of traditions and organize
society. While all the rituals, life duties, and life stages in Hinduism is able to explain to explain
more in the depth to define dharma. Although, there is not a certain way to describe it because of
all the variations and beliefs within the religion, but all come from the same idea which are from
the Vedas scriptures. That so to live a good life, is by following certain principals, rituals, ethics,

12

Mary pat fisher, living religions 8th edition ( New Jersey: Pearson Educatio), 99

13

Mary pat fisher, living religions 8th edition ( New Jersey: Pearson Educatio), 100-102

teachings and duties in order to develop a good life. Therefore, the practices of the Hindus
should be defined as dharma since it is not describing the whole religion itself.

Bibliography:

Pat Fisher, Mary. Living Religions. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall.
31 May 2015 < http://web.pdx.edu/~tothm/religion/Definitions.htm>.

Reflection
I realized how ignorant I was when I did not know about other religions. I learned a lot
and how each religion is truly respectful and unique. It was really interesting to learn about it and
what made it easy to understand it was the way you taught the religion. You are so organize with

your thoughts and show that you truly have knowledge about those religions. What also made it
easy to learn better about those religions are the power points and documentaries. What truly
surprised me was the even the textbook was easy to understand. However it can still be
confusing how each religion have their rituals and gods or non-gods, but overall I was able to
understand how and why they do those rituals.
The reason that I say that I was ignorant, is because I used to believe the Hinduism and
Buddhism were really similar traditions, but they are so completely different. What truly
surprised me as well that Christian is not the only religion that has different branches, but all of
the other religions do as well. Thats why the more reason for me not to judge others and respect
their beliefs. How it also fascinated me to learn that people are the ones that can change a
religion traditions. So therefore, there is not definite true religion; is all about the culture as well.
Overall, I want to thank you for accepting a few of my late assignments. How it was
challenging, but you made the subjects of each religion understandable. Besides the essay being
difficult, the ones that I thought was really hard was the quizzes. What helped me pass those is
by doing it with a friend also and I believe that helped me learn more about the subject.