A Brief Primer On Hinduism

A Brief Primer on Hinduism
Subhash Kak
Vishnu, Punjab (10th
century)
Chapman University
2022

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INTRODUCTION
Hinduism describes the nature of the outer and inner realities and instructs on
ways to obtain self-knowledge. The formal name of Hinduism is Sanātana
Dharma (Eternal or Universal Law) and its oldest text is the Ṛgveda, and it has
a huge amount of ancillary literature that covers a wide variety of subjects.
Hinduism is also called the Ātma Vidyā (Science of Consciousness).
Lived Hinduism is Yoga, in which one of the first steps is the practice of
āsanas that has become well-known all over the world. Preceding this practice
is ethical and moral preparation that makes one ready to delve into a deeper
understanding of the tradition.
There are many misconceptions about Hinduism both in academic
writing and in the popular press. Some of these misconceptions are so ridiculous
that to paraphrase the Roman scholar Cicero only academics and journalists
would believe them.1
Some of the worst notions spread about Hinduism are that it has many
Gods, it is patriarchal, it has a caste system, and it worships animals. None of
these assertions is true.
Hinduism is a universal way open to everyone, which considers all
humans to be equally capable of obtaining knowledge about themselves, and
through that of Reality.
Hinduism considers the material world to be governed by laws and that
consciousness is transcendent and free, and it explains the relationship between
the two. It takes consciousness (Ātman) to be a unity that is present everywhere,
and all sentient beings have the same Ātman. Another name for the Ātman is
Brahman and it is projected in our minds in terms of different divinities.
Although academic or popular narratives on Hinduism highlight worship
of Vishnu or Shiva, lived Hinduism places an equal emphasis on the worship of
the Goddess. Although the representation of the divinities in done in an
anthropomorphic sense, that is merely a way for us to relate to them in an
emotional sense. The Ātman is beyond forms.
The next few pages present a brief introductory primer on Hinduism in
terms of eighteen main principles together with a commentary.
1
Sed nescio quo modo nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosphorum.

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FROM ONE TO MANY
The truth can only be one, and the conception of the universe including
conscious beings must be logically consistent.
1. Reality is One Universe of Being.
This one reality is seen in the mind as multiplicity of forms and conceptions.
Reality cannot be based on duality or multiplicity for then there is no single
order. When we look at the universe as observers there are three aspects to our
experience: the reality of the cosmos, one’s awareness, and the fact that one is
able to make sense of it.
2. At the basic level, the experience of reality is triplicate.
When we look up at the skies, we see ourselves all alone on earth with a vast
expanse separating us from the Sun that brings us light, or from the stars in the
heavens at night. Our place in the physical universe is in the following
triplicated reality:
earth, atmosphere, the heavens
It is in this sense that reality is described in the invocation of bhūr bhuvaḥ suvaḥ
of the Gāyatrī Mantra: the body is like the earth, the breath is like the atmos-
phere, and corresponding to the inner light of consciousness is the sun. In other
words, when we close our eyes, the universe is:
body, breath, consciousness
A slightly different perspective is the conception of saccidānanda that integrates
the above two outer and inner views. Reality is existence (sat in Sanskrit) of the
outer universe with us in it; it is consciousness (cit in Sanskrit) since we perceive
the outer in our consciousness; and finally it is the structure of our mind and the

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physical body that gives us a sense of beauty and bliss (ānanda in Sanskrit).
Therefore, one may say that reality is:
sat, cit, ānanda
Alternatively, we can use the following equivalent terms:
foundation, awareness, transformation
These three have been represented in the Indian tradition as:
Vishnu, Shiva, Devī
Vishnu represents the physical and the moral law, Shiva the universal
consciousness, and Devī (or Shakti, or Goddess) the transformative power and
diverse embodiments that include the physical, the natural, and the power by
which the mind is illumined.
Vishnu and Shiva complement each other, paralleling the completion of
Shiva by Shakti, for to speak of the universe without consciousness or of con-
sciousness without embodiments who experience it is meaningless. The com-
plementarity is projected as Vishnu and Shiva the same as Harihara, and Shiva
and Devī as one Ardhanārīśvara.
The three elements may also be described as
Truth, Meaning, Beauty
This explains the great importance given in Sanātana society to beauty
and the arts, including music, sculpture, dance, and theater. The elements of the
triplicate order inhere in each other and, therefore, they rest on the same meta-
physical ground.
The triplicate order works together as one when creativity is called for at
either the universal or the individual levels. The abstract creative power in living
beings is called Vishvakarmā, who is described in the Mahābhārata as “the lord
of the arts, master of a thousand handicrafts, carpenter of the gods and builder
of their palaces, fashioner of ornaments, first of craftsmen, and a great and im-
mortal god.”

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Vishvakarmā is the inspiration behind the creative work of artists, crafts-
men, designers, architects, and engineers.
3. The manifested Universe is governed by laws.
Hinduism is fully accepting of reason and questioning in the understanding of
reality.
4. Transformation is a characteristic of Being.
The universe goes through cycles of creation and destruction, and according to
Purāṇic accounts, the last cycle began several billion years ago.
Consciousness can only be experienced in terms of change, so both Shiva
and Shakti (Devī, Goddess) are also conceived of as Time (Mahākāla and
Mahākālī). This occurs in any framing of experience for that must include a
beginning and an end.
5. Physical and biological forms evolve.
Individuals experience change and this change is an aspect of both physical
structures and of life.
6. The mind goes through transformative stages.
Since minds are informed by memories and individual history, the outer reality
is conceived differently by people with different awareness.
It is not professed belief but rather action that reveals the nature of the
mind.
INNER REALITY
7. The outer and the inner are mirrored.
The mirroring of the outer takes place recursively at different scales (including
within ourselves), and this makes attainment of knowledge possible.

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This is illustrated dramatically in the 108 names of the God or the
Goddess, and the 108 prayer beads of the japa-mālā. The Rishis were aware that
the sun and the moon are about 108 times their respective diameter from the
earth (also the diameter of the sun is about 108 times the diameter of the earth),
therefore the circuit of 108 names (or beads) is to make a symbolic journey from
the body to the inner lamp of consciousness (like the journey from earth to the
sun).
8. The mind and the Ātman (Consciousness) are not identical.
The mind is the instrument on top of the processes going inside the brain,
whereas Consciousness is the light that illuminates these processes. We have
mentioned the name Shiva for Consciousness (Īśvara or Maheśvara in the
Bhagavad Gītā), elsewhere it is simply called Prakāśa or Light.
9. The mind is finite, whereas the Ātman is infinite and transcendent.
The mind is governed by natural law, whereas Consciousness is free. This means
that cognitions and reasoning about them are associated with paradox.
The individual is bound by the causal chain of action and reaction, the
karmic chain, until one connects to Consciousness directly, which sets one free.
This freedom not only becomes the source of the creative impulse in the
individual, but this freedom, paradoxically, channels a higher will. The purpose
of life is to attain this freedom (mukti or mokṣa)
10. It is through observation that physical reality is actualized.
This is in consonance with interpretations of scientific theory. All knowledge
exists in our consciousness.
11. Knowledge is of two kinds.
The first type of knowledge is linguistic or lower, where one speaks of the
relationships between abstractions or physical embodiments (knowledge
gathered in the mind), and the second is intuitive or higher, which facilitates the
navigation through logical categories and guides us to generalizations and

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insights (subjective knowledge of the light of consciousness).
Bookish knowledge is limiting in scope; it cannot address the deepest
questions of consciousness. Hindu art attempts to bridge these two languages in
a symbolic form.
12. Ignorance arises from choosing to remain bound to biological nature.
In our basic nature, we are no different from other animals (and bound to
instincts, learned behavior, and innate reaction which is also called the law of
karma).
Our biological nature is a powerful impulse for us to remain rooted in
ignorance. The path to knowledge and mastery requires effort and churning and
it takes us to freedom.
WAYS TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE
13. Knowledge is obtained by finding the meeting point of the inner light and its
interface with the mind.
This is the union of Shiva and Shakti, and it is received as grace. The cultivation
of compassion and truth facilitates it.
14. The Goddess — seen through the lens of transformative processes — is the guide
in the inner journey.
The journey of mastery of transformation is the path of action that cultivates
intuition.
It starts with desire, followed by knowledge and action. Desire is embod-
ied in icchā-śakti, Sarasvatī; knowledge in jñāna-śakti, Lakṣmī; and action in
kriyā–śakti or Durgā.
15. The exploration of the architecture of the mind through different methods, or
sādhanā, constitutes different kinds of yoga.
Ethical preparation and practices of concentration help take off the layers of
covering that separate the mind from the light of consciousness.

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16. One’s innate temperament together with training and learning determine the
nature of one’s striving.
There are many paths to wisdom, and the one that will work best is matched to
the individual’s temperament. But all people can arrive at freedom and
creativity.
17. Worship is sacred theatre to facilitate the concentration of the mind (dhyāna).
Worship may be done through devotion (bhakti), and it may be done anywhere,
in group, or in privacy. Dance, art, science, honest inquiry, or service are
worship. It can be the search for the heart of beauty, and it takes one to the
centrality of paradox in life, which opens the doors to deeper insight. The light
is present everywhere.
The temple is a symbolic representation of the cosmos, and ritual as a
celebration of the movement of time.
Silence is also a form of ritual for it opens one up to the infinite space
that exist within oneself.
18. The spiritual life in Hinduism is to find harmony in existence including in one’s
own self.
As an ecological view of the health and well-being of the individual and of
society, Hinduism stresses compassion and kindness to not only each other but
also to animals, and on being ethically and morally upright.
Hinduism is a celebration of life that integrates action and self-
knowledge.
WHO IS A HINDU?
The main principles of the Sanātana Dharma outlined above are from the Vedic
texts, but they may also be derived from Yoga, which is Hinduism in practice.
One can even claim that truth that can be empirically verified is a part of
Hinduism and one need not even invoke any texts in support.
The principles of Hinduism stress their universality, and they are

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consistent with the scientific inquiry. It should be noted that they point to a
fundamental difference with academic science in postulating the additional
category of consciousness in a manner that keeps the integrity of the causal
relationships intact.
There is no dogma on how to obtain self-knowledge, although sects
within it may emphasize specific methods. These sects acknowledge that once
the mind has been made clear of impurities, their specific discipline becomes
irrelevant.
Anyone who uses the path of Yoga to obtain self-knowledge is a
practicing Hindu, albeit the start may have been the initially modest goal of
improving physical health. More advanced Yoga is the integration of these
principles in all of life’s actions.
The path of the Sanātana Dharma is open to all people from all regions
of the world. An individual does not have to go through the traditional temple
ritual to become a Hindu.
It is an open community, which is why in the past it found it hard to deal
with militaristic attacks on it. Digital technologies have made it easy for people
on this path of self-knowledge to feel socially connected to each other.
HISTORICAL OUTLINE
The Vedic texts, which are the bedrock of Hinduism, refer to astronomical events
that go back to the fourth and the third millennia BCE. Sanskrit texts that follow
deal with all kinds of literature, including philosophy, science, medicine, music,
art, and subjects that include worldly and esoteric subjects. The geographical
setting for the earliest texts is north and northwest India, but later works speak
of expansion westwards and beyond the Himalayas.
The Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas are encyclopedias of early Indian
culture and history that present us several points of overlap with the
archaeological tradition that has been traced to about 8000 BCE. For example,
they call Vishnu and Shiva by the name, Ekaśṛṅga, “the one-horned one,” that
is the unicorn, which is one of the most striking images from the archaeological
tradition in the third millennium BCE. They also speak of the one-tusked, triple-
humped boar (varāha) who saves the earth as Vishnu’s incarnation that we see
in the iconography.

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The Mahābhārata remembers geological events that occurred in the
fourth or third millennium BCE, like the breaking up of the Satluj (Śutudri) River
into a hundred shallow channels, or the drying up of the Sarasvati River, which
is described as the greatest river of the early Vedic period going from the
mountain to the sea.
The Purāṇic king-lists provide useful clues to early history. Some of the
main events are: Generation 45, Ganga changes course; Generation 65, Rāma of
the Rāmāyaṇa; Generation 94, Mahābhārata War. Given that the Mahābhārata
War took place several centuries before the Buddha, even if we allocate only 20
years to each generation, these king-lists reach back into the third millennium
BCE if not earlier.
The Greek historians inform us that the Indians during the time of the
Mauryas (fourth century BCE) remembered more than 150 generations of kings
spanning over 6,000 years (which apparently listed only the prominent names).
There are also genealogies of rishis that go at least a couple of thousand years.
The earliest calendar in India was centennial, with a cycle of 2,700 years. Called
the Saptarṣi calendar, it is still in use in several parts of India. Its current
beginning is taken to be 3076 BCE. Notices by the Greek historians Pliny and
Arrian suggest that, during the Mauryan times, the calendar used in India began
in 6676 BCE. It is very likely that this was the Saptarṣi calendar with a beginning
of 6676 BCE.
The Mitanni of West Asia (second millennium BCE), whose origin was
likely Indian and not Iranian based on linguistic considerations, worshiped Vedic
gods and their influence in the region precedes the rise of Judaism.
The spread of Hinduism across Southeast Asia is well-known, but few
know of the expansion into Central Asia and lands further west. Images of
divinity with multiple faces are unique to Hinduism as in the faces of Shiva,
which represent different aspects of consciousness shining in our awareness, and
the diffusion of such representation is seen in the art of regions beyond the
Himalayas. Thus Svetovid, the chief divinity of the Slavic world, has four faces
in the cardinal directions, and the names of the faces appear to be Sanskritic in
origin. Note further that divinities with multiple faces code philosophical ideas
that are uniquely Indian. There was also an influence directly on Europe using
sea routes.

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HINDUISM AND SCIENCE
Hinduism is fully consistent with scientific inquiry. But it is different from the
current mainstream science paradigm in that it includes consciousness. Current
academic views of mind are naïve, for if one views the individual as a system,
there can be no place in it for freedom and agency. Although Shiva is normally
seen as the anthropomorphized representation of consciousness, his dwelling is
within us, which leads to the famous slogan Shivoham, “I am Shiva”, which
applies to men, women, and all beings. It is the lack of this recognition which is
the cause of one’s suffering and misery.
The academic view of the human as a biological machine leaves out the
significance role the mind plays in health and well-being. It leads to lack of self-
awareness as well as underlying paradoxes of life on the part of the individual,
and this is the area where Hinduism provides clarity. Many scholars believe that
even in physical science giving a more central role to the observer will be
important in further advance.
Unlike Western religious traditions that focus on belief, Hinduism
recognizes that the individual’s self-understanding depends on the place where
one is in the journey and, therefore, it emphasizes virtue. It is never a question
of what you hold within yourself as truth but how is your character and how do
you treat others.
Reasonable people acknowledge that consciousness is the frontier of
science, irrespective of whether one approaches it from the perspectives of
physics, neuroscience, psychology, or computers. Given its materialistic
trappings, modern science has failed to make any real advance in this field
(excepting in the dominant interpretation of quantum theory, where materiality
and consciousness are like two sides of a coin).
Mainstream science is materialistic in which consciousness is an
emergent phenomenon arising in the brain. The position of Hinduism is different
in that while it concedes that the experience of consciousness manifests in the
brain (brain networks function as lens), it sees consciousness as the transcendent
light that makes cognition possible. Since Shiva represents consciousness, he is
called the lord of all animals (in the image below, the antelope in the hand
represents this fact).

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Shiva, 1300 CE
The idea of consciousness science is revolutionary as it does not reduce
to the mainstream materialist view and it is crucial for further advance in
fundamental understanding of reality.
This new science will provide humanity the tools to deal with societal
and psychological changes that are being caused byAI. One must also remember
that as AI and automation become more pervasive, even more serious
disruptions will occur.
The exploration of the inner space of consciousness should prove to be
as exciting as was the exploration of the globe in the past few centuries or
remains so for each individual in their travels around the world.

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THE DEVĪ AND PLANES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The chimpanzee and the human have similar sensory capacities, but why can
some humans do science or poetry and chimps apparently can’t?
If truth be told, the memory of chimps is far superior to that of humans
as revealed in the famous study on a chimpanzee named Ayumu at the Primate
Research Institute of Kyoto University.2
But the superiority of the chimp speed
is not the issue as far as the capacity of the sense of sight is concerned, so let us
put them as being effectively equivalent.
Our senses provide data to the brain; the understanding is not done by it,
but by the mind.
The eyes don’t see; they are an instrument used by the mind.
The mind is not in the brain.
The mind operates at a plane that is not physical.
The chimp’s mind-plane is not identical to the human’s, even with the
brain’s processing of imaging information superior (or let’s say comparable) to
the human’s. The chimp’s mind-plane does not even allow complex language of
the kind humans possess. Let us also not forget that most people operate at mind-
planes where the language used deals with actions and instincts that is not much
richer than the chimp’s.
Furthermore, computers can recognize images or audio patterns much
faster than either humans or chimpanzees, but they cannot see or hear sounds for
they lack minds.
One may infer from this that there are multiple mind-planes. In Sanskrit
they are called lokas (cognate with “look”, that is “to see”), or worlds as
perceived by us.
The mind-planes by themselves, if they were part of the brain’s circuitry,
could not have the capacity to cognize. The only logical inference is that these
planes exist in the realm of consciousness.
2
Matsuzawa, T. The Ai project: historical and ecological contexts. Animal Cognition 6, 199–
211 (2003)

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Consciousness is the light (Skt. div) that is scattered in our mind into a
spectrum of hues, where each represents a different aspect of experience.
Reality may be seen through various tripartite schema related to
experience and existence. As mentioned before, the divinities at the basis of such
experience are Vishnu, Shiva, and Shakti. Furthermore, actual change is
preceded by desire, knowledge, and the will to act.
The Devī (Shakti) is the power that makes this understanding accessible
to the human mind. Since light may be visualized variously, the one Devī takes
many forms.
The confusion about the multiplicity of Devīs comes from the view that
“reality is just bodies”. This restricting and false view produces mindblindness,
which is the inability to attribute mental states to others, or have empathy.
Historically, such mindblindness has been common in cultures and in
societies that objectify people, and especially women. Violence and rapine are a
consequence.
Lakshmī

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THE HIGHER PLANES
Of the multiple planes of consciousness, humans share many with animals.
Indeed, our normal existence converges with that of animals. The three principal
higher planes are:
The plane of empathic self and desire. It is through this that one is able
to acquire knowledge.
The plane of auspiciousness and knowledge. It is through this that one is
able to reach success.
The plane of power and action. This gives one the courage to take on
contradictions and challenges associated with life.
The Devīs associated with these planes are Sarasvatī, Lakshmī, and Durgā.
Let us look around the world in different cultures to see the names for the Devī,
although the mapping may not be one-to-one:
Greece: Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis
Rome: Minerva, Venus, Diana
Arabia: al-Lat, al-‘Uzzá, and Manāt
Japan: Benzaiten, Kishijoten, Koti-sri
Shiva as the inner light, but one cannot reach it, for our minds are not
made of the light. The illumination is the meeting of sat and cit, and the intuition
arising is the power of the Devī.
Spiritual, scientific, or creative advancement occur by the movement of
the Devī embodying the power of speech and learning (Sarasvatī). The rejection
of the Goddess plunged Europe into the Dark Ages out of which it emerged only
in the Renaissance when it was acknowledged that Nature (as Devī) grants
knowledge.

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Sarasvatī
Creative people acknowledge that their ideas came spontaneously or in
a dream, or suddenly in some other odd manner.
Sometimes, the creative effort comes from the altering of the way one
sees things. That is the counterintuitive working of the Devī, for it is like pulling
oneself up by one’s own bootstraps.
THE GODDESS WITH THE LION
The Goddess is shown as beautiful and powerful, sometimes with a lion. In the
Ṛgveda 10.125, the Goddess proclaims that she is the sovereign queen of all
existence, and the ultimate object of all worship. As far as our individual
experience is concerned the universe exists in our consciousness.

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Durgā
The image of the Devī with the lion represents both the free-wheeling
animal nature of the lion, which evolves according to biological law (ṛta) and
the chain of karma, and its control by the higher agency of consciousness. The
Devī by virtue of the power of the spirit, quite like the dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi of Vedanta (that
is, creation by observation) is able to command the beast and make it do what
she wants.
Consciousness guides the individual and the collective, but it does so in
a manner that may be seen as the working of nature alone.
OF BEAUTYAND LOVE
The Devī rules the mind: our cognitions are a consequence of how the light
falling on it is perceived.
Love is the emotion that gives meaning to life. Underneath this emotion
is the attraction to beauty. In science there is the slogan “Truth is beauty”. It is

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to the search of this beauty that the scientist dedicates one’s life.
This attraction resides within the plane of our experience, but its source
lies outside. The two cannot be brought together: the attainment of the object of
love ultimately turns out to be unsatisfactory.
It is beauty in itself, and not the association with the object of desire that
holds the power. The beauty is not gendered, as the simplistic body-centric
explanation would let one think; it resides in another plane.
Let us say the object of love is the Moon, and it is alone. The heart of the
one who is in love is the heaving pond.
Autumn Moon
alone,
heaving pond.
The Moon doesn’t know that it is beautiful. Beauty is solitary.
Love is a river. One speaks of crossing over, but the secret wish is for an
endless drift on the waters.
These intuitions are at the basis of the ritual of the Vedic wedding (RV
10.85).The bride is in gold and the groom in white. The bride is Sūryā (daughter
of Sun, gold) and the groom is Soma (Moon, silver, white).
Light comes from the Sun. The bride herself may not know it, but her
beauty becomes the teacher to the groom. Likewise, we seek perfection in other
spheres of life, even in abstractions and science.
The Cosmic Order replicates itself at several levels. The Śrī Sūkta
compares the Goddess to the Moon illumined by the Sun. The Sun is far away,
but it also shines within our minds.
MIND AND STORIES
There is an acute observation in ancient Indian Yoga texts that the ordinary state
of the human is that of the paśu (Latin pecu, “domesticated animal”; pecūnia,
“wealth” is by semantic extension from “livestock”). The mark of the
domestication of the animal is that in spite of strength it submits to the will of
the master, and a domesticated horse or elephant is happily led by a child. Paśu
includes man as a biped (dvipada): dvipáde cátus padeca paśáve (RV 3.62.14).

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The horse is controlled by the harness and other fittings, and the dog by
the leash, whereas the human paśu submits to an even more perfect control by
the story.
If one has seen abandoned dogs in animal shelters, one would have
noticed them making anguished eye contact, beseeching to be adopted. Humans
have an equally desperate need to be connected to some story or the other.
Successful stories engender powerful communities. The word “cult” is
usually used as a pejorative for religious groups by outsiders — that is academics
or journalists who believe they have superior intelligence — , or less seriously
to describe devotion or excessive admiration for a person or a fashion. Those in
the cult do not have open minds and their agency has been compromised by their
total faith.
In reality, cults are everywhere around us and have been a prominent part
of history. They are to be found in all segments of society: amongst the
unschooled and the highly educated, as well the rich and the poor.
Some say that the power of story is from the myth embedded in the
culture. But a myth is just a suggestive story that is guidance for living life in a
manner that connects people with their past.
Myths such as parting of the waters, night journey on a heavenly beast,
ascension to the seventh heaven, resurrection, raising the dead back to life,
which are the literal truth for the believer have shaped history during the past
couple of thousand years. The believers wished to take their stories to new lands.
Wars were waged and millions killed and enslaved.
Many dismiss this past as old, irrelevant history, because we now live in
the age of science and enlightenment. This dismissal is naïve and not only are
mythic stories based on impossible events powerful, so are even lesser, prosaic
ones.
The story need not be true. The more unlikely the story, the more its
power. We are still controlled by stories. Unlikely stories hold people in thrall
everywhere.
Europe’s medieval age had the famous phrase: Credo quia absurdum, “I
believe because it is absurd.” Self-deception is more common than one
imagines; it is the normal human condition.
It is true that people wish to be recruited into serving a master, even one
they know little about, so long as they feel a sense of community and self-worth.
Demonic possession — or one may call it delusion — is real but so

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commonplace that few notice the phenomenon.
If the life of the animal is body- and instinct-centric, and in this sense
somehow lesser, so is the life of the body-centric human. Modern West has
embraced the idea that there is nothing beyond the body, which is only half the
truth, and this is a major cause of despair and addictions.
Those who think there exists nothing but the body, and the mind is to be
derived completely from it are the children of Diti (daitya). This terminology
comes from the opposition of Diti (finitude) to Aditi (infinity or limitlessness)
that is a characteristic of consciousness.
The body-centric view is āsurika, whereas one focused on thought and
introspection is daivika. One needs a balance between the āsurika and the
daivika to live a harmonious life.
YOGA
Yoga, the lived experience of Hinduism, means union and scholars define it as
the union of the mind and the Self (Ātman). The difference between the mind
and the Self is rather subtle. The mind is the cognitions associated with
judgement, language and memory which are mutually intertwined and
underpinned by ego, whereas the Self is pure awareness that is not colored by
prior experience or emotional attachment to one’s personhood.
The mind is the instrument that, energized by the ego, assumes that it is
the real individual. In truth, there are many minds that show up in different
situations, and each one of them is a secondary presence. The Self is the inner
Sun (gold), whereas the mind is the Moon (silver). The dialogue of the Bhagavad
Gītā (the central text of Yoga) is between Krishna as Sun and the Witness and
Arjuna as Moon (the name means silver) who represents every person’s mind.
By the union of the two one means the mind refashioning itself so that it
is able to operate out of detached self-interest and to take flight to the inner Sun
and be one with it. This leap requires preparation related to ethical behavior,
truthfulness, compassion and empathy. The practice of Yoga is to learn
techniques so that one is in such an elevated state on a more or less permanent
basis.
The ground is prepared by tattva-śuddhi, which is purification of the
elements that form the mind. This is for balance to facilitate emergence of new
insight. It offers much more than intellectual, emotional or psychological

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benefits. According to it, the practitioner not only becomes creative but can also
hope to access extraordinary knowledge and intuition about reality. At Yoga’s
end are answers about meaning of not just one’s own life but the larger mystery
of reality.
The architecture of the mind is complex which is the reason that the
symbolic language used in Hindu stories, parables, religious practice, and in its
art has a variety of elements. The variety may appear bewildering in the
beginning, but one quickly finds that the vision hangs together. Sadly, academic
books are not helpful and one must attempt the decoding of this language on
one’s own. One will see it soon transform into a journey of self-discovery.
SYMBOLS OF HINDUISM
Om or Aum. The symbol “aum”, or “om”, represents the cosmic sound
at the basis of creation, and the triplicate nature of reality. Its three sounds “a”,
“u”, and “m” are taken to correspond to earth, atmosphere, and the sun, as well
as body, breath, and consciousness.
Aum
Svastika. It is a symbol of the sun that means “conducive to well-being.” A dis-
tinction is made between the right-handed or clockwise and the left-handed or
anti-clockwise svastika (called the sauvastika). The left-handed svastika stands
for night and goddess Kālī who is End of Time. The right-handed svastika mir-
rors the movement of the sun in the northern hemisphere. Note also that the cir-
cumambulation of the deity in the temple is in the same clockwise direction.

22
Svastika
Shiva-Shakti Yantra. A yantra is an abstract representation of some fundamental
aspect of inner reality. The Shiva-Shakti yantra, the superposition of two trian-
gles, one pointing upwards and the other downwards, form a star with six points.
This form symbolizes the union of consciousness (Shiva) and nature (Shakti)
and it constitutes one of the most important symbols of Yoga. As mentioned
before, Shiva and Shakti are not distinct categories, for consciousness interpen-
etrates nature at all levels.
Shiva-Shakti Yantra
There are other yantras of Yoga that reveal deeper intuitions about reality. The
yantras are used for meditation in which one element may be repetition of a
chosen mantra. The training of the mind is achieved by visual or auditory focus
as well as gesture and movement or to devotion to the arts and science or simply
good works. The worldwide popularity of Yoga is facilitating the understanding
of Sanātana Dharma.

23
NOTES
This Primer only presents the structural foundations of Hinduism; it does not go
into questions of history, texts, the arts, temples, worship, and traditional
festivals. To get deeper into the tradition, one needs to read the principal Vedic
hymns, the Upaniṣads, Purāṇas, the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyaṇa, the
philosophical texts, and the Āgamas. The Sanskrit originals of the texts and
translations are readily available as books and on the Internet.
An excellent resource for the texts is Vedic Heritage from the IGNCA. Sanskrit
dictionary resources are also available in a variety of forms.
For getting a sense of the discoveries related to archaeology of Hinduism, this
autobiographical account of Braj Basi Lal (1921 – 2022) will be useful:
B.B. Lal (2011). Piecing Together: Memoirs of an Archaeologist. Aryan
Books International
Hindu temples are amongst mankind’s greatest architectural treasures. A few
resources on this:
A. Hardy (1995). Indian Temple Architecture: Form and Transformation.
Abhinav Publications.
K. Vatsyayan (1997). The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts.
Abhinav Publications.
For those who wish to know about my own researches on India and Hinduism,
the below-mentioned books will be a good starting point:
S. Kak (2022). The Vedic Tradition: Cosmos, Connections, and
Consciousness. SVYASA University.
S. Kak (2023). The Idea of India: Bhārat as a Civilization. Garuda
Prakashan.

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