Why Indic?

Why ‘Indic Traditions’?

Some persons have wondered why we picked ‘Indic’ in our name. The name ‘India’ itself is from the name of the river ‘Indus’ (and the ‘Indus’ name for the river is from the original ‘Sindhu’); and ‘Indic’ is what scholars have used to name the civilization emanating from there.

We see three different ways by which Americans get their attitudes about their own and others’ religions, and our choice of focus among these also determined our approach:

1. Through organized religions’ places of worships. We chose not to focus in this arena initially, because these institutions frequently tend to be inflexible and exclusivist. Being the source of trained preachers for the mainstream religions, even many ‘liberal’ seminaries often teach other religions mainly positioned as competitors, the idea being to either expose their weaknesses, or to train preachers to defend their own faith and argue against defectors. The widespread interfaith dialogs over the past couple of decades have had little impact on orthodox organized religions, because many such dialogs were superficial, failed to delve into the real differences, and did not manage to arrive at common understanding or genuine respect. On the other hand, many ‘good points’ of other religions got plagiarized and relabeled into a given authors’ own religion, using new symbols to replace those from the source religion.
2. Educational institutions increasingly teach ‘about’ various religions rather than ‘preaching’ any religion. Such courses have become very popular among students. This is our initial area of emphasis, as there are 75 million students in America, and this is the future of our society. We find much need to improve the portrayal in textbooks and classes at all levels.
3. Non-institutional methods of disseminating ideas. This includes what is often called the New Age movement, with Deepak Chopra and many others in the field. This is also not our area of focus, because many others better qualified are already in it and good work is being done there already.

Having chosen the educational system as our method of intervention, we see ourselves not as preachers of anything but as educational reformers. This is also consistent with the constitutional requirements to disallow preaching or promoting religion in public institutions. Therefore, we must adopt the terminology for the education profession, learn and utilize the norms and conventions of that field. This is also why in our council there is so much emphasis on academic scholars. We found that swamis, gurus, lamas and spiritual teachers do not have credibility with textbook publishers as being ‘qualified’ to write or teach, the reasons being given include: need for a formal PhD; need for arms-length ‘objectivity’, and so forth.  Whether we agree with this rationale or not is irrelevant, because this is the reality of the institutional education system that controls the minds of 75 million young people, and we must play by the rules that exist. Rather than fight the structure, we have decided to follow the rules and try to reform the content of portrayal.  The term ‘Indic’ is how the field is recognized by American scholars, hence our choice.

Another reason for choosing this term is that we want to have a collective effort from all religions that originated in India, rather than any specific denomination or sampradaya or interpretation. We want to get on with the external work involving American publishers, educators, etc rather than getting bogged down with internal squabbles about whether it should be called Sanatana Dharma, or Hinduism, etc. Furthermore, most Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains would not wish to get lumped into the Hindu category, whereas they do not have the problem of being under the Indic family, being proud of their origins from India. Even certain Tantric traditions would argue about being classified as Vedic, although they would regard themselves as Hindu.

Those Western scholars who are unkind to these Indic religions, even if subtly, often use the argument of ‘there is no single Hinduism’, by citing (a) discrepancies from different scriptures, (b) historical arguments among them, and most of all, (c) differences among today’s religious leaders. This is unfortunate, as it facilitates divide-and-rule. But it is a reality. The Hindu dharma was never canonized in the same rigid manner as the Greco-Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. While there are also many denominations and interpretations of Christianity, all Christian groups do accept the same New Testament as their canon; similar statements also apply to Judaism and Islam. However, it is the beauty, flexibility and scientific openness of Hinduism that it does not believe in one singular canon, just like there is no absolute canon of physics, art, or music, enabling these fields to remain progressive, dynamic and adapt with the times. That is why Hinduism never had an inquisition, burning of dissidents, or anything comparable to religious wars; that is also why it managed to survive despite the worst attacks against it for a thousand years. That is what makes it so rich and powerful.

When we challenge textbook portrayals, we need all the unity we can get, and do not wish to get divided internally. Hence, we chose the path of least resistance by selecting a name that is wide and inclusive.

Finally, notice the choice of the term ‘traditions’ rather than ‘religions’ in our title. This means we include the mathematics, science, medicine, metallurgy, astronomy, navigation and other gigantic contributions from India, without running into the stumbling block of having to establish these on ‘religious’ grounds. Given the enormity of the task at hand, why give opportunities for someone to create further obstacles? Also, we wish to bring into the fold, those who might not consider themselves religious (at least at this stage), often due to ignorance about their own religion, but are proud of culture and heritage. Such supporters would find it easier to support textbook revisions that concern the ‘tradition’.

We also discussed whether to define ourselves as South Asian traditions, as saw two problems with that:

1. While this is a trend in American academics, we see double standards inherent in limiting Hinduism as a geographical phenomenon. By contrast, Christianity is not taught under ‘Euro-American religions’ and Greek thought is not taught under ‘Mediterranean Studies’, because there is chauvinistic universalizing of Western values, ideas, and metaphors into trans-traditional standards of discourse. This has led to many false portrayals of Indic religions - for instance, by applying the Greco-Semitic categories of monotheism/polytheism and portraying Indic religions as polytheistic (and hence, neo-pagan). Indic ideas are thereby reduced to ‘exotic’ anthropology suitable for people of certain geography and race at best.
2. South Asian, or even the category of ‘Indian religions’, would include many religions that are not of Indian origin and were imported from elsewhere. These are a part of the modern Indian tapestry, must be included in the study of life in India, and must also have a voice. But they have their nexus of development outside India; there already exist many focused groups worldwide speaking effectively for these Greco-Semitic religions. Including them would turn this into the study of the entire world’s religions; hence the over-generalization diluting its emphasis. It seems that the Indic religions and their related cultures and historical civilizations are a specific group that is under represented in terms of authentic portrayal that would be both post-colonial and also post-Marxist.