It would be better if you also knew why Hindus call their religion — Eternal Religion
The Hindi word “Sanatan” is used as an adjective for the things that may be eternal.
And the Hindus call their religion — “Sanatan (Eternal) Dharma (Religion)”.
Sure enough, they should have not been so big fools as to have called their religion “Eternal” just out of the fun.
As we know — it used to be the top-rung religion of the world in the past.
It would have not fallen into disrepute if the missionaries of some religions should have not started twisting the arms of the religion in public out of jealousy or out of ignorance.
The facts that make the Hindu Religion an Eternal Religion
The missionaries did not understand the reason why Hindus worshipped even the Sun as a deity.
They thought that, perhaps, the Hindus should have not known that it is just a star — not a deity.
They could not have understood the reason why they worship so many deities until and unless they would have learnt that, in the mind of the Hindus, a deity (Devta, in Hindi) is an entity such as the Sun, which keeps on benefiting all the creatures living on the Earth without expecting anything in return from them.
No wonder, the list of such entities does not stop at only one item — “The Sun”.
This explains why Hindus have so many deities.
Some people started making fun of the Hindu religion just because they worship the idols of Lord Krishna, Lord Rama, Lord Shiva and Lord Hanuman.
They would not have made fun of them had they known that the purpose behind worshipping them was the hope that by doing so, they could have acquired at least some of the virtues these deities are known to have had” and to ensure that these deities did not go out of their mind, since human memory is quite volatile.
Now let us look at some other concepts of the Hindu Religion that make it “Eternal”.
The Hindu religion propounds that God resides within our body in the form of our creativeness, intuitiveness and innovativeness.
It propounds that even the plants and the trees possess such creativeness, intuitiveness and innovativeness.
So, god resides within even the plants and the trees.
The creativeness, intuitiveness and innovativeness possessed by even the plants and trees
Look at the following picture, for instance.
What should have happened that some plants should have grown leaves that look more like the jaws of a shark or a crocodile as the leaves shown in the above picture, have?
None of the plants may have had such leaves, to begin with.
If we think of the reason why the leaves of this plant (or tree) should have learnt the technique of secreting some fluid that attracted the bees or the insects toward them so that they could have grabbed them into their fold would not have arisen if their roots could have sucked enough nutrition for them from the soil — to stay alive.
Does it not prove that even the plants are blessed with intelligence and innovativeness?
Some plants became insectivorous only because they had no other choice and they happened to be intelligent and innovative.
Once you are convinced that all changes take place to cater to what may become necessary, does it not also address to the curiosity how so many types of creatures should have come into existence even though all of them may have borne out of amoebas.
Some of the amoebas may have thought of the necessity of flying in the air; some of them may have thought of the necessity of crawling on the ground and so on.
By extending the same logic, we may say that it is quite possible that someday — some new religion may be evolved by somebody based on the assumption that the “necessity” should have been the main reason behind our evolution — not the “god”.
It is due to this reason only why the Hindus believe that whom we know as God may be, very much, within us in the form of intelligence and innovativeness.
We do not have to hunt for him outside.
We can reach him through Meditation.
This religion had stemmed from the beliefs such as if we strongly believe that “If we have done good karmas in the past, the god sends somebody who may help us at the nick of the time when we may be in some disparate condition in our life at any time” and the belief that “God listens to our prayer if we pray for the welfare of someone else — not our own welfare”.
But as time passed even Hindus, themselves, forgot the very purpose of worshipping their deities.
Instead of asking them to bestow their virtues upon them, they started begging, “May such and such things happen in our life” or “May we grow richer and richer day by day”, for instance.
The sad story of Tibet
As we know — the concept of Ahimsa had been launched by Lord Buddha.
Tibet was the seat of Buddhism but since the Tibetans never thought that unless they would have developed a military force, they couldn’t have repelled any country like China from grabbing their country by force.
While, in the past, almost 100% of the Tibetans were Buddhists — today it is not so since the Chinese have killed most of the monks.
It proves that Ahimsa alone can’t help us any more if we are surrounded by any barbaric country.
So, we may say — Buddhism has lost its face.
Ahimsa is not meant for a weak person.
It helps only as long as the opponent knows that, we are capable of slapping him on his face or even breaking his bones if we like, as was the case with the great king Ashoka — who had adopted Ahimsa after having annexed several new territories to his kingdom after defeating their kings.
If Hindu religion did not get wiped out, it did not get wiped out only because, unlike the Tibetans, Hindus always had a class of people who could fight with the enemies with full vigour — a fleet of warriors, known as Kshatriyas or Rajputs.
Of course, it did not match the provision made under the Quran, under which, a provision has been made that each individual may retaliate like a warrior unlike Hindus since, in their case, there was a provision of letting only a fraction of the Hindus fight with the enemies.
Of course in the Quran, an enemy has been defined as a person who does not believe in Islam. So practically every other man happens to be their enemy.
When the Hindu religion was developed, most of the people had friendly relations with everybody else.
But it is no more so.
Though, until 700 AD or so, even the Arabians used to worship some kind of idols much the same way as the Hindus worship — since the prophet Muhammad hated the people who were affiliated to any religion other than Islam, he asked every follower of Islam to treat all non-believers as enemies.
There was a time when people used to come from all over the world to study at the Nalanda University which had been founded in the year 427 AD in Bihar, or at the Taxila University (at a place, now in Afghanistan).
Since the scholars who used to study there used to carry with them the statuettes of the Hindu deities as souvenirs back home — the “Sanatan Dharma” spread out from India to practically all countries including even the Arab countries from where the Islam spread out to the whole world late in the eighth century.
If we look back at the dates when various religions should have come into existence, we find that the “Sanatan Dharma” of Hindus — happens to be the oldest religion.
Today, there are as many as 31.4% Christians, 23.2% Muslims and 15% Hindus with 16.4% of people not affiliated with any religion, in the world.
Though there are some foibles in the Islam; but we can’t deny that whatever may be the flaws, the population of the Muslims is rising day by day at a phenomenal rate and, very soon, they may grab “number one position” in the world.
If we look at the number of the Muslim countries and the number of the Hindu countries in the world, we may say, people of the world seem to have rejected the Hindu religion, by and large.
Presently, even India is not a Hindu country.
Though we, already, have more than 6,000 religions in the world — there is every chance that the atheists may develop some religion of their own in due course of time, which may not match any of the existing religions.