How Gods Interacted With Humans in Ancient Hindu Texts

Name:
University:
Course:
Tutor:
Date:
How Gods Interacted With Humans in Ancient Hindu Texts
Compared To How They Worship Them Now
Hinduism: Hinduism or Sanatan (meaning a universal religion) is considered to be the world’s oldest religion that originated on the Indian sub-continent. According to its Vedic records, its history of origin is dated between to 6,000 to 10,000 years and that is why it is considered as one of the ancient religions of the world. It is the native religion of India and it has neither a specific human founder nor a single book of reverence but rather laid its foundations on ancient sacred scriptures that were passed down the generations by a word of mouth and later written down into scripts and texts forms (Zavos, 2001).
Hinduism has a massive number of followers reaching up to one billion worldwide with majority of them (95%) being from Indian and the rest in United States ,Europe and other parts of the world. Demographically, it is the world third largest religion after Christianity and Islam. Hinduism constitutes a complex mode of worship ranging from the grand festivals like Kumbhela, which is a religious big gathering of up to 45 million people to the very simple Darshan, the devotional seeing in home shrines. Hindus worship in the numerous ancient and contemporary mandirs and shrines. Hindus regard Vedas (ancient texts) as the most ancient and the most authoritative texts of the religion and hence they form the foundation of all branches of Hinduism. Hindu has three trinity which include Shiva, Brahman and Vishnu unlike Christian who have only one trinity. These gods represent the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation where Vishnu is responsible of preserving the universe, Shiva destroys the re-creator of the universe and Brahman create the Universe. The three goddess are the second trinity of Hindu as well as the god’s wives of the first trinity. However, all the goddesses and gods have their forms of incarnations.
Hinduism involve the worship of God and its numerous deities with the major ones being Brahma (creator) Vishnu (the preserver) and Siva (the destroyer), so depending on ones opinion Hinduism can be said to be polytheistic, monotheistic or henotheistic (which involves devotion to a single God while accepting the existence of other gods) (Zavos, 120). Modern Hinduism is categorized into two major groups: Vaishnavism (those who worship Vishnu and all other living things subservient to him) and Shaivism (stream of Hinduism who worship Shiva and believes that Shiva is the destroyer and the creator of the universe).
Hinduism is based on the principle of Brahman that states that the universe is one and all realities are a unity, Devine entity that is simultaneously at one with the universe who transcends it as well. In Hinduism human beings are preserved to be trapped a Samsara which is a meaningless cycle of birth death and rebirth with karma ;ones accumulated sum of good and bad deeds and these determines on which level in the caste system will one be born in the nest cycle life.
Ancient Hindus worshiped and interacted with their gods in a slightly different way as compared to contemporary mode of Hinduism. According to ancient Hindu scripts ancient
In the Vedic religion, there were no temples of worship as compared to contemporary Hinduism where there are millions of temples and mandirs build for worship. Hindus worshiped in the open and temples were first constructed in India in 200 years and it marked the transition of Hinduism from the Vedic religion of ritual sacrifices to the religion of Bhakri or love and a devotion to a personal deity. Ancient temples were constructed of wood and brick but in later times, use of stone became a preferred building material. Temples constructed in the medieval era varied in architectural styles and often symbolized the ruler at the time and his richness and devotion.
In ancient Hinduism, the followers worshiped nature and had gods that represented each element of nature for instance the god of wind, god of fire, god of the sea and god of light. More over, Hindus worshiped animalistic deities (Sacred animals that represented various gods).they believed that animals just like human shad spirit and soul. Sacred animals in Hinduism are cows, monkeys, tortoises and elephants.
According to ancient Hindu texts, Hindus worshiped mother goddess with great reverence than it is in modern Hindu religion. Contemporary Hindu followers put a great regards in worshiping of personal deities who represent their God who is the overall deity.
According to ancient Hindu texts, there is evidence that suggests that ancient gods intermarried with humans and that gods had human characters and would come to humans in several avatars. These gods had spirits not different with that of humans and interacted freely as they both worshiped the Brahma who is their overall deity. There is no such kind of relationship between Hindu gods and its worshipers. The type of human interactions with gods depended on individual position in the caste system and those in higher caster were regarded to be more close to gods than those in the lower caste levels.
There was no priestly class in ancient Hinduism but today priest are the ones responsible for leading the worshipers in temples.
In ancient Hinduism, social mobility in the caste system was allowed though it was very difficulty. The social caste system was involved of two dynamic social systems one based on age (Varna) and the other Asrama that clearly defined individuals roles and responsibilities sin the society. From time to time people could move from one caste to another or ...