Indra's Net

Indra’s Net

DEFENDING HINDUISM’S

PHILOSOPHICAL UNITY

Rajiv Malhotra

HarperCollins Publishers India

To my mother,

who raised me with the experience of Hinduism

Contents

Dedication

Preface: Why this book

Introduction: Debating Hinduism

Overview

Two opposing camps: continuity vs. discontinuity; unity vs. disunity

We are all jewels in Indra’s Net

Indra’s Net and Buddhism

Influences on modern society

Who is a Hindu?

Hinduism: Surfing Indra’s Net

Framing the debate in three disciplines

PART 1 PURVA PAKSHA

(Examination of My Opponents’ Positions)

1. Eight Myths to be Challenged

Myth 1: India’s optimum state is Balkanization

Myth 2: Colonial Indology’s biases were turned into Hinduism

Myth 3: Hinduism was manufactured and did not grow organically

Myth 4: Yogic experience is not a valid path to enlightenment and tries to copy Western science

Myth 5: Western social ethics was incorporated as seva and karma yoga

Myth 6: Hinduism had no prior self-definition, unity or coherence

Myth 7: Hinduism is founded on oppression and sustained by it

Myth 8: Hinduism presumes the sameness of all religions

Summary of both sides of the debate

2. The Mythmakers: A Brief History

My wake-up call: How I discovered the myth

Missionary origins

Founders of the Myth of Neo-Hinduism

The Chorus Line

3. Paul Hacker’s Construction of ‘neo-Hinduism’

Initial romance with Advaita Vedanta and its personal influences on Hacker

Hacker starts his attack on contemporary Hinduism

Alleging political motives and appropriations from the West

Hacker on Vivekananda and the West

Allegation 1: Importance of Direct Experience

Allegation 2: ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ ethic

Allegation 3: Nationalist agenda

Allegation 4: Inclusivism and sameness

4. Agehananda Bharati on Neo-Hinduism as a ‘Pizza Effect’

Pizza Effect: Indians copy Westerners

Hinduism deviates from Indian tradition

Fear of sexual impotence drives neo-Hindus

Bharati’s definition of neo-Hinduism tenets

5. Ursula King’s Bridge from Hacker to Rambachan

6. Rambachan’s Argument to Fragment Hinduism

Using Shankara to shoot down Vivekananda

Issues with methodology

Essentializing Shankara

Challenging the direct experience of the rishi-yogi

Is Rambachan fixated on Christian assumptions?

Allegation that yoga makes people less rational and intelligent

Political allegations

Western scholars’ support for Rambachan

Many scholars disagree with Rambachan

7. The Myth Goes Viral

Richard King

Brian Pennington

Peter van der Veer, Sheldon Pollock and others

Hindu leaders echo the chorus

Some academic defenders of contemporary Hinduism

PART 2 UTTARA PAKSHA

(My Response)

8. Historical Continuity and Colonial Disruption

Traditional categories of astika (those who affirm) and nastika (those who do not affirm)

Pre-Colonial Hindu Unifiers: Example of Vijnanabhikshu

From Vijnanabhikshu to Vivekananda

The colonial disruption

European debates: Are the Hindus Aryans or Pantheists?

Reduction into ‘Indian schools of thought’

Post-modern and post-colonial distortions

Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis

9. Traditional Foundations of Social Consciousness

Western methodological straitjacket misapplied to Vivekananda

The ‘world-negating’ misinterpretation of social problems

Origin of Christian philanthropy

Conditions that led to the revival of Hindu seva

Sahajanand Swami and social activism in contemporary Hinduism

Swami Vivekananda’s sevayoga

Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis

10. Harmonizing Vedanta and Yoga

Vedanta’s evolution at the time of Shankara

Theory of two realities

Yoga and classical texts

Shankara’s mentor’s writing

Upanishads

Bhagavad-Gita

Shankara’s own kind of yoga: cognitive shift without action

Systematic withdrawal from particular to universal

Dissolving the text/experience gap

Difference from Patanjali’s Yoga

No causation is involved

Flexibility on anubhava

Summarizing Shankara’s posture on anubhava/yoga

Respect for yoga

Yoga as preparation for higher practices

Comparing different levels of meditation, dhyana

Reasons for rejecting yoga at times

Advaita Vedanta beyond Shankara

Four historical periods

Vivekachudamani

Other later texts

Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis

11. Mithya, Open Architecture and Cognitive Science

The unity of all existence

Purna

Mithya as Relative Reality

Samavesha principle of integrality

Common toolbox and open architecture

Adhyatma-vidya

Rishis and cognitive science

Robustness of the ecosystem over time

Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis

12. Digestion and Self-Destruction

The metabolism of digestion

The flea market of modern gurus

Digestion and the neo-Hinduism thesis

Conclusion: The ‘Poison Pill’ for Protection of Hinduism

Hinduism’s predicament today

The Porcupine Defence and the Poison Pill Protection

Astika and Nastika: Redefining the terms of the interfaith debate

The criteria for nastika: Principles that must be rejected

History Centrism

Disembodied knowing and self-alienation

Synthetic cosmology

Fear of chaos

Controversial implications of the Astika/Nastika approach

Refuting the myth of sameness

Poison pill versus digestion

How the poison pill strategy works

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

Preface:

Why this book

Each of my books tries to provoke a new kind of conversation, the goal of which is to confront some specific prejudice against Indian civilization. Established biases covering a wide range of issues need to be exposed, especially when they are unsubstantiated. The objective of every book of mine is to pick a particular dominant narrative which is sustained by a nexus of scholars specializing in that theme, and then target it to effectively subvert it. The success of any such book may be measured in terms of how much challenge it generates against the incumbent positions. If my counter-discourse can become established in the minds of a sufficient number of serious thinkers, then it will assume a life of its own and its effects will continue to snowball without my direct involvement. This is the end result I seek. To be effective, a book must resist straying from its strategic priorities and must avoid arguing too broadly.

For example, I developed the strategy, overall thesis, and much of the content of Invading the Sacred so as to take aim at the Freudian psychoanalytical critiques of Hinduism. This hegemonic discourse was being propagated by a powerful nexus in the heart of the Western academia, and had spread as a fad among Indian intellectuals. Invading the Sacred gave birth to, and incubated, a solid opposition which cannot be ignored today. It spurred the Indian diaspora to recognize the syndrome and audaciously ‘talk back’ to the establishment of scholars.¹

My subsequent book, Breaking India, focused on demonstrating how external forces are trying to destabilize India by deliberately undermining its civilization. Such efforts are targeted at confusing and ultimately aborting any collective positive identity based on Indian civilization. The book exposed the foreign interests and their Indian sepoys who see Hinduism as a random juxtaposition of incoherent and fragmented traditions. Many watchdog movements have sprung into action because of that book. It has triggered a domino effect with other researchers now exposing more instances of the same syndrome.

My most recent book, Being Different, presents a coherent and original view of dharma as a family of traditions that challenges the West’s claim of universalism. Because Western universalism is unfortunately being used as the template for mapping and defining all cultures, it is important to become conscious of its distorted interpretation of Indian traditions. Being Different is prompting many Indians to question various simplistic views concerning their traditions, including some that are commonly espoused by their own gurus and political leaders. It is a handbook for serious intellectuals on how to ‘take back’ Hinduism by understanding it on its own terms.

The present book exposes the influential narrative that Hinduism was fabricated during British rule and became a dangerous new religion. The central thesis which I seek to topple asserts that Swami Vivekananda plagiarized Western secular and Christian ideas and then recast them in Sanskrit terminology to claim Indian origins for them. Besides critiquing this nexus and defending Vivekananda’s vision, this book also presents my own vision for the future of Hinduism and its place in the world.

Hence, the book has two purposes: to defend the unity of Hinduism as we practise it today, and to offer my own ideas about how to advance Vivekananda’s ‘revolution’ to the next stage.

This volume introduces some new vocabulary. Readers will learn the metaphor of ‘Indra’s Net’ as a poetic expression of deep Hindu insights which subsequently became incorporated as the most central principle of Buddhism. They will understand Vivekananda’s system of ‘tat tvam asi ethics’ as an innovative social theory premised on seva (service to others), but firmly grounded in Vedic thought. They will also become familiar with the ‘neo-Hinduism camp’, which is my name for the group of scholars who have developed the thesis aimed at undermining Vivekananda’s innovations and de-legitimizing contemporary Hinduism.

The book introduces and explains such ideas as ‘open architecture’ and ‘toolbox’, which are critical to my insights on Hinduism. While openness has always been characteristic of Hindus, too much of a good thing can be dangerous. I argue that this very quality of openness has made Hinduism susceptible to becoming ‘digested’. Digestion, a concept introduced in my earlier books, is further elaborated in these pages.

In the Conclusion, I stick my neck out and introduce a set of defensive strategies for safeguarding against digestion. I call these strategies the ‘poison pill’ (borrowing from corporate jargon) and the ‘porcupine defence’. I hope this provocative proposition will trigger debate and controversy.

Some of the new vocabulary that was introduced in Being Different—such as ‘history centrism’, ‘integral unity’ and ‘embodied knowing’—will be further sharpened in these pages. I will also ascribe new meanings to the old Sanskrit terms astika and nastika, and utilize them differently than in the tradition.

As an author, I am often asked who my target audience is. This is not an easy question to answer. Clearly, I wish to influence mainstream Hindus who are often seriously misinformed about their own traditions. But if I were simply dishing out what they want to hear, appealing to their ‘feel-good’ sensibility, I would be doing them a disservice; I would also be failing in my goal to radically change the discourse. Bombastic books that present Hinduism in a chauvinistic manner are counter-productive and a recipe for disaster. My hope is to spur the genesis of what I call a ‘home team’ of intellectual leaders who would research, reposition and articulate Hinduism in a responsible way on important issues today. Therefore, my writings must be rigorous to withstand the scrutiny of harsh critics.

This means I must also write for the secular establishment and the old guard of Hindu leaders, both of whom will be provoked by this book for different reasons. The secularists will attack it as a defence of Hinduism which to them is synonymous with ‘communalism’. The Hindus with tunnel vision will complain that it deviates from their narrow, fossilized lineage boundaries. While trying to educate the mainstream readers in the middle, I also wish to debate both these extremes.

Let me confess up-front that I have made some compromises for practical reasons. For instance, I use the term ‘philosophy’ to refer not only to Western philosophy but also, at times, to Indian thought, even though the latter would more accurately be called darshana. In every book I like to introduce a small number of non-translatable Sanskrit terms which I attempt to explain deeper than merely providing a reductive English equivalent. This book contains several such non-translatables, but ‘darshana’ is not one of them. I use the word ‘philosophy’ even where ‘darshana’ would perhaps be more appropriate. I apologize for this pragmatic simplification because I do not wish to overload my reader.

The difference between philosophy and darshana is significant. Philosophy resides in the analytic realm, is entirely dis-embodied, and is an intellectual tool driven by the ego. Darshana includes philosophy but goes much further because it also includes embodied experience. Traditionally, Indian thought has been characterized by the interplay of intellectual analysis and sadhana (spiritual practice), with no barriers between the two. Hindu practices cultivate certain states of mind as preparation for receiving advanced knowledge. In other words, darshana includes anubhava (embodied experience) in addition to the study of texts and reasoning. The ordinary mind is an instrument of knowing, and its enhancement through meditation and other sadhana is seen as essential to achieving levels of knowledge higher than reasoning alone can provide. Western philosophy emphasizes reason to the exclusion of anubhava and thus consists essentially of the dis-embodied analysis of ‘mental objects’. Such a philosophy can never cross the boundary of dualism.

Another discomforting choice I make is to use the term ‘contemporary Hinduism’ to refer to Hinduism as we know it today. Hinduism is an ancient tradition that has been adapted many times, most recently for the present era. In the context of this book, the term simply denotes a new variation of something that is not exactly the same as it was previously. The very existence of smritis—texts that are written and rewritten to fit the context of each specific period and place—indicates that our tradition has never been frozen in time. It has evolved in step with the needs and challenges of each era.

My choice of this term, then, is intended to make the mainstream ‘contemporary Hindu’ readers comfortable. By the end of the book, I hope to have convinced readers that Hinduism cannot be pigeon-holed into tradition, modern and post-modern straitjackets in the way the West sees itself, because Hinduism has always been all three of these simultaneously and without contradiction.

The book focuses on toppling a specific, well-entrenched line of discourse that tries to isolate tradition in order to create conflicts and contradictions. My challenge is to help general readers undergo some serious mental shifts. Accordingly, I prefer not to overburden them by introducing too many unfamiliar terms. My hope is that most of my readers will be comfortable with such terms as ‘philosophy’ and ‘contemporary Hinduism’, and not be bothered that some theoreticians might find them problematic.

Additionally, in the interest of reader friendliness, an editorial decision was made to avoid using diacritic marks for Sanskrit pronunciation. Most Sanskrit terms are being italicized when they appear for the first time, and this may be repeated in some situations. A Sanskrit term will often be accompanied by a brief phrase in parentheses, giving its approximate meaning in English. Many Sanskrit terms are spelled in more than one way depending on the source—for instance, ‘Shankara’ is also spelled as ‘Sankara’. Vivekananda is frequently mentioned without the ‘Swami’ title. I anticipate purists in Indian scholarship to raise issues with some of these compromises. But, as explained at the very beginning, I must pick my battles carefully and in a focused way, and this means making practical accommodations.

Summary of the major propositions and arguments in the book:

The following is a list of major propositions being explained and argued in this book. I furnish this list so the reader knows what to expect and can target his or her reading better:

The openness of Hinduism: The metaphors of ‘Indra’s Net’, ‘open architecture’, and ‘toolbox’ are among the devices I use to explain that Hinduism is inherently an open system and that its unity and continuity are different from that which is found in the Abrahamic religions. The Introduction, Chapter 11 and Conclusion explain the concepts behind these metaphors. I also explain how the Vedic metaphor of Indra’s Net has travelled into the very heart of Buddhist philosophy, and from there into contemporary Western thought and culture. Hindu and Buddhist dharma is the art of surfing Indra’s Net.

The ‘neo-Hinduism’ allegation against contemporary Hinduism: I strongly oppose the work of a prominent school of thought which claims that contemporary Hinduism, as we know it, is artificial and Western-generated, and that it was constructed and perpetrated by Swami Vivekananda for political motives. Chapters 1 through 7 explain the details of this subversive thesis (called the ‘neo-Hinduism’ thesis), the backgrounds of its main proponents, and the history of how it came about. All of this lays the groundwork for my rejoinder that follows.

My defence of contemporary Hinduism: Not only are the charges against contemporary Hinduism refuted, point by point, in chapters 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11, but a countervailing view crystallizes, seeing contemporary Hinduism as unified, coherent and rooted in tradition. Chapter 6 explains the serious consequences of the ‘neo-Hinduism’ thesis in the form of popular literature and media biases in India.

Digestion and fake liberalism: Many of the precious ideas and concepts in Hinduism have been systematically removed and placed in Western garb. Meanwhile, the original Hindu sources are allowed to atrophy and made to appear obsolete. Chapter 12 and the Conclusion articulate this syndrome with examples and discuss the existential danger this poses to Hinduism.

The ‘porcupine defense’ and ‘poison pills’: With these I present my own strategy for safeguarding Hinduism from getting digested and thereby made to disappear. This defence entails the use of certain Hindu philosophical elements and practices which the predator cannot swallow without ceasing to exist in its current form. Such protective devices can help gurus free their Western followers from bondage to their religion of birth, such as claims to unique historical revelations, hyper-masculinized ideas of the divine, and institutionalized dogmatic beliefs. This is explained in the Conclusion.

The future of astika and nastika: Using these age-old Sanskrit terms in a novel way, I propose how persons of different faiths can demonstrate mutual respect for one another. This will result in an open space in which adherents of all faiths can examine their tenets, and make whatever adjustments are needed to comply with the multi-civilizational ecosystem in which we live. Redefined for this new purpose, the astika-nastika categorisation can become a powerful weapon to defend Hinduism and reposition it as an important resource for humanity. This, too, is explained in the Conclusion.

Introduction:

Debating Hinduism

Overview

This book is about the ongoing battle over Hinduism’s positioning on par with the world’s major religions. It rebuts an increasingly powerful school of thought amongst the academia, which posits that Hinduism, as such, has never existed. What is popularly considered to be Hinduism today is dismissed as a potent myth concocted by Swami Vivekananda, who supposedly appropriated and repackaged Western concepts and practices as part of a nationalist project. Moreover, it is alleged that this project has produced many of the social ills found in India today.

This battle is not merely a philosophical debate. The ramifications of a discourse that pits contemporary Hinduism against its hoary past are profound and terrifying. The claim made by my opponents that there is no such thing as Hinduism—regardless of the name we might choose to assign it—simply denies the existence of an integrated unified spiritual substratum in ancient India. This battle, therefore, is also an intellectual one, with implications for the very survival of Hinduism as a tradition with a rich past, to be understood on its own terms.

The school of thought I debunk here represents an insidious, subtle, but nevertheless powerful, form of colonialism and conversion. Indeed, no explicit act of ‘conversion’ is even necessary; one is systemically re-programmed to believe that one was never a Hindu in the first place, and that the things one cherished about Hinduism all along were simply a repackaged collection of Christian and Western secular beliefs and values. Thus, one is made to feel that one loses nothing by abandoning Hinduism other than the term itself.

This pernicious ploy is used to create fissures in Hindu society by pitting the spiritual giants of Hinduism against one other, and to distort their subtle and deeply intricate viewpoints. The book not only disproves this dangerous line of thought; it offers a new framework in which to understand and interpret Hindu identity that is broad and yet well-defined, authentic and yet accessible, embracing both the traditional and the contemporary.

Two opposing camps: continuity vs. discontinuity; unity vs. disunity

There are two opposing views of Hinduism that are widely held today. Most Hindu practitioners see it as unified and coherent, marked by a continuity that extends from ancient times to the present. Such people share my conception of it as an open system that accommodates and adapts.

However, an opposing view originating from some Western academics in the 1950s has spread widely among Indian intellectuals, even to the extent of influencing many gurus. In this view, Hinduism as practised today is a product of Vivekananda’s fertile imagination, an artificial unity he constructed for political purposes. It is alleged that Vivekananda fabricated present-day Hinduism by appropriating Western religious and secular ideas and restating them in Sanskrit. The proponents of this view hold that Vivekananda had two motives for fabricating Hinduism. In the first place, they say, he was reacting to the inferiority complex of most Indians vis-à-vis Western social ethics and Western science. Hence, he invented karma yoga to match Western social ethics, and claimed Vedic traditions to contain scientific merit. Secondly, he was serving a nationalistic agenda by proposing Hinduism as a tool to unify Indians against the British.

Since Vivekananda is supposed to have assembled Hinduism out of a hodgepodge of unrelated ideas and practices, its present-day existence as a coherent entity is believed to mask a mess of underlying contradictions. Moreover, the entity known as contemporary Hinduism is accused of having had a negative effect on India’s minorities, and of driving politics towards a totalitarian state. So the story goes, according to these critics.

This camp refers to Hinduism as ‘neo-Hinduism’. Anyone who rebuts their views with findings of coherence and unity in Hinduism is suspected of harboring ‘identity politics’ and causing communal disharmony. The first half of this book explains the neo-Hinduism thesis in detail, recounting its origins, arguments and implications. The second half articulates my response. I defend the unity of Hinduism not on the basis of identity politics or some imagined ‘ancient perfection’ but with evidence of its philosophical unity and its significance as a living, evolving, and progressive force in the world.

The claim that contemporary Hindu leaders were influenced by Western thought, and sought to revise their traditions in light of new circumstances, is true enough. However, a serious misunderstanding arises when this alien influence is exaggerated; what gets downplayed is the organic movement for revision and development based firmly within dharma itself—i.e., the in-built evolutionary mechanism that has engendered many precedents throughout its history. When a scholar such as Ursula King describes pre-modern Hindu practices as entirely ‘local, regional, sectarian and exclusive’, she exemplifies the approach of the neo-Hinduism camp.

The perception that a unified idea of Hinduism lacks legitimacy has rapidly spread into mainstream intellectual circles. At first it might seem that this only targets contemporary Hinduism, but it is used as a prelude to questioning the legitimacy of all Hinduism, ancient and contemporary. This implication is seldom realized by many who echo this position without weighing the considerable evidence against it or recognizing its consequences.

This book sides with the majority of practising Hindus against what is now the majority of academic scholars. This engagement is a kind of inter-civilizational kurukshetra, or field of encounter. I am amazed that no serious thinker in the past has written a systematic critique of the neo-Hinduism camp. Thus far, Hindu thinkers have reacted tactically to each particular episode in this conflict as an isolated event; they have failed to connect the dots and recognize the big picture of whence such seemingly sporadic allegations originate.

Worse still, many of the biased perspectives of colonial Indology have now become internalized by large numbers of Indians who frequently serve as influential voices within the Hindu community. In the intellectual kurukshetra of globalization, civilizations compete to gain ‘mindshare’. It is essential that we resist the fresh colonization being imposed on our minds.

But to set the stage, I will first establish the foundation of Hinduism as I see it, using the Vedic metaphor of Indra’s Net.

We are all jewels in Indra’s Net

The title of this book is a metaphor for the profound cosmology and outlook that permeates Hinduism. Indra’s Net symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependencies among all its members, wherein every member is both a manifestation of the whole and inseparable from the whole. In these pages, I seek to revive it as the foundation for Vedic cosmology and show how it went on to become the central principle of Buddhism, and from there spread into mainstream Western discourse across several disciplines.

The metaphor of Indra’s Net originates from the Atharva Veda (one of the four Vedas), which likens the world to a net woven by the great deity Shakra or Indra. The net is said to be infinite, and to spread in all directions with no beginning or end. At each node of the net is a jewel, so arranged that every jewel reflects all the other jewels. No jewel exists by itself independently of the rest. Everything is related to everything else; nothing is isolated.¹

Indeed, the fundamental idea of unity-in-diversity underpins all dharmic traditions; even though there are many perspectives from which Indra’s Net may be viewed and appreciated, it is ultimately recognized as one indivisible and infinite unity. From the Hindu viewpoint, the One that manifests as many is named Brahman; even seemingly disparate elements are in fact nothing other than reflections of Brahman, and hence of one another. This notion of an organic unity is a signature of Hinduism, and distinguishes it from all major Western religions, philosophies and cultures.

Each jewel of Indra’s Net includes the reflections of all the other jewels; the significance of this symbolism is that each entity in the universe contains within itself the entire universe. This idea, rather than positing interdependence among separately existing entities, asserts that the whole does not owe its existence to the coming together of individual parts that have independent existence. Indeed, the existence of each individual part is contingent upon, and relative to, the existence of the whole and of all the other parts. Yet, paradoxically, each individual part also ‘contains’ the whole within itself. Put simply, the whole and the parts are inseparable.

Every jewel in Indra’s Net is a microcosm of the whole net; every component is the cause of the whole and also the effect of the whole. Nothing exists outside the net.² In the Hindu worldview, the only essence that ultimately exists is Brahman; Brahman is the foundation for Indra’s Net, and no jewel exists apart from Brahman.

The jewels of Indra’s Net are not meant to symbolize static substances. Each jewel is merely a reflection of other jewels, and individual jewels always remain in flux. Each jewel exists only momentarily, to be continuously replaced by its successor, in mutual causation with other jewels. Just as the interdependent cells of the human body are perpetually changing, so also everything in Indra’s Net is perpetually in flux. Reality is always in the flux of becoming. This concept is different from the notion of real, independently existing entities undergoing modification, or static entities that happen to be woven together.

Swami Vivekananda applied the great Upanishadic saying, ‘tat tvam asi’ (‘that thou art’) as the basis for Hindu ethics. He said, in essence, that we are all jewels in Indra’s Net (even though he did not use this metaphor to say it). Thus, Vivekananda defined a Hindu platform for determining ethical conduct, not only towards all humans but towards animals and all entities in general—because everyone and everything is a jewel in Indra’s Net. Since the attack on Vivekananda has been heavily predicated on what are called his ‘tat tvam asi ethics’, I shall return to this point several times in later chapters.

The Sanskrit word bandhu is frequently used to describe the interrelationship between the jewels of Indra’s Net. ‘Bandhu’ defines a corresponding entity; for example, a relationship between x and y can be stated as ‘x is a bandhu of y’. In traditional Indian discourse, this term is often used to explain the unity between the whole and its seemingly diverse parts. For example, ancient thinkers have described specific bandhus which express the paradoxical relationship of the microcosm to the macrocosm. While the microcosm is generally perceived as a map of the macrocosm, it is also the case that both microcosm and macrocosm continuously mirror one another.

Bandhu can also refer to the connections among various facets of our overall unified reality, linking sounds, numbers, colors and ideas together. No object—whether physical, mental, emotional, or conceptual—has any existence by itself and is merely another facet of this unified whole. In addition, bandhu describes how the transcendental worlds correspond with the perceptible world, implying that whatever we perceive through our senses is but a pointer to something beyond.

Kapila Vatsyayan, a scholar of classical Indian art, has cited many examples of bandhu in the form of common metaphors. Significant symbols may be found in the Rig Veda, the Natya-shastra (a seminal text on aesthetics and performing arts) and the Tantrasamuccya (a text on temple architecture). The seed (bija) is often used to symbolize the beginnings. The tree (vriksha) rises from the bija and represents the vertical pole uniting the realms. The nabhi (navel) or the garbha (womb) brings together the concepts of the un-manifest (avyakta) and the manifest (vyakta). The bindu (point or dot) is the reference point or metaphorical centre around which are drawn geometrical shapes, which in turn facilitate the comprehension of notions of time and space. The sunya (void) is a symbol of fullness and emptiness. From its arupa nature (formless) arises the rupa nature (form) and the parirupa (beyond form). There is equivalence in the relationship between sunya (emptiness) and purna (completeness or wholeness), the paradox being that the void has within it the whole.³

In Hinduism, the concept of unity-in-diversity can also be understood as a manifestation of Brahman, an agency that penetrates, pervades and harmonizes the entire universe. Brahman enters and shapes the mould of every entity giving it form, substance and individuality. It is only human pre-conditioning that causes us to visualize the multiplicity of forms as separate entities, and hence the world appears to be full of contradictions. The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad says:

Brahman is responsible for the interconnectedness of things and has become the living and the non-living; the visible and the invisible; the creatures which are two-footed and those that are four-footed. He became the subtle body and then the gross body by means of a subtle instrument known as the subtle body. This very Being became the vital consciousness of all. This is known as the Madhu-Vidya, the sense of the ‘honey’ of all beings, the knowledge of the inter-dependence of things and the vital connection of everything, under every condition, at every time, everywhere.⁴

Another apt metaphor to describe the Hindu worldview is that of a forest. Forests have always been a symbol of beneficence in India, and embody many of the same qualities as Indra’s Net. In the forest, thousands of species of animals, plants and microorganisms exist in a state of mutual interdependence. At any given level of the forest, the microcosm is always connected with its enveloping macrocosm; there exist many worlds-within-worlds, which are never separate or isolated from one another. All the elements of a forest are immensely adaptive to one another, and easily mutate or fuse into new forms over time. In India, a forest suggests fertility, plurality, adaptation, interdependence and evolution. The forest loves to play host, and is never closed to outsiders; newer life forms that migrate into it are welcomed and rehabilitated as natives. The growth of a forest is organic; new forms of life co-exist without requiring the destruction of prior ones. The forest has no predefined final end-state. Its dance is ever-evolving. Indian thought, analogously, is largely based on this kind of openness and blending.

The forest’s diversity is an expression of God’s immanence—God is manifested as bird, mammal, plant, and many other creatures. Just as infinite processes are constantly under way in the forest, so there are infinite ways of communicating with God. Indeed, Hinduism’s spiritual outlook rests on this very principle: that the divine is immanent and inseparable from life and nature in all its forms.

The forest, like the human body, provides a context for describing complex relationships. In the forest of dharma traditions, multiple texts and rituals flow into each other in complex ways, defying any attempt to classify them with rigidly linear chronologies. Dharma traditions took root on the banks of rivers with sacred waters flowing, their currents being symbolic of constant change and evolution. The experience of endless organic evolution characterizes all our texts, deities, rituals, spiritual practices and festivals. The idea of an ultimate harmony underpinning this vast mélange of elements arose from the forest and its interwoven nature. As a people, the descendants of forest dwellers can be expected to have inherited a profound respect for nature, as well as an ingrained regard for all its creatures. This stands in stark contrast to the desert-originated Judeo-Christian idea that God made the world for humanity’s dominion.

Some of the earliest Indian classics are called aranyakas, or ‘forest discourses’. Rishis, the exemplars of Indian thought, are also known as ‘forest dwellers’. Among the stages of life advocated for individuals, the penultimate one, in which the individual severs the bonds of family to pursue spiritual goals, is termed vanaprastha, which literally means ‘the forest stage of life’. Sri Aurobindo uses a forest analogy to show some essential differences between Indian and Western traditions:

The endless variety of Indian philosophy and religion seems to the European mind interminable, bewildering, wearisome, and useless; it is unable to see the forest because of the richness and luxuriance of its vegetation; it misses the common spiritual life in the multitude of its forms. But this infinite variety is itself, as Vivekananda pertinently pointed out, a sign of a superior religious culture. The Indian mind has realized that the Supreme is the Infinite; it has perceived, right from its Vedic beginnings, that to the soul in Nature the Infinite must always present itself in an endless variety of aspects. The mentality of the West has long cherished the aggressive and quite illogical idea of a single religion for all mankind, a religion universal by the very force of its narrowness, one set of dogmas, one cult, one system of ceremonies, one array of prohibitions and injunctions, one ecclesiastical ordinance.⁵

A related metaphor is that of the banyan tree, beloved in myths and stories across Asia. The banyan is unique among trees in that the branches sprout and bow down to the ground, becoming additional roots of the same tree; each root contributes nourishment and stability to the entire tree, forming eventually into a trunk in its own right. The tree is a single structure but functions like a complex, self-organizing network, providing shelter and nourishment to birds, beasts and humans. Its multiple roots, trunks and branches represent multiple origins and sources. They are all part of the same living organism, even if the complexity of the whole cannot be comprehended at a single glance. Each of the separate roots feeds every trunk, and hence every leaf is connected to the entire root system. The tree has no well-defined center, because its multiple roots, trunks and