32 Introduction

Friedhelm Hardy

In one sense, there are innumerable religions in Asia. Some of these are tribal religions, belonging to relatively small social groups which so far have resisted an integration into wider cultural and social structures.

From its original home in India, Buddhism spread into all the neighbouring countries, and from there further afield to Central Asia, Mongolia, China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Indo-China. Its history in India itself was complex, and often three ‘phases’ are distinguished to which three different types of Buddhism correspond. Depending among other things on the period during which a particular Asian country came to know of Indian Buddhism, one of these types was adopted.

Buddhism itself (along with a much lesser known parallel movement, Jainism, which remained restricted to India) evolved out of an older religious cosmos. The latter developed in the course of the centuries a whole spectrum of concrete expressions and, commonly summar­ised as ‘Hinduism’, has influenced the majority of Indians over more than three millennia. In medieval times, Hinduism influenced the whole of Indo­China and Indonesia extensively. It was Islam that eliminated these influences (except for the small enclave of the island of Bali), just as it put an end to Buddhism in India, Iran, Central Asia and Indonesia.

Although Buddhism and Hinduism have played an essential role in the ‘national’ histories of most Asian countries, only occa­sionally did they develop into ‘national’ religions. Tibet is perhaps the best-known example of such a fusion of the religious with the political; Sri Lanka and, to some extent, Japan can be added to the list. But in most cases, Hindus and Buddhists (Jains etc.) lived together in the same political system. It is possible to get glimpses of such a multi-religious situation from modem Nepal for instance. Moreover, the expansion of Buddhism (and to some extent, of medieval Hinduism) was primarily due to missionary and mercan­tile activities without military and ‘colonial’ aspects.

For a variety of reasons, other Asian religions deserve to be mentioned. Thus of considerable historical interest is Mazdaism (often styled Zoroastrianism). On the basis of linguistic similarities between a whole range of languages (including Greek, Latin, Old Slavonic, Old Germanic and Sanskrit), scholars reconstructed an original Indo-European language. It appears that, in the prehistoric past, the people speaking that language broke up into various groups and gradually moved into a variety of regions. One such group (called the Indo-Iranians) moved eastward, there, in its turn, to split up further: some entered Iran, and others continued their journey towards the east, to settle in north-west India.

With Shamanism and Taoism, we can still catch some glimpses of religious practices and beliefs which belong to a world unaffected by the religions ultimately deriving from Indo-Iranian sources. On the other hand, a religion like Sikhism represents a relatively modern offshoot of Hinduism with Islamic features in its background. Even more recent is a whole range of religious developments which in part are due to modem, Western stimuli. The ‘new religious movements’ of Japanhavepartic- ularly attracted scholarly attention. But it would be a serious mistake simply to contrast these modem developments with fixed systems (Eke Buddhism). The history of aU these ancient religions is extremely dynamic; they con­stantly change, partly by interacting with the many folk reEgions upon which they have imposed themselves as a more complex superstructure. To enter into the spirit of the Asian religions means to realise this dynamism.

During the last two hundred years or so, much information about, and many impressions of, the East have accumulated in our own culture. Inevitably, a fair number of stereotypes and unquestioned assumptions have crystallised in our perception of those other cultures. ‘The mysterious East’ is a commonly used expression in which these various preconceptions are gathered together. The word ‘mysterious’ is sometimes used to suggest ‘incomprehensible’, alien to such an extent that our own way of thinking cannot cope with it. If this were true of the East, the implications for what human nature is would be catastrophic, for it would suggest that different groups of people cannot actually relate to each other in a meaning­ful, namely human, manner. But if we consider the case of language as a parallel here, such a drastic position becomes unnecessary.

But even if the Eastern religions were in principle ‘comprehensible’, they still could be ‘mysterious’ in the sense of being ‘irrational’. In fact, this is probably the more frequent impheation when we hear about the mysterious East. Again this is an assertion loaded with implied assumptions about human nature. It implies that only some people (in this case naturally us) are logical, systematic in their thinking and coherent. Other people do not possess such mental qualities, and not reason, but emotion (or something else) remains as the only means of comprehending the mystery. This particular understanding of the East is found not only in its critics, but also in its admirers. Rationality is to some the culmination of human exis­tence, and to others the fundamental evil of Western society. Since the East is seen not to be rational, it cannot be regarded as fully developed in human terms (as the critics would see it), or it must be applauded as far more perfect (as the admirers would postulate). This is a remarkable consensus of opinion, at least as to the fundamental assumption, in whatever way it may then be evaluated. But is it true? Superficially, it is very easy to construe real-life situations (let us say, for a situation-comedy) where the Eastern reaction indeed appears incomprehensible and irrational. Take the following exam­ple. A tourist enters an Indian restaurant and asks the waiter: ‘Isn’t there any food here?’ Imagine the answer to be ‘Yes, sir.’ Naturally we would find it very logical that the tourist should sit down at a table and wait for his meal to arrive.

On a more serious note it is still possible to make a similar point. It can be shown without difficulty that Eastern logic is identical to ours; the differences lie in the premisses of Eastern thought. Any system of thought is based on a set of axioms—fundamental facts that are regarded as so totally self-evident that they are not reflected upon and usually carried along as unconsciously made assumptions. It is here where the differences He. The fact that a culture does not normally speU out such premisses, and that most of its members would not even be able to do so when asked, lies at the centre of the ‘Eastern mystery’. Yet the logic which is then brought into operation is precisely the same as ours, but does not appear as such because of the dislocation of the premisses. Let us look at some examples to illustrate this in greater detail.

We take it utterly for granted that a thing is identical with itself. A chair is a chair, and nothing else. Moreover, such a self-identical object is a constant which we can insert into propositions.

Let us pursue this for a case where ‘identity’ is a crucial issue in the human destiny: the self-identity of the person. It is only through looking at the unusual or abnormal that we become aware of the implicit assumptions in our own culture. The schizophrenic appears to consist of more than one ‘person’; alcohol can ‘bring out a different person’; drugs can cause altered states of consciousness. But in all these cases our culture has decided to regard them as unimportant in relation to the definition of a person. In all three examples something is happening that ought not to. The ‘real’ person is disturbed or interfered with. Now let us turn to Asia. Here we find it culturally accepted that a person may leave his body. Thus the shaman roams about freely and enters the bodies of animals and other human beings. Or the body of one person is used by another being, in the cults of possession. Or the meditator experiences embodiment as an animal or a different human being. Or the same meditator experiences a widening of his self-awareness: the conventional boundaries surrounding the ‘I’ are removed and the ‘I’ plunges into a far more comprehensive reality. Some of this is directly observable to others, like a possessed person, through whom a different being speaks and acts. In other cases, the rest of society has to rely on the testimony of the person experiencing it. As in the example from the Western context, a decision as to the validity of such experiences for the definition of personhood has to be made. The fundamental difference be­tween East and West here is simply that Asia has accepted such phenomena as issues worth discussing and reflecting upon and does not discard them as ‘abnormal’. It is clear that regardless of how precisely a religion may sort matters out, the very fact of deciding to accept any of these experiences as a valid source of insight must have far-reachng consequences for the formula­tion of human destiny.

Let us look at another example. It is probably fair to say that our traditional view of the world regards it as an object lying outside ourselves. In religious terms it is a creation out of nothing and thus, ulti­mately, of no real concern in the relation between God and man. To the extent that Christianity has formulated this as a dogma it has explicitly identified it as an axiom. The East knows of no such thing as creation out of nothing. The world tends to be accepted as a factually given entity, like man. From this follows logically the assumption of a very intimate connection between man and the world. Within the world can be found a rhythm, a structure or pattern (e.g. the Tao or the Dharma) which is decisive for man’s own destiny and fulfilment. Religion spells out how to harmonise one’s individual being with this universal rhythm. Aspects of this have been labelled ‘fatalism’ by certain Western observers. Yet when this term is required to denote more than merely a somewhat placid personality type, content with accepting things as they are, it does not do justice to this view of the world. Wherever we find the belief in such a cosmic rhythm, it goes along with the assumption that ‘ordinary’ man has not yet achieved his harmonis­ing with it. Thus he must do something: he is called for action. He is faced with a definite choice, and it is his choice alone. Even when the past is brought into this conception, as in certain ways predetermining the current life, it is never seen as preventing the essential actions asked for. Man remains in control of his destiny, at least where it is supposed to matter most. Moreover, the cosmic rhythm is often envisaged as containing undreamt-of powers which can be used by the man who knows how to get at them. Whether Taoist or Tantric, the pursuit of such powers guided by religion can certainly not be regarded as ‘fatalistic’ (or, for that matter, as ‘world­negating’ or ‘spiritual’).

Such a premiss of a cosmic rhythm implies another important difference from traditional Western thought. We are used to looking at the world as containing good and evil as objective entities, as universal, cosmic forces. Historically, this derives from the Judeo-Christian tradition, which in turn, some claim, may have been influenced by Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism). The powers of goodness are with God, and evil is associ­ated with the devil. This type of binary, objectifying thought is alien to the religions further East. Objectively, there is only the world with its inbuilt rhythm and structure. As long as, subjectively, man harmonises himself with this rhythm, he does what is ‘good’. The evil experienced in life is the price paid for there existing many beings who do not join into this rhythm. Such an ethical neutrality of the world in relation to man can become particularly disconcerting for a Western observer when it presents itselfin a theistic form. We are so strongly accustomed to link the concept of God with that of ultimate ‘goodness’ that a ‘neutral’ God is inconceivable. Yet it is equally rational to argue that, given the nature of God as Absolute, by definition he must transcend whatever categories and attributes our contingent human mind can come up with.

We may conveniently continue this exploration of premisses by staying with the theme of theism. It goes without saying that for us religion has to do with God, or at least with gods. If we stick by this definition, a considerable amount of material found in Asia must be excluded, because there is no God here, and often not even gods. That sometimes, in a rather uncritical manner, the concept ‘god’ was applied to entities like the Japanese kami or the Indian deva, is another story. By them­selves, the kami or the deva do not necessarily offer us the concept of‘god’ On the other hand, if we say that religion has to do with the ultimate, that it provides a transcendental reference point and guides man towards his fulfilment, then we have no problem here. Theism then reveals itself as a particular mode of envisaging or concretising this transcendental. Whether it is Buddhism, or Jainism, or Taoism (the traditional trouble-makers in the philosophical discussion about the nature of religion), they all provide us with such transcendental pointers: human destiny comprises more than the monolinear process of birth, life and death. That the charge of nihilism could have been made against these religions has actually nothing to do with the mysterious premisses of Eastern religious thought, but is merely due to our insufficient factual knowledge about these religions.

For the same reason, the existence of true monothe­ism has not been brought properly into focus. Certainly for India (and a case could perhaps be made also for Amida Buddhism in China and Japan) we must acknowledge monotheistic religion. Details on these will be found in the section on the Indian religions, and at this point we may simply note that behind our conventional term ‘Hinduism’ a great variety of truly monotheis­tic systems are hidden. From this emerges the rather important general conclusion that the contrast West:East is not one of monotheistic:poly­theistic (or whatever). The phenomenon of monotheism allows us also to learn something further about the hidden premisses that make our under­standing of the East so troublesome. Wherever the concept of an absolute God is found, his definition as a ‘person’ implies assumptions about certain characteristics that inhere in this ‘person’. Inevitably, the way such charac­teristics are envisaged derives from human experience. Thus God is a ‘he’; he is the ‘father’. Moreover, a relational element may be introduced: God is the Father relating to the Son through the love personified in the Holy Spirit. In essence, Indian theism does the same, but makes decisions about how to concretise such characteristics which differ considerably from what we are used to in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Given the fact that about half the human population is female, it is perhaps not all that surprising to find that from the fertile religious ground of India a ‘she’ has also emerged as God. And instead of choosing the father-son relational model, India tends to use the husband-wife model. Such choices may appear strange to us (and may even shock us initially because of the love-life explicitly acknowledged through the husband-wife relationship), but they are not ‘mysterious’.

Thus what has been suggested here so far is the possibility of detecting a level of (usually unconsciously made) premisses or axioms which provide the foundation for sometimes extremely complex edifices of viewing the world and man’s destiny in it. Moreover, it has been suggested that it is not necessary to postulate a different kind of logic or rationality at work in such edifices, when they appear in different civilisa­tions. The initial choice as to which premiss to adopt (for example, is God a ‘he’ or a ‘she’?) concerns logical alternatives, whatever the motivation behind a particular choice may be. Again, the manner in which from a set of such chosen premisses a whole religious system is developed appears to follow the same logic and reasoning, for example when ‘grace’ is associated with the female side of the deity. Thus at least in principle the religions of the East do not present unassailable obstacles to our comprehension.

In practice, things are obviously more difficult and it might perhaps be of some use to look at a few examples of this kind of difficulty. We are not now talking about fundamental things like ‘premisses’ of thought, and have moved to a far more superficial level, the level of practicalities. Initially, the world of the East was indeed ‘mysterious’ for the simple reason that little factual information was available. Naturally, when during the last two hundred years or so an increasing amount of information became available, attempts were made to bring some order into this material. Phenomena that appeared related were grouped together under a common heading, the ‘isms’, and the whole began to make much more sense. Terms like Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, evolved as useful tools for surveying the rich Asian religious scene. But, however useful they may be, certainly the specialist remains aware also of how imperfect, tentative and inefficient they still are. They are no more than temporarily put-up pointers, in need of constant revision and improvement. The need for this has nothing to do with the mysteries of the East and is entirely due to our own imperfect factual knowledge. But unfortunately, our ‘isms’ have taken on an independent existence as well. They have moved outside the confines of academic dis­course and have entered into the parlance of society at large. This has meant that here for instance ‘Hinduism’ is now understood to be ‘the same sort of thing as Islam etc.’ But in reality, a term like ‘Hinduism’ denotes a very large cluster of'religions’ each of which by itself would be ‘the same sort of thing as Islam’. It is here where perhaps the most common justification for the belief in the mysterious and irrational East lies. Let us stay with ‘Hinduism’ to demonstrate this. With great effort a fair amount of factual knowledge has been acquired by the student. Thus from the rather over-full pigeon-hole labelled ‘Hinduism’ he knows that there is a belief in Visnu (a male personal god). He also knows that there is a belief in brahman (an impersonal world­soul). He finally knows that there is belief in meditation as achieving final fulfilment. Since all this comes out of the same box marked ‘Hinduism’, he quite appropriately attempts to correlate these pieces of information. But however hard he may try, the puzzle simply does not fit. His more polite reaction will be to speak of the mysteries of the East. Similarly, in addition to his knowledge of Visnu he may pick up information about the belief in Siva (like Visnu, a male personal god). The logical conclusion would be to say that ‘Hinduism’ is polytheistic, because a number of gods are believed in. But what has actually been done here is comparable to some Martian’s attempt to formulate a logically coherent explanation of religion in Britain, by drawing information indiscriminately from the different churches, chapels, mosques, synagogues, etc. In other words, the bits and pieces of the puzzle can be put together, but in a coherent way only if we accept that they do not all belong to a single ‘mysterious’ religion, which we call ‘Hinduism’. The seeming chaos can be turned into order, but only in the form of many ordered wholes. Naturally, what has been said here about Hinduism applies also to many of the other Asian religions.

There is one final observation that might be felt to be useful in our struggle with the incomprehensible East. Anybody acquiring a knowledge of Eastern religious material constantly repeats the question: ‘what does this mean?’ In itself this is a perfectly legitimate question. The problem lies in the way that a possible answer is perceived. In the Semitic traditions, religion has defined itself consciously and rigorously. Every com­ponent of its complex edifice is carefully explained, in terms of its meaning, through the system as a whole. Institutionalised ‘authority’ acts as the final arbiter in cases of doubt or ambivalence. But this kind of centralised meaning-definition is simply absent in the East. An enormous number of religious symbols are handed down from generation to generation, but their meaning and significance may vary greatly, depending on the individual context in which they occur. The implication of this is that the search for what religious symbols actually mean to the religious individual becomes troublesome and laborious. But there is nothing irrational or confused in this.

‘Mysterious East’ has one further connotation: it is perceived to be attractive, challenging, inviting exploration and pleasurable. Nothing could be further from the intentions of this present exploration than the desire to prove that such a perception is inaccurate or inappropriate. All that has been suggested here is a bit of commonsense and a lot of patience— patience when trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, and patience in waiting for the specialists to keep on adding further information. We are far from having acquired all the pieces of all the puzzles. Once upon a time, the East appeared as a devastating, deadly threat (and the connection of the Mongols with supposedly peaceful Buddhism is worth exploring in this context). There is no need to perceive the ‘challenges’ that have been spoken of here in this vein. For some it might be an exciting discovery to find a God who is a ‘she’; to others it might enhance their understanding of a God who is a ‘he’. Some might derive great comfort from the discovery of monotheism as far away as India or Japan; others might deepen their belief in devotion in view of beliefs about meditationally gained altered states of consciousness. But there is no threat here, only the possibility of interesting insights.