Holding Sacred that
which is not Sacred
The noted anthropologist, Nathan Soderblom, observed in a work completed in 1913 that the notion of holiness formed the central concept of religion. Since then the history of religions has been studied on a vast scale, a large number of scholarly books having been written on the subject in German, French, English and other languages. With very few exceptions, scholars of religion are in agreement that holiness is the basic tenet of religion, that is, the attribution of such mystical qualities or powers to certain persons or things as are not ever found in ordinary creatures or objects. These mystical attributes cannot be explained by general, rational principles or concepts.
This concept of holiness is not an imaginary thing; it is deeply ingrained in the nature of man. The feeling generated by it is properly employed when it is concentrated exclusively on God. But it frequently happens that this urge within man is diverted to something which, in actual fact, is not holy. The actual feeling of reverence for holiness, which should have been directed towards the Creator, finds its way instead towards some creature.
The reason for this is God’s invisibility. Unable to see his Maker, man gives his attention to whatever else strikes him as most prominent in his immediate surroundings; he then begins to invest it with sanctity and to worship it as if it were genuinely holy. It is this psychology, which produced, in ancient times what is called polytheism in religious terminology, and nature worship in academic parlance. This basic urge to worship impelled man from within to revere something, which was holy. Consequently, he started worshipping anything, which made a great visual impact upon him, e.g. stars, rain, animals, plants, water and fire. The concept of an exalted God existed as the prophets had taught man. But this concept came to be distorted to mean that God “was the Lord in heaven who had withdrawn from the immediate details of governing the world. This kind of high God, a hidden, or idle God, had delegated all work on earth to these ‘nature spirits,’ which were the forces, or personifications of the forces of nature.”
Scholars of religion agree in general that the concept of holiness is the cohesive force in all religions. That is, for a religion to hold together, some unique or extraordinary person or thing must be designated as sacred and stand at the apex of the sum of its beliefs. This cannot be explained in terms of general, rational principles.
The commonest human reactions to objects of sanctity are fear and fascination. Only the sacred can fulfill man’s deepest needs and aspirations. Thus, the reverence that man shows for whatever is held sacred is composed both of trust and of terror. There is also the view that the acceptance of something as sacrosanct signals the boundaries of human effort, where man’s inherent limitations prevent him from seeking any further.
The objects of man’s reverence are disparate in nature, e.g. stones, animals, the sea, the sun, the moon, kings and other religious personalities. Whatever is held sacred is worshipped, and sacrifices, made to it. Rituals are observed in order to please it, escape its punishments and elicit its favours.
“Sacredness is manifested,” observes the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in “sacred officials, such as priests and kings; in specially designated sacred places such as temples and images, and in natural objects, such as rivers, the sun, mountains, or trees. The priest is a special agent in the religious cult, his ritual actions represent the divine action. Similarly, the king or emperor is a special mediator between heaven and earth and has been called by such names as the ‘son of heaven,’ or an ‘arm of god.’”
The following important anthropologists are listed by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as holding sacredness to be the basis of religion: Nathan Soderblom, Rudolf Otto, Emile Durkheim, Max Scheler, Gerardus Vander Leeuw, W. Brede Kristemsen, Friedrich Heiler, Gustov Mensching, Roger Caillois, Mircea Eliade.
Modern scholars of religion are right in saying that the basic idea behind religion is the concept of holiness, which they claim is a natural feeling. However, when some other object besides one God is considered holy, this is the wrong application of a real, natural feeling. And this is the root cause of all kinds of evils. When man holds the non-holy as holy, he closes all manner of doors to progress.
There are two aspects of holding the non-holy as holy. One is to consider all of nature as being sacred, while the other is to revere certain individuals as being sacrosanct. Both kinds of evils have been found all over the world since ancient times. This has been the greatest reason for man’s thinking having remained unscientific.
The notion of holiness is deeply rooted in human psychology. To define in a phrase such a psychology is extremely difficult, for the words used to express profound psychological states are more often symbolic than realistic. I would simply agree in principle that the concept of holiness is the focal point of religion. The existence of holiness is, nevertheless, real and not imaginary, as modern scholars of religion would have us believe.
The truth is that the urge to worship is a natural instinct, which every man is born with. Man, because of this deep inner urge, wants actively to bow before something, which he regards as sacred. There are two forms in which this feeling finds expression: one is monotheism, the other polytheism.
When man holds one God sacred and worships him as his Deity, he directs his feelings to the proper place. It is, in reality, God who possesses the attribute of sacredness. ‘Holding the one and only God sacred is, therefore, to acknowledge a great truth.
But the mistake man makes is to worship and revere whatever object he finds outstanding in this world, or whatever he finds different from himself, imagining it to be sacred. This is the wrong use of the right feeling. This is giving to a non-god what is due to the one and only God. In religious terminology this is known as polytheism or, in common parlance, superstition.
It was this error of sanctifying mere things instead of God Himself, which prevented the emergence of science for thousands of years in the past. When we believe in one God, no scientific or intellectual problem arises in doing so, for God is beyond our physical reach and our sphere of functioning. He is beyond the heavens, through which man cannot pass.
The material objects which are considered holy, fall, on the other hand, within the sphere of human action. And whenever these things have been surrounded with an aura of holy mystery, they have assumed too exalted a status to be subjected to scientific investigation. It is precisely in making an intellectual conquest of these things that science has had its beginnings.
All things other than God are mere creatures. These are generally known as natural phenomena. It is these phenomena, which provide the groundwork for science. To study them and to conquer and control them is what is meant by scientific procedure.
From ancient times the phenomena of nature had universally been considered sacred; as such, far from being objects of conquest, they all became objects of worship. It was this intellectual distortion, which prevented scientific action for thousands of years in the past. The door to progress opened only when the revolution of monotheism changed human thinking and brought nature down from its pedestal of holiness.
AN EXAMPLE
Polytheism, a world-wide phenomenon in ancient times, is now mainly confined to the Indian sub-continent, where, with its emphasis on vegetarianism, it is still extant in a powerful, living form. However, it has come to be viewed as an obstacle to the application of the results of modern, academic research.
Just how large an obstacle became clear when in 1967, the eminent scientist, Dr M.S. Swaminathan, the then Director of the Indian Agricultural Institute, New Delhi, made his views on nutrition known in an interview with an English daily. Speaking to a representative of UNI, Dr. Swaminathan said, “India may have to face the danger of large-scale intellectual dwarfing in two decades if the problem of malnutrition and ‘protein hunger’ is not tackled soon.” He explained that while the concept of balanced nutrition was not new, its significance to brain development was a recent biological discovery.
“It is now clear that the human brain reaches 80% to 90% of its full weight by the age of four, and if children do not get adequate protein during this ‘critical period,’ the brain does not develop properly,” Dr. Swaminathan stated and went on to say that comparative studies on the intelligence of different ethnic groups would in the future have to be viewed from this standpoint too. If the problems of malnutrition and protein hunger were not taken in hand immediately, “We may have to witness during the next two decades a growing acuteness of intellectual power in the developed nations, but a process of intellectual dwarfing in our own country. Every day’s delay in fighting protein hunger in the youth could lead to the creation of more than 10 million ‘intellectual dwarfs.’’’ He added: “Much damage must have already occurred in recent years.” Asked for a solution to the problem, Dr Swaminathan said, “The message of protein-consciousness should be carried to the masses by government action and the mobilisation of public opinion.”
He explained that pulses constituted the most important protein source in a vegetarian diet, whereas animal products like milk had proteins of a better quality. Protein needs would have to be assessed both in terms of quantity and quality. Among the components of protein, about 80 amino acids were necessary for normal growth. He said that a deficiency of some of the acids like lycine and methionine were common in a vegetarian diet, while the excess of leucine in Jowar had been the cause of diseases in certain areas where this cereal was the staple food. Though a larger consumption of animal products was desirable, their production was costly since much energy was wasted in converting plant products into animal food.
After the publication of this interview, the Indian Express brought out an editorial titled, ‘Protein Hunger,’ which said:
...when the union government decided to go in for a comprehensive policy of price support for foodgrains, it could hardly have been suspected that there could be ‘protein hunger’ in view of the plentiful supply of cereals.
As the Director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Dr M.S. Swaminathan, has pointed out, an over-dependence on cereals could lead to a situation in which even well-fed people are under-nourished. Besides the physical handicaps from which those who are starved of proteins may suffer, the mental side effect of this, according to Dr Swaminathan, would be that the mental capacity of children would not develop properly.
Viewed in this light, a re-examination of the present agricultural policy is necessary. But the limitations within which the Government must act are also many. First of all, it is very expensive to transform farm produce into animal protein. Besides, even though the Government has conducted a campaign for balanced diets and higher consumption of meat, eggs and fish, the people have been slow to change their eating habits.
People reacted strongly to Dr. Swaminathan’s statement. Some extremists even demanded his resignation, saying that he was not fit for the presidentship of a national institute. In view of such an adverse reaction, Swaminathan had no choice but to fall silent. The matter became a closed topic.
The reason for this strong, public reaction was that according to the traditional religion of India, the taking of a life is the worst possible sin. Since living things must be killed to produce non-vegetarian food, vegetarianism has become the order of the day. The cow, in particular, must never be slaughtered because, in this religious context, it is a sacred animal. The Rigveda has called the cow a goddess.
This makes it clear how certain aspects of polytheistic faiths have become an obstacle to human progress.
India is rich in resources and opportunities. Despite this abundance, it has yet to become a developed country. Chiefly to blame for this are the polytheistic constraints, which hinder the march of progress. Not until the country is set free of all such unrealistic limitations will India truly set its feet on the path of progress.
