Lecture 2 - Religion

Today we started with the Religion. As I said yesterday, religion is a response to social needs and change in the society of any kind reflects in its religious character. The first topic we chose to discuss today was the Vedic religion – how the Early Vedic society was different from the Later Vedic society, how that change affected the Vedic religion, what were the Vedic gods like, what were the rituals, yajna arrangement, intermingling of Vedic people with certain non-Vedic elements etc were the questions we discussed in the first half an hour.

Next we turned to the socio-economic-political changes that happened in the society after the Later Vedic period. Society responded in two ways – first was in Upanishadic thought which talked about the path of knowledge and second was of the myriad of heterodox sects – Parivrajak/Shramans. Of those many shramanic traditions which we discussed later in detail, Buddhism and Jainism were the most successful ones in offering a total religious alternative to decaying Vedic religion.

Then we went on to discuss the life story of Buddha and his tenets. Additionally the underlying social, political and economic philosophy of Buddhism was also surveyed. The idea of ‘monastery’ was also talked about in detail. We finished the lecture with the factors which led to the expansion of Buddhism across the world and the factors which led to the decline of Buddhism.

Handouts distributed today –

1. A note on Indian Philosophy in brief
2. Timeline – Major invasions and wars in Ancient and Medieval times
3. Timeline – Important dynasties ruling in different parts of India in Ancient and Medieval times

I had actually planned to talk about Jainism and Ashoka’s Dhamma as well today itself. However, because of the story-reading from the book, I was not able to finish today’s quota. I will try to finish that tomorrow along with a later religious development including the medieval times. Tomorrow, we will try to be little faster. No videos tomorrow.

I was told that the backbenchers were not able to hear clearly during the course of lectures. If you feel any problem of that kind, please let me or Vijender know asap. Don't wait for someone else to raise the points. You must have missed initial half an hour at least.