The Evolution of Religion, Part II

      We saw in the part I of this article how man rallied his intellect over the powers of nature and the idea of existence of the God surfaced. As man tried to cogitate on the inexplicable phenomena that occurred around him, he pondered over the plausible explanations, but the science behind them was far away from being discovered. Consequentially and considering the state of cognition on the basis of the theories inherited from earlier generations, man settled with an idea that these phenomena were being controlled by some gods. A god for each phenomenon. Poseidon controlled the seas and earthquakes, Zeus controlled the sky and storms. Man even prayed to gods for bringing them fortune and wisdom. Greeks worshiped Athena for wisdom, Indians Saraswati. As humans were gripped tightly with these ideas since long, this polytheist society lasted for millenniums since the ages of Proto-Indo-Europeans to the time of modern religions.

The Star of David

        As the ancient Greek culture slowly started losing to the time, Roman beliefs and Judaism were gripping the  Mediterranean and the middle East. Judaism brought a new belief of monotheism in the world. Jews believe in the existence of only one God. As Roman beliefs fell back in time, many monotheist religions started rooting in the western world. Christianity and Islam surfaced following Judaism. These Abrahamian religions now thrive in the world as the most dominant religions. But what led the man to become a monotheist? Why people suddenly started believing some prophets who claimed to be sent by the only omnipotent power, the God? Why were the ancient religions given up? No more they prayed to the gods of their ancestors.   

The Cross

       The politics and social conditions of the region played an important role. There was a resistance to Christianity in the first from the Romans. Jesus Christ was crucified by Roman rulers. But the religion managed to thrive as the disciples continued to preach it further. Slowly whole Europe gave in to this new belief and became Christians. The cross on which Jesus was crucified still remains as the holy symbol. But the middle eastern world had yet to see a new flow of change in the sixth century after the death of Christ. 

Faravahar

      The Achaemenid empire of Persia followed Zoroastrianism as their official religion till the rise of Islam. This religion is considered a sibling of Vedic religion of ancient India. Being Indo-Iranian subgroup of Indo-Europeans, ancient Iranians and Indians followed the similar traditions and their religious beliefs were very similar. Their languages can be traced to have same roots. Zoroastrians were polytheists same as Indians. But as Islam arose in the hot desert of Arabia, this religion of the worshipers of fire came under threat. Muhammad, a trader from Arabia, claimed to receive revelations from the God in seventh century. He preached to Arabians imploring them to abandon polytheism and slowly rose to power claiming the kingdom of Arabia which now was dominated by Islam. 

Islamic crescent

         The empire of Caliphate arose in Arabia later and started expanding in no time. Surrounding kingdoms were threatened to follow Islam or suffer on the day of Quiyamat. Persia was invaded and Islam spread to the boundaries of India. Most of the world was now brought under monotheist religions. Although majority population of the world now believed in only one  omnipotent power instead of many, some religions like Hinduism still survived. The Caliphate of Arabia failed to expand beyond Persia and Hinduism continued to flourish as a major polytheist religion. But soon the Islamic world was dissolved in multiple kingdoms and a few among them managed to invade India successfully and established an empire there. The age of Hindu rulers was over in India and it seemed that Hinduism will see its death. But some of the Moghal rulers like Akbar the Great had a love for the ancient culture of India and Hinduism managed to survive. The mixture of Islamic and Hindu culture of India gave it a unique flavor of cultural prosperity. 

       Although a part of polytheism still lives in the world today in the form of Hinduism, its structure has gone through various changes. Hindus worship their gods as a different conception than they did in the old times. Their faith has become less dominant over their day-to-day lives. Modern Hinduism replaced the ancient Vedic religion of India. 

       The future of religions looks vague to me today. The onset of spreading Atheism across world cannot be denied. As science and technology is advancing rapidly today, man is becoming more and more atheist. Newer branches of existing religions are developing. Scientology, New age are common terms today. Humanism is being regarded as a religion. The concept of religion is evolving rapidly as the world is changing.

        I always contemplate the thought that religions gave us a lot since ancient days. But was it really worth it? We must agree that they reflected deeply on the many important aspects like literature, culture, thoughts, and even food. But the wars they brought on the face of Earth, the lives they took of innocent men and women make me sad. The wars between Christianity and Islam took many lives in the days of the Crusades just for the sake of claiming some holy land. Wars and struggles over such issues still take lives. People still fight over issues whether some piece of land belongs to Hindus for being the birthplace of a god or to Muslims for having a very important place of worship there. How many of us think that it is more important to live together happily than fighting over these issues? People fought, they still fight and they will keep fighting over it. Can we even count how many died fighting for their God? The God, which we don't  even know if exists. The most logical explanations don't point to the existence of such power. But is our faith so strong to make us ignorant? Let the coming generations of humans decide what they want to believe in. But we must bow to the sheer thought of humans about the God that changed the history of mankind. The religions world had seen till now have really made a deep impact on our thoughts, perceptions, knowledge and culture. And we must appreciate the colorful imagination of our entire race that created it. But only thing I hope for is that our future generations will love each other for what they are. They must follow the oldest and most important religion on Earth... i.e. love.

The Evolution of Religion, Part I

      Long before the birth of civilizations, humans had been respecting and fearing the powers of nature. Being closer to the nature than today's man, natural forces affected them deeply. As time passed, civilizations developed and man started living at one place in groups rather than wandering in the wild for food and shelter. As human life settled and man started getting more time from farming and other everyday activities, he had time to ponder upon his beliefs and thoughts. He personified the forces of nature and started worshiping them. That was when the concept of 'God' was born. 

    The ancient Egyptians were the first to deify the natural entities. Their major God was Amun-Ra i.e. the Sun. Ancient Egyptians realized that Sun was the source of energy which fed them and with an obvious reason, they started worshiping the sun in the personified form as Amun-Ra. Amun-Ra is depicted in paintings of ancient Egypt with the head of a hawk and the sun as crown over the head. The river Nile used to provide copious amount of water for Egypt's crops in the season of flood. The agrarian economy of ancient Egypt flourished because of the blessings of the God Hapy and the Pharaoh (the King) who were thought to control the annual flooding of Nile.

Isis and Ra

   

        Isis was the goddess of motherhood, magic and fertility. Her worship in the ancient Egypt was so strong that it spread though the Greek and Roman world as well. It continued till the suppression of paganism in the Christian era. Egyptians believed in life after death. They built colossus pyramids for their Pharaohs who were considered gods. Pharaohs were buried in these pyramids to make their journey to the afterlife easy and unhindered. Ancient Egyptians continued their worship of many gods until their civilization came to a slow end under the threats of Greek and Persian invasions.

         When the river Nile watched the slow death of Egyptian civilization, a new culture was flourishing on the Greek islands and around the Mediterranean sea. The Greeks on the same lines of Egyptians followed a religion of polytheism. They had multiple gods who controlled various forces of nature and other important entities of Greeks. Ancient Greeks believed in a timeline starting with the Golden age when titans ruled the universe. Cronus was the king of titans whose three sons dethroned him and Zeus  being one of them claimed the throne deceiving his brother Hades to rule over the underworld and live there. Poseidon, the other son of Cronus, controlled the sea and earthquakes. Gods, sons of the titans, eventually started to reign over the universe under their influence.

Zeus

Poseidon

Hermes

       According to Greek mythology, Zeus ended up as the king of the gods and ruled from the mount Olympus where the thirteen Olympian gods lived. Zeus is always shown with a lightening bolt as his weapon. He is considered analogous to the ancient Indian god Indra who also happens to have the same weapon and he ruled from the throne in heaven being the King of Gods. Many ancient Greek gods are analogous to ancient Indian gods. Hermes, the messenger of gods in Greek mythology is a counterpart of Narada in Indian mythological stories. Many other sources betoken the same origin of these two civilizations. They could be two branches of early Proto-Indo-European civilization. Proto-Indo-European religion is considered to have had a similar mythology, the people being polytheist in the ancient times. 

Varuna

        Ancient Indians also worshiped the powers of nature in the time of Rigveda. Hymns from Rigveda are identified as chants and prayers to personified powers such as rain (Varuna) and fire (Agni). But as Indians came into the post vedic times, their deities changed. No more they worshiped these powers than the post vedic gods. The age of Puranas brought a new range of deities through the new literature that was being written by ancient saints and rishis. Population of ancient India became compulsive towards the worship of these gods on the same lines of Greeks and other branches of the Proto-Indo-European tree.

       Over the time, a general concept of worshiping and respecting natural powers and forces now evolved into a very different and phenomenal concept of worshiping human-like deities. People started fearing the gods and relating the uncommon calamities of nature to the wrath of these gods. Gods needed to be pleased with prayers and with cruel sacrifices of animals and sometimes even humans. Irrelevant rituals and customary practices took the place of pure hearted respect towards the nature, the only force that created us. The sheer might and power of human imagination took him to such a level that bonded him in the fears of strange powers beyond his comprehension. The pure prehistoric love  and  respect towards the nature now altered to become a "Religion."

to be continued...