Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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Aryans in the pre-Vedic period. 19 Atleast, Lord Siva’s cult was by and
by celebrated without Brahmins. 19a and his detractors reproach him
with being the god of Sudras and people of no account. 20 One of the
later offshoots of Saivism, the Lingayats, became so unorthodox that
it culminated in an almost open breach with Hinduism. The system
of Basawa ‘was revolutionary all along the line in doctrine, ritual and
social customs. So much so, that inspite of all the attempts of the
Lingayats to tone down its daring originality they have not succeeded
in completely obliterating its individuality or in assimilating it to
orthodox Hinduism. ’21
The religious texts of the Bhagavatas were interpolated so as to
link them up with and to show them as derived from the Vedas. The
theory of Avtaras, with which Vedic texts were not familiar, was put
forward to facilitate the identification of the deities of the popular
creeds with those of the old Vedic ones and thus help in the assimilation
of Bhagvatism and other religions into Brahmanism. 22 New rituals,
entirely foreign to Vedism, and even of non-Brahmanical origin, such
as temple, image and phallus worship, were borrowed and interwoven
into the Saiva and Vaisnava cults. The Pujari Brahmins became the
ministers. The adorable, Lord Siva, was stated to be the upholder of
the race of Manu 23 , and Lord Kishna was credited with being the
formulator of Chaturvarnya. 24 Thus the bhagavat (Vaisnava) religion
in the end became a part and parcel, rather the most important feature,
of Neo-Brahmanism. It got so much involved in the rigidity of caste,
tradition, custom and ritualism that, when Ramananda broke away
from the system of Ramanuja (substantially on the point of a liberal
interpretation of old Hindu social rules and particularly on the
transgression of dietary restrictions), it was considered such a
revolutionary step by him that he called himself and his followers ‘the
liberated ones’. 25
The caste ideology caste its shadow even beyond its borders. Muslims
in India were declared Malechas. They were considered so much outsider
the pale of Hindu society that Hindu once converted to Islam could on no
account be taken back in the parent fold even though converted forcibly.
Yet me find Indian Muslims and Christians taking to customs and practices