Religion: The Genesis
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
An infant is afraid of his surroundings but the parents provide him the feeling of a fortress around him. They seem to protect him from all that creates fear in him. In their strong arms and cozy lap, the little one feels fully secured. Thus, he seeks their company, obeys them, loves them, and adores them. This adoration of someone more powerful is happening from primitive times to this day.
The early man too lived in a state of constant fear. The density of forest, the expanse of desert, the wilderness of ice, the daily rising of the sun, the dreadful darkness of night, the prowling of predators, the harshness of weather, the sound of thunder, the bursting of clouds, the force of wind, the fire of forest, the toll of disease were always tormenting him. He felt that those forces were pursuing him at every step. When he was able to grasp the reality, he realized that they were made of elements of such high excellence that he himself did not possess.
To ward off those powerful forces of nature, man started to live in a group, but still those spirits proved more powerful. They were always out there to torture him. They manifested in such weird and over-powering ways and proved so manifestly sublime and powerful that his wisdom assigned them to the realm of godliness. He imagined them as having a personality like his own. He felt that the spirits of nature did not only act but also listen. In order to overcome the ever-present dread of those superior entities, his instinct impelled him to flatter those forces by admitting their superiority and accepting their majesty. The man remained human but those mysterious forces were elevated to the pedestal of deities.
This primordial instinct, existing in an original state in human beings, gave rise to the ritual of worshipping the forces of nature. Thus, in his helplessness, the man found his religion, which meant that both sides were now in a mutual compact: devotion and submission by the one and favor by the other. Considering them as alive, the worshippers made idols of them, sang hymns in praise of them, and gave offerings of flowers, fruit, milk, etc. He also sacrificed for them his dearest and most useful possessions like his own children, serving slaves, productive cattle, and battle-winning horses.
In practicing his religion, the man adopted different ways of behaving towards those realities. With the passage of time, changing circumstances, and varying environment new elements and forces acquired new sacredness. Customs, rituals, objects, and even events assumed various shapes and shades in terms of religious importance. Anything which he found as strange or of some significance, like one reflecting oddity of shape and size, exuding majesty, arousing awe, causing destruction, and giving life became the object of veneration. Such things were countless, like stones, dunes, trees, animals, sky, sun, moon, stars, earth, air, fire, river, mountain, epidemics, and seasons. It could be anything under the sun.
The first object of significance to draw the attention of the man was the moon. Its beauty with the power to make one lunatic became the prime object to secure his veneration. It exuded both tenderness and power: the thin curve of the crescent, changing its fluorescence into a shining orb of soothing white, comforted the creatures of darkness with its cool light, made the waters in the rivers, lakes, and seas to swell and leap. Most importantly, it affected the personal lives of humans. Every lunar month, the bold male of the primitive legend, the “man in the moon,” seduced women and caused them to menstruate. But as soon as the man was able to switch his primary activity for sustenance from hunting to cultivating, the prime position of the moon was taken over by the sun. The life-giving warmth of the sun, so vital for vegetation, now became a greater object of worship. Penetrating its rays, the father of all living things fertilized the mother earth promptly every day. The result was that the sun assumed the position of God-in-Chief in many mythologies and religions of the later days.
Later, the faith became more elaborate. Now, it took the form of animism, that is, all-natural objects and forces had souls. The primitive man believed that in them lay hidden some sort of dynamism. All manifestations of nature too were alive. Why man alone should have a soul? If not, why objects, like sun, moon, lightning, rain, wind, plants, rivers, and earth are moving, growing, blowing, flowing, shaking, pulsating, and thundering? “Nature begins to present herself as a vast congeries of separate living entities, some visible, some invisible, but all possessed of mind-stuff, all possessed of matter-stuff, and all blending mind and matter together in the basic mystery of being… The world is full of gods! From every planet and from every stone there emanates a presence that disturbs us with a sense of the multitudinousness of god-like powers, strong and feeble, great and little, moving between heaven and earth upon their secret purposes”. (John Cowper Powys, The Meaning of Culture). The dynamism in the objects and forces of Nature was conceived to be a silent but strong power or energy, transmutable from Nature to man. So, the man started believing that inanimate objects possessed personality and their power could be harnessed through magic to one’s advantage.
In this troubled environment, Nature was not the sole source to create awe in man. Even some men were superior to others; more powerful, more knowledgeable and more intelligent who provided ordinary men guidance, helped them in hour of need, and protected them from calamities. Such a person could be a reformer, prophet, tribal chief, priest, pious man, saint, rishi, wali, shaman or medicine man, who was supposed to have more religious experiences than others and thus could reach the spirits in a proper way for conciliation and help. They were also worthy of respect and worship.
The primitive men also felt that the dead were always present and hanging around them in the form of spirits. They also continued to appear in their dreams. With the mysterious and sudden disappearance of their physical self along with their charm and kinetic force, the living men thought that the dead had become a part of Nature, or even stars in the firmament. They were believed to assume extra-ordinary powers, so they too were worthy of worship. A ‘dead man’ became equivalent to god in many tribes. The two became interchangeable. Thus, we find in almost all religions people invoking dead saints and pious persons. In some tribes, supplications were made to the dead by messages sent through slaves. The message was recited verbally to a slave, and then his head was cut off. If something was forgotten and remained unsaid another slave was sent as a postscript (See The Story of Civilization, Our Oriental Heritage, Volume 1, by Will Durant, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1954, p. 63)
It was also thought that the dead not only survived but also experienced hunger and other needs in the same way as they did in life. Those who were of gentle nature or performed some heroic deeds were elevated to the position of divinity. Offerings were left at their burial places, inside or outside, to keep them satisfied and content. The ill-natured among them were believed to have become malicious in death, and turning into demons they tormented the living. To avoid their coming back after death various contrivances were adopted. Sometimes the corpse was taken to the burial site in a zigzag way so as to make the dead confused and to keep him from returning. At other times, the corpse was taken out of the house through a window or a hole in the wall, which was closed up immediately thereafter. Often the grave and even the pathways back home were covered with thorns to restrict the movement of the dead. It was not unusual that the corpses were sometimes trussed up, bandaged, and buried under heavy stones to keep them where they were. The best way to avoid their return was, however, to burn them to ashes.
The dead were looked upon with both awe and fear. They could harm or assist the living. The worship of the dead as higher beings then took another step forward. Since they had wielded love, respect, and awe during their life, they turned into objects of worship. This gave rise to the cult of ancestor worship. It ensured continuity and preservation of family and social order. The loving ancestors were thus turned into deities so that many peoples worshipped only the ancestors and not gods. This type of religion flourished in Egypt, Greece and Rome, and is being followed vigorously now in Japan and China.
Since the living and the dead alike were worthy of worship, this belief later took the turn of forming human gods. As the early Greeks considered their ancestors as gods, so “in primitive theology there is no sharp or generic distinction between gods and men”. According to the Puranic legend of the Hindus in India, the first King of the Earth was Manu Svyambhuva, the son of Brahma, one of the three manifestations of God. The Hindus further believe that god Vishnu has taken incarnation, inter alia, in human forms, the most famous of which are the king Ramachandra and the cowherd Krishna. The senate of Rome declared the kings Julius Caesar and Augustus as gods. The Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the begotten son of God.
During the long history of its existence, human society has undergone moral degeneration from time to time. That has given birth to reformers, preachers, and prophets. Their followers then spread their moral teachings and the words of the Scriptures claimed to be heavenly revealed and turned them into organized religions.
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