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CONTEXTS RELIGION
Religion It often surprises Western visitors to learn that Nepal is, by a huge margin, a Hindu country, not a Buddhist one. That’s what the statistics say, anyway. In truth, both religions are underpinned by shared tantric traditions that are distinctively Himalayan. For long the subcontinent’s last great Hindu kingdom, Nepal was also the birthplace of Buddhism. Today, you can broadly judge a Nepali’s religion by altitude: Tibetan-style Buddhism prevails on the ridgetops and in the high Himalayas, where you’ll find Sherpas, Tamangs and other Bhotiya or Tibetan peoples; the Madheshi peoples of the plains, and the caste Hindus of the Middle Hills, are fairly orthodox Hindu. In the hilly heartland of the country, Nepal’s ethnic groups intertwine Hinduism with animist or nature-worshipping traditions, ancestor veneration and shamanistic practices, often worshipping local gods under nominally Hindu names. Many Rais and Limbus, however, are partly or largely “Hinduized” in terms of religion, while Magars and Gurungs have been more strongly influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. In the Kathmandu Valley, the Newars practise their own extraordinary, tolerant mix of the two main religions, bound together by Nepal’s vibrant tantric legacy. Long supported by the monarchy and Brahmin-dominated government, many Hindu institutions are now facing a more uncertain future. Elements within the Maoist movement are aggressively secular, and in 2008 the government attempted to throw traditional priests out of the Pashupatinath temple and withdrew funding for key Kathmandu festivals. By contrast, Buddhist and indigenous religious groups are enjoying something of a renaissance – partly thanks to the mighty amounts of foreign funding that Tibetan Buddhism attracts. The ethnic groups of the hills, meanwhile, are increasingly asserting political and religious autonomy, rejecting the creeping Hinduization of past decades and turning back to local traditions.
Hinduism Hinduism isn’t so much a religion as dharma, meaning duty, faith – an entire way of life. Hindus seek the divine not in books or prayer meetings but in the ritual rhythms of the day and the seasons – festivals are hugely important – and in the very fabric of family and social relationships. Having no common church or institution, Hinduism’s many sects and cults preach different dogmas and emphasize different scriptures, and worshippers can follow many paths to enlightenment. By absorbing other faiths and doctrines, rather than seeking to suppress them, Hinduism has flourished longer than any other major religion. According to the philosophical Upanishads, the soul (atman) of each living thing is like a lost fragment of the universal soul – brahman, the ultimate reality – while ipi8hfBu+Fu1Tqp6g5eaALs= everything in the physical universe is mere illusion (maya). To reunite with brahman, the individual soul must go through a cycle of rebirths (samsara), ideally moving up the scale with each reincarnation. Determining the soul’s progress is its karma, its accumulated “just desserts” (nothing to do with kama, which means sexual desire), which is reckoned by the degree to which the soul conformed to dharma in previous lives. Thus a low-caste Hindu must accept his or her lot to atone for past sins, and follow dharma in the hope of achieving a higher rebirth. The theoretical goal of every Hindu is to cast off all illusion, achieve release (moksha) from the cycle of rebirths, and dissolve into brahman.
