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by Prof. C. Suriyakumaran

(Published by The Department of Hindu Religions and Cultural Affairs)

Reviewed by Justice C. V. Vigneswaran

Hinduism is not like other religions. It has no founder, no fixed set of common tenets to be compulsorily believed and no single path towards spiritual realization. It is the oldest in the world among practiced religions. Its direction of Life has produced the most number of extraordinary men and women—all spiritual giants—at various Ages.

To explain such a remarkable religion to Hindus and non-Hindus is no easy task. It needs a clear analytical mind, a universal catholic approach and the ability to empathise with the Hindu religious culture and ethos and at the same time to have been imbued with its philosophy or metaphysic.

Prof. Suriyakumaran aided by his multifariously rich background, academic, professional and familial, has done wonderfully well in penning this concise, compact and yet compendious monograph on Hinduism revealing his ability and suitability in undertaking this task.

The first edition of this remarkable work was in fact published in 1990 by the then Department of Hindu Religious Affairs, and released at a packed meeting, which I attended as well. It had long been sold out, both here and abroad, and the new edition has become both timely and most welcome.

The professor’s academic and professional achievements are only too well known. Inter alia, he was United Nations Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific and later Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His books include The Wealth of Poor Nations sponsored by the London School of Economics; and “The Autumn 91 LSE Lectures on Environment Planning for Development” on which Jan Tinbergen, the World’s First Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, wrote a rare commentary of endorsements on what he called “truly innovative ideas”. The print and electronic media have carried many of his addresses and articles worldwide. He has been held in high esteem by many world leaders. Our own S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the former Prime Minister of Ceylon (as Sri Lanka then was) was a supporter of Prof. Suriyakumaran. The King of Thailand knighted him for his outstanding services and contributions while he functioned in the United Nations. He received the UN Sasakawa World Environment Award in 1995, the award being equivalent to the Nobel Prize on the subject.

But apart from his academic and professional background, the fact that the professor was born and brought up within a traditional Hindu family has helped him to be nurtured in the Hindu environment. If religion is a way of life, one’s way of life constitutes his religion.

The professor’s paper on life and its purpose, “Illusion and Reality” was written for his University Philosophy Circle when he was just nineteen years old. In his present book, his ability to exposit Hinduism within the space of a mere three dozen pages stems from his deep appreciation and understanding of the Hindu way of life and its philosophy even from his formative years.

The book itself is a brief but lucid exposition of the basic tenets of Hinduism. Reading through it I was reminded of the anagrams we as students used to prepare for our examinations in law, a crisp, terse word or phrase we used to form out of the copious notes before us, for easy recall of the subject at the examination hall. Often, in this book, there are words or phrases which contain ideas of much wider depth and range.

Very correctly the professor has distinguished between perennial philosophy and social (or organised) religion. He has said at page 19 of the book: “A Universal Philosophy of truths and knowns has no bearing on particular religions. Each particular religion would be appropriate in its own place, indeed, even proper”. He infers that social religions can be varied and specific in relevance as they have different locations. Adherents of various religions often hold dearly to the locational specifics and their local religio-idiosyncracies forgetting the essence of their respective religions.

A Middle Eastern religion taking birth in a desert would naturally “view” Divinity in open space. Not necessarily so the religions which thrived among a naturally luxuriant vegetation environment. In a desert where water was scarce and precious a religious leader may have decreed that only specified parts of the body need be compulsorily cleaned before entering the portals of the Divine. To insist that what was specific and local to a location should be an essential pre-requisite of true religion in an area of plentiful supply of water would naturally lead to confusion among adherents. Stressing of the peripherals leads to bewilderment in respect of dogmas and symbolisms and ultimately to abuse and even violence.

The professor has been alive to these peculiarities among adherents of religions and has therefore explained the need to shun divisiveness that could be the by-product of possessiveness of social or organised religions based on incidental locational details. He criticises the claim by some to “uniqueness” merely due to the particular manifestation of the Divine in a given localised environment. He has stated at page 20: “What is made manifest is simply a specific of the indescribable unknown, all one and the same”. There cannot be two Absolutes. But the one Absolute could be referred to by differently located people by different names. That is why the Vedas say “Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti—that which exists is one, Sages call it by various names”.

In an apt quotation, he cites the fervent prayer of the Hindu Saint Dikshaitar in which the latter pleads:

“Lord, in my meditations, I have attributed forms to Thee who art Formless.”

“In singing hymns of Thee, I have belied the truth that Thou art Indescribable.”

“By going on pilgrimages I have denied Thy Omnipresence.”

“Forgive me, O Lord, these Threefold Trespasses!”

The professor has taken a lesson from the variety of thoughts and tenets which had gone on to make up the Sanadana Dharma (the perennial Philosophy-Hinduism) in vogue for centuries, to use it successfully to champion universality among modern day religions. Truly the book is directed to Hindus as well as non-Hindus alike.

It is not for me to expatiate or paraphrase an already concise handbook prepared by Prof. Suriyakumaran for the understanding of the Hindu religion. He has encapsulated the beliefs, scriptures and doctrines of the Hindu religion under the heading “The Religion” (Part A) and the premises, sources and tenets of Hinduism under the heading “The Perennial Philosophy” (Part B).

The book introduces Hindusim in its essentials. It would be a valuable asset to any library personal or public. It is easy reading for those who wish to learn about an ancient universal religion still in vogue as well as specificities relating to such a religion from the philosophical and metaphysical angles.

Among the author’s dedications in the earlier edition, were those whom the professor addresses as “those whose ancestors were Hindus and to whom the book was a window on their own timeless heritage”.

Among such readers and savants was the late Justice Crossette Thambyah who came looking for him to say that he had indeed been Hindu-Christian all his years and that this book had given him so much reason for having been so.

So too, the late Britto Muttunayagam of Law College repute and others.

In the 1930s, S. J. Gunasekeram of Kopay then Regional Director for Education of the North, would drop in at Prof. Suriyakumaran’s ancestral Jaffna home when he was there and once declared to him, as he believed Suriyakumaran was a young person who should know—”Thamby, I am a Hindu Christian, not just a Christian.”

The professor should be congragulated for this service to mankind.