(Birth of religion and its rise till Vedic age)
Religion is one of the most powerful idea that has shaped the history from ancient times. Religion first comes into picture during the stone age, where stone age people used to worship the nature and probably their own ancestors at a later stage. Vedic period gave a new direction to the religion and it started influencing politics and society at a larger level and since than many new ideas were proposed by great thinkers in the form of new religions.
There has been a close relationship between politics and religion since the Vedic period, Vedic texts were the first text in the world to assign duties to a different section of society. So can we say that religion is about performing our duties or is it about the relation between a person and the controller of the world i.e god? Religion in the dictionary is defined as ‘the belief in and worship of a superhuman, especially god’, as per the definition religion is only related to the worship of god, but if this is the meaning, why the character of religion has changed and more than worshipping it is more philosophical?
In a religion, death plays a very important role, because it is believed that the real journey starts after death and one must follow religion to protect ourselves from suffering after death. Many historians believe that death is the reason that gave birth to religion. During the stone age, people started offering prayers to protect the life of people during hunting, and at a later stage, many other elements were added to it. This nature of worship was altered by the settled life of humans, now hunting was no more an issue hence the focus shifted to other elements like social status, wealth, family, and others. This complexity reached its climax when the element of Moksha was added to the religion.
If we see the Vedic period, religion has been used as a tool of administration because of people’s immense belief in a supreme personality called god. Many a time the ideas of thinkers and kings were presented as the words of the gods so that they can find easy acceptance in society. Also, characters and stories of gods were glorified as per the need of the society, for example- Indra was the most important god during the Rig Vedic age, he was described as the god of war, and this was the time when Aryans were engaged in frequent wars with other clans for the protection of cow and other animals. As there was no permanent army, the common man used to participate in these wars, and stories of Indra were used to motivate them and prepare them for war. But the position of Indra changed during the later Vedic age and Prajapati emerged as the most important god. This was because of rising resources and a permanent army with the state, people now had more resources to perform rituals. Lord Prajapati was considered as the god of creation and preservation of life. Here we can notice that even during the Vedic age the purpose of popular religion was not Moksha. These were the initial phases of religion and its impact was limited to only a few people in society especially the privileged class.