Lehal Library

Binh of Sikhism 19 The renaissance of Hinduism began in the south of India some time after the 9th century AD. Two groups of saintly orders, the Alvars and tbe Adyars, LOok up its cause and struck at the weakest point of Buddhism and Jainism-the absence of emotional contem in their code of ethics. The Alvars championed the cause of Vishnu, the Adyars of Shiva. But both gave lheir respective deity the status of the One Supreme God. They relaxed the rigours of the caste system and allowed members of the lower orders to join in worship. They spread their message through hymns of love and praise of God. The millions who, because of their inability to understand the high moral tone of the Jain and Buddhist ethics, bad been left in cold isolation, felt the wann enveloping embrace of a new Hinduism which believed in One God, the equality of mankind, and worship through community hymn singing. The tide began to tum. Buddhism fled from the shores of India and Jainism was submerged. Just when Hinduism had come back into its own, it was faced with the challenge of Islam, which had firmly planted its green standard in the soil of India. The Background: Islam Commercial interc0urse between Arabia and India had been going on from times immemorial. Every spring as the monsoon clouds gathered over the Arabian sea, Arabs loaded d1eir dhows with dates and aromatic herbs produced in their oases. When the winds turned eastwards the" unfolded their sails and let t.be sea breezes waft their boats to the shores of India. A few days before the rains broke over the Western Ghats, Arabian vessels were safely moored in Indian pons and their cargo stored in the warehouses of merchant princes. The people living on the western coast of India, stretching from the mouth of the lndus along the Gulf of Cambay and the Western Ghats right down to the southernmost tip of Cape Comorin, were as familiar with the annual coming of Arab traders as they were with the flocks of monsoon birds which flew ahead of the rain clouds coming from East Africa. Both were almost as ancient a phenomenon as the monsoon itself. The only difference was that whereas the