Lord Harihar12th Century CE. Bhopal Museum
Splits within a religion is nothing new. Pharaoh Akhnatan broke away from the traditional Egyptian religion in ancient Egypt and established his own cult of Ra, the Sun God. In 1st Century CE Buddhism split into two schools : the Hinyana and the Mahayana. Hinduism is no exception. In ancient India we had two sects: the Shaivites and the Vaishnavites. Those who believed in Lord Shiva and and those who believed in Lord Vishnu. Like the Shias and the Sunnis, these two groups in Hinduism also fought with each other, trying to prove the superiority of one God over the other.
But in order to survive as a human race, we have learned to synthesis opposing views. Lord Harihar is a byproduct of the synthesis of Lord Shiva on the left and Lord Vishnu on the right side of the viewer. Hence the trident and the Nandi, the bull on the left and the disc and the conch shell on the right.
The debate within Hinduism is also between the aesetic and the householder, between the pure intellect ( Shiva) and the emotions ( Vishnu), between the one who abandons the society ( Shiva) and one who incarnates to save the society (Vishnu). But we did not waste too much time trying to annihilate each others' sect. We assimilated. And we have thrived as a 5000 year old civilisation.
Perhaps Harihar holds the solution to the problem of "clashes of the civilisations ". On the one hand we are in the globalisation age, yer there is fight and war all around us. We over - react to every statement; we fight over the silliest issues only trying to prove that our Gods are superior to theirs. Today the issue posed by Galib, the great Urdu poet is relevant:
" Gar tujh bin nahi koi maauzood/ phir ye hangamma e-Khuda kya hai?" ( If there is no one but One God, then what is this fight about?).
Time has come to revive the concept of synthesis, of peace, of prosperity. For the path of confrontation leads to total annihilation.
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