Contemporary Moral Issues

There is no one ‘Hindu’ view on any moral issue, any more than one ‘Christian’ or ‘Humanist’ view. There is only space here to indicate some Hindu perspectives on some controversial moral issues.

Marriage

Kama, including sexual pleasure, is one of the goals of human life (purusharthas) and sex is seen as natural and even sacred, for pleasure and expressing love as well as reproduction. However, devout Hindus would stress that sexual intercourse belongs only in marriage. In the past, although monogamy seems to have been the ideal and perhaps also the norm, husbands could take a second wife if the first did not have children. Stories in sacred texts may suggest that sometimes women in ancient times could have more than one husband, the famous example being Draupadi in the Mahabharata. This is quite a complicated topic as from ancient times up to the present there were many different formal and informal marriage arrangements, and different expectations for different classes. British colonial attempts to regulate ‘personal law’ on matters like marriage, divorce and widowhood were complicated by a mixture of a stated intention to respect the customs of different religious groups, and assumptions arising from the interplay of Western preconceptions and the interpretations of indigenous advisers, leading for example to the idea that what was customary in higher class groups applied to all Hindus. Post-independence the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 enforced monogamy for Hindus.

Divorce and remarriage

Ideally and traditionally marriage is for life. However separation or divorce was allowed in various circumstances in the past and divorce was made legal for Hindus in 1955. Reasons for divorce include things like adultery or desertion. Hindus might also decide to separate or divorce in order to join an ascetic religious order. For higher class Hindus, divorced wives were traditionally not allowed to remarry and their maintenance was still the responsibility of the husband.

Widowhood

Again this is complicated by diversity of custom and tradition, and things have changed over time. In pre-modern Hinduism, outliving a husband was considered a failure on the part of the wife (see also Suicide and sati), and widows were viewed negatively, not allowed to remarry and expected to live out their lives penitentially, wearing a simple white sari, and often on a minimal level of support. There were various exceptions (some married a husband’s younger brother), and remarriage of widows and divorcees was common in lower classes. Reforms aimed at improving the position of widows as defined by higher caste norms were proposed, and a campaign to enable widows to remarry led to the 1856 Hindu Widows Remarriage Act. However, some negative attitudes linger on, complicated by family economics, and various charities and government projects provide homes and welfare for widows in need.

Contraception

Traditionally having many children was seen as a blessing, particularly sons, who have significant ritual and other responsibilities towards their parents. At some earlier times and for some groups, the need for girls to marry early was associated with the imperative to maximise the opportunities for conception and hence consummation of marriage once girls attained puberty. In today’s changed circumstances, the legal age for marriage in India is 18 for women and 21 for men, and Hindus may consider it more responsible to limit their families, whether by abstinence or by using forms of contraception. Some have a preference for methods seen as ‘natural’ and against methods which could be viewed as an early form of abortion, but there is no general ‘religious’ objection to any of the common means available.

Celibacy

Celibacy is admired and expected of the unmarried and the ascetic. Sexual activity is generally viewed as a tie to the round of existence (samsara) for the one seeking moksha, and thus renounced by the ascetic, whether lifelong or in the final stage of a man’s life. There are however other perspectives which offer a more positive portrayal of sexuality for those seeking moksha, notably Shakta Tantra in which sexual intercourse, literally or symbolically, is part of the spiritual discipline.

Female sexuality

As in many other traditions female sexuality has been regarded as problematic, with a double standard in respect of expectations of men and women’s conduct. Unlike men whose nature (svabhava) is consistent with their duty (svadharma), a traditional view has been that women’s nature is wanton and lustful and thus wholly at odds with their duty to be faithful wives (pativrata), hence the need for strict oversight by the family both before and after marriage. The ideal of the ascetic renouncer, predominantly associated with men, tends to cast women as temptresses. However, those women who have challenged convention and also renounced the world have similarly refused or abandoned marriage and with it ties to family and household in favour of devotion to the divine.

Debates about same-sex relationships

Same-sex attraction and relationships have been much debated in modern India where diametrically opposed opinions have been expressed about the past. Some have insisted that homosexuality is a foreign introduction and the result of Muslim rule and/or the British Raj. For example, the Hindu nationalist politician, Subramanian Swamy, declared that it is ‘against Hindutva’. Others have been equally insistent that it is the intolerant attitude towards homosexuality that is foreign. For example, the famous Indian author, Vikram Seth, commented that it is ‘homophobia that came into India and not homosexuality’. Scholars and activists have debated whether historically homosexuality was condemned, condoned or even celebrated, citing evidence such as penalties in the Laws of Manu and erotic sculptures on Khajuraho temple friezes as contrasting evidence.

Under British colonial rule, homosexual activity was made illegal in 1860. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code read ‘intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life …. and shall also be liable to fine.’

After a long and complex process (with decriminalisation in 2009 followed by recriminalisation in 2013) homosexuality was finally decriminalised in India in 2018. Debates still continue among Hindus as to the moral status of same-sex relationships with some arguing that they are ‘unnatural’ and against the divine purpose for sexuality and others that sexual diversity is both natural and part of God’s creation. There are activist and support groups for those identifying as both queer and Hindu. The deity image Harihara (half Shiva half Vishnu, or alternatively their son) is sometimes seen as celebrating gay relationships.

Sex and gender diversity

India has long recognised a third sex/gender (tritiya prakriti; lit. ‘third nature’), challenging familiar Western categories of identification of sex, gender and sexuality. Among this third sex/gender are the hijras, understood to be neither men nor women. Traditionally they are people assigned male gender at birth who do not identify as men and often choose castration later in life, hence now considered to be examples of transgendered people. The term may also be used for those born with an intersex condition.

Becoming a hijra generally entails a rite of passage in which castration is accompanied by aspects that symbolise marriage and childbirth, and which invests the initiate with the power of the fertility goddess, Bahuchara Mata. Consequently, blessings given by hijras can be part of ceremonies celebrating birth and marriage. Hijras are also associated with Shiva whose mythology features both erotic and ascetic elements. Hijras usually choose to or have to leave their families and live with other hijras in communities with the senior leader known as a guru, earning a living as entertainers and sometimes sex workers. In 2014 India’s Supreme Court extended legal recognition to the third sex/gender and hence to hijras though there remain many obstacles to overcome before equality is achieved.

Contemporary Moral Issues

There is no one ‘Hindu’ view on any moral issue, any more than one ‘Christian’ or ‘Humanist’ view. There is only space here to indicate some Hindu perspectives on some controversial moral issues.

Concepts such as the divine dwelling in all beings, or ahimsa (non-violence) imply that killing and harming are wrong in principle, but there are debates about how to apply this in practice.

War and Peace

Peace (shanti) is highly prized as is non-violence (ahimsa). However, the art of warfare (Dhanurveda) is one of the supplements to the Veda, the Vedic pantheon features Indra as king and warrior and the ruling warrior (rajanya/kshatriya) class have a duty to protect society, by violence if necessary, indicating the existence and legitimacy of warfare. In the fourth century BCE, the emperor Chandragupta Maurya invaded other Indian states in the formation of his empire, as did his famous grandson Ashoka before he renounced violence and turned to Buddhism, and there are historical examples of later Indian rulers campaigning beyond India in what is now Indonesia or Sri Lanka. However, the prevailing Hindu view is that war is only acceptable in defence or to prevent greater evil. In the Bhagavad-Gita, for instance, Krishna urges Arjuna to fight on the grounds that there is no greater good for a warrior than a righteous war with the prospect of heaven and, conversely, to fail to fight would be a dereliction of duty and dishonour worse than death. Even so, Gandhi was insistent that the text should be interpreted as an allegory of an internal conflict where the battle field is the human heart, the combatants are good and bad tendencies and Krishna is ‘the Dweller within’. Notwithstanding Gandhi’s influence on independent India, India as a Hindu-majority state has armed forces and has fought wars. Latterly, it has acquired nuclear weapons with a testing programme called Operation Shakti and missiles called Prithvi and Agni after Hindu deities.

Death penalty

Hindus differ in their views on the death penalty. There are references in sacred texts which support its use to deter the worst of crimes, but also many teachers who state that such violence is wrong in all cases. Contemporary India retains the death penalty, but in recent decades it has been used very rarely and only for particularly shocking crimes such as the 2020 execution of those guilty of a gang-rape and murder.

Suicide and sati

Suicide is generally considered wrong, as life is sacred, and with belief in karma and rebirth, does not achieve any desire to escape unbearable suffering. There are occasional historical examples of heroic warriors preferring death to capture or captured women preferring death to dishonour.

A controversial issue is that of sati (perfect woman), sometimes spelt suttee, where a widow would choose to die either on her husband’s funeral pyre or at a later date rather than live on. Sati can be viewed as an admirable act of a perfect faithful wife, or a crime against women equivalent to murder, rather than suicide, as pressures may be put on women to comply. After campaigning by Hindu reformers and Christian evangelists, the British imperial rulers made sati illegal in 1829 and it remained illegal in independent India. Nevertheless, there are shrines to women who chose to become sati in previous times viewed as goddesses (satimatas) who can provide help. Although illegal, there are occasional recent cases, such as Roop Kanwar in 1987, which led to a new law, the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, also making it an offence to glorify the practice (see Sources of authority within the Hindu tradition). Some contemporary Hindus criticise the emphasis put on sati by Westerners, viewing this as part of creating a negative image of Hindus, when it was never widespread and the act has been illegal for nearly 200 years.

Abortion

On the one hand, all life is sacred and should not be harmed. Life is considered to start at conception, and may be viewed as a result of karma, even if the circumstances are difficult. Several ancient texts condemn any causing of a miscarriage/killing of an unborn child. However, one exception in some texts seems to have been to save the mother’s life, and Hindus may argue for other circumstances where abortion is the most compassionate action. Abortion was made legal in India in 1971. When medical technology (post 1980s) made it possible to tell the sex of a child before birth, there was evidence of selective female foeticide, leading to a legal ban on prenatal sex screening and female foeticide in India in 1994. Although most Hindus would condemn the practice, it is linked to a cultural preference for sons (hardly unknown in other cultures), in part going back to the ancient Vedic requirement for a son to ensure that the correct rituals were performed after death, and in part economic in a society where a son contributed to the family income whereas a daughter incurred costs such as a dowry.

Euthanasia

The sacredness of life and the requirement to accept suffering as karma which would only have to be undergone in a future life if not in this one, combine to make euthanasia generally unacceptable. However, the practice of fasting and the idea of samnyasa (renunciation) at the final stage of life mean that an elderly and ill person who considered they had done all they could in this life, might give up eating and drinking and thus pass away somewhat earlier. The Community of the Many Names of God’s Skanda Vale Hospice is one example of a Hindu initiative to support those with life-limiting conditions as a form of selfless service that provides for the spiritual and other needs of the dying.

Killing and harming animals and vegetarianism

The Hindu belief in reincarnation, as well as in the sacredness of all life, leads to many Hindus having a vegetarian diet. Even those Hindus who do eat meat avoid beef in recognition of the sacredness of the cow. This aspect of Hinduism is so well-known that ‘sacred cow’ has become a metaphor in English. Several reasons are given for the special nature of the cow, including its vital importance to the rural economy, selfless provision of milk for others, dung for fuel, plaster and fertiliser, and bulls for transport. The cow also represents mother earth on whom all humans depend. The milk provided by the well cared for cows at the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) UK headquarters, Bhaktivedanta Manor, has won prizes for its quality. Protecting cows has also become symbolic of commitment to the whole Hindu way of life and identity, and so harming a cow has meaning beyond the fate of one animal. One example is the controversy in 2007 when there were international protests and legal challenges as the Welsh government sought to slaughter the bull Shambo at the Community of the Many Names of God, because of testing positive for bovine TB during an outbreak. The campaign eventually failed to save Shambo. Some animal sacrifices are offered to goddesses though most offerings are now vegetarian (fruit, flowers, dairy products such as milk and ghee) despite the prominence of animal sacrifice in ancient Vedic ritual.

There is a variety of attitudes to the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. For many Hindus all intoxicants should be avoided as they both cloud the mind and impair moral judgment. A few states in India are ‘dry,’ forbidding the sale of alcohol. Others may take the view that moderate consumption is acceptable. The god Shiva is sometimes associated with smoking cannabis, some groups of ascetics use it as an aid to meditation, and alcohol may feature in offerings to some local deities and in tantric rituals. Other Hindus will criticise this, and even argue that the mysterious ‘soma’ of ancient times (see Vedic ritual) was not an intoxicant.

Many aspects of Hindu tradition would support concern for the natural environment. The idea that the divine dwells in all things, the admiration of a simple life of self-control, respect for the cow and all living things, widespread vegetarianism, the earth as a goddess, the general principle of ahimsa or non-harming, and the fundamental concept of dharma, the order and harmony of the cosmos, natural world and human society would all support an ecological consciousness. Quotations can be found in Vedic texts advising against cutting down trees or polluting rivers. In addition to the cow, other animals such as monkeys, snakes, elephants and tigers can be seen as sacred. Many plants are sacred, such as tulsi (a form of basil) associated with Vishnu. There are sacred trees and sacred landscapes such as the area around Vrindavan connected with Krishna. Belief in karma and reincarnation means that issues such as disastrous climate change or running out of resources will not just affect your descendants, but your future self. The possibility of reincarnation in animal form also makes the divide between human and animal less sharp, and the animal or part-animal avatars of Vishnu, Ganesh’s elephant head, and the animal ‘vehicles’ associated with each deity have the same effect on the divide between animals and deities.

However, like contemporary feminism or gay rights, environmentalism as we know it today, the threats of human-caused climate change, pollution caused by plastics, transport and other effects of modern industrialisation, was not an ‘issue’ in Vedic times or for much of human history. Humans just did not make such a negative impact until recent centuries, although there are historical examples: one theory for the decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation is deforestation causing drought conditions. There are aspects of Hindu teaching that may suggest that environmental action is not the most important thing on which to be working. The ultimate goal in many Hindu philosophies is liberation from the material world, which is only of secondary importance or reality. It is accepted that we are in the decay phase (Kali Yuga) of this particular universe which will inevitably come to an end, but there will be other universes. This perhaps could take some of the urgency out of saving the planet. Nevertheless, the resources are there in the Hindu tradition for creating a contemporary Hindu environmentalism which views concern for the planet and all beings who dwell upon her as an important part of the spiritual quest rather than a distraction from it. Moreover, in practice there are many Hindu-inspired environmental activists and projects such as the Chipko movement against deforestation started in the 1970s, or the Bhumi project (started in the UK and USA) more recently. One specific UK example is the seven million cans collected for recycling as part of the fundraising efforts for building the Swaminarayan mandir in Neasden.

Hindus may look to characters in their sacred texts or saints from their history as role models along with the founders, leaders and teachers of particular traditions. Several examples, both male and female, can be found in other sections of this essay. These include deities, avatars of Vishnu such as Rama, founders of philosophical traditions such as Shankara, founders of sampradayas such as Chaitanya, saints from the modern period such as Ramakrishna, and the many female role models from Gargi in the Upanishads through Sita and Savitri in the Epics to ascetics, gurus and activists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries listed in Gender and the role and status of women. Hindus may also admire and seek to emulate members of their own community and others with outstanding qualities.

Many Hindus find in Mahatma Gandhi a role model whose moral example has been a source of inspiration in their lives. One of his closest disciples and colleagues, Vinoba Bhave (1895-1982), has become a role model in his own right, having taken up Gandhi’s commitment to sarvodaya (universal welfare) and applied it in the form of Bhoodan Yajna (Land Gift Movement) in which he set about persuading landowners to donate land to landless labourers. Gandhi’s influence extends beyond Hindus and he has also been a role model for Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela who were impressed by his belief in ahimsa (non-violence) and his advocacy of Satyagraha (Truth Force) as a practical method of non-violent action.

Hindu tradition has long held that the divine or the truth is known experientially. The oldest Vedic texts are held to have been ‘heard’ directly by rishis (sages/seers). The Upanishads contain the teaching of those who not only debated intellectual ideas about the divine but spent time in meditative and ascetic practices, and are thus considered to have gained direct insight into reality and intuitive awareness of the divine. Likewise, the philosopher Shankara (eighth/ninth century) was also a renouncer practising forms of meditation and based his teaching on direct experiential insight as well as reason and sacred texts. He founded mathas (monasteries) to continue both practice and teaching. Founders of particular sects often had deep personal experiences such as Chaitanya (fifteenth/sixteenth century), founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism (of which ISKCON is a development), who frequently experienced states of devotional ecstasy. Ramakrishna (nineteenth century) is famous for teaching that all religions are paths to the same goal as a result of his mystical experiences which were mainly of the Goddess, but also incorporated elements of Christianity and Islam such as visions of Jesus. Those who have direct experience and insight are then able to share their understanding with others, as happened in the Ramakrishna Math and Mission founded by Vivekananda. There is thus a tradition of authoritative personal religious experience from the ancient rishis to modern mystics.

Many Hindus engage in meditation as part of their spiritual practice (sadhana), and forms of devotional worship can be seen as meditation in focusing the mind on the divine. However, meditation is perhaps most closely associated with various forms of Yoga. The word Yoga is an umbrella term for different methods to attain spiritual insight and eventually liberation. In the Ashtanga Yoga of classical Yoga, the eight ‘limbs’ combine the moral and the physical with the mental in a process of progressive withdrawal from the external world and ever deeper inward focus culminating in a higher state of consciousness where the Purusha (Person) is no longer confused with Prakriti (material nature, including the ordinary intellect). For more on Purusha and Prakriti see Hindu philosophies and Human nature and destiny. In the Kundalini Yoga of Shakta Tantra (see Human nature and destiny), the discipline involves visualisation of the chakras (centres) in the mystical physiology of the subtle body, together with the chanting of corresponding mantras (ritual utterances) and the employment of pranayama (breathing techniques to control the vital energies) to raise the Kundalini (coiled serpent power) through the Sushumna (central channel), piercing each chakra in turn until Shiva and Shakti (male and female divine principles) are united.

Forms of Yoga, labelled ‘Modern Yoga’ to represent the mixture of Western with Indian ideas and influences made possible and/or necessary by modernity, have proliferated over the last 150 years or so though with greater or lesser emphasis on physical and mental aspects. Examples include Iyengar Yoga which focuses upon asana (posture) and Transcendental Meditation which features twice-daily mantra-based sessions. Both in India and globally, meditation, including many forms of Yoga, has proven popular, often now presented to a wider public as a way to manage stress and enhance well-being, and the ability to draw upon what (apparently) are age-old techniques such as those taught in Hinduism only increase its appeal for many.

Mantras (ritual utterances) are identified with Shabda (‘Sound’ or ‘Word’), consisting in speech acts – syllables, words, phrases, sentences – believed to be imbued with power and to derive from the divine. Mantras feature in different forms of Yoga and in many other types of Hinduism from the most ancient to the most recent. There are Vedic mantras among which the Gayatri Mantra from theRig-Veda, invoking the sun god Savitar as the source of enlightenment, has been hailed as the most important. It is still recited regularly today by many Hindus, and sometimes seen as the basic Hindu recitation (ability to recite it was used by a violent mob as a way of telling Hindu from Muslim in the recent BBC adaptation of A Suitable Boy). Although the literal translation of the Gayatri Mantra makes specific reference to a particular Vedic sun god (in Dermot Killingley’s translation ‘Let us meditate upon the excellent splendour of [the sun god] Savitar, may he stir our thoughts’; and in Marr and Taylor’s ‘Let us meditate upon that longed for splendour of the god Savitar who when pondered upon will urge us onwards’), contemporary translations tend to refer to the divine more generally as in Om. Let us meditate on the radiance of the divine, may it inspire and illuminate our intellects’ or ‘May the eternal light of the universe enlighten our minds and hearts’. It might be worth comparing translations in different textbooks and ‘pondering’ upon the implications of different phrasing – perhaps to support a monotheistic interpretation or wording that would be acceptable to a wide range of people from different religious/spiritual backgrounds. The Gayatri Mantra usually takes the place of the ancient requirement of learning the Vedic texts in the upanayana (initiation) ceremony, as a suitable start to the ‘student’ stage of life. The Gayatri Mantra is sometimes personified as a minor goddess, Gayatri, whose image may be seen in some UK temples.

There are also mantras in modern and contemporary movements, notably the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) ‘Mahamantra’ (Great Mantra): Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare. The chanting of the Mahamantra is prescribed as the main spiritual practice, described by the Society’s founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, as producing a ‘transcendental vibration’ that revives devotees’ Krishna consciousness.

Probably the best known mantra is the sacred syllable ‘OM’ or ‘A U M’ which is deemed to be the seed (bija) of all mantras. It is often an integral part of other mantras such as ‘Om nama Shivaya’ ‘homage to Shiva’ or ‘Om Shakti’, ‘homage to the Goddess’ and is pronounced at the commencement and conclusion of both worship and meditation. As original or primordial sound, it is attuned to ultimate reality (or the divine or the whole universe in the form of sound) and its constituents ‘a’, ‘u’ and ‘m’ can be related, for example, to the members of the trimurti (three forms), the gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and, with the addition of the diacritic mark under the ‘m’, to four states of awareness, waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep and the experience of moksha (release, liberation) (see also section on Symbols).

The rituals and ceremonies of traditions are often difficult to teach, in part because they are often merely described without much attention to the meaning for participants, and partly because of a somewhat negative attitude to ritual present in those parts of Western culture influenced by the protestant Reformation rather than Catholic tradition. It was noted above (in the section on What is Hinduism?) that some scholars reject the term ‘religion’ for ‘Eastern’ or ‘Dharmic’ traditions because they tend to put more emphasis on ritual practice than truth claims and so are unlike Western, especially protestant, understandings of ‘religion’. The scholar S.N. Balagangadhara calls ritual ‘performative or practical knowledge’, which is central in Hinduism in the way that doctrinal knowledge is in Abrahamic traditions. Indeed, Hinduism is often described as more orthoprax than orthodox, that is, more concerned with right practice than right belief.

Rituals serve many purposes. They can be seen as powerful ways of experiencing the divine beyond anything achievable by intellectual ideas. A book written for teachers by Rasamandala Das from ISKCON Educational Services (see bibliography) quotes a devotee describing the ‘sweet and peaceful experience’ of worship. Rituals can make abstract philosophy accessible at the level of emotion, as when ritual surrounding death can help with grieving. The routines of ritual can be a useful reminder of what one holds to be most important in life. Rituals are also an important way of expressing allegiance and identity, especially where, as in the Hindu tradition, one may be using words and actions that have been passed down from ancient ancestors for thousands of years. As well as connecting with the past, rituals also connect one to the present community. Thus ritual could feature in the sections on ‘words and beyond’ as a form of expression or ‘identity and community’ as a means of enhancing the sense of belonging, but we chose to emphasise the experiential to counteract the idea of ‘meaningless ritual’ and to underline the centrality of ritual in Hinduism.

Early Vedic ritual was centred upon sacrifice (yajna) performed on plots of land temporarily consecrated for the purpose (vedi), not the worship of images (murti) in a permanent temple (mandir). The purpose of sacrifice seems to have been to ensure that the gods and the natural phenomena associated with them such as rain (Indra) or the sun (Surya) would benefit the persons making the sacrifice in this life, as well as ensuring a happy afterlife, which in ancient times seems to have been envisaged as the world of the ancestors rather than reincarnation and liberation. The importance of sacrifice is reflected in the role accorded to it in Vedic creation myth where the gods perform the primordial and prototypical act of sacrifice when they dismember Primal Man from whom both the physical universe and human society originate (see The cosmos and the natural world).

The centrality of sacrifice in ancient times is demonstrated by the membership of the Vedic pantheon in which important gods such as Agni (Fire), the goddess Vac (Speech) and Soma (an intoxicant) were divine forms of parts of the sacrifice. Soma, for example, was an intoxicant extracted from a plant source, apparently used in ancient Zoroastrian as well as Vedic rituals. It was both drunk and offered to the gods during some sacrifices. Exactly which plant or mixture of plants it was and what its effects were are debated, some arguing that it was hallucinogenic and suggesting psilocybin or other mushrooms, others that it was more like amphetamine in effects, and suggesting the plant ephedra, others a mixture of extracts of poppy, cannabis and an ephedra-like plant, still others suggesting various other plants, perhaps something with similar effects to the South American ayahuasca. Why its use was discontinued is not known. It may be that the plant or plants became hard to find or the knowledge of the process lost. Some Hindus argue that it was not a drug but a metaphor for intoxication with divine love.

Some sacrifices were fairly simple such as the Agnihotra (Oblation to Agni), which was an obligation for the twice-born (dvija) householder who should make twice daily offerings of milk and water into the household ritual fires while reverencing the gods, the ancestors, and the seven rishis (sages/seers). Other sacrifices required the expertise of specialist priests, and could involve animal offerings as well as offerings of grains, fruit, ghee (clarified butter) and milk. Among the most elaborate and expensive sacrifices was the Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice), a ritual of sovereignty limited to royalty. Although not widespread today, some animal sacrifice continues to be a feature of Hinduism in parts of India and Nepal, especially in worship of the Goddess such as the goat offerings to Kali in her Kolkata temple and animal sacrifices to other goddesses such as Shitala the goddess of smallpox and other infectious diseases.

As the Vedic period developed, the sacrifice gained in importance so that the performance of the sacrifice in itself was believed to be essential to the maintenance of the cosmos. The pantheon was also changing with deities of a more abstract or universal character (though often maintaining links with creation and the sacrifice) such as Hiranyagabha (the cause of the universe), Brihaspati (the divine priest) and Prajapati (the source of creation and the power of sacrifice). Indeed, by the close of the Vedic period, ideas about sacrifice differed significantly from earlier Vedic ones both in respect of nature and purpose. The power of ritual came to be understood as a mental process internal to the individual rather than occurring literally and externally. Hence, in the Shvetasvatara Upanishad, the sacrifice becomes a metaphor in which the sacrificial kindling of fire is reinterpreted in terms of the body, mantra and meditation. Likewise, the sacrifice was seen in terms of the predominantly otherworldly goals associated with the stress upon moksha (release, liberation) and the growing importance of renunciation in comparison to the more material concerns of the householder. This is evident in the Chandogya Upanishad where sacrifice is identified with brahmacharya (the celibate state of traditional Vedic studentship) as the means to self-realisation.

Elements of Vedic ritual continue to this day, especially the importance of fire and fire offerings in lifecycle ceremonies such as marriage. Versions of the Agnihotra continue to be performed to ensure the welfare of the household and to contribute towards order and harmony on a broader natural and social basis. Vedic deities and stories connected with them (such as Indra the storm god) still feature in Hindu tradition, but in general much Vedic ritual as well as some of the mythology and deities with which it was associated has declined in importance and been replaced over the millennia by other deities becoming more important and by devotional practices such as image worship. However, Vedic ritual focused on the sacred fire has been revived in the modern era, in part because of the campaigns of the nineteenth century Arya Samaj which reintroduced Agnihotra and other fire-based rituals to replace image worship.