Hinduism: An Overview

• Hinduism is the main religion in India, where over 80% of the population identifies as Hindu
• Islam, Christianity, and Sikhism are the next largest religions in India
• Hindus recognize great diversity within their religion
• "Hinduism" was not created by Hindus, but by ancient Persians to describe people east of the Indus River
• The British later used "Hinduism" to distinguish Indians by religion
• Hindus traditionally referred to their religious activities as dharma (duty)
• They distinguished themselves as Aryans, followers of Brahmins, or devotees of a particular god
• Today, many Hindus accept "Hindu" and "Hinduism" despite its diversity
• Julius Lipner compares Hinduism to a banyan tree; it has no central trunk but is a single entity

Timeline of Hinduism

• 2300-2000 BCE: Indus Valley civilization at its height
• 2000-1500 BCE: Decline of Indus Valley civilization
• 1700-1500 BCE: Aryans migrate to Indus Valley; the Rig-Veda is composed
• 1200-900 BCE: Completion of the Collections
• 900 BCE: Aryan peoples spread eastward to the Ganges River
• 800-600 BCE: The Brahmanas are composed
• 500-400 BCE: The first Upanishads are composed; Buddhism begins
• 5th-4th century: The caste system begins to take shape
• 300 BCE to 300 CE: The Mahabharata and Ramayana are composed, and the practice of puja begins
• 3rd century BCE: Ashoka becomes king of the Mauryan dynasty
• 1st century CE: The Bhagavad Gita is composed
• 2nd century CE: First evidence of Hindu temples
• 3rd-4th century CE: Devotional practices (bhakti) become popular in south India among Tamils
• 350 CE: The first Puranas are composed
• 7th century CE: Devotional practices (bhakti) are widely used in Hinduism
• 1000 CE: Muslims enter the Punjab
• 1206-1526 CE: The Delhi Sultanate
• 1526 CE-18th century: The Mughal Dynasty
• Mid-13th century: Buddhism disappears from most of India
• 15th century CE: Sikhism founded
• 1600 CE: The East India Company establishes offices in Kolkata
• 1757 CE: The beginning of British colonial domination
• 18th and 19th centuries: The Hindu Renaissance
• 1869-1948 CE: Mohandas Gandhi
• 1872-1950 CE: Aurobindo Ghosh
• 1947 CE: End of British rule; millions of Hindus and Muslims are uprooted and resettled during India’s Partition, which created Pakistan
• 1950: The Indian Constitution prohibits discrimination based on caste
• 1980s: The resurgence of Hindu Nationalism

Origins of Hinduism

• Began in the middle of the second millennium BCE in the Indus Valley
• The Indus Valley is a fertile region fed by five tributaries of the Indus River
• Today this area is known as the Punjab, divided between Pakistan and India
• The Indus Valley civilization flourished from 2300-2000 BCE

Aryans and the Vedas

• Most of what constituted the first period of Hinduism came from Aryans, nomadic herding people
• Aryans used an Indo-European language called Sanskrit
• Sanskrit became the sacred language of Hinduism
• The word "Aryan" is associated with Nazism, but its origins are much older
• The swastika is a religious symbol used in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism for centuries
• It derives from an ancient Sanskrit term for well-being
• The swastika is associated with Ganesha, the Wheel of Law, and samsara
• The Aryan composed a body of religious literature called the Veda, Sanskrit for “knowledge.”
• The Rig-Veda is the oldest and most important Veda and contains over 1000 hymns honoring Vedic gods

Vedic Gods and Priests

• The gods worshiped by the Aryans controlled order in society, nature, and the cosmos
• They opposed anti-gods/demons, who promoted chaos
• Priests called Brahmins used Vedic hymns to praise the gods and offered sacrifices (yajna)
• The priests formed a bond between themselves and the unseen divine
• There was a shift in Hinduism from theism to monism in the latter Upanishads
• Brahman is the single, divine essence or principle pervading everything