Hinduism : An Indian Religion

Over time traditions came together to develop recognizable religious traditions which was eventually known as Hinduism. Hindu’s have many different practices such as Sanatana Dharma, Vedic worship, yoga and many other different rituals. Hindu’s also have many other beliefs and celebrations such as reincarnation, karma, prana, puja, samsara and many more. Hinduism is known for its beliefs, practices and gods and as the years pass by the religion still stands strong to what they believe.

In India there are six orthodox schools of philosophy which recognize the authority of the Vedas as divine revelation, and they generally function as pairs - Nyaya and Vaishesika, Mimamsa and Vedanta, and Samkhya and Yoga. Those who did not recognize this authority were the Jains, Buddhists, and materialists. Even in India where spiritual ideas dominate the culture there were some who were skeptical of those ideals and held to a materialist view of the world; they were called Carvaka, and their doctrine that this world is all that exists is called Lokayata.

Hinduism is known as the world's oldest religion. According to ISKCON Educational Services (2004), it is hard to construct a timeline because Hinduism has no identifiable human founder or specific origin in history. It is so old that its past goes into pre-history. It is extremely diverse with the Hindu people being more interested in the meaning of events than in providing first hand records. There is also no clear-cut divide between history and myth.

_____ 5. The bar or bat mitzvah is a coming of age ceremony in _______.

In our study of the Hinduism, the class visited The Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago (HTGC). This active temple is a house of worship that serves thousands of devotees as they pay hamage to a diverse variuety of Idol and spiritual gods. Taughted as one of the oldest religions in the world, it accepts all religious belief systems and God. In fact, the Temple is designed to accommodate any and many gods to include the practices and rites of the devotees. Our volunteer tour guide explained the Hindu theology in lthis way.

Before I read Stephen Prothero’s God Is Not One, I did not know much about Hinduism. For me, Hinduism conjured the images of bright colors, richly adorned statues, and jovial worship and dance. When we visited the Ganesh Temple in Flushing, that is exactly what I saw. Yet, now I know the reason for all these things. Although Hinduism is a largely varying tradition, it is namely about love and celebration. Given the evidence from Prothero’s book and my observations at the Ganesh Temple, Hinduism is a tradition that aims to gives purpose to human’s wandering souls through devote worship to deities and rituals.

Hinduism is a religion that is difficult to define. No one can say who the founder is, or connect it to a certain place or time. So in order to understand Hinduism, we follow a coherent set of assumptions upon which people base their lives; otherwise defined as the Indian Worldview.

India is a country full of mysteries and differences. It has a long history, a profound yet unique culture, with diversified nationalities, races, religions, languages and a huge population. The pursuit of secularism and inveteracy of sectarianism have brought huge influence to the Indian society. As the mainstream culture in India, Hinduism plays an important role in the Indian society and has dominated almost 2000 years of its history. Although in the following years since, the Indian culture gradually becomes a combination of different races, religions and languages, Hinduism still remains to be the key to dig into the development of the culture and society of India.

Hinduism - stands for the faith and the way of life most of the people who live

What elements of earlier belief systems do you see integrated into Hinduism? What were the external conditions (environmental/societal/political/economic etc.) which gave rise to the origination of Hinduism? What was it about this time period? Location? Population?

I asked some questions that would help me understand better. Hinduism is a religion that many people mix up with many others; Neelam talked a lot about some of the things that are confused. She also talked about stereotypes that many people were not even aware of. It is a common belief that all Hindus are vegetarians and worship cows. Hindus think of cows as a symbol of life and purity; they believe that cows should not be killed. Although they do worship cows, not all of them are vegetarians, in fact only 31% of Hindus are vegetarian. Hinduism, like any other religion, has symbols that are important. Aum or OM is a representation of the creation of the universe, they sometimes use it as a mantra. The Dipa is a representation of light, and the Swastika is a symbol of

The sculpture is a bronze object that is extremely detailed. It is a sculpture of a lady with a head dress that’s standing in top of another woman’s shoulders. The Dancing Shiva is an important object in the Hindus religion. It’s important because the sculpture represents the blessing of the world and symbolizes that you should fear the world. Hinduism is a major religion and religious tradition of South Asia, the oldest worldwide religion, characterized by a belief in reincarnation with a large amount of gods and goddesses.

Hinduism is the third most practiced and one of the oldest religion in the world. It is mostly practiced in south Asian countries like India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. India is also called “Hindustan” because it has the majority of the people who practice the religion. It has been evolving over thousands or years and will continue to. One of the things that are admired the most by Hindus is the rivers and the most favorite of them all is the Ganges River. It is the symbol of purity and holds the sacred power to purify.

Hinduism may be looked down upon because of the belief that cows are sacred, but the reason they should think of them as so is because in their eyes it is the reborn version of a highly ranked person in their world, it is part of their deep culture to stand by with it, and it could possibly be part of their family tree, there are three things people do not know about the hindu religion and most of those are symbols, how their custom work, and what their holy days are,

Even though the modern perception of Hinduism as a whole was popularized by the West and the Indian elite, the commencement of ideas and practices of the ancient religion can be dated back as early as 2500 BCE ( Mittal and Thursby, 2006, 22), long before the colonial impact of the West on the Orient.