Hinduism : A Very Interesting Religion And Way Of Life

Hinduism is a religion practiced all over the world and has gained a large following. Hinduism got its start in the Indus Valley civilization and since then has evolved into a open and tolerant religion upon which every and anybody from all walks of life are welcome. In Hinduism there is a divine reality which can best be described as all reality is ultimately one for monistic Hindus or that there is no distinction between the divine reality and the rest of reality for dualistic Hindus. Either way it is put Hindus try to understand divine reality through their different gods, images, nature, and avatars.

Hinduism is a major religious and cultural tradition of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a diverse family of devotional and ascetic cults and philosophical schools, all sharing a belief in reincarnation and involving the worship of a large pantheon of deities.

The question of origin- In order for us to completely understand Hinduism, we must first understand that this a philosophical system of beliefs. To give a definite origin of Hinduism would be very hard to address because there are no known origins. There are no beginning points or a name of a founder. Hinduism can be traced all the way back to around 1500 B.C in what we now call India and has a lot of different beliefs, philosophies and views that contradict each other. All Hindus believe in one God, a supreme being known as Brahma. Brahma is an entity believed to live in every single facet of reality and existence throughout the whole universe. Brahma is both impersonal and unknowable and is often believed to exist in three separate forms: Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and Shiva, the Destroyer.

“Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma ("eternal spiritual path") began about 4000 years ago in India. It was the religion of an ancient people known as the Aryans ("noble people") whose philosophy, religion, and customs are recorded in their sacred texts known as the Vedas” (United Religions). Vedas are written in the ancient language of India, called Sanskrit. Vedas means “knowledge” or “sacred lore.” The Vedas gives great intelligence about the variety of Gods from the Vedic period, 2000 to 500 BCE (Molloy,78).

The Mayan have worked really hard to achieve many things, but what was their most remarkable achievement? They Mayan are people indigenous people of Mexico and Central America who have continuously inhabited the lands comprising modern-day Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. They have lived there since 420 AD and 900 AD and have created a world that is possible to live in. Archeologists thought for decades that Maya people used slash and burn agriculture, a farming method where trees and other plants are first cut down, then the entire area to be planted is burned, the Maya would then plant in the rich ash that resulted.

Unlike many modern day religions, there are no clear origins of Hinduism. Hinduism is a fusion of various Indian cultures and traditions that over time molded into a religion. Its main roots, however, are in the Indus Valley civilization which was located in what is today known as northwest India and eastern Pakistan between 2500 and 1500 B.C.E, along with the Aryan culture and religion which existed between 1500 and 500 B.C.E. This dates back almost 4,000 years, which makes it one of the oldest religions to date (“Hinduism Influences”). The term Hinduism, however, wasn't always used to describe the religion. The word Hinduism is derived from the Persian word that refers to the Sindhu River in northwest India, and was adopted as a way to refer to the people of that region. By the end of the 19th century, however, the British Colonial Administration began to use the word Hinduism to describe the various religious beliefs and practices of the majority of India's population (“Hinduism Origins, Hinduism History, Hinduism Beliefs.”).

Hinduism is the name given to a family of religions and cultures that began and still flourish in India. The word “Hindu,” comes from the name of the river Indus, which flows from Tibet through Kashmir and Pakistan to the sea. It originally referred to the people living in that particular region of the world, regardless of their faith. Hinduism has no original founder and is one of the world’s largest religions following Christianity and Islam, with approximately a billion adherents. Hinduism is henotheistic, which is the devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of other gods. Their god is present in everything, and they believe that their soul repeatedly goes through a cycle of being born into a body, dying, and then becoming reborn into another body, whether it is human, animal or spirit. Hindu’s also strongly believe in karma, which is a force that determines the quality of each life, depending on how well one behaved in a past life. Hindu’s do not separate religion from other aspects of their life. Hinduism in India dictates Hindu’s lives in that it involves a caste system which controls their position in society, assists them in earning a living, helps manage how they raise their a family and controls their diets. Hindu’s believe that freedom or liberation is the true goal in life. True freedom is the freedom from all external conditioning influences, whether of body or mind. This is the freedom of Self-realization,

Hinduism, Buddhism and Shinto, while vast in differences there is much to learn about these three religions similarities as well. Some facts and history of Hinduism include, Hinduism (being the oldest of the three) is dated back in pre-history before 10000 BC even believed to predate the Indus River Valley Civilization! The Vedas (the holy text of Hinduism) is the foundation for Indian culture and also the basic belief system of Hinduism. The basic belief structure of Hinduism is as follows, the three doctrines; Samsara (1) which means “successive rebirths” indicating the belief in reincarnation started by ATMA or the spark of life given by the god Brahma. This cycle continues until the soul collects enough good Karma (2) to break from the

Hinduism is the 3rd largest religion in the world, after Christianity and Islam. This paper goes over the complexity of Hinduism’s history, and Hinduism’s perspective and beliefs about various aspects of life and death, and how your lifestyle can affect your future. This also covers whether or not Hinduism is a monotheistic or polytheistic religion, and a few of the significant deities they worship, dealing with the creation, preservation, and destruction of the world.

Followers of the Hindu religion believe in the concept of atman. One’s atman, which is their true spiritual identity does not change under any circumstances and it is also a part of Brahman which is the true reality of how things are. Every living organism has an atman, which is passed on time and time again after death through a cycle known as Samsara. The term atman is Brahman illustrates the point of liberation (moksha) in Hinduism. This term is saying that even while our circumstances, persona, and ego all change, to reach moksha one must realize that what they truly want, and what they have been spending their entire lives searching for is actually them self, and it just took them this long to realize this because the material world we

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.

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

Although we do not know the exact time that Hinduism began, it is believed to be over 4,000 years old. There have been overlapping civilizations in India that may have molded the religion into what it is now (Kinnard 1). Around 2,000 B.C.E., located near the great Indus River, the Indus Valley Civilization, who worshipped many goddesses, may have been the very beginning of the shaping of Hinduism. Near the end of the Indus Valley Civilization around 1,500 B.C.E., a new society surfaced in India. Believed to be brought by the central Asian Aryans, the Vedic religion began (Kinnard). The Aryans’ practices included the sacrifice of animals and other offerings to their gods into a sacred fire. The gods they worshipped were mainly gods of nature such as the fire god and the plant god (flood). This era was the time of the Vedas, which are scriptures describing rituals to please the gods (Kinnard). Later, around 1,000 B.C.E., priests called Brahmins began to reject the materialistic ways of the Vedic tradition and began to adopt practices

Hinduism is the oldest religions. The most interesting thing about Hinduism is that they have no specific founder or date of origin. Based on their beliefs Hindu’s are divided in to two casts. In the current world, there is still a big conflict about whether Hinduism is a monotheistic religion or a polytheistic religion. Because according to Hindus believe it’s one God with many different faces. This concept regarding Gods is accepted by some scholars, but not all of them. Hinduism has four sacred text Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Epics. The two most common sacred texts are the Vedas and Bhagavad Gita. The authors of all sacred texts are still unknown.

The Hindu religion and culture is a very complex subject. The Hindu religion combines rich ethnical and standard beliefs. We will take a closer look and try to understand the Hindu religion and culture. The Hindu religion is the oldest religion of the five major religions, which are Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism (Major World Religions, 2006). The Hindu religion began to develop about 4.000 years ago in India, but it there was no single founder or system of belief (Major World Religions, 2006). There are many diverse and various Gods in the Hindu religion. One of the most important beliefs is the theory of karma, which holds that all beings, human or animal have karma which determines which soul is for which body and