HOW AND WHEN WAS THE RELIGION CREATED? WHAT WAS THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT (WHAT WAS HAPPENING DURING THE TIME OF ITS CREATION BASED ON ITS LOCATION)?
Created around 2000 B.C.E.
- Unlike other religious traditions, Hinduism does not originate in a single founder, a single book or a single point in time. It contains many different beliefs, philosophies and viewpoints, not always consistent with each other. This tradition has come down to us from prehistoric times. The foundations of Hinduism can be found in the teachings of anonymous ancient sages or rishis, which were originally transmitted orally. We know very little about Hinduism beyond what can be learned from the Vedas (collection of hymns/religious texts).
- highly developed civilizations flourished throughout the Indus Valley between 4000 and 1500 B.C.E. But for still unknown reasons, the valley's inhabitants appear to have moved out rather suddenly. They resettled among new neighbors in northwestern India and encountered a group of people from central Asia who brought with them warrior ethics and a religion called Vedism.
WHAT ARE THE BASIC DOCTRINE AND PRACTICES OF THE RELIGION?
- Reverence for Our Revealed Scriptures
- All-Pervasive Divinity
- Three Worlds and Cycles of Creation
- The Laws of Karma and Dharma
- Reincarnation and Liberation
- Temples and the Inner Worlds
- Yoga Guided by a Satguru
- Compassion and Noninjury
- Genuine Respect for Other Faiths
ARE THERE RELIGIOUS TEXTS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTANDING THE RELIGION?
- Hinduism has neither a common doctrine nor a single scripture as the source of its various teachings. It places more emphasis on orthopraxy than orthodoxy, encouraging relative freedom of thought within tightly defined codes of conduct and morality.
- it has succeeded in synthesising religion with philosophy, and religious commitment with a reflective search for truth. It does not generally exhort its followers to declare allegiance to a particular faith, belief, or creed.
WHERE DID THE RELIGION BEGIN?
Hinduism developed from the religion that the Aryans brought to India with them in about 1500 BC. Its beliefs and practices are based on the Vedas, a collection of hymns (thought to refer to actual historical events) that Aryan scholars had completed by about 800 BC.
WHO WERE THE IMPORTANT LEADERS, INDIVIDUALS AND EMPIRES IN THE RELIGION?
- Tradition holds that in ancient times there were seven great rishis (poet-sages) born from the mind of Brahma.They are often associated with the seven stars of the Big Dipper constellation. Hindu families claim to trace their dynasty (gotra) to one of them. They are Bhrigu, Gautama, Bharadvaja, Visvamitra, Vasistha, Atri, and Angira.
- Shankara(780-812) -A great Hindu reformer, Shankara was born in Kerala and took sannyasa as a youth. He travelled widely defeating Buddhists and other members of the nastika movements, thus re-establishing the authority of Vedic texts throughout India.
- Ramanuja (1017–1137)-The most important acharya amongst the Shri Vaishnavas, and the founder of the Vishishtadvaita school, which qualified Shankara's monistic doctrine. Ramanuja taught devotion to a personal God, Vishnu, and proposed that the universe is the Lord's body.
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT OF THE RELIGION ON WORLD HISTORY?
They built many magnificent temples, such as the Swaminarayan Temple in London. Hindus in diaspora were particularly concerned about the perpetuation of their tradition and felt obliged to respond to Hindu youth, who sought a rational basis for practices previously passed down by family custom. They are now particularly concerned about how to deal with contentious issues such as caste, intermarriage and the position of women.