Hinduism

Hinduism has been one of the main religions in India,Nepal and in some part of asia for over 2000 years.

Hindu god Brahma riding on a gooseThe earliest records of Hindu gods, goddesses and Hindu beliefs were first written down in about the fourth century A.D. However, by this time, there was already a strong oral tradition which supported these beliefs.

The early Hindu epics and myths help us to understand the evolution of the gods and goddesses and the development of beliefs which form the basis of the modern Hindu religion.This religion is believed to be the oldest religion in the world.

It started round the area of the Indus River in India and the word Hindu means "people living near the Indus River". It is, like all religions the way of life or culture of the people who are members of the Hindu family. It has no founder or leader but it does have many holy books teaching the people how to live.

There are now millions of Hindus and they live all over the world. New religions such as Sikhism have developed from the beliefs of Hindus. Many festivals, customs and stories are shared by several of these religions. 

Ancient Origin Of Hinduism

by Alden Bass

Indus River Map

The word Hindu originated, not as the name of a religion, but as a geographical marker. Hindu derives from the Sanskrit word for river, sindhu, from which the Indus River received its name. Sometime in the first millennium B.C., the Persians, who were then South Asia’s closest neighbors, mispronounced sindhu, and designated the land around the Indus River as hindu. Over a thousand years later, in A.D. 712, the Muslims invaded the Indus Valley. To distinguish themselves, they called all non-Muslims hindus; the name of the land became, by default, the name of the people and their religion (Schoeps, 1966, p. 148). Christians, upon entering Hindustan (as it was then called), committed the same error of reduction. From their perspective, the indigenous people were all idol-worshipping pagans, so they christened the Indians gentoo, a derogatory synchronization of “gentile” and “hindu.” Thus the name hindu originally was given by outsiders to denote a geographic territory, but through the encroachment of various other religious groups it came to encompass all native religions in South East Asia.