History of Hinduism

Hinduism (also known as Sanātana Dharma, and Vaidika-Dharma) is a worldwide religious tradition that is based on the revealed knowledge of the Veda and the direct descendent of the Vedic Indo-Iranian religion. It encompasses many religious traditions that widely vary in practice, as well as many diverse sects and philosophies. It is the world’s oldest existing major religion.

Lord Krishna revealing the eternal super-consciousness to Arjuna.

Origins

From a Hindu perspective, Sanātana Dharma is composed of eternal principles and had no beginning and will have no end. There are two contemporary streams of thought regardings its origins:

• Current archeaological and literary evidence suggests that Hinduism was formed somewhere between 1500-1300 BCE. These dates are when the Rig Veda is believed to have begun to be written down, though it is accepted that there was a long oral tradition of the Vedas before that.
• Astronomical evidence gives an earlier date of approximately 3102 BCE. It comes from close examination of the Mahabharata, where the exact positions of the stars were noted at Sri Krishna's birth. Hindus believe Krishna was born 5000 years ago, and using the star locations in the Mahabharata, the exact year was 3102 BCE.

The writers of the Vedas, the earliest piece of written Hindu work and the bedrock of the religion, are believed to be different spiritually realized people. Hindus consider these Vedas as Shruti, that which is heard (and written down).

Early Hinduism

Early Hinduism is a term used to designate the religious development of India before the historical period. Two kinds of evidence are available: literary and archeological.

Hindu texts

The earliest literature of Hinduism is made up of the Vedas. Many Hindus believe that the Vedas were transmitted, via an oral tradition, for perhaps 8000 years (Fisher). Many Western and other Indian commentators see this as an exaggeration, dating the earliest part of the Veda, the Rig-Veda Samhita, to around 1800-1500 BCE In any case, it is acknowledged by most that the Vedas did indeed have a long oral tradition and were passed on from teacher to disciple for at least many centuries before first being written down, which has led to some estimates that the earliest parts of the Vedas may date back to 2500 - 2000 BCE

The earliest stage of the Vedas is the Rig-Veda, a collection of poetic hymns used in the sacrificial rites of the Aryan priests. Most of the Rig-Veda concerns the offering of Soma - which is both an intoxicant and a god itself - to the gods. The gods in the Rig-Veda are mostly personified concepts, who fall into two categories: the devas, who were gods of nature, such as the weather deity Indra, Agni (“fire”), and Ushas (“dawn”) and the asuras, gods of moral concepts, such as Mitra (“contract” or “friend”), Bhaga (guardian of marriage) and Varuna (“the coverer”).

A rivalry between these two families was already apparent. Asura will come to mean something like “demon” in later Hinduism, and it is already associated with mischief if not actual malice in the Rig-Veda. Compare this with Iranian Aryan religion, where ahura (asura) came to mean “god” and daewa (deva) came to mean “evil demon.” The emerging deprecation of the asuras led to the creation of new categories of gods, such as the adityas. Indra is the king of the gods in the Rig-Veda, although some of the hymns (perhaps representing an older stage) have Varuna as the chief.

Archaeology

Early Hinduism comprises a period that is hazy in the eyes of archeologists. The Vedic Aryans, although they left a rich body of hymns, left little material culture behind.

The excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization, also referred to as the Sindhu-Sarasvat tradition, have not yielded much evidence of communal temples. However, there is sufficient evidence that the civilization was certainly not purely secular. Only one Indus civilisation graveyard has been found and excavated, and has yielded no elaborate royal burials, but the personal possessions buried with the bodies may indicate that these people believed in an afterlife in which they would need these things.

Water seems to have played an important part in their social, and possibly their religious, life, judging by the large number of public baths that were constructed. The modern Hindu custom of bathing at the beginning of the day and before the main meals may well have started here.

Lord Siva; Public Domain.

Many figurines of female deities have been discovered. These most probably signified creativity and the origin and continuity of life, and they may have been worshipped as symbolic embodiments of the female principle of creative Energy and Power. In modern Hinduism, the counterpart of these symbols is called Shakti. These “mother Goddess” figurines may have been worshipped in the home rather than in any major state cult, but scholars have seen ancient Dravidian feminine divinity sculptures in groups of seven that date back to the Harappan era which mirror the Hindu belief in a Mother Goddess (Devi) being represented in seven modes.

Figures of a male deity with elaborate horns (or horned headgear) have also been uncovered. He is typically seen surrounded by cattle and is called Pashupati, (the Protector of Animals), and is seen by some to be the prototype of Hinduism's ascetic God of Destruction, Shiva. Indeed, in modern-day Shaivism, Shiva has absorbed the names, stories and attributes of not only Pashupati, by which name he is still commonly known, but also the Vedic 'Rudra.' Pashupati is seen sitting in the meditative posture of yogis, suggesting that yoga or inner contemplation was one of their modes of discovering the secrets of life and creation. To this day, the Tantric schools of Hinduism know Shiva to be Yogeshwara, Lord of Yoga, and he is said to be the master of Self-knowledge, meditating for centuries at a time. Others see Pashupati as a form of brahma.

It is noted by many that the Pashupati figure is similar to sculptures, paintings and bas-reliefs of horned gods in Europe, stretching as far back as the Paleolithic painting of the “sorcerer” in the cave of Les Trois Frères in France. There exist, in addition, three-headed Pashupati-statues that seem to resemble the Trimurti (Triple Form) of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva (Generator-Sustainer-Destroyer) in contemporary Hinduism, and if nothing else, intimate the continuity of religious traditions that have morphed into Hinduism as we know it today from periods as far back as five thousand years ago.

Hinduism and the rise of Buddhism

Buddha was included as one of the avatars of Vishnu. With the ascent of the Gupta Dynasty, many Buddhists were returned to the Hindu fold in India, as Hindus adopted many of the teachings of the Buddha such as non-violence to all life, vegetarianism and proper treatment of fellow men. A substantial Buddhist community that rivalled the Hindus would remain in Pakistan until the Islamic conquests.

Hinduism during the Golden Age in Bharat

The Gupta dynasty ruled India (what was India then, the north of the Vindhyas), between fourth and sixth centuries of the common era. Though not as vast as Mauryan empire, Gupta rule has left a deep and wide cultural impact not only in the subcontinent but on the adjacent Asian countries as well. The practice of dedicating temples to different deities came into vogue followed by fine artistic temple architecture and sculpture. Books on medicine, veterinary science, mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics were written. The famous Aryabhata and Varahamihira belong to this age. The Gupta established a strong central government which also allowed a degree of local control. Gupta society was ordered in accordance with Hindu beliefs. This included a strict caste system, or class system. The peace and prosperity created under Gupta leadership enabled the pursuit of scientific and artistic endeavors.

Shankaracharya and the revival of Hinduism

At the time of Shankara’s life, Hinduism had lost some of its appeal because of the influence of Buddhism and Jainism. Shankara stressed the importance of the Vedas, and he travelled extensively to restore the study of the Vedas.

He wrote commentaries on the Upanishads, Vishnu sahasranama, Brahma Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita. He engaged in a series of debates with Buddhist scholars, and with scholars of the Purva Mimamsa school. One of the most famous of these debates was with the famed ritualist Mandana Mishra.

Cultural expansion in South-East Asia

During the 1st century, the trade on the overland Silk Road tended to be restricted by the rise in the Middle-East of the Parthian empire, an unvanquished enemy of Rome, just as Romans were becoming extremely wealthy and their demand for Asian luxury was rising. This demand revived the sea connections between the Mediterranean and China, with India as the intermediary of choice. From that time, through trade connection, commercial settlements, and even political interventions, India started to strongly influence Southeast Asian countries. Trade routes linked India with southern Burma, central and southern Siam, lower Cambodia and southern Vietnam, and numerous urbanized coastal settlements were established there.

For more than a thousand years, Indian influence was therefore the major factor that brought a certain level of cultural unity to the various countries of the region. The Pali and Sanskrit languages and the Indian script, together with Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism, were transmitted from direct contact and through sacred texts and Indian literature such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

From the 5th to the 13th century, South-East Asia had very powerful empires and became extremely active in Buddhist architectural and artistic creation. The Sri Vijaya Empire to the south and the Khmer Empire to the north competed for influence.