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The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. [1] It overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age, with some of its traditions tracing back to prehistoric religions such as those of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation.
Separating concepts in Hinduism from concepts specific to Indian culture, or from the language itself, can be difficult. Many Sanskrit concepts have an Indian secular meaning as well as a Hindu dharmic meaning. One example is the concept of Dharma. [4] Sanskrit, like all languages, contains words whose meanings differ across various contexts.
Hinduism – predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. [1] Its followers are called Hindus , who refer to it as Sanātana Dharma [ 2 ] ( Sanskrit : सनातनधर्मः , lit.
Both theistic and atheistic ideas, for epistemological and metaphysical reasons, are profuse in different schools of Hinduism. The early Nyaya school of Hinduism, for example, was non-theist/atheist, [325] but later Nyaya school scholars argued that God exists and offered proofs using its theory of logic.
Hindu studies is the study of the traditions and practices of the Indian subcontinent (especially Hinduism), and considered as a subfield of Indology.Beginning with British philology in the colonial period, Hindu studies has been practiced largely by Westerners, due in part to the lack of a distinct department for religion in Indian academia. [1]
In Indian historian DN Jha's essay "Looking for a Hindu identity", he writes: "No Indians described themselves as Hindus before the fourteenth century" and that "The British borrowed the word 'Hindu' from India, gave it a new meaning and significance, [and] reimported it into India as a reified phenomenon called Hinduism."
[M]ost of the basic ideas and practices of classical Hinduism derive from the new smriti literature. In other words, Hindus for the most part pay little more than lip service to the Vedic scriptures. The most important dimensions of being Hindu derive, instead, from the smriti texts. The point can also be made in terms of the emerging social ...
The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, it has also been described by the modern term Sanātana Dharma (lit. ' eternal dharma ') emphasizing its eternal nature. Another endonym for Hinduism is Vaidika Dharma (lit. ' Vedic dharma ').