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The history of Hinduism is often divided into periods of development. The first period is the pre-Vedic period, which includes the Indus Valley Civilization and local pre-historic religions. Northern India had the Vedic period with the introduction of the historical Vedic religion (sometimes called Vedic Hinduism or ancient Hinduism [ d ] ) by ...
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Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. There are four Vedas, and these constitute the Hindu canon (but they are largely religious scriptures, some telling it to be God's words). Each Veda has four subdivisions – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions ...
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.
Hinduism is an ancient religion, with denominations such as Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism, among others. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Each tradition has a long list of Hindu texts, with subgenre based on syncretization of ideas from Samkhya , Nyaya , Yoga , Vedanta and other schools of Hindu philosophy .
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."
The śramaṇa period between 800 and 200 BCE marks a "turning point between the Vedic Hinduism and Puranic Hinduism". [11] The Shramana movement, an ancient Indian religious movement parallel to but separate from Vedic tradition, often defied many of the Vedic and Upanishadic concepts of soul (Atman) and the ultimate reality (Brahman).
The Bhagavad Gita (/ ˈ b ʌ ɡ ə v ə d ˈ ɡ iː t ɑː /; [1] Sanskrit: भगवद्गीता, IPA: [ˌbʱɐɡɐʋɐd ˈɡiːtɑː], romanized: bhagavad-gītā, lit. 'God's song'), [a] often referred to as the Gita (IAST: gītā), is a Hindu scripture, dated to the second or first century BCE, [7] which forms part of the epic poem Mahabharata.