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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.
Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and "a way of life". [65] [note 1] From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism, like other faiths, is appropriately referred to as a religion.
The bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history, which is roughly 70,000 years old. [1] A lack of written records results in most of the knowledge of pre-historic religion being derived from archaeological records and other indirect sources, and from suppositions. Much pre-historic religion is subject to continued debate.
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.
The historical Vedic religion, also called Vedicism or Vedism, and sometimes ancient Hinduism or Vedic Hinduism, [a] constituted the religious ideas and practices prevalent amongst some of the Indo-Aryan peoples of the northwest Indian subcontinent (Punjab and the western Ganges plain) during the Vedic period (c. 1500–500 BCE).
The Epic-Puranic chronology is a timeline of Hindu mythology based on the Itihasa (the Sanskrit Epics, that is, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana) and the Puranas.These texts have an authoritaive status in Indian tradition, and narrate cosmogeny, royal chronologies, myths and legendary events.
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (c. 1500 –900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE.
It is notable that Hinduism largely followed an oral tradition to pass on knowledge, for which there is no record of historical dates. All dates here given ought to be regarded as roughly approximate, subject to further revision, and generally as relying for their validity on highly inferential methods and standards of evidence.