Hinduism

Hinduism. English term denoting the mainstream religious tradition of India which regards the ancient scriptures known as the vedas as ultimately authoritative. Recent scholarly usage tends to reserve the term Hinduism for the post-classical or more popular phase of the tradition, commencing around 400 bce, and characterizes the preceding phases as the Brāhmanical (see Brāhmanism) or Vedic periods. The word Hindu is derived from the Persian term for the river Indus and its surrounding region. About 80 per cent of the approximately one billion population of India are Hindus, and there are around another 30 million living abroad. Hinduism is not a unified system of belief and practice, and should at best be regarded as a convenient shorthand for a complex social and cultural phenomenon. Those identified as Hindus do not use this term to refer to themselves or their religion, and instead speak of their beliefs as the ‘eternal truth’ (Skt., sanātana dharma). Since Buddhism originated as an offshoot of Hinduism the two share many basic beliefs about cosmology, karma, and rebirth, as well as identifying the basic soteriological problem as the need to escape from the cycle of saṃsāra. They differ in that Buddhism rejects the Hindu belief in a supreme being or cosmic power (Brahman), a personal soul (ātman), sacrifice, and the caste system. See also Brahmanism.