as hinduism developed over the years, it obsorbed many beliefs from other what?

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as hinduism developed over the years, it obsorbed many beliefs from

other what?

 

reply:

 

Hinduism is one of the oldest religions of the world.

 

The basic scriptures of Hinduism are called Vedas,literally knowledge

or to know (of Truth) Apart from forming the base for the phisophical

evolution and outlook of Hinduism, Vedas supply one with many rituals

with highly complex familes of hymns. Practice of these rituals,

meant for different occassions, bestow one with fufilment in this

world as well in the next.

 

Almost all the ideas that have taken birth in India have accetped

Vedas and their concept of God and universe as their basis. They

mostly concetrated on interpretation of Vedas in a diferent way or

with assigning a new way to reach the God. These ideas have not

deviated from Vedas in a fundamental way.

 

HInduism has appropriated all these ideas and streams of thoughts-

including atheism and Tantric religions-into its fold. In other

words, any new idea that has blossommed has been accepted and it has

been made part of the older religion. Hence, for very long time,

there was no new relgion in India except the Hinduism.

 

However, two religions of India stand out on their own- Jainism and

Buddhism.

 

Jainism co existed with Vedic Hinduism right from very ancient times.

The preachers of Jainism have been depicted in Hindu puranas and

scriptures and in fact, have been appropriated . Thus, earlier

Jainism, though was enjoying a semblence of seperate identity, was

not recognized as a seperate religion. However, it was the advent of

Mahaveer with who, Jainism has obtained a complete seperate identity.

 

Jainism preaches total withdrawl from Karma, the action as against

the instruction of Vedas to indulge in action and more specifically,

in rituals.

 

Buddhism also has started as a branch of Hinduism- on the basis of

the one of the major division of philosophy viz Sankhya. He has

deviated from Vedas only so far as the rituals are concerned.

 

Sankhya was always interested in defining the cosmological elements

and finding, thereby a solution for sorrow. Buddha even while

accepting these concepts of cosmological elements such as purusa and

prakriti, he has concentrated more on the alleviation of dukha or

sorrow of this world rather than on such philosophical constructions.

 

In the process, he has rejected Vedic rituals as a solution for such

sorrow of this world. He differed with Jainism since the later has

rejected the very concept of action- man should evdeavour to withdraw

from action-while Buddha has not gone that far. He has only rejected

Vedic rituals and not action. . However, it is very relevant that

Buddha had not rejected any of the other aspects of Vedism- for eg,

he has not rejected the concept of Atman or Self. He also , i feel,.

did not reject Vedic rituals as a solution for sorrow of the other

world.

 

However, Buddhism also had attained a seperate identity of another

religion due to his rejection of Vedic rituals.

 

Hinduism had a ccepted this idea also , though at a later time, by

appropriating Buddha into one of its importnant series of God's

incarnations on this earth.

 

Even as the Hinduism has accepted and appropriated these two

religions, the idea of attaining happiness without having to go

through a difficult maze of rituals has become so attractive that

these two 'religions' have aquired and retained their own

identities , while the other ideas stemmed in India have been

synthesised into the mainstream of Hinduism.

 

Hope I am clear on the matter,

 

Kishore patnaik

http://www.vedich...

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