Hinduism

1. Hinduism

Hinduism is the oldest living religious tradition in the world and is also known as Sanatana Dharma and Vedic Dharma. It is not a single religion but a set of different schools of thought and traditions. Hinduism is a mixture of many religious rituals, sects and philosophies and all of them are different from each other in different parts of India. Majority of Hindus follow the Vedanta philosophy of one God (Brahman) who is worshipped in many forms like Vishnu, Siva, Durga, etc.

About 10 billion people worldwide are followers of Hinduism making it the third largest religion of the world. The followers of Hinduism regard the four Vedas as the main scripture. Each Veda is divided into parts called: Brahmanas, Samhitas, Aranyakas and Upanishads which are also widely followed. The other main scriptures are the 18 puranas, 18 up-puranas, the Bhagavad-Gita and Ramayana.

The basic beliefs of Hinduism are:

• Dharma (individual ethics, duties and obligations)
• Samsara (rebirth)
• Karma (actions)
• Moksha (salvation)

Different schools of Hinduism follow different paths or means for salvation. The four main paths that most of the schools follow are: the path of devotion- "Bhakti", the path of action-"Karma", the path of meditation- "Raja" and the path of enlightenment- "Jnana". The basis of Hindu philosophy is that all souls that are born from Brahman (Cosmic Spirit) finally merge with it.