Who are Hindu (es) and how is their religion and beliefs?

Answer 1

A Hindu is someone either born into the religion of Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma) or someone who adopts Hinduism through learning and accepting of the Vedas and other Vedic literature as being sacred (Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, various Puranas, Sutras, etc).

Hinduism is an extremely diverse religion with four major denominations and various sects and subsects within those.

The central belief of Hinduism is that there is one God, but that God is known by many names. It is believed that God is experienced by many different people in finite bodies, but because God is infinite people experience God differently. It is like looking at an object from different angles. People may have different perspectives based upon the approach from which they experience/view the object, but ultimately they are experiencing/viewing the same object. Hindus believe this is the case with God. Thus, Hindus accept that other religions are merely different perspectives on God (which also explains some of the diversity within Hinduism itself, too).

Hinduism, which comes from the word Hindu which derives from a Persian mispronunciation of the Sindhu River which then later Westerners adopted the term Hindu (meaning, from Persian thought, all those people living on the other side of the Sindhu River...sort of similar to the word Hebrew as a word given by the Canaanites rather than the individuals themselves). Thus the term Hinduism doesn't have any real meaning because literally it would mean "belief in Hindu" or "belief in the Sindhu River" which since the river obviously occurs any geographer or person looking at a map could fall into this category as a "believer" in the river itself (because it obviously exists). Vedism, another term used for Hinduism by Westerners is a more proper name. Vedism means "belief in the Vedas". The Vedas being the oldest sacred text in the world (consisting of four Vedas: Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva...the Rig being the oldest...chanted for 4000 years and then written down in 5000BCE). The Vedas are considered the foundation of Hinduism. The term most commonly used by individuals who practice the religion is Sanatana Dharma (assuming one does not use the name of their individual denomination, sect, or subsect). Sanatana Dharma means "eternal religion" and is so called because Hinduism has no one founder.

Here are some great websites to learn more about Hinduism:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion
http://www.hindunet.org
http://www.religioustolerance.org
http://www.sacred-texts.com
http://www.hindukids.org
http://www.himalayanacademy.org

Some great books to learn more about Hinduism are:
"The Complete Idiot's Guide To Hinduism"
"Windows Into The Infinite: A Guide To Hindu Sacred Texts"
"Am I A Hindu?"

Answer 2

A Hindu (Devanāgarī:हिंदु) , as per modern definition is an adherent of philosophies and scriptures of Hinduism, the predominant religious, philosophical and cultural system of the Indian subcontinent and the island of Bali. Most of the Hindus today live in India. Bharat is the ancient name of India. Laterly it is known as India. Another popular name for Bharat is Hindustan, meaning the land of Hindus.

According to this link there were about 900 million Hindus in the world in 2005. The 2001 Census of India estimates the number of Hindus in India to be about 827 million, or 80% of India's total population. Although such a large fraction of India's population practices Hinduism, India is officially a secular republic. More than 80% of population in Nepal follows Hinduism. Large Hindu communities, mostly expatriates from India, live in South East Asia, North America, the West Indies, Western Europe, the Middle East, East Africa and South Africa. The Hindus of Bali, and in other parts of Indonesia are indigenous Indonesian Hindus.

http://www.answers.com/hindus

Answer 3

Hinduism in a nut-shell tells that there is only one supreme consciousness which can be called God (Aum, Krishna,Shiva)

This God manifests as universe and diferent type of gods(angels) to run the universe

Hindus dont condemn others to hell... Hindus believe like all rivers flow towards ocean, all religions point towards truth


Hinduism believes in Evolution- but it takes not the evolution of bodies but of the Mind..which in turn changes bodies

Hinduism has 2 parts - one is mythology...which has stories about our ancient culture


The 2nd part of hinduism deals purely with philosophy and tries to understand the mysteries of universe, life, and god

Our main scriptures are Vedas, Upanishadas and Gita.

There were some bad publicity abt hindus by Christian missionaries...like Sati, caste systems widows etc..but these are not part of hinduism, but are the social evils of India as a whole

Hindus believe that the soul awakens in chemicals..and by evolving reaches human and is advancing towards divinity

The Final aim of human being, as per hinduism is Moksha...that is merging into God

Answer 4

There are one Billion Hindus all over world
Main countries they live in are
India Nepal Bhutan Srilanka Pakistan Bangladesh Caribean islands South africa Kenya UK USA Malaysia Fiji Canada Indonesia Myanmar

Answer 5

It is a very ancient religion practiced in India. The practitioners are called HINDUs/Hindoos.
The belief in short is GOD is one only. All religions are nothing but different roads leading to the same destination called GOD.
People of different religions have given different names to God just as the same person is known to different persons as different but he being only one.For eg a man has three names. some one calls him by his first name, another by the second and and yet another by third name but it is the same person.
The quarrel between the religions is due to ignorance or non acceptance of one supreme being

Answer 6

It is one of the better religions. Cristitianity has killed the most, so it is the bottom of the barrel of religions.