Hinduism

Etymology

Hindū is the Persian name for the Indus River, first encountered in the Old Persian word Hindu (hindu), corresponding to Vedic Sanskrit Sindhu, the Indus River. The Rig Veda mentions the land of the Indo-Aryans as Sapta Sindhu (the land of the seven rivers in northwestern South Asia, one of them being the Indus). This corresponds to Hapta Hindu in the Avesta (Vendidad or Videvdad 1.18)—the sacred scripture of Zoroastrianism. The term was used for those who lived in the Indian subcontinent on or beyond the "Sindhu". In Arabic, the term al-Hind (the Hind) also refers to 'the land of the people of modern day India'.

The Persian term (Middle Persian Hindūk, New Persian Hindū) entered India with the Delhi Sultanate and appears in South Indian and Kashmiri texts from at least 1323 CE, and increasingly so during British rule. Since the end of the 18th century the word has been used as an umbrella term for most of the religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions of the sub-continent, usually excluding the religions of Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism as distinct.

The term Hinduism was introduced into the English language in the 19th century to denote the religious, philosophical, and cultural traditions native to India.

The term Brahminism was also introduced in the 19th century, describing a limited subset of the traditions subsumed under "Hinduism", viz. the principles and practices of the Hindu Brahmin caste. The term is somewhat ambiguous and may either refer to Brahminical Hinduism, the current-day practices of Brahmins, or to Vedic Brahmanism, the historical religion from which medieval and modern Hinduism has evloved.

Typology

Hinduism as we know it can be subdivided into a number of major currents. Of the historical division into six darshanas, only two schools, Vedanta and Yoga survive. The main divisions of Hinduism today are Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Smartism and Shaktism.

Contemporary Hinduism is predominantly monotheistic, but Hindu tradition includes aspects that can be interpreted as panentheistic, pantheistic, polytheistic and even atheistic. Other notable characteristics include a belief in reincarnation and karma, as well as in personal duty, or dharma.

McDaniel (2007) distinguishes six generic "types" of Hinduism, in an attempt to accommodate a variety of views on a rather complex subject:

1. Folk Hinduism, as based on local traditions and cults of local deities at a communal level and spanning back to prehistoric times or at least prior to written Vedas.
2. Vedic Hinduism as still being practiced by traditionalist brahmins (for example shrautins).
3. Vedantic Hinduism, for example Advaita (Smartism), as based on the philosophical approach of the Upanishads.
4. Yogic Hinduism, especially that based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
5. "Dharmic" Hinduism or "daily morality", based on the notion of Karma, and upon societal norms such as Hindu marriage customs.
6. Bhakti or devotionalism, especially as in Vaishnavism.