Hindu

For other uses, see Hindu (disambiguation).

Hindu ( pronunciation ) are the adherents of Hinduism most notably in Nepal and India and their diaspora. It has historically been used as a geographical, cultural or religious identifier for people indigenous to the South Asia.[1][2] In contemporary use, Hindu refers to anyone who regards himself or herself as culturally, ethnically or religiously adhering to aspects of Hinduism.[3]

The historical meaning of the term Hindu has evolved with time. Starting with the Persian and Greek references to India in the 1st millennium BCE through the texts of the medieval era,[4] the term Hindu implied a geographic, ethnic or cultural identifier for people living in Indian subcontinent around or beyond Sindhu (Indus) river.[5] By the 16th-century, the term began to refer to residents of India who were not Turks or Muslims.[5][lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2]

The historical development of Hindu self-identity within the Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear.[1][6] Competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era, or that it developed post-8th century CE after the Islamic invasion and medieval Hindu-Muslim wars.[6][7][8] A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in some texts dated between the 13th- and 18th-century in Sanskrit and regional languages.[7][9] The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati, Kabir and Eknath used the phrase Hindu dharma (Hinduism) and contrasted it with Turaka dharma (Islam).[10] The Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term 'Hindu' in religious context in 1649.[11] In the 18th-century, the European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus, in contrast to Mohamedans for Mughals and Arabs following Islam.[1][5] By mid 19th-century, colonial orientalist texts further distinguished Hindus from Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains,[1] but the colonial laws continued to consider all of them to be within the scope of the term Hindu until about mid 20th-century.[12] Scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon.[13][14]

At more than 1.03 billion,[15] Hindus are the world's third largest group after Christians and Muslims. The vast majority of Hindus, approximately 966 million, live in India, according to India's 2011 census.[16] After India, the next 9 countries with the largest Hindu populations are, in decreasing order: Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom and Myanmar.[17] These together accounted for 99% of the world's Hindu population, and the remaining nations of the world together had about 6 million Hindus in 2010.[17]

Etymology

Further information: Hinduism
A Hindu wedding ritual in India.

The word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan[18] and Sanskrit[18][4] word Sindhu, which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean".[19][note 1] It was used as the name of the Indus river and also referred to its tributaries. The actual term 'hindu' first occurs, states Gavin Flood, as "a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu)",[4] more specifically in the 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I.[20] The Punjab region, called Sapta Sindhava in the Vedas, is called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta. The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions the province of Hi[n]dush, referring to northwestern India.[20][21][22] The people of India were referred to as Hinduvān (Hindus) and hindavī was used as the adjective for Indian in the 8th century text Chachnama.[22] The term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term and did not refer to a religion.[4][23] The Arabic equivalent Al-Hind likewise referred to the country of India.[24][20]

Among the earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text Record of the Western Regions by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang. Xuanzang uses the transliterated term In-tu whose "connotation overflows in the religious" according to Arvind Sharma.[20] While Xuanzang suggested that the term refers to the country named after the moon, another Buddhist scholar I-tsing contradicted the conclusion saying that In-tu was not a common name for the country.[22]

Al-Biruni's 11th-century text Tarikh Al-Hind, and the texts of the Delhi Sultanate period use the term 'Hindu', where it includes all non-Islamic people such as Buddhists, and retains the ambiguity of being "a region or a religion".[20] The 'Hindu' community occurs as the amorphous 'Other' of the Muslim community in the court chronicles, according to Romila Thapar.[25] Wilfred Cantwell Smith notes that 'Hindu' retained its geographical reference initially: 'Indian', 'indigenous, local', virtually 'native'. Slowly, the Indian groups themselves started using the term, differentiating themselves and their "traditional ways" from those of the invaders.[26]

Hindu culture in Bali, Indonesia. The Krishna-Arjuna sculpture inspired by the Bhagavad Gita in Denpasar (top), and Hindu dancers in traditional dress.

The text Prithviraj Raso, by Chanda Baradai, about the 1192 CE defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Muhammad Ghori, is full of references to "Hindus" and "Turks", and at one stage, says "both the religions have drawn their curved swords;" however, the date of this text is unclear and considered by most scholars to be more recent.[27] In Islamic literature, 'Abd al-Malik Isami's Persian work, Futuhu's-salatin, composed in the Deccan in 1350, uses the word 'hindi' to mean Indian in the ethno-geographical sense and the word 'hindu' to mean 'Hindu' in the sense of a follower of the Hindu religion".[27] The poet Vidyapati's poem Kirtilata contrasts the cultures of Hindus and Turks (Muslims) in a city and concludes "The Hindus and the Turks live close together; Each makes fun of the other's religion (dhamme)."[28] One of the earliest uses of word 'Hindu' in religious context in a European language (Spanish), was the publication in 1649 by Sebastiao Manrique.[11]

Other prominent mentions of 'Hindu' include the epigraphical inscriptions from Andhra Pradesh kingdoms who battled military expansion of Muslim dynasties in 14th century, where the word 'Hindu' partly implies a religious identity in contrast to 'Turks' or Islamic religious identity.[29] The term Hindu was later used occasionally in some Sanskrit texts such as the later Rajataranginis of Kashmir (Hinduka, c. 1450) and some 16th- to 18th-century Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts including Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagavata. These texts used it to contrast Hindus from Muslims who are called Yavanas (foreigners) or Mlecchas (barbarians), with the 16th-century Chaitanya Charitamrita text and the 17th century Bhakta Mala text using the phrase "Hindu dharma".[30]

Terminology

Hindus at Har Ki Pauri, Haridwar near river Ganges in Uttarakhand state of India.

Medieval era usage (8th- to 18th-century)

One of the earliest but ambiguous use of the word Hindu is, states Arvind Sharma, in the 'Brahmanabad settlement' which Muhammad ibn Qasim made with non-Muslims after the Arab invasion of northwestern Sindh region of India, in 712 CE. The term 'Hindu' meant people who were non-Muslims, and it included Buddhists of the region.[31] In the 11th-century text of Al Biruni, Hindus are referred to as "religious antagonists" to Islam, as those who believe in rebirth, presents them to hold a diversity of beliefs, and seems to oscillate between Hindus holding a centralist and pluralist religious views.[31] In the texts of Delhi Sultanate era, states Sharma, the term Hindu remains ambiguous on whether it means people of a region or religion, giving the example of Ibn Battuta's explanation of the name "Hindu Kush" for a mountain range in Afghanistan. It was so called, wrote Ibn Battuta, because many Indian slaves died there of snow cold, as they were marched across that mountain range. The term Hindu there is ambivalent, and could mean geographical region or religion.[32]

In the texts from the Mughal Empire era, the term Hindu appears to refer to the people of India who had not converted to Islam. Pashaura Singh states, "in Persian writings, Sikhs were regarded as Hindu in the sense of non-Muslim Indians".[33] Jahangir, for example, called the Sikh Guru Arjan a Hindu pretending to be a saint, someone he wanted to eliminate or convert to Islam, for a long time.[34]

There was a Hindu named Arjan in Gobindwal on the banks of the Beas River. Pretending to be a spiritual guide, he had won over as devotees many simple minded Indians and even some ignorant, stupid Muslims by broadcasting his claims to be a saint. They called him guru. Many fools from all around had recourse to him and believed in him implicitly. For three or four generations they had been pedaling this same stuff. For a long time I had been thinking that either this false trade should be eliminated or that he should be brought into the embrace of Islam. At length, when Khusraw passed by there, this inconsequential little fellow wished to pay homage to Khusraw. When Khusraw stopped at his residence, [Arjan] came out and had an interview with [Khusraw]. Giving him some elementary spiritual precepts picked up here and there, he made a mark with saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus and which they consider lucky. When this was reported to me, I realized how perfectly false he was and ordered him brought to me. I awarded his [Guru Arjan's] houses and dwellings and those of his children to Murtaza Khan, and I ordered his possessions and goods confiscated and him executed.
— Emperor Jahangir, Jahangirnama 27b-28a, Translated by Wheeler Thackston[35]

Colonial era usage (18th- to 20th-century)

During the colonial era, the term Hindu had connotations of native religions of India, that is religions other than Christianity and Islam.[36] In early colonial era Anglo-Hindu laws and British India court system, the term Hindu referred to people of all Indian religions and two non-Indian religions:

The distribution of Indian religions in British India (1909). The upper map shows distribution of Hindus, the lower of Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs.
The colonial project was itself undermined by its own constitutive contradictions, since many of these laws were no more intrinsic to Indian society than the proposed meld of English and Indian systems. (...) The application of laws derived from Sanskrit classical texts leveled the community of Hindus to include all those who were not Muslims or Christians, and it absorbed under the category of "Hindu" both outcastes and members of religions as diverse as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Judaism and Zorastrianism.
— Gauri Viswanathan, Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief, [36]

The 20th-century colonial laws of British India segregated people's rights by their religion, evolving to provide Muslims with sharia law, Christians, Jews and Paris of British India with their own religious laws. The British government created a compendium of religious laws for Hindus, and the term 'Hindu' in these colonial 'Hindu laws', decades before India's independence, applied to Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs.[12]

Beyond the stipulations of British law, colonial orientalists and particularly the influential Asiatick Researches founded in the 18th-century, later called The Asiatic Society, initially identified just two religions in India – Islam and Hinduism. These orientialists included all Indian religions such as Buddhism as a subgroup of Hinduism in the 18th-century.[1] These texts called followers of Islam as Mohamedans, and all others as Hindus. The text, by early 19th century, began dividing Hindus into separate groups, for chronology studies of the various beliefs. Among the earliest terms to emerge were Seeks and their College (later spelled Sikhs by Charles Wilkins), Boudhism (later spelled Buddhism), and in the 9th volume of Asiatick Researches report on religions in India, the term Jainism received notice.[1]

According to Pennington, the terms Hindu and Hinduism were thus constructed for colonial studies of India. The various sub-divisions and separation of subgroup terms were assumed to be result of "communal conflict", and Hindu was constructed by these orientalists to imply people who adhered to "ancient default oppressive religious substratum of India", states Pennington.[1] Followers of other Indian religions so identified were later referred Buddhists, Sikhs or Jains and distinguished from Hindus, in an antagonistic two-dimensional manner, with Hindus and Hinduism stereotyped as irrational traditional and others as rational reform religions. However, these mid 19th century reports offered no indication of doctrinal or ritual differences between Hindu and Buddhist, or other newly constructed religious identities.[1] These colonial studies, states Pennigton, "puzzled endlessly about the Hindus and intensely scrutinized them, but did not interrogate and avoided reporting the practices and religion of Mughal and Arabs in South Asia", and often relied on Muslim scholars to characterize Hindus.[1]

Contemporary usage

In contemporary era, the term Hindus are individuals who identify with one or more aspects of Hinduism, whether they are practicing or non-practicing or laissez faire.[37] The term does not include those who identify with other Indian religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism or various animist tribal religions found in India such as Sarnaism.[38][39] The term Hindu, in contemporary parlance, includes people who accept themselves as culturally or ethnically Hindu rather than with a fixed set of religious beliefs within Hinduism.[3] One need not be religious in the minimal sense, states Julius Lipner, to be accepted as Hindu by Hindus, or to describe oneself as Hindu.[40]

A young Nepali Hindu devotee during a traditional prayer ceremony at Kathmandu's Durbar Square.

Hindus subscribe to a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but have no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist.[41][42][43] Because of the wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult.[4] The religion "defies our desire to define and categorize it".[44] A Hindu may, by his or her choice, draw upon ideas of other Indian or non-Indian religious thought as a resource, follow or evolve his or her personal beliefs, and still identify as a Hindu.[3]

In 1995, Chief Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar was quoted in an Indian Supreme Court ruling:[45][46]

When we think of the Hindu religion, unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one god; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion or creed. It may broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more.

Although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, Hindus share philosophical concepts, such as but not limiting to dharma, karma, kama, artha, moksha and samsara, even if each subscribes to a diversity of views.[47] Hindus also have shared texts such as the Vedas with embedded Upanishads, and common ritual grammar (Sanskara (rite of passage)) such as rituals during a wedding or when a baby is born or cremation rituals.[48][49] Some Hindus go on pilgrimage to shared sites they consider spiritually significant, practice one or more forms of bhakti or puja, celebrate mythology and epics, major festivals, love and respect for guru and family, and other cultural traditions.[47][50] A Hindu could:

Disputes

In the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" has been used in some places to denote persons professing any of these religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism or Sikhism.[58] This however has been challenged by the Sikhs[38][59] and by neo-Buddhists who were formerly Hindus.[60] According to Sheen and Boyle, Jains have not objected to being covered by personal laws termed under 'Hindu',[60] but Indian courts have acknowledged that Jainism is a distinct religion.[61]

The Republic of India is in the peculiar situation that the Supreme Court of India has repeatedly been called upon to define "Hinduism" because the Constitution of India, while it prohibits "discrimination of any citizen" on grounds of religion in article 15, article 30 foresees special rights for "All minorities, whether based on religion or language". As a consequence, religious groups have an interest in being recognized as distinct from the Hindu majority in order to qualify as a "religious minority". Thus, the Supreme Court was forced to consider the question whether Jainism is part of Hinduism in 2005 and 2006. In the 2006 verdict, the Supreme Court found that the "Jain Religion is indisputably not a part of the Hindu Religion".[61]

History of Hindu identity

Starting after 10th century and particularly after the 12th century Islamic invasion, states Sheldon Pollock, the political response fused with the Indic religious culture and doctrines.[7] Temples dedicated to deity Rama were built from north to south India, and textual records as well as hagiographic inscriptions began comparing the Hindu epic of Ramayana to regional kings and their response to Islamic attacks. The Yadava king of Devagiri named Ramacandra, for example states Pollock, is described in a 13th-century record as, "How is this Rama to be described.. who freed Varanasi from the mleccha (barbarian, Turk Muslim) horde, and built there a golden temple of Sarngadhara".[7] Pollock notes that the Yadava king Ramacandra is described as a devotee of deity Shiva (Shaivism), yet his political achievements and temple construction sponsorship in Varanasi, far from his kingdom's location in the Deccan region, is described in the historical records in Vaishnavism terms of Rama, a deity Vishnu avatar.[7] Pollock presents many such examples and suggests an emerging Hindu political identity that was grounded in the Hindu religious text of Ramayana, one that has continued into the modern times, and suggests that this historic process began with the arrival of Islam in India.[62]

Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya has questioned the Pollock theory and presented textual and inscriptional evidence.[63] According to Chattopadhyaya, the Hindu identity and religious response to Islamic invasion and wars developed in different kingdoms, such as wars between Islamic Sultanates and the Vijayanagara kingdom (Karnataka), and Islamic raids on the kingdoms in Tamil Nadu. These wars were described not just using the mythical story of Rama from Ramayana, states Chattopadhyaya, the medieval records used a wide range of religious symbolism and myths that are now considered as part of Hindu literature.[8][63] This emergence of religious with political terminology began with the first Muslim invasion of Sindh in the 8th century CE, and intensified 13th century onwards. The 14th-century Sanskrit text, Madhuravijayam, a memoir written by Gangadevi, the wife of Vijayanagara prince, for example describes the consequences of war using religious terms,[64]

I very much lament for what happened to the groves in Madhura,
The coconut trees have all been cut and in their place are to be seen,
  rows of iron spikes with human skulls dangling at the points,
In the highways which were once charming with anklets sound of beautiful women,
  are now heard ear-piercing noises of Brahmins being dragged, bound in iron-fetters,
The waters of Tambraparni, which were once white with sandal paste,
  are now flowing red with the blood of cows slaughtered by miscreants,
Earth is no longer the producer of wealth, nor does Indra give timely rains,
The God of death takes his undue toll of what are left lives if undestroyed by the Yavanas [Muslims],[1]
The Kali age now deserves deepest congratulations for being at the zenith of its power,
gone is the sacred learning, hidden is refinement, hushed is the voice of Dharma.

  1. ^ the terms were Persians, Tajikas or Arabs, and Turushkas or Turks, states Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (2004), Other or the Others? in The World in the Year 1000 (Editors: James Heitzman, Wolfgang Schenkluhn), University Press of America, ISBN 978-0761825616, pages 303-319
— Madhuravijayam, Translated by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya[64]

The historiographic writings in Telugu language from the 13th- and 14th-century Kakatiya dynasty period presents a similar "alien other (Turk)" and "self-identity (Hindu)" contrast.[65] Chattopadhyaya, and other scholars,[66] state that the military and political campaign during the medieval era wars in Deccan peninsula of India, and in the north India, were no longer a quest for sovereignty, they embodied a political and religious animosity against the "otherness of Islam", and this began the historical process of Hindu identity formation.[8][lower-alpha 3]

Andrew Nicholson, in his review of scholarship on Hindu identity history, states that the vernacular literature of Bhakti movement sants from 15th to 17th century, such as Kabir, Anantadas, Eknath, Vidyapati, suggests that distinct religious identities, between Hindus and Turks (Muslims), had formed during these centuries.[68] The poetry of this period contrasts Hindu and Islamic identities, states Nicholson, and the literature vilifies the Muslims coupled with a "distinct sense of a Hindu religious identity".[68]

Hindu identity midst other Indian religions

Hindus celebrating their major festivals, Holi (top) and Diwali.

Scholars state that Hindu, Buddhist and Jain identities are retrospectively-introduced modern constructions.[14] Inscriptional evidence from 8th-century onwards, in regions such as South India suggests that medieval era India, at both elite and folk religious practices level, likely had a "shared religious culture",[14] and their collective identities were "multiple, layered and fuzzy".[69] Even among Hinduism denominations such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism, the Hindu identities, states Leslie Orr, lacked "firm definitions and clear boundaries".[69]

Overlaps in Jain-Hindu identities have included Jains worshipping Hindu deities, intermarriages between Jains and Hindus, and medieval era Jain temples featuring Hindu religious icons and sculpture.[70][71][72] Beyond India, on Java island of Indonesia, historical records attest to marriages between Hindus and Buddhists, medieval era temple architecture and sculptures that simultaneously incorporate Hindu and Buddhist themes,[73] where Hinduism and Buddhism merged and functioned as "two separate paths within one overall system", according to Ann Kenney and other scholars.[74] Similarly, there is an organic relation of Sikhs to Hindus, states Zaehner, both in religious thought and their communities, and virtually all Sikhs' ancestors were Hindus.[75] Marriages between Sikhs and Hindus, particularly among Khatris, were frequent.[75] Some Hindu families brought up a son as a Sikh, and some Hindus view Sikhism as a tradition within Hinduism, even though the Sikh faith is a distinct religion.[75]

Julius Lipner states that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomena, but one that is a convenient abstraction.[13] Distinguishing Indian traditions is a fairly recent practice, states Lipner, and is the result of "not only Western preconceptions about the nature of religion in general and of religion in India in particular, but also with the political awareness that has arisen in India" in its people and a result of Western influence during its colonial history.[13]

Hindu nationalism

Main articles: Hindu nationalism and Hindutva

Christophe Jaffrelot states that modern Hindu nationalism was born in Maharashtra, in the 1920s, as a reaction to the Islamic Khilafat Movement wherein Indian Muslims championed and took the cause of the Turkish Ottoman sultan as the Caliph of all Muslims, at the end of the World War I.[76][77] Hindus viewed this development as one of divided loyalties of Indian Muslim population, of pan-Islamic hegemony, and questioned whether Indian Muslims were a part of an inclusive anti-colonial Indian nationalism.[77] The Hindu nationalism ideology that emerged, states Jeffrelot, was codified by Savarkar while he was a political prisoner of the British colonial empire.[76][78]

Chris Bayly traces the roots of Hindu nationalism to the Hindu identity and political independence achieved by the Maratha confederacy, that overthrew the Islamic Mughal empire in large parts of India, allowing Hindus the freedom to pursue any of their diverse religious beliefs and restored Hindu holy places such as Varanasi.[79] A few scholars view Hindu mobilization and consequent nationalism to have emerged in the 19th-century as a response to British colonialism by Indian nationalists and neo-Hinduism gurus.[80][81][82] Jaffrelot states that the efforts of Christian missionaries and Islamic proselytizers, during the British colonial era, each of whom tried to gain new converts to their own religion, by stereotyping and stigmatizing Hindus to an identity of being inferior and superstitious, contributed to Hindus re-asserting their spiritual heritage and counter cross examining Islam and Christianity, forming organizations such as the Hindu Sabhas (Hindu associations), and ultimately a Hindu-identity driven nationalism in the 1920s.[83]

The colonial era Hindu revivalism and mobilization, along with Hindu nationalism, states Peter van der Veer, was primarily a reaction to and competition with Muslim separatism and Muslim nationalism.[84] The successes of each side fed the fears of the other, leading to the growth of Hindu nationalism and Muslim nationalism in the Indian subcontinent.[84] In 20th century, the sense of religious nationalism grew in India, notes van der Veer, but only Muslim nationalism succeeded with the formation of the Islamic state of Pakistan (later split into Pakistan and Bangladesh).[85] Religious riots and social trauma followed as millions of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs moved out of the newly created Islamic states and resettled into the Hindu-majority post-British India.[85] After the separation of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Hindu nationalism movement developed the concept of Hindutva in second half of the 20th century.[86]

The Hindu nationalism movement has sought to reform Indian laws, that critics say attempts to impose Hindu values on India's Islamic minority. Gerald Larson states, for example, that Hindu nationalists have sought a uniform civil code, where all citizens are subject to the same laws, everyone has equal civil rights, and individual rights do not depend on the individual's religion.[87] In contrast, opponents of Hindu nationalists remark that eliminating religious law from India poses a threat to the cultural identity and religious rights of Muslims, and people of Islamic faith have a constitutional right to Islamic shariah-based personal laws.[87][88] A specific law, contentious between Hindu nationalists and their opponents in India, relates to the legal age of marriage for girls.[89] Hindu nationalists seek that the legal age for marriage be eighteen that is universally applied to all girls regardless of their religion and that marriages be registered with local government to verify the age of marriage. Muslim clerics consider this proposal as unacceptable because under the shariah-derived personal law, a Muslim girl can be married at any age after she reaches puberty.[89]

Hindu nationalism in India, states Katharine Adeney, is a controversial political subject, with no consensus about what it means or implies in terms of the form of government and religious rights of the minorities.[90]

Demographics

Main article: Hinduism by country
Hinduism by country, worldmap (estimate 2010).[91]

According to Pew Research, there are over 1 billion Hindus worldwide (15% of world's population).[92] Along with Christians (31.5%), Muslims (23.2%) and Buddhists (7.1%), Hindus are one of the four major religious groups of the world.[93]

Most Hindus are found in Asian countries. The countries with more than 500,000 Hindu residents and citizens include (in decreasing order) - India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom, Myanmar, Canada, Mauritius, Trinidad & Tobago, and South Africa.[17][92]

The fertility rate, that is children per woman, for Hindus is 2.4, which is less than the world average of 2.5.[94] Pew Research projects that there will be 1.161 billion Hindus by 2020.[95]

Hindus in the World (2010)
Region Total Population Hindus % total
Africa 885,103,542 2,013,705 0.23%
Asia 3,903,418,706 1,014,348,412 26.01%
Europe 728,571,703 2,030,904 0.28%
Americas 883,197,750 6,481,937 0.28%
Oceania 36,659,000 616,000 1.78%

In more ancient times, Hindu kingdoms arose and spread the religion and traditions across Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, Nepal, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, and what is now central Vietnam.

Over 3 million Hindus are found in Bali Indonesia, a culture whose origins trace back to ideas brought by Tamil Hindu traders to Indonesian islands in the 1st millennium CE. Their sacred texts are also the Vedas and the Upanishads.[96] The Puranas and the Itihasa (mainly Ramayana and the Mahabharata) are enduring traditions among Indonesian Hindus, expressed in community dances and shadow puppet (wayang) performances. As in India, Indonesian Hindus recognizes four paths of spirituality, calling it Catur Marga.[97] Similarly, like Hindus in India, Balinese Hindu believe that there are four proper goals of human life, calling it Catur Purusartha - dharma (pursuit of moral and ethical living), artha (pursuit of wealth and creative activity), kama (pursuit of joy and love) and moksha (pursuit of self-knowledge and liberation).[98][99]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Flood (1996, p. 6) adds: "(...) 'Hindu', or 'Hindoo', was used towards the end of the eighteenth century by the British to refer to the people of 'Hindustan', the people of northwest India. Eventually 'Hindu' became virtually equivalent to an 'Indian' who was not a Muslim, Sikh, Jain or Christian, thereby encompassing a range of religious beliefs and practices. The '-ism' was added to Hindu in around 1830 to denote the culture and religion of the high-caste Brahmans in contrast to other religions, and the term was soon appropriated by Indians themselves in the context of building a national identity opposed to colonialism, though the term 'Hindu' was used in Sanskrit and Bengali hagiographic texts in contrast to 'Yavana' or Muslim as early as the sixteenth century".
  2. ↑ von Stietencron (2005, p. 229): For more than 100 years the word Hindu (plural) continued to denote the Indians in general. But when, from AD 712 onwards, Muslims began to settle permanently in the Indus valley and to make converts among low-caste Hindus, Persian authors distinguished between Hindus and Muslims in India: Hindus were Indians other than Muslim. We know that Persian scholars were able to distinguish a number of religions among the Hindus. But when Europeans started to use the term Hindoo, they applied it to the non-Muslim masses of India without those scholarly differentiations.
  3. ↑ David Lorenzen (2010): "When it comes to early sources written in Indian languages (and also Persian and Arabic), the word 'Hindu' is used in a clearly religious sense in a great number of texts at least as early as the sixteenth century. (...) Although al-Biruni's original Arabic text only uses a term equivalent to the religion of the people of India, his description of Hindu religion is in fact remarkably similar to those of nineteenth-century European orientalists. For his part Vidyapati, in his Apabhransha text Kirtilata, makes use of the phrase 'Hindu and Turk dharmas' in a clearly religious sense and highlights the local conflicts between the two communities. In the early sixteenth century texts attributed to Kabir, the references to 'Hindus' and to 'Turks' or 'Muslims' (musalamans) in a clearly religious context are numerous and unambiguous."[67]
  1. ↑ Flood (2008, p. 3): The Indo-Aryan word Sindhu means "river", "ocean".

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Brian Pennington (2007), Was Hinduism Invented?: Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195326000, pages 111-118
  2. ↑ http://www.freedictionary.com/Hinduism
  3. 1 2 3 Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, ISBN 978-1845112738, pages 35-37
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Flood 1996, p. 6.
  5. 1 2 3 John Stratton Hawley and Vasudha Narayanan (2006), The Life of Hinduism, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0520249141, pages 10-11
  6. 1 2 Lorenzen 2006, pp. 24–33
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Sheldon Pollock (1993), Rāmāyaṇa and political imagination in India, Journal of Asian studies, Vol. 52, No. 2, pages 266-269
  8. 1 2 3 Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (1998), Representing the other?: Sanskrit sources and the Muslims (eighth to fourteenth century), Manohar Publications, ISBN 978-8173042522, pages 92-103, Chapter 1 and 2
  9. ↑ O'Conell, Joseph T. (1973). "The Word 'Hindu' in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Texts". Journal of the American Oriental Society 93 (3): 340–344.
  10. ↑ Lorenzen 2006.
  11. 1 2 Lorenzen 2006, p. 15.
  12. 1 2 Rachel Sturman (2010), Hinduism and Law: An Introduction (Editors: Timothy Lubin et al), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521716260, pages 90-96
  13. 1 2 3 Julius J. Lipner (2009), Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 2nd Edition, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415456777, pages 17-18
  14. 1 2 3 Leslie Orr (2014), Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of God, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195356724, pages 25-26, 204
  15. ↑ Hindu Population projections Pew Research (2015), Washington DC
  16. ↑ Rukmini S Vijaita Singh Muslim population growth slows The Hindu, August 25, 2015; 79.8% of more than 121 crore Indians (as per 2011 census) are Hindus
  17. 1 2 3 10 Countries With the Largest Hindu Populations, 2010 and 2050 Pew Research Center (2015), Washington DC
  18. 1 2 Flood 2008, p. 3.
  19. ↑ Takacs, Sarolta Anna; Cline, Eric H. (17 July 2015), The Ancient World, Routledge, pp. 377–, ISBN 978-1-317-45839-5
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 Sharma, Arvind (2002), "On Hindu, Hindustan, Hinduism and Hindutva", Numen 49 (1): 1–36, doi:10.1163/15685270252772759, JSTOR 3270470
  21. ↑ Thapar 2003, p. 38.
  22. 1 2 3 Jha 2009, p. 15.
  23. ↑ Jha 2009, p. 16.
  24. ↑ Thapar 2003, p. 8.
  25. ↑ Thapar, Romila (1996), "The Tyranny of Labels", Social Scientist 24 (9/10): 3–23, doi:10.2307/3520140, JSTOR 3520140
  26. ↑ Wilfred Cantwell Smith 1981, p. 62.
  27. 1 2 Lorenzen 2006, p. 33.
  28. ↑ Lorenzen 2006, p. 31.
  29. ↑ Lorenzen 2006, pp. 32-33.
  30. ↑ O'Conell, Joseph T. (1973). "The Word 'Hindu' in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Texts". Journal of the American Oriental Society 93 (3). pp. 340–344. doi:10.2307/599467.
  31. 1 2 Arvind Sharma (2002), On Hindu, Hindustān, Hinduism and Hindutva Numen, Vol. 49, Fasc. 1, pages 5-9
  32. ↑ Arvind Sharma (2002), On Hindu, Hindustān, Hinduism and Hindutva Numen, Vol. 49, Fasc. 1, page 9
  33. ↑ Pashaura Singh (2005), Understanding the Martyrdom of Guru Arjan, Journal of Punjab Studies, 12(1), page 37
  34. ↑ Pashaura Singh (2005), Understanding the Martyrdom of Guru Arjan, Journal of Punjab Studies, 12(1), pages 29-31
  35. ↑ Wheeler Thackston (1999), Translator and Editor, The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195127188, page 59
  36. 1 2 Gauri Viswanathan (1998), Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691058993, page 78
  37. ↑ Bryan Turner (2010), The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-1405188524, pages 424-425
  38. 1 2 Martin E. Marty (1 July 1996). Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance. University of Chicago Press. pp. 270–271. ISBN 978-0-226-50884-9.
  39. ↑ James Minahan (2012), Ethnic Groups of South Asia and the Pacific: An Encyclopedia, ISBN 978-1598846591, pages 97-99
  40. ↑ Julius J. Lipner (2009), Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 2nd Edition, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415456777, page 8
  41. ↑ Julius J. Lipner (2009), Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 2nd Edition, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-45677-7, page 8; Quote: "(...) one need not be religious in the minimal sense described to be accepted as a Hindu by Hindus, or describe oneself perfectly validly as Hindu. One may be polytheistic or monotheistic, monistic or pantheistic, even an agnostic, humanist or atheist, and still be considered a Hindu."
  42. ↑ Lester Kurtz (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, ISBN 978-0123695031, Academic Press, 2008
  43. ↑ MK Gandhi, The Essence of Hinduism, Editor: VB Kher, Navajivan Publishing, see page 3; According to Gandhi, "a man may not believe in God and still call himself a Hindu."
  44. ↑ Knott, Kim (1998). Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University press. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-19-285387-5.
  45. ↑ Supreme Court of India, "Bramchari Sidheswar Shai and others Versus State of West Bengal", 1995, Archive2
  46. ↑ Supreme Court of India 1966 AIR 1119, Sastri Yagnapurushadji vs Muldas Brudardas Vaishya (pdf), page 15, 14 January 1966
  47. 1 2 Frazier, Jessica (2011). The Continuum companion to Hindu studies. London: Continuum. pp. 1–15. ISBN 978-0-8264-9966-0.
  48. ↑ Carl Olson (2007), The Many Colors of Hinduism: A Thematic-historical Introduction, Rutgers University Press, ISBN 978-0813540689, pages 93-94
  49. ↑ Rajbali Pandey (2013), Hindu Saṁskāras: Socio-religious Study of the Hindu Sacraments, 2nd Edition, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120803961, pages 15-36
  50. ↑ Flood, Gavin, "Establishing the boundaries" in Flood (2003), pp. 1-17.
  51. ↑ Muller, F. Max. Six Systems of Indian Philosophy; Samkhya and Yoga; Naya and Vaiseshika. 1899. This classic work helped to establish the major classification systems as we know them today. Reprint edition: (Kessinger Publishing: February 2003) ISBN 978-0-7661-4296-1.
  52. ↑ Radhakrishnan, S.; Moore, CA (1967). A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy. Princeton. ISBN 0-691-01958-4.
  53. ↑ Tattwananda, Swami (1984). Vaisnava Sects, Saiva Sects, Mother Worship (First revised ed.). Calcutta: Firma KLM Private Ltd. This work gives an overview of many different subsets of the three main religious groups in India.
  54. ↑ TS Rukmani (2008), Theory and Practice of Yoga (Editor: Knut Jacobsen), Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120832329, pages 61-74
  55. 1 2 3 Jeaneane Fowler (1996), Hinduism: Beliefs and Practices, Sussex Academic Press, ISBN 978-1898723608, pages 41-44
  56. ↑ Stella Kramrisch (1958), Traditions of the Indian Craftsman, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 71, No. 281, pages 224-230
  57. ↑ Ronald Inden (2001), Imagining India, Indiana University Press, ISBN 978-0253213587, pages 110-115
  58. ↑ India-Constitution:Religious rights Article 25:"Explanation II: In sub-Clause (b) of clause (2), the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion"
  59. ↑ Tanweer Fazal (1 August 2014). "Nation-state" and Minority Rights in India: Comparative Perspectives on Muslim and Sikh Identities. Routledge. pp. 20, 112–114. ISBN 978-1-317-75179-3.
  60. 1 2 Kevin Boyle; Juliet Sheen (7 March 2013). Freedom of Religion and Belief: A World Report. Routledge. pp. 191–192. ISBN 978-1-134-72229-7.
  61. 1 2 para 25, Committee of Management Kanya Junior High School Bal Vidya Mandir, Etah, Uttar Pradesh v. Sachiv, U.P. Basic Shiksha Parishad, Allahabad, U.P. and Ors., Per Dalveer Bhandari J., Civil Appeal No. 9595 of 2003, decided On: 21 August 2006, Supreme Court of India
  62. ↑ Sheldon Pollock (1993), Rāmāyaṇa and political imagination in India, Journal of Asian studies, Vol. 52, No. 2, pages 261-297
  63. 1 2 Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (2004), Other or the Others? in The World in the Year 1000 (Editors: James Heitzman, Wolfgang Schenkluhn), University Press of America, ISBN 978-0761825616, pages 303-323
  64. 1 2 Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (2004), Other or the Others? in The World in the Year 1000 (Editors: James Heitzman, Wolfgang Schenkluhn), University Press of America, ISBN 978-0761825616, pages 306-307
  65. ↑ Cynthia Talbot (2000), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Editors: David Gilmartin, Bruce B. Lawrence), University Press of Florida, ISBN 978-0813024875, pages 291-294
  66. ↑ Cynthia Talbot (1995), Inscribing the other, inscribing the self: Hindu-Muslim identities in pre-colonial India, Comparative studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, No. 4, pages 701-706
  67. ↑ David Lorenzen (2010), Rethinking Religion in India: The Colonial Construction of Hinduism (Editors: Esther Bloch et al), Routledge, ISBN 978-0415548908, page 29
  68. 1 2 Andrew Nicholson (2013), Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0231149877, pages 198-199
  69. 1 2 Leslie Orr (2014), Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of God, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195356724, pages 42, 204
  70. ↑ Paul Dundas (2002), The Jains, 2nd Edition, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415266055, pages 6-10
  71. ↑ K Reddy (2011), Indian History, Tata McGraw Hill, ISBN 978-0071329231, page 93
  72. ↑ Margaret Allen (1992), Ornament in Indian Architecture, University of Delaware Press, ISBN 978-0874133998, page 211
  73. ↑ Trudy King et al (1996), Historic Places: Asia and Oceania, Routledge, ISBN 978-1884964046, page 692
  74. ↑ Ann Kenney et al (2003), Worshiping Siva and Buddha: The Temple Art of East Java, University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 978-0824827793, pages 24-25
  75. 1 2 3 Robert Zaehner (1997), Encyclopedia of the World's Religions, Barnes & Noble Publishing, ISBN 978-0760707128, page 409
  76. 1 2 Christophe Jaffrelot (2007), Hindu Nationalism: A Reader, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691130989, pages 13-15
  77. 1 2 Gail Minault (1982), The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0231050722, pages 1-11 and Preface section
  78. ↑ Amalendu Misra (2004), Identity and Religion, SAGE Publications, ISBN 978-0761932260, pages 148-188
  79. ↑ CA Bayly (1985), The pre-history of communialism? Religious conflict in India 1700-1860, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2, pages 186-187, 177-203
  80. ↑ Christophe Jaffrelot (2007), Hindu Nationalism: A Reader, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691130989, pages 6-7
  81. ↑ Antony Copley (2000), Gurus and their followers: New religious reform movements in Colonial India, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195649581, pages 4-5, 24-27, 163-164
  82. ↑ Hardy, F. "A radical assessment of the Vedic heritage" in Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious and National Identity, Sage Publ., Delhi, 1995.
  83. ↑ Christophe Jaffrelot (2007), Hindu Nationalism: A Reader, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691130989, pages 13
  84. 1 2 Peter van der Veer (1994), Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0520082564, pages 11-14, 1-24
  85. 1 2 Peter van der Veer (1994), Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0520082564, pages 26-32, 53-54
  86. ↑ Ram-Prasad, C. "Contemporary political Hinduism" in Blackwell companion to Hinduism, Blackwell Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-631-21535-2
  87. 1 2 GJ Larson (2002), Religion and Personal Law in Secular India: A Call to Judgment, Indiana University Press, ISBN 978-0253214805, pages 55-56
  88. ↑ John Mansfield (2005), The Personal Laws or a Uniform Civil Code?, in Religion and Law in Independent India (Editor: Robert Baird), Manohar, ISBN 978-8173045882, page 121-127, 135-136, 151-156
  89. 1 2 Sylvia Vatuk (2013), Adjudicating Family Law in Muslim Courts (Editor: Elisa Giunchi), Routledge, ISBN 978-0415811859, pages 52-53
  90. ↑ Katharine Adeney and Lawrence Saez (2005), Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415359818, pages 98-114
  91. ↑ Pew Research Center, Washington DC, Religious Composition by Country (December 2012) (2012)
  92. 1 2 Hindu population totals in 2010 by Country Pew Research, Washington DC (2012)
  93. ↑ Table: Religious Composition (%) by Country Global Religious Composition, Pew Research Center (2012)
  94. ↑ Total Fertility Rates of Hindus by Region, 2010-2050 Pew Research Center (2015), Washington DC
  95. ↑ Projected Global Hindu Population, 2010-2050 Pew Research Center (2015), Washington DC
  96. ↑ Martin Ramstedt (2003), Hinduism in Modern Indonesia, Routledge, ISBN 978-0700715336, pages 2-23
  97. ↑ Murdana, I. Ketut (2008), BALINESE ARTS AND CULTURE: A flash understanding of Concept and Behavior, Mudra - JURNAL SENI BUDAYA, Indonesia; Volume 22, page 5-11
  98. ↑ Ida Bagus Sudirga (2009), Widya Dharma - Agama Hindu, Ganeca Indonesia, ISBN 978-9795711773
  99. ↑ IGP Sugandhi (2005), Seni (Rupa) Bali Hindu Dalam Perspektif Epistemologi Brahma Widya, Ornamen, Vol 2, Number 1, pp. 58-69

Sources

Further reading


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, May 05, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.