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Hinduism questions?

Comet

Harvey Wallbanger
I am at University and am currently taking a World Religions class. I am interviewing a Hindu for my interview project to write a paper on. I thought I'd ask a few generic questions here to help me along:

1. How many "branches" or different paths of Hinduism are there? Do they "fight" with each other?

2. What is the one thing you would want the whole world to know about Hinduism?

3. How do you view the caste system?

Thanks to all replies from followers.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
1. Too many to know. 4 main branches, each with several schools, + different interpretations within those schools
2. It's vast. Very vast, encompassing a whole lot.
3. I personally do not practice caste based discrimination. It's a social system that was once useful, as a natural order, but now isn't. It is no more central to the faith than the western class system is to capitalism.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
1) Several orthodox schools and endless variations.
2) Hinduism's based on levels of reality, with corresponding levels of consciousness. The practitioner's goal is to wake up.
3)With scorn and disgust.
 

Sumit

Sanatana Dharma
1. How many "branches" or different paths of Hinduism are there? Do they "fight" with each other?
Many Branches, different beliefs but they never clash each other.
What is the one thing you would want the whole world to know about Hinduism?
Teachings of Vedas

How do you view the caste system?
Caste System initially was not the part of hinduism. It was Varna system. It was not birth based system. Varna System means a system divided on basis of jobs. Teachers were called Brahmins, Warriors were Khastriya, People involved in Bussiness were Vaishyas and the uneducated were called Shudras.
:D
 

Madhuri

RF Goddess
Staff member
Premium Member
1. How many "branches" or different paths of Hinduism are there? Do they "fight" with each other?

2. What is the one thing you would want the whole world to know about Hinduism?

3. How do you view the caste system?

Thanks to all replies from followers.

1. Too many to count but they generally get along with each other very well.

2. How awesome and universal it is.

3. The caste system is horrible. It really annoys me when people try to argue that it's actually part of Hindu (Vedic) teachings.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
Teachings of Vedas

And that Hindus do not worship idols or "false gods"; that Hinduism is actually montheistic, panentheistic and/or monist depending on the school, but there is only one God.
 

Comet

Harvey Wallbanger
I owe many frubals here! I will get to them in due time (when I have more to give). Thank you all so much.
 

Comet

Harvey Wallbanger
And that Hindus do not worship idols or "false gods"; that Hinduism is actually montheistic, panentheistic and/or monist depending on the school, but there is only one God.

Please expand upon this. I am curious to hear. I have heard Hindus are Panentheistic and some Monist... never have I heard monotheistic before. Please expand.
 

Sumit

Sanatana Dharma
Hinduism believes in the concept of one god. All authentic scriptures of Hinduism favors Monotheism. However you can find all types of people in Hinduism.
 

nameless

The Creator
IMHO, except bhagavatham and puranas, all hindu scriptures teaches either monism or atheism(or polytheism). To hinduism, all that is, is god, there is no difference between 'one-god' and 'many-gods', just everything is god.
 
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Shuddhasattva

Well-Known Member
1. How many "branches" or different paths of Hinduism are there?

Hinduism is a very disparate religion; it may not even be considered a religion as such, but a meta-religion playing host to many separate religions.

The term "HInduism" is analogous to "Abrahamism" or even "Jordanism," as the word "Hindu" comes from the Persian pronunciation of Sindhu - the same river that lends its name to the so-called "Indus River Valley civilization." 'Hindu'ism is a convenient umbrella used first by the Persians and later the British, lumping up all of the various astika or quasi astika religions.

Astika means "it is so," and refers to the Vedas; the Veda-affirming religions, as opposed to Carvakas (materialist-atheists), Buddhists and Jains. All of the astika religions claim to represent A. the Vedas, and B. the Sanatana Dharma, which the "true name" for the Hindu religion.

This though is also tricky, as the Sanatana Dharma's self-description is as a perennial religion, always existing and emergent to one degree or another in society. What we have in Hinduism is more the "Hindu Dharma" interpretation of Sanatana Dharma.

Anyway... to come back finally to your question directly, there are hundreds of different sects so standalone as to be just-as-accurately termed separate religions, they are all unified by loose adherence (or claimed adherence) to the Vedas, except for a few minor tantric cults who will actually disparage the Vedas yet are still considered "Hindu" rather than nastika for some odd reason.

They mostly squabble or just stay out of eachother's way, the only actual fighting has been done by nagas - dharma sainiks (warriors) to my knowledge, especially between Vaishnava and Shaiva nagas at the kumbha mela.

The modern Hindu identity is partially a result of a meld which was originally imposed externally and later internalized. In fact, it's one of the reasons now the nation of India exists as such, rather than a loosely associated bloc of small, regional nations centered around particular Indic cultures, languages, and even religions, because after more than a millennia as disparate nations and cultures (with religions being the major unifying force), the political and military might of the Persian invaders forged a pan-Indian culture which the British further shored up after the initial 'divide and conquer,' paving the way for modern self-determination as an expanded nation
2. What is the one thing you would want the whole world to know about Hinduism?

Hinduism is a practical religion; belief alone is not sufficient, it takes inner and outer work to achieve the truly higher consciousness for oneself and others.
3. How do you view the caste system?

A vile construct, perhaps as old or older than the Vedas, but only tangently related to Indic religions, and far more a cultural phenomenon than anything else which sometimes seeks, and sometimes creates, religious justification for itself.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
Please expand upon this. I am curious to hear. I have heard Hindus are Panentheistic and some Monist... never have I heard monotheistic before. Please expand.

Hinduism believes in the concept of one god. All authentic scriptures of Hinduism favors Monotheism. However you can find all types of people in Hinduism.

Yes, what Sumit said.

I'll add, as per my understandings...
Monotheism = one God.
Panentheism = all is within God
Monism = all is God.
 

Shuddhasattva

Well-Known Member
I don't believe that Hinduism is monotheistic or not-polytheistic; I think Indians have become enamored of monotheism because of centuries of Persian & British rule, and intenralized the idea that the only valid god concepts are monotheistic ones, and that therefore,t he Vedic religions had to be reinterpreted to be monotheistic, as an extension of some sort of imposed inferiority complex.

Hinduism is certainly polytheistic, and monotheistic, and ultimately monistic. It is not limited by the Western god concepts - whether the 'theistic' part or the mono/poly/whatever.
 

Maya3

Well-Known Member
I don't believe that Hinduism is monotheistic or not-polytheistic; I think Indians have become enamored of monotheism because of centuries of Persian & British rule, and intenralized the idea that the only valid god concepts are monotheistic ones, and that therefore,t he Vedic religions had to be reinterpreted to be monotheistic, as an extension of some sort of imposed inferiority complex.

Hinduism is certainly polytheistic, and monotheistic, and ultimately monistic. It is not limited by the Western god concepts - whether the 'theistic' part or the mono/poly/whatever.

I don't agree.
I think that Hinduism IS monotheistic, though a better term than ONE God is ALL or Everything is God, so in that sense if you count everything as separate as it is running around or growing on earth (or wherever) then yes there are billions, but we are not separate from God, so in reality there is only ONE or ALL.

Maya
 

Sumit

Sanatana Dharma
Polytheism is the concept of Puranas.
Vedas, Darshan Shastras and 11 authentic Upanishads clearly states that their is only one God.
Here are some Verses.......

There is no second God, nor a third, nor is even a fourth spoken of
There is no fifth God or a sixth nor is even a seventh mentioned.
There is no eighth God, nor a ninth. Nothing is spoken about a tenth even.
This unique power is in itself. That Lord is only one, the only omnipresent. It is one and the only one.--AtharvaVeda 13.4

The Lord of the entire universe is one and one only.( Rig-Veda 6.36.4)

"There is only one God, not the second; not at all, not at all, not in the least bit."- (Brahma Sutra)

"God, O men existed in the beginning of the Creation. It is the Creator, Support and Sustainer of the sun and other luminous worlds, was the Lord of the past Creation and the Lord of the present. It will be the Lord of the unborn universe. It created the whole world, and sustains it. It is Eternal Bliss. May ye all praise and adore god as we do." YAJUR VEDA, 13:4

Brahma is one and is unchangeable. (Yajurveda 40.4)
:D
 

Shuddhasattva

Well-Known Member
Excessive emphasis on the singularity of God (itself something of a misnomer, being that absolute oneness disbars even the singular) makes fools of the Rishis who went to great pains to outline their polytheistic monism, or better, kathenotheistic system of worshiping various gods in antarayagya, each as supremely endowed of brahman.

Such is the nature of the one truth named variously.

If this be dismissed, then so is the point of its practice and the vedas are truly lost to us.
 

Sumit

Sanatana Dharma
Excessive emphasis on the unity of god makes fools of the Rishis who went to great pains to outline their polytheistic monism,
I have talked to many Sadhus and none of them said that Shiva or Vishnu or Brahma etc are different. They always say that they all are one, god is one but they focus on particular nature of god. Similar verse is described in Rigveda "Brahma is one but sages call it by different names". Every name describes a nature of god. :)
:D
 

Shuddhasattva

Well-Known Member
Of course they don't, but "many sadhus" hasn't much credibility; India has no homeless people, and few mentally ill; only sadhus.

Most are mundane people living an easy, if hard, life, coasting on alms, often thieving and earning only their increasingly poor reputation. And some are just crazy.

And virtually all real sadhus will be tantriks, or deep vedists, using a kathenotheistic systme of worship to perform the antarayagya, involving mandalas of deities, each receiving their due oblation.
 

Sumit

Sanatana Dharma
And virtually all real sadhus will be tantriks, or deep vedists, using a kathenotheistic systme of worship to perform the antarayagya, involving mandalas of deities, each receiving their due oblation.
These deties cannot be compared to god. These deties represents different energy (both positive and negative) around us. By mastering them they master tantra.
:D
 
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Shuddhasattva

Well-Known Member
They compose the Indic god-concepts, and cannot be viewed with the lens of classical mythology or Judeo-Christianity that Indians have learned to look at themselves though.

But yes, they are our gods.
 
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