Hinduism is a religion that goes back approx 10,000 years to the Indus Valley civilisation, and basically charts and sums up the religious thought of the Indian people over thousands of years. Like all primitive cultures at this time in the world, the Indian people were polytheistic and animistic, they worshiped natural phenomenon like the sun, trees, water and animals and deified them as many gods. Again, like all primitive cultures they performed sacrifices to their gods to win their favour, some of the major sacrifices were animal sacrifices like horses and goats. This tradition continued for a long time, but as religious thought among the Indian people evolved, just as it did with other cultures on the planet, they moved from polytheistic to monothestic thought, reducing the number of gods into an abstract concept they called the ONE truth(ekam sat) and their attitudes became more philosophical. They started to question the spiritual efficacy of the rituals, and began to reinterpret the ritual as an inner-ritual, composing the Upanishads(eventually the later Upanishads even reject them altogether) which initially appeared at the end of the traditional ritual texts like the Brahmanas and Aranyakas, before the Upanishads developed into their own class of literature. This is the period where Vedanta begins and the Jnana portion of Hinduism is formulated. In the Upanishads all the key philosophical concepts of Hinduism appear: Brahman, Atman, Reincarnation, Karma, Tattvas, Yoga. These concepts are then organized and rationally elaborated in the Darsanas. Although these concepts are found in their germinal form in the Vedic Samhitas, it not until later in the philosophical period that they are formulated into concrete concepts.
This philosophical period of Hinduism, forms the bedrock from which rises new religious trafitions like Buddhism and Jainism and later the various religious traditions of Vaishnavism, Shiviaism and Shaktism, and they evolve their own class of literature known as Puranas, containing their own secetarian biases, beliefs and legends. The Shivaist and Shaktist tradition further develop their own class of literature, most of which is in Tamil known as the tantras/agamas.
Hinduism of course continues up until present day, in modern times the key developments within Hinduism have been due to exchanges with the West, a move towards synthesis of thought driven by Hindu visionaries like Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and countless Yoga gurus. There has also been a development of Hindu nationalist thought to preserve Hindu identity from the onslaught of the West like the Arya Samaaj, Hare Krishna movement and VHP.
You lack a lot of historical context and are unable to appreciate how Hinduism has developed. Now as a Modern Hindu I am not forced to accept everything within Hinduism, as Hinduism represents a vast matrix of beliefs today. I can pick and choose what is acceptable to me. To me only the Jnana-khanda is acceptable. Everything else is dross.
I am only interested in Hindu philosophy, nothing else about Hinduism appeals to me. The knowledge and wisdom is the most important part to me. I don't care for the myths, traditions, gods and goddesses, caste system, nationalism.
