The Founder of Hinduism

One of the most frequently asked questions about Hinduism (or any other religion), is who was its founder? Who was the founder of Hinduism? Who started this religious tradition that today has around one billion followers?

Although in other major world religions like Buddhism, Christianity and Islam we can trace the origin of the tradition to a single man, Hinduism is so ancient and complex that it is impossible to find that historical person. In fact, it is unlikely that such an individual even existed.

What we can do, however, is to trace the origin of Hinduism to various historical and cultural sources. There are two main sources which influenced the emergence of Hinduism as we know it today: the culture of the Indus Valley civilization and the culture of the Aryan civilization.

The Indus Valley Influence

The Indus Valley civilization is considered one of the great cultures of the ancient world. Although Hindus would not regard the Indus Valley civilization as part of their sacred history, there is evidence that elements from this culture contributed to the great amalgam of Hinduism.

One of the most important aspects that Hinduism inherited from this great civilization is its sense of purity and pollution. Great concern with cleanliness is evidenced throughout the Indus Valley civilization. Large cities had large central baths with public access. These baths were not only build with hygiene in mind, but specially to maintain ritual purity.

In these baths, people came to restore the pristine order that may have been disrupted by inappropriate behavior or simply by coming into contact with a person that is seen as unclean. This tradition is still present today in Hinduism, as many people regard certain things and persons as unclean, as we see with the caste system.

The Aryan Influence

The second important source that influenced Hinduism is the Aryan civilization. The Aryans were very different from what we know about the Indus Valley dwellers. The Aryans were nomads rather than settled down agriculturalists. They didn’t build great cities like the Indus Valley civilization.

Since the Aryans were migratory, they left in the way of archeological evidence. Almost everything we know about them is based in what is now a collection of writings called the Vedas. These writings are considered Hinduism’s holy book.

The Veda is a rather unusual collection of literature. It is not narrative like the Bible. It tells no grand story of gods and humans. The Vedas are more like a liturgy manual. It includes hundreds of hymns addressed to various deities, as well as myths, some spells and a bit of philosophical speculation.

According to the beliefs of most Hindus today, the Vedas existed prior to this world and embodies an eternal law that transcends even the gods. The words of the Vedas, according to traditional conviction, were revealed to ancient sages called Rishis in a distant past.

Today, the Veda is regarded as the most authoritative and sacred Hindu scripture. So important is the Veda that Hinduism is sometimes called Vedic Dharma: the religion of the Veda. Acceptance of the authority of the Veda has been a criterion for determining which schools of Indian thought are orthodox and which are heterodox.

Further Reading:

• The Origin of Hinduism
  
• How Hinduism Was Started

How Hinduism Was Started

How Hinduism was started? To understand how this religious tradition began, we need to look at its roots, that is the Indus Valley Civilization and the Aryan Civilization. By 600 B.C. the religious system of the Aryan Vedic tradition began to undergo reassessment and criticism. For many, this old religion of rituals and sacrifices seemed no longer to address their deepest spiritual needs. New questions and concerns were emerging and the sacrificial system appeared unable to answer these completely. There seemed a be a widespread dissatisfaction with the elitism of Brahmins.

More than this, there seemed to be doubts about the value of rites and what they can produce. Very fascinating and influential texts called the Upanishads composed at about this time reflect this assessment of the good of Vedic rituals.

In this collection of works, the ways of the Rishis, the seers of old, are favorably contrasted with those who seek only the benefits of Vedic ritual. Quoting the Upanishads:

“Rising above the desire of sons, wealth and the world; they follow the life of the pilgrim. For the desire of sons and wealth is the desire of the world, and this desire is vanity.”

Two related streams of thought appeared to have prompted this reappraisal of the tradition. One we can detect from the texts of this period more interested with the nature of the human than what we see in the Veda, particularly this aspect called the self or soul.

Behind this curiosity about the soul there seems to be a growing anxiety about death. Numerous accounts relate tales about journeys to the Underworld and speculations about what might happen when we die.

Correlated with the concern about the nature of the human was a second stream of thought focused on a deeper understanding of the structures of reality. Increasingly, sages became more suspicious of the world of appearance and speculated about what might lie behind it.

The New Ideas and the Axial Age

Indian thought simultaneously broadened both its interior and exterior horizons, becoming at the same time more meditative and metaphysical. Curiously, this transformation in Indian religion happened at a time when similar developments were occurring in other important cultural centers throughout the world. At roughly the same moment in history we find such pivotal thinkers as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece; Confucius and other philosophers in China; Zoroaster in Persia; the Hebrew prophets in Israel; and in India itself the Buddha and Mahavira, the founders of Buddhism and Jainism respectively.

The rise of these individuals marked a new an perhaps unprecedented interest in who and what the human was, and a deep concern for understanding appropriate human behavior. So impressive was this era and so influential for subsequent humanity that the German philosopher Karl Jaspers called it the Axial Age.

Jaspers thought the epoch spawning from 800 to 200 B.C. signals the actual emergence of the individual self in human history. Certainly, there seems to be a greater emphasis placed on the individual during this time. It is also during this time that the major world religions are established in their characteristic forms. Confucianism in China, Buddhism and Jainism in India, Judaism begins to take shape in Israel for the later development of Christianity and Islam.

Even more than just the creation of new religions, though, the very function of religion appears to have changed during this time. Before the Axial Age, religions’ main concern was with keeping the world going by ritually renewing the cosmos. After the Axial age, religion functions more as an agent of personal transformation.

Post-Axial Age religions allow individuals to do such things as secure a happy afterlife or learn how to treat other human beings. Often, the religious dynamic is one of personal change. For example, from being a sinner to being holy or from being ignorant to gaining enlightenment.

It is during the Axial age that classical Hinduism emerges from its Aryan and Indus Valley roots. Now we will talk about the two ideas that marked the beginning of classical Hinduism:

• The Doctrine of Reincarnation: What is reincarnation? What meaning does it have in Hinduism? The belief in reincarnation or transmigration of the soul is a fundamental assumption of virtually all philosophical and religious perspectives that have originated in India. 
  
  
• The Law of Karma: The belief in the reincarnation of the soul is a fundamental assumption of Hinduism. The form that one returns to after death can be almost anything: another human, an animal, perhaps a demon, perhaps a god. What determines one’s status in the next life is simply the way one lives one’s life here and now. The word for this concept has become a familiar one in the West, Karma. Karma is simply action and its consequences.