• Focus Points• Where: Based in India• 900 Million followers• When: Began circa 1500 B.C.• Sacred texts: Vedas (among

many others)• Many forms of Brahman• Reincarnation/karma/moksha• Indian caste system

Where are the Religions?

Do NowWho are the Aryans? Pg 37

• Nomadic peoples who moved into India circa 1500 B.C.

• From them grows Hinduism.

Do NowDescribe the caste system – How did the Hindu belief system offer a way out of the caste system?

Caste System• Set of rigid

social classes

• No mobility until death (reincarnation)

• Karma determined how you would be reborn

Samsara – cycle of life, death, and rebirth

HinduismSymbol - Om

• Hindus begin their day or any work or a journey by uttering Om. Om represents “Brahman”. Their god takes many different forms.

Location Where It Began

• Cannot be traced to any one individual. But it begins in India with the beliefs of the Aryan people.

• The earliest of the Hindu scriptures – The Vedas – was composed by the Aryan priests The term "Hindu" was introduced by foreigners who referred to people living across the River Indus or Sindhu, in the north of India.

Structure

Monotheistic? There are thousands of various forms of a single Supreme Being = Brahman.

Religious Figure

• Hindus also worship spirits, trees, animals and even planets.

• Cows are a sacred animal, they represent all living creatures. Many Hindus are vegetarians.

Brahma :creator

Vishnu: The Preserver

The HinduTrinity

Brahma :creator

Vishnu: The Preserver

Shiva: The Destroyer

All these deities areforms of the

Brahman

Ganesh: remover of obstacles

Holy Book

• The basic scriptures of Hinduism, are the Vedas (sometimes called the Rig Veda).

• Two types of sacred writings comprise the Hindu scriptures: "Shruti" (heard) and "Smriti" (memorized). They were passed on from generation to generation orally for centuries before they were written down mostly in the Sanskrit language.

The Caste System

Beliefs

• Reincarnation – individual soul is reborn in a different form after death

• Samsara – Repeating cycle of life and death• Karma – right action in life – determines rebirth• The goal is to achieve oneness with god, Brahman – a

union.• atman – the individual self – is the Brahman that is part

of everyone. This is what is united with Brahman through strict practice

Samsara =(rebirth) Reincarnation

Moksha =(liberation from the cycle of Samsara/Reincarnation)

• Mahatma Ghandi (1869-1948) is NOT a Hindu god, but is a famous Hindu. His use of non-violent resistance led to India’s independence from Britain (1942) and inspired Martin Luther King to use the same technique in American Civil Rights movement.