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Hinduism: Vedic Hinduism
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While Hinduism is typically viewed as being Vedic, the Tantras are not considered part of the orthodox Hindu/Vedic scriptures. They are said to run alongside each other, The Vedas of orthodox Hinduism on one side and the Agamas of Tantra on the other. However, it is notable that throughout the Tantras, such as the Mahanirvana Tantra, they align themselves as being natural progressions of the Vedas that exist for spiritual seekers in the age of Kaliyuga, when Vedic practices no longer apply to the current state of morality and Tantra is the most direct means to realization. Thus, aside from Vajrayana Buddhism, much of Tantrik thought is Hindu Tantra, most notably those that council worship of Lord Shiva and the Divine Mother, Kali.
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A further characteristic of Hinduism is the ideal of ahimsa. Ahimsa, "non-injury" or the absence of the desire to harm, is regarded by Indian thinkers as one of the keystones of their ethics. Historically, ahimsa is unrelated to vegetarianism; in ancient India, killing people in war or in capital punishment and killing animals in Vedic sacrifices were acceptable to many people who for other reasons refrained from eating meat. However, the two movements, ahimsa and vegetarianism, reinforced one another through the common concept of the disinclination to kill and eat animals, and together they contributed to the growing importance of the protection and veneration of the cow, which gives food without having to be killed. Neither ahimsa nor vegetarianism ever found full acceptance. Even today, many Hindus eat beef, and nonviolence (as the ideal of ahimsa is often translated) has never been a notable characteristic of Hindu behaviour.
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Hinduism is one of the oldest religions of the world. It is definitely the oldest among the living religions. The European historians of early 20th Century grudgingly accepted the period around 2500 B.C. as the earliest available evidence of the origin of the Vedic religion, which is a precursor to Hinduism. But many present day scholars, especially from India, do not agree with this opinion and beleive it to be around 8000 B.C.
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How long the original Vedic form of Hinduism flourished is unknown. But in time ritualism became the dominant form of religion, and gradually fell under the monopoly of the priestly caste. Elaborate prose treatises were written as commentaries or interpretations of Brahman by means of symbols and ceremonies. Two types of these commentaries (Brahmanas) are distinguishable: the prescriptive and the explanatory, the two forming a vast repertoire that leaves nothing to the imagination. Whether an action should be done at the right or the left, whether a jar should be in this spot or that, whether a blade of grass should be laid down pointing to the north or the northeast, whether the priest stands before or behind the fire, into how many pieces the sacrificial cake is to be divided — all this and more is treated in great detail.
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Hinduism is a synthesis of the religion brought into India by the Aryans (c.1500 BC) and indigenous religion. The first phase of Hinduism was early Brahmanism, the religion of the priests or Brahmans who performed the Vedic sacrifice, through the power of which proper relation with the gods and the cosmos is established. The Veda comprises the liturgy and interpretation of the sacrifice and culminates in the Upanishads , mystical and speculative works that state the doctrine of Brahman, the absolute reality that is the self of all things, and its identity with the individual soul, or atman (see Vedanta ). Later Upanishads refer to the practices of yoga and contain theistic elements that are fully developed in the Bhagavad-Gita .
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Hinduism lays on the spiritual foundation of the Vedas, the Upanishads, as well as the teachings of many Hindu gurus through the ages. Many streams of thought come from the six Vedic/Hindu schools, Bhakti sects and Tantra Agamic schools, into Hinduism, the first of the Dharma religions. See Schools of Hinduism.
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Vedic Hinduism