Hinduism, the religion of over a billion people, is the world's oldest religion and probably the most confusing one to non-Hindus. Some say it isn't even a religion, more a way of life. Hindus themselves call it the Sanatana Dhanama, the eternal tradition. So what is Hinduism?
Does YOLO apply to them? And who is this elephant guy? Well, let's find out. Hinduism is the world's oldest active religion.
It's the result of the merging of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and the nomads that came into India around 1500 BC. Some scholars say it could even go back many more thousands of years. But we won't delve too deep into dates because dates in Hinduism are very, very Controversial.
But one thing is certain. Hinduism is old. Like at least 36 Betty Whites.
Hinduism has been around for so long that it and the concept of India itself are inseparable. Hindu and India even come from the same word. Sanskrit was the ancient language of the Hindus, and the Sanskrit name for the Indus river is Sindhu. The ancient Persians who sat across the Indus tended to switch their S's to H's. So Sindhu became Hindu.
So the people living across the river became Hindus. The Persians told the Greeks, who dropped that very not Greek like H, stuck in a very Greek like E to the end, and boom, India. Hinduism has a long, long history. But today we'll be focusing on just the core beliefs of Hindus because I don't have the willpower to animate a 3 hour long video. Hindus are a diverse group.
Some are strict, dedicating their lives to prayer, while others Don't believe in any gods but still follow Hindu philosophy. To make things easier to understand, let's break Hinduism down into 7 core beliefs. So, here's my rap about the 7 Hindu beliefs. Fine, here's the regular version then.
1. Belief in One Universal Soul Hindus believe in a universal soul known as Brahman. A formless, genderless, source of all reality. Brahman is the universe and the material that makes up the universe.
It's a trippy concept, but think of Brahman as an ocean and everything else as drops propelling out of that ocean. Separate for a time, but still the same thing, if that makes sense. 2. Belief in an Immortal Individual Soul In Hinduism, souls are known as Atman.
Actions of the soul while in a body have effects on that soul's next life. When you die, your soul moves to another new body. This is called transmigration. The kind of body the soul inhabits next is determined by karma.
3. Belief in Karma Karma is action, usually good or bad actions that affect society. For Hindus, karmic actions in the past affect us today and our actions today affect our souls. future.
4. Belief in Moksha The goal in Hindu life is to somehow get back to Brahman. If a Hindu can do this, they will be freed from the cycle of life and death. This is called Moksha.
You can achieve Moksha by realising your oneness with Brahman. How you realise this is up to you. For this reason, Hindus pray, lead me from the unreal to the real.
5. Belief in the Vedas The Vedas are Hindu sacred books of knowledge. There are four Vedas. Hindus believe that all four were divinely revealed to ancient Hindu sages.
We'll take a closer look at the Vedas in a while. 6. Belief in Cyclical Time For Hindus there are no beginnings or endings. Time is a series of cycles. Each cycle containing four ages or yugas. There's the Krita, the Treta, the Dewarapala and the Kali.
Added together, there are three cycles. the four yugas total about 4.32 million years. At the end of each cycle, declining human morality leads to the total destruction of reality.
Hindus believe that we are in the fourth and final yug, Kali. 7. Belief in Dharma Dharma is a difficult word to translate to English. Proper behaviour is the best that I could come up with.
Dharma maintains balance in the universe. As long as everything in the universe, like animals, plants and humans, follow their dharma, then everything will be fine. If they break from the dharma though, things will be super not fine. Each being has its own dharma. A lion's dharma is to kill and eat antelope.
A king's dharma is to rule well. A subscriber's dharma is to smash the like button and ring the notification bell. For humans, their specific dharma is usually based on their age and their caste. An old priest would have a very different dharma than a young merchant for example.
So those are the seven core beliefs of Hinduism. With them you can understand the Hindu mindset. Unlike Christianity or Islam, Hinduism is a non-prophet organization. There is no Jesus or Muhammad for Hindus.
There is no Bible, Quran or Torah. Instead they have a bunch, and I mean a bunch, of different sacred texts. The four Vedas form the basis of the Hindu faith. So let's take a look at them. 1. The Rig Veda.
The Rig Veda is a collection of songs that praise and discuss ideas like truth, reality and the universe, along with discussions on war, weddings and rituals. 2. The Yajur Veda. The Yajur Veda covers stuff such as sacrificial rites and rituals.
3. The Sama Veda. Sama literally means sweet song that destroys sorrow. It is mostly songs dedicated to praising gods. It's different than the rest of the velas because it's set to music.
4. The Atarva Veda. The Atarva Veda is my favourite one. Do you want to curse your enemies? Or charm that special someone?
Maybe learn to invoke rain? Or discover herbal medicine along with tips on warfare? Like how to make poison arrows?
Well, this Veda has you covered, along with a bunch of other charms and curses. It even has a curse against cursers. Avoid us, O Curse, as a burning fire avoids a lake. Strike him here that curses us, as the lightning of heaven The Tree.
A link to the Atharveda is in the description just in case you need a spell to get a wife or another to banish pigeons from your presence. It's great. After the Vedas come the Upanishads which are like a sequel that makes the original make much more sense. They were probably written down between 800 BC and 500 BC during a time when some Hindus started to question the Vedas.
Their ideas became the Upanishads. The Upanishads are books on philosophy. like we would expect from Plato or Aristotle.
They're all about questioning, doubt, debate, and finding the answers to life's difficult questions. A theme in the Upanishads is that people are not their minds, or bodies, or egos, but their Atman. Your soul is you.
Everything else is unreal and temporary. After the holy texts like the Vedas and the Upanishads are other less divine but still important texts. These include stuff like the Puranas, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
The Puranas are like encyclopedias of Hindu beliefs. There are 18 well-known Puranas. The Puranas cover things from yoga, to army organization, to taxation, to the caste system, to hell, gods and everything in between.
The Bhagavad Gita, Gita for short, is one of Hinduism's most important texts. The Gita takes place on a battlefield where Arjuna, a great warrior, refuses to fight. Lord Krishna steps in to urge Arjuna to fight and their discussion covers things such as Dharma and how to live your best life.
Arjuna eventually fought after Lord Krishna taught him the truth about Dharma. As a member of the warrior caste, Arjuna's Dharma was to fight against evil. The lesson of the Gita is that everyone faces difficult choices but they must act on them according to their Dharma, no matter how unpleasant.
Along with all these philosophical texts, Hinduism has two Action-packed epics! The Ramayya and the Mahabharata. The Ramayya, the earlier of the two texts, tells the story of Prince Rama. In the epic you find out about his 14-year-long exile, the abduction of his wife Sita, his battle with the evil demon Ravana, and his awesome monkey sidekick Hanuman. The second epic, the Mahabharata, is the longest poem in the world.
Five times the length of the Bible and eight times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined. It rivals any soap opera you've ever seen when it comes to drama. Murder, betrayal, love, love murder and giant battles.
The Mahabharata has it all. The theme running through the Ramayana and the Mahabharata is that Dharma must be followed for society to function. In Hinduism there are four goals a person should aim for to have a good life.
The first of these is Dharma followed by Artha, the pursuit of Dharma. prosperity and good reputation. Kama, pleasure both in body and in mind.
And Moksha, the release from the cycles of rebirth. Hindus should practice Artha and Kama with Dhanama in order to achieve Moksha. There are also six temptations Hindus should try and avoid.
Kama, lust and materialism. This Kama is different from the good Kama mentioned above. I know.
Next is Kruda, which is anger. Lobha, which is greed. Mokha.
which is unrealistic attachment to things, people and power. Mata, which is pride. And Matsarya, which is jealousy. By following their dharma and avoiding these six temptations, a Hindu can break the cycle of rebirth and have their soul merge back into Brahman. But even though everything comes from Brahman, who is the one real thing in Hinduism, Hindus do, after all, have thousands of gods.
So, let's take a look at them. First, there's Brahma, the creator. He created everything in the universe but he is not the universe itself.
Because that's Brahman. They aren't the same thing. That last letter changes a lot apparently. He has four heads. The heads face each of the four directions to represent the four Vedas which he created and the four Yugs.
He also holds a book which represents knowledge. Oh and he rides a giant swan because he's just fancy. His consort is Saraswati, the goddess of learning.
Vishnu, the preserver, is the second member of the Hindu trinity. He preserves the world created by Brahma until it is eventually destroyed by Shiva. He holds a discus which he uses to hold the world. cut down anyone that tries to mess with his dharma. Along with a conch which symbolises victory and the five elements.
Vishnu has many many avatars such as Krishna or Rama who he uses to defend dharma on earth. Oh and he rides a giant eagle named Garuda. Vishnu has two consorts, the goddess Lakshmi and Bhudevi.
Bhudevi is the earth goddess and Lakshmi is the goddess of good fortune and wealth. Next is Shiva the destroyer. the third member of the Hindu trinity. It's his job to destroy the universe in order to prepare for its renewal at the end of each cycle of time. The most identifiable of his features is his third eye, which he almost always keeps closed.
If he does open it and you're in front of him, then you will have your face melted off. When not on making existence, Shiva enjoys long walks with his bull named Nandi. At the end of the Kali Yuga, The fourth age of the world Shiva will perform a dance that destroys the universe. Which is odd because people have told me that my dance moves make them wish the world would end. So me and Shiva have quite a lot in common.
Parvati and Sati are Shiva's consorts. Shiva also has two sons Ganesha and Murugan. Ganesha is worshipped as the remover of obstacles and Murugan is the god of war. Ganesha holds a very special place in the heart of Hindus.
Due to him being the remover of obstacles. The elephant head is the most obvious clue to identifying him. He was actually born with a human head but after Shiva cut that one off he had to make do with an elephant one. If you're Christian or Muslim you're aware that your religion has a bunch of different denominations like Catholics or Protestants, Sunni and Shia.
Hinduism has these too. Hindus developed four major denominations, some of which have their own subdivisions. The Vaishnavas primarily worship Vishnu and Shaivas primarily worship Shiva and his sons.
Smarthas follow sacred texts like the Puranas, the Ramayya and the Mahabharata rather than the Vedas. They worship five gods and goddesses Ganesha, Durga, Surya, Shiva and a preferred avatar of Vishnu. Finally, Shaktas worship the goddess Devi.
Shaktas see Devi as the ultimate and eternal reality, like a feminine Brahman. Even though there are all these variations and more, the core beliefs of Hindus remain mostly the same. Hindus believe that Dharma keeps the balance in the universe.
If the scales between good and evil start tipping towards evil then something needs to intervene to fix the universe's Dharma. This divine intervention is known as an Avatar. The literal meaning of the word Avatar is descent. Avatars are gods that descend to earth to intervene whenever help is needed to restore Dharma. For example, when the earth was dragged underneath the ocean, Vishnu descended to earth as the Avatar of Raha, a boar, and dragged the earth back out.
In other cases, Vishnu was born on earth as a human avatar like Rama or Krishna, where he spent his avatar's life fixing Dharma. So, the caste system. If you only know one thing about Hinduism, this is probably it.
People see it as an oppressive system that locks people in place, based on their birth. And for a huge part of history that's what it's been unfortunately. Let's do a quick explanation of what the caste system is. In Hinduism there are four castes or classes that you can be born into.
There's the Brahmin, the priest, the Kshatriyas, the warriors, the Vishas, the traders and the Shudras, the manual labourers. The main basis for the caste system can be found in the Bhagavad Gita and the Rig Veda. Krishna says in the Gita I have created a fourfold system in order to distinguish among one's qualities and functions.
The Rigveda also refers to the four castes. It says humans were created from parts of the god Purusha, the Brahman from his face, the Kshatriya from his arms, the Vaishya his thighs and the Shudra his feet. This system was supposed to assign people functions based on their abilities, not their birth. If someone had the qualities of a Brahman, or a Vaishya, they could fill those roles. The Gita didn't restrict movement among castes, and the caste system functioned as intended for a while.
Until a document known as the Laws of Manu came about around the 5th century BC. Popularly referred to as the Manu Shmurti, they created hard rules for Hindu life. Two rules presented in it contributed to the way the caste system turned out. Manu states that the Brahman were the lords of all castes, and he forbid moving among the castes.
The caste you were born into was now the caste you're stuck in. If you give humans a hierarchy, they'll exploit it. And things will go sour pretty quickly. As time passed, Hindus began thinking in terms of upper and lower castes.
Soon, cleaning toilets, tanning leather, and dealing with meat products were thought to be impure. The people doing those jobs became untouchables. The lowest of the low.
A people without caste. And the rest is history. The modern world has brought many changes though.
Now Hindus mix freely while working together in the same businesses, attending the same schools and generally just living together. But when it comes to marriage, many Hindus still stick to their own caste. But this too is changing and on Hindu dating websites you can actually see people list a non-preference for caste. It'll say caste no bar. So those are the basics of Hinduism.
It isn't even close to covering everything. One video simply can't do it. Hinduism is too diverse, too deep and means too many different things to different people.
But learning even the basics of this fascinating and ancient religion gives us an insight into the worldview of over a billion people. And I hope you enjoyed it. You can find all the sources used in the description below.
If you would like to follow your correct dharma then please subscribe. If you're interested in supporting the channel there are links to my t-shirt store and Patreon. also in the description. Thank you so much for watching.