The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. It overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age, with some of its elements possibly tracing back to prehistoric religions such as those of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation. Hinduism has been called the "oldest religion" in the world, but scholars regard Hinduism as a relatively recent synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no single founder, which emerged around the beginning of the Common Era.
The history of Hinduism is often divided into periods of development. The first period is the pre-Vedic period, which includes the Indus Valley Civilization and local pre-historic religions. Northern India had the Vedic period with the introduction of the historical Vedic religion by the Indo-Aryan migrations, starting somewhere between 1900 BCE and 1400 BCE. The subsequent period of the second urbanisation (600–200 BCE) is a formative period for Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism followed by "a turning point between the Vedic religion and Hindu religions," during the Epic and Early Puranic period ( to 500 CE), when the Epics and the first Purānas were composed. This was followed by the classical "Golden Age" of Hinduism (–650 CE), which coincides with the Gupta Empire. In this period the six branches of Hindu philosophy evolved, namely, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta. Monotheistic sects like Shaivism and Vaishnavism developed during this same period through the Bhakti movement. It flourished in the medieval period from roughly 650 to 1100 CE, which forms the late Classical period or early Middle Ages, with the decline of Buddhism in India and the establishment of classical Puranic Hinduism.
Hinduism under both Hindu and Islamic rulers from to 1750 CE. saw the increasing prominence of the Bhakti movement, which remains influential today. Adi Shankara became glorified as the main proponent of Advaita Vedanta, in response to the success of Vaishnavite bhakti.
The colonial period saw the emergence of various Hindu reform movements partly inspired by western movements, such as Unitarianism and Theosophy. The Partition of India in 1947 was along religious lines, with the Republic of India emerging with a Hindu majority. During the 20th century, due to the Indian diaspora, Hindu minorities have formed in all continents, with the largest communities in absolute numbers in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Roots of Hinduism While the Puranic chronology presents a genealogy of thousands of years, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion, synthesis, or amalgamation of various Indian cultures and traditions. Among its roots are the historical Vedic religion, itself already the product of "a composite of the Indo-Aryan and Harappan cultures and civilizations", which evolved into the Brahmanical religion and ideology of the Kuru kingdom of Iron Age northern India; but also the Śramaṇa or renouncer traditions of northeast India, and mesolithic and neolithic cultures of India, such as the religions of the Indus Valley Civilisation,; ; ; . Dravidian traditions,; ; ; . and the local traditions and tribal religions.
This Hindu synthesis emerged after the Vedic period, between 500–200 BCE and , in the period of the second urbanisation and the early classical period of Hinduism, when the Epics and the first Puranas were composed. This Brahmanical synthesis incorporated śramaṇic and Buddhist influences and the emerging bhakti tradition into the Brahmanical fold via the smriti literature. This synthesis emerged under the pressure of the success of Buddhism and Jainism, starting with the conquest of the Vedic heartland by the Nanda and Maurya rulers, which deprived the Brahmins of their patrons, threatening the survival of the Vedic ritual tradition. In response, Brahmins broadened their services, eventually resulting in the Hindu synthesis of Brahmanical orthodoxy with local religious traditions, which, centuries later, came to dominate India. During the Gupta reign the first Puranas were written, which were used to disseminate "mainstream religious ideology amongst pre-literate and tribal groups undergoing acculturation." The resulting Puranic Hinduism differed markedly from the earlier Brahmanism of the Dharmasutras and the smritis. Hinduism co-existed for several centuries with Buddhism, to finally gain the upper hand at all levels in the 8th century.
From northern India this "Hindu synthesis", and its societal divisions, spread to southern India and parts of Southeast Asia, as courts and rulers adopted the Brahmanical culture. It was aided by the settlement of Brahmins on land granted by local rulers, the incorporation and assimilation of popular non-Vedic gods,Wendy Doniger. Other sources: the process of "Sanskritization" , Encyclopædia Britannica. and the process of Sanskritization, in which "people from many strata of society throughout the subcontinent tended to adapt their religious and social life to Brahmanic norms". This process of assimilation explains the wide diversity of local cultures in India "half shrouded in a taddered cloak of conceptual unity".
According to Eliot Deutsch, Brahmins played an essential role in the development of this synthesis. They were bilingual and bicultural, speaking both their local language and popular Sanskrit, which transcended regional differences in culture and language. They were able to "translate the mainstream of the large culture in terms of the village and the culture of the village in terms of the mainstream", thereby integrating the local culture into a larger whole. While vaidikas and, to a lesser degree, smartas, remained faithful to the traditional Vedic lore, a new brahminism arose which composed litanies for the local and regional gods, and became the ministers of these local traditions.
Periodisation
Authors on Hinduism and its history have used various periodisations, elaborating on influential periodisations like Mill's, and also describing some of the constituting traditions preceding the Hindu-synthesis. An elaborate periodisation may be as follows: Pre-history and Indus Valley Civilisation (until ); Vedic period (–500 BCE); "Second Urbanisation" (–200 BCE); Classical Period ( – 1200 CE); Pre-classical period ( – 300 CE); "Golden Age" of India (Gupta Empire) (–650 CE); Late-Classical period - Puranic Hinduism (c. 650–1200 CE); Medieval Period (–1500 CE); Early Modern Period (–1850); Modern period (British Raj and independence) (from ).
History of HinduismJames Mill (1773–1836), in his The History of British India (1817), distinguished three phases in the history of India, namely Hindu, Muslim and British civilisations. This periodisation has been influential, but has also been criticised, for the misconceptions it has given rise to. Another influential periodisation is the division into "ancient, classical, mediaeval and modern periods". Smart Michaels Muesse Flood Indus Valley Civilisation and Vedic period(–1000 BCE) Prevedic religions(until ) Indus Valley Civilisation(3300–1400 BCE) Indus Valley Civilisation( to 1500 BCE) Vedic Early Vedic Period(–1200 BCE) Vedic period(1600–800 BCE) Vedic period(–500 BCE) Middle Vedic period(–850 BCE) Pre-classical period( – 100 CE) Late Vedic period(–500 BCE) Classical period(800–200 BCE) Ascetic reformism(–200 BCE) Epic and Puranic period( to 500 CE) Classical Preclassical Hinduism( – 300 CE) Epic and Puranic period(200 BCE – 500 CE) Classical period( – 1000 CE) "Golden Age" (Gupta Empire)(c. 320–650 CE) Late-Classical Hinduism(c. 650–1100 CE) Medieval and Late Puranic period(500–1500 CE) Medieval and Late Puranic period(500–1500 CE) Hindu-Islamic civilisation(–1750 CE) Islamic rule and "Sects of Hinduism"(–1850 CE) Modern(1500–present) Modern period( to present) Modern period( – present) Modern Hinduism(from ) Notes and references for tableNotes Smart and Michaels seem to follow Mill's periodisation (Michaels mentions Flood 1996 as a source for "Prevedic Religions".), while Flood and Muesse follow the "ancient, classical, mediaeval and modern periods" periodisation.
Different periods are designated as "classical Hinduism": Smart calls the period between 1000 BCE and 100 CE "pre-classical". It is the formative period for the Upanishads and Brahmanism (Smart distinguishes "Brahmanism" from the Vedic religion, connecting "Brahmanism" with the Upanishads.), Jainism and Buddhism. For Smart, the "classical period" lasts from 100 to 1000 CE, and coincides with the flowering of "classical Hinduism" and the flowering and deterioration of Mahayana-buddhism in India. For Michaels, the period between 500 BCE and 200 BCE is a time of "Ascetic reformism", whereas the period between 200 BCE and 1100 CE is the time of "classical Hinduism", since there is "a turning point between the Vedic religion and Hindu religions". Muesse discerns a longer period of change, namely between 800 BCE and 200 BCE, which he calls the "Classical Period". According to Muesse, some of the fundamental concepts of Hinduism, namely karma, reincarnation and "personal enlightenment and transformation", which did not exist in the Vedic religion, developed in this time. References
Sources
Pre-Vedic religions (until c. 1750 BCE)
Prehistory According to Doniger, Hinduism may have roots in pre-historic (pre-textual, pre-Vedic) Mesolithic prehistoric religion, such as evidenced in the rock paintings of Bhimbetka rock shelters, which are about 10,000 years old (), as well as Neolithic times. At least some of these shelters were occupied over 100,000 years ago. Several tribal religions still exist, though their practices may not resemble those of prehistoric religions.
Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300–1700 BCE)
Some Indus valley seals show swastikas, which are found in other religions worldwide. Phallic symbols interpreted as the much later Hindu linga have been found in the Harappan remains. Many Indus valley seals show animals. One seal showing a horned figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named by early excavators "Pashupati", an epithet of the later Hindu gods Shiva and Rudra. Writing in 1997, Doris Meth Srinivasan said, "Not too many recent studies continue to call the seal's figure a 'Proto-Siva', rejecting thereby Marshall's package of proto-Shiva features, including that of three heads. She interprets what John Marshall interpreted as facial as not human but more bovine, possibly a divine buffalo-man." According to Iravatham Mahadevan, symbols 47 and 48 of his Indus script glossary The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977), representing seated human-like figures, could describe the South Indian deity Murugan.
In view of the large number of figurines found in the Indus valley, some scholars believe that the Harappan people worshipped a mother goddess symbolising fertility, a common practice among rural Hindus even today. However, this view has been disputed by S. Clark who sees it as an inadequate explanation of the function and construction of many of the figurines.
There are no religious buildings or evidence of elaborate burials. If there were temples, they have not been identified.Thapar, Romila, Early India: From the Origins to 1300, London, Penguin Books, 2002 However, House – 1 in HR-A area in Mohenjo Daro's Lower Town has been identified as a possible temple.McIntosh, Jane (2008). The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives. ABC-CLIO. p. 84,276
Vedic religion and Brahmanism (c. 1750–500 BCE) + Spread of Indo-European languages Indo-Aryan migration