The oldest religion in the world, with great freedom of dogma, and still in constant evolution and reinterpretation.
It's an ethnoreligion to the Hindus not unlike Judaism is for the Jews.
It is divided in orthodox schools (astika) and heterodox schools (nastika), the former accept the authority of the Vedas, the other reject them.
Astika schools are six: Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta.
Nastika include Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka and Ajivika.
These schools are schools of philosophy in addition of being religious sects, because they come form an age and a place where philosophy and religion were not separate, hence they talk about epistemology in addition to ethics, metaphysics and theology.
Read the Blackwell Companion to Hinduism for more.
The Persians called the people who lived on the Indus Valley "Hindus" because they weren't able to pronounce "Shindu" correctly.
Thus, it was a word to describe people who lived in the Indus, regardless of what they believed in. You can be an atheist, and still be considered to be Hindu.
Ancient Vedic Texts are what Hindus today rely on for their religion. This includes Upanishad, Rig Veda, Bhagavad Gita and more.
The symbol in OP's pic is "Om". It is said that this word gave birth to the universe.
>>1261791
This information is good but wrong in certain regards. So I'll add corrections to it. My post should supersede this post.
Hinduism is probably the oldest currently practiced religion.
In India, traditions are divided into those who hold the Vedas (the bible) to be true and those who consider Vedas to be false. Those division are astika (Hinduism) and nastika (non-Hinduism).
One thing to note is in India, the term "Hindu" refers to various things. It can be used to substitute as "Indian" in context such as "Hindu religions"(all religions of indian subcontinent). However most of the time, its referring to person who practices Hinduism.
>>1261752
There is one ultimate reality and all manifestation is an expression of its boundless potential
Spiritual ignorance is mistaking the physical for the true and only reality, when in fact, relative to the supreme Brahman, it is merely Maya, or illusion
>>1262128
You know that is just one of about 20 or so most common philosophies in a sea of thousands under the blanket of hinduism, right? Hinduism doesn't exist and most of the philosophies and practices under the term are in direct opposition. It would be like placing every philosophy and religion that has ever been practiced in the West into one category and assuming they are all the same because some share a few books or practices. One doesn't speak of the Neo-Platonists as whatever you call Greek mythology.
>>1262181
Well, the contradicting currents of Hinduism are indeed called Hindu philosophies, not unlike the contradicting many currents of ancient Greek philosophies are called ancient Greek philosophies.
>>1262229
>>1262181
>>1262128
Hinduism is the tree. The different aspects of hindu traditions are the different branches. From each branch's POV, the details are different. However they all say the same thing. The source is the root, they're just branches, there are different branches, all aspiring the unity/understanding of the source.
