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Re: "What percentage is Hindu?"Now Meaning of Hindu
pggopal@computer.net wrote:
: BHARTI <101504.2344@CompuServe.COM> wrote:
: >Let us not forget that Hindu is name given to the PEOPLE OF
: >INDIA. HINDU is NOT a religion. Any faith originated from India
: >eg BUDHISM, JAINISM , SIKHISM are all "HINDU" faiths. Let us not
: >devide ourselves. We are ONE SANAATANI
: >--
: >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
: >Subm.: srh@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu Admin: srh-request@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu
: >Archives/Home Page: http://rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu:8080/soc_hindu_home.html
:
:
: The word Hindu came from the river Indus which in sanscrit was called
: Sindhu. Natives of lands south of the Indus were called Sindhus,corrupted
: to Indu and later to Hindu. Hindustan became the land of the Hindus.
: Classification of the major religion of India as Hinduuism is of
: relatively recent origin. Can scholars elucidate ?
: --
Let me first admit that I am not a scholar, however I would like
to share my thoughts on your question.
It is true that the word Hindu came from the word Indus, and the people
of Hindustan were known as Hindus. Also, we must understand that
Hinduism is not a religion in the conventional sense, like that
of Christanity which is driven by a single dogma, faith in Jesus Christ,
if you don't have faith in Jesus Christ you are not a Christian, at least
that is the defenition of the Church I listened to in India. If you
define Hinduism in a similar way, you will have to make it as the
religion of a vast group of the religions, each of the idol will
make one religion by itself, in addition to the path of Gyan ( knowledge ),
the path of yoga ( meditation ), the path of Advaitha (non-duality)
which is very close to an aethist's point of view, which will make
Hinduism a religion of religions ( in the limited sense ). In a previous
posting, I tried to distinguish between the Brahminical order of
indian society from Hinduism, which is often the cause of confusion
in understanding Hinduism.
If you don't view Hinduism as the Brahminical order of Indian society,
you will see that all other religions could be considered as a
subset of Hinduism, not only Budhism, Sikhism and Jainism, but even
those religions which were born outside India like Christanity as
long as the purpose of the religion is relalising Athman ( Self, or God ).
Regards,
Santhosh
