by V. Kumar

Created on: August 30, 2008   Last Updated: April 21, 2009

Hinduism contains within its fold, several philosophies that are a result of many thousand years of human civilization. Among the hundreds of schools of philosophies, the central ones relate to the concept of GOD, the concept of DHARMA and the concept of KARMA. However, to be able to fully comprehend these concepts, one need to be first aware of what Hinduism means and what it does not.

HINDUISM : ORIGIN, NAME & MISCONCEPTIONS

The term HINDUISM is actually a misnomer. It is derived from a Sanskrit word, 'Sindhu' meaning river. Like all ancient human civilizations, those in India also flourished around major rivers. The lands where they developed were called 'lands of Sindhu'. Foreign traders called them 'Hindu' or Indu' and from that was derived the word 'India', the name by which the world knew the country. As a result, the people of these territories were known as HINDU, and the same term was also applied to their religious practices.

This ancient religious philosophy is not a 'religion' in the sense Islam and Christianity are. It is more a sort of philosophy of life and society that came to be accepted as traditional wisdom that gradually came to be associated with divinity. It was called 'Sanatana Dharma', or 'eternal duty', and evolved around the concept of duty of a person.

One of the central tenets of Hinduism is that every person needs to carry out each of his different duties in different capacities, in different spheres of life. The duty of a soldier will be different from those of a singer, and those of a father different from those of a son. Almost all the rest of its tenets revolve around this philosophy and serve to solve the various mysteries of life and help in dealing with the different dilemmas of decision making that each one of us is faced every day.

THE CONCEPT OF GOD IN HINDUISM

The concept of God in Hinduism or Sanatana dharma is more an indication and admission of our ignorance rather than any pretension of completely knowing god. The most important feature is the existence of different schools of philosophical thoughts, all of which are equally revered and respected, even though some of them are exactly opposite. For many thousand years, Hinduism has followed an admirable tradition of tolerance to differing views that was often absent even in the field of scientific thought till a few hundred years ago.

One school of philosophy considers God as omnipresent, and a part of everything. Thus the God as a creator is not different from its creation.

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