You have arrived at the Brihaspati Project's History of Hinduism page.  This section is divided into five main categories as show below. Origins details the development of Hinduism from Indo-European origins to the arrival of the Aryans into South Asia.  Vedic Hinduism discusses the development of a defined religion in the early and late vedic periods. Epic Hinduism deals with the epic period of the religion (from about 500 bce to 500 ce). Puranic Hinduism discusses the evolution of Hinduism in the period after the common era under the flowering of the Hindu courts. Modern Hinduism reviews the modern features of the religion.  Highlighted terms are glossed on the Glossary of Hindu Terms page.

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Modern Hinduism, unlike Christianity or Islam (and much like other ancient religions) cannot trace its origins to any single event or person.  Hinduism, in the context of the Indian sub-continent, can be traced to around 1500 before the common era (bce) when a group of nomads known as the Aryans entered Northeren India through the Hindu Kush Mountains at the border of modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It was then that a cohesive system of religious beliefs that we of know today as Hinduism began to evolve in ways very distinct from anything that came before it.

In order to understand the development of Hinduism, however, one must first understand the different components of Indian culture (both native and foreign) that formed the backdrop of the system of beliefs.  Perhaps one of the most important components in this social was the group of Aryans who found their new homes first in the Panjab region, and then eventually throughout the Indo-Gangetic plain, and even farther south.

Based on linguistic evidence, social scientists today can fairly certainly classify the Aryans as a group of larger people known as the Indo-Europeans.  The Indo-Europeans, in the historical sense, are a group of linguistically unified (and perhaps ethnically unified) peoples who most probably lived in the Caspian Sea region until several thousand years before the common era.  It was then that these herdsman, having the horse and cow at the base of their culture, began a migration away from their previous homelands to the many corners of Asia and Europe, forming constituent parts of many modern ethnic groups.  To the north, the traveling tibes settled on the vast plains of Eurasia, becoming the Slavic peoples.  In the south, Indo-European tribes settled in the harsh deserts of the Middle East and the rugged lands of Asia Minor where the great civilizations they created came to be known as the Hittites and Anatolians.  The Caspian Sea peoples, however, pierced much more farther than Eurasia and the Middle East, the nomads even traversed into the depths of Europe.  The Celtic branch reached the far shores of the continent, settling in the British Isles, Gaul, and Iberia.  The Germans, meanwhile, settled in the heartland of Europe, nestled in between the Celts to the west and the Slavs to the east.  The Italics, who made their name centuries after the diaspora, eventually made their way to Italy where they hosted the greatest European empire in history while their less fortunate cousins, the Illyriciums and the Albanians, headed to the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea only to be subdued by the Roman Empire in later generations.  Just south and east of them, however, settled another great group of Indo-European empire-builders: the Hellenic tribes, who would later become the Greeks.  All told, Indo-European tribes were able to make their way to countless places, including southern asia.  Like their kinsmen who settled in the vast steps and hills of Europe, the Indo-Iranians too were of Indo-European origin.  They, however, did not set out for the west, but for the east, coming to settle in the plains of modern-day Afghanistan.

The relationship between the Indo-European peoples, despite ideological claims refuting such a common origin, is evident even today through linguistic evidence.  Tounges as far ranging as Spanish, Gaellic, Albanian, Russian, Farsi, and Hindi all share a common origin, as evidenced in their similar forms.  A clear example of this is in the word agni/igni.  In Hindi, the predominant language of northern India, aag is the word for fire (coming from the Sanskrit agni).  Compare this to igni, the Latin cognate which is evident even today through English words such as ignite.  Language is not the only bond these ancient cultures share, though.  Evidence of their common origin can also be deduced from comparing their mythology, a central component of any classical civilization.  For example, an examination of god names in different traditions yields surprising results:
 

As evidenced above, the Classical Greek culture that produced the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Aesops' Fables share a common ancestor with the ancient Indian Sanskritic civilization (that ironically produced its own species of epic and fables.)

This relationship to Sanskrit, however, is mitigated by another set of migrations.  Instead of remaining in Afghanistan, the Indo-Iranian successors of the original Caspian Sea tribes, too, found paths that led in different directions.  One group flowed west into modern Iran while another headed east into India (hence the name indo-iranian.)  The relationship between the ancient Indians and the ancient Iranians is even more undisputable than the evidence for the common Indo-European ancestry.  Common facets such as the sanctity of water and fire, the presence of a holy mountain, and the presence of soma(a holy drink) and other ritual elements confirm the intimate connection between the two peoples.  For example, the early literature of Iran, primarily the Avesta, contains remarkably similar elements to early Indian literature, such as the Rg Veda.

The Aryan tribes who arrived in India around 1500 bce where therefore heirs to a long tradition of Indo-European mythology that tied them to a much larger community of peoples and languages.  Nevertheless, India was not an uninhabited country one thousand years before the common era and the Indo-Iranians were confronted with an already existent group of peoples in India, setting the stage for the inception of a distinctly Indian brand of civilization and religion.  At the time of the Aryan arrival, the Dravidians were the predominant population of South Asia.  Evidence shows that the Dravidians once lived across all of India, perhaps all the way to the Hindu Kush mountains and to the Himalyas.  In fact, recent research has suggested that the Indus River civilization was in fact Dravidian and it was this civilization and population of northern India that was gradually displaced by the seemingly unendless waves of tall, light-skinned nomad-warrios from the west.

It is this native element of India, the Dravidian culture that forms the second major component of Hinduism in its originating stages.  Although the Sanskritic people imposed their language and began driving the dasas into the south of India, an intermixing of traditions inevitably occurred, as evidenced by the appearance of several Dravidian figures into the Hindu pantheon as early as the Rg Veda.  The Sanskrit culture of the migrants could not remain aloof to the native traditions of the new land, and the Indo-European pantheon of gods such Dyaus and Varuna began to hold court with more Dravidian gods.  For example, clay tablets from the Indus River Valley Civilization suggests that Rudra/Siva may have originally been a Dravidian deity while clay pots reveal mother earth figures that are remarkably similar to early invocations in Sanskrit.

All of this is evidence of a centuries-long process in which the Dravidian and Indo-Iranian cultures mixed and merged together, forming, by around 1200 bce, the first historical evidence of a common religion in India--Vedic Hinduism.

Vedic Hinduism, the religion formed with the fusion of Indo-Iranian and Dravidian traditions, was a mobile faith.  At the beginning of the Vedic period, the Aryan tribes were still nomadic, keeping herds of cattle and horses along the river valleys in the north of India, primarily along the Indus, Sarasvati, Yamuna (Jamuna) and the Ganga Rivers.  As such, there is no archaeological evidence for permanent temples or even iconoclastic representations of the gods.  Rather, the extant sources of knowledge for Vedic Hinduism are a series of texts that were initially memorized by families of sages and only later put to writing.  The earliest such text is the Rg Veda.

Evidence from the Rg Veda suggests that the early Hindus prayed to forces of nature and other allegories common to the human experience in India.  For example, most of the main gods are assocated with a natural occurence or quality:
 

Vedic culture was an ordered society seperated into varna, or occupational groups.  At the top of this occupational pyramid were the Brahmans, or the priests.  The Brahmans probably held a high position in society because of their role as the keepers and performers of the ritual--the most important element in vedic Hindu practice.  Vedic Hinduism was entirely based on the ritual and its performance, and the tenure of the priestly class was secured by the monopolization of ritual knowledge.  In general, Vedic Hinduism was quite violent compared to the non-violent and peace-loving standard we have come to associate with Hinduism.  Animal sacrifice was indeed part of the ritual and tangible notions of pacifism or even vegetarianism are entirely absent from the earliest corpus of Vedic literature.

In addition to the Rg Veda there are three other vedas.  The corpus of early vedic literature (primarily the four true vedas) was succeeded in due course by another series of vedic texts that embodied substantial changes in the role, function, and practice of the Hindu religion.  The most important example of these literary texts are known as the Upanishads and the Brahmanas.  Despite their change in tone, both of these compendiums are still very loyal to the vedas as a whole and in fact serve as commentaries on the original texts with emphasis on reinterpretation rather than on dismissal.  Instead of rejecting the vedas, there seemed to be a shift in sensibility to much more "traditional" Hindu practices of vegetarianism, reincarnation, and non-violence.

What caused this shift in the sensibilities of the ancient Aryans?  Anthropologists and historians think there are several factors.  It is interesting to note that at the same time Brahmanism (early Hinduism) was shifting into these more passive roles, two other religions in India were coming into being: Buddhism and Jainism.  Both religions rejected the violent traditions of the Rg Veda and its successors, opting for a peaceful and less stratified existence than that which was glorified in the Vedic system.  The Buddha (enlightened one) and Mahavira (great hero) each set out to define new faiths.

In part then, one might argue that the changes in Hinduism were a response to these new religious whose creed of passive activity had the potential of depriving early Hinduism of many of its devotees, leading to religious extinction.  Yet, the question still remains, why this change in sensibility, if not in Hinduism alone, but in India as a geographical unit?

One theory holds that as India became increasingly sedentarized and permanent in its settlements, the residents of the subcontinent found the more violent and nomadic ways of their ancestors to be out of place in the urban culture of the Ganges Valley (just as the 'wild' frontiers of the American west gave way to the settled urbanization of the modern era.)  The cow-herding and migratory Indo-Aryans were very much in need of mobile gods and violent ritual to fit in with their vision of the world which subsisted on constant battle, cow raids, and a nomadic existence.  In essence, as the people of India became more 'civilized' (in the true sense of the word, meaning becoming city dwellers) the religion itself became more 'civilized.'  This theory is not without its detractors, however.

Suffice it to say that there was a distinctive mark in the character of Hinduism in which the sacrifice and oblation began to internalize, forming a new sort of ritual.  For example, calls for animal sacrifice in the vedas were interpreted to mean figurative, not real sacrifices and hefty rituals were interpreted as allegories for action inside the devotee.  This internalization of the ritual can be seen as primary current in the creation of a new brand of Hindu: the ascetic.

While asceticism is nothing new to the world, nor were the Hindus the first to adopt the practice (early Christianity, for example, has its own ennumerable examples of ascetics) the idea of bodily strength came to occupy a central place in the ethos of the religion.  In Hindu literature, for example, the most religious and strongest of the characters were often priests and others who were not strong in the ritual, but rather strong in ascetic practices.  Stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are full of people and names of powerful figures that attain their auspiciousness by harnessing the powers of the body (compare this to Vedic stories in which the strongest characters were those who could control the ritual, like Bhrigu.)

Another interesting aspect to the late Vedic period in Hindu history is the substantive change in the pantheon.  While no god or goddess was necessarily eliminated from the crowd of deities, Indra, the mighty king of the vedic texts and slayer of Vrita can be seen to enter a period decline in the more philosophical and sedate Upanishads and Brahmanas,.  One explanation for his fall may very well be the more peaceful living that the Hindus discovered in the rich Ganges River Valley.  Nevertheless, it is indisputable that Indra declined in importance and during the late Vedic period the heir to the crown of majesty among the gods was Prajapati, who became associated with creation and ultimately the force that connects the entire universe, including Indra.  This concept came to be known as brahma and eventually evolved into the god proper of Brahma.  (For a more complete discussion on the decline of Indra, please click here.)  By the common era, Prajapati himself was subordinated in the Hindu divine hierarchy to Brahma who, by the time of the common era, was the sole god at the center of creation.  It is also important to note, that there are indications in the Rg Veda itself that Prajapati may have held a preeminant position, at least in terms of creation, because of his affiliation with the enigmatic figure Ka, the purported creator in hymn 10.121.

By the epic period, though, even the late vedic pantheon has been turned on its head and two relatively minor gods--Vishnu and Shiva--come to play an increasingly important role in the cosmology and theology of orthodox Hindu practice.

Epic hinduism, roughly dated to the millenium between 500 before the common era and 500 of the common era, is notable for two reasons: First, the proliferation of a common literature that glorified god and divinity outside of the strict requirements of ritual or ascetic sacrifice.  This facet is most clearly demonstrated in the development of India's two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, but also in the inception of literature for a variety of topics.  Second, and connected to the first, is the development of bhakti, or devotional religion, that relies on worship to an individual and personal god.  In addition to ritual and ascetic sacrifice, bhakti gives the lay devotee a third route to god through love for the person of god by the individual soul.

Vedic Hinduism produced its own 'literature' in the general sense of the word.  The four vedas and the complementary vedic texts that follow provided form to the ritual sacrifice by narrating the structure, origin, purpose and use of the vedic hymns through narrative tales and hymns, and explanations that brought Vedic Hinduism into the mainstream of civilized society in later generations.  Unlike 'literature' in the modern sense, however, these texts served a primarily liturgical purpose and remained in the hands of those who were qualified and competent to deal in the formalities of religion.  The literature of the Epic period is not the same.  Rather, its primary purpose is not so much aimed at providing the religious elite with tools for the performance of liturgical duties, but in providing the common population with the normative principles and figures of divinity necessary to shape their lives around religious concepts of propriety and righteousness.

This period in Hinduism gets it name, of course, from the two epic compositions made popular in this period: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.  To describe either of these as a 'poem' would do them disservice.  The Mahabharata, at over one hundred thousand couplets (two-lined verse) is the longest composition in the world, and eight times as large as the Iliad and Odyssey combined.  While not as long, the Ramayana is still considerably larger than other extant works, aside from its sister epic, and made a lasting contribution to the literatures of greater South Asia, South East Asia, and the regions around India.  The epics were widely received during this period, and their influence is percepitble in the other literature of this period both inside and outside India.

The epic period is also noteworthy for the other genres of literature developing across the sub-continent.  Dharmashastras, or law books, were first written in this period.  Essentially compilations of rules for daily living, these texts provided the religions elite, and the lay population through them, a set of standards and norms by which they could conform their daily lives.  In short, these texts laid out dharma, or the path of righteous living to which every devout Hindu is held.  It is this development, dharma, that sets Hinduism so apart from other world religions.  Rather than being one part of Indian civilization, Hinduism, through the development of its expansive doctrines, exceeded the bounds of a normal religion to become a world philosophy that defined innumerable facets of its adherents lives from eating to marriage and death.  No part of the Hindu's life was left without some commentary by law texts as to the proper path.

Law books did not hold the monopoly on this development.  The epics themselves, through the inclusion of lessions about proper and improper action either in the main narrative or in sub-stories dropping out of the main story-line, also performed a normative function.  Similarly, texts like the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa, compendiums of frame-tale stories, taught every-day Hindus, through the medium of narration, life-lessons through character and plot.  For the Hindu living during this period, religion was no longer a set of rituals to be performed or ascetic practices necessary to achieve religious power.  Rather, religion was fast becoming an individual element of life, and reaching god less a matter of formal restraints or sacrifice and more the end-result attained from personal adherence to normative principles and daily living that putatively derives from the axioms of divine scripture.

It is this lesson that underlies the development of bhakti during the same period.  Bhakti, at its most basic level, can be defined as 'devotion.'  In the Hindu context, it comes to define a new phase of Hinduism that had previously been undocumented in the extant literature.  This is not to suggest that bhakti, or bhakti-like elements did not exist prior to the epic period.  In fact, some scholars have argued that the epics, as popular literature, finally gave some sense of public voice to the existing bhakti practices of the great mass of people (in contrast to the elitist practices of the brahmanic ritual.)  Nonetheless, it is in the epics that the unique elements of Hindu bhakti can be distinguished.

The principle doctrine of bhakti is that an individual, regardless of caste (jati) or other social position (such as wealth or even gender) can acheive a personal relationship with god without the intermediate invocations of the brahmanic elite and the social constraints of varna as first articulated in the Rg Veda, or the sacrifice of ascetic practice.  Rather, by placing god on the same existential plain has human beings, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana create personal gods which normal people can adore and emulate in their own daily lives.  In the Ramayana this takes the form of Rama, an avatar or incarnation of the vedic god Vishnu, sent to Earth in the form of a young prince in the north Indian city Ayodhya.  Expelled from his father's kingdom by the forces of fate (and his step-mother), Rama engages on the journey of his destiny when his wife, Sita, is captured by the evil Ravana and taken to the southern island fortress of Lanka.  With the help of an army of simions, led by Hanuman, Rama is able to recapture Sita, kill Ravana, and restore balance to the Universe as he was destined to.

Rama is cast as the ideal son, the ideal brother, the ideal husband, the ideal warrior, the ideal king, and the ideal father, and by living a life devoted to the same concerns that Rama shows throughout the epic, the average Hindu is capable of demonstrating his devotion to god without the intervention of the ritual or asceticism.  The Mahabharata plays a slightly different function in that none of its characters are held up as ideal models of behavior.  Rather, its importance lies in the explicit articulation of the bhakti doctrine through the personage of Krishna and his followers, the five Pandavas.  Faced with the machinations of their scheming cousins, the five sons of Pandu, a royal prince in the northern city of Hastinapura, set out to start their own city, but faced with the jealousy of their cousins on seeing their success, they are sent into exile and ultimately war against their own kin.  It is only by their personal devotion to the gods generally, and Krishna in particular, that they are able to overcome.

Krishna's central role in the epic comes in a section of the epic known as the Bhagavadgita where the god leads Arjuna, one of the five Pandu sons, through a religions discussion which is of critical importance to modern Hindus (the Gita is often called the Bible of Hinduism) because it articulates the unity of a rather diverse Hindu philosophy for the first time in major literature.  Most importantly, however, Krishna teaches that devotion to life-duties as articulated in other texts of the period is the highest religious duty of any Hindu.  Thus, fulfillment of one's role as child, parent, sibling, caste-member, or spouse is cast in terms of  a religious duty to the doubting Arjuna who stands on the battlefield wary of fighting his own kin in a bloody battle.  But as Krishna explains it, it is both Arjuna's religous duty as a Kshatriya prince to fight, and immaterial what he does to the physical bodies for the immortal soul lives on through the cycle of reincarnation.

As the epic period closes, then, the Hindu world has changed from the dual regime of ritual sacrifice and ascetic performance to include a new regime of individual devotion in the form of bhakti characterized by a literature that simultaneously describes the nature of that devotion, provides models of behavior, and explains the purpose of adherence.  In the end, the Hindu pantheon has expanded not only to include two new divine figures--Rama and Krishna--but the philisophy has expanded to include new concepts like the avatara, the individual nature of god, and the righteous path to salvation.  Already incipient in these changes, however, was the development of the great feature of Puranic Hinduism: sectarianism.