Hinduism is the oldest living religion in the world, enduring today as a healthy, spirited and colourful group of traditions.

With almost a billion followers, it is also the world’s third largest religion : Hindus comprise about one-seventh of the world’s entire population. Its origins lie in the vast Indian subcontinent. While it remains the majority religion in India, with over 800 million adherents, its spiritual, cultural, social and linguistic influences extend across the globe; over 60 million Hindus live outside of India in 150 different countries, including in the UK (around 700,000) and North America (over 2 million).

Hinduism is, however, unique in itself and the unique facts have been pointed out in this article.

 

Hinduism Facts and Beliefs

 

Ways to attain self-realization/ ways of yoga in Hinduism

Hinduism believes that the main goal in life is self realization. All beings have a soul and advanced souls take bodies with higher abilities like that of humans. All souls evolve up the ladder and they adopt different ways through which they could climb and attain self realization. The different Yoga Philosophies in Hinduism are

  1. Bhakti Yoga: The path of devotion.
  2. Jnana yoga: The path of wisdom, where logic and rationality are considered the means to attain realization.
  3. Karma yoga: The path of right action, where dharmic actions are considered the means on self realization.
  4. Raja Yoga: As explained by its proponent Patanjali, attaining self realization is possible by directing mind and senses towards God through the practice of Yama, Niyama, Asana (right posture/ sitting position), Pranayama (control of life energy), Pratyahara (directing senses inward), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi.

 

Three important aspects of the Supreme God in Hinduism

Another uniqueness about Hinduism is that it worships and believes in the Trinity or Trimurti.

  1. Brahma: The creator, the creating aspect.
  2. Vishnu: The preserver, the preserving aspect.
  3. Maheshwara: The destroyer, the destroying aspect.

The three letters of the word ‘AUM’ are considered to represent them.

 

Three important schools of Vedanta

  1. Advaita: Shankaracharya the proponent of Advaita explains there is non-duality between the individual  soul and the supreme soul.
  2. Dvaita: Madhvacharya the proponent of Dvaita explains that the soul and supreme soul are separate though the soul is from the supreme soul.
  3. Vishishtadvaita: Ramanujacharya the proponent of Vishishtadvaita explains soul to be the individual entity

Though there are slight differences in different schools of Vedanta Philosophy, these are agreed upon as three different views of the same truth rather than three different truths (they all agree upon soul, karma, reincarnation and supreme soul concepts. primary difference is in the relationship between soul and supreme soul and in their oneness) by Hinduism.

 

Trigunas or Three modes of Nature in Hinduism

  1. Sattva: Pure and good nature.
  2. Rajas: Passion and activating nature.
  3. Tamas: Inertia, indifference and darkness.

According to Hinduism, every person has these three qualities to different degrees.

 

Four objectives of life in Hinduism – Purusharthas

Hinduism believes that an individual has 4 main objectives in life. They are :

  1. Dharma: adherence to righteousness.
  2. Artha: to gain prosperity (through righteous means).
  3. Kama: to quench passions (through righteous means).
  4. Moksha: To attain liberation from rebirth.

Of all the four mentioned above Moksha is considered the highest and final goal. Every one (who is also into acquiring wealth and objects of passion) is suggested to follow Dharma, because Dharma is believed to be the highest way to free oneself from bondage.

 

Four Varnas or Four classes in Hinduism

People are classified into four classes in Hinduism according to their natural mental inclinations and abilities which in recent years has been misunderstood and people are classified by their birth. These are :

  1. Brahmana: (predominantly Sattva) Those who are naturally inclined towards attaining self-realization and in helping others towards God. It comprises of saints, sages, yogis and all those who are strongly adherent to dharma
  2. Kshatriya: (predominantly Rajas) Those who are naturally into action and passions. It comprises of kings, soldiers (sports persons, athletes can be grouped into this.)
  3. Vaishyas: (predominantly both Rajas and tamas) Those whose primary inclination is towards attaining wealth. Comprises of farmers, merchants, and businessmen.
  4. Shudras: (predominantly tamas) Those who undertake hard labor for living. Comprises of servants and labourers.

It is hard to classify a person as entirely belonging to one class, but every person has a dominant tendency according to which he is classified into any one of the above and this was done purely on the basis of one’s capacity and not by birth. Although this system got corrupted at a later stage.

 

Four Ashramas or Four stages of life in Hinduism

According to Hinduism, there are 4 stages of life namely :

  1. Brahmacharya: Early stage of life which is spent in learning arts of life and spirituality.
  2. Grihastha: Householder life, where earning for livelihood, taking care of children and parents are of primary importance.
  3. Vanaprastha: Retirement stage, where transfer of responsibilities and duties to younger generation is advised.
  4. Sanyasa: Renunciation stage, in which one renounces all worldly attachments and moves to a quiet place to practice spirituality very seriously until death.

 

Four ages or Four Yugas in Hinduism

In Hinduism, according to the distance of the planet from the Center of the creation (Vishnu Nabhi) time is divided into four yugas or ages. Inhabitants of the planet will have higher abilities and life span when the planet is closer to the center of creation.

  1. Satya Yuga/ Krita yuga (Golden age) : People in this age are predominantly righteous and, hence, world will be 100% righteous in this age. Humans would have very high life span as well.
  2. Treta Yuga: World will be 75% righteous in this age. Life span of humans would still be high.
  3. Dwapara Yuga: World will be 50% righteous, life span would considerably be decreased but still remain high.
  4. Kali Yuga: World in this age will be 25% righteous. Life span of humans would be 120 years.

It is said that in higher ages advanced souls prefer to incarnate, and vice versa.

 

Reincarnation in Hinduism

According to Hinduism, beings after they die enter astral world, they enter the physical body according to their past tendencies. Those souls which have burnt all tendencies do not have to take rebirth. Those who intentionally take birth to help other souls to advance spiritually are called ‘avatars’. Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus can be considered avatars.

 

Karma in Hinduism

Karma is the accumulation of fruits of actions. Among different types of karma psychological Karma can be easily understood. Hinduism particularly says that Psychological Karma is essentially ‘the way we train our mind to act is how it is going to act’. Karma has bigger effect on our decisions.

 

16 Samskaras in Hinduism

There are forty samskaras prescribed in the Vedas of which sixteen, called the Shodasha samskaras, are in practice today. These 16 samskaras have to be performed by or for an individual beginning with conception and continuing up to the last rites performed after death. They are done in the five different stages of a human life i.e. –

  1. The prenatal years,
  2. The childhood years,
  3. The student years,
  4. The adulthood years and
  5. The old age or wisdom years.

These 16 samskaras in Hinduism are meant to cultivate positive qualities which help purify the soul and ultimately lead it to Realization, or union with God.

 

Other Interesting Hinduism Facts

Hinduism Facts - Unique Facts about Hinduism

  1. There is no specific higher authority or governing body which is responsible for the religion, i.e there has been no known founder of Hinduism and Hinduism derives its practices from ancient sages to today’s saints. There has been a tradition of sages and saints from thousands of years (at least for last 10,000 years).
  2. Hinduism is the oldest known religion in the world with it’s root going back to as far as 10000 years and Hindu literature dating back to 7000 BC.
  3. The word Hindu was coined to refer to people from Indus (Sindhu) Valley civilization. The civilization flourished on the bank of river  Sindhu. People from Mesopotamian civilization/present middle east couldn’t pronounce the ‘S’  voice of the word, so “Sindhu” became “Hindu”.
  4. Hinduism is the world’s 3rd largest followed religion after Christianity and Islam.
  5. Hinduism believes in one God who is manifested in many forms. People choose the form through which they wanted to seek god, thus there are so many gods. Shiva, Krishna, Rama, Durga, Kali are among the most worshiped forms of God.
  6. God is considered both male and female, or as the one who has no sex or both. One can worship God through idols/images in Hinduism. Temples are the places where Hindus worship the deities. Many people have altars/ rooms in their houses for worship.
  7. In Hinduism, God is called SatChidAnanda: Ever existing, Ever conscious, Ever new bliss.
  8. The largest Hindu temple is in Cambodia – the Angkor Wat.
  9. Scriptures are divided into Shrutis (those which were heard by sages in deep meditation) and smritis (those which were recorded or memorized). Vedas are the known ancient Hindu scriptures. Other famous scriptures are Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Agamas, puranas. Among them, Bhagavad Gita is considered by most as the holy book of Hindus. However, we can see that it is not considered as the only book.
  10. Contrary to most religious beliefs of God creating life, Vedic Vishnu Purana  deciphered evolution thousands of years ago in the form of Dashavataram. It starts with Matsya (Fish), and next came the Tortoise (Kurma) – the  amphibian. The next avatar is the Boar (Varaha) – symbolising the first Mammal.  The next is Narasimha (Man-lion) – the being in between the humanoid and the  mammal. Next comes Vamana (dwarf) – the primal short man, and then Parashurama  (man with an axe) – representing the first hunter-gatherers creating the first tools. Much before Darwin.
  11. Manu smriti is the first religious book of Hinduism written on Codes of good conduct. Some of the codes from this are followed even today (mostly because they are relevant even today and good codes are often relevant all the time).
  12. Hindu Gods Rama and Krishna (both reincarnations of Vishnu) are the most celebrated historic persons who are well known for their adherence to dharma even at difficult times. Ramayana and Mahabharata are considered as the documentation of the history of India during the times of Rama and Krishna 
  13. Popular festivals are: Diwali, Maha Shivaratri, Holi, Ram Navami, Krishna Janmastami, Ganesh Chaturthi, Ugadi. Different groups of Hinduism give importance to different festivals.
  14. There are three sects in Hinduism: Shaiva, Vaishnava and shakti. But they are not definite sects, person of one sect may follow the philosophy of the other sect. Though all sects worship all Gods primary importance is mostly given to one’s own sect.
  15. Buddhism, Jainism, Sikkhism originated from Hinduism, all these religions share lots of common philosophies.
  16. Yoga, Pranayama, Meditation, Vastu, Jyotish, Tantra, Astrology are the main contributions of Hindu system to the modern world.
  17. The word AUM is the main symbol of Hinduism. AUM is considered as the holy sound, because it is believed that consciousness manifested itself as form through the sound AUM.
  18. Monogamy is the most practiced way in Hinduism. Polygamy and polyandry are also practiced though rarely. Vedas suggest that one may marry as many as one can satisfy (materially, providing all necessities) and equal to other spouses.
  19. Kumbhamela (spiritual gathering of both householders and renunciates) which occurs every 3 years is the largest gathering of humans on the earth.
  20. Number 12 is considered special, Poorna Kumbha Mela is celebrated every 12 years, it is believed that spiritual progress happens in practitioners in the cycle of 12 years. i.e it takes 12 years of disciplined practice to change a habit. Mantras, Japas and pranayama’s are practiced in multiples of 12.
  21. Cow, elephant, snake and peacock are closely associated with the religion of Hinduism.
Temple Purohit

TemplePurohit.com is a one-stop destination for all your spiritual needs - Get in-depth information on Spiritual topics, temples across India, have in-depth discussion on topics such as Astrology, Spiritual developments & meditation.

More Interesting Articles on Hinduism For You

Leave a Reply