


The term Hinduism




General nature of Hinduism



The five tensile strands













Central conceptions


Veda, Brahmans, and issues of religious authority



Doctrine of atman-brahman


Karma, samsara, and moksha


Dharma and the three paths



Ashramas: the four stages of life




The history of Hinduism


Sources of Hinduism
Indo-European sources






Other sources: the process of “Sanskritization”




The prehistoric period (3rd and 2nd millennia BCE)
Indigenous prehistoric religion



Religion in the Indus valley civilization



Survival of archaic religious practices


The Vedic period (2nd millennium–7th century BCE)



Challenges to Brahmanism (6th–2nd century BCE)







Early Hinduism (2nd century BCE–4th century CE)








The development of temples





The spread of Hinduism in Southeast Asia and the Pacific






Questions of influence on the Mediterranean world



The rise of devotional Hinduism (4th–11th century)





Hinduism under Islam (11th–19th century)
The challenge of Islam and popular religion




Temple complexes







Sectarian movements






Bhakti movements





The modern period (19th–21st century)


Hindu reform movements
Brahmo Samaj





Arya Samaj


New religious movements
Ramakrishna Mission



Theosophical Society



Aurobindo Ashram


Other reform movements




The struggle for independence




Mahatma Gandhi



The religious situation after independence







Hinduism outside India





Sacred texts
Importance of the Vedas

The Vedas (“Knowledge”) are the oldest Hindu texts. Hindus regard the Vedas as having been directly revealed to or “heard” by gifted and inspired seers (rishis) who memorized them in the most perfect human language, Sanskrit. Most of the religion of the Vedic texts, which revolves around rituals of fire sacrifice, has been eclipsed by later Hindu doctrines and practices. But even today, as it has been for several millennia, parts of the Vedas are memorized and repeated as a religious act of great merit: certain Vedic hymns (mantras) are always recited at traditional weddings, at ceremonies for the dead, and in temple rituals.

The components of the Vedas

Vedic literature ranges from the Rigveda (c. 1500 BCE) to the Upanishads (c. 1000–600 BCE) and provides the primary documentation for Indian religion before Buddhism and the early texts of classical Hinduism. The most important texts are the four collections (Samhitas) known as the Veda or Vedas: the Rigveda (“Wisdom of the Verses”), the Yajurveda (“Wisdom of the Sacrificial Formulas”), the Samaveda (“Wisdom of the Chants”), and the Atharvaveda (“Wisdom of the Atharvan Priests”). Of these, the Rigveda is the oldest.



The Rigveda






Elaborations of text and ritual: the later Vedas


The Yajurveda and Samaveda


The Atharvaveda

The Atharvaveda stands apart from other Vedic texts. It contains both hymns and prose passages and is divided into 20 books. Books 1–7 contain magical prayers for precise purposes: spells for a long life, cures, curses, love charms, prayers for prosperity, charms for kingship and Brahmanhood, and expiations for evil actions. They reflect the magical-religious concerns of everyday life and are on a different level than the Rigveda, which glorifies the great gods and their liturgy. Books 8–12 contain similar texts but also include cosmological hymns that continue those of the Rigveda and provide a transition to the more-complex speculations of the Upanishads. Books 13–20 celebrate the cosmic principle (book 13) and present marriage prayers (book 14), funeral formulas (book 18), and other magical and ritual formulas. This text is an extremely important source of information for practical religion, particularly where it complements the Rigveda. Many rites are also laid down in the Kausika-sutra (the manual of the Kausika family of priests) of the Atharvaveda.

The Brahmanas and Aranyakas

Attached to each Samhita was a collection of explanations of religious rites, called a Brahmana, which often relied on mythology to describe the origins and importance of individual ritual acts. Although not manuals or handbooks in the manner of the later Shrauta-sutras, the Brahmanas do contain details about the performance and meaning of Vedic sacrificial rituals and are invaluable sources of information about Vedic religion.

In these texts the sacrifice is the centre of cosmic processes, human concerns, and religious desires and goals. Through the merit of offering sacrifices, karma is generated that creates for the one who sacrifices a rebirth after death in heaven (“in the next world”). Ritual was thought to have effects on the visible and invisible worlds because of homologies, or connections (bandhus), that lie between the components of the ritual and corresponding parts of the universe. The universalization of the dynamics of the ritual into the dynamics of the cosmos was depicted as the sacrifice of the primordial deity, Prajapati (“Lord of Creatures”), who was perpetually regenerated by the sacrifice.

The lengthy series of rituals of the royal consecration, the rajasuya, emphasized royal power and endowed the king with a divine charisma, raising him, at least for the duration of the ceremony, to the status of a god. Typical of this period was the elaborate ashvamedha, the horse sacrifice, in which a consecrated horse was freed and allowed to wander at will for a year; it was always followed by the king’s troops, who defended it from all attack until it was brought back to the royal capital and sacrificed in a very complicated ritual.

Vedic cosmic-sacrificial speculations continued in the Aranyakas (“Books of the Forest”), which contain materials of two kinds: Brahmana-like discussions of rites not believed to be suitable for the village (hence the name “forest”) and continuing visions of the relationship between sacrifice, universe, and humanity. The word brahman—the creative power of the ritual utterances, which denotes the creativeness of the sacrifice and underlies ritual and, therefore, cosmic order—is prominent in these texts.

Vedic religion
Cosmogony and cosmology

Vedic literature contains different but not exclusive accounts of the origin of the universe. The simplest is that the creator built the universe with timber as a carpenter builds a house. Hence, there are many references to gods measuring the different worlds as parts of one edifice: atmosphere upon earth, heaven upon atmosphere. Creation may be viewed as procreation: the personified heaven, Dyaus, impregnates the earth goddess, Prithivi, with rain, causing crops to grow on her. Quite another myth is recorded in the last (10th) book of the Rigveda: the Hymn of the Cosmic Man (Purushasukta) explains that the universe was created out of the parts of the body of a single cosmic man (Purusha) when his body was offered at the primordial sacrifice. The four classes (varnas) of Indian society also came from his body: the priest (Brahman) emerging from the mouth, the warrior (Kshatriya) from the arms, the peasant (Vaishya) from the thighs, and the servant (SudraShudra) from the feet. The Purushasukta represents the beginning of a new phase in which the sacrifice became more important and elaborate as cosmological and social philosophies were constructed around it.

In the same book of the Rigveda, mythology begins to be transformed into philosophy; for example, “In the beginning was the nonexistent, from which the existent arose.” Even the reality of the nonexistent is questioned: “Then there was neither the nonexistent nor the existent.” Such cosmogonic speculations continue, particularly in the older Upanishads. Originally there was nothing at all, or Hunger, which then, to sate itself, created the world as its food. Alternatively, the creator creates himself in the universe by an act of self-recognition, self-formulation, or self-formation. Or the one creator grows “as big as a man and a woman embracing” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad) and splits into man and woman, and in various transformations the couple create other creatures. In one of the last stages of this line of thought (Chandogya Upanishad), the following account became fundamental to the ontology of the philosophical schools of Vedanta: in the beginning was the Existent, or brahman, which, through heaven, earth, and atmosphere (the triadic space) and the three seasons of summer, rains, and harvest (the triadic time), produced the entire universe.

As indicated in these accounts, the Vedic texts generally regarded the universe as three layers of worlds (loka): heaven, atmosphere, and earth. Heaven is that part of the universe where the sun shines and is correlated with sun, fire, and ether; the atmosphere is that part of the sky between heaven and earth where the clouds insert themselves in the rainy season and is correlated with water and wind; earth, a flat disk, like a wheel, is here below as the “holder of treasure” (vasumdhara) and giver of food. In addition to this tripartite pattern, there is an ancient notion of duality in which heaven is masculine and father and earth is feminine and mother. Later texts present the conception that the universe was formed by combinations and permutations of five elements: ether-space (akasha), wind (vayu), fire (agni), water (apas), and earth (bhumi).


Generally speaking, Vedic gods share many characteristics: several of them (Indra, Varuna, Vishnu) are said to have created the universe, set the sun in the sky, and propped apart heaven and earth. All the gods are susceptible to human praise. Some major gods were clearly personifications of natural phenomena, and these deities assumed no clearly delineated personalities.


The principal focus of Vedic literature is the sacrifice, which in its simplest form can be viewed as a ritualized banquet to which a god is invited to partake of a meal shared by the sacrificer and his priest. The invocations mention, often casually, the past exploits of the deity. The offered meal gives strength to the deity so that he may repeat his feats and give aid to the sacrificer.

The myth of Indra killing the dragon Vritra has many levels of meaning. Vritra prevents the monsoon rains from breaking. The monsoon is the greatest single factor in Indian agriculture, and thus the event celebrated in this myth impinges on every Indian’s life. In the social circles represented in the Rigveda, however, the myth is cast in a warrior mold, and the breaking of the monsoon is viewed as a cosmic battle. The entire monsoon complex is involved: Indra is the lord of the winds, the gales that accompany the monsoon; his weapons are lightning and thunderbolt, with which he lays Vritra low. To accomplish this feat, he must be strengthened with soma. Simultaneously, he is also the god of war and is invoked to defeat the non-Vedic dasyus, the indigenous peoples referred to in the Vedas. These important concerns—the promptness and abundance of the rains, success in warfare, and the conquest of the land—all find their focus in Indra, the king of the gods. Although he ceased being a major god as Hinduism incorporated Vedic tradition in the course of its development, Indra’s royal status as the king of the gods continued to be evoked even in areas influenced by India—for example, in dozens of lintels and temple carvings across Southeast Asia.

Because the Vedic gods were not fully anthropomorphic, their functions were subject to various applications and interpretations. In the view of the noble patrons of the Vedic poets, Indra, the greatest and most anthropomorphic god of the early Vedas, was primarily a warrior god who could be invoked to bring booty and victory. Agriculturalists and hunters emphasized Indra’s fecundity, celebrating his festivals to produce fertility, welfare, and happiness. Indra, however, was essentially a representative of useful force in nature and the cosmos; he was the great champion of an ordered and habitable world. His repeated victories over Vritra, the representative of obstruction and chaos, resulted in the separation of heaven and earth (the support of the former and the stabilization of the latter), the rise of the sun, and the release of the waters—in short, the organization of the universe.

Although morality is not an issue in Indra’s myth, it plays a role in those of the other principal Vedic deities. Central to ancient morality was the notion of rita, which appears to have been the fidelity with which the alliances between humans (and between humans and the gods) were observed—a quality necessary for the preservation of the physical and moral order of the universe. Varuna, an older sovereign god, presides over the observance of rita with Mitra (related to the Persian god Mithra). Thus, Varuna is a judge before whom a mortal may stand guilty, while Indra is a king who may support a mortal monarch. Typical requests that are made of Varuna are for forgiveness, for deliverance from evil committed by oneself or others, and for protection; Indra is prayed to for bounty, for aid against enemies, and for leadership against demons and dasyus.

Distinct from both is Agni, the fire, who is observed in various manifestations: in the sacrificial fire, in lightning, and hidden in the logs used in fires. As the fire of sacrifice, he is the mouth of the gods and the carrier of the oblation, the mediator between the human and the divine orders. Agni is above all the good friend of the Vedic people, who prayed to him to strike down and burn their enemies and to mediate between gods and humans.

Among other Vedic gods, only a few stand out. One is Vishnu, who seems more important perhaps in retrospect because of later developments associated with him. He is famous for the three strides with which he traversed the universe, thus creating and possessing it. This pervasiveness, which invites identification with other gods, is characteristic of his later mythology. His function as helper to the conqueror-god Indra is important.


Among the perpetually beneficent gods are the Ashvins (horsemen), helpers and healers who often visit the needy. Almost otiose is the personified heaven, Dyaus, who most often appears as the sky or as day. As a person, he is coupled with Earth (as Dyava-Prithivi) as a father; Earth by herself is more predominantly known as Mother (Matri). Apart from Earth, the other goddess of importance in the text of the Rigveda is Ushas (Dawn), who brings in the day and thus brings forth the Sun.

In the later Vedic period the significance of the Rigvedic gods and their myths began to wane. The peculiar theism of the Rigveda—in which any one of several different gods might be hailed as supreme and the attributes of one god could be transferred to another (called “kathenotheism” by the Vedic scholar Max Müller)—stressed godhead more than individual gods. In the end this led to a pantheism of Prajapati, the deified sacrifice or the ritualized deity, who, with his consort Vach, the speech of ritual recitation, is said to have begotten the world.

During the Vedic period, Purusha fused with the figure Narayana (“Scion of Man”) and with Prajapati (“Lord of Creatures”). In the speculative thought of the ritualists, Prajapati emerged as the creator god and in many respects as the highest divinity—the One, the All, or Totality. He was the immortal father even of the gods, whom he transcends, encompasses, and molds into one complex. By a process of emanation and self-differentiation (by dividing himself), Prajapati created all beings and the universe. After this creation, Prajapati became the disintegrated and differentiated All of the phenomenal world and was exhausted. By means of a rite, he then reintegrated himself to prepare for a new phase of creativity. Because the purpose of a sacred rite is the restitution of the organic structural norm, which ensures the ordered functioning of the universe, Prajapati’s rite was regarded as the prototype for all Vedic and Hindu rites. Thus, by performing the rite, those offering sacrifice to Prajapati may temporarily restore oneness and totality within themselves and within the universe.

Ethical and social doctrines

In Vedic times, sin (enas) or evil (papman) was associated with illness, enmity, distress, or malediction; it was conceived of as a sort of pollution that could be neutralized by ritual or other devices. An individual could incur sin by improper behaviour, especially improper speech. Thus, one could be guilty of anrita—i.e., infidelity to fact, or departure from what is true and real or from what constitutes the established order—whether or not one had deliberately committed a crime. Other transgressions included making mistakes in sacrifices and coming into contact with corpses, ritually impure persons, or persons belonging to the lower classes of society. These acts were only rarely considered to be misdeeds against a god or violations of moral principles of divine origin, and the consciousness of guilt was much rarer than the fear of the evil consequences of sin, such as disease or untimely death. Sometimes, however, a god (Agni, the evil-devouring fire, or Varuna, the god of order, whose role included punishing and fettering the “sinner”) was invoked to forgive the neglect or transgression or to release the sinner from its concrete results. More usually, however, these results were abrogated by means of purifications, such as the ceremonial use of water, and a variety of expiatory rites.

The pure who earned ritual merits hoped to win a safe world (loka) or condition. The meticulous effort to purify oneself from every evil also involved shanti, the observance of various customs regarding the avoidance of inauspicious occurrences. Ritual purity was the principal concern of the compilers of the manuals of dharma (religious law), which have contributed much to the special character of Hinduism. According to the authorities on dharma, ritual purity is the first approach to dharma, the resting place of the Vedas (brahman), the abode of prosperity (shri), the favourite of the gods, and the means of clearing (soothing) the mind and of seeing (realizing) the atman in the body.

The sacred: nature, humanity, and God

The Vedic poets were convinced that the world is an organized cosmos governed by order and truth and that it is always in danger of being damaged or destroyed by the powers of chaos (asat). This conviction inspired the performance of rituals to preserve the order of the universe, and it found mythological expression in the continual conflict between gods (devas) and antigods (asuras).

Gods were conceived as presiding over certain provinces of the universe or as being responsible for cosmic or social phenomena. Their deeds are timeless and exemplary presentations of mythic events replete with power and universal significance. To retain their vitality and efficacy, mythical events need to be repeated—that is, celebrated and confirmed by means of the spoken word and ritual acts.

Vedic and Brahmanic rites


Another characteristic of Vedic religion is the belief that there is a close correspondence between sacred places—such as the sacrificial place of many Vedic rites, a place of pilgrimage, or a consecrated area—and provinces of the universe or even the universe itself. In such places, direct communication with other cosmic regions (heaven or underworld) is possible, because they are said to be at the point of contact between this world and the “pillar of the universe”—the “navel of the earth.” The sacred place is understood as identical to the universe in its various states of emanation from, reabsorption into, integration with, and disintegration from the sacred. This idea has as its corollary the possibility of ritually enacting the cosmic drama and, thus, of influencing those events in the cosmos that continuously affect human weal and woe.

The Vedic ritual system is organized into three main forms. The simplest, and hierarchically inferior, type of Vedic ritualism is the grihya, or domestic ritual, in which the householder offers modest oblations into the sacred household fire. The more ambitious, wealthy, and powerful married householder sets three or five fires and, with the help of professional officiants, engages in the more complex shrauta sacrifices. These require oblations of vegetable substances and, in some instances, of parts of ritually killed animals. At the highest level of Vedic ritualism are the soma sacrifices, which can continue for days or even years and whose intricacies and complexities are truly stunning.

In the major shrauta rites, requiring three fires and 16 priests or more, “the man who knows”—the person with insight into the correspondences (bandhu) between the mundane and cosmic phenomena and the eternal transcendent reality beyond them and who knows the meaning of the ritual words and acts—may, it is believed, set great cosmic processes in motion for the benefit of humanity. In these rites, Brahman officiants repeat the mythic drama for the benefit of their patron, the “sacrificer,” who temporarily becomes its centre and realizes through ritual symbolism his identity with the universe. Such officiants are convinced of the efficacy of their rites: “the sun would not rise, were he [the officiant] not to make that offering; this is why he performs it” (Shatapatha Brahmana). The oblations should not be used to propitiate the gods or to thank them for favours bestowed, since the efficacy of the rites, some of which are still occasionally performed, does not depend on the will of the gods.

The Upanishads

With the last component of the Vedas, the mystically oriented and esoteric texts known as the Upanishads (traditionally and literally “sitting near a teacher” but more commonly understood as “connection” or “equivalence”), Vedic ritualism and the doctrine of the interconnectedness of separate phenomena were superseded by a new emphasis on knowledge alone—primarily knowledge of the ultimate identity of all phenomena, which merely appeared to be separate. The beginnings of philosophy and mysticism in Indian religious history occurred during the period of the compilation of the Upanishads, roughly between 700 and 500 BCE. Historically, the most important of the Upanishads are the two oldest, the Brihadaranyaka (“Great Forest Text”; c. 10th–5th century BCE) and the Chandogya (pertaining to the Chandogas, priests who intone hymns at sacrifices), both of which are compilations that record the traditions of sages (rishis) of the period—notably Yajnavalkya, who was a pioneer of new religious ideas.

The Upanishads reveal the desire to obtain the mystical knowledge that ensures freedom from “re-death” (punarmrityu), or birth and death in a new existence. Throughout the later Vedic period, the idea that the world of heaven is not the end of existence—and that even in heaven death is inevitable—became increasingly common. Vedic thinkers became concerned about the impermanence of religious merit and its loss in the hereafter, as well as about the transience of any form of existence after death—an existence that would culminate in re-death. The means of escaping and conquering death devised in the Brahmanas were of a ritual nature, but one of the oldest Upanishads, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, emphasizes the knowledge of the cosmic connection underlying ritual. When the doctrine of the identity of atman (the self) and brahman was established in the Upanishads, those sages who were inclined to meditative thought substituted the true knowledge of the self and the realization of this identity for the ritual method.

This theme of the quest for a supreme unifying truth, for the reality underlying existence, is exemplified in the question posed by the seeker in the Mundaka Upanishad: “What is it that, by being known, all else becomes known?” What is sought is an experiential knowledge that is different from the “lower” knowledge that can be conceptualized and articulated by human beings. Thus, the supreme truth is understood as ineffable. The Taittiriya Upanishad says that brahman is this ineffable truth; brahman is also truth (satya), knowledge (jnana), infinity (ananta), consciousness (chit), and bliss (ananda). Other Upanishads describe brahman as the hidden, inner controller of the human soul. The experiential knowledge of the relationship between the human soul (atman) and the supreme being (brahman) is said to bring an end to the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. To know brahman is to know all; in knowing brahman, one achieves a transcendental consciousness that comprehends, in some measure, the unity of the universe and the deep connection between the soul and brahman.

In subsequent centuries the main theories concerned with the divine essence underlying the world were harmonized and synthetically combined. The tendency of these theories was to extol one god as the supreme lord and originator (Ishvara)—at once Purusha and Prajapati and brahman and the self of all beings. For those who worshipped him, he was the goal of identificatory meditation, which leads to complete cessation of phenomenal existence and becomes the refuge of those who seek eternal peace. The Advaita Vedanta philosopher and theologian Shankara (8th century CE) exercised enormous influence on subsequent Hindu thinking through his elegant synthesis of the nontheistic and theistic aspects of Upanishadic teaching. In his commentaries on several of the Upanishads, he distinguished between nirguna brahman (without attributes) and saguna brahman (with attributes). His was a monistic teaching that stressed that saguna brahman was a lesser, temporary form of nirguna brahman. He taught also that the self (atman) is identical with nirguna brahman and that through knowledge of this unity the cycle of rebirth can be broken.

The Upanishads were composed during a time of much social, political, and economic upheaval. Rural tribal society was disappearing, and the adjustments of the people to urban living under a monarchy probably provoked many psychological and religious responses. During this period many groups of mystics, world renouncers, and forest dwellers appeared in India, among whom were the authors of the Upanishads. The most important practices and doctrines of these world renouncers included asceticism and the concept of rebirth, or transmigration.

The Rigveda contains few examples of asceticism, except among the “silent ones” (munis). The Atharvaveda describes another class of religious adepts, or specialists, the vratyas, particularly associated with the region of Magadha (west-central Bihar). The vratya was a wandering hierophant (one who manifested the holy) who remained outside the system of Vedic religion. He practiced flagellation and other forms of self-mortification and traveled from place to place in a bullock cart with an apprentice and with a woman who appears to have engaged in ritual prostitution. The Brahmans sought to bring the vratyas into the Vedic system by special conversion rituals, and it may be that the vratyas introduced their own beliefs and practices into Vedic religion. At the same time, the more-complex sacrifices of the later Vedic period demanded purificatory rituals, such as fasting and vigil, as part of the preparations for the ceremony. Thus, there was a growing tendency toward the mortification of the flesh.

The origin and development of the belief in transmigration of souls are very obscure. A few passages suggest that this doctrine was known even in the days of the Rigveda, and the Brahmanas often refer to doctrines of re-death and rebirth, but it was first clearly propounded in the earliest Upanishad—the Brihadaranyka. There it is stated that the soul of a Vedic sacrificer returns to earth and is reborn in human or animal form. This doctrine of samsara (reincarnation) is attributed to the sage Uddalaka Aruni, who is said to have learned it from a Kshatriya chief. In the same text, the doctrine of karma (“actions”), according to which the soul achieves a happy or unhappy rebirth according to its works in the previous life, occurs for the first time and is attributed to the theologian Yajnavalkya. Both doctrines seem to have been new, circulating among small groups of ascetics who were disinclined to make them public, perhaps for fear of the orthodox priests. These doctrines must have spread rapidly, for they appear in the later Upanishads and in the earliest Buddhist and Jain scriptures.

Sutras, shastras, and smritis
The Vedangas

Toward the end of the Vedic period, and more or less simultaneously with the production of the principal Upanishads, concise, technical, and usually aphoristic texts were composed about various subjects relating to the proper and timely performance of the Vedic sacrificial rituals. These were eventually labeled Vedangas (“Studies Accessory to the Veda”).

The preoccupation with the liturgy gave rise to scholarly disciplines, also called Vedangas, that were part of Vedic erudition. There were six such fields: (1) shiksa (instruction), which explains the proper articulation and pronunciation of the Vedic texts—different branches had different ways of pronouncing the texts, and these variations were recorded in pratishakhyas (literally, “instructions for the shakhas” [“branches”]), four of which are extant—(2) chandas (metre), of which there remains only one late representative, (3) vyakarana (analysis and derivation), in which the language is grammatically described—Panni’s grammar (c. 400 BCE) and the pratishakhyas are the oldest examples of this discipline—(4) nirukta (lexicon), which discusses and defines difficult words, represented by the Nirukta of Yaska (c. 600 BCE), (5) jyotisa (luminaries), a system of astronomy and astrology used to determine the right times for rituals, and (6) kalpa (mode of performance), which studies the correct ways of performing the ritual.

The texts constituting the Kalpa-sutras (collections of aphorisms on the mode of ritual performance) are of special importance. The composition of these texts was begun about 600 BCE by Brahmans belonging to the ritual schools (shakhas), each of which was attached to a particular recension of one of the four Vedas. A complete Kalpa-sutra contains four principal components: (1) a Shrauta-sutra, which establishes the rules for performing the more complex rituals of the Vedic repertoire, (2) a Shulba-sutra, which shows how to make the geometric calculations necessary for the proper construction of the ritual arena, (3) a Grihya-sutra, which explains the rules for performing the domestic rites, including the life-cycle rituals (called the samskaras), and (4) a Dharma-sutra, which provides the rules for the conduct of life.

Society was ritually stratified in the four classes, each of which had its own dharma (law). The ideal life was constructed through sacraments in the course of numerous ceremonies, performed by the upper classes, that carried the individual from conception to cremation in a series of complex rites. The Grihya-sutras show that in the popular religion of the time there were many minor deities who are rarely mentioned in the literature of the large-scale sacrifices but who were probably far more influential on the lives of most people than were the great Vedic gods.

Dharma-sutras and Dharma-shastras

Among the texts inspired by the Vedas are the Dharma-sutras, or “manuals on dharma,” which contain rules of conduct and rites as they were practiced in various Vedic schools. Their principal contents address the duties of people at different stages of life, or ashramas (studenthood, householdership, retirement, and renunciation); dietary regulations; offenses and expiations; and the rights and duties of kings. They also discuss purification rites, funerary ceremonies, forms of hospitality, and daily oblations, and they even mention juridical matters. The most important of these texts are the sutras of Gautama, Baudhayana, and Apastamba. Although the direct relationship is not clear, the contents of these works were further elaborated in the more systematic Dharma-shastras, which in turn became the basis of Hindu law.

First among them stands the Dharma-shastra of Manu, also known as the Manu-smriti (“Tradition of Manu”; c. 200 CE), with 2,694 stanzas divided into 12 chapters. It deals with topics such as cosmogony, the definition of dharma, the sacraments, initiation and Vedic study, the eight forms of marriage, hospitality and funerary rites, dietary laws, pollution and purification, rules for women and wives, royal law, juridical matters, pious donations, rites of reparation, the doctrine of karma, the soul, and punishment in hell. Law in the juridical sense is thus completely embedded in religious law and practice. The framework is provided by the model of the four-class society. The influence of the Dharma-shastra of Manu has been enormous, as it provided Hindu society with the basis for its practical morality. But, for most of the Indian subcontinent, it is the commentaries on it (such as Medhatithi’s 9th-century commentary on Manu) and, even more, the local case law traditions arising out of the commentaries that have been the law.

Second to Manu is the Dharma-shastra of Yajnavalkya; its 1,013 stanzas are distributed under the three headings of good conduct, law, and expiation. The Mitaksara, the commentary on it by Vijnaneshvara (11th century), has extended the influence of Yajnavalkya’s work.

Smriti texts

The shastras are a part of the Smriti (“Remembered”; traditional) literature which, like the sutra literature that preceded it, stresses the religious merit of gifts to Brahmans. Because kings often transferred the revenues of villages or groups of villages to Brahmans, either singly or in corporate groups, the status and wealth of the priestly class rose steadily. Living in the settlements called agraharas, the Brahmans were encouraged to devote themselves to the study of the Vedas and the subsidiary studies associated with them, but many Brahmans also developed the sciences of the period, such as mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, while others cultivated literature.

The Smriti texts have had considerable influence on orthodox Hindus, and Hindu family law was based on them. Although there is evidence of divorce in early Indian history, by the Gupta period marriage was solemnized by lengthy sacred rites and was virtually indissoluble. Intercaste marriage became rarer and more difficult, and child marriage and the rite of suttee (or sati; ritual suicide by fire committed by widows) were already in existence, although less frequent than they later became. One of the earliest definite records of a widow burning herself on her husband’s pyre is found in an inscription from Eran, Madhya Pradesh, dated 510, but the custom had been followed sporadically long before this. From the 6th century CE onward, such occurrences became more frequent, though still quite rare, in certain parts of India, particularly in Rajasthan.

Epics and Puranas

During the centuries immediately preceding and following the beginning of the Common Era, the recension of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, took shape out of existing heroic epic stories, mythology, philosophy, and above all the discussion of the problem of dharma. Much of the material in the epics dates far back into the Vedic period, while the rest continued to be added until well into the medieval period. It is conventional, however, to date the more or less final recension of the Sanskrit texts of the epics to the period from 200 BCE to 200 CE.

Apart from their influence as Sanskrit texts, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have made an impact in South and Southeast Asia, where their stories have been continually retold in vernacular and oral versions, and their influence on Indian and Southeast Asian art has been profound. Even today the epic stories and tales are part of the early education of all Hindus. A continuous reading of the Ramayana—whether in Sanskrit or in a vernacular version such as that of Tulsidas (16th century)—is an act of great merit, and a popular enactment of Tulsidas’s version of the Ramayana, called the Ramcaritmanas, is an annual event across northern India. The Ramayana’s influence is expressed in a dazzling variety of local and regional performance traditions—story, dance, drama, art—and extends to the composition of explicit “counterepics,” such as those published by the Tamil separatist E.V. Ramasami beginning in 1930.

The Ramayana

The narrative of Rama is recounted in the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana, traditionally regarded as the work of the sage Valmiki. Rama is deprived of the kingdom to which he is heir and is exiled to the forest with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana. While there, Sita is abducted by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka. In their search for Sita, the brothers ally themselves with a monkey king whose general, the monkey god Hanuman, finds Sita in Lanka. A cosmic battle ensues; Ravana is defeated, and Sita is rescued. When Rama is restored to his kingdom, the populace casts doubt on whether Sita remained chaste while a captive. To reassure them, Rama banishes Sita to a hermitage, where she bears him two sons; eventually she reenters the earth from which she had been born. Rama’s reign becomes the prototype of the harmonious and just kingdom, to which all kings should aspire. Rama and Sita set the ideal of conjugal love, and Rama and Lakshmana represent perfect fraternal love. Everything in the epic is designed for harmony, which after being disrupted is at last regained.

The Ramayana identifies Rama as another incarnation of Vishnu and remains the principal source for the worship of Rama. Though not as long as the Mahabharata, the Ramayana contains a great deal of religious material in the form of myths, stories of great sages, and accounts of exemplary human behaviour.

Although Hindus consider Rama to be the epitome of dharma, many passages from the epic seem inconsistent with this status and have provoked debate through the centuries. Rama’s killing of the monkey king Valin and his banishment of the innocent Sita, for example, have been troublesome to subsequent tradition. These problems of the “subtlety” of dharma and the inevitability of its violation, central themes in both epics, remained the locus of considerable argument throughout Indian history, both at the level of abstract philosophy and in local performance traditions. In Kerala, men of the low-ranking artisan caste worship Valin through rites of dance-possession that implicitly protest their ancestors’ deaths as soldiers conscripted by high-caste leaders such as Rama. Women performers throughout India have emphasized Sita’s story—her foundling infancy, her abduction by Ravana, her trial by fire, her childbirth in exile—thereby openly challenging Rama.

The Mahabharata

The Mahabharata (“Great Epic of the Bharata Dynasty”), a text of some 100,000 verses attributed to the sage Vyasa, was preserved both orally and in manuscript form for centuries. The central plot concerns a great battle between the five sons of Pandu (Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva), called the Pandavas, and the sons of Pandu’s brother Dhritarasta. The battle eventually leads to the destruction of the entire clan, save for one survivor who continues the dynasty. As each of the heroes is the son of a god (Dharma, Vayu, Indra, and the Ashvins, respectively), the epic is deeply infused with religious implications. Hindus regard the Mahabharata as a compendium of dharma, and many passages in it debate dilemmas posed by dharma. Because of this, some Hindus refer to the work as the “fifth Veda.” Religious practice takes the form of Vedic ritual on official occasions as well as pilgrimages and, to some extent, the adoration of gods. Apart from the Bhagavadgita (part of book 6), much of the didactic material is found in the Book of the Forest (book 3), in which sages teach the exiled heroes, and in the Book of Peace (book 12), in which the wise Bhishma expounds on religious and moral matters.

The Vedic gods lost importance in these texts and survive as figures of folklore. Prajapati of the Upanishads is popularly personified as the god Brahma, who creates all classes of beings and dispenses benefits. Of far greater importance is Krishna. In the epic he is a hero, a leader of his people, and an active helper of his friends. His biography as it is known later is not worked out; still, the text is the source of the early worship of Krishna. Krishna is not portrayed as a god everywhere within the text; even as a god he has, in many places, superhuman rather than divine stature. He is occasionally, but not significantly, identified with Vishnu. Later, as one of the most important of the incarnations of Vishnu, Krishna is portrayed as an incarnate god. In the Mahabharata he is primarily a hero, a chieftain of a tribe, and an ally of the Pandavas, the heroes of the Mahabharata. He accomplishes heroic feats with the Pandava prince Arjuna. Typically, he helps the Pandava brothers to settle in their kingdom and, when the kingdom is taken from them, to regain it. In the process he emerges as a great teacher who reveals the Bhagavadgita, the most important religious text of Hinduism, in which he also reveals his own status as the supreme god. In the further development of the Krishna story, this dharmic aspect recedes and makes way for an idyllic myth about Krishna’s boyhood, when he plays with and loves young cowherd women (gopis) in the village while hiding from an uncle who threatens to kill him. The influence of this theme on art has been profound.

More remote than the instantly accessible Krishna is Shiva, who also is hailed as the supreme god in several myths, notably the stories of Arjuna’s battle with Shiva and of Shiva’s destruction of the sacrifice of Daksha. The epic is rich in information about sacred places, and it is clear that making pilgrimages and bathing in sacred rivers constituted an important part of religious life. Numerous descriptions of pilgrimages (tirthayatra) give the authors opportunities to detail local myths and legends, and countless edifying stories shed light on the religious and moral concerns of the age.

The Bhagavadgita

The Bhagavadgita (“Song of the Lord”) is an influential Indian religious text. In quasi-dialogue form, it is relatively brief, consisting of 700 verses divided into 18 chapters. When the opposing parties in the Mahabharata war stand ready to begin battle, Arjuna, the hero of the favoured party, despairs at the thought of having to kill his kinsmen and lays down his arms. Krishna, his charioteer, friend, and adviser, thereupon argues against Arjuna’s failure to do his duty as a noble. The argument soon becomes elevated into a general discourse on religious and philosophical matters. The text is typical of Hinduism in that it is able to reconcile different viewpoints, however incompatible they seem to be, and yet emerge with an undeniable character of its own.

Three different paths (margas) to religious self-realizationa are set forth (though some Hindus hold that there is only one path with three emphases). There is the discipline of action (karma-yoga): in contrast to Buddhism, Jainism, and Samkhya philosophy, Krishna argues that it is not the acts themselves that bind but the selfish intentions with which they are performed. He argues for a self-discipline in which people perform duties according to the dictates of prescribed tasks (dharma) but without any self-interest in the personal consequences of the acts. On the other hand, he does not deny the relevance of the discipline of knowledge (jnana-yoga), in which one seeks release in a Yogic (ascetic) course of withdrawal and concentration. Then the tone changes and becomes intensely religious: Krishna reveals himself as the supreme god and grants Arjuna a vision of himself. The third, and perhaps superior, way of release is through a discipline of devotion to God (bhakti-yoga) in which the self humbly worships the loving God and hopes for an eternal vision of God. In response to this devotion, God will extend his grace to his votaries, enabling them to overcome the bonds of this world.


A fairly popular text from the time of its composition, the Bhagavadgita gained much more prominence beginning in the early 18th century when British and European scholars discovered and translated it. Though many Hindus do not know it or use it, Vedanta philosophy recognizes it, with the Upanishads and the Brahma-sutras (brief doctrinal rules concerning brahman), as an authoritative text, so that all philosophers wrote commentaries on it. It continued to shape the attitudes of Hindus in the 20th and 21st centuries, as is evident from the lives of such diverse personalities as the Indian nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi.

The Bhagavadgita, by demanding that God’s worshipers fulfill their duties—“better one’s own duty ill-done than another’s well-performed” (3.35)—and observe the rules of moral conduct, bridged the chasm between ascetic disciplines and the search for emancipation on the one hand and the exigencies of daily life, more particular rules of the caste system, on the other. For those who must live in the world, the Bhagavadgita gave a moral code and a prospect of final liberation. Thus, the work supported a social ethic. Because God is in all beings as their physical and psychical substratum, and because he exists collectively in human society, the wise should not see any difference between their fellow creatures. The devotee should be impartial—the same to friend as to foe. The serious endeavour of realizing God’s presence in human beings obliges a person to promote the welfare of both individuals and society. Yet, by emphasizing that all humans have not only different propensities for each of the three disciplines of release but also different responsibilities because of their births in different castes, the Bhagavadgita also provided a powerful justification for the caste system.

The Puranas

The period of the Guptas saw the production of the first of the series (traditionally 18) of often voluminous texts—the Puranas—that treat in encyclopaedic manner the myths, legends, and genealogies of gods, heroes, and saints. The usual list of the Puranas is as follows: the Brahma-, Brahmanda-, Brahmavaivarta-, Markandeya-, Bhavisya-, and Vamana-puranas; the Vishnu-, Bhagavata-, Naradiya-, Garuda-, Padma-, and Varaha-puranas; and the Shiva-, Linga-, Skanda-, Agni- (or Vayu-), Matsya-, and Kurma-puranas. Many deal with the same or similar materials.

With the epics, with which they are closely linked in origin, the Puranas became the scriptures of the common people. Unlike the Vedas, which were restricted to initiated men of the three higher orders, the Puranas were available to everybody, including women and members of the lowest order of society (SudrasShudras). The origin of much of their contents may be non-Brahmanic, but they were accepted and adapted by the Brahmans, who thus brought new elements into their orthodox religion.

At first sight the discontinuity between Vedic and Puranic mythology appears to be so sharp that they might be considered two distinct traditions. Little is learned in the Vedas of goddesses, yet they rose steadily in Puranic mythology. It soon becomes clear, however, that the two bodies of texts are in part continuous and that what appears to be discrepancy is merely a difference between the liturgical emphasis of the Vedas and the more eclectic genres of the epics and Puranas. For example, the great god of the Rigveda is Indra, the god of war and monsoon, prototype of the warrior; but, for the population as a whole, he was more important as the rain god than the war god, and it is as such that he survives in early Puranic mythology.

While some traditionally important Vedic gods have only minor roles in the Puranas, some previously less-important figures are quite prominent. This is true, for example, of the two principal gods of Puranic Hinduism, Vishnu and Rudra-Shiva. In the Vedas, Vishnu, with his three strides, established the three worlds (heaven, atmosphere, and earth); Rudra-Shiva is a mysterious god who must be propitiated.

Puranic literature documents the rise of the two gods as they attract to themselves the identities of other popular gods and heroes. Brahma, creator of the world and teacher of the gods, appears in the Puranas primarily to appease over-powerful sages and demons by granting them boons.

In the Puranic literature of 500 to 1000 CE, sectarianism creeps into mythology, and individual Puranas extol one god (usually Shiva, Vishnu, or Devi, the Goddess) over all others. Cosmology, cosmogony, generations of kings of the lunar and solar dynasties, myths of the great ascetics (who in some respects eclipse the old gods), and myths of sacred places—usually rivers and fords—whose powers to reward the pilgrim are often cited and related to local legends, are all important themes in these texts.


Puranic cosmogony greatly expands upon the complex cosmogonies of the Brahmanas, Upanishads, and epics. According to one of many versions of the story of the origin of the universe, in the beginning the god Narayana (identified with Vishnu) floated on the snake Ananta (“Endless”) on the primeval waters. From Narayana’s navel grew a lotus, in which the god Brahma was born reciting the four Vedas with his four mouths and creating the “Egg of Brahma,” which contains all the worlds. Other accounts refer to other demiurges, or creators, like Manu (the primordial ancestor of humankind).

The Vedas do not seem to conceive of an end to the world, but Puranic cosmogony accounts for the periodic destruction of the world at the close of an eon, when the Fire of Time will put an end to the universe. Elsewhere the destruction is specifically attributed to the god Shiva, who dances the tandava dance of doomsday and destroys the world. Yet this is not an absolute end but a temporary suspension (pralaya), after which creation begins again in the same fashion.


The Puranas present an elaborate mythical cosmography. The old tripartite universe persists, but it is modified. There are three levels—heaven, earth, and the netherworld—but the first and last are further subdivided into vertical layers. Earth consists of seven circular continents, the central one surrounded by the salty ocean and each of the other concentric continents by oceans of other liquids. In the centre of the central mainland stands the cosmic mountain Meru; the southernmost portion of this mainland is Bharatavarsa, the old name for India. Above earth there are seven layers in heaven, at the summit of which is the world of brahman (brahma-loka); there are also seven layers below earth, the location of hells inhabited by serpents and demons.

Myths of time and eternity

The oldest texts speak little of time and eternity. It is taken for granted that the gods, though born, are immortal; they are called “Sons of Immortality.” In the Atharvaveda, Time appears personified as creator and ruler of everything. In the Brahmanas and later Vedic texts there are repeated esoteric speculations concerning the year, which is the unit of creation and is thus identified with the creative and regenerative sacrifice and with Prajapati (“Lord of Creatures”), the god of the sacrifice. Time is an endless repetition of the year and thus of creation; this is the starting point of later notions of repeated creations.

Puranic myths developed around the notion of yuga (world age), of which there are four. These four yugas, Krita, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali—they are named after the four throws, from best to worst, in a dice game—constitute a mahayuga (large yuga) and, like the comparable ages of the world depicted by the Greek poet Hesiod, are periods of increasing deterioration. Time itself also deteriorates, for the ages are successively shorter. Each yuga is preceded by an intermediate “dawn” and “dusk.” The Krita Yuga lasts 4,000 years, with a dawn and dusk of 400 years each, for a total of 4,800 years; Treta a total of 3,600 years; Dvapara 2,400 years; and Kali (the current one), 1,200 years. A mahayuga thus lasts 12,000 years and observes the usual coefficient of 12, derived from the 12-month year, the unit of creation. These years are “years of the gods,” each lasting 360 human years, 360 being the days in a year. One thousand mahayugas form one kalpa (eon), which is itself but one day in the life of Brahma, whose life lasts 100 years; the present is the midpoint of his life. Each kalpa is followed by an equally long period of abeyance (pralaya), in which the universe is asleep. Seemingly, the universe will come to an end at the end of Brahma’s life, but Brahmas too are innumerable, and a new universe is reborn with each new Brahma.

Another myth emphasizes the destructive aspect of time. Everything dies in time: “Time ripens the creatures, Time rots them” (Mahabharata 1.1.188). “Time” (kala) is thus another name for Yama, the god of death. The name is associated with Shiva in his destructive aspect as Mahakala and is extended to his consort, the goddess Kali, or Mahakali. The speculations on time reflect the doctrine of the eternal return in the philosophy of transmigration. The universe returns, just as a soul returns after death to be born again. In the oldest description of the process (Chandogya Upanishad 5.3.1.–5.3.10), the account is still mythic but displays naturalistic tendencies. The soul on departing may go either of two ways: the “Way of the Gods,” which brings it through days, bright fortnights, the half-year of the northern course of the sun, to the full year and eventually to brahman; or the “Way of the Ancestors,” through nights, dark fortnights, the half-year of the southern course of the sun, and, failing to reach the full year, eventually back to earth clinging to raindrops. If the soul happens to light on a plant that is subsequently eaten by a man, the man may impregnate a woman and thus the soul may be reborn. Once more the significance of the year as a symbol of complete time is clear.

Stories of the gods

According to the epic Mahabharata (1.1.39), there are 33,333 Hindu deities. In other sources that number is multiplied a thousandfold. Usually, however, the gods are referred to as “the Thirty-Three.”


Important myths about the gods are tied to the two principal moments in the life of the cosmos: creation and destruction. Traditionally, Brahma is the creator, from whom the universe and the four Vedas emerge. The conception of time as almost endlessly repeating itself in kalpas detracts, however, from the uniqueness of the first creation, and Brahma becomes little more than a demiurge.

Far more attention is given to the destruction of the universe. Shiva, partly established as the agent of destruction, is in some respects a remote god; from the viewpoint of his devotees, however, he is very accessible. He represents untamed wildness; he is the lone hunter and dancer, the yogi (the accomplished practitioner of Yoga) withdrawn from society, and the ash-covered ascetic. The distinction represented by the gods is not that between good and evil but rather that between the two ways in which the divine manifests itself in this world—as both benevolent and fearful, both harmonious and disharmonious, and both transcendent and immanent.

South Indian devotionalism produced many works in Sanskrit that contributed greatly to Hindu myth, among them are several Puranas that have exerted influence on Hinduism and are in turn reflections of trends in Hinduism. The Bhagavata-purana (“The Purana of the Devotees of the Lord [Vishnu]”) was written in south India, probably in the first few centuries of the Common Era. It differs from the other Puranas in that it was planned as a unit and far greater care was taken with both metre and style. Its nearly 18,000 stanzas are divided into 12 books. The most popular part of the Bhagavata-purana is the description of the life of Krishna. Much emphasis is placed on the youth of Krishna: the threats against his life by the tyrant Kamsa, his flight and life among the cowherds at Gokula, and especially his adventures and pranks with the cowherd girls. The popularity of the text has led to the survival of many manuscripts, some beautifully illustrated. Much of medieval Indian painting and vernacular literature draws upon the Bhagavata-purana for its themes.

The Bhagavata-purana contains a doctrine of the avatars of Vishnu and teaches a Vaishnava theology: God is transcendent and beyond human understanding; through his incomprehensible creative ability (maya) or specific power (atmashakti) he expands himself into the universe, which he pervades and which is his outward appearance (his immanence). The Lord creates the world merely because he wills to do so. Creation, or rather the process of differentiation and integration, is his sport (lila).

The Bhagavata-purana glorifies an intensely personal and passionate bhakti that in some later schools gradually developed into a decidedly erotic mysticism. According to this text, there are nine characteristics of bhakti: listening to the sacred histories, praising God’s name, remembering and meditating on his nature and salutary endeavour (resulting in a spiritual fusion of devotee and God), serving his image, adoring him, respectful salutation, servitude, friendship, and self-surrender. Meritorious works are also an element of bhakti.


In establishing bhakti religion against any form of opposition and defending the devout irrespective of birth, the Bhagavata religion did not actively propagate social reform; but the attempts to make religion an efficient vehicle of new spiritual and social ideas contributed, to a certain extent, to the emancipation of lowborn followers of Vishnu.