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Hindu History. Hinduism claims no identifiable human founder, nor a specific origin
in history. It is so old that its past recedes into pre-history. ...
... Starting with the Vedas all the way up to the Bhagavad-Gita and off into new directions
such as Buddhism, the Hindu history was constantly and is continuously ...
... women are given important position in the family even though her importance in public
affairs was greatly reduced during the later years of Hindu history. ...
... Women were given important position in the family even though her importance in
public affairs was greatly curtailed during the later years of Hindu history. ...
... For instance, the Kshatriyas in Hindu history were great kings like Shree Ram because
the guidelines to be a Kshatriya were hard to follow for ordinary humans. ...
Submitted by anandu5663 on March 26, 2008
Category: History Other
Words: 544 | Pages: 3
Views: 120
Popularity Rank: 82,371
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Hinduism claims no identifiable human founder, nor a specific origin in history.
It is so old that its past recedes into pre-history. Furthermore, the tradition itself claims to be eternal.
Hinduism is extremely diverse, and only recently conceived of as a single, distinct religion. Hindus did not feel compelled to unify their many traditions, or define the common ground that distinguished them from "other faiths" — not, at least, until these "others" threatened to impose their own doctrines.
Hindu people were little concerned with recording "mere facts"; they were interested in the meaning behind events, not a resume of the past. First-hand records are therefore relatively rare.
Within the accounts that are available, there is no clear divide between history and myth; written narratives span many eras of time and planes of existence. They are not limited to descriptions or eulogies of a single country, race or religion.
Nonetheless, researchers have drawn up a timeline for Hinduism, as they do for other religions. Most textbooks identify the roots of Hinduism with the Aryan migration into India, around 1500 BCE, and the subsequent composition of the Rig Veda. European scholars proposed this theory in the late 19th century. It was controversial from the start and some academics, especially from India, now consider it an example of colonial-missionary interpretation — a predominant culture projecting it own ideas, values, and biases onto the politically dependent.
Europeans considered India backward, thinking that anything valuable found there must have been imported from the "civilised" West. Significantly, within ancient Indian texts there is no mention of any Aryan migration. The term Aryan (see glossary) was used, but not to refer to a specific race of people. As scholars continue to debate the theory, a new chronology is emerging, often reversing the paradigm by proposing India as the cradle of...
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