Trouble in my neighborhood!: All About Hinduism

Hinduism(The picture to the right is the Hindu symbol)

Hinduism was a commonly practiced religion by many people. Hinduism has many interesting things that we don't have. Hinduism had no founder but was followed by 900 people. Hinduism is mostly practiced in India, the United Kingdom,

and the United States of America. In Hinduism there is no purpose of life but four words they follow. One is Dharma which means to fulfill ones purpose, Artha which means prosperity, Kama which means desire, sexuality, and enjoyment, and lastly moksha which means enlightment. Hinduism is divided up into four sections. Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. Smartism, Shaivism, and Vaishnavism are the monotheistic group and the most practiced by the Hindus.

Holy Books(s)/Sacred Texts

The Hindu's had four main sacre

d texts. One of the collections

of sacred texts were the Vedas. The Vedas were the most sacred scriptures to the Hindu's. The Vedas were "books of knowledge." They were written in Sanskrit from about 1200 BCE to 100 CE. Another collect was called the Upanishads. Upanishad means "to sit down near". Which meant to try to get people to look at the Upanishad as people gathering around their teacher for philosophical instruction. The theme of the Upanishads is the escape from rebirth through knowledge of the underlying reality of the universe. The Sutra is another one of their sacred texts which is a distinct type of literary composition based on short aphoristic statements. And last, the Bhagavad Gita. The Ghagavad Gita is one of Hindu's most important sacred texts. It has 700 verses. The content of the Gita is the conversation of Krishna and Arjuna taking place on the battlefield befor

e the start of the Kurukshetra war.

Religious Holidays

The Hindu's had a lot of religious holidays. To start off, the Mahashivarat, the night of Shiva or the Great night of Shiva, is in mid Februrary. It is a festival celebrated on the night before and day of the new moon. It's celebrated by offerings of Bael leaves to the Lord Shiva and fasting an all night vigil. The Ramhavami is a Hindu festival in late March celebrating the birth of Lord Rama. At some places this holiday lasts for nine days. Images of baby Rama are placed on cradles

and rocked by devotees. Since he was believed to be born at noon, temples and family shrines are elaborately deco

rated and traditional prayers are chanted together by the family in the morning, and several other things are also done those days. the Dusserah is in early November. It is celebrated on the tenth day of the bright fortnight of the Hindu autumn month. Clay statues are made and they honor mother earth. Diwali is in Mid November. This is a five day festival and is also known as the festival of lights. They celebrated faiths to light small clay lamps filled with oil to signify good over evil within on individual. it also celebrates the staying of the Demon king. Both signifying the victory of good over evil.

Rituals/Customs

The hindus

had many customs or rituals. One was meditation. Meditation is when one is alone with their thoughts in a room and you do physical exersize. Another one is reincarnation which is what they believed. They believed that you could be reborn succesfully into one of the five classes of living beings such as a god,animal,human,angry ghost, or denizen of hell depending on your actions. And lastly Puja. Puja is modeled on the idea of giving a gift or offering to a deity or important person and receiving their blessing. The two main areas where Puja is performed at is home or at the temples.

Dress/Clothing

The Hindus dressed in their own particular way. The girls would wear a Sari which is like a blouse. They would also wear lehanga's which are peated shirts. Two other things the girls wore were Salwar Kamees which are dresses or a Choli which is a very tight blouse. The men wore Sherwanis which is like a coat that is knee length or longer. They also wore Lungi which is cloth worn around the thighs, and a Kurta-Pyjama which is a knee length shirt.