What is Hinduism?

Hindu is an arabic/perisan word which refered to people, who lived beyond the river sindu which in persian was called hindu and greek indus thus India. the word hind in persian is equal to the greek word india and the word hindu is a synonym of Indian.

Hinduism is an anglasized form of the word hindu which refers to all the beliefs followed by the people of hind(hindustan aka Bharatvarsh the real name of India).
so it is not one particular faith/belief/religion but a collective noun which refers to all indic beliefs, lifestyles,culture, science, medicene, etc.. It can be compared to Americanism, europeanism, africanism chinese-ism or what ever but not compared to cristianity, islam, etc.
Believers of hindu religions live all over the world, it has high following in indonesia, java malaysia and other SEasian countries. but they all cannot be called hindus in one sense and be called hindus in another. this is because Hinduims has many meanings.

1. hindu = hindustani, indian, barathiya vasi (people of the land beyond the sindhu from the west based on the arabic/persian word), in this context india and hind mean the same.

2. all the religions of hind or hindustan followed by the inhabitants of india today.

3. sanathana dharma or universal duty of righteousness (or common ness) of all indic religions

4. the indian way of life including the indian social systems and customs.

5. a religion which is based on the original vedic philospphy and which has been trans formed over many thousands of years and still the core vedic ideas remain which some minor changes in the view points.



it is because of the meaning 1 that we say all indians are hindus including muslims, christians etc..

it is because of meaning 2. that we say that jainism, sikhism and all other indic religions as hinduism.

it is because of 3. that we see so many different forms of god. in the medeival or ancient times, the vedics attempted to convert and encompass all major, minor and pagan beliefs into a commonfold called the sanathana dharma as their belief was of a single god which man can perceive in different forms. this was done by adding such gods as characters in puranas to bring social acceptance and belief in people that they can worship any of the forms ans still they pray to the same one common god.

it is because of meaning 4 which includes the smirithis of hinduism which are rejected by other indic religions, the reason why one has to be born hindu and not be converted . its like saying one has to be born indian and cannot be converted to indian. It is a ethinic or cultural or regional identity and not a religion. this is changing in modern times as the smirithis and other social customs are time bound and needs to change according to times. caste system and things like hindu of indian birth only are chaning today. these days, some hindu sects/faiths religions do allow conversion like Arya Samaj , ISKON

Vedic dharma or Sanatana Dharma is the basis of most if not all indic beliefs. even today, there are many local and pagan beliefs(like village gods, iyanar, kali, amman temples which are not vedic or vedantic gods, they are non agamic) which are considered hindu, which surely does not follow the vedic/vedantic dharma or the social systems of smrithi but these are all constuients of the universal religion of sanatana darma. these pagan religions were initially non vedic but later merged to become sanatana darma and accepted the vedic authority and these are now a mix of vedic + pagan beliefs. though recently there have been attempts by politicians to divide people again to create vote banks and these pagan beliefs are being delinked from the vedas and sanathana dharma ideologies.


Also Dharma is different from religion.
i.e, hinduism is not a religion in the usual sense. It is an umbrella term used to encompass all indic faiths. it is not a single belief system. It is a collection of indic beliefs.
Atleast it is a misnomer for Vedantic dharma(the major intredient of sanathana dharma followed today), which itself has many schools of thought. Moreover most indians follow more than one hindu belief simply because they dont understand their religion i.e., ignorance. infact the influence of sanathana dharma is so secular that they would go to a church or dharga and still pray to the god as their god.

Brahminism(or vedantism), Buddhism, Jainism, Saivism, Vaisnavism, Saktism etc can be considered hindu religions or sub-religions.

Hinduims can be a religion for the West who are ignorant of what faiths we Indians follow and especially see and compare all beliefs to the Abrahamic religions. But surely an indian cannot consider hinduism as a religion. its like saying islam as arab-ism or christianity as israel-ism. The problem is we always see, learn and do things as seen by the west.

If we do consider that when people refer to hinduism they refer to Sanathana dharma, it is still a misnomer as Sanathana dharma means universal duties of righteousness or universal laws for being right.
Since Sanathana dharma is universal, attaching it to a regional/narrow scope of hindus or indians is not right.