I wish I knew.  I really hope that at least one of the Indian hindus would stay active to give his prespective on topics such as these. 

 

Indian Christianity simply refers to ethnic Indians who are Christians. To my knowledge Indian Christians practice the same variants of Christianity as Christians in other parts of the world.  There have not been large scale mixed religions such as voodoo. Indian Christians, however, are culturaly Indian and some keep caste references out of cultural habit.  

 

 

Originally posted by Karalem I am lost in what is hinduism vs buddism

This is harder.  There are many different opinions on whether Buddha intended to start a new religion or whether he simply intended to reform many aspects of Hinduism. Today, Buddhists see their religion as completely seperate from Hinduism.  Some, or many Hindus, however, see Buddhism as a variant of Hinduism.

The Dravidians  established the Indus valley and Mohenjo daro civilisations...

They came through Afghanistan..to what is now Pakistan..they had a monotheistic faith..

which obviously changed over the thousands of years after...the original people of India..i.e. people who were there before the Dravidians arrived  -thE Africans,Mongoloids and Australoids,had different religions..

so yes Hinduism started out as a monotheistic faith in the North ,by the Dravidians.,whose civilisation was as old as Egpyt but heavily down played by the media...

Any suggestions as to how this misinformation can be corrected?

 

Be careful what you wish for.  You'll note that many of the older posters in this section have been suspended.

This forum was my assigned territory when I first became a mod here.  You will find out that there are more flashpoints than a chinese fireworks factory.

 

BTW, I have emailed many former members over the last 2 years.  Some have shown up, others have gone elsewhere, some have stuck with .net.  There are others that I haven't contacted, they are the ones that would be easy to get back, but tough to get rid of. 

Originally posted by oxydracae the term "Hinduism" was invented by British in 19th century

Right!

"Hinduism" does not exist. It's like grouping together Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto and calling it "East Asianism". The modern usage of "Hinduism" is as an umbrella term for the various 'orthodox' (astika) sects/schools that exist in India. By 'orthodox sect' I mean a sect that believes in the supreme authority of the Vedas. Thus, the term 'Vedic sect' can be used interchangeably with 'orthodox sect' in the Indian context.

On the other hand, the heterodox (nastika) sects, which include Buddhism and Jainism, reject the Vedas (and with it, other important aspects of 'Hinduism', such as the caste system).

Well, today Hindus call themselves Hindus. But this is a fairly recent phenomenon and did not exist before the 19th century. It gives the impression that 'Hinduism' is a monolithic religion, when in reality it is as diverse as the subcontinent itself. Historically, Indians described themselves based on their particular sect or school; for example, the two most prominent denominations of ancient and classical India were Shaivites (followers of Shiva) and Vaishnavites (followers of Vishnu), and these two denominations are still followed today, though members of both sects now refer to themselves as 'Hindus'.

I agree with this - very little of Rigvedic religion or culture is practiced by any Hindu, despite almost all of them giving primacy to the Veda and practicing Vedic rituals blindly (because that is how the Pundit does it)

Just as there are so many denominations, sects and versions of Christianity and Islam, similarly Hinduism also has many denominations, sects and versions.

They are all Hindus.

Just as all Catholics, anglicans, orthodox, methodists, Jehovah's witnesses, Mormons and protestants are Christians.

And Sunnis, Shias, Sufis, Barelvi, Deobandhi and Wahabi are all Muslims.

There is no confusion - only complexity.

Most of us Hindus follow the fire sacrifices almost exactly as it is prescribed in the Veda - with only one exception - no animal sacrifice (after Buddhist ahimsa was absorbed into Hinduism)

Most of us recite the daily prayers of the Vedas. Most of our religious rituals (yearly functions, marriages, birth, death rites etc) follow the Veda. Most of the priests will memorise the Yajur Veda completely to become a priest. So about 50% of current Hinduism is Vedic.

Classical Hinduism (which is modern Hinduism) evolved in 250-500 AD in the Gupta empire.

North India was mainly Vedic and Buddhist. In 50AD or so the Kanvas (Bahmin kings) of Bihar were defeated by Satavahanas. They brought many of the South Indian cultural practices to north India.

Satavahanas defended the Bihar area and further south areas from invasions by the Kushans, Indo-Parthians, Indo-Greeks and Shakas (who ruled different parts of North India in different times).

From 250 BC to 250 AD, North India from NWFP to Madhya Pradesh in central India and Bihar in the East - was almost completely Buddhist.

From 250 AD, under Guptas, a new classical religion of Hinduism which mixed the Vedic and the South India cultures and practices evolved and this is what we call Hinduism now also. Many new stories were added to the mythology and many old stories of the Vedas were either forgotten or changed completely.

Guptas built the first Indian temples (in Devgir) and had the first non-Vedic iconography in the form of Vishnu (it was a Vishnu temple) in his Dasha-avatara or ten human forms on Earth. This is the religion all of us Hindus believe in and follow even now.

BTW, Hindu is Persian for Sindhu, which is the Indus river. Hindu means people east of the Hindu river and the place was called Hindustan. 

The guys of NWFP are an everchanging set of people - they move eastward as they get displaced by a new set of people.

Using just approximate dates,

In 2000 BC it was IVC people. They mostly vanished, though some must have persisted in low populations

In 1000 BC it was Aryans. They went East.

In 500 BC it was Iranians (Acheminid Darius the Great). They were a tiny minority but gave us writing - and mainly went back to Iran

In 300 BC it was Greeks - and gave us proper writing Brahmi. And Ghandhara culture

In 200 BC it was - for the first time from East to West - Biharis (Ashokans). They made the whole area Budhist

In 100 BC it was the Parthians 

In 0 AD it was Shakas

In 100 AD it was Kushans

In 300 AD it was Biharis (Guptas) again - who for the second time went west from east and pushed back the Budhist Kushans (Kayasths) and Shakas (Rajputs) west from northern India.

500 AD it was Huns

From 700 to 1200 AD it was the Shakas (Rajputs) who came West from north India into the Punjab and NWFP for the third time in history (after they had mingled with the local Indian populations

In 1200 AD is was Afghans and also Mongols.

In 1400 it was Turkmens

In 1500 it was Mughals

In 1700 it was PErsians

In 1800 it was the Sikhs who for the fourth time came West from northern India into NWFP

The NWFP has never had the same set of people or the same culture or the same religion. Punjab was similar - it was a melting pot of all kinds of nationalities and cultures and religions. Nothing is fixed.

And they are all mixed up with the north Indian people. 

As I said above, there have been four times in history when people from India went into Pakistan - and maybe including the original IVC people that is 5 times where the genetic material came from the subcontinent - and maybe 10 times that genetic material came Iran, Parthia (Herat and Turkmenistan) and Uzbekistan.

Iran, Parthia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgizthan are all deserts with low population levels. The people are vigourous fighting tribals but never populous. Even Iran's recent population explosion is if very recent origin.

Population is only achieved in the plains like Syria, Iraq, Punjab. 

So in the genetic mixture, people from the more populous agricultural settlements are always more likely to predominate vis-a-vis the smaller tribal rulers. For example, the peak population of IVC is likely between 2-5 million people - more than Egypt and Mesopotamia put together - and that was 4000 years ago.

The tendency for massive population increase is in the Punjab even now - Balochistan and NWFP do not and can never support the kind of massive populations which the Punjab can

The pathans are probably maximally derived from parthians. They were from Turkmenistan and Herat region and dominated and invaded most of the nfwp and afganistan. 

The parthians were famed in historical records for extraordinary fighting ability. They ruled much of iran afghan and nwfp 2000 years ago.

Their two main accomplishments were cavalry without stirrup and the parthian or parting shot from the bow.

After decline of the empire pathans continued to be famous for being spartan fighters. They invaded most of  nwfp after the decline of the empire when they had left iran behind.

Theh were never Hindu. They were Buddhist for a long time and then muslim.

They have their own culture and mostly absorbed the later influx of kushans and huns and uzbeks and mongol blood while preserving their culture.

They were of course famous fighters even in British times and in current times against russians and now americans.

The mughals also faced continuous trouble on the border from pathans. A heavy garrison was always sent from Delhi to man the borders and mughal empire never really controlled the nwfp for any length. In fact Parthians werent living in afghanistan at all when Ashoka ruled afghanistan. After the parthians came to afghanistan nobody has ever ruled over the parthian people at all except for brief military victories. Which is pretty extraordinary.

Of course most of the army sent to man the borders in mughal times were of local indian muslim converts only. So the biggest westward flow of indian blood into nwfp ocurred during the mughal empire.

By now some 50 million in afghanistan and another 50 million in pakistan must be pathans. Even if my numbers are wrong there must be 60 million plus pathans in the world. That is bigger than iran or egypt and dwarfs any other muslim country in the middle east.