Hinduism: What Do We Know About It?

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There are several books written on Hinduism, but many of them are enormous and difficult to understand. While several discourses are available on this subject, in this digital era, people are keen to know information in a quick span of time. Many have their own questions and doubts in their mind regarding the values of Hinduism. The fictional narratives by western philosophers have only added to their confusion.

There are several questions in the young readers mind and our education does not address any of these. Why does Hinduism have several Gods while other religions have only one? Do we believe in fate and rebirth? Which is superior way; doing ones duties (karma) or seeking enlightenment (sanyasa)? These are some of the questions even adults cannot answer when their kids ask.

To quell some of these doubts, a series of write-ups were shared to several friends. This book is a collection of those write-ups which appeared under the name 'sthitapragyan'.

It was a time when time itself did not exist. There were no calendars or clocks and celestial bodies guided everyone to read time. It was a land which was never depicted clearly, as maps and geography did not exist then. Even writing was not fully established and all knowledge was transmitted by ballads or slokas. The language although was fully established and grammatically perfect.

It was Sanskrit which was used to transmit the knowledge in the land known by many names. Jambudvipa was one of them, referring to "the land of Jambu trees" where jambu (also known as jamun) referred to the Indian Blackberry (Syzygium cumini) and dvipa meant "land" or "continent". "Bharath" is the other specific name which exists till date, referring to the land ruled by an ancient ruler, Baratha.

The current history records around 2000 years as Era (CE) and around 3000 years before Christ existed (BCE). Thus most of the western historians do not go beyond 5000 years to define the culture of this land they named "Hinduism". However lack of evidence is not absence of evidence.