Religions of India

India is a melting pot of different cultures, different people, different thoughts and beliefs and different faiths. It is, indeed, an epitome of the world. The holy land of India shelters many religions some of which were born here, and others which arrived from beyond the mountains and seas. From Hinduism to Christianity and Vaishnavism to Islam, people in India have embraced diverse faiths over the ages. Our secular nation even today acknowledges with equal respect every dogma laid down by the prophets and saints that are obeyed by the people. The earliest religion that was born in India was Hinduism, as evident from Indias other name Hindustan. The Hindu holy scriptures, the Vedas, laid down an ideal way of life that every man was advised to lead. The Vedas arent mere religious texts. They span a much greater dimension, and talk about our entire being. They teach us how to survive amidst defeats, pains and tears, and form the basis of the Hindu social structure. They are different from the sacred texts of most other religions in that the Vedas werent written by a prophet or a single saint. They are anthologies of holy sayings of wise men passed down as dialogues through generations. Later texts like Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita ramified from this ancient source. The religion evolved into countless gods and goddesses that allowed every man to worship a deity he wanted to believe in. Hinduism has had tremendous social and historical impacts in the Indian context and has attained its present form by gradually evolving over the years. Religions like Islam and Christianity, on the other hand, were brought into India by invaders from Asia and Europe. Moghul and Turkish emperors spread the teachings of Prophet Mohammed across the nation. Mosques and edifices were built by the emperors and subjects under their rule, sometimes under pressure, got converted to Islam. Few hundred years later, the East India Company, with a view to expand their business, came to this country and paved the way for spread of Christianity. The spread was initially localised at the coastal areas like Calcutta and peninsular India where the British ships had anchored. Much effort was consequently made to spread the religion elsewhere, though with little success. Both these religions, however, significantly contributed to the socio-cultural development of the nation. A number of different independent religions were born in India in the middle ages as a result of the Bhakti movement. In reality, it was a branching out of Hinduism and Islam into smaller, yet powerful religious sects all over the nation. In the north, Sikhism was born under Guru Nanak and in the east, Vaishnavism came into being under Sri Chaitanya. Kabir, originally a Hindu who was adopted by a Muslim tailor and grew up learning Islam, enunciated Sufism. Localised centres of these religions allowed people of a definite region to break free from ancient Hinduism and Islam and embrace what were called religions of the people. Other faiths like Zoroastrian came into India at various other points in history. Also, some, like the Din-i-ilahi initiated by emperor Akbar, failed to survive the trials of time. In short, India has seen the birth, death and spread of many ideas and beliefs. Some of these religions were popularised chiefly due to the patronage that they received. Others which succumbed or had a significantly lesser number of adherents failed mostly because of lack of support by the lords and kings who funded in spreading the doctrines across the country. An interesting exception is Buddhism that was born in

India under a prince (Lord Gautama Buddha) but ended up being more widely spread in other Asian countries than India itself.

(The essay is not complete. According to my plans, the last paragraph would have talked about the current state of religion in India.)