Hinduism is the Western term for a network of beliefs, practices, social traditions and religious institutions most commonly found in India. The term "Hinduism" in its proper sense describes the beliefs and institutions of approximately the last two millenia, but a continuum of religious tradition from which it developed can be traced at least as far back as the Aryan conquest of India around 1500 BCE. That older religion is called Brahmanism or Vedism, and its earliest written source, Rigveda (or Rgveda), was written down between 13th and 11th centuries BCE, and is the oldest text that is still considered sacred by a major religion.
Defining Hinduism in a way satisfactory to most Westerners is virtually impossible. It has no founder, central authority, or priestly hierarchy. It incorporates many forms of belief and worship, combining magic rites, belief in demons and personal gods, mysticism, and abstract theological doctrines. Its core beliefs do not even depend on the existence of God (or gods); most Hindus consider religious truth to be beyond reach of verbal definitions.
While there is a great variety of forms in which Hindu beliefs are expressed, they are connected by a number of common characteristics of belief and practice. All orthodox Hindus recognize the Veda as their sacred text, the fundamental and unassailable truth. (The Veda, roughly meaning "knowledge" or "awareness", includes the Rigveda, mentioned above, and other, slightly less ancient texts.) Those who have rejected its authority have, historically, split from Hinduism and formed other belief systems, most notably Buddhism. However, the contents of the Veda are unknown to most Hindus.
Hindus believe in an eternal, infinite, all-embracing principle called Brahman (roughly "the One that is the All"). While Brahman may, to some Westerners, appear similar to their idea of an all-powerful and all-knowing God who created the world, actually the concept of Brahman encompasses more: not only is it considered the source and goal of all existence, but the sole reality itself, which includes being as well as non-being. Brahman is impersonal, but it may be represented by a personal god, such as Vishnu or Shiva. It is in all things and is the atman ("self") of all living beings.
Given this idea that all living beings, through their atman, are part of the Brahman, it is not surprising that Hindu ethics is based in the ideal of ahimsa ("non-injury"), or an absence of desire to harm. This may be familiar from a Western stereotype of Hindus as vegetarians and pacifists, but that, like most stereotypes, is a misleading oversimplification. Ahimsa is originally unrelated to vegetarianism, although the two often reinforce each other in practice, and non-violence has never been a universal characteristic of Hindus (nor of any other large religious or ethnic group).
Also reflecting the idea of Brahman and atman is the belief in the cyclical process of rebirths, called samsara. The fortune of each living being in this process is determined by its karma, or previous acts. Hinduism asserts that every social interaction results in an exchange of good or bad karma. Individuals with good karma will be reborn in a higher social class or with better fortune in their next life; those with bad karma will be born in a lower class or as animals. Any misfortune is believed to be the effect of one's own deeds, whether in this life or in previous lives. This process of rebirths has no end and does not, by itself, lead to progress or purification; Hindus consider this attachment to worldly life as less than true existence, and believe that one should strive for moksha - emancipation from samsara and becoming one with Brahman.
If the goal is to escape the never-ending process of rebirths, how can it be achieved? Paths to moksha, or emancipation from samsara, are presented in Bhagavadgita (roughly "Song of the Lord"), another sacred text of Hinduism, written around 200 BCE. It teaches three different paths (margas), suited to different types of people: karma-marga ("the path of duties"), disinterested discharge of rituals and social obligations); jnana-marga ("the path of knowledge"), meditation using techniques learned in ethical and contemplative training called yoga; and bhakti-marga ("the path of devotion"), devotion to a personal god.
Historically, the search for moksha has never been the goal of more than a small minority of Hindus, but as a religious ideal it has had profound effect on the Hindu society, determining the hierarchy of values of social institutions, religious practices, and the function of philosophy as a search for what one must do and learn to escape from samsara.
