The Advaitist

The Hindu World View, hereafter referred to as Hinduism for the sake of simplicity, is vast, Most Ancient and encompasses a lot of different practices and sects. How old is Hinduism? Hinduism is very ancient ancient - ask any average Hindu and he will say the same. Great men like Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Dr B R Ambedkar have also said the same. But during the period 1800 to 1900, Indologists like Max Muller, who were primarily driven by Christian missionary zeal, arbitrarily insisted that Hinduism started in 1200 BC - approximately 300 years after the Central Asian/ European barbarian tribesmen whom they dubbed as "Aryans" conquered the Indian sub-continent on horses and destroyed the "Indus Valley Civilization". This so called "Aryan Invasion Theory" has since been disproved although "Aryan Migration Theory", a linguistic hypothesis has found acceptance (and also non-acceptance). Modern Hinduism had its root in the...

Any Religion or World View has 3 levels: 1. The Core Philosophy 2. Ceremonies/ Rituals/ Practices 3. Myths --- Philosophy is the base of this 3-tiered classification. --- Different interpretations of the philosophy gives rise to different set of practices/ rituals which forms the middle-tier. --- Mythological stories make up the top-tier - myths are woven around the philosophy, the rituals ,  the ceremonies and the prevalent way of life at that point of time. Cutting across all these 3 tiers are the Religious Scriptures - which contain prayers, hymns and invocations. Using the above framework, the Hindu World View can be analyzed as under: Hindu World View 1. Hindu Philosophy -------- 1.1 Astika Schools ---------------- 1.1.1 Sad-darsana (Six Systems of Philosophy) ------------------------ 1.1.1.1 Nyaya ------------------------ 1.1.1.2 Vaisheshika ------------------------ 1.1.1.3 Samkhya ------------------------ 1.1.1.4 Yoga ------------------------ 1.1.1.5 Mimamsa -----------...