I Belong To The Hindu Faith

Introduces the Hindu religion, including its major beliefs, scriptures, worship practices, and festivals.

This book is, thus, an effort to compile the history, development and the basic tenets of Hinduism which guide the way of life of one fifth of humanity on earth. Effort has been made to include only the basic information that has helped a Hindu to choose a desired path from amongst the many that have been lighted up by Hindu sages to achieve their goal, that of attaining ‘Moksha’ or ‘Mukti’, which means that he or she obtains relief from the cycle of birth and death through good Karmas. This is the central precept of Hinduism. Interaction with people in foreign countries, other than Hindus, reveals that they have little knowledge about Hinduism. It is learnt that British schools have a period or two, in class eight, to deal with all religions which is obviously insufficient to make a child of that age to even understand the actual meaning of the word religion. Hindus who migrated abroad from India at a young age and those who were born abroad, except for Mauritius and Fiji islands where Hindus have lived as a cohesive community for over a century, and those who have continued to maintain their links with their original faith, many have started losing touch with the basics of their religion. Generally, there is a perceptible lack of authentic knowledge about the beginnings of Hindu religion and its evolution over the ages into what it represents today.

A simple introduction to some of the beliefs, ways of worship, traditions and festivals of the Hindu religion.

This book focuses on dual belonging within Hindu-Christian contexts. Written by experts in a variety of fields, the chapters explore the theological, philosophical, and cultural anthropological debates relating to religious pluralism, religious language, and social identity while addressing the fact that both Hindu and Christian forms of self-understandings have been significantly moulded through their interactions in South Asia and across certain Euro-American horizons. The limits of the definition of dual belonging are tested via case studies, and contributors address the question of whether there is anything distinctive about dual belonging across Christianity and Hinduism specifically. A timely contribution to the emerging subject of dual religious belonging, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Hindu studies and Christian theology, Hindu-Christian comparative theology, religious pluralism, interreligious relations, the sociology and anthropology of religion, and comparative theology and philosophy.

Hindus will be valuable on more than one level: as a source of instruction, as a basis for discussion, seminars and further study, even as a challenge for further research. It provides a new perspective on what it means to live as a Hindu and enables readers to appreciate this great and marvellous religious phenomenon, its extraordinary richness, and the way it encompasses the diversity of human experience.

A selection of Gandhiji s articles drawn mainly from his contributions to young india, the Harijan and the Navjivan on Hinduism. Written on different occassions, these articles present a picture of hindu dharma I all its richness, comprehensiveness and sensitivity to the existential delimmas of human existence.