Religions, Myths and Philosophy: Brief History of Brahmanism – Hinduism

Abstract

The Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of many religions and one of them is Brahmanism – Hinduism.  This religion does not state the founder or the prophet clearly, either the exact beginning. But in fact, the word “Hindu” has a very broad meaning. It is used to call all peoples or cultures in this subcontinent. In each region, there are myths and faith which are different from ones in other regions. However, there is an interesting common concept which is the belief in and worship of multiple deities. Sometimes, they added real people in the history into the stream of mythology, for example, God Narayana who was reincarnated on earth as Brahma and Krishna (Pattanaik, 1999). So, throughout the history, tales or myths have never been stopped, but instead, have been woven and created by imagination and profound conception of the philosophers in different periods who have cited stories in a specific period or visions from a specific group of people as a source of their imagination and conception. Thus, the stream of time, faith, folklore, rituals, lifestyles and philosophy became a part of Hindu mythology and the root of philosophies and faiths which emerged afterwards. Hindu philosophy is profound and striking. It also goes beyond the principle of duality. This means the ancient Greek concepts which are the root of the Bible cannot be applied to explicate the Hindu philosophy. Because of its special features, it is worth studying and clearing up puzzles from religious precepts.