Similarities Between Hinduism And Daoism Buddhism

Rhonda Hampton
Ben Mayo
Introduction to the Humanities
11/15/11

Religious Belief Systems of Hinduism, Daoism, Buddhism Ancient India religious belief was that of Hinduism. In Hinduism, Pantheism, the belief that divinity inheres in all things, is basic to the Hindu view that the universe itself is sacred. Hinduism embraces all of the Vedic gods.
Hindus believe in the oneness of Spirit, but worship that Spirit through a multitude of deities, who are perceived as an emanation of the divine. Hinduism is best understood through the religious texts known as the Upanishads, some
250 prose commentaries on the Vedas. The Vedas is India’s oldest devotional
text.
Signifying the order of nature most graphically is the cosmological metaphor of the yin/yang. The yin and the yang are interpenetrating shapes in a circle. The yang is the male principle, which is associated with lightness, hardness, brightness, warmth, and the sun. The yin is the female principle, which is associated with darkness, softness, moisture, coolness, the earth, and the moon. The yin and the yang describes the creative energy of the universe and the natural order itself. China’s natural order might be symbolized by way of abstract symbols, such as the circle, but it was also worshipped in the form of nature spirits and celestial deities. The Chinese believe in Daoism, the philosophy of the way. Daoism is as much philosophy as it is a religion. Daoism embraces a universal natural principle: the Dao, or the Way. Daoism manifests itself in the harmony of things and may be understood as the unity underlying nature’s multiplicity and the wellspring of yin and yang. Only those who live