The Indian Worldview: Breaking Down Hinduism
The Indian Worldview: Breaking Down Hinduism
Hinduism is a religion that is difficult to define. No one can say who the founder is, or connect it to a certain place or time. So in order to understand Hinduism, we follow a coherent set of assumptions upon which people base their lives; otherwise defined as the Indian Worldview.
The main concept of the worldview that will help us explain Hinduism is the idea that the spiritual is more important than the physical. Smirti literature are stories or texts, which almost all people in India or areas surrounding India would know. They aren’t like the Veda’s or the Shruti, that require priests or are mainly concerned with the higher class, the Smirti are for everyone. The Dharmashastra is a piece from the Smirti that shows an example of the concern Hindus had with samsara, or the continuous cycle of birth and rebirth. This means that they were no longer concerned with their lives so much on the physical earth, than they were on the escape of their lives on the physical earth. Artifacts and writings have been found from multiple Indian cultures, such as the Aryans, that suggest sacrifice and ritual were a huge part of everyday life. This idea of giving a gift to the gods or sacrificing something for a higher power leads to an individual’s moksha, or freedom from samsara. Hindu’s believe that being connected to your spiritual world and appeasing the Devas is the only way to receive this liberation. That is their main goal in life, to break this cycle. Ergo, their entire lives are based off of the spiritual world, and not the physical. Hindu’s believe the physical world cloaks the spiritual world, making it difficult to receive moksha. The physical world presents so much more to an individual without them having to try, where as it takes work to gain spiritual growth. In Hinduism, you must strive to always put physical behind spiritual to appease the gods.
In Hinduism, the answer is always knowledge. The Aryan’s were
Hinduism is a religion that is difficult to define. No one can say who the founder is, or connect it to a certain place or time. So in order to understand Hinduism, we follow a coherent set of assumptions upon which people base their lives; otherwise defined as the Indian Worldview.
The main concept of the worldview that will help us explain Hinduism is the idea that the spiritual is more important than the physical. Smirti literature are stories or texts, which almost all people in India or areas surrounding India would know. They aren’t like the Veda’s or the Shruti, that require priests or are mainly concerned with the higher class, the Smirti are for everyone. The Dharmashastra is a piece from the Smirti that shows an example of the concern Hindus had with samsara, or the continuous cycle of birth and rebirth. This means that they were no longer concerned with their lives so much on the physical earth, than they were on the escape of their lives on the physical earth. Artifacts and writings have been found from multiple Indian cultures, such as the Aryans, that suggest sacrifice and ritual were a huge part of everyday life. This idea of giving a gift to the gods or sacrificing something for a higher power leads to an individual’s moksha, or freedom from samsara. Hindu’s believe that being connected to your spiritual world and appeasing the Devas is the only way to receive this liberation. That is their main goal in life, to break this cycle. Ergo, their entire lives are based off of the spiritual world, and not the physical. Hindu’s believe the physical world cloaks the spiritual world, making it difficult to receive moksha. The physical world presents so much more to an individual without them having to try, where as it takes work to gain spiritual growth. In Hinduism, you must strive to always put physical behind spiritual to appease the gods.
In Hinduism, the answer is always knowledge. The Aryan’s were