Hinduism

Religions have played an active role in our ever-changing world since the beginning of time. From Christianity to Islam to Buddhism, all religions begin with one thing in mind; what their focus will be and how they intend to carry out living their daily lives with this focus of dedication. Included in these many traditions and religions is Hinduism; an admirable community in which each and every person can look to for a sense of direction, and is also considered the oldest among the major world religions. The compound “Hindu philosophy” is ambiguous. Minimally it stands for a tradition of Indian philosophical thinking. However, it could be interpreted as designating one comprehensive philosophical doctrine, shared by all Hindu thinkers. The term “Hindu philosophy” is often used loosely in this philosophical or doctrinal sense, but this usage is misleading. There is no single, comprehensive philosophical doctrine shared by all Hindus that distinguishes their view from contrary philosophical views associated with other Indian religious movements such as Buddhism or Jainism on issues of epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics or cosmology. Hence, historians of Indian philosophy typically understand the term “Hindu philosophy” as standing for the collection of philosophical views that share a textual connection to certain core Hindu religious texts (the Vedas), and they do not identify “Hindu philosophy” with a particular comprehensive philosophical doctrine.
Hindu philosophy not only includes the philosophical doctrines present in Hindu texts of primary and secondary religious importance, but also the systematic philosophies of the Hindu schools: Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Pūrvamīmāṃsā and Vedānta. CITATION Shy09 \l 1033 (Ranganathan) In total, Hindu philosophy has made a sizable contribution to the history of Indian philosophy and its role has been far from static: Hindu philosophy was influenced by Buddhist and Jain philosophies, and in turn Hindu

Bibliography: Ann, Theresa. Role of Hinduism in Yoga. 19 May 2010. 20 September 2011 <http://theresaann.hubpages.com/hub/the-role-of-hinduism-in-yoga-and-vice-versa>. Ranganathan, Shyam. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. August 12 2009. 18 September 2011 <http://www.iep.utm.edu/hindu-ph/>.