Religious Background of India

“Religious Background of India”

I am an Indian, so I have a lot to say about my religious background India is home to population of over 1.2 billion people, speaking more than 24 languages and following a wide range of religious communities. India is also the birthplace of four of world’s major religions, namely Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. This diverse religious nature of India is result of social integration of religions brought in by invaders and conquerors like Greeks in 180 BC and Mughals in early 16th century. With passage of time, many other religious leaders like Ram in Hinduism and Guru Nanak in Sikhism emerged and guided the Humanity to religious path.
India is also known as a country of festivals. Every month of the calendar holds a place for festivals. We Indians love to celebrate every little occasion from harvesting of crops to seeing the full moon. Even the birthdays of divine leaders are celebrated by connecting them with particular festival. As it is a multi-religious nation, every religion has its own set of festivals. Every festival has its own style of celebration and also a history behind it. Diwali is one of the most popular Indian festivals also known as festivals of lights. On this day, people worship the Goddess of fortune and prosperity (Lakshmi) for their family’s goodwill Holi is another very popular and joyful Indian festival celebrated on beginning of spring season.
Another interesting thing about India is that the Indians speaks more than 1500 languages out of which some have become extinct and Sanskrit was one of them. It was spoken by upper castes like Brahmins and Kshatriyas while other castes spoke a number of dialects which were called as Prakrits. There are eighteen languages which have been mentioned in the constitution of India. Major portion of Indian population speaks Hindi while hundreds of other regional languages are spoken by people of other areas if the country. These languages have contributed a lot to prevent the sanctity of Indian culture
I belong to a Sikh family and I follow Sikhism which is world’s fifth largest religion. We follow the concept of Waheguru, a supreme being which is timeless, formless and omnipresent. The Guru is supreme being’s messenger on earth, a position handed down since foundation of Sikhism when Guru Nanak in 1499 first began sharing his teachings of world’s great religious thought on which Sikhism is built. In 1742 Guru Gobind Singh changed tradition forever by declaring that unlike any other world religion, Sikhism’s highest religious authority will not be a human but a holy book, “GURU GRANTH SAHIB”. Since then we have been following GURU GRANTH SAHIB and its teaching. Holy places and monuments like GOLDEN TEMPLE Amritsar (HARMANDIR SAHIB) has also played an integral part in preventing the sanctity of Sikhism and its beliefs.
Despite being a multi-religious nation India has managed to set an example of unity to the world. To sum up I can only say that India has a colourful religious background with very deep philosophies yet a very simple message of love, peace, unity and friendship.