The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. It overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age, with some of its traditions tracing back to prehistoric religions such as those of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation. Hinduism has been called the "oldest religion" in the world, but scholars regard Hinduism as a relatively recent synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no single founder, which emerged around the beginning of the Common Era.
The history of Hinduism is often divided into periods of development. The first period is the pre-Vedic period, which includes the Indus Valley Civilization and local pre-historic religions. Northern India had the Vedic period with the introduction of the historical Vedic religion by the Indo-Aryan migrations, starting somewhere between 1900 BCE and 1400 BCE. The subsequent period of the second urbanisation (600ā200 BCE) is a formative period for Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism followed by "a turning point between the Vedic religion and Hindu religions," during the Epic and Early Puranic period (c.ā200 BCE to 500Ā CE), when the Epics and the first PurÄnas were composed. This was followed by the classical "Golden Age" of Hinduism (c.ā320ā650 CE), which coincides with the Gupta Empire. In this period the six branches of Hindu philosophy evolved, namely, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, MÄ«mÄį¹sÄ, and VedÄnta. Monotheistic sects like Shaivism and Vaishnavism developed during this same period through the Bhakti movement. It flourished in the medieval period from roughly 650 to 1100 CE, which forms the late Classical period or early Middle Ages, with the decline of Buddhism in India and the establishment of classical Puranic Hinduism is established.
