Shaivism in the context of "Palm-leaf manuscript"

Hinduism (/ˈhɪnduˌɪzəm/) is an umbrella term for a range of Indian religious and spiritual traditions (sampradayas) that are unified by adherence to the concept of dharma, a cosmic order maintained by its followers through rituals and righteous living, as expounded in the Vedas. The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest surviving religion in the world, it is also described by the 19th century term Sanātana Dharma (lit. 'eternal dharma'). Vaidika Dharma (lit. 'Vedic dharma') and Arya Dharma are historical endonyms for Hinduism.

Hinduism entails diverse systems of thought, marked by a range of shared concepts that discuss theology, mythology, and other topics in textual sources. Hindu texts have been classified into Śruti (lit. 'heard') and Smṛti (lit. 'remembered'). The major Hindu scriptures are the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Mahabharata (including the Bhagavad Gita), the Ramayana, and the Agamas. Prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include karma (action, intent and consequences), saṃsāra (the cycle of death and rebirth) and the four Puruṣārthas, proper goals or aims of human life, namely: dharma (ethics/duties), artha (prosperity/work), kama (desires/passions) and moksha (liberation/emancipation from passions and ultimately saṃsāra). Hindu religious practices include devotion (bhakti), worship (puja), sacrificial rites (yajna), and meditation (dhyana) and Yoga. Hinduism has no central doctrinal authority and many Hindus do not claim to belong to any denomination. However, scholarly studies notify four major denominations: Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Smartism. The six Āstika schools of Hindu philosophy that recognise the authority of the Vedas are: Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedanta.

A goddess is a female deity. In some faiths, a sacred female figure holds a central place in religious prayer and worship. For example, Shaktism (one of the three major Hindu sects), holds that the ultimate deity, the source of all reality, is Supreme Goddess (Mahaiia) and in some forms of Tantric Shaivism, the pair of Shiva and Shakti are the ultimate principle (with the goddess representing the active, creative power of God). Meanwhile, in Vajrayana Buddhism, ultimate reality is often seen as being composed of two principles depicted as two deities in union (yab yum, "father-mother") symbolising the non-duality of the two principles of perfect wisdom (female) and skillful compassion (male). A single figure in a monotheistic faith that is female may be identified simply as god because of no need to differentiate by gender or with a diminutive. An experiment to determine the effect of psychedelics on subjects composed of leaders from diverse religious groups revealed a general experience that the divine the subjects encountered was feminine.

Polytheist religions, including Polytheistic reconstructionists, honour multiple goddesses and gods, and usually view them as discrete, separate beings. These deities may be part of a pantheon, or different regions may have tutelary deities. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of spinning, weaving, beauty, love, sexuality, motherhood, domesticity, creativity, and fertility (exemplified by the ancient mother goddess cult). Many major goddesses are also associated with magic, war, strategy, hunting, farming, wisdom, fate, earth, sky, power, laws, justice, and more. Some themes, such as discord or disease, which are considered negative within their cultural contexts also are found associated with some goddesses. There are as many differently described and understood goddesses as there are male, shapeshifting, devilish, or neuter gods.

The Kushan Empire (c. 30–c. 375 CE) was a syncretic empire formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of what is now Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, India, Pakistan, Western Nepal, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Kushan territory in India went at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath, now near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, where inscriptions have been found dating to the era of the Kushan emperor Kanishka the Great.

The Kushans were most probably one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, an Indo-European nomadic people of possible Tocharian origin, who migrated from northwestern China (Xinjiang and Gansu) and settled in ancient Bactria. The founder of the dynasty, Kujula Kadphises, followed Iranian and Greek cultural ideas and iconography after the Greco-Bactrian tradition and was a follower of the Shaivite sect of Hinduism. Many of the later Kushan kings after Kujula, were also patrons of Hinduism, including (but not limited to) Vima Kadphises and Vasudeva II. The Kushans in general were also great patrons of Buddhism, and, starting with Emperor Kanishka, they employed elements of Zoroastrianism in their pantheon. They played an important role in the spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and China, ushering in a period of relative peace for 200 years, sometimes described as "Pax Kushana".

Jāti is the term traditionally used to describe a cohesive group of people in the Indian subcontinent, like a caste, sub-caste, clan, tribe, or a religious sect. Each Jāti typically has an association with an occupation, geography or tribe. Different intrareligious beliefs (e.g. Vaishnavism or Smarthism or Shaivism) or linguistic groupings may also define some Jātis. The term is often translated approximately in English as caste.

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 (600–200 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. 200 BCE to 500 CE), when the Epics and the first Purānas were composed. This was followed by the classical "Golden Age" of Hinduism (c. 320–650 CE), which coincides with the Gupta Empire. In this period the six branches of Hindu philosophy evolved, namely, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta. 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.

In Hinduism, the conception of God varies in its diverse religio-philosophical traditions. Hinduism comprises a wide range of beliefs about God and divinity, such as henotheism, monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, agnosticism, atheism, and nontheism.

Forms of theism find mention in the Bhagavad Gita. Emotional or loving devotion (bhakti) to a primary god such as avatars of Vishnu (Krishna for example), Shiva, and Devi (as emerged in the early medieval period) is now known as the Bhakti movement. Contemporary Hinduism can be categorized into four major theistic Hindu traditions: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism worship the Hindu deities Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi as the Supreme God respectively, or consider all Hindu deities as aspects of the same, Supreme Reality or the eternal and formless metaphysical Absolute, called Brahman in Hinduism, or, translated from Sanskrit terminology, Svayaṁ-Bhāgavan ("God Itself"). Other minor sects such as Ganapatya and Saura focus on the deities Ganesha or Surya as the Supreme.

The Agamas (Devanagari: आगम, IAST: āgama) are a collection of several Tantric literature and scriptures of Hindu schools. The term literally means tradition or "that which has come down", and the Agama texts describe cosmology, epistemology, philosophical doctrines, precepts on meditation and practices, four kinds of yoga, mantras, temple construction, deity worship and ways to attain sixfold desires. These canonical texts are in Sanskrit and Tamil.

The three main branches of Agama texts are Shaiva, Vaishnava and Shakta. The Agamic traditions are sometimes called Tantrism, although the term "Tantra" is usually used specifically to refer to Shakta Agamas. The Agama literature is voluminous, and includes 28 Shaiva Agamas, 64 Shakta Agamas (also called Tantras), and 108 Vaishnava Agamas (also called Pancharatra Samhitas), and numerous Upa-Agamas.

Vaishnavism (Sanskrit: वैष्णवसम्प्रदायः, romanized: Vaiṣṇavasampradāyaḥ), also called Vishnuism, is one of the major Hindu religious traditions, that considers Vishnu as the supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, that is, Mahavishnu. It is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. Its followers are called Vaishnavites or Vaishnavas (IAST: Vaiṣṇava), and it includes sub-sects like Krishnaism and Ramaism, which consider Krishna and Rama as the supreme beings respectively. According to a 2020 estimate by The World Religion Database (WRD), hosted at Boston University's Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs (CURA), Vaishnavism is the largest Hindu sect, constituting about 399 million Hindus.

The ancient emergence of Vaishnavism is unclear, and broadly hypothesized as a fusion of various regional non-Vedic religions with worship of Vishnu. It is considered a merger of several popular non-Vedic theistic traditions, particularly the Bhagavata cults of Vāsudeva-Krishna and Gopala-Krishna, as well as Narayana, developed in the 7th to 4th century BCE. It was integrated with the Vedic God Vishnu in the early centuries CE, and finalized as Vaishnavism, when it developed the avatar doctrine, wherein the various non-Vedic deities are revered as distinct incarnations of the supreme God Vishnu. Narayana, Hari, Rama, Krishna, Kalki, Perumal, Shrinathji, Vithoba, Venkateswara, Guruvayurappan, Ranganatha, Jagannath, Badrinath and Muktinath are revered as forms or avatars of Vishnu, all seen as different aspects of the same supreme being.