Monday, June 11, 2018

To understand the significance of the development of Hinduism, it is necessary to go back to the Veda, which can be regarded as the luminous seed of the huge banyan tree of what in course of time came to be known as Hinduism. (It may be noted that the ancient Indian Religion that was developed from the Veda was known as Sanatana Dharma or Arya Dharma. The word Hinduism came to be used at a later stage when foreigners referred to the religion practised by the people of India.)

In the history of the world, Hinduism is the only religion that exhibits a complete independence and freedom of the human mind, its full confidence in its own powers. Hinduism is freedom, especially the freedom in thinking about God. Hinduism is not a definite dogmatic creed, but a vast, complex, but subtly unified mass of spiritual thought and realization. Its tradition of the God-ward endeavor of the human spirit has been continuously enlarging through the ages. Hinduism is the persistent search for truth on the basis of a continuously renewed experience. Hinduism is human thought about God in continuous evolution.