Hinduism

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....s meaning "A complex body of social, cultural and religious beliefs and practices evolved in and largely confined to the Indian subcontinent and marked by a caste system, an outlook tending to view all forms and theories as aspects of one eternal being and truth, a belief in ahimsa, karma, dharma, sansara and moksha, and the practice of the way of works, the way of knowledge, or the way of devotion as the means of release from the bound of rebirths; the way of life and form of thought of a Hindu". In Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th Eidition), the term 'Hindusim' has been defined as meaning "the civilization of Hindus (originally, the inhabitants of the land of the Indus River). It properly denotes the Indian civil....

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....tion, it is not conceived in dogmatic terms. Hinduism is then both a civilization and a conglomerate of religions with neither a beginning, a founder, nor a central authority, hierarchy, or organization. Every attempt at a specific definition of Hinduism has proved unsatisfactory in one way or another, the more so because the finest Indian scholars of Hinduism, including Hindus themselves, have emphasized different aspects of the whole. In his celebrated treatise "Gitarahasya", B.G. Tilak has given the following broad description of the Hindu religion :-- Acceptance of the Vedas with reverence; recognition of the fact that the means or ways of salvation or diverse; and realisation of the truth that the number of gods to be worshipped is ....