Hinduism Compared To Judaism

Hinduism is a very complex and intricate henotheistic religion. It is mainly practiced in India and came before all the other religions in India. The most important sacred text of Hinduism is called the Vedas. It consists of four Veda texts in which the other texts of Hinduism are based around. Hindus base their lives around the four goals.

Hindus divide their scripture into two categories: Shruti and Smriti. The Shruti is the primary revelation which has no human or divine author but has been passed on by Rishi's, which are ancient holy men that first heard the sound of truth (Van Voorst). They started to pass down these sounds of truths orally to the high and superior families. The Shruti consists of the Vedas which are four Veda texts, the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. The Shruti has been fixed for over two thousand years (Van Voorst). Smriti is not considered holy in the same way as the Shruti. The Smriti has a human origin. The Smirti is "what is remembered". The role of Smriti is to bring out the meaning of Shruti and apply it to the more modern times of Hinduism. It consists of the Sutras, the Epics, the Ramayana, the Puranas, and law codes. The canon of Smriti is still open and has a very strong influence on the Hindu Religion and Indian culture .

The four Veda texts are the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda (Van Voorst). The Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda and the Sama Veda are used for sacrifices while the Atharva Veda is different from the first three in that it does not relate to the sacrifice. The first Veda has 1,028 hymns divided into ten books. The hymns are addressed to a single god or goddess (Van Voorst) which a priest will sing loudly during a sacrifice to attract that specific god's attention to the sacrifice. The Rig-Veda also contains the stories of creation. There are two different creation stories in this Veda. They are viewed in more of a philosophical way than mythological (Van Voorst). The first of the creation stories said that there was no existence of night and day and just water. The powers came from the other powers and gods that existed. The second creation story begins with a soul alone in the shape of a person. The soul was speaking of how lonely it felt and wanted a second person. It made his self fall into two, who became husband and wife. Then they bore children and humans were created. After that they turned into every animal and every insect and every being on earth and mated to make more of them. Everything was created by humans (Van Voorst).

The next two Vedas follow up on the Rig Veda. The second Veda contains instructions for the priests who actually perform the sacrifices. The third Veda takes the mantras, which are words and phrases that get repeated during the sacrifices and praise from the Rig Veda and set to music to be sung during the sacrifice. These three Vedas: the Rig, Yajur and Sama are known as the "threefold Veda" (Van Voorst) which reflects the religious life of the priestly group. The last Veda, Atharva Veda has 731 hymns divided into twenty books and consists of mostly spells, curses and charms. It reflects the everyday religious life of ordinary people (Van Voorst).

The next sacred texts are the Brahmanas. They are commentaries on each Veda text. They discuss the meaning of mantras and specify how to perform certain sacrificial actions and describe the impact the sacrifices have on the eternal world . Their main purpose is to act as a guideline for what is the proper use of the material in the Vedas. They present sacrifice as the power that strengthens the gods, keeps the universe intact and brings blessing to the sacrificer (Van Voorst). The Brahmanas is on sacrifice itself, not the gods. Sacrifice is the power that generates the universe and keeps it going. The final form of the Shruti is the Upanishads. The Upanishads are collections from different teachers about the philosophical way of life taken over a long period of time. Their emphasis is on self denial as a way to find religious truth which is called asceticism. The rituals and sacrifices of the Vedas and Brahmanas are not as important in the Upanishads. The Upanishads mainly deal with finding the eternal One, called Brahman, which is the absolute spiritual reality that lies in and behind all the visible elements and beings of this physical world, while it relates to the Atman, which is the eternal Self at the center of every human (Van Voorst).

The two main epics of the Smriti are the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The Mahabharata is the longest epic in the world. It is about five Pandava brothers who are sons of a king whose kingdom lies on the southern side of the Himalayas. The oldest brother gambles away the kingdom and his brothers in a dice game and the rest of the story is about the struggles and battles of the brothers to gain back their kingdom. One of the brothers has doubts about killing his cousins and at that point he is engaged in a discussion about performing one's duty and about the paths to a better life . This discussion is referred to as the Bhagavad Gita which forms the basis of Hinduism which includes strengthening worship and devotion (Van Voorst). The Ramayana is the Story of Rama in which Prince Rama was exiled and his wife Sita chooses to accompany him but she then gets kidnapped by the demon Ravana, but Rama was restored to his kingdom and his wife with the help of the monkey-god. Each of the main figures in the story represents an ideal type of devotion . The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are both fictional but have a way of teaching the rules and goals if Hinduism.

There are eighteen Puranas. The Puranas are similar to the epics in that that are addressed to the ordinary person. Some speak of the three main gods of Shiva, Vishnu and Shakti. Their themes are creation, re-creation, origins of the gods and sages, and dynastic histories . Some of them are about showing devotion to a specific god. They tend to emphasize two points of bhakti, which is devotion to a god, and dharma, which is doing one's personal and social duty. The final part of Smriti is the manuals of dharma or the law codes which are also called Dharma-Shastras (Van Voorst). The law codes came together in schools of Hinduism and then became formed into a serious of that eventually formed the basis of Hindu law . The laws consist of caste, life stages, diet, government and other matters. The most important dharma manual is the Laws of Manu which is composed of 12 books. The main concern of Manu is the operation of the four-caste system and its influence on Hindu life. The two things that define a practicing Hindu are the acceptance of the Vedas and following caste duty .

The caste system is the social organization in India. When the Aryans moved into the northwest of India