Hinduism · Glossary

Glossary of Hinduism's history

The gods, ideas, texts, places and pieces of evidence that recur across the series, each defined in a few sentences. The definitions summarise what the chapters argue; the dates and the evidence behind them are cited in the chapter each entry links to. Sanskrit terms are spelled with diacritics, with common plain spellings alongside.

A

Advaita also Advaita Vedanta, non-dualism, Shankara Idea: Advaita, 'non-dualism', is the Vedānta school holding that only brahman is real and the individual self is none other than brahman. Śaṅkara systematized it c. 700–750 CE; in his own time it was one contested voice among many, and its presentation as the essence of Hinduism is largely a nineteenth-century development. More in Bhakti and the Regional Turn →
Agni also Agni Vaisvanara Deity: Agni is the Vedic god of fire, the mouth of the gods and their messenger, with about 200 Rigvedic hymns, second only to Indra. Later he survives only as ritual apparatus: in the Kena Upaniṣad he cannot burn a blade of grass, and by the Purāṇic age he is a guardian of one of the compass directions. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Ahiṃsā also Ahimsa, non-violence, vegetarianism Idea: Ahiṃsā is non-violence, the ethic of not harming living beings. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad lists it as one virtue, but it becomes a supreme value only with the Śramaṇa movements, c. 500 BCE, stated absolutely in the Jain Ācārāṅga Sūtra; it is the most successful Śramaṇa export into what became Hinduism, and the main reason many Hindus are vegetarian. More in The Shramana Challenge → Why are many Hindus vegetarian?
Aryan also Aryan migration, Aryan invasion, Indo-Aryan, Out of India Idea: 'Aryan' is the word European philology made into a label for the Indo-European language family after 1786; it was then racialized in Europe and put to opposite political uses in India. The mainstream model today is a gradual migration of Indo-Aryan speakers into northwest South Asia c. 1900–1400 BCE; the 'Aryan invasion' of chariot armies sacking Harappan cities is rejected by essentially all scholars. More in How We Know → What does ancient DNA say about the Aryan migration?
Ashokan edicts also Edicts of Ashoka, Asoka, Aśoka Evidence: The Ashokan edicts, c. 250 BCE, are Emperor Ashoka's inscriptions in Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī, the first securely dated writing in India, fixed by Rock Edict 13's five named Hellenistic kings. Rock Edict 1 prohibits sacrificial slaughter in his capital, and the edicts preach a deliberately non-sectarian dhamma. More in The Shramana Challenge →
Āśrama also Ashrama, stages of life, purusharthas Idea: The āśramas are the four orders of life: student, householder, forest-dweller and renouncer. The oldest Dharmasūtras present them as alternatives chosen once; only later texts make them a sequence, conceding renunciation as the highest path while requiring everyone to do it last. The same period fixes the four puruṣārthas: dharma, artha, kāma and mokṣa. More in The Shramana Challenge →
Aṣṭādhyāyī also Ashtadhyayi, Panini, Pāṇini Text: The Aṣṭādhyāyī is Pāṇini's grammar of Sanskrit, some 4,000 rules, c. 5th–4th century BCE and now often placed in the mid-4th. It fixed Sanskrit as a scientific object, and its rule for forming the word for a devotee of Vāsudeva (4.3.98) implies that an organized Vāsudeva cult already existed. More in The Shramana Challenge →
Aśvins also Ashvins, Asvins Deity: The Aśvins are the Rigveda's twin horsemen, healers and rescuers, addressed in about 50 hymns. They are already vestigial in the later Vedic period and afterwards fade almost entirely. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Atharvaveda also Atharva Veda Text: The Atharvaveda is the Veda of spells, healing, love charms, curses and domestic ritual, compiled c. 1200–900 BCE and the last Veda to be accepted as canonical. It is where iron enters the language, as 'dark metal', and it is the closest the Vedic corpus comes to popular religion. More in Late Vedic →
Ātman also Atman, tat tvam asi Idea: Ātman is the self. The early Upaniṣads, c. 700–600 BCE, identify it with brahman, the ground of all reality, most famously in Chāndogya 6.8.7, 'tat tvam asi', relocating the sacred from the ritual arena into the person; the familiar rendering 'That you are' is itself philologically disputed. More in The Upanishadic Turn →
Avatāra also Avatar, Avatara, incarnation Idea: Avatāra is the doctrine that the supreme god descends and takes bodily birth in the world. Nothing in the Vedas or Upaniṣads has it; it is first stated in the Bhagavad Gītā (4.7–8), c. 200 BCE – 200 CE, and makes possible the worship of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa and the ten avatāras. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →
Ayodhya also Babri Masjid, Ram Mandir Place: Ayodhya is the site of a mosque built in 1528, the Babri Masjid, claimed by Hindus as the birthplace of Rāma and demolished by a crowd on 6 December 1992. In 2019 the Supreme Court awarded the land to the deity Rāma himself, with five acres elsewhere for a mosque, and a temple was consecrated there on 22 January 2024. More in Modern and Contemporary →

B

Bhagavad Gītā also Bhagavad Gita, Gita, Gītā Text: The Bhagavad Gītā is a 700-verse dialogue between Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa set inside the Mahābhārata's sixth book, most likely composed c. 200 BCE – 200 CE. It reconciles the paths of ritual action, knowledge and devotion, teaches action without attachment to its fruits, and states the avatāra doctrine for the first time. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis → When was the Bhagavad Gita written?
Bhāgavata Purāṇa also Bhagavata Purana, Srimad Bhagavatam Text: The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is the great Kṛṣṇa text, supplying his childhood and Vṛndāvana material, and the most influential Purāṇa for later Kṛṣṇa devotion. It is southern and post-Ālvār, c. 900–1000 CE, far later than most readers assume. More in Puranic Hinduism →
Bhakti also devotion Idea: Bhakti is loving devotion to a personal god as a path to liberation in its own right. Its earliest Vedic use is in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (6.23); the Heliodorus pillar, c. 110 BCE, is the oldest hard evidence for it, the Bhagavad Gītā opens it across varṇa, and the Tamil poet-saints of c. 6th–9th century give it its emotional vernacular form. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →
Brahman Idea: Brahman is the impersonal absolute of the Upaniṣads, the ground of all reality. In the Rigveda bráhman is the power of the ritual formula; in the later Vedic period it becomes an abstract cosmic principle, and the Upaniṣads identify it with the self and subordinate the Vedic gods to it. More in The Upanishadic Turn →
Brāhmaṇas also Brahmanas, Shatapatha Brahmana, Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, bandhu Text: The Brāhmaṇas are Vedic prose manuals, c. 1000–800 BCE, that explain why each ritual act works through bandhu, hidden correspondences between ritual, body and cosmos. They teach that correct ritual compels the cosmos, make Prajāpati the chief god and harden varṇa toward birth; the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa is the largest. More in Late Vedic →
Brahmasūtra also Brahma Sutra, Brahma Sutras Text: The Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, c. 100–300 CE, is the terse root text of Vedānta that reconciles the Upaniṣads, and every Vedāntin must comment on it. Śaṅkara's Advaita and Rāmānuja's Viśiṣṭādvaita are both commentaries on it that reach almost opposite conclusions. More in Puranic Hinduism →
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad also Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, BU Text: The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad is the oldest Upaniṣad, in prose, c. 700–600 BCE, with its debates set at King Janaka's court. It contains the first clear statement of karma (3.2.13), taught privately by Yājñavalkya, and the dialogues in which Gārgī and Maitreyī question him. More in The Upanishadic Turn →

C

Chāndogya Upaniṣad also Chandogya Upanishad, CU Text: The Chāndogya Upaniṣad is, with the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, one of the two oldest Upaniṣads, in prose, c. 700–600 BCE. It contains 'tat tvam asi' (6.8.7) and the doctrine of the five fires (5.3), in which a king, Pravāhaṇa Jaivali, teaches rebirth to two eminent brahmins who did not know it. More in The Upanishadic Turn →

D

Darśana also Darshan, Darshana, six darshanas Idea: Darśana, literally 'seeing', is the mutual gaze between devotee and image, which becomes the central religious act once the stone temple houses a god who is present in one place, from c. 400 CE. The word also names the six systems of Brahmanical philosophy (Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta), formalized by the end of the Gupta and Purāṇic age. More in Puranic Hinduism →
Devī also Devi, the Goddess, Durga, Shakti Deity: Devī, the Goddess, is a female deity worshipped as the supreme reality and the source of the male gods' power. The Rigveda has goddesses but no Great Goddess; Mahiṣāsuramardinī images appear at Mathurā in the Kuṣāṇa period, and the Devī Māhātmya, c. 550–600 CE, first makes her supreme, drawing on streams with no Vedic descent. More in Puranic Hinduism → Why are there so many Hindu gods?
Devī Māhātmya also Devi Mahatmya, Durga Saptashati, Chandi Text: The Devī Māhātmya, 'Glorification of the Goddess', is a 700-verse text inside the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, c. 550–600 CE, still recited at Navarātri. It is the first text to make a female deity the supreme reality and the source of the male gods' power, slaying the buffalo-demon Mahiṣāsura whom they could not. More in Puranic Hinduism →
Dharma Idea: Dharma is the principle of right order and duty that later tradition puts where the Rigveda had ṛta; in its ethical sense it is later Vedic. It is the first of the four puruṣārthas, the goals of life, and in the Bhagavad Gītā (4.7–8) its withering is what prompts God to take birth in the world. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Dharmasūtras also Dharmasutras, Dharma Sutras Text: The Dharmasūtras of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana and Vasiṣṭha are normative Brahmanical texts on dharma, c. 300 BCE – 100 CE on Olivelle's dating. They systematize birth-status as the Śramaṇas attack it, and present the four āśramas as alternatives rather than stages of life. More in The Shramana Challenge →

F

Family Books also Mandala, Maṇḍala, Mandalas 2-7 Text: The Family Books are Maṇḍalas 2–7 of the Rigveda, each the repertoire of one priestly lineage, and together its oldest core, c. 1500–1200 BCE. Grammar, metre, vocabulary and named people all agree that Maṇḍalas 8 and 9 follow them and that 1 and especially 10 are latest; Maṇḍala 10 holds the only four-varṇa hymn. More in The Oral Rigveda →

G

Great Bath Evidence: The Great Bath is a sunken, waterproofed brick tank, roughly 12 by 7 metres and 2.4 metres deep, set in the largest structure on Mohenjo-daro's citadel mound. Whether it was ritual is contested, since nothing marks it as sacred, but it is an obvious candidate ancestor for the later Indian emphasis on purity through bathing. More in The Indus Civilization →
Gudimallam liṅga also Gudimallam linga, linga, lingam Evidence: The Gudimallam liṅga, in Andhra Pradesh, is a five-foot stone liṅga with a standing figure of Śiva carved on its face, and the earliest surviving liṅga. Conventionally dated to the 2nd–1st century BCE, with serious arguments for the early centuries CE, it is anthropomorphic and aniconic at once. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →

H

Harappa also Harappan, Indus Valley Civilization, Indus civilization Place: Harappa is an Indus city in Punjab, Pakistan, first excavated in the 1920s, and one of the great cities of the Harappan (Indus Valley) civilization. That civilization flourished as an urban culture c. 2600–1900 BCE, with planned cities, standardized weights and an undeciphered script, but no horse, no iron and no monumental temple. More in The Indus Civilization → Did Hinduism come from the Indus Valley?
Heliodorus pillar also Besnagar pillar, Heliodoros, Garuda pillar Evidence: The Heliodorus pillar at Besnagar (Vidiśā), c. 110 BCE, is a Garuḍa column erected by Heliodoros, a Greek ambassador, who calls himself a Bhāgavata and Vāsudeva the God of Gods. Datable through King Antialkidas's coinage, it is the oldest hard evidence for bhakti and shows the religion open to a foreigner. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis → Who was the first Hindu?
Hindu also Hinduism, Sindhu Idea: 'Hindu' is how Iranian speakers pronounced Sanskrit sindhu, the Indus, and it began as an outsiders' geographical label for the people beyond that river. It came into use as a religious self-description mainly c. 1200–1500 CE, contrasting hindū with turk; 'Hinduism' as a bounded world religion is substantially an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century construction. More in How We Know → Who invented the word 'Hindu'?
Hindu Code Bills also Hindu Code Bill, Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act Text: The Hindu Code Bills are the four Acts of 1955–56 that codified Hindu personal law, making monogamy compulsory, divorce available to both spouses and giving daughters inheritance rights, with full coparcenary equality following in 2005. Drafted in origin by Ambedkar as Law Minister, they mean a secular parliament, not a religious body, now defines Hindu personal law. More in Modern and Contemporary →
Hindutva also Savarkar, Hindu nationalism Idea: Hindutva is the political ideology defined in V. D. Savarkar's Essentials of Hindutva (1923), which defines a Hindu by a common nation and territory, race and blood-descent, and civilisation rather than by belief. Savarkar was a professed rationalist; since 1947 the ideology has moved from the margins to the centre of Indian politics. More in The Invention of "Hinduism" →

I

Indra Deity: Indra is the young warrior and storm god who dominates the Rigveda, with about 250 hymns; his defining act is killing the serpent Vṛtra to release the waters. He then declines in stages: displaced by Prajāpati in the Brāhmaṇas, subordinated to brahman in the Upaniṣads, humbled in the epics, and a guardian of the directions by the Purāṇic age. More in The Oral Rigveda → Why did Indra stop being worshipped?

J

Jāti also Jati, caste Idea: Jāti is the name for the thousands of endogamous birth-groups that structure real Indian society, never the same thing as the fourfold varṇa scheme; the relation between the two is debated. Before colonial rule jāti identity was local and negotiable, and the censuses from 1871–72 turned it into fixed all-India administrative categories. More in The Invention of "Hinduism" →

K

Karma also Karman Idea: Karma is the doctrine that actions carry moral consequence across lifetimes. It is absent from the Rigveda, the other Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, and first appears c. 700–600 BCE in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (3.2.13), where Yājñavalkya teaches it privately, away from the assembly. More in The Upanishadic Turn → Where does the idea of karma come from?
Kṛṣṇa also Krishna, Vasudeva, Vāsudeva Deity: Kṛṣṇa, also worshipped as Vāsudeva, is the god who teaches Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gītā, and he has no significant Rigvedic presence. Pāṇini implies an organized Vāsudeva cult by c. 5th–4th century BCE, and by c. 110 BCE, when the Heliodorus pillar calls Vāsudeva the God of Gods, his fusion with Viṣṇu and Nārāyaṇa is well advanced. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →
Kuru-Pañcāla also Kuru, Kurus, Kuru-Panchala, doab Place: Kuru-Pañcāla is the Ganga–Yamuna doāb, the heartland of the later Vedic period, c. 1200–900 BCE, where the Kurus formed the first thing resembling a state. On the dominant reading the Kuru polity canonized the Rigveda, compiled the other Vedas and systematized ritual, and Painted Grey Ware traces the same world archaeologically. More in Late Vedic →

M

Magadha also Pataliputra, Rajagriha Place: Magadha is the plain of southern Bihar around Rājagṛha and later Pāṭaliputra, which out-produced and within two centuries swallowed every rival, c. 600–200 BCE. Orthodox brahmins treated it as suspect country, yet the doctrines that define later Indian religion appear first in this eastern region the Vedic texts consider peripheral. More in The Shramana Challenge →
Mahābhārata also Mahabharata Text: The Mahābhārata is the great Sanskrit epic, which grew from a war narrative to about 100,000 verses between c. 400 BCE and 400 CE and records its own expansion. Its layers include the didactic books, the inserted Bhagavad Gītā and the Harivaṃśa appendix; in it Indra is ineffectual and Kṛṣṇa is God. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →
Manusmṛti also Manusmriti, Laws of Manu, Manava Dharmashastra Text: The Manusmṛti (Mānava Dharmaśāstra, the Laws of Manu), c. 200 BCE – 200 CE, is a scholastic Brahmanical text of 2,685 verses that codifies varṇa as a legal and ritual order and declares that 'a woman is never fit for independence' (9.3). It was one text among many until Jones's 1794 translation and colonial courts made it the basis of Anglo-Hindu law. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →
Maruts Deity: The Maruts are the Rigveda's storm troop, Indra's warband, addressed in about 33 hymns. Like most of the early Vedic pantheon they are vestigial by the later Vedic period, and then fade. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Mathurā also Mathura, Bhutesvar relief Place: Mathurā is the city whose sculptors, from c. 150 BCE, produced some of the earliest Hindu cult images: Vāsudeva, Balarāma, Nāgas and Yakṣas in local red sandstone, and the Bhūteśvar relief of an enshrined liṅga, c. 100 BCE. Its imagery grows out of a local yakṣa tradition with no Greek features. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →
Mehrgarh Place: Mehrgarh is a farming village on the Kachi plain in Balochistan, at the foot of the Bolan Pass, whose sequence runs almost unbroken down to c. 2600 BCE. Conventionally dated from c. 7000 BCE (a 2025 study puts its first period at c. 5250–4650 BCE), it is the unbroken local sequence the Indus civilization grew out of. More in Before the Vedas →
Mitanni treaty also Mitanni-Hittite treaty, Bogazkoy Evidence: The Mitanni treaty, c. 1350–1320 BCE, is a Mitanni–Hittite treaty from Boğazköy in Anatolia that invokes Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra and the Nāsatyas as divine witnesses. It puts Indo-Aryan gods in writing roughly two centuries before anything written in India, making it the single most important external date for Vedic studies. More in How We Know → When was the Rigveda written?
Mohenjo-daro also Mohenjodaro Place: Mohenjo-daro is a planned Harappan city in Sindh, Pakistan, site of the Great Bath, the 'Priest-King' figure and the Paśupati seal. The story of its sack by Aryan invaders is wrong: there is no destruction layer, and like the other cities it was emptied gradually from c. 1900 BCE. More in The Indus Civilization →
Mokṣa also Moksha, liberation Idea: Mokṣa is liberation, release from the cycle of rebirth. It first appears as the highest goal of religion in the older Upaniṣads, c. 700 BCE, replacing long life, sons and cattle, and there it is reached by knowledge of the self rather than by ritual. More in The Upanishadic Turn →
Mūrti also Murti, image worship, puja, pūjā, idol Idea: A mūrti is a cult image of a deity, made to be worshipped with pūjā, offerings of flowers, food and light. The Rigveda has no word for temple or cult image; images of Hindu gods appear c. 200 BCE – 300 CE, drawing on the visual vocabulary of yakṣa and nāga cults, and pūjā to an enshrined image becomes the normative act in the Gupta age. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis → When did Hindus start worshipping images and building temples?

N

Nālāyira Divya Prabandham also Divya Prabandham, Tamil Veda, Alvars, Nayanars, Tevaram Text: The Nālāyira Divya Prabandham is the 4,000 collected verses of the Ālvārs, the Tamil poet-saints of Viṣṇu (c. 6th–9th century), called the 'Tamil Veda' and sung in temple liturgy alongside Sanskrit. Nāthamuni compiled it and set it into temple recitation; the Nāyanārs' hymns to Śiva form the parallel Tirumuṟai, whose first seven books are the Tēvāram. More in Bhakti and the Regional Turn →
Nāsadīya Sūkta also Nasadiya Sukta, Creation Hymn Text: The Nāsadīya Sūkta (Rigveda 10.129) is the Rigveda's creation hymn, which ends by doubting whether even the one who surveys creation from the highest heaven knows how it arose. It is the earliest sustained agnostic passage in world religious literature, and it belongs to Maṇḍala 10, the latest layer. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Neo-Vedānta also Neo-Vedanta, Vivekananda Idea: Neo-Vedānta is the modern account of Hinduism voiced above all by Vivekananda at Chicago in 1893: Advaita is Hinduism's essence, all religions are paths to the same goal, and service to human beings is worship of God. It is demonstrably modern; the claim that all paths are equally valid would have puzzled Rāmānuja or Madhva. More in The Invention of "Hinduism" →

P

Painted Grey Ware also PGW Evidence: Painted Grey Ware (PGW) is a fine wheel-turned grey pottery with painted geometric designs, the archaeological horizon of the Ganga–Yamuna doāb c. 1200–600 BCE. Its villages and small towns have iron, rice, cattle and horse, and it maps onto the later Vedic texts; at Bhagwanpura it overlaps Late Harappan levels, which shows coexistence, not conquest. More in Late Vedic →
Paśupati seal also Pashupati seal, Seal M-304, proto-Shiva Evidence: The Paśupati seal (Seal M-304) is a steatite seal from Mohenjo-daro, c. 2500 BCE, showing a horned figure seated among wild animals. John Marshall read it in 1931 as a prototype of Śiva as Lord of Beasts, but the headdress looks bovine, the script is unread and Śiva's defining traits are attested 1,500–2,000 years later, so 'proto-Śiva' cannot be stated as fact. More in The Indus Civilization → Is the Pashupati seal Shiva?
Prajāpati also Prajapati Deity: Prajāpati is the creator god of the Brāhmaṇas, identified with the year and with the sacrifice. Barely present in the Rigveda, he replaces Indra as chief deity in the later Vedic period (c. 1200–900 BCE), and the Agnicayana fire altar is built to reassemble him after he exhausted and dismembered himself in creating the world. More in Late Vedic →
Purāṇas also Puranas, Purana, Vishnu Purana Text: The Purāṇas are Sanskrit scriptures that turn theology into narrative: cosmology, genealogy, avatāra stories, pilgrimage guides and vows any household could perform. The genre consolidates c. 400–500 CE, creating a mass religion that needed neither Sanskrit learning nor initiation, but the texts were revised for a thousand years and are almost impossible to date. More in Puranic Hinduism →
Puruṣa Sūkta also Purusha Sukta, Purushasukta Text: The Puruṣa Sūkta (Rigveda 10.90) is the hymn in which the cosmic sacrifice of a primal being produces the world, and verse 12 draws four varṇas from its mouth, arms, thighs and feet. It is the only four-varṇa passage in 1,028 hymns and the only place vaiśya and śūdra occur, and it sits in Maṇḍala 10, the latest layer. More in The Oral Rigveda → Was caste in the Rigveda?

R

Rāma also Rama, Ram Deity: Rāma is the prince of the Rāmāyaṇa who became a god within the historical record: in the epic's older core (books 2–6) he is a heroic prince, and only the later books 1 and 7 make him divine and identify him with Viṣṇu. Through Tulsīdās's Rāmcaritmānas (1574) he becomes the supreme popular deity of the north, and today the most politically charged. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →
Rāmāyaṇa also Ramayana, Valmiki Ramayana Text: The Rāmāyaṇa is Vālmīki's Sanskrit epic of Rāma, whose older core (books 2–6) dates c. 400–100 BCE, while books 1 and 7, the ones in which Rāma is divine, are later additions. India has many Rāmāyaṇas, and in the Hindi belt the one people actually know is Tulsīdās's Rāmcaritmānas. More in Epic and Classical Synthesis →
Rāmcaritmānas also Ramcharitmanas, Ramcaritmanas, Tulsidas Text: The Rāmcaritmānas is Tulsīdās's retelling of the Rāmāyaṇa in Awadhi, a spoken language of the eastern Hindi region, begun in 1574, a date he states in the text. For hundreds of millions in the Hindi belt it is the Rāmāyaṇa, recited daily and performed as the Rāmlīlā, so that access to scripture no longer required Sanskrit. More in Encounter with Islam →
Rigveda also Rig Veda, Rgveda, Ṛgveda Text: The Rigveda is the oldest Hindu scripture: 1,028 hymns in ten maṇḍalas, composed orally in the Punjab, its oldest books most likely c. 1500–1200 BCE on the mainstream dating. It was memorized and recited without writing for about a thousand years, with remarkable accuracy, and it has no temples, images, karma, rebirth or caste by birth. More in The Oral Rigveda → When was the Rigveda written?
Ṛta also Rita, Rta Idea: Ṛta is the Rigveda's word for cosmic and moral order, attested in the Family Books c. 1400 BCE and guarded by Mitra and Varuṇa. It is not yet dharma, and not yet ethical in the later sense. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Rudra Deity: Rudra is the wild, feared, disease-bringing outsider of the Rigveda, with about three hymns, propitiated so that he stays away. In the Yajurveda's Śatarudrīya an entire liturgy is devoted to him and he is repeatedly called śiva, 'auspicious'; he becomes Śiva, one of Hinduism's two supreme gods. More in The Oral Rigveda →

S

Sāmaveda also Samaveda, Sama Veda Text: The Sāmaveda is the Veda of melodies for Rigvedic verses, with almost no independent content. It was compiled c. 1200–1000 BCE, in the later Vedic period, when the Rigveda was fixed and three more Vedas were compiled beside it. More in Late Vedic →
Saṃsāra also Samsara, rebirth, reincarnation Idea: Saṃsāra is the endless chain of rebirth from which liberation is sought. It first appears with karma in the early Upaniṣads, c. 700 BCE, which credit the doctrine to a kṣatriya king rather than to brahmins; its conceptual seed is the Brāhmaṇas' fear of punarmṛtyu, dying again in the next world. More in The Upanishadic Turn → Where does the idea of karma come from?
Sant also Sants, Sant tradition, nirguna Idea: The Sants are the north Indian poet-teachers, among them Kabīr, Nānak and Ravidās, who from the fifteenth century rejected image worship, caste and the authority of both Veda and Qur'ān, in a vernacular idiom that borrows freely from Sufism. Reserving 'Sant' for these nirguṇa poets, devoted to God without form, is an English convention; in Indic usage it means devotees generally. More in Encounter with Islam →
Sapta Sindhavaḥ also Sapta Sindhava, Punjab Place: Sapta Sindhavaḥ is the Indus–Punjab river country (Punjab, Haryana and eastern Afghanistan) that was the home of the early Vedic world, c. 1500–1200 BCE. The Rigveda's river hymn maps it east to west, with the Ganga and Yamunā only at the extreme eastern edge. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Sarasvatī also Saraswati, Ghaggar-Hakra Place: The Sarasvatī is a river the Rigveda praises about seventy times as a great river flowing from mountain to sea. Many identify it with the now-dry Ghaggar-Hakra, along which many Harappan sites lie, which would push the Rigveda earlier; but that river was monsoon-fed, the name may have come east from the Afghan Helmand, and the identification is contested and political. More in The Indus Civilization → When was the Rigveda written?
Satī also Sati, Suttee Idea: Satī is the burning of a widow with her dead husband. It has no Vedic warrant: the Rigvedic funeral hymn (10.18.8) tells the widow to rise and return to the living, and the scriptural case rested on a one-word alteration of the verse before it. It was abolished by Regulation XVII in 1829, after campaigning by Rammohan Roy. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Śiva also Shiva, Siva Deity: Śiva is one of Hinduism's two supreme gods, the later form of the Vedic Rudra; in the Rigveda śiva is only an adjective meaning 'auspicious'. 'Namaḥ śivāya' first appears c. 1000 BCE as flattery of a dangerous god, the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad makes Rudra-Śiva supreme, and Śaivism was arguably the dominant religious force in India from roughly the 6th to the 13th century. More in Late Vedic → Is the Pashupati seal Shiva?
Soma Deity: Soma is both a plant pressed for ritual and its god, the subject of about 120 Rigvedic hymns, including all of Maṇḍala 9. The plant's identity is contested and it was already lost by the Brāhmaṇa period, which specifies substitutes; the name later transfers to the moon. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Śramaṇa also Shramana, Sramana Idea: The śramaṇas, 'strivers', were the renouncer movements, among them the Buddha's and Mahāvīra's, that from c. 500 BCE accepted karma, rebirth and liberation but rejected the Veda, the sacrifice and the brahmin. For four centuries they held the intellectual initiative, and much of what later counts as Hinduism is the settlement between Vedic and Śramaṇa religion. More in The Shramana Challenge →
Śrauta ritual also Shrauta, Srauta, yajna, Vedic sacrifice, Agnicayana Idea: Śrauta ritual is the Vedic sacrificial system performed with fire on constructed altars by professional priests. Systematized in the Brāhmaṇas, c. 1000–800 BCE, into a vast, multi-year system with sixteen or more priests, it taught that correctly performed ritual compels the cosmos; its masterpiece, the Agnicayana, is still performed by Nambūdiri brahmins in Kerala. More in Late Vedic →
Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad also Shvetashvatara Upanishad, Svetasvatara Text: The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, c. 400–200 BCE, is the first theistic Upaniṣad, making Rudra-Śiva the supreme being. It contains, at 6.23, the earliest use of the word bhakti in the Vedic corpus, and with the Kaṭha it describes breath control and posture. More in The Upanishadic Turn →

T

Tantra also Tantric Idea: Tantra is a religious logic of initiation by a guru rather than by birth, of mantra, maṇḍala and visualization, and of the body as the site of practice. It is documented from the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā, c. 450–550 CE, the oldest surviving Śaiva Tantra, and the pūjā of an ordinary Hindu temple today is largely Tantric rather than Vedic in structure. More in Puranic Hinduism →
Thanjāvūr also Thanjavur, Tanjore, Brihadeeswarar temple, Brihadisvara Place: Thanjāvūr, in the Kāverī delta of the Tamil country, is the site of the Bṛhadīśvara temple, consecrated by Rājarāja Chola I in 1010 with a vimāna of about 63 metres. Its inscriptions record over six hundred temple personnel, each assigned a share of house and land: the Chola temple economy is the best-documented religious economy in premodern India. More in Bhakti and the Regional Turn →

U

Upanayana Idea: Upanayana is the Vedic initiation that carries the right to Vedic study. In the later Vedic period the śūdra is formally barred from it; the often-repeated claim that girls lost access to it has no Brāhmaṇa-period evidence, only much later digests. More in Late Vedic →
Upaniṣads also Upanishads, Upanisads Text: The Upaniṣads are esoteric Vedic texts ('sitting down close to' a teacher), composed c. 700–200 BCE, in which karma, rebirth, mokṣa and the identity of self and brahman first appear. They contain incompatible positions rather than a single philosophy, and later tradition calls them the Vedānta, the 'end of the Veda'. More in The Upanishadic Turn → When were the Upanishads written?
Uṣas also Ushas, Usas Deity: Uṣas is the Rigvedic goddess of the dawn, whose roughly 21 hymns are the most lyrical in the collection. She is vestigial by the later Vedic period and then disappears. More in The Oral Rigveda →

V

Varṇa also Varna, caste, four varnas Idea: Varṇa is the fourfold social order of brāhmaṇa, rājanya or kṣatriya, vaiśya and śūdra. It appears only once in the Rigveda, in the Puruṣa Sūkta of the latest layer; it hardens toward birth in the later Vedic Brāhmaṇas and is codified as a comprehensive legal order in the Manusmṛti, c. 200 BCE – 200 CE. More in The Oral Rigveda → Was caste in the Rigveda?
Varuṇa also Varuna, Mitra-Varuna, Mitra Deity: Varuṇa is the Rigvedic god who, paired with Mitra in about 35 hymns, guards ṛta, cosmic and moral order, and the keeping of oaths. Mitra and Varuṇa are named in the Mitanni treaty of c. 1350–1320 BCE; later Varuṇa narrows toward the waters, is demoted to a sea-god, and ends as a guardian of a compass direction. More in The Oral Rigveda →
Vedānta also Vedanta Idea: Vedānta, the 'end of the Veda', is the philosophical school that reconciles the Upaniṣads, with Bādarāyaṇa's Brahmasūtra as its root text. In the Gupta age it is one system among six; in c. 600–1200 CE it becomes the dominant Brahmanical system and splits into rival schools, and its later standing as the Hindu philosophy owes much to Śaṅkara and, more, to Neo-Vedānta. More in Puranic Hinduism →
Videha also Kosala, Kashi, Videgha Place: Videha, with Kosala and Kāśī (modern eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), is the eastern Ganga frontier where the Upaniṣads were composed; King Janaka of Videha is their great patron. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa's Videgha Māthava myth remembers the Vedic frontier moving east into this marshy, less brahmanized country. More in The Upanishadic Turn →
Viśiṣṭādvaita also Vishishtadvaita, qualified non-dualism, Ramanuja Idea: Viśiṣṭādvaita, 'qualified non-dualism', is Rāmānuja's Vedānta: brahman is one but genuinely possesses attributes, and the world and individual souls are its body. Written by Rāmānuja (probably c. 1077–1157) on the same Brahmasūtra as Śaṅkara, it defends the Ālvārs' devotional theism: souls are real, and the path is bhakti. More in Bhakti and the Regional Turn →
Viṣṇu also Vishnu, Visnu, Narayana Deity: Viṣṇu is one of Hinduism's two supreme gods, though in the Rigveda he has only about five hymns and is known for taking three strides across the cosmos. The Brāhmaṇas identify him with the sacrifice ('yajño vai viṣṇuḥ'), and by the last centuries BCE, fused with Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa, he is supreme for his devotees, with an avatāra theology. More in The Oral Rigveda →

Y

Yajurveda also Yajur Veda, Taittiriya Samhita, Shatarudriya, Sri Rudram Text: The Yajurveda is the Veda of sacrificial formulas, compiled in its saṃhitās c. 1200–900 BCE. Its offering lists are where rice, wheat and sesame enter the record, and its Śatarudrīya (Taittirīya Saṃhitā 4.5) contains the first 'namaḥ śivāya', addressed to Rudra. More in Late Vedic →
Yoga Idea: Yoga is a family of disciplines whose meaning has changed several times. In the Rigveda the word means yoking a chariot; meditation with breath control and posture is first described in the Kaṭha and Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣads (c. 500–300 BCE); Patañjali's Yogasūtra dates c. 100 BCE – 400 CE; and flowing postural yoga took shape in the early twentieth century. More in Modern and Contemporary → How old is yoga?
Yogasūtra also Yoga Sutras, Yoga Sutra, Patanjali Text: The Yogasūtra of Patañjali is the root text of the Yoga school, 195 sūtras on an eight-limbed discipline for stilling the fluctuations of the mind, dated c. 100 BCE – 400 CE. Posture gets three of its sūtras (2.46–48). More in Puranic Hinduism → How old is yoga?