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The country India is famous as the land of mysticism and values, was the origin of some religions, that continue living today in the world.
The mainly prevailing religion in India at the moment is Hinduism. Approximately 75% of Indians are Hindus. Hinduism is a multicolored religion with an infinite gallery of Gods and Goddesses. Hinduism is one of the very old religions in the world. It is thought to have been developed approximately 5000 years ago. After that in the early period other religions also came into existence in India.
Approximately 510 BC two more religions came into existence, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. These days only about 0.5% of Indians are Jains and about 0.7% people are Buddhist. In olden times Jainism and especially Buddhism were very famous in India. The people of India who accepted Buddhist viewpoint multiplied not only inside the Indian sub-continent but in addition it spread far and wide to kingdoms east and south of India.
The three oldest religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, are seen as the base of the Indian philosophy. In contemporary period many fresh religions were also recognized in India.
One relatively latest religion in the country is Sikhism and it came into being in the 15th century. Approximately 2.5% people of India are Sikhs. There were different efforts to generate new religions in India but they did not invariably thrive. For instance, a Moghul emperor, Akbar, who ruled from 1556, made an attempt to develop a new religion, Din- E- Elahi, but it did not continue to exist for a very long time. There are other spiritual philosophies whose supporters see them as a separate religion, but they do not at all times get this respect. For instance Lingayat of south India see them as a diverse religion, while some others see them as a division of Hinduism. There are also some ancestral communities who insist upon to be accepted as a different religion from Hinduism.
Besides the religions that urbanized in India, there are supporters of religions which never originated in India. The chief non-Indian religion is Islam. They are about 22% of the population of India. Christians are further then 2% of India’s population. There are also Zoroastrians. Though they are less then 0.01% of India’s population but they are known all over India. There are a few thousand Jews in India. Judaism and Christianity might have reached in India before it came in Europe.
Related articles about India a
- Spiritual awakening (newstatesman.com)
- India’s Caste System: Some Thoughts (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
- The 5000 year narrative of Kashmir and Pakistan is the same history (teabreak.pk)
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