Hinduism and Buddhism Essay

God as an excuse to make a profit. Priests become priests to make money and could care a less about doing good. They’ll sell statues and ways to attain enlightenment.” Persaud explained that social class and power is not only very defined within Hinduism but in all of India. In order to fully explain the caste system, Persaud drew it out on paper and identified where he and his family fall within it. “There are five levels of the caste system. Starting from the bottom you have the untouchables,…

A religion that has been practiced over 3,000 years is Hinduism, which has been originated in India. An interesting belief in Hinduism is the trinity of higher powers. Brahma is the creator; he never destroys what he creates. Vishnu is the great preserver, and his main purpose is to balance out the good and evil powers. Shiva, the destroyer and recreator, brings the dance or cycle of life to an end so a new cycle of life begins. However, there is only one true god the creator of the universe and…

A culture with a particularly unique view on death is India with their philosophical belief system of Vedanta. Academics Suriyaprakash and Geetha explain that those who subscribe to Vedanta travel through life trying to reach the ultimate stage of enlightenment called “Brahman” where an individual becomes whole which often happens after physical death (335). To reach this you must be able to conquer the fear of death, which is related to obtaining complete stillness of the mind. In order to do…

< Hinduism had its start in India, and even today over 80% of people living in India say that they follow Hinduism. Although a significant amount of people who believe in Hindu reside in India, there are still at least 30 million of the estimated 1 billion people who believe in Hinduism living in other countries. > Founder Holy People/Days God(s) Holy Book(s)/Writings Beliefs/Practices In Hinduism one…

influential in the forms of modern day Hinduism. The Bhagavad Gita today, is seen by some as a hot topic of debate on whether or not it supports a religious basis for the Caste system. When closely examining the book, one will find that it does, in fact, address the Caste system, although it undermines what the Caste system is…

The Bhagavad Gita and The Hebrew Bible A Comparison of Religious Literature The religious literature of Hinduism and Judaism differ everywhere from the original languages they were written in, too the basis of their fundamental views. While both share a monotheistic idea of god, Judaism sees god as strictly transcendent; where in Hinduism god is both transcendent and immanent. The Bhagavad Gita revolves around four main concepts, the first being Dharma. Social and religious rules, general…

Part One Ascribed Status (pg. 98) – A position an individual either inherits at birth of receives involuntarily later in life. Something I learned from the film that relates to ascribed status is how the people in the slums of Dharavi are typically generational ‘slumdogs’. This means they were probably given this low, economic status and label at birth, and this has been passed down generation from generation. The stigma attached to the label follows as well. With the movie Slumdog Millionaire,…

The story of Naaman in the Bible is one that boils down to two basic traits: obedience and humility. The Bible concordance defines obedience being submissive to authority and following orders. Whereas humility being the state of being humble, not proud, not arrogant, having a spirit of submission or deference, and a lack of pride. These traits are something that Naaman had to learn the hard way. Obedience to God begins with humility. Naaman had to learn this lesson, and believe that God’s way…

Islam and Sikhism are two major world religions that share many commonalities yet they are drastically different in many other aspects. Islam is a religion that arose in Arabia during the seventh century. Islam shares its roots with other major world religions, Judaism and Christianity. Islam is the youngest of these three Abrahamic faiths (Fisher, 2013). Sikhism is a particularly new religion in comparison and was founded in the Punjab area in the fifteenth century. While Islam is the youngest…

The Vedas are ancient scripts from an unknown religion in India, first recorded in about 1500 BCE. The four sacred text collections that compromise the Vedas are: Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, and Atharva Veda. The first, Rig Veda means hymn knowledge and describes how the universe was created from a being that existed before existence, and created the universe by his sacrificing himself. From this being its pieces constructed everything known, while specific pieces were used to refer to the…