1. Understanding World Religions
Chapter Nine.
Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
© 2011 Irving Hexham
© 2011 Irving Hexham

2. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Source: Alexander the Great. Vincent Arthur Smith, The Early History of India from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, Oxford, Clarendon Press, Used with permission. © 2011 Irving Hexham
Indian history is intertwined with that of Europe. The above bust is of the Greek King Alexander the Great who invaded India in the 4th. century B.C.

3. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Source: C. P. Cape Benares, London, Robert Culley, In the public domain. © 2011 Irving Hexham
This photograph taken in the early 20th century shows a Hindu sacrifice which is remarkably similar to African sacrifices. Sacrifices are among the earliest recorded Hindu religious acts and contrary to the impressing given by many writers they continue to be popular in India until today.

4. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Photos by Irving Hexham © 2011 Irving Hexham
In North American Hindu temples sacrifices take a milder form. The two photographs above show worshipers participating in sacrificial rituals in a mid-Western temple.

5. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Source: Sir Richard Temple, Journals kept in Hydrabad, Kashmir, Sikkiam and Nepal, London, W. H. Allen, © 2011 Irving Hexham
Although temples play a key role in the Hindu tradition there is little evidence for their existence before the 5th. and 6th. centuries A.D. The above 19th. century painting is of one of the oldest Hindu temple, the Martand Temple of the Sun

6. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Source: . Otto Fischer, Die Kunst Indiens, Chinas und Japans, Berlin, Propyläen Verlag, In the public domain. © 2011 Irving Hexham
Similarly, rock carving like the one above have come to represent the essence of the Hindu tradition. Yet they do not begin to appear until relatively late in Indian history Furthermore, most of the early carvers were influenced by the Greeks.

7. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Source History of India, date and author unknown – mid C19 – in the public domain. © 2011 Irving Hexham
Throughout much of Indian history sati, or the suicide of widows who threw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre was a common practice sanctioned by religious leaders.

8. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Photo by Irving Hexham of the statue of Ram Mohan Roy in Bristol, England © 2011 Irving Hexham
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries various reform
movements, like that founded by Ram Mohan Roy, developed within Indian society. They objected to sati and similar practices and developed modernized forms of the Hindu tradition on the basis of the philosophy of Vedanta.

9. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Photo by Irving Hexham © 2011 Irving Hexham
As a result of the efforts of reformer the Hindu tradition has both changed and adapted to the modern world. In the above photograph a Hindu priest blesses a car while family look on.

10. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
Photo by Irving Hexham © 2011 Irving Hexham
One of the most striking changes affecting Hindus is the spread of the Hindu tradition throughout the world making it a global religion. The striking architecture of the Hare Krishna Temple in Durban, South Africa, bares witness to this development.