Religions of the worldMenuHinduism: The world's third largest religion
Overview:Hinduism differs from Christianity and other monotheistic religions in that it does not have:
Hinduism is generally regarded as the world's oldest organized religion. It consists of "thousands of different religious groups that have evolved in India since 1500 BCE." 1 Because of the wide variety of Hindu traditions, freedom of belief and practice have traditionally been notable features of Hinduism. Most forms of Hinduism are henotheistic religions. They recognize a single deity, and view other Gods and Goddesses as manifestations or aspects of that supreme God or Goddess. Henotheistic and polytheistic religions have traditionally been among the world's most religiously tolerant faiths. As a result, India has traditionally been one of the most religiously tolerant in the world. However in 1998, a Hindu nationalistic political party the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) controlled the government of India. The linkage of religion, the national government, and nationalism led to a degeneration of the separation of church and state in India and a decrease in the level of religious tolerance in that country. An escalation of anti-Christian violence was one manifestation of this linkage. With the subsequent change in government, the level of violence has diminished somewhat, but intolerance still exists in some areas of the country. Hinduism has grown to become the world's third largest religion, after Christianity and Islam. It claims about 950 million followers -- about 14% of the world's population. 2 It is the dominant religion in India, where 95% of the world's Hindus live. It is also very common in Nepal, and among the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Estimates of the number of Hindus in the U.S. vary greatly:
Statistics Canada conducted their National Household Survey In 2011. They estimated that 157,015 Hindus live in Canada (1.51% of the total population). Unfortunately, they only update these numbers once each decade. 5
Topics covered in this section:
Amazon.com's online bookstore lists the following books on Hinduism:If you see a generic Amazon.com ad here, please click on your browser's refresh key. Also, you might consider:
Some links to Hindu websites:
References used:The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
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Carl Olson,
Ed., "Hindu Primary Sources: A sectarian reader," Rutgers University Press
(2007).
David Levinson, "Religion: A cross-cultural dictionary,"
Oxford University Press, (1998). 
