Hinduism Is Misnomer

Hinduism in itself is a misnomer for what it pretend to describe. Actually there not a religion called Hinduism. Its the collective culture of the Indian subcontinent with all its diversity and its ancient values. Hence any person living in the Indian subcontinent is Hindu. The word Hindu itself is very recent in its origin. As any student of the history knows that word Hindu originate from Indus. Basic root of the word is Sindh and the country acros the Indus rever was came to be known as India over the period of time in Europian languages and Hindustan (Country of Hind, where Hind itself is modified form of Sindh). Before the arrival of Arabs who brought their religion of only one book (Islam) nobody in this ancient country knew that there is something called religion. They were simple people for them religion was righteousness. There were no rigid rule of righteousness also as such. There was the tradition of Shashtrartha (interpretation of edicts and ancient knowledge). Hence if you can prove your point and your principles in the widely accepted principles of time you are righteous. In this sense Indian society was very dynamic and not stagnated as the societies based on one single book. Here everything that was humane and righteous was accepted and respected. Sentiments of the people were respected. Wherever anybody was persecuted in the world they fled to India and our great ancestor gave them shelter and living space and enriching their own culture in the process by taking their fine points of culture and ideas.

If you still want to give a name to the religion of these people that is Sanatan Dharma (eternal religion). This eternal religion was very dynamic and ever changing. They were not the people bound by some one book or one single philosophy. They respected knowledgeable people with all philosophies as long as these philosophies were in broader human interest.

Now we talk about human rights and equality in this world, in India these are the basic principles of life that made the foundation of life itself. This society gave birth to great philosophers like Buddha and Mahavir. Now many people think that Jainism and Buddhism are separate religions but they are not. These were social reform movements to free the country from the clutches of the upper section of society dominated by Brahamins, who had made the caste system hereditary thing rather than normal division of labour.

Time and again this country and society have seen so many changes and kept on evolving over the period of time. Now time have come that we need another renaissance. We need to revive our glory as a society and that can happen only through education and self respect. People must learn to respect themselves and their ancient values and at the same time do away with the baggage of the things which have become obsolete over the period of time.

People must understand their eternal religion and should not be confined to some vague guidelines. We must again learn to respect all the alternative philosophies, we must learn the healthy debates that used to be there in the society over the righteous path.