Origin of Hinduism

Hinduism is a religion with 3.3 billions various gods and goddesses. According to Hinduism, there are three major gods, namely Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver) and Shiva (the destroyer). The wife of Brahma is Sarasvati; goddess of learning. The wife of Vishnu is Lakshmi; Parvati is the goddess of wealth and prosperity and she is the wife of Shiva who is worshipped as Kali or Durga.

Some other gods and goddesses are Ganesh, son of Shiva and Parvati, goddess of river is Ganges, Prithvi is the goddess of earth. God Vishnu incarnated nine times on earth to rescue the Universe from demons. His nine appearance were Rama, Krishna, Narasimha, Parsuram and Buddha etc. Some Hindus worship only Vishnu but some Shiva. Others worship only the goddesses and call these goddesses collectively as Shakti Devi.

The tradition of Hindu culture specially based on some common factors in everyday life. These factors or customs make the religion simple, pure and loveable. The common tasks of a Hindus which have to perform in daily life are respect to elders, touching feet of an elder, offering pray to God (morning and evening) twice in a day; they should offer flower and foods to their God, shoes are not allowed in religious places, if someone carelessly touches some other with his or her feet or sandals then he or she should apologize immediately, they exchange gifts in festival or any ceremony and unknown persons should provide Namaskar or Pranam to each other.

There have some restriction in Hinduism and if anyone ignores it then he or she should be eliminated from this religion. Some vital of these are not eating the meat of cow because the cow are holy animal for Hinduism and they worship it as the medium of Lord Krishna. Hindu girls or Boys don?t make a marital relation with any one who follows other religions. After the death of somebody some rituals must have to follow by his family in Hindu religion. They should carry the body to a cremation room or Shamshan ghat with chanting of Ramah name and the body on Chita or coffin and finally the sons of death person burn the body.

Bhagavad Gita is the greatest religious books in the world. It describes the philosophy of a human life which should be obeyed to succeed. The scripts of Bhagavad Gita were depicted by the Hindu Supreme Lord Krishna as the advice to Arjuna during the battle of Kurukshetra.

The main story of Ramayana is a Biography of Lord Rama. He was born in a royal family and was supposed to be the king, but because of his step- mother, he was forced to exile from his kingdom for fourteen years. During this period his consort Sita was kidnapped by a demon called Ravan, who was king of Lanka. Rama with the help of his brother, Lakshman, and an army of monkeys under the leadership of Hanuman, rescued Sita. Many Indians believe that the present day Sri Lanka was then the kingdom of Lanka.

It is a family epic of the Pandavas and the Kaurav family who are cousins fight with each other for the control over a kingdom. Kaurav family, which consisted of 100 brothers rule an empire. The five Pandava brothers ask for a small kingdom which belongs to them. The Kauravas refuse to give the Pandavas the kingdom so there is a war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas in which it is believed that all the kingdoms of that period in India took part. In this war the Pandavas, with the help of Lord Krishna win the war.

There have many Hindu religious places in India and these spots are considered as very sacred to Hindus. Some important of these are the Badrinath, Puri, Dwarka and Rameshwaram. These four places accepted the holiest places for Indian Hindus. Other holy places are Varanasi, Rishikesh, Nasik, Pushkar, Ujjain and other places. Some rivers are also holy to them. Among them are Godavari, Yamuna and above all Ganges which the Indians call Ganga. Hindus also worship and respect some animals and birds like cobra (snake), apes, peacocks and cow. Hindus also respect some trees. The famous and the most respected bush tree is Tulsi.