الواقعالديني التعددي فی الهندوسية: دراسة تحليلية

The Reality of Religious Diversity in Hinduism: An Analysis

Abstract

The notion of Hinduism as a single world religion is an European colonial construction, largely dependent upon the presuppositions of the early Western Orientalists. First part of this research elaborates that the term does not reflect what Indian religions are really representing and fails to demonstrate a great variety that they are naturally divided into. This fact was well elucidated in the classical academic works, like those of Al-beruni and Ash-Shehristani.

The second part discusses the aspirations of modern Hindu reformers to construct one Hinduism as a religion equal or superior, to the popular world religions, pointing out that many attempts which were made by them did not succeed to achieve their goal. The third part dilates upon that the doctrinal schism mainly plays an important chunk to impede unity of Indian religious denominations. The fourth part is extensively involved to highlight some social factors in Indian religious history, pertinent to impossibility of construction of the one religion. The classification of Indian religions as Brahmanism, Saivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism Advaita Vedanta or others has to be viewed as essential in order to avoid methodological errors in the research works, which may emanate from the concept of one religion.