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India

The religious life of India is both ancient and diverse and increasingly plays a role in global culture. The very term India and its cognate terms, Hindu and Hindi, are global words, since they were applied to the people, culture, and language of the Indian subcontinent by people viewing it and entering it from outside. For this reason it is hard to define exactly what Hinduism is, though the census figures confidently record some 80% of India's population of 1.2 billion people as Hindu. Another 13% are Muslims; 2.3% are Christians; and less than 2% are Sikhs. Smaller numbers are listed as Jains, Buddhists, and Jews.

By definition, the traditional religious culture of India is the one associated with its cognate term, Hinduism. The terms India, Hindu, and Hindi all come from the name of the Sindus (Indus) river. Foreigners entering the subcontinent from the northwest regarded the people in the region of the Indus and beyond as indus—the Hindus, who by extension, lived in the land of India. The word was used by the Greek historian Herodotus in the fourth century BCE. The Greek general Alexander the Great entered the subcontinent around 326 BCE.

Ancient India Influenced by Aryans

It can be claimed that the very origins of India's cultural history are due to the global transmission of peoples and their traditions. Though indigenous cultural elements in the Indian subcontinent can be traced back thousands of years—the relics of a civilization found at the sites of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro give evidence of a thriving civilization some 2,000–3,000 years BCE—the rise of a distinctive religious and linguistic tradition that identified with Hinduism and Sanskrit texts begins with the influx of people and ideas from the northwest passage into the subcontinent sometime after 2000 BCE.

These people and their culture came from what is modern-day Iran, and in fact, the name Iran is cognate with the name of these people, the Aryans. They provide a connection that links together the cultures of Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia, a connection that is implied in the term Indo-European to describe the ancient substratum of culture that lies beneath both Indian and European regions. The Aryan connection can be seen in the linguistic similarities that are found between many modern European languages and the languages of North India. The gods of the ancient Indian scriptures, the Vedas, bear striking resemblances to the Greek, Roman, and even Norse gods, providing another illustration of this ancient transregional connection.

Indian Origins of Global Buddhism

As trade routes developed between Europe and Asia, India was able to influence global cultural currents, as well as being influenced by them. By the sixth century BCE, land routes through Central Asia became established that brought both merchandise and cultural elements from one region to another. These various trails and transfer points were later collectively known as the Silk Road due to the popularity of Chinese silks, porcelains, spices, and other consumer goods that were transported overland to Europe. The Silk Road also connected to trade routes in India and Persia. The “road” was in fact a series of crisscrossing trails and roadbeds traversed by a series of local transporters who would hand off the goods to neighboring carriers and thus enable materials to traverse the entire distance.

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