Hindu-Related Movements

The new movements within the Hindu cultural tradition of India have been the main forms in which global influences from other parts of the world have been manifested in the Hindu tradition. The global cultural outreach from India to other parts of the world has also been carried in the vessels of new Hindu-related movements.

Hinduism is the most predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent, although the meaning and scope of the terms Hindu and Hinduism are contested. Hinduism has evolved out of social diversity and competing religious traditions and so is often referred to as Sanatana Dharma (Eternal Law) and a “way of life” by its adherents. It has no single founder or scriptural authority and lacks a central authority to enforce religious prescriptions. In fact, Hinduism is more of a congregation of sects than an organized religion. Revolving around Varna-Ashram-Dharma principles of social organization, it has been described variously as Vedic Hinduism, Classical Hinduism, Brahmanism, Vaishnavism, and Bhakti religion. Although some Hindus do not belong to any specific denomination, others in contemporary India continue to follow a varying and conflicting set of mythologies, rituals, and practices born out of a mixture of classical Hinduism and folk traditions. Although Hinduism has deep roots in ancient India and Aryan religious traditions, contemporary Hinduism in modern India has been shaped by various sociocultural and political movements in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Saints and preachers in the medieval period, such as Nanak, Kabir, Raidas, Namdev, and Tukaram, challenged retrogressive practices of the caste system, but Hinduism continued to remain localized and segmented across regions and communities in India. Hinduism as a single, systematic, and unified religion has largely been a product of India's encounter with British colonialism in the early 19th century. Officials of the British colonial state, Christian missionaries, Orientialist scholars, native social reformers, and nationalist political leaders not only prepared the grounds for a revival of Hinduism, but also helped flourish the idea that regional, sectarian, and vernacular religious traditions in India possessed a sufficient coherence to be construed as a single, systematic religion in the subcontinent.