Doctrines and beliefs

That it is built on right practice and conformity to tradition and duty rather than on correct belief. Sanatana dharma has no creed.

Saguna conceives God as personal, with form and qualities; nirguna as non-personal and without form. Both are at home in the tradition, often in one person.

Brahma, responsible for creation; Vishnu, for the preservation of creation; Shiva, for destruction.

An incarnation of a god or God. The concept belongs chiefly to Vishnu, notably as Krishna and Rama.

Divine feminine creative power, worshipped in its own right. All male gods also have female consorts who sustain the sanatana dharma.

Advaita Vedanta (Shankara): one, and separation is maya. Vishishtadvaita (Ramanuja): distinct but wholly dependent. Dvaita (Madhva): permanently distinct.

As liberation, and as union or intimacy with God, or freedom from samsara — depending on schools of thought. It deliberately does not settle which.

The qualities of the created world — the strands out of which what is experienced is woven.

The ego or body, from which the atman is to be released in attaining moksha.

Because many Hindus describe the deities as forms of one reality, closer to monism, while others worship a personal deity as God. Say what is held and by whom.

As the layering of beliefs and practices in India over thousands of years — original teachings probably Dravidian, layered over by Aryan migration — noting that few original Aryan gods are now significant.

The Vedas, the Brahmins, the Upanishads and the gurus.

Domestic worship, which is where most Hindu worship happens and which is very often led by women.

Nyaya and Vaishesika (logic and categories); Samkya and Yoga (consciousness and matter, with Patanjali); Mimamsa and Vedanta (Vedic ritual, and the Upanishads).

Samkya, Yoga and Vedanta — their influence in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.

Bhakti yoga (devotion), jnana yoga (knowledge) and karma yoga (ethical action) — three sufficient means to moksha.

Roughly, the boundary of the orthodox schools — it distinguishes the darshanas from traditions that grew alongside Hinduism, such as Buddhism and Jainism.

Because authority is distributed and nothing can rule between readings, so a new reading becomes a sampradaya rather than a schism.

The tantric tradition, and Samkya's influence on Buddhism and Jainism — the subcontinent's schools developed in conversation with each other.

A Brahmin's comes by birth into the priestly varna and belongs to a group; a guru's comes by recognition as a teacher and is personal, earned in each generation.