The big idea: Hinduism has no single founder and no single creed.
Many Hindus call the tradition sanatana dharma. What holds it together is shared practice and shared texts far more than an agreed list of beliefs.
The tradition grew over thousands of years across the Indian subcontinent, absorbing and reshaping older strands as it went. Its adherents today live across the world, with the largest communities in India and Nepal.
Because it grew rather than being founded, a sentence beginning "Hindus believe…" is almost always too narrow. Name the school, the text or the community instead.
| Layer | What it holds | Standing |
|---|---|---|
| Shruti — "that which is heard" | The Vedas and the Upanishads | Held to be revealed, not composed. The highest authority |
| Smriti — "that which is remembered" | The Mahabharata, which contains the Bhagavad Gita; the Ramayana; the Laws of Manu | Composed by named sages. Immensely influential, and far more widely read |
Some of the main streams
- Vaishnava — devotion centred on Vishnu and his avatars, especially Krishna and Rama
- Shaiva — devotion centred on Shiva
- Shakta — devotion centred on the Goddess, the divine feminine creative power
- Smarta — worship of several deities as forms of one reality
- Alongside these run six philosophical systems, the darshanas, which read the same texts very differently
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The guide's first question: Hindus hold that the atman is caught in samsara — an endless cycle of reincarnation driven by karma.
Karma is not reward and punishment handed down by a judge. In most Hindu accounts it is a law built into how things work: an action carries consequences, and those consequences shape the next life as surely as this one.
The guide adds a point students often miss. Bad karma is described as having a corrupting effect on the universe, not only on the person who acts. What one person does is held to matter beyond that person.
What is caught
- The atman — the self or soul
- In Advaita Vedanta it is held to be identical with Brahman, ultimate reality
- In other schools, such as Ramanuja's, it is real and distinct but dependent on God
What holds it there
- Karma — the consequences of action
- Maya — the world experienced as illusory form
- Attachment to what is passing, which generates further karma
Schools disagree, and saying so earns marks: Whether the atman and Brahman are one, distinct, or somewhere between is the central argument in Hindu philosophy.
Shankara's Advaita says one. Ramanuja and Madhva say otherwise. Naming that disagreement is exactly the internal diversity the markbands reward.
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The guide gives two destinations, and they are not alternatives at the same level. One is where almost everyone goes next. The other is the release from going anywhere at all.
The two destinations
A favourable or unfavourable reincarnation
The ordinary outcome. Karma accumulated in this life shapes the circumstances of the next one. Death is a doorway within samsara, not out of it.
Moksha — liberation
Release from samsara and from the consequences of karma. Schools describe what liberation is very differently: for Advaita it is realising the atman was never separate from Brahman; for devotional traditions it is unending nearness to God.
Round again, or out altogether.
How Hinduism answers the guide's three questions, in its own terms.
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The word to be careful with: Do not write that moksha is "going to heaven". Heavens exist in Hindu cosmology, but they are held to be inside samsara — pleasant, and temporary.
Moksha is release from the cycle itself.
The guide names two broad routes. They are not rivals: most Hindus live by the first and may take up the second.
Fulfilling dharma
- Performing the actions that belong to one's dharma — religious and moral duty
- For many, that duty is shaped by jati (caste) and stage of life, together called varnashramadharma
- The Bhagavad Gita argues that doing one's own duty, without grasping at the results, is itself a path
Following a yoga
- Jnana yoga — the path of knowledge: study, reasoning, realising what the atman is
- Bhakti yoga — the path of devotion: love of a personal God, open to anyone
- Karma yoga — the path of action: acting rightly without attachment to the fruit of the act
Caste, handled honestly: Caste discrimination is illegal in India and rejected by many Hindus, including many who keep the wider framework of dharma.
The guide asks you to know that varnashramadharma shapes duty in classical Hindu teaching. It does not ask you to present caste as uncontested — and it is not.
Answering the third question well: Name a path, say what it asks of a person, and say what it is aiming at.
"Bhakti yoga is devotion to a personal God, open to people of any background, and it aims at moksha understood as nearness to God" does all three in one sentence.