The big idea: The guide is blunt: sanatana dharma has no creed.
Hinduism is built on orthopraxy — right practice and conformity to tradition and duty — far more than on orthodoxy, correct belief. That single sentence answers a surprising number of Paper 2 questions.
So "what do Hindus believe?" is a harder question than it looks, and an essay that answers it with a list has already gone wrong.
What the guide does give is a set of beliefs held very widely, with the tradition disagreeing about how to understand almost all of them — which is why the schools matter.
Orthopraxy — what Hinduism runs on
- Doing one's dharma, the duty that belongs to one's place and stage
- Performing the samskaras and the daily puja
- Conformity to tradition and to family practice
- Two Hindus may believe very differently and both be entirely orthodox
Orthodoxy — what it does not run on
- No creed to subscribe to
- No single statement every Hindu must affirm
- No central body that could issue one
- Which is also why there is no Hindu equivalent of heresy in the Christian sense
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The one distinction to have ready: Hindus may conceive God as saguna — personal, with form — or as nirguna, non-personal and without form.
This is not two groups of Hindus. It is two ways the same tradition speaks, often in the same person.
One question, three worked answers inside Hinduism. Side by side, in no order of merit.
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Why this is the most useful thing in the unit: Almost every Paper 2 question on Hindu belief can be answered by naming this disagreement and showing what follows from each position.
It is the internal diversity the markbands ask for, already worked out.
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Where God is conceived as saguna — with form — Hindus often speak of Brahman as divided into three: the Trimurti.
| Deity | Role in the Trimurti | Worth adding |
|---|---|---|
| Brahma | The deity responsible for creation | Rarely the focus of devotion today, despite the role |
| Vishnu | Responsible for the preservation of creation | Worshipped through his avatars — incarnations, notably Krishna and Rama |
| Shiva | Responsible for destruction | Destruction here is part of a cycle rather than an evil; Shiva is worshipped by vast numbers |
Three further things the guide asks for
- All male gods have female consorts who sustain the sanatana dharma — and Shakti, divine feminine creative power, is worshipped in its own right
- Avatar — an incarnation of a god or God; the concept belongs chiefly to Vishnu
- The gunas — the qualities of the created world, the strands out of which what we experience is woven
"Polytheism" is not the safe word here: Many Hindus describe the deities as forms of one reality, which is closer to monism than to polytheism. Others worship a personal deity as God.
Say what is held, by whom, and let the label follow. Reaching for one word is how an accurate answer becomes a wrong one.
How this is tested. Theme 3 names eschatology and cosmogony separately. In Hinduism both are cyclical, which is the point to land.
Eschatology — where a life goes
- Samsara: the endless cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth of the atman
- The world is maya; attachment causes desire, and action causes karma
- Karma influences the next reincarnation
- The aim is moksha — union or intimacy with God, or freedom from samsara, depending on the school
Cosmogony — where the world comes from
- Creation mythology, with the role of Vishnu and Shiva or the goddess
- Creation is not a single event at the start of time
- The universe is described as arising, enduring and dissolving, repeatedly
- So the shape of the cosmos matches the shape of a life
The guide's own hedge is the mark: "…moksha and union or intimacy with God, or freedom from samsara depending on schools of thought."
The guide itself refuses to settle what moksha is. Writing "Advaita describes it as realisation; devotional schools as nearness to God" is you doing exactly what the markband asks.