Why I Am a Hindu

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Food is an important part of life for Hindus. Most don’t eat beef or pork, and many are vegetarians.

The Medieval Period of Hinduism lasted from about A.D. 500 to 1500. New texts emerged, and poet-saints recorded their spiritual sentiments during this time. Overall, the book’s first part does a fine job of showing how Hinduism has historically been accepting, non-dogmatic, and pluralistic; and the second part neatly describes the many ways in which the Hindu nationalist movement has abandoned those same values – ironically moving away from Hinduism’s open and agreeable nature to adopt the parochial and fanatical ways that they’ve decried in others.

Match the names to the deities

The Epic, Puranic and Classic Periods took place between 500 B.C. and A.D. 500. Hindus began to emphasize the worship of deities, especially Vishnu, Shiva and Devi. But Vivekananda’s thesis neatly flattened out the challenge that Buddhism had posed to Brahmanical power, the monarchical state, ritualism, and caste discrimination. It simply assimilated Buddhism into Hinduism.

So who knows truly whence this great creation sprang? Who knows whence this creation had its origin?Most scholars believe Hinduism started somewhere between 2300 B.C. and 1500 B.C. in the Indus Valley, near modern-day Pakistan. But many Hindus argue that their faith is timeless and has always existed. Hindus strive to achieve dharma, which is a code of living that emphasizes good conduct and morality. Hinduism could not have a more articulate proponent than Dr. Shashi Tharoor, who is Hindu both by birth and conviction and also thoroughly at home in the English-speaking intellectual world. For an American reader, a great strength of this book is precisely that it was not written for a Christian audience--since I am not at all sure that someone from an Abrahamic tradition even CAN really grasp Hinduism, in all of its hospitable plurality and avoidance of sectarian certainty. Why I Am a Hindu" was written in the context of growing electoral victories by the Hindu nationalist BJP political party (which claims to represent "real Hinduism" and to speak for a Hindu India rather than the secular pluralism of Gandhi and Nehru) and so written primarily for an Indian audience.