Deities
- Thousands of lesser deities or devas 3 great or main deities, the Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva
Facts
- Hinduism is the 3rd largest and oldest religon in the world
- There is no single founder of hinduism
- They worship in a temple
- Most scriptures are written in sanskirt
- 8 important hindu festivals
Principles
- Hinduism includes a wide spectrum of laws and prescriptions of daily morality based on karma, dharma societal norms
- Is more about intellectual and philosophical points of veiw, rather than beliefs
- Formed by diverse traditions and has no single founder
- Often called the oldest living religon
Scriptures
- Shruti (heard)- its believed that ancient hindus, called rishis, heard the truths of the universe from the things around them and translated them into words that humans coud understand. Made up of vedas and upanishads
- Smirti (memorized)- peotry and epics, explains thruths through symbolism and mythology
Brahma
- Known as the creator of the world and the vedas, the hindu scriputre
- Wife was Saraswati, commonly known as the mother of the vedas
- Father of Manu, who all humans are descendants of
Vishnu
- He is commonly known as anrayana
- Described as having devine color of water filled clouds
- Four armed and holding clouds
- He is the god of the present
Shiva
- Is a major hindu deity
- Destroyer of transformer among the Trimurti
- Is known as the most poewrful god in Hinduism
- Has 5 major works, creator, preserver, destroyer, concealer, and revealer
- Also known as Rudra
- Often described as slaying demons
- Involved deeply in meditation usually
Military Conquest:
- Historians cnsider these conquers of this time the bloodiest chapter of human history
- There was a lot of good rulers durig this time period
- 500 BC: The ascetic prince Mahavira founds Jainism in northern India
- The magadha dynasties: 3 dynasties, Shishunaga, Nanda, and Maurya
- Mauryan Armies were made up of 4 parts: Charit, elephant, infantry and archers
- The chola dynasty dominated the southern part of India around 500 BC
- The Himalayan mountians split India from the rest of Asia, leaving manby of the Indian kingdoms open for battle and dominance
- At the peak of the Mauryan empire thay had 750,000 soldiers
- Most welfare was between the Indian Kingdoms
- As military of India advanced, so did many other things such as elephants and bamboo bows
- They made advances in weaponry and armor
- Alexander the Great planned to take over India so he could get to the "great outer sea" which he belived was on the other side of India
- The deserts of India were mainly controlled by highly skilled mountained warriors called Rajput's
- The Shishunaga dynasty were the first to use catapults
- The bow was the main and most deadly weapon for Indian Military
- Maurya dynasty have 600,000 infantry men
- The Mauryan empire was the first empire to unite all of India
- The Mauryan empire was madeup of chariots, elephants and infantry and archers which was the largest part of the force
Comments