Religion in India

India is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world, with one of the most deeply religious societies and cultures. Religion plays a central and definitive role in the life of the country and most of its people.

The faith of more than 80.4% of the people is Hinduism, considered the world's oldest religious and philosophical system. Islam is practiced by around 13.4% of all Indians.

Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism are Indian-born religious systems that are strong and influential not only in India but across the world. Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and the Bahá'í Faith are also influential but their numbers are smaller.

Despite the strong role of religion in Indian life, atheism and agnostics are also visible influences.

Hinduism

The adherents of Hinduism form the largest religious community in India, numbering approximately 900 million and comprising 80.5% of the population. About 50 million Hindus of Indian origin are living abroad (notably the USA, Fiji, Mauritius, UK and South Africa). Hinduism in India has a long and varied history. Indeed, India is the birth-place of Hinduism and the history of Hinduism is as old as that of India herself. Hinduism is a set of practices of the people of India. The word Hindu is derived from the word Sindhu and signifies a person coming from the land of the river Sindhu^ǂ (i.e., India). Hinduism has origins of around 2500 BCE. Modern Hinduism has taken the form of a religion due to other religious influences. However, it is known as a "way of life" rather than a religion. It differs from other religions by the fact that it does not have a single founder, a specific theological system, a single system of morality, or a central religious organisation.

Despite attacks and invasions by various Arab and Afghan empires during and after the 7^th century CE, Hinduism has survived. The reason is said to be the in-built tolerance and inclusiveness in Hinduism.

See The Following Articles for More Information: Hinduism, Hindu, Vedic religion

Buddhism

Buddhism, known in ancient India as Buddha Dharma, originated in northern India in what is today the state of Bihar. It rapidly gained adherents during the Buddha's lifetime. It was also the religion of the rich and the upper classes and hence Up to the 9th century, Indian followers numbered in the hundreds of thousands only compared to other religions which numbered in millions. While the exact cause of the decline of Buddhism in India is disputed, it is known that the mingling of Hindu and Buddhist societies in India and the rise of Hindu Vedanta movements began to compete against Buddhism. Many believe that Hinduism's adaptation to Buddhism resulted in Buddhism's rapid decline. Also, Muslim invaders are recorded to have caused massive devastation on monasteries, libraries, and statuary, as they did on Hindu religious life. Many Indian Buddhist populations remained intact in or migrated to places like Sri Lanka, Tibet, and other Asian countries. The loss of main centers of pilgrimage and supplanting the upper class by new islamic upper class caused the decline of Buddhism in India.

Recently, a revival of Buddhism in India has made significant progress. In 1956, B. R. Ambedkar, a princely state official during the Indian struggle for independence from the United Kingdom, and thousands of his followers converted to Buddhism in protest against the caste system. Subsequent mass conversions on a lesser scale have occurred since then. Three-quarters of these "neo-Buddhists" live in Maharashtra. Alongside these converts are the Vajrayana Buddhists of Ladakh, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh, a small number of tribal peoples in the region of Bengal, and Tibetan refugees. Today around 8 million Buddhists live in India.

Jainism

Jainism, along with Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, is one of the four major Dharmic religions originating in India. In general, Jains are extremely well-represented in spite of the fact that they form only 0.4% (around 4.2 million) of India's total population. Many of India's Jains are affluent, and almost all are well off. As such, it can be said that they hold power and wealth disproportionate to their small population. According to the India Census 2001, Jains have the highest literacy rate (In respect to religious affiliation) of 94.1% compared to the national average of 64.8%.

Christianity

Main article: Christianity in India

Christianity, according to tradition arrived in India in the first century (c.52-85AD) through the apostle Thomas. The chronicle of his mission in India is recorded in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, and the lesser-known Apocolypse of Thomas. In these books, Judas Thomas is regarded as the "Twin" of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, alleging that since this Thomas was identical in look to Christ, he was equal in piety. The apostle completed the conversion of a Malabar prince, and founded a church on the prince's grounds. According to the Gospel of Thomas, he later was buried in the foundation of that building, located by tradition near Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

The events of Thomas' mission in India has been explored by scholars for centuries. They question whether the event was historically accurate, or in tradition of building the Indian Christian communities growing along the Malabar coast.

Christianity was later consolidated in India, by the arrival of Syriac Jewish-Christians now known as Knanaya people in the second century C.E. This ancient ethnic Christian community of Kerala is known as Nasrani or Syrian Christian. The Nasrani people and especially the Knanaya people within the Nasranis have strong Jewish historical ties. Their form of Christianity is one of the most ancient: Syriac Christianity which is also known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and referred to in India as Saint Thomas Christians. It should be noted that the term "Saint Thomas Christians" is a loose term that many non-Nasranis Christians in Kerala are often labeled. The vast majority of Christians in Kerala are not the original Nasrani/Knanaya but indigenous local converts.

Roman Catholicism reached India during the period of European colonization, which began in 1498 when the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived on the Malabar coast. Christian missionary activity increased in the early 1800s. Today Christianity is the third largest religion of India making up 2 - 2.9% of the population. Christians are most prevalent in the southern states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, northeastern states such as Nagaland, Mizoram and in western state Goa.

Islam

Main article: Islam in India

Islam arrived in India as early as the 8th century CE. During the following decades, Islam contributed greatly to the cultural enhancement of an already rich Indian culture, shaping not only the shape of Northern Indian classical music (Hindustani, a melding of Indian and Middle Eastern elements) but encouraging a grand tradition of Urdu (a melding of Hindi, Arabic and Persian languages) literature both religious and secular. Among other monuments, the Taj Mahal is a gift of the Mughals. As of 2001, there are about 130 million Muslims in India who are scattered throughout the country, with the highest concentrations being in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam and parts of the Gangetic plain. Uttar Pradesh in the Gangetic plain has the highest population of Muslims in one state.

Zoroastrianism

A form of the ancient Persian religion Zoroastrianism continues to be practiced in India, where its followers are called Parsis. Suffering persecution from Muslim rulers in what is now modern-day Iran, Zoroastrian immigrants were granted protection by a Hindu king at a place called Sanjan in the western Indian state of Gujarat many centuries ago.

Sikhism

Sikhism, was founded in India's northwestern Punjab region about 400 years ago. As of 2001 there were 19.3 million Sikhs in India. Many of today's Sikhs are situated in Punjab, the largest Sikh province in the world and the ancestral home of Sikhs. There are also significant populations of Sikhs in the neighboring states of Haryana and New Delhi. The most famous Sikh temple is the Golden Temple, located in Amritsar, Punjab. Many Sikhs serve in the Indian Army. The current prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is a Sikh. Punjab is the spiritual home of Sikhs and is the only state in India where Sikhs form a majority.

Judaism

Main article: Jews in India

Trade contacts between the Mediterranean region and the west coast of India probably led to the presence of small Jewish settlements in India as long ago as the early first millennium B.C. In Kerala a community of Jews tracing its origin to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 has remained associated with the cities of Kodungallur (formerly known as Cranganore) and Kochi (formerly known as Cochin) for at least 1,000 years. The Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi, rebuilt in 1568, is in the architectural style of Kerala but preserves the ritual style of the Sephardic rite, with Babylonian and Yemenite influence as well. The Jews of Kochi, concentrated mostly in the old "Jew Town," were completely integrated into local culture, speaking Malayalam and taking local names while preserving their knowledge of Hebrew and contacts with Southwest Asia. A separate community of Jews, called the Bene Israel, had lived along the Konkan Coast in and around Bombay, Pune, and Ahmadabad for almost 2,000 years. Unlike the Kochi Jews, they became a village-based society and maintained little contact with other Jewish communities. They always remained within the Orthodox Jewish fold, practicing the Sephardrew is coolite without rabbis, with the synagogue as the center of religious and cultural life. Following trade routes established by the expansion of the British Empire, a third group of Jews, the Baghdadi Jews immigrated to India, settling primarily in Bombay and Calcutta. Many of the Baghdadi traders became wealthy and participated prominently in the economic leadership of these growing cities. As a result of religious pressure elsewhere, including the forced conversions of Mashhad (see Muslim Jew), their numbers were increased by religious refugees. The Baghdadis came mostly from the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Afghanistan.

The population of the Kochi Jews, always small, had decreased from 5,000 in 1951 to about fifty in the early 1990s. During the same period, the Bene Israel decreased from about 20,000 to 5,000, while the Baghdadi Jews declined from 5,000 to 250. Emigration to Australia, Israel, the United Kingdom, and North America accounts for most of this decline. According to the 1981 Indian census, there were 5,618 Jews in India, down from 5,825 in 1971. The 1991 census showed a further decline to 5,271, most of whom lived in Maharashtra and Kerala.

The Knanaya and Nasrani Christian groups also have strong historical ties to Judaism.

Bahá'í Faith

Main article: Bahá'ís in India