No, it is Hinduism!
What you see are lamps, flowers, fire, incense… what you do not see are the Vedas, the Vedanta and abstract concepts such as Dharma (righteousness), Karma (duty) and many others that make Hinduism what it is.
A quest
Hinduism was never meant to be a mere religion. It does not restrict itself to just one facet of human belief or one sphere of human activity. It goes beyond being a philosophy, a religion and a set of beliefs, rituals and practices. It is a quest which seeks to give rationality to reality by questioning it and seeking to explain ‘what is’, in a manner that is easy to understand and interesting enough to uphold. It is an entity whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
A way of living
Hinduism was initially called ‘Sanātana Dharmā’ which means ‘the eternal law that supports and sustains those who practice it’. It is based on the principles of Sāmānya Dharma (ethical values common to all) and samskāras (rituals). Ethical values train people to discipline their lives to be in harmony with the society while prescribed rituals serve to fine tune daily living. Dr. Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer said “The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology”. Modern science is able to explain many Vedic prescriptions only now!
The Vedas – A Knowledge Bank
At the very base of Hinduism lie the four timeless Vedas, which have been handed down by the Supreme Being, to a chosen few who proved themselves worthy enough to absorb it. These four Vedas, the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sāma Veda and the Atharva Veda form a vast and deep ocean of knowledge. They answer many questions and prescribe courses of action.
The Vedas lay down the varna (caste) system, a broad structure for the society based on the division of labor, the asramās or four stages of life that cater to the basic tendencies that surface at each stage of life and the codes of conduct and duty so that both the individual and the society flourish.
Over five thousand years, Hinduism has been interpreted, reinterpreted, modified, customized, deified, vilified, assaulted, reinvented and it still remains Hinduism, alive and thriving with all its warts and moles! Go ahead and Google the term Hinduism; there are 6,840,000 plus links for you to make the journey from the ritual to the spiritual and from the temporal to the sublime!
