Asian Studies

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Historical Background

Hinduism or the Vedic culture is the oldest of the religions of the contemporary times and originated with a race of the Aryans who had come to the Indian subcontinent at a period estimated to be at least two thousand years B .C . even though it started as a philosophy propounded by the Aryan thinkers , it later became associated with Gods , Goddesses rituals and worship and hence , became a religion (Reed 124

Buddhism on the other hand originated much later in

the Indian subcontinent at a time when the Hindu prince Siddhartha avoided material leaving and rejected the Hindu scriptures ,rituals teachings and other aspects of the Hindu religion concerning creation and the self . He however , embraced certain aspect of the Hindu religion especially those propounding the belief that existence is controlled by the law of Karma and that existence proceeds through many lives . His followers referred to him as the enlightened one (Buddha

Early influence

Initially , the Arians who founded the Hinduism religion orally communicated their scriptures from generations to generations while taking care not to merge them with other beliefs and practices that were prominent at the time . However , when such interactions became an inevitable course , the Aryan seers resorted to the recording of their scriptures to help affirm their beliefs and practices (Reed 127 . This ensured that despite subsequent intermingling , the pristine form of their beliefs would not be lost . Sanskrit being the spoken language at the time , it...