Hinduism and other religions – Wikipedia

In the field of compared religions, some have sought to discover similarities between the Hinduism and other religions.

Hinduism has long coexisted with Buddhism and Jainism (ascetic traditions), and more recently, with Sikhism, within the Indian subcontinent. Consequently, these religious traditions share a number of terms and concepts, such as Dharma and Karma.

In Hinduism, openness to other religions is very old. In Purana Scriptures, the historic Buddha is described as an incarnation (Avatar) of Vishnu. At XIX ^{It is} century, the Hindu Hinds Swâmi Ratamakrishna and Vivekananda celebrate religious diversity, tolerance and pluralism ^{[ first ]} .

See also non -Christian Christology

There have been some debates on the historical ties between Christianity and Indian religion, although the emphasis was placed on Buddhism and Christianity (via orthodoxy and Buddhism), more than on Hinduism proper . So it is well known that a number of Indian wise men visited Constantinople in classical antiquity, the idea of ​​a significant and reciprocal influence has never obtained a large adhesion. The study of Jesus Christ in comparative mythology focused on Krishna in particular. There Krishinology is an invented term to bring out theological parallels between the religion of Krishna and Christology in dogmatic theology. A certain pseudo-scientific literature postulates that Jesus traveled to India after surviving his crucifixion, starting with Nicolas Notovitch ^{[ 2 ]} , these theories having been relaunched during the period of esotericism of the 1980s ^{[ 3 ]} .

There are also notable similarities between Christian and Hindu theology, more particularly in the Trinitarian representation of God. The Holy Trinity of Christianity, composed of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is sometimes considered to be almost analogous to the Trimūrti of Hinduism, whose members – Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shiva – are considered the three main manifestations of Brahman, or deity. In Hinduism (as well as in Jainism and Sikhism), the concept of Moksha is related to that of the Nirvana of Buddhism, as well as to the Christian Doctrine of Salvation.

Swami tripurari stipule:

(…) In theory, sinners around the world are the beneficiaries of the sacrifice of Christ, but it is for the pleasure of God the Father that Christ suffered the crucifixion, even if the joy of the Father, in this scenario , lies in the salvation of sinners. Christ represents the intermediary between God and humanity, and his life illustrates well the fact that he is the sacrifice by which we have just met our Creator. Thus, via Christ, the divine teaches us “the way” more than the objective. The conception of Christ represents “the way” in the sense that the way is sacrifice, from which love will be born. Krishna’s conception represents what we can not only for, but must sacrifice ourselves, constrained by the irresistible attributes of the divinity, etc. which are portrayed there.

Vedanta philosophy, since XIX ^{It is} century, influenced certain Christian thinkers (see also: Pierre Johanns, Abhishiktananda, Bede Griffiths).

Apart from the Goa Inquisition, there is no story of Hindus’ forced conversion to Christianity. The statement Our age officially establishes the inter-religious dialogue between Catholics and Hindus. It has promoted common values ​​between religions. There are more than 17.3 million Catholics in India, which represents less than 2% of the total population is the largest Christian church in India (see also: Dalit theology).

Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity differ on fundamental beliefs concerning heaven, hell and reincarnation, to name only a few. From a Hindu point of view, the sky (in Sanskrit weighty ) and hell ( hell ) are temporary places, where each soul must live, whether for good deeds done or for their sins committed. After a soul has suffered from his punishment in hell, or after a soul has taken advantage of paradise, they come back again in the cycle of life and death. There is no concept of a “permanent” hell. The Karma cycle takes over. Permanent paradise or bliss is “Moksha.”

Hinduism is recognized in the Bahá’í faith as one of the nine known religions and its scriptures are considered to predict the arrival of Bahá’u’lláh (Kalki Avatar). Krishna is included in the succession of the manifestations of God. The authenticity of Hindu sacred texts is considered uncertain.

Buddhism, a tradition born within Hinduism, incorporated many elements, such as the four goals of human existence or pouroushârtha which are articulated in a slightly different way and called the “four perfection factors” ^{[ 4 ]} .

However, the “non-brahmanic” aspect of Buddhism should not be exaggerated; In Hinduism and Buddhism , Ananda Coomaraswamy writes on this subject:

“There is [in Buddhism] an ethical teaching for secular, with commandments and defenses on what to do or not do, but nothing that can be described as a” social reform “or a protest against the system Castes. The distinction which is made repeatedly between the “real brâhmane” and the simple brâhmane by birth is that which the Brahmanic books constantly asserted. (…) It is not to establish a new order, but to restore an ancient order that the Buddha has come down from the sky. »»

Or, about Anatman:

“The tank, with all its parts, corresponds to what we call our self; There was no tank before his parts were assembled, and there will be no more when they go into pieces; There is no tank outside of its parts; The “chariot” is only a name, given by convenience to a certain object of perception, and which cannot be taken for an entity ( sattwa ). It is the same for us who are, like the tank, “assemblies”. (…) The Arhat (…) has long exceeded any belief in a personality that would be its own. But all this does not mean – and it is said nowhere – that “there is no self”. On the contrary, there are such passages where, after the counting of the five constituents of our evanescent and unreal “existence”, we find, not the usual formula of negation, “this is not my self”, but the Positive command: “take refuge in the self”, just as Buddha says he did it himself. (…) Of course, it is very true that the Buddha denied the existence of the soul or the “self” in the narrow sense of the term (…), but that is not that (…) that our readers understand; What they mean is that the Buddha denied the immortal self, without birth and supreme of the Upanishads. And this is blatant. Because [the Buddha] often talks about this self (…), and nowhere as clear as in the repeated formula Na love Attâ , “This is not my self” whose exclusion relates to the body and the elements of empirical consciousness. »»