Developments in Hindu Thought

What Developments in Hindu Thought covers

Component 07, one of the five Developments in Religious Thought options. The origins and diversity of Hinduism, its scriptures, Brahman and atman, karma and liberation, dharma and varnashramadharma, the Vedanta schools, and Hinduism's encounter with India, the West and reform.

The 12 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Origins and diversity in HinduismRecall questions on why Hinduism has no clear date of origin, the Indus Valley civilisation and its evidence, the Vedic period and the four Vedas, Vedic religion, Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shaktism, the paths to liberation, and whether Hinduism's diversity undermines its coherence.Open →
• Hindu scriptures and holy personsRecall questions on shruti and smriti, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana and the Manusmriti, sadhus, yogis, gurus and sannyasis, initiation, holy persons and the four stages of life, and whether scripture or holy people carry authority in Hinduism.Open →
• Brahman, atman and mokshaRecall questions on Brahman, atman and samsara, sat-chit-ananda, neti neti and tat tvam asi, teachings from the Chandogya and Katha Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita on the self, moksha, and whether Hinduism is monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic or monistic.Open →
• Samsara, karma and liberationRecall questions on karma and its three aspects, sakam and nikam karma, the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads on action, desire and rebirth, anugraha and prapatti, the monkey and cat analogies, bhakti, and whether karma is just or leaves room for free will.Open →
• Dharma and adharmaRecall questions on the meaning of dharma in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita, adharma, the decline and restoration of dharma, the purusharthas, punya, svadharma and sadharana dharma, whether dharma is the same as ethics, and whether it is too relative to guide.Open →
• Varnashramadharma and Hindu virtuesRecall questions on varnashramadharma, the four varnas and the Purusha Sukta, the four stages of life, links to the purusharthas and karma, the virtues of ahimsa, detachment and self-restraint, varna and jati, caste in Hindu life, and whether the ideal is workable today.Open →
• Vedanta and its schoolsRecall questions on the origins of Vedanta and the Upanishads, Shankara's Advaita and maya, Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita, Madhva's Dvaita and how the three compare, Neo-Vedanta and Vivekananda, other schools of Hindu philosophy, bhakti, and moral action in Vedanta.Open →
• Is Hinduism a single religion?Recall questions on where the words Hindu and Hinduism come from, sanatana dharma and sadharana dharma, Neo-Hinduism, the case for and against one religion, Hinduism as liberation, overcoming maya, uniting with Brahman or a way of life, and whether outsiders invented it.Open →
• Hinduism and IndiaRecall questions on India as a holy land, Hindutva and Hindu-ness as identity, caste and non-Hindus, India as a secular state, religious diversity and conversion, scheduled castes and family law, the prohibition on brahmin sea travel, and Hindu efforts to reform Hinduism.Open →
• Hinduism and the WestRecall questions on Hindu communities outside India and how practice, funerals, festivals and varna change there, portrayal and stereotypes in Western culture, responses to Western science, interreligious relationships, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Gandhi, and yoga in the West.Open →
• Caste, gender and discriminationRecall questions on Brahminism, untouchability and dalit voices, the range of Hindu positions on caste, stridharma, marriage and children, why sons have been valued more than daughters, sati, resources for women's equality, and whether caste is social or religious.Open →
• Hindu social reform movementsRecall questions on Hindu women's movements, widows, daughters and the education of women, caste and the feminist movement, attitudes to untouchability, dalit education, Dalit Solidarity Networks and dalit movements, and whether reform can come through religion or from within.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Developments in Hindu Thought further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Atman vs Brahman

  Atman: the innermost self of a person. Brahman: the one ultimate reality underlying everything.

• Shruti vs Smriti

  Shruti: scripture regarded as heard and eternally revealed. Smriti: scripture regarded as remembered and of human authorship.

• Advaita Vedanta vs Vishishtadvaita

  Advaita Vedanta: the school holding the self and ultimate reality to be identical. Vishishtadvaita: the school holding them united but really distinguished.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Why is it so difficult to give Hinduism a date of birth?

   Model answer

   Hinduism has no founder, no single moment of revelation and no council that fixed its beliefs. What is now called Hinduism grew out of several streams that merged over many centuries: the religious life of the Indus cities, the hymns and sacrifices of the Vedic peoples, and local and regional cults across the subcontinent. Because there is no origin event, Hindus more often speak of sanatana dharma, the eternal order, which by definition was never founded at all. Scholars therefore describe a long convergence rather than a beginning.

2. 2

   Explain what the Indus Valley civilisation was and why accounts of Hindu origins begin there.

   Model answer

   It was a large urban culture in the north-west of the subcontinent, flourishing roughly from 2600 to 1900 BCE, with major sites at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. It had planned cities, drainage, standardised weights and a script. It is the earliest layer available to anyone asking where Hindu practice came from, and several of its material remains resemble things that matter in later Hindu religion, so it is the natural place to begin the question even though it cannot settle it.

3. 3

   What has been found in the Indus cities that might be evidence of religious practice?

   Model answer

   Four kinds are usually cited. A seal showing a horned figure seated in what looks like a yogic posture and surrounded by animals, sometimes called the Pashupati seal after a title of Shiva. Large numbers of terracotta female figurines, read by some as goddess figures. The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro and the elaborate water systems, suggesting ritual bathing and concern with purity. And stone objects of phallic and ring shape that some compare with the later lingam and yoni, together with tree and animal imagery that recurs in Hindu iconography.

4. 4

   To what extent does Indus religion survive inside Hinduism?

   Model answer

   The case for it is that ritual bathing, sacred trees, goddess worship, animal symbolism and meditative posture are all central to later Hinduism and all appear to be present in the Indus material, which would explain features that the Vedic hymns do not account for. The case against is that the Indus script is undeciphered, so every religious reading is inference from objects alone; the seated figure may be a chieftain or a bull deity rather than a proto-Shiva; the figurines may be toys or fertility charms rather than cult images; and around a thousand years separate the end of the cities from the texts that would show continuity. What turns on it is whether Hinduism is fundamentally indigenous to the subcontinent and older than the Vedas, or fundamentally Vedic with local material absorbed later, and that question is politically charged in India today.

5. 5

   Explain what is meant by the Vedic period and why it is treated as formative for Hinduism.

   Model answer

   It is the era, conventionally around 1500 to 500 BCE, in which the Vedic hymns were composed, transmitted and elaborated. It matters because it produced the texts that Hindus still treat as the highest authority, the priesthood and ritual grammar that later temple worship inherited, the Sanskrit language of Hindu learning, the sacrificial cosmology in which the world is sustained by ordered ritual action, and, in its closing phase, the Upanishadic turn to inner knowledge that made Brahman and atman the central problem of Hindu philosophy.

6. 6

   Name the four Vedas and explain how they were preserved.

   Model answer

   They are the Rig Veda, the collection of hymns to the gods; the Sama Veda, the same material arranged for chanting; the Yajur Veda, the sacrificial formulae; and the Atharva Veda, which includes healing, domestic and magical material. Each grew a body of attached literature: the Brahmanas on ritual, the Aranyakas or forest texts, and the Upanishads. They were transmitted orally for centuries by trained brahmin families using elaborate memory techniques that preserved pitch and syllable exactly, and were committed to writing comparatively late. Hindus regard them as shruti, that which was heard rather than composed.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Developments in Hindu Thought revision questions

What does Developments in Hindu Thought cover in OCR A-Level Religious Studies?

12 subtopics: origins and diversity in hinduism, hindu scriptures and holy persons, brahman, atman and moksha, samsara, karma and liberation, dharma and adharma, varnashramadharma and hindu virtues, vedanta and its schools, is hinduism a single religion?, hinduism and india, hinduism and the west, caste, gender and discrimination and hindu social reform movements. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Developments in Hindu Thought organised?

By the OCR H573 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.