AHC: Maximum spread of Hinduism

If Hinduism is widespread enough, would 'Hinduism' even be a meaningful category? In many ways, especially in premodern and pre-Islamic times, Hinduism is less a single, unitary religion like Islam or Christianity and more a collective term for related faiths practiced in the Indicized world. From Romila Thapar's Early India from the Origins to A.D. 1300, describing the 13th century or so,
To use the general term Hinduism at this stage is historically something of an anachronism. The term 'Hindu' was not in use in the early first millennium AD, and those who were supporters of what today we call 'Hindu' sects used their sectarian labels to identify their religion. Therefore they identified themselves by the broader labels of Vaishnava and Shaiva or, within these, by the narrower labels of Bhagavatas, Pashupatas and so on. The consciousness of a religious identity was that of the sect and not of an all-inclusive religion incorporating every sect. This makes a significant difference to understanding the nature of what today is called Hinduism. [page 275]

What we define as the Hindu community in religious terms actually consisted of a range of groups with clear internal identities as sects -such as Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta or, more closely, Bhagavata, Pashupata, Kapalika and so on. The Buddhists and the Jainas were distinct even if some beliefs and practices overlapped. Hostility between the Shramanic sects and those of the Puranic religions were clear in the literature of the period, for example, in the biting satire meted out to various Shramanic sects in the famous play of Krishna Mishra, the Prabodhachandrodaya. [...]

Reference to 'Hindu' was initially to a geographical identity and only much later did it take on a religious connotation. The clubbing together of all the castes, non-castes and sects under one label - Hindu - would have been strange to most people and even repugnant to some, since it would have made brahmans, shudras and untouchables equal members of a religious community of 'Hindus' who were treated on par in terms of their religious identity. This was alien to the existing religions in the subcontinent. It therefore took some time for the term 'Hindu' to enter current usage. Hindus did not use this name for themselves until about the fourteenth century, and then only sparingly. [page 438-440]
A very successful Hinduism, or a sufficiently early POD, might mean that there's no unifying concept of a Hindu religion to begin with.
 
Top