Could the Muslim invasions of India lead to centralization of Hinduism

Could the various Muslim invasions of India lead to centralization of Hinduism around one of the major denominations with stuff like a set number of gods,single top god,required rituals, Etc...

Would a centralized Hinduism lead to less conversions to either Islam or Christianity during the different Muslim dynasties and during British rules ?
 
The issue is that centralizing Hinduism will lead to a hellstorm of religious conflict. Hinduism is really just a huge continuum of religions, and "heresy" really doesn't exist as a concept. To centralize the religion would be to codify these things, and a lot of people on the ground are gonna fight tooth and nail.

Kill the Caste system early and you'd have a better chance of less conversions.
 
The issue is that centralizing Hinduism will lead to a hellstorm of religious conflict. Hinduism is really just a huge continuum of religions, and "heresy" really doesn't exist as a concept. To centralize the religion would be to codify these things, and a lot of people on the ground are gonna fight tooth and nail.

Interestingly enough, this is what doomed Emperor Julian's own attempts at codifying the various pagan belief systems of Rome into a single church. Turns out that interpretatio romana only gets you so far until the obvious theological differences between similar deities and myths becomes apparent.
 
The issue is that centralizing Hinduism will lead to a hellstorm of religious conflict. Hinduism is really just a huge continuum of religions, and "heresy" really doesn't exist as a concept. To centralize the religion would be to codify these things, and a lot of people on the ground are gonna fight tooth and nail.

Kill the Caste system early and you'd have a better chance of less conversions.
The history of Hinduism down the centuries was never subjected to a detailed research. But it is clear that the religion has undergone tremendous changes down the centuries. If you state that there was no Hinduism before the coming of the Muslims you are not totally wrong! Because 'Hinduism' was a term coined by the foreigners. The Hindus never called the religion by that name till the Muslims came. The common term used to denote it was 'Sanatan Dharma' or 'Eternal Faith'. It had several streams like Shaivam, Vaishnavam, Shakteyam, etc. depending on the presiding deity. Of these Shaivism and Vaishnavism had staunch followers, were sponsored by different kings and fought each other. They also competed against Buddhism and Jainism.
The Chola kings were staunch Shaivites who continuously fought against the Pandyas who were Vaishnavites. The Palas of Bengal supported Buddhism and Kharavela of Kalinga was a sponsor of Jainism. But the arrival of Islam seems to have brought some form of peace between the two powerful groups of Shaivas and Vaishnavas. How this was brought about is not clearly stated anywhere. The supreme gods of the two groups, Shiva and Vishnu were joined in a trinity. The trinity was completed by including a neutral figure of Brahma, the creator. Other smaller groups like Shakteyas were also brought in by making Shakti, their goddess, the consort of Shiva. Today Shaivites and Vaishnavites cannot be distinguished among common Hindus. I have read that there were efforts to rope in Buddhists and Jains as well. That Lord Ram and Lord Krishna were originally Jain gods who were adopted as the incarnations of Lord Vishnu. Lord Goutam Buddha was adopted as the nineth incarnation of Lord Vishnu after Lord Krishna. The religion, if you can call it Hinduism, has undergone great changes down the ages. In the Vedic Period the main gods were Indra, Varuna, Vayu, Agni, Yama etc. who were demoted later to be the servants of the Trinity. The gods like Shiva and Vishnu who were rarely mentioned in the Vedas became the great gods in Puranic Period and also later. I wonder whether this coming together of different streams a process of centralisation.
The case of caste is a totally different matter. It is a form of social organisation based on occupation which is given religious sanction. In the original Varna system, the people are classified into four varnas, the Brahmins, the priests; the Kshatriyas, the rulers and the warriers; the Vaishyas, the traders and the farmers and the Shudras, the servants. But later the caste system developed into thousands of castes based on the occupation. The carpenter is one caste, the woodcutter is another, the ironsmith is another and the goldsmith is a fourth one. The weaver and the tailor are different castes. So is a cobbler. These castes are all graded one over the other and are endogamous groups. Marriages between different castes are strictly prohibited. The members of a caste have to strictly obey the rules and those who break the rules are made outcasts. The caste elders are conservative and loyal to traditions and have generally frowned upon any conversion to other religions. This have discouraged conversions in general. Thus the caste system have prevented large scale conversions. Islam has converted almost all the people in the countries that were conquered by it. India is one country where they could convert only one third of the people after ruling over for more than half a millenium.
 
Hinduism did centralize in a way during the Muslim invasions. Prior to them, Hinduism was rather more diverse, and afterwards, the main Hindu school became Advaita Vedanta, which preaches that the soul and God are one. This is because Advaita Vedanta is the most flexible of the Hindu schools and therefore followers of other schools could follow Advaita without having to drastically alter their beliefs. This isn’t to say there aren’t divergent beliefs, like those of the Chaitanya Vaishnavites or the Lingayati, but most Hindus today are followers of Advaita Vedanta

This is certainly not what you mean, of course. What you’re asking for is impossible. Certainly, you could get some Hindus centralizing their faith, but this would be nothing more than a splinter group, a special form of Hinduism. It’s impossible for these centralizations to be accepted by all, because they would, by their very nature, deemphasize some elements of Hinduism another group may want emphasized. No “central” holy text could ever exist, because the Vedas already serve that purpose and attempting to replace it would be heretical - by definition, Hinduism is a religion that has the Vedas as the central holy text. Attempting to strip down Hinduism to the Vedas would also fail because they can be interpreted in many ways. Arya Samaj tried that, but it turned out most Hindus disagreed with their interpretation of them as preaching a monotheistic anti-idolatry faith. Any interpretation of the Vedas would come off the same. Also, Hinduism is by its very nature vague and somewhat contradictory. These attributes have Hinduism an ability to adapt that helped it to survive, with Muslim and even Christian elements being incorporated. By centralizing Hinduism, you are removing its dynamism, which is likely a detriment to its success.

I would argue there were many attempts to create a centralized faith based on Hinduism. All of them failed to become the religion of a majority of Hindus for the reasons above. The only thing I can think of that would change this is some centralized empire attempting to stress its own form of Hinduism against others, but even this would fail, judging by South Indian empires attempting to stress alternatively Vaishnavism and Shaivism, even going as far as destroying temples of the “other”, but nevertheless failing all the same.

The Hindus never called the religion by that name till the Muslims came. The common term used to denote it was 'Sanatan Dharma' or 'Eternal Faith'.

Sanatan Dharma is a neologism, largely promoted by nationalists who think “Hindu” is too foreign. No, the pre-Muslim Hindus referred to their religion as Āstika, in opposition to Nāstika schools like Jainism and Buddhism.
 
Interestingly enough, this is what doomed Emperor Julian's own attempts at codifying the various pagan belief systems of Rome into a single church. Turns out that interpretatio romana only gets you so far until the obvious theological differences between similar deities and myths becomes apparent.

...what? I really need a source for this as I've never ever heard of it before in any scholarly books or articles I've read.
 
I think we should consider things like the German-Germanic" where similar words from similar sources lead to everyone mixing them up or thinking something else is being referred, when they are being more specific. Anyways, Hinduism... I wonder if a centralization would come in the manner India does these days, where every religion native to India is governed under Hindu law. That being Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhs, etc. Though the Scheduled Tribes, a bunch of groups from Assam not quite connected to Hinduism, were classified with Christians, Jews, Parsis(Zorastorians), and Muslims as being governed by their own laws. Oddly enough those tribes are majority Christian these days, though that may be tied partially to them simply documenting it. Meagaphyla has a matriarchal system and they have a higher number than men among Christians in India. Actually, I read up somehtgin in a three or four thousand year old Hindu text (didn't read it, but read overviews of it) which mentioned a society of similar to Amazons around Assam. Ahhh, and I admit tot not being very familiar with Hinduism, but doesn't a lot of stories involve their main guys trouncing local deities? Wouldn't be unprecedented among ancient belief systems.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wik...on_map_India_by_state_and_union_territory.svg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_Christian.png
 
Interestingly enough, this is what doomed Emperor Julian's own attempts at codifying the various pagan belief systems of Rome into a single church. Turns out that interpretatio romana only gets you so far until the obvious theological differences between similar deities and myths becomes apparent.
You are going to to have to specify if you mean Rome the city or Rome the society. Anyways, they recognized that some societies had different chief gods. I believe they had Mercury be equated to Woden, and had him as chief of the German pantheon. Heck, Tacticus said he believed the Jews worshiped Saturn, the father of Jupiter. Anyways, ancient religoins tended to change a lot. Let us se... Wikipedia says that Emperor was promoting Neoplatonist Hellenism. Anyways, Christianity likely had more appeal, especially considering the dignity it gave to women, as well as the poor, ill, outcasts, etc.
 
Hindu law

There's no such thing. There is, of course, ancient Indian law, but they were never attached to Hinduism. While Britain seems to have believed such a law system existed, they seem to have misinterpreted ancient Indian commentary on jurisprudence as Hindu law. That has to do with the use of "dharma" - to modern Indians, the word refers to Hindu rules, but to ancient Indians, they simply referred to rules of any kind.

This is likely why Hindu nationalists advocate for a secular code of law - minorities lose benefits of their own law systems, but Hindus don't.

Ahhh, and I admit tot not being very familiar with Hinduism, but doesn't a lot of stories involve their main guys trouncing local deities?

What do you mean? If memory recalls, Krishna does stop Indra from flooding his village, but by this point, Indra became a weird rapey foolhardy god - one tale talks of him raping a sage's wife and the sage cursing him with eyes all across his body. He was no longer the badass king of the gods who defeated the embodiment of drought Vritra. And there are temples in Sri Lanka Ravana, despite him being a demon king who kidnaps Sita. Hell, one of the most important Hindu holidays consists him being exploded in effigy. I'm not at all sure why anyone would possibly worship Ravana, anyways.
 
There's no such thing. There is, of course, ancient Indian law, but they were never attached to Hinduism. While Britain seems to have believed such a law system existed, they seem to have misinterpreted ancient Indian commentary on jurisprudence as Hindu law. That has to do with the use of "dharma" - to modern Indians, the word refers to Hindu rules, but to ancient Indians, they simply referred to rules of any kind.

This is likely why Hindu nationalists advocate for a secular code of law - minorities lose benefits of their own law systems, but Hindus don't.



What do you mean? If memory recalls, Krishna does stop Indra from flooding his village, but by this point, Indra became a weird rapey foolhardy god - one tale talks of him raping a sage's wife and the sage cursing him with eyes all across his body. He was no longer the badass king of the gods who defeated the embodiment of drought Vritra. And there are temples in Sri Lanka Ravana, despite him being a demon king who kidnaps Sita. Hell, one of the most important Hindu holidays consists him being exploded in effigy. I'm not at all sure why anyone would possibly worship Ravana, anyways.
Ahhh wait, never mind. I forgot that the thing I had been looking up had been the Hindu Successoin Acf, and dealt with inheritance.
 
You are going to to have to specify if you mean Rome the city or Rome the society. Anyways, they recognized that some societies had different chief gods. I believe they had Mercury be equated to Woden, and had him as chief of the German pantheon. Heck, Tacticus said he believed the Jews worshiped Saturn, the father of Jupiter. Anyways, ancient religoins tended to change a lot. Let us se... Wikipedia says that Emperor was promoting Neoplatonist Hellenism. Anyways, Christianity likely had more appeal, especially considering the dignity it gave to women, as well as the poor, ill, outcasts, etc.

Interpretatio Romana is exactly what you described: Romans equating foreign gods, such as Woden and Thor, with their own, Mercury and Hercules. The problem with that is that these gods have clearly conflicting roles, relations, and the mythologies in general were wholly incompatible with one another. Neoplatonism had the idea that these myths were simply divine stories, and that the gods did not do what was in the myths, but rather that these stories contained philosophical truths, morals, and stories revealing the mystery behind the universe. Mythologies could be reconciled this way, as simply variant descriptions of the truth. Christianity simply became the religion of the Empire because it had little opposition with a solidified structure or canon until it was far too late. (Neoplatonism and Julian in the 4th Century)

As for the original topic I think @Indicus gave a pretty good explanation to answer OP's question.
 
Interpretatio Romana is exactly what you described: Romans equating foreign gods, such as Woden and Thor, with their own, Mercury and Hercules. The problem with that is that these gods have clearly conflicting roles, relations, and the mythologies in general were wholly incompatible with one another. Neoplatonism had the idea that these myths were simply divine stories, and that the gods did not do what was in the myths, but rather that these stories contained philosophical truths, morals, and stories revealing the mystery behind the universe. Mythologies could be reconciled this way, as simply variant descriptions of the truth. Christianity simply became the religion of the Empire because it had little opposition with a solidified structure or canon until it was far too late. (Neoplatonism and Julian in the 4th Century)

As for the original topic I think @Indicus gave a pretty good explanation to answer OP's question.

Not sure I agree that Julian was too late. His brief years in power only ended due to military failure against the Sassanids after all. How do we know his policies of welcoming back "schismatics", rebuilding the jewish temple, taking back temple land from Christians, implementing a professional priesthood, and so on couldn't have worked given more time?

BTW, I'd also like to point out that Maximinus Dias implemented a professional priesthood during the time he was in power. Unfortunately for platonism though , it was Constantine who managed to beat out all his rivals and become emperor.
 
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