Many religions, whether they believe in the soul's existence in another world like Christianity, Islam and many pagan belief systems, or in reincarnation like many forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, believe that one's status in the afterlife is a reward or punishment for their conduct during life.

In Hinduism, the belief is that the body is but a shell, the soul inside is immutable and indestructible and takes on different lives in a cycle of birth and death.

Soul is believed to be indestructible. None of the five elements can harm or influence it. Hinduism through Garuda Purana also describes in detail various types of " Narkas " or Hells where a person after death is punished for his bad Karmas and dealt with accordingly.

According to Hinduism the basic concept of Karma is ' As you sow, you shall reap '.

Likewise a popular Hindu ritual form of worship of North Malabar in Kerala, India is the Tabuh Rah blood offering to Theyyam gods, despite being forbidden in the Vedic philosophy of sattvic Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, Theyyam deities are propitiated through the cock sacrifice where the religious cockfight is a religious exercise of offering blood to the Theyyam gods.

It is an important tenet of some Indian religions ( Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism ).

Like in Hinduism, the aim is to prevent the accumulation of harmful karma.

Decisive in distinguishing Buddhism from what is commonly called Hinduism is the issue of epistemological justification.

For some schools of Hinduism and Buddhism the received textual tradition is an epistemological category equal to perception and inference ( although this is not necessarily true for some other schools ).

Breatharianism is a related concept, in which believers claim food and possibly water are not necessary, and that humans can be sustained solely by prana ( the vital life force in Hinduism ), or, according to some, by the energy in sunlight ( according to Ayurveda, sunlight is one of the main sources of prana ).

Hinduism preaches ahimsa ( or ahinsa, non-violence ), but also teaches that the soul cannot be killed and death is limited only to the physical body.

In Hinduism, celibacy is usually associated with the sadhus (" holy men "), ascetics who withdraw from worldly ties.

In Hinduism, Vayu ( Sanskrit व ा य ु ), also known as Vāta व ा त, Pavana पवन ( meaning the Purifier ), or Prāna, is a primary deity, who is the father of Bhima and the spiritual father of Lord Hanuman.

As the words for air ( Vāyu ) or wind ( Pavana ) it is one of the Panchamahābhuta the " five great elements " in Hinduism.

In Hinduism, it is also the name of the deva, a personification of water, ( one of the Vasus in most later Puranic lists ).

A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and anthropologists, the Hindu caste system is sometimes used as an analogical basis for the study of caste-like social divisions existing outside Hinduism and India.

In Hinduism, sexual intercourse is seen as a sacred act of procreation within marriage.

Temple rites in modern-day Hinduism are a combination of both Vedic and agamic rituals.

Such persons are not considered fully male or female in traditional Hinduism, being a combination of both.

The religion of the Baduy is known as Agama Sunda Wiwitan, a combination of traditional beliefs and Hinduism.

The Naurus faith is a combination of Hinduism and Animism, but in recent years they also have adopted certain Protestant principles.

Most of the Lahaulis follow a combination of Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism of the Drukpa Kagyu order, while the Spiti Bhotia follow Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelugpa order.

In this work he deals with the structure of Indian society, with the orthodox doctrines of Hinduism and the heterodox doctrines of Buddhism, with modifications brought by the influence of popular religiosity and finally with the impact of religious beliefs on the secular ethic of Indian society.

As the conception of Bhārat Mātā predates The partition of India, she is intended to represent " Aryavarta ", the motherland of Hinduism in Hindu nationalism, not merely restricted to the secular Republic of India, and Bhārat Mātā remains a symbol of the " vision of a unified motherland " in Hindu nationalist thought.

He has described himself as " a secular humanist with an active interest in religions, particularly Taoism and Hinduism, and keeping a close watch on the variegated Pagan revival in Europe.

Shrines are found in many of the world's religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca, Chinese folk religion and Shinto, as well as in secular and non-religious settings such as a war memorial.

While it is established by secular sources that Hinduism and Buddhism were in competition during this time, with the Sungas preferring the former to the latter, historians such as Etienne Lamotte and Romila Thapar argue that Buddhist accounts of persecution of Buddhists by Sungas are largely exaggerated.

The designation has different meanings in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and secular contexts.

This is a symbol common not only among Indonesia's sanctioned faiths of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism, but of the secular ideology of socialism as well.

In the western world main struggle was between church and state and church and civil society but in India neither Hinduism nor Islam had any church-like structure and hence there never was any such struggle between secular and religious power structure.

As noted politician and journalist Arun Shourie has pointed out ( see quote below ), the so called Hindu rate of growth was a result of socialist policies implemented by staunch secular governments and had nothing to do with Hinduism.

The Jewish synagogue affords a parallel to the Christian congregation, but Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism, although they have sacred scriptures, priests, spiritual disciplines, and places of prayer, do not have a congregation as a local household of faith and love.

Allegory has been used widely in ancient sacred texts of Hinduism and all the religions that have sprouted off it ; and throughout the history of art in all forms of artwork.

The Atharvaveda, a sacred text of Hinduism dating from the Early Iron Age, is the first Indian text dealing with medicine, like the medicine of the Ancient Near East based on concepts of the exorcism of demons and magic.

The cow is considered sacred in Hinduism.

There are religious significance and aspects of the rooster and the cockfight which are exampled by the religious belief of Tabuh Rah, a religious and spiritual cockfight where a rooster is used in religious custom by allowing him to fight against another rooster in the Balinese Hinduism spiritual appeasement exercise of Tabuh Rah, a form of animal sacrifice, where ritual fights usually take place outside the temple and follow an ancient and complex ritual as set out in the sacred lontar manuscripts.

Hymns to the sun can be found in the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism.

Hinduism sees marriage as a sacred duty that entails both religious and social obligations.

The earliest surviving description of mead is in the hymns of the Rigveda, one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and ( later ) Hinduism dated around 1700 – 1100 BC.

The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia ; many Himalayan peaks are sacred in both Hinduism and Buddhism.

* 700 BC: The Upanishads, a sacred text of Hinduism, are written around this time.

Today people from various religious faiths of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Jainism live together united, making it a place of enormous sacred importance.

It remains widely used in Indian religions, specifically in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, primarily as a tantric symbol to evoke shakti or the sacred symbol of auspiciousness.

* 700 BC — The Upanishads, a sacred text of Hinduism, are written around this time.

The former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee suggested in 2004 introducing legislation banning the slaughter of cows throughout India, as Hinduism holds cows as sacred and considers their slaughter unthinkable and offensive.

* Orange, or more specifically deep saffron, is the most sacred colour of Hinduism.

* In Hinduism left-handed shells of Turbinella pyrum ( the sacred shankha ) are considered to be sacred to the god Vishnu.

* Rigveda, in Hinduism, a sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns dedicated to the gods

Atri Maharishi is considered to be one of the great discoverers of sacred Mantras of Hinduism.

Hindus believed that the site was the birthplace of Rama, and thus qualified as one of the most sacred sites of Hinduism.

Hindus believed the site was the birthplace of the Lord, and there existed a temple long before the Babri mosque was built after demolishing the temple by Babar, and thus qualified as one of the most sacred sites of Hinduism, where a temple should be reconstructed.

He spoke on major spiritual traditions including Jainism, Hinduism, Hassidism, Tantrism, Taoism, Christianity, Buddhism, on a variety of Eastern and Western mystics and on sacred scriptures such as the Upanishads and the Guru Granth Sahib.

* Sri Venkateswara Gosamrakshana Trust: Protection of Cow, a sacred animal in Hinduism