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.

When in A. D. 640 the Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang visited Kanchi ( Conjevaram ), the capital of the Pallava king, he learned that the kingdom of Chola ( Chu-li-ya ) embraced but a small territory, wild, and inhabited by a scanty and fierce population ; in the Pandya kingdom ( Malakuta ), which was under Pallava suzerainty, literature was dead, Buddhism all but extinct, while Hinduism and the naked Jain saints divided the religious allegiance of the people, and the pearl fisheries continued to flourish.

Hinduism contains a vast body of scripture, divided as revealed and remembered, expounding on dharma, or religious living.

These ethnic groups are again divided in hundreds of clans and sects, principally dominated by four religious threads-Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Animism.

However, all sources suggest that Herat was predominantly Persian Zoroastrian and there is no evidence of Hinduism making its way into this region.

Over several thousand years, Jain influence on Hindu rituals has been observed and similarly the concept of non-violence has been incorporated into Hinduism.

Many foreign deities become assimilated into Hinduism, and some Hindus may sometimes offer prayers to Jesus along with their traditional forms of God.

* Brahmanism evolves into Hinduism ( approximate date ).

Hinduism was introduced into Java by travelers from India in ancient times.

In particular, Yoga centers and retreats gently lead people into the spiritual exercises and worldview of Hinduism.

In Hinduism, the god Soma evolved into a lunar deity.

It is believed that Bhadrakāli was a local deity, which was assimilated into the mainstream Hinduism, particularly into Shaiva mythology.

In Hinduism, an avatar (; ; from Sanskrit अवत ा र in the Devanagari script, meaning " descent ") is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being ( i. e., Vishnu for Vaishnavites ) and is mostly translated into English as " incarnation ," but more accurately as " appearance " or " manifestation ".

Many streams of thought flow from the six Vedic / Hindu schools, Bhakti sects and Tantra Agamic schools into the one ocean of Hinduism, the first of the Dharma religions.

Hinduism blended easily into both animism and Buddhism, so many Hindu gods are considered Thaen and Buddhist monks have incorporated much of Brahmanic rituals.

According to Tibetan sources, Atiśa was ordained into the Mahasamghika lineage at the age of twenty-eight by the Abbot Śīlarakṣita and studied almost all Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools of his time, including teachings from Vishnu, Shiva, Tantric Hinduism and other beliefs.

The Vedic period is held to have ended around 500 BC, Vedic religion gradually metamorphosizing into the various schools of Hinduism, which further evolved into Puranic Hinduism.

* Homa, a religious practise in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, involving making offerings into a consecrated fire

Though fond of both Hinduism and Islam, the Baul evolved into a religion focused on the individual and centered on a spiritual quest for God from within.

The temple dance gradually evolved into what is known today as the South Indian Classical Dance that still preserves many ritualistic elements of Hinduism.

" Watching a television show on Hinduism, and the 16 virtues necessary to lead one to the state of Avatar-hood, he decided to use adopt these elements into the game, creating the eight virtue system and borrowing the title for the protagonist, the Avatar.

The temple dance gradually evolved into what is known today as the South Indian Classical Dance that still preserves many ritualistic elements of Hinduism.

These Hinduism, Buddhism and Javanese faiths blended into a unique local philosophies.

* Eastern religion as sought and practiced by some western converts into faiths based in East Asia and South Asia, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism and so on, as opposed to Monotheism or Judeo-Christian belief systems.

Hinduism includes Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Śrauta among numerous other traditions.

In Hinduism, the holy book Rigveda, the oldest extant Indo-Aryan text, numerous references are made to rebirths, although it portrays reincarnation as " redeaths " ( punarmrtyu ).

Hinduism has preached about humility and egoless state through numerous sacred scripts and sages which dates back to 5500 – 2600 BCE. Hinduism has influenced many originating religions like Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism regarding egoless state and nirvana or mukti. Eknath Easwaran writes that the Gita's subject is " the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage if he or she is to emerge from life victorious ", and " The language of battle is often found in the scriptures, for it conveys the strenuous, long, drawn-out campaign we must wage to free ourselves from the tyranny of the ego, the cause of all our suffering and sorrow ".

Instead, Hindu temples were numerous and Hinduism was popular.

Hinduism is based on numerous texts, some of which date back to 2000 BCE or earlier.

Krishna Deva Raya respected all sects of Hinduism and lavished on the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple numerous objects of priceless value, ranging from diamond studded crowns to golden swords.

During his tenure with the group, he had explored numerous eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

As Hinduism is really a group of numerous branches, Ayya Vazhi is closest to Smartism and its Advaita beliefs in thought.