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.

Hinduism is a complex of various belief systems that sees many gods and goddesses as being representative of and / or emanative from a single source, Brahman, understood either as a formless, infinite, impersonal monad in the Advaita tradition or as a dual god in the form of Lakshmi-Vishnu, Radha-Krishna, Shiva-Shakti in Dvaita traditions.

Kidder notes that this concept's framework appears prominently in many religions, including " Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and the rest of the world's major religions ".

Intellectual historian Peter Watson has summarized this period as the foundation of many of humanity's most influential philosophical traditions, including monotheism in Persia and Canaan, Platonism in Greece, Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism in India, and Confucianism and Taoism in China.

In general, followers of Buddhism and many followers of Hinduism consider the natural laws of causation sufficient to explain the effects of karma.

Monistic theism, which includes the concept of a personal god as a universal, omnipotent Supreme Being who is both immanent and transcendent, is prevalent within many other schools of Hinduism as well.

Hinduism cannot be said to be purely polytheistic, as all great Hindu religious leaders have repeatedly stressed that while God's forms are many and the ways to communicate with him are many, God is one.

Although the Sikhs have many names for God, some derived from Islam and Hinduism, they all refer to the same Supreme Being.

This is more than many well known traditions such as Rastafarian, Bahá ' í and Zoroastrian groups, but fewer than the ' Big Six ' of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism.

They exist in all or some branches of Judaism, Christianity, Shintoism, Hinduism and many other religions.

The actual process of change from one life to the next is called punarbhava ( Sanskrit ) or punabbhava ( Pāli ), literally " becoming again ", or more briefly bhava, " becoming ", and some English-speaking Buddhists prefer the term " rebirth " or " re-becoming " to render this term as they take " reincarnation " to imply a fixed entity that is reborn .< ref >" Reincarnation in Buddhism: What the Buddha Didn't Teach " By Barbara O ' Brien, About. com < sup > Popular Jain cosmology and Buddhist cosmology as well as a number of schools of Hinduism posit rebirth in many worlds and in varied forms.

Reincarnation-known as Punarjanma is one of the core beliefs of Hinduism that is generally accepted by many of its practitioners.

Sikhism had many interactions and of influences on and from Sufism as well as Hinduism see Islam and Sikhism and Hinduism and Sikhism.

Hinduism is a complex religion with many different currents or schools.

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

Since the 1960s, many westerners attracted by the world view presented in Asian religious systems including Hinduism have converted to Hinduism.

Whether the lingam symbolizes the physical body of the god or something purely spiritual is the topic of many a century-old debate within Hinduism.

There are many deities in Hinduism.

Hinduism is known to its followers as ( a Sanskrit phrase meaning " the eternal law that sustains / upholds / surely preserves "), amongst many other expressions.

In Hinduism, Aslesa or Aslesas is one of many goddesses of bad luck and misfortune.

Considered an auspicious ingredient in Hinduism and some schools of Buddhism, the areca nut is still used along with betel leaf in religious ceremonies, and also while honoring individuals in much of southern Asia.

Such individuals have tried to construct an intellectual defense of Hinduism during a phase when the fundamentalistic elements of other faiths have sought to denigrate the ancient religion in an effort to gain converts.

Other religions – for example Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam ( Sufism ) and Taoism – also have hermits in the sense of individuals living an ascetic form of life.

On March 16, 2006, it filed a lawsuit contesting the California's Curriculum Commission's decision to reject many of the Vedic Foundation and Hindu Education Foundation's suggested edits to California's textbook curriculum on Hinduism and India, which were opposed by a number of organizations and individuals, claiming that many of the changes were revisionist.

I do not mean to imply that Christians have adopted the liberal assumption, so prevalent in Hinduism, that all religions are merely different paths to the same summit.

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.

The two largest non-Christian religions are Hinduism ( 2 %) and Islam ( 1 %).

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 ).

The Aghoris of northern India are a splinter sect of Hinduism who practice cannibalism in which they consume the flesh of the dead floated in the Ganges in pursuit of immortality and supernatural powers.

The pancha mahabhuta, or " five great elements ", of Hinduism are kshiti or bhūmi ( earth ), ap or jala ( water ), tejas or agni ( fire ), marut or pavan ( air or wind ), vyom ; or shunya or akash ( aether or void ).

In the philosophy of the seven chakras there are correspondences to the five elements as shared by both Hinduism and Buddhism as well as two other elements:

Other faiths are even more subtle: the doctrine of karma shared by Buddhism and Hinduism is a divine law similar to divine retribution but without the connotation of punishment: our acts, good or bad, intentional or unintentional, reflect back on us as part of the natural working of the universe.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism are called Hindu Dharma, Buddha-Dharma, Jain-Dharma and Sikh dharma, respectively.

* Bhūta are five elements in Hinduism

For example, only kosher foods are permitted by Judaism, halal foods by Islam, and in Hinduism beef is restricted.

From a Hinduism point of view women are equal in all measures to men in comparison.

All goddesses in Hinduism are sometimes grouped together as the great goddess, Devi.

Founded by Maharaja Sri-Gupta, the dynasty was the model of a classical civilization. Maurya and Gupta empires are called as the Golden Age of India and were marked by extensive inventions and discoveries in science, technology, art, religion and philosophy that crystallized the elements of what is generally known as Indian culture. The religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, which began in India, were an important influence on South, East and Southeast Asia

Indian religions, also known as dharmic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent ; namely Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism.

These texts are the central shruti ( revealed ) texts of Hinduism.

Jains are not a part of the Vedic Religion ( Hinduism ).

In both countries, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity are represented by important communities.

There are monist pantheists and panentheists in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism ( particularly in Advaita and Vishistadvaita ), Judaism ( monistic panentheism is especially found in Kabbalah and Hasidic philosophy ), and in Islam ( among the Sufis, especially the Bektashi ).

* Mages of Akashic Brotherhood are ascetics, martial artists, and monks, largely drawing from Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, Hinduism and other such religions.

In addition to the Vedas, the principal texts of Hinduism, the core themes of the Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are said to have their ultimate origins during this period.

Even within Hinduism, there are different approaches to reaching the Divine based on an individual ’ s own characteristics.