Unlike the Vedic religion, ancient Buddhism had strong misgivings about violent ways of punishing criminals and about war.

In the times of Mahavira and in the following centuries, Jains were at odds with both Buddhists and followers of the Vedic religion or Hindus, whom they accused of negligence and inconsistency in the implementation of ahimsa.

Among its direct roots is the historical Vedic religion of Iron Age India and, as such, Hinduism is often called the " oldest living religion " or the " oldest living major religion " in the world.

Hinduism includes the Agamic religion, involving Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism, historical groups such as the Ganapatyas, Kaumaras, Sauras, Bhairavas, Kapalikas, Kalamukhas, Pashupatas, and the historical Vedic religion including the Śrautas.

The multitude of deities, or Devas, of the historical Vedic religion have a subordinate and secondary status vis-a-vis the One Supreme God, a status that some authors have even tried to express by comparing it to that of Western demigods or angels ; Prakashanand Saraswati, in " The true history and the religion of India ", prefers the term " celestial gods ".

From this mix of monism, monotheism and naturalist polytheism Max Müller decided to name the early Vedic religion henotheistic.

The documented history of Indian religions begins with the historical Vedic religion, the religious practices of the early Indo-Aryans, which were collected and later redacted into the Samhitas ( usually known as the Vedas ), four canonical collections of hymns or mantras composed in archaic Sanskrit.

Other scholars suggested the shramana traditions were separate and contemporaneous with Indo-Aryan religious practices of the historical Vedic religion.

** historical Vedic religion

The city of Taxila in northern Pakistan, became important to Vedic religion ( and later in Buddhism ).

Proponents of cultural transmission have looked for links between Iron Age Celtic, Greek and Vedic philosophy and religion, some even suggesting that belief in reincarnation was present in Proto-Indo-European religion.

The religions of Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism ( Vedic religion and Vedanta ), Jainism and Buddhism develop.

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.

In Vedic religion, Dyaus Pitar remained confined to his distant, removed, passive role and the place of sovereign god was occupied by Varuna and Mitra.

Dumézil sees the opposing Dius Fidius Summanus as complementary, interpreting it as an ambiguity of the sovereign god exemplified by the opposition of Mitra and Varuna in Vedic religion.

** the Historical Vedic religion, of which the Vedas record the liturgy

He greeted the youngest of the nations on behalf of " the most ancient order of monks in the world, the Vedic order of sannyasins, a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.

Dumézil draws a comparison between Roman religious conceptions and rituals and the relevant aspects of Vedic religion.

Names of Indo-Aryan gods Mitra and Varuna especially, from the Vedic religion have survived in texts and personal names, but it is not known if any religious centers actually existed.

These values are all proper to sovereign gods and common with Jupiter ( and with Mitra in Vedic religion ).

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.

In modern Hinduism slaughter according to the rituals permitted in the Vedic scriptures has become less common, though, the world's largest animal sacrifice occurs at Gadhimai, a Hindu festival which takes place every 5 years.

* Hindu Caste System & Hinduism: Vedic vocations ( Hindu castes ) were not related to heredity ( birth )

The idea of rta laid the cornerstone of dharma's implicit attribution to the " ultimate reality " of the surrounding universe, in classical Vedic Hinduism the following verse from the Rig-Veda is an example where rta is mentioned:

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

The Hindu scholar, Lokmanya Tilak credited Jainism with influencing Hinduism and thus leading to the cessation of animal sacrifice in Vedic rituals.

Despite being forbidden in the Vedic philosophy of sattvic Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism., Theyyam deities are propitiated through the rooster sacrifice where the religious cockfight is a religious exercise of offering blood to the Theyyam gods.

The Ādityas are one of the principal deities of the Vedic classical Hinduism belonging to Solar class.

* Emergence of the Brahmana period of Vedic Sanskrit, probable composition of the Shatapatha Brahmana, and the first beginning of the Upanishadic and Vedantic traditions of Hinduism.

He believed that this had been embodied in early Indo-European religions, notably ancient European ( Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Roman ) paganism, Zoroastrianism and Vedic Hinduism.

The earliest evidence of the group is from Vedic Sanskrit, the language used in the ancient preserved texts of the Indian subcontinent, the foundational canon of Hinduism known as the Vedas.

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

The roots of mythology that evolved from classical Hinduism come from the times of the Vedic civilization, from the ancient Vedic religion.

Among its direct roots is the historical Vedic religion of Iron Age India and, as such, Hinduism is often called the " oldest living religion " or the " oldest living major religion " in the world.

In Hinduism the Marutas (), also known as the Marutagana and sometimes identified with Rudras, are storm deities and sons of Rudra and Prisni and attendants of Indra, an ancient Vedic deity who later came to be identified with Shiva.

The rishis were prominent when Vedic Hinduism took shape, as far back as some three thousand years ago.

In Hinduism, Yama () or Yamarāja ( यमर ा ज ) is the god of death, belonging to an early stratum of Vedic mythology.

Savitr disappeared as an independent deity from the Hindu pantheon after the end of the Vedic period, but in modern Hinduism, his name occurs in the well-known Gayatri mantra ( taken from book three of the Rigveda ), which is also known as Savitri because of this.

Atharvan ( ; an n-stem with nominative singular ) was a legendary Vedic sage ( rishi ) of Hinduism who along with Angiras is supposed to have authored (" heard ") the Atharvaveda.

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.

In the Iliad, Apollo is the healer under the gods, but he is also the bringer of disease and death with his arrows, similar to the function of the terrible Vedic god of disease Rudra.

When written in Devanagari, Vedic Sanskrit has an alphabet of 53 letters, including the visarga mark for final aspiration and special letters for kš and jñ, though one of the letters is theoretical and not actually used.

The ancient Indian philosophy is a fusion of two ancient traditions: Sramana tradition and Vedic tradition.

In the Vedic view, creation is ascribed to the self-consciousness of the primeval being ( Purusha ).

Celibacy, termed brahmacharya in Vedic scripture, is the fourth of the yamas and the word literally translated means " dedicated to the Divinity of Life ".

Agni is a Hindu and Vedic deity.

Agni is one of the most important of the Vedic gods.

Ap () is the Vedic Sanskrit term for water, in Classical Sanskrit occurring only in the plural is not an element. v, ( sometimes re-analysed as a thematic singular, ), whence Hindi.

Together with the Gandhara grave culture and the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture, it is considered by some scholars a nucleus of Vedic civilization.

Cremation in India is first attested in the Cemetery H culture, considered the formative stage of Vedic civilization.

It is rooted in Indoeuropean * d ( e ) y ( e ) w, meaning bright sky or daylight, from which also derived the name of Vedic god Dyaus and the Latin deus, ( god ) and dies ( day, daylight ).

According to Dumezil the forerunner of all frame gods is an Indian epic hero who was the image ( avatar ) of the Vedic god Dyaus.

Eos is cognate to Vedic Sanskrit ' Ushas ' and Latin Aurora, both goddesses of dawn, and all three considered derivatives of a PIE stem * H₂ewsṓs (→ * Ausṓs ), " dawn ", a stem that also gave rise to Proto-Germanic * Austrō, Old Germanic Ôstara and Old English Ēostre / Ēastre.

Gandhara is the name of an ancient Hindu kingdom from the Vedic period and its capital city located between the Hindukush and Sulaiman Mountains ( mountains of Solomon ), although Kandahar in modern times and the ancient Gandhara are not geographically identical.

The idea of a subterranean realm is also mentioned in the Vedic texts such as the Puranas, according to one story in the Puranas there is an ancient city called Shamballa which is located inside the earth, the belief in Shamballa as a city inside the earth is also found in Tibetan Buddhism.