The prehistoric period (3rd and 2nd millennia bce)
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Indigenous prehistoric religion
The prehistoric culture of the Indus valley arose in the latter centuries of the 3rd millennium bce from the metal-using village cultures of the region. There is considerable evidence of the material life of the Indus people, but its interpretation remains a matter of speculation until their writing is deciphered. Enough evidence exists, however, to show that several features of later Hinduism may have had prehistoric origins.
In most of the village cultures, small terra-cotta figurines of women, found in large quantities, have been interpreted as icons of a fertility deity whose cult was widespread in the Mediterranean area and in western Asia from Neolithic times (c. 5000 bce) onward. This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that the goddess was apparently associated with the bull—a feature also found in the ancient religions farther west.
Religion in the Indus valley civilization
The Harappa culture, located in what is now Pakistan, has produced much evidence of what may have been a cult of a goddess and a bull. Figurines of both occur, female figures being more common, while the bull appears more frequently on the many steatite seals. A horned figure, possibly with three faces, occurs on a few seals, and on one seal he is surrounded by animals. A few male figurines, one apparently in a dancing posture, may represent deities. No building has been discovered at any Harappan site that can be positively identified as a temple, but the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro may have been used for ritual purposes, as were the ghats (bathing steps on riverbanks) attached to later Hindu temples. The presence of bathrooms in most of the houses and the remarkable system of covered drains indicate a strong concern for cleanliness that may have been related to concepts of ritual purity but perhaps merely to ideas of hygiene.
Many seals show what may be religious and legendary themes that cannot be interpreted with certainty, such as seals depicting trees next to figures who may be divinities believed to reside in them. The bull is often depicted standing before a sort of altar, and the horned figure has been interpreted overconfidently as a prototype of the Hindu god Shiva. Small conical objects have been interpreted by some scholars as phallic emblems, though they may have been pieces used in board games. Other interpretations of the remains of the Harappa culture are even more speculative and, if accepted, would indicate that many features of later Hinduism were already in existence 4,000 years ago.
Survival of archaic religious practices
Some elements of the religious life of current and past folk religions—notably sacred animals, sacred trees (especially the pipal, Ficus religiosa), and the use of small figurines for worship—are found in all parts of India and may have been borrowed from pre-Vedic civilizations. On the other hand, these things are also commonly encountered outside India, and therefore they may have originated independently in Hinduism as well.
The Vedic period (2nd millennium–7th century bce)
The people of the early Vedic period left few material remains, but they did leave a very important literary record called the Rigveda. Its 1,028 hymns are distributed throughout 10 books, of which the first and the last are the most recent. A hymn usually consists of three sections: an exhortation; a main part comprising praise of the deity, prayers, and petition, with frequent references to the deity’s mythology; and a specific request.
The Rigveda is not a unitary work, and its composition may have taken several centuries. In its form at the time of its final edition, it reflected a well-developed religious system. The date commonly given for the final recension of the Rigveda is 1200 bce. During the next two or three centuries it was supplemented by three other Vedas and still later by Vedic texts called the Brahmanas and the Upanishads (see below Vedas).
Challenges to Brahmanism (6th–2nd century bce)
Indian religious life underwent great changes during the period 550–450 bce. This century was marked by the rise of breakaway sects of ascetics who rejected traditional religion, denying the authority of the Vedas and of the Brahmans and following teachers who claimed to have discovered the secret of obtaining release from transmigration. By far the most important of these figures were Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha, and Vardhamana, called Mahavira (“Great Hero”), the founder of Jainism. There were many other heterodox teachers who organized bands of ascetic followers, and each group adopted a specific code of conduct. They gained considerable support from ruling families and merchants. The latter were growing in wealth and influence, and many of them were searching for alternative forms of religious activity that would give them a more significant role than did orthodox Brahmanism or that would be less expensive to support.
The scriptures of the new religious movements throw some light on the popular religious life of the period. The god Prajapati was widely believed to be the highest god and the creator of the universe; Indra, known chiefly as Shakra (“The Mighty One”), was second to him in importance. The Brahmans were very influential, but there was opposition to their large-scale animal sacrifices—on moral, philosophical, and economic grounds—and to their pretensions to superiority by virtue of their birth. The doctrine of transmigration was by then generally accepted, though a group of outright materialists—the Charvakas, or Lokayatas—denied the survival of the soul after death. The ancestor cult, part of the Indo-European heritage, was retained almost universally, at least by the higher castes. Popular religious life largely centered around the worship of local fertility divinities (yakshas), cobra spirits (nagas), and other minor spirits in sacred places such as groves. Although these sacred places were the main centers of popular religious life, there is no evidence of any buildings or images associated with them, and it appears that neither temples nor large icons existed at the time.
About 500 bce asceticism became widespread, and increasing numbers of intelligent young men “gave up the world” to search for release from transmigration by achieving a state of psychic security. The orthodox Brahmanical teachers reacted to these tendencies by devising the doctrine of the four ashramas, which divided the life of the twice-born after initiation into four stages: the brahmacharin (celibate religious student); the grihastha (married householder); the vanaprastha (forest dweller); and the sannyasin (wandering ascetic). This attempt to keep asceticism in check by confining it to men of late middle age was not wholly successful. Thereafter Hindu social theory centered on the concept of varnashrama dharma, or the duties of the four classes (varnas) and the four ashramas, which constituted the ideal that Hindus were encouraged to follow.
The first great empire of India, the Mauryan empire, arose in the 3rd century bce. Its early rulers were non-Brahmanic; Ashoka (reigned c. 265–238 bce), the third and most famous of the Mauryan emperors, was a professed Buddhist. Although there is no doubt that Ashoka’s patronage of Buddhism did much to spread that religion, his inscriptions recognize the Brahmans as worthy of respect. Sentiments in favor of nonviolence (ahimsa) and vegetarianism, much encouraged by the non-Brahmanic sects, spread during the Mauryan period and were greatly encouraged by Ashoka. A Brahmanic revival appears to have occurred with the fall of the Mauryas. The orthodox religion itself, however, was undergoing change at this time, as theistic tendencies developed around the gods Vishnu and Shiva.
Inscriptions, iconographic evidence, and literary references reveal the emergence of devotional theism in the 2nd century bce. Several brief votive inscriptions refer to the god Vasudeva, who by this time was widely worshipped in western India. At the end of the 2nd century, Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador of King Antialcidas of Taxila (in Pakistan), erected a large column in honor of Vasudeva at Besnagar in Madhya Pradesh and recorded that he was a Bhagavata, a term used specifically for the devotees of Vishnu. The identification of Vasudeva with the old Vedic god Vishnu and, later, with Vishnu’s incarnation, Krishna, was quickly accepted.
Near the end of the Mauryan period, the first surviving stone images of Hinduism appear. Several large, simply carved figures survive, representing not any of the great gods but rather yakshas, or local chthonic divinities connected with water, fertility, and magic. The original locations of these images are uncertain, but they were probably erected in the open air in sacred enclosures. Temples are not clearly attested in this period by either archaeology or literature. A few fragmentary images thought to be those of Vasudeva and Shiva, the latter in anthropomorphic form and in the form of a lingam, are found on coins of the 2nd and 1st centuries bce.