Hinduism

Hinduism has no founder. Believers uphold dharma through ritual and righteous living as taught in the Vedas, and its scriptures include the Upanishads, the Puranas and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. It speaks of karma, the cycle of rebirth and liberation from it, called moksha. Vaishnavism centres on Vishnu, Shaivism on Shiva and Shaktism on the Goddess.

In 1337 Hinduism was the religion of many kingdoms, from the Hoysalas of Karnataka to Majapahit in Java. The Delhi Sultanate had raided and annexed Deccan kingdoms, and in 1336 the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I founded Vijayanagara as a Hindu power in the south. Between about 1250 and 1750 the Bhakti movement of personal devotion to a chosen god grew ever more prominent, though the Portuguese inquisition at Goa in 1560 persecuted Hindus.