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[35] [note 7] Hinduism co-existed for several centuries with Buddhism, [36] to finally gain the upper hand at all levels in the 8th century. [37] [web 1] [note 8] From northern India this "Hindu synthesis", and its societal divisions, spread to southern India and parts of Southeast Asia, as courts and rulers adopted the Brahmanical culture.
In Indian texts, Hindu dharma ("Hindu religion") was often used to refer to Hinduism. [ 45 ] [ 47 ] Starting in the 17th century, European merchants and colonists adopted "Hindu" (often with the English spelling "Hindoo") to refer to residents of India as a religious community.
The word Hindu is an exonym. [86] [87] This word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan [88] and Sanskrit [88] [70] word Sindhu, which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean". [89] [d] It was used as the name of the Indus River and also referred to its tributaries.
The historical Vedic religion, also called Vedicism or Vedism, and sometimes ancient Hinduism or Vedic Hinduism, [a] constituted the religious ideas and practices prevalent amongst some of the Indo-Aryan peoples of the northwest Indian subcontinent (Punjab and the western Ganges plain) during the Vedic period (c. 1500–500 BCE).
The following list enumerates Hindu monarchies in chronological order of establishment dates. These monarchies were widespread in South Asia since about 1500 BC, [1] went into slow decline in the medieval times, with most gone by the end of the 17th century, although the last one, the Kingdom of Nepal, dissolved only in the 2008.
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (c. 1500 –900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE.
Hinduism – predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. [1] Its followers are called Hindus , who refer to it as Sanātana Dharma [ 2 ] ( Sanskrit : सनातनधर्मः , lit.
The Puranas (literally "ancient, old", [10]) is a vast genre of Indian literature about a wide range of topics, particularly legends and other traditional lore, [11] composed in the first millennium CE. [12] [note 1] The Hindu Puranas are anonymous texts and likely the work of many authors over the centuries. [13]